(The One That Got Away)

This is a Due South/Highlander crossover, featuring the character of Amanda, from Highlander: The Series, and several characters from Due South, most notably Benton Fraser & Ray Vecchio. Rated NC-17 for graphic polyamorous sexuality (M/M/F). If you're considered a minor in your community please do not read this. If you're narrow-minded or easily offended, you may want to take a pass as well. Characters property of Alliance & Rysher (no, NOT used by permission, are you kidding?), everything else is OURS. ;-D

In this timeline, the events of Highlander: The Raven have not yet occurred. In the Due South timeline it takes place sometime after "Victoria's Secret" but before "Burning Down the House."

Thanks to our beta-readers, Marina Bailey, Debra Ann Fiorini, Mary Alice Davis, Cathy Downes, and any others I may have neglected! Comments to kellie@www.mrks.org and julia@io.com

The One That Got Away
© 1999, Kellie Matthews & Julia Kosatka

        As the queue wound its way toward the entrance to the museum, Amanda was brought up short by the fact that there was a brand-spanking new addition to the security system since the last time she'd been there. There was now an x-ray machine through which all bags were being sent, and a metal detector to screen the patrons. She went cold. Damn. There was no way her 'accessories' would pass unnoticed through those devices. But there had to be some way to get her equipment into the museum, she had to have them. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to disarm the security system later in the evening after the place closed down. There were several uniformed security folk gathered around the equipment, and that gave her an idea. If she could somehow get them to let her through . . . .
        Looking around, her gaze fell on a worn place where the carpet had buckled up a little under the influence of one-too-many steam cleanings. A tiny smile curved her mouth, and she shifted position a little toward it, then she put her hand to her forehead, shakily, as if she were unwell. Some of the people closest to her in line noticed and looked at her curiously. She let out a tiny moan, and rubbed her forehead again. Again, more interest focused on her. Good. As the line moved forward she pretended to trip on the worn carpet and stumble, then fall. Gracefully, so as not to flash her Givenchy panties to all and sundry, she went first to her knees, then on down to the floor.
        Immediately there were people at her side, exclaiming worriedly and calling for help. She feigned disorientation and tried not to sneeze as dusty carpet fibers tickled her nose. Almost immediately two sets of trousered, male legs appeared in the narrow field of vision beneath her lowered eyelashes. She heard an odd, snuffling sort of sound to her left, but couldn't look that direction without giving away the fact that she was completely aware of her surroundings. Through her lashes she could see that one set of legs was encased in high boots, and above that, black wool trousers with a broad yellow stripe up the leg. Good. A uniform meant it was one of the security people.
        She let her eyelids lift slowly and looked up enough to register that what she'd first thought were trousers tucked into boots were, in fact, jodhpurs. Now that was truly bizarre. Who wore jodhpurs any more? The edge of a longish jacket came into view next. It was impossible to miss, being just about the brightest scarlet she'd seen on this side of the Atlantic. Scarlet? Definitely not one of the security guards. She lifted her gaze to the face above the uniform, and momentarily felt as breathless as she was pretending to be. The man was gorgeous! Not exotically Duncan-gorgeous, or geekily Methos-gorgeous, or older-man Joe gorgeous, but uniquely attractive. This one managed to be absolutely stunning while at the same time being completely ordinary.
        He was definitely not someone who spent hours in a gym and tanning spa. He wasn't particularly tall, or buff, but he had a sweet, boy-next-door sort of charm. He was clean-shaven and clean-cut, his hair dark, thick, and distinctly wavy, though worn quite short. His mouth was almost angelic, but it was his incredible eyes that caught her attention the most. They were the oddly indeterminate color of a newborn’s, a color that could be blue, or gray, or even green, depending on the light. They also held something of an infant’s trusting innocence, through strangely, an almost world-weary wisdom as well. The combination was bemusing. Realizing she was staring, Amanda dragged her gaze away. After all, it wasn't like he was the first good-looking man she'd ever met.
        "Are you ill, ma'am?" Boy-next-door queried somewhat obviously, studying her with concern as he knelt beside her.
        "I-- I–" she stammered, not entirely feigning her confusion. She should have had a story ready. "I'm not sure. I was feeling a little dizzy," she paused and lifted a shaking hand to her face. "Then all the sudden, I opened my eyes, and was–" she gestured helplessly toward the floor. "Here."
        She gazed disingenuously into her rescuer's guileless eyes and saw no hint of disbelief. A snort of derision from close by told her that the other man was not so easily convinced. She decided to improve her story.
        "I just flew in from Paris yesterday, I guess the jet-lag on top of recovering from the flu was just too much. I shouldn't have come out today, I should have stayed in my hotel and rested."
        "That would probably have been advisable," the red-coated man agreed, his voice calm and soothing. "Influenza isn't something to be taken lightly. However, perhaps I may be of some assistance?"
        How formal, she thought, looking past him toward the museum entrance. "I don't know," she said dubiously. "Do you think there's there any place I could sit down for a few minutes ? I don't want to be a bother to anyone," she turned up the charm, all but fluttering her eyelashes.
        Again the other man made a rude noise. Amanda shot a puzzled glance at him. He was tall, thin, and balding, with a very large nose and shrewd gray-green eyes. At the moment he was looking at his companion with an oddly long-suffering expression, and Amanda took a moment to assess him. He was wearing a good quality suit that could have used some tailoring to make it better fit his lanky frame, but had thrown a nondescript trench coat over it and something about the combination shouted "cop" at her. Of course, the man in the uniform was a cop, too, just not an American one. She wondered what a Mountie was doing in Chicago.
        The snuffling sound came again, and she turned, startled to find herself nose-to-nose with a very large white dog. Or was it a dog? She'd seen lots of dogs in her day, but she'd also seen her fair share of wolves before they'd been hunted to the brink of extinction. This definitely looked more like wolf than dog, except for that too-curly tail. The animal didn't seem aggressive, though, just curious. She stayed still, letting it sniff her as it pleased. Thankfully it was too well-trained to stick its nose in her crotch like some dogs did. After a moment it looked up at the Mountie and whined again. The Mountie cocked his head curiously, looking from her, to the animal, and back.
        "Really?" He asked, as if speaking to the animal.
        The wolf-dog whined again, and gave a very quiet bark.
        "Hmmm," was the Mountie's only response. Amanda was intrigued. He was clearly talking to the animal, not to her. And from the exchange, not only was the wolf talking back, but they understood each other. Fascinating. What had it said about her? She looked up at the Mountie.
        "He's a wolf, isn't he?"
        An expression of surprise flitted across the Mountie's face. "Yes, he is. Half, anyway. Not many people realize that."
        Amanda smiled. "He's beautiful."
        The wolf yipped, and the Mountie flashed a smile, so quickly gone she wondered for a moment if she'd imagined it until he spoke and she heard humor in his voice. "Dief thinks you have good taste."
        She laughed. "Deef? Is that his name?
        "It's Diefenbaker. Dief for short."
        "Dief, eh? Well, I'm sure he does think I have good taste." She thought he had good taste too, in owners, anyway. She looked up at Dief's human. "Please, could you help me up?"
        Looking a trifle embarrassed, as if he should have thought of that himself, the man assisted her to her feet. As soon as she was up, she swayed a little, as if she were going to fall again. Instantly he lifted her off her feet and into his arms. She instinctively put her arms around his neck for stability and heard a collective sigh go through the females who waiting in line to get in. Amanda had to bite her lip to hide a smile. She could relate. She could definitely get used to this kind of treatment. She couldn't remember the last time a man had done something so old-fashioned for her.
        Just as she had hoped would happen, the Mountie carried her around behind the x-ray equipment, bypassing the security system. The cop and the wolf-dog followed them. None of the guards objected as he carried her into a small lounge just past the security checkpoint where he placed her gently on a couch and then stepped back, straightening his uniform tunic.
        "Is there anything else I can do for you, ma'am?"
        "Perhaps a glass of water? I think that might help."
        The Mountie nodded. "Quite likely, in fact. Dehydration can be a side effect of both illness, and long flights."
        He headed for the door, and the cop looked at her for a moment, then toward the departing Mountie. She got the feeling he was holding an internal debate with himself, then he headed after the Mountie, leaving Diefenbaker sitting at her feet looking at her curiously. Looking around the room, it was obvious that it was an employee break-room. The small refrigerator, coffee-maker, and microwave oven testified to that. Not a place likely to be searched. Quickly she pulled her 'bag of tricks' from her handbag and stuffed it down between the cushions of the couch, then took her lock-pick kit from her jacket pocket and pushed it into the crevice as well, then she lay back, arranging herself artfully, displaying her legs to their best advantage. Dief whined, and she put a finger to her lips.
        "Now, Dief, don't tell on me, okay?" Dief yipped, and she smiled, reaching out to ruffle his thick fur. "Good boy."
        In the hall outside, she heard hushed voices and eavesdropped shamelessly.
        "I know, Benny, but believe me, I know what I'm talking about. Just stop being nice to her, and for God's sake do not smile at her, okay? You've done enough as it is!"
        "What have I done, Ray?"
        "You were yourself, that's all. But you know what that does to women."
        "I do?" The Mountie sounded distinctly puzzled.
        The other man, she surmised he must be 'Ray,' sighed.
        "No, you don't. You never do. Never mind. Just do what I tell you, okay, or she’ll be following you home."
        "Yes, Ray."
        A second later the Mountie and the cop stepped back into the room, the Mountie bearing a paper cup which he extended to her solemnly. She took it and sipped at the cool water, sighing. "Oh, that's much better. Thank you so much . . . er . . ." she looked at him expectantly, eyebrows raised, and he got the hint.
        "Constable Benton Fraser, ma'am, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This is Detective Ray Vecchio of the Chicago Police Department."
        "A Mountie, in Chicago?" While she wasn't surprised to learn that the man in the trench was a cop, it still seemed odd to find a uniformed Mountie on this side of the border.
        Fraser straightened and put a hand behind his back, looking for all the world like a schoolboy about to recite an assignment. "Yes, you see I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father . . ."
        "And he's still here as liaison to the Canadian consulate." Vecchio interrupted. "Unfortunately the story takes exactly two hours to tell, and we were due elsewhere about ten minutes ago, so if you don't mind, we'll be on our way."
        Amanda allowed herself to look a little hurt, and then covered it. "Of course, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be any trouble. But you've just been a real lifesaver, Constable Fraser. I certainly owe you."
        "That is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. While I am not a physician, I believe I can safely say that your life was never actually in danger. You should, however, consider seeing a doctor if you continue to feel vertiginous. And it was no trouble, ma'am," he assured her. "I'm sure you would have done the same for me."
        Amanda tried to imagine herself sweeping Benton Fraser off his feet and carrying him anywhere, and had to work hard not to giggle. Of course, if she did sweep him off his feet, the place she'd carry him would be the nearest flat surface. She smiled up at him, not hiding her interest. "Yes, Constable, I'm sure I would have."
        She extended her hand to him, and he shook it firmly. She suppressed another smile. Most men would have taken the opportunity to kiss or caress her hand. Not this one. Ray's conversation with his friend out in the hall began to make more sense. Apparently Constable Fraser was completely unaware of his not inconsiderable charm. The innocence in his gaze wasn't feigned. My, my . . . that was definitely a temptation. Training a man could be such fun . . . but no, she had a job to do. Reluctantly she let go of his hand and looked at both men.
        "Thank you again, Constable. I really do appreciate your assistance. I don't know what I would have done without it," she said, with absolute sincerity.
        "Thank you kindly, ma'am."
        "Please, call me Amanda. Ma'am makes me feel like an old woman."
        Vecchio dragged his admiring gaze from her legs and looked into her face with obvious amusement. She beamed at him, accepting the compliment he hadn't spoken.
        "And thank you too, Detective Vecchio. You've both been such a help to me."
        Vecchio's homely face lit up with a startlingly sweet smile. "Anytime, Amanda. If you're ever in the neighborhood, look us up."
        She smiled back. "I may just do that. Have a nice day, boys."
        They bid her goodbye, and left the room. Amanda could clearly hear Vecchio grousing at Fraser as they moved away.
        "'You should see a doctor if you continue to feel vertiginous'?" Vecchio repeated, sounding incredulous. "Where do you get that? Nobody talks like that! Is that a Canadian thing or just a Mountie thing?"
        Smiling, she gazed after them, thinking nostalgically of a time when that scarlet wool would have been used in a tight, short Hussar's jacket that showed a man's assets to their fullest instead of in a long, a concealing tunic. She had to admit, though, that the jacket's high collar with its black tabs and golden medallions did set off Constable Fraser's jawline nicely. Ah well, time didn't stand still no matter how much she sometimes wished it would. She had work to do, and a deadline to meet. People were depending on her.

* * *

        Diefenbaker had just finished wolfing (literally) down his breakfast and Fraser had just set his freshly washed mug into the drainer beside the sink when he heard a perfunctory knock at his door, then it was flung open to admit an agitated-looking Ray Vecchio. Fraser frowned, concerned. It was unusual for Ray to actually park his beloved Riviera in this neighborhood, so whatever had prompted the visit must be important.
        "Hello, Ray, is there a problem?" Fraser asked, puzzled by the breach of tradition.
        "I thought I ought to come up and show you this." He held out a newspaper.
        Fraser took the paper and glanced at the story the paper had been folded to display. His eyebrows lifted and he looked back at Vecchio. "Oh, dear."
        "You got that right. Hell of a way to start the day. I sit down at the table, take a sip of my coffee, and bam, the headline smacks me right between the eyes. As soon as I saw it, I had to figure I knew who it was, since we all but gave her the damned key. Five will get you ten that little jet-lagged birdie you took pity on as we were leaving the museum yesterday is the same person who helped themselves to an Easter egg worth a king's ransom."
        "I believe in this case it would be more accurate to say it was worth a czar's ransom."
        "Whatever," Ray said impatiently. "In any case, it looks like we may have been conned into being accessories to grand theft."
        Fraser gazed at his friend in dismay. "And she seemed like such a nice person," he said, though he knew that didn't excuse his breach of instinct.
        Ray sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Yeah, well, where women are concerned we both know you haven't got the sense God gave a goose. But I shoulda realized something was up. She looked way too great to be sick."
        On reflection, Fraser had to concede his friend was correct. The woman hadn't looked ill, in fact she'd looked exceptionally well and very attractive, in a gamine sort of way. With her slight stature and dark hair cut short around her almost elfin face, she was not the kind of woman that usually interested him at all. Although, come to think of it, there was something about her that reminded him a little bit of Inspector Thatcher.
        He normally liked tall, strong women with long dark hair, but he had to admit to himself that he'd felt a stirring of interest, especially after Dief had made known his approval. He frowned, thinking about that. Usually Dief's instincts were better than that, too. He went to the closet and got out his uniform tunic, pulling it on and buttoning it. "I must go to the authorities, Ray. They will want to question me."
        Ray looked at him like he was crazy, something he did fairly frequently. "Whoa, whoa, whoa there, big fella! You ain't goin' nowhere. Knowing you, you'd show up and confess to assisting the thief and end up behind bars before anyone thought to ask you any other questions. No, we're not gonna do that."
        "But, Ray, if my actions led to the theft, I must. . ."
        "You must help me catch this chick and get that egg back."
        Fraser considered that for a moment, and brightened. It did seem like the logical solution. "Excellent idea, Ray. I suggest we start at the airport."
        Ray looked at him blankly. "The airport?"
        "Indeed. We know her first name, and we know she arrived on a plane from Paris two days ago. From that information, we may be able to garner more."
        Ray looked distinctly dubious. "How do we know she wasn't lying to us?"
        "We don't, but either way, whatever information we discover may be useful."
        Ray thought about that and nodded. "Okay, you got a point. You know, what I don't get is how come if she was gonna go to all the trouble of getting in, and turning off the security system, how come she only stole one? With a whole exhibit full of equally expensive and transportable possibilities, she only lifts one damned egg. Why?"
        "Actually, Ray, it's not uncommon for art to be stolen on commission. A collector desires a specific piece, and they hire someone to get it for them. That may well be the case here."
        "Some people have too much money," Ray said rolling his eyes. "Come on, Benny, let's get going."

* * *

        Amanda stood and gazed out her hotel-room window at the excellent view of Lake Michigan, and sipped her champagne. Celebration might be a trifle premature-- after all, only part of the plan had so far succeeded, but she had a good feeling about things. She had the egg, and she'd made contact. Now all she had to do was wait. She was sure that DeBoer would be contacting her soon. He wouldn't risk losing his 'baby.' She did have a niggling twinge of regret about those cops she'd suckered. If it had just been the tall skinny one she probably wouldn't be having an attack of conscience, he was clearly worldly wise and cynical, but the thought of the disappointment that would fill Constable Fraser's eyes when he realized what she'd done gave her pause.
        She looked at her glass and sighed, setting it down though it was still half-full. Between thinking about Fraser, and imagining how Duncan would react when he heard about her little escapade, she couldn't quite enjoy her victory. It had taken him a long time, but Duncan had gotten to her over the years, infecting her with his dratted morals. Even though this particular theft was in a good cause, she still felt guilty. Damn. She stood up and made her way over to the closet, sorting through her clothes to find something to wear. She didn't want to sit around feeling guilty. She'd go out and see the sights, do some shopping, maybe find a nice restaurant and have a decadently fattening lunch. Anything besides sitting here feeling guilty for trying to do something good, even if her methods were a little unorthodox.
        She finally decided on her coffee-colored linen pantsuit with an ivory silk tee, and had just finished dressing when her cellular phone rang. She knew exactly who it was. No one but DeBoer had the number. She'd bought the phone for the express purpose of making calls to and receiving calls from him, and would dispose of it once that use was complete. Smiling cattily, she picked up the phone and turned it on.
        "Hello?"
        There was a short silence as DeBoer absorbed the fact that she was female. She knew that would surprise him. He was from a time that thought women should be seen and not heard . . . though frankly that era had existed only in his mind. He'd just never realized it.
        "Who is this?" He demanded roughly, his accent mostly generic now, but with a hint of the distinctive throatiness and glottal emphasis that recalled his long-ago Dutch origins.
        "Ah, ah, ah!" Amanda scolded. "That kind of attitude won't win you any friends. Stefan DeBoer, I assume?"
        "You know damned well who I am! Where's my egg?"
        "Have you looked in your refrigerator?" she teased.
        Her jibe was met with an expletive. She remained silent, waiting him out.
        "What do you want?" He finally demanded after he figured out she wasn't going to make the next move.
        "Four million dollars in US funds, on deposit by noon on Friday in a numbered Swiss account."
        "Four million?" DeBoer sounded incredulous. "No way," he said flatly. " I couldn't get that for the damned thing on the open market!"
        "No, you couldn't. But then again, you wouldn't just be paying for the egg. You'd be paying me to keep my mouth shut about the phony provenance you've cooked up for it, too. After all, you don't really want the world to know exactly how you obtained it, do you Stevie-boy?"
        There was a moment of silence. "What do you mean?"
        "I mean Russia, nineteen-eighteen."
        There was a longer silence, then: "You're one of us," he accused.
        "One of whom?" Amanda queried innocently.
        "Who are you? I’ll have your head for this!"
        "I really don't think so. Not unless you like scrambled eggs."
        He sputtered at that, but after a moment he settled down. "How do I know you'll give it back?"
        "You don't, but can you take that chance?"
        He thought that over and she could almost hear the steam coming out his ears. She waited.
        "Let me think about it." he growled finally.
        "Certainly. You have twelve hours to think, or I contact my backup buyer," she said, and hung up, smiling. This was going to work. It was really going to work.

* * *

        At the airport, Ray made himself unobtrusive while Fraser managed to get copies of flight manifests out of two different airlines, without a court order. All he did was ask. Nicely. Of course, the fact that both of the people he asked were female made that outcome pretty much a foregone conclusion. Although he'd gotten used to it over the years, Fraser's effect on women really was nothing short of magical. Ray kept hoping it would rub off on him but it never did. At one point he'd thought it was the uniform, but experience had later proven that wrong.
        Armed with the flight manifests, they had returned to the station so Fraser could use Elaine's computer to check with Interpol. Lieutenant Welsh spotted them on the way in, and impatiently gestured them into his office. Ray slunk in, followed by Fraser, who closed the door as Welsh sat down and leaned back in his chair, a fake smile affixed to his face.
        "So nice of you to join us today, Vecchio," he said sarcastically. "Did you forget we generally like to start the day a little earlier around here?"
        "Sir, I'm afraid Detective Vecchio's late arrival is entirely my fault." Fraser said, before Ray could speak.
        Welsh sighed. "What is it this time? You had to run faster than a speeding locomotive? Jump tall buildings at a single bound? What?"
        Fraser looked momentarily puzzled, but he attempted to answer anyway. "No, sir, we were at the airport, not the train station, nor were there any tall buildings involved, unless of course you count the airport control tower, in which case . . ."
        "It was a joke, Fraser," Welsh interrupted. "Never mind."
        Fraser nodded. "Yes sir."
        "So, what were you doing at the airport when you should have been here? We're going nuts on this museum thing. In case you hadn't heard, someone lifted some kind of egg worth a couple mil from there last night."
        "A Fabergé egg, sir." Fraser informed him. "Originally created in 1914 as a gift for a former Czar of Russia, this particular egg was cut from a single large piece of rock crystal and is ornamented with precious metals, gems, and enamel-work. It is believed to be the only surviving example of a Fabergé egg on which platinum was used as well as gold. As customary with such eggs, this one contained a 'surprise', in this case a miniature representation of the Winter Palace, hence it's nickname, the Winter Palace Egg. At last estimate it was worth is two point four million dollars, US funds, of course."
        Welch's eyebrows barely lifted. Ray guessed he was getting used to Fraser's uncanny ability to come up with case-related trivia from his vast store of useless knowledge.
        "So, I take it you two were aware of the theft?"
        "Yes sir," Ray said. "In fact, that's why we were at the airport."
        That got Welsh's attention. He leaned forward in his chair. "Is that a fact? What made you go there?"
        Ray looked at Fraser, who fixed his gaze on a point just past Welsh's shoulder, locked his hands behind his back and spread his feet, assuming a 'parade rest' position.
        "Yesterday Detective Vecchio was kind enough to assist me at the museum as I evaluated security for the scrimshaw exhibit which contains many pieces on loan from the Canadian government. After we had completed that task and were leaving the museum I insisted that we stop for a moment to give aid to a woman who had apparently become ill while standing on line for the 'Treasures of the Czars' exhibition. As part of this assistance, I carried her into an employee lounge just past the security gates, and I obtained a glass of water for her. . ."
        Ray noticed that Welsh's eyes were starting to glaze over, and apparently so did Fraser, because for once he decided to speed up the explanation.
        "To be brief, in retrospect, sir, after hearing of the theft, I became concerned that the woman I assisted may have thus been able to gain access to the museum without going through security, and indeed may have done so for nefarious purposes, although Diefenbaker assured me she was a good person."
        Welsh shook his head, gazing at Fraser with weary exasperation. "You know, Constable Fraser, sometimes I can't quite decide if you're an asset or a liability." His gaze shifted to Ray and his eyes narrowed. "And you, Vecchio. You just let him do this?"
        Ray gave his lieutenant a wry grimace. "Come on, sir! You know what he's like. He helps old ladies across the street, he says 'please' and 'thank you' to bus drivers, one time he even bought every single box of Troop 441's Girl Scout Cookies because one of them told him their sales were down. Being nice is habitual with him. It's gotten so I don't even think about it."
        "You'd better start thinking, then. So, why the airport?"
        "The suspect mentioned that she had arrived from Paris the day before, and she gave us a first name. We went to the airport to see if we could get access to the flight manifests."
        "And they laughed in your faces and asked to see the court order, right?" Welsh said, chuckling.
        "Actually, sir," Fraser reached into his cartridge case and removed several neatly-folded sheets of paper which he held out to Welch. "They were very obliging."
        Behind Fraser's back, Vecchio sketched a female form in the air with his hands, and Welsh rolled his eyes.
        "I just bet they were," he said, waving away the copies. "So what did you find out?"
        "Three different women named Amanda arrived at O'Hare the day before the robbery on flights originating in Paris. We were about to research the names when you requested our presence."
        "So what are you waiting for?"
        Ray turned and headed for the door. "We're on it."
        "Oh, and Vecchio, we got copies of the security tapes from the museum, if you want them."
        Ray nodded, and followed Fraser out to Elaine's desk, watching over his shoulder as he accessed Interpol's link and began typing in his queries on Amanda Woolf, Amanda Clark, and Amanda Stevenson. While they waited for the requests to be processed, Ray got the cart with the portable TV-VCR on it and dragged it over to the desk where they started looking at the tapes, fast-forwarding through several hours worth until they got to the part where Fraser carried Amanda past the security gate. Her head was turned away from the camera, tucked in against Fraser's chest so her face was completely obscured. Ray swore, and looked at Fraser, who met his gaze with a rueful expression.
        "It would appear that she was careful not to be seen," Fraser said.
        "She's a pro, all right," Ray agreed. He scowled, tapping a pen against his thigh for a moment, then he looked at Fraser. "Why don't you sketch her? We could use that to make up some flyers for distribution."
        Fraser looked dubious. "Well, I don't know, Ray. My talents are rather meager."
        "Look, Benny, just because you're not Michelangelo doesn't mean you can't turn out a recognizable sketch. I've seen you do it before. Just give it a shot."
        Fraser picked up a pencil from the desk, turned over a sheet of department letterhead and started to sketch. Ray watched, shaking his head as with just a few lines Fraser managed to create a recognizable likeness of the woman from the museum. He suggested her short, dark hair with a few shaded strokes, emphasized the curve of her mouth with a slight smudge from a fingertip, then stopped, looking at it critically.
        "The jawline is a bit off, don't you think?"
        Knowing Fraser wouldn't stop asking him until he found something wrong with it, Ray looked, and nodded. "Yeah, just a little. I think maybe it should be more triangular."
        Fraser erased a line, changed it slightly, then handed the drawing to Ray. "There. It could use more chiaroscuro, but do you think it will serve?"
        Did he think it would serve? If Ray hadn't known better he'd have suspected the Mountie was fishing for a compliment. He'd seen worse drawings in galleries. He forced himself not to roll his eyes, reminding himself that Fraser couldn't help it. It was just the way he was. "It's fine, Benny. It'll work great."
        A beep from the computer signaled an incoming message and Fraser turned to the screen, reading rapidly.
        "Hunh," he said after a moment.
        "Hunh, what?" Ray prompted.
        "Two of the women checked out, both have valid passports. The third, Amanda Woolf, seems to have been traveling on forged papers. Hand me that sketch, please?"
        Ray handed it over, and Fraser nodded his thanks as he placed it face-down on the scanner. A few moments later he was sending an electronic copy of the sketch off to Interpol, and adding some details about height, weight, and such, as well as about the crime to aid in a search for a name to match the face. That done, he lifted the sketch from the scanner and looked up to where Elaine was hovering, wanting her desk back.
        "I'm sorry we're taking so long, Elaine. Do you think you could have a few copies made of this?"
        Elaine took it and looked at it. "Sure, Frase. She's very pretty. Who is she?"
        "That's what we're currently attempting to ascertain. She may be a suspect in the museum theft."
        Elaine's eyebrows climbed. "A woman did it?"
        "Possibly. We don't know yet. At this point we just want to talk to her."
        Elaine nodded. "I'll get those copies."
        Fraser smiled. "Thank you kindly."
        As she walked away, Ray sighed, shaking his head. "Fraser, it's her job to do that kind of thing. You don't have to say thank you."
        "Politeness never hurts, Ray." Fraser said mildly, then turned his attention back to the VCR.

* * *

        Fraser watched the tape intently, looking for any sign that might indicate the woman had an accomplice in the crowd, but saw nothing. As he watched, he heard Lieutenant Welsh call Ray's name, and was vaguely aware that his friend had wandered off. He rewound the tape and watched again as he carried the woman past the security checkpoint. He sighed, shaking his head. He had been warned many times about assuming the best rather than the worst about people. Perhaps he should be more suspicious, but it just seemed so, well, so impolite. Next to him, Dief whined softly, pressing his head against Fraser's knee. Looking down, he saw that the wolf was regarding him with concern.
        "No, Dief. I don't suppose I'll be changing my stripes at this late date, although I do wish I had thought to take her through the gates rather than around them." He suddenly remembered that Diefenbaker had seemed to approve of the woman, and he frowned. "You're not entirely blameless here, you know."
        Dief made a little groaning sound and looked away, embarrassed. Fraser smiled a little. "Yes, she was, wasn't she? Ah well, water under the bridge."
        A beep from Elaine's computer brought his attention back to the monitor. It was the report back from Interpol. Computers certainly had made certain aspects of police work far more efficient. Downloading the file he'd received, he opened it and read the report with some consternation. Sending the file to the printer, he clicked on the graphic that had been attached to the report and as the image loaded he became aware that Ray had returned and was looking over his shoulder at the screen.
        "Looks like our girl, doesn't it?" he said, studying the image.
        "I will admit, the resemblance is striking, however the woman in that photograph can't possibly be the same one we saw in the museum yesterday."
        "Why not?" Vecchio asked.
        "Because that photograph was taken over twenty years ago. The woman at the museum yesterday was no older than the woman in the photo. Besides, according to this report, Amanda Darieaux died thirteen years ago."
        "Who?"
        "Amanda Darieaux. The woman in the photo. She was killed in a fall from a seventh story window during the commission of a burglary on 12 January, 1981. It's in the report." Fraser retrieved the printed copy and handed it to Ray, who scanned it quickly, scowling.
        "Well, that's weird." Vecchio said a moment later. "You gotta admit, she looks just like our suspect."
        "Technically, our suspect resembles this woman rather than vice versa, since she is the younger of the two. Perhaps they are related, is there any family listed in the report?"
        Ray looked, and shook his head. "No, no one. That doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't any, though. So, you think maybe this is mom, and our girl is just following in her footsteps?" At Fraser's nod, he grinned. "I didn't think they had 'take your daughter to work day' twenty years ago, but hey, I guess maybe she was a forward thinker."
        "I did notice something else in the report," Fraser said, ignoring Ray's flippant comment. "The pseudonym our suspect used to enter the country, 'Amanda Woolf,' is one that Amanda Darieaux also used. Perhaps we might be able to locate her using one of the alternate aliases in the Darieaux file."
        "It's a thought, it's definitely a thought. And if we can find her, then Mr. DeBoer will be one happy camper."
        Fraser lifted his eyebrows. "And Mr. DeBoer would be?"
        "The guy who's missing an egg. Guess that's better than his marbles, eh Benny?"
        Ben frowned, feeling left out. "I don't recall hearing about this person before."
        "That's because I just got off the phone with him before I came over here to see what you had."
        "Ah." Fraser's feeling of exclusion faded. Clearly Ray simply hadn't had time to mention the fact. "He called you?"
        "Well, he called Lieutenant Welsh, who had me talk to him. Oh, and you'll like this, Ben. He's Canadian. You're legit on this case."
        "The owner of the purloined egg is Canadian?" Fraser asked, to be sure he'd understood correctly.
        "You takin' hearing lessons from Dief? Yeah, he's Canadian. He loaned the egg to the museum for the show, but he lives across the Lake, on a private estate outside Sault Ste. Marie on your side of the border."
        "I see." That development did tend to legitimate his involvement. "Did he have any idea who might have taken the egg?"
        "Not a clue, but he did seem real interested in getting it back."
        "Understandable."
        "He asked us to keep him informed about any developments."
        "It seems a reasonable request."
        "Yeah, I guess," Ray said, frowning slightly, staring blankly at the image on the computer.
        "Is something wrong, Ray?" Fraser asked, picking up on his obvious discomfort.
        Ray looked at him, and shook his head, still frowning. "I got a weird feeling about this guy. Can't quite put my finger on why. As soon as I told him we had a possible suspect he got pushy, wanted to know who, and what she looked like. Not that that's surprising, but . . . I don't know. Something felt wrong."
        Fraser studied him for moment, concerned. "I would tend to go with your instincts, Ray. If you feel that something is amiss, you're probably correct."
        "Yeah, but what?"
        "Perhaps we should find out. Did you get a first name?"
        "Um, yeah. I think it was Steven, or Stephan, or something like that."
        Fraser turned his attention to the keyboard for a moment and typed a query. "There. Perhaps we'll find something that will put your mind at ease."
        "Or not. Like you said, I got a nose for trouble."
        "I didn't comment on your nose, Ray."
        "Fraser," Ray said warningly.
        Fraser looked at him innocently. "What, Ray?"
        "You know what."
         "Yes, Ray." Fraser bit the inside of his lip to keep the smile at bay, enjoying the byplay. Ray was the only person who understood his somewhat quirky sense of humor. Everyone else simply assumed he was always serious. Elaine returned with a small stack of photocopies and handed them to Fraser.
        "There you go, Frase. Are you going to be much longer here?"
        "Just a little bit, Elaine, long enough to check some search results. I hope that's not a problem."
        "No, no problem. Well, I guess I'll go get some coffee, then. If you need anything, I'll be in the break room. Want me to bring you anything?"
        "No thank you, Elaine. I'm fine. If anyone asks for you, I'll let them know where you are."
        "Thanks." She stood for a moment, looking at him, then sighed slightly, shaking her head as she turned away, heading for the break room.
        Vecchio shook his head. "Oh man, she's got it bad."
        Fraser looked at his friend, concerned. "Elaine is ill?"
        Ray laughed. "No, I wouldn't say that. You really do amaze me, Fraser. I've never known anyone so oblivious in my entire life. Women fling themselves at you with monotonous regularity and you just don't notice!"
        Fraser looked after Elaine's retreating figure in consternation. "Elaine was throwing herself at me?"
        "With a little encouragement she would."
        "Oh." Disconcerted, Fraser returned his attention to the computer and pulled up a web-browser. "I'll check for news reports about Mr. DeBoer while we wait on an official report."
        Fifteen minutes later, after receiving and printing the Interpol report, along with a bunch of web-citations, they retired to Vecchio's desk with a larger stack of paper on the owner of the egg than they had on their suspected thief.
        "This is weird," Ray said, after reading through it. "There's nothing on this guy before 1972. It's like he didn't exist until then."
        "Perhaps he changed his name?" Fraser asked.
        "Maybe," Ray said absently, still reading. "Man, he sure seems to have his fingers in a lot of pies. Most of his money is in petroleum and mining. Has had a lot of bad press, too, especially about this one site." Ray pulled out several pages and handed them to Fraser. "Here, you look at these. I have no idea where it is, other than someplace in Canada."
        Fraser took the pages and glanced through them. "I know this area, it's in the MacKenzie district, north of Yellowknife. It's not all that far from Inuvik." He read further, and started to frown. "Ray, this is terrible! A uranium mine in that area would cause unconscionable levels of environmental damage!" Fraser exclaimed, aghast. "I can't believe the government let this happen!"
        Vecchio sighed, shaking his head. "Fraser, governments do whatever they have to in order to make a buck. You know that as well as I do. I suppose it does explain why my 'spider-sense' was tingling, but in any case, this is all beside the point. We're looking for a stolen egg, not an environmental pirate."
        Fraser sighed and acknowledged that. "You're right, Ray, I just hate to see things like this happening. It's a sparsely populated, and very poor area. Many people may not even realize what's happening there."
        "Somebody does, or there wouldn't be any protests for papers to write stories about, right? Back to the case at hand, any ideas where we should start looking for our thief?"
        "Actually, I do have some. Considering the obvious quality and expense of her clothing and accessories, I would suggest that we check the nicer hotels in the city. My guess is that we'll find her at one of them, probably one with somewhat of an 'old world' reputation, considering her European connections."
        "Good thought, Ben. Let's go."
        Fraser picked up his hat and stood, looking around. "Dief?"
        There was no sign of the wolf, and Fraser sighed, starting to search. He looked under all the desks, behind all the files, and in three offices before he located his companion in the break room. When he saw Fraser, Diefenbaker hid under a table, and Fraser frowned, crouching down low so the wolf could see him speaking.
        "We're leaving. Are you coming?"
        Dief whined, and Fraser sniffed the air suspiciously. "Is that chocolate I smell?" He straightened and glanced around the room. On the floor, half hidden by the soft-drink machine, was an empty doughnut box. He sighed and looked at the wolf sadly.
        "Dief, those doughnuts were purchased for consumption by the police, not by you. Besides, you know chocolate makes you sick."
        The wolf's response was another whine, and Fraser shook his head in disgust. "Come on. And this time let me know if you need to stop. Ray won't thank you for regurgitating in his car again."
        He left the room, Diefenbaker at his heels, and joined Vecchio at the door. "One question, Ray?"
        "Yeah, Benny?"
        "What exactly is 'spider sense?'"

* * *

        Shopping palled quickly, and though Amanda found a lovely little Russian café near the Loop for lunch in honor of her latest acquisition, its exotic decor and live balalaika music didn't distract her from her nerves or her guilty conscience. Eating alone always made her feel a little sad, too. She was a people-person, and didn't like to be alone. She sipped her lemon-infused vodka, picked at the blini with caviar and salmon, and finally gave up, paid the bill, and left.
        Catching a taxi to the waterfront, she walked along the lake shore, her thoughts drifting back to the two cops at the museum. What on earth was a Mountie doing working with a Chicago cop? Or had they been working together? Fraser had said Vecchio was his friend, not his partner. Perhaps they'd just been at the museum to see one of the exhibits. She had just about talked herself into that when she realized that if that were the case, the Mountie wouldn't have been in uniform. No, he'd clearly been there in some at least semi-official capacity.
        She frowned. Why on earth was she still thinking about them, well, aside from the obvious reason? She should be planning how best to use the money when DeBoer caved in and gave it to her. The donations would have to be made anonymously, of course, and she would have to break it up, giving smaller sums to several appropriate charities. Although she would have preferred to give it all to the Children's Fund, a lump-sum donation of four million would draw too much publicity, and if he heard about it, DeBoer might eventually connect it with the theft of the egg. That was the last thing she wanted. The kids who relied on that money needed care, not publicity and a pissed-off Immortal poking around in their business.
        Although, publicity in general about what he was doing wouldn't be bad. Maybe she could donate some of the money to some university to do a very public study. It would also be a good idea to make sure some if it went toward environmental remediation. Otherwise the land would stay poisoned for years, affecting not just the current generation, but many to come. She wondered if there was any way to 'donate' some to a government official to make sure DeBoer didn't get his permits renewed next time they came up. That would certainly be amusing.
        She smiled, thinking of how angry DeBoer would be if people started making some real waves for him. It really was worth the thought that she wasn't going to keep a penny of the money she got from him. She began to see how Duncan got hooked into being such a do-gooder. It felt nice to know she was helping people. Not that she would ever admit that to the Scot, of course. He would never let her live it down. Especially if he found out it was because of the kids. She just didn't want him to know how big a soft-spot she had for kids. That whole mess with Kenny had almost tipped him off, but she'd managed to make it seem less incriminating than it really was.
        Kenny. She sighed, thinking about the young Immortal she'd once befriended. Maybe if she'd been more like Duncan, then Kenny wouldn't have turned out the way he had. She hadn't instilled enough moral sense in him. Of course, how did one manage to teach someone that killing was wrong, when there were people with swords out hunting for them on a regular basis? No, she might not have been the best influence, but she certainly hadn't been the worst, either. Somehow the thought didn't cheer her.
        She found a bench and sat down, staring at the cold, gray waters of the Lake Michigan, feeling a little cold and gray inside, herself. Sometimes it was tough being what she was. Other people had parents, and kids, and friends to grow old with. Not growing old had a way of short-circuiting relationships before they even had a chance. And with the rare exceptions like Duncan, Richie, and Methos, having Immortal friends tended to be a bad idea. She sat by the lake for a long time, until the breeze got a bit too cold for comfort and a storm seemed to be blowing up from the west. She was about to head back to The Drake when her cell phone rang, startling her.
        Quickly she snatched it out of her pocket, extended the antenna, and opened the connection.
        "So, have you made up your mind?" she asked.
        "I'll pay it," DeBoer growled.
        She resisted the urge to scream "YES!" and pump her fist in the air like some demented sports fan. "I thought you might," she said evenly. "If you're ready to wire the funds I'll give you the account number." A numbered Swiss account, of course. Untraceable.
        "First I want proof that you do indeed have it, and that it's undamaged. After all, this could be a bluff. You could have heard about the theft and decided to run a scam."
        "Fair enough. Give me a fax number."
        "What?"
        "A fax number. I'll send you confirmation via fax."
        "I want to see it in person."
        Amanda laughed aloud. "Just how dumb do you think I am? No way."
        DeBoer sputtered and balked for awhile longer, but he finally gave in and gave her a number, as she'd known he would. He wasn't the kind who would ever let any of his possessions out of his grasp for long. She wrote down the number and hung up. Putting away the phone, she walked briskly back toward the hotel. It was only a few blocks from the park and the walk would give her time to think, to plan.
        She passed a Walgreens with a sign advertizing cameras, and went inside. Fifteen minutes later she was on her way again, this time burdened with an inexpensive Polaroid camera, a three-pack of film, and a Chicago Sun-Times. Everything she needed to create a little art project. Whoever said Immortals weren't creative? She was still smiling as she walked into the lobby at the Drake, and was halfway to the elevators when something registered on her. A hat. A Smokey-the-Bear sort of hat. The uniform under it was olive-brown today instead of scarlet, but the hat was unmistakable. Next to the man in the hat was a guy in a trench-coat, and at their feet was a white-coated canid.
        A little warning shiver went through her. The cop and the Mountie. Why were they here? Were they looking for her? Had they guessed? Shit. They were facing the clerk behind the counter and hadn't noticed her yet, she could slip past them, up the stairs, grab her stuff and be gone before they knew it. But skipping out would be a dead giveaway and would send them after her in earnest. Rebecca had once told her it was best to hide in plain sight. That was just what she would do. It would cost her a little time, but that was something she had in spades. She walked straight over to the registration desk..
        "Detective Vecchio? Constable Fraser?"
        They turned as one, surprised expressions on both faces. Vecchio hastily folded up something that looked like a sketch of her. Amanda smiled, not altogether feigning her pleasure. Seeing Benton Fraser would always be a pleasure.
        "It is you! I thought it was! What are you boys doing here? Looking for me?"
        They looked at each other, and she bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling as Fraser raised his eyebrows at Vecchio as if to say 'you think of something.' Vecchio did.
        "Hey, there you are! We've been all over town looking for you. Fraser insisted, he was worried about you, wanted to see if you were okay. Sorry we had to duck out on you like that, but duty called."
        Amanda shot a glance at Fraser who looked torn between wanting to correct his friend, and realizing he really ought to be agreeing. If she hadn't seen Fraser's face, she would almost have believed the cop. Clearly Ray Vecchio was a first-class liar. She'd rarely met anyone of her own caliber before. In the end Fraser said nothing to refute the cop's statement though the lie clearly didn't sit well with him. His discomfort was almost comical. Well, at least she had the answer to her question. She'd been right, they did suspect her.
        "You guys are so sweet!" she gushed. "Really, I'm fine now, a good night's sleep did the trick. I've been out sightseeing and shopping today," she held up her bags so they could see them, the Saks bag a peculiar contrast to the Walgreens one. "I bought a camera so I could take some pictures." Amanda chattered on in an innocent, affectless manner, as if they were old friends. They looked a little confused by her apparent pleasure in seeing them.
        Noticing a group of people heading up to the tearoom, Amanda had an idea. "You know, I'd love to do something for you, since you were so nice to me. I'm hungry and the tea-room here is world famous. If you're not on duty or anything, would you two like to have tea with me?"
        "Tea?" Vecchio looked a little dubious, then shrugged. "Sure, what the hell. We're not on the clock right now," he shot a quelling glance at Fraser, who had winced when he said it, then continued on. "And it's not like you're offering us a bribe, right?"
        Amanda played offended. "Detective Vecchio, I've never in my life had to bribe a man to spend time with me!"
        He shook his head, his gaze sliding appreciatively downward. "No, I would imagine you haven't, Ms.-- ah, I don't think I caught your last name."
        Damn, what name was she using now? Oh, yeah. "Woolf, Amanda Woolf. So you'll come?"
        Fraser cleared his throat. "I'm afraid Diefenbaker would be somewhat of an impediment to such an undertaking."
        "Put him in the car," Vecchio suggested.
        Diefenbaker groaned, looking up at her forlornly, a hint of hope gleaming in his eyes. How could she turn that down?
        "I wouldn't dream of excluding him. Where there's a will, there's a way. Constable Fraser, do you have a leash for him?"
        "Yes, why?"
        "You'll see. May I have it?"
        Looking puzzled, Fraser took a leash from his cartridge case and handed it to her. She took it, wound it around the wolf like a harness then removed the double-looped shoulder strap from her purse and clipped it to the makeshift harness. Coiling the end around one hand, she pulled a pair of sunglasses from her purse and put them on.
        "Coming, gentlemen?" she asked, as with a soft 'tchking' sound to the wolf she started toward the tea-room. Diefenbaker assumed the lead position as if he'd been born to it, guiding her to the door. As she'd expected, no one gave a second thought to the presence of a 'guide dog' though she never once suggested that was what he was. Fraser and Vecchio followed, the cop chuckling as they were shown to a table. Vecchio took a chair and sat, but Fraser took a moment to seat her in a courtly gesture as anachronistic as he was. Dief curled up under the table at their feet with a contented sigh, out of the way, but remaining with Fraser, who was clearly his 'alpha'.
        "Smooth move, lady. You think well on your feet," Vecchio said admiringly.
        Amanda grinned. "Thank you, I like to think of myself as resourceful."
        Fraser looked troubled. "You do realize that health regulations prohibit bringing an animal into the restaurant."
        Amanda sighed and looked at Vecchio. "Is he always like this?"
        "Always," Vecchio confirmed. "Makes me nuts."
        "I can imagine," Amanda sympathized, then she reached out and patted Fraser's hand. "Relax, Constable. No one's going to arrest your wolf. He's very well behaved, and that's the main reason behind those rules, after all. I could understand excluding a badly trained, nervous animal who might upset things or try to steal food, but not Dief."
        Beneath the table Dief groaned, and Fraser leaned over to look at him, his eyes narrowed. "Yes, you should feel guilty. You may look quite innocent to the unwary, but we both know you stole those doughnuts."
        "I'm sure he feels quite repentant," Amanda said, trying not to laugh. A Mountie who spoke wolf. Or was that a wolf who spoke Mountie? Either way, it really did defy logic.
        At her defense of him, Diefenbaker looked at her adoringly, and she wondered for a moment if the animal actually understood every word she was saying, or just her approving tone. A loud crash from the kitchen as someone dropped a tray made all three humans at the table jump, but the wolf didn't bat an eyelid. Amanda looked at Fraser, puzzled.
        "He's certainly an extraordinarily calm animal."
        The Mountie cocked his head slightly. "Why do you say that?"
        "Most dogs would at least have looked up to see what the noise was."
        "Ah, that. He didn't react because he couldn't hear the noise. You see, Diefenbaker is deaf. He lost his hearing when he pulled me from Prince Rupert Sound, and the water in his ears froze and shattered his eardrums."
        "Ooh, poor baby!" She reached down to stroke his soft fur. "I'm so sorry to hear that!" So much for assuming that he was going by her tone of voice. She looked at the wolf again, then back to the Mountie. "If he's deaf, then how does he know what we're saying to him?"
        "He reads lips."
        She stared at Fraser, then looked at Vecchio for confirmation. He nodded.
        "Don't ask me how, but Fraser's right. Dief reads lips. If he can't see you, forget about commands, he just does what he wants, or whatever the last thing you told him was. Of course, even if he does see you and he doesn't want to do what you want, he just pretends he didn't see you."
        Amanda grinned. "Well, isn't that just like a male?"
        "He doesn't pretend he doesn't see you, Ray," Fraser said earnestly. "He just has trouble with your accent, that's all."
        "I don't have an accent, you do."
        "Well, actually, Ray, you do. Although I'm sure that to you it would appear that I have an accent."
        "You don't think you have an accent? What about that thing you do with your 'oh's'."
        "What thing?"
        "You know that 'ah-oo' thing. Canadians always do that. That Jennings guy on the news even does it, and you'd think by now the network would've hired someone to teach him how not to."
        "That 'ah-oo' thing?" Fraser asked, blankly.
        "You know. 'Ah-oot' instead of out. 'Ab-ah-oot' instead of about."
        "I don't believe that the diphthong is quite that pronounced, Ray."
        "What's a diphthong?" Ray asked. "Sounds like a Brazilian bathing suit."
        Amanda was highly entertained by their banter. It was clear that Vecchio was attempting to get a rise out of Fraser, and succeeding only in getting one out of himself. The Mountie appeared to have been born with a Valium gland, while the cop was about as hyper as one could get and not be on Ritalin. She wondered what on earth had brought such opposites together and was about to be rude and ask when a waiter appeared to take their order. She ordered a pot of tea for herself and the Mountie, coffee for the cop, and assorted goodies to share. Under the table she felt Diefenbaker's tail thump against her leg, reminding her he was there, and she added an egg-salad sandwich to the order. She'd never yet met a canine who didn't like eggs.
        "So," Amanda said after the waiter had gone. "Do you two work together or just play together?"
        Vecchio looked a trifle disconcerted by the question but it didn't phase the Mountie.
        "Generally we work together, though in an unofficial capacity. I facilitate Ray's investigations whenever possible and he has provided assistance to me many times."
        "I have?" Vecchio asked, looking surprised.
        "Of course, Ray," Fraser assured him. "Frequently."
        "First I've heard about it," Vecchio muttered.
        The Mountie looked concerned. "Your assistance has been invaluable on several occasions. I'm sorry if I haven't appropriately expressed my gratitude."
        "Fuggedaboudit," Vecchio said, turning to Amanda. "So, what do you do for a living? Must pay well, whatever it is," he asked pointedly.
        "I'm a location scout," she said, hoping neither of them had aspirations toward acting. "I'm here looking for locations for a film shoot. In fact, maybe you two can help me with that."
        "Sounds like a job for a realtor, not a cop," Vecchio said, doubtful.
        "Actually, no. You're perfect, with your knowledge of the city. You do know your way around Chicago, right?"
        "You bet I do! I was born and raised here," Vecchio said proudly. "Benny's still kind of learning his way around, but I know the city like the back of my hand."
        Benny? Amanda couldn't really picture ever calling the excruciatingly formal Benton Fraser 'Benny.' But then, she wasn't male. "See? Like I said, perfect! What I need most is to find an abandoned church or two."
        Fraser looked interested, Vecchio looked puzzled.
        "A church? What for?"
        "Not just any church. One that's not currently being used. The film is one of those Gothic Horror types, and the climactic scene takes place in an old church or cathedral. The problem is, folks tend to get a little testy about having a film crew disrupting their services, so it's best if it's not currently being used."
        "I can see where that might be a problem," Fraser said, nodding. "You know, Ray, there's the old St. Benedict's. It's been vacant since before I came to Chicago."
        "Yeah, and that place is pretty spooky. Used to scare the you-know-what outta me when I was a kid and we'd go by there at night. Or there's St. Teresa's, but it's farther out."
        Amanda took a small computerized planner from her purse. "Addresses?" she asked brightly. She really did want to know. It was always good to know where a nice, quiet piece of Holy Ground could be found, in case of emergency, and she really wanted to get her little nest egg to someplace safer. She really didn't like carrying around a small fortune wrapped in tissues and buried in the bottom of her purse. It was just asking for trouble.

* * *

        "So, what do you think?" Vecchio asked as Fraser settled himself in the passenger seat and fastened the safety belt.
        "I think we should watch her," he said, looking back toward the hotel entrance.
        "Me too," Vecchio said. "Something feels funny."
        "Agreed," Fraser said, frowning thoughtfully. "Though it seems odd that she didn't seem at all displeased to see us."
        "Fraser, with a couple of notable exceptions women are never displeased to see you."
        "Now, Ray, that's an exaggeration," Fraser protested.
        "No, it's not," Vecchio said, slightly aggrieved. "I swear on my mother's grave."
        "Your mother isn't dead, Ray." Fraser pointed out reasonably.
        "Right. Well, you know what I meant. Anyway, something tells me she's up to something. I mean, first off, this woman wears designer clothes, she stays at one of the most expensive places in town, spends money like she hasn't a worry in the world. So why would someone with her kind of dough buy a cheap little Polaroid camera when she could afford something snazzy?"
        "Well, some people prefer the convenience of not having to have the film processed," Fraser offered, then he fell silent for a moment before his eyes met Ray's and they spoke their thoughts aloud, in unison.
        "She needs the camera to prove she's got the egg."
        "She had a copy of today's paper, too," Fraser said. "She probably plans to use the paper to confirm that the picture is current."
        "That means she's about to make contact with her buyer."
        Fraser nodded, looking distracted. After a moment he looked back at Ray. "Why would someone with Ms. Woolf's obvious affluence need to steal?"
        "It takes money to spend money, Benny. She's got to maintain her standard of living."
        Fraser considered that, and discarded it. "I don't think that's it."
        "Maybe she just likes the thrill of it. She wouldn't be the first rich kleptomaniac I've dealt with."
        Again, his idea was considered, and discarded, Fraser shaking his head with a frown. "That doesn't seem likely, either."
        "What then?" Vecchio demanded, exasperated. "You tell me."
        "What if it's a political statement?"
        "And just how could stealing be considered a political statement?"
        "I was just thinking of what we discovered about Stefan DeBoer. Perhaps she feels that what DeBoer is doing to the environment needs to be recompensed."
        "To her, personally? So that would make her, what, Mother Earth? Give me a break, Fraser. If she wanted to make a political statement she'd have done so when she first stole the thing. I think you're the one who wants to make a political statement."
        Diefenbaker whined, and Fraser looked at him, then sighed. "You're right. I am letting my personal feelings influence my investigation. Still, it is entirely possible that she stole the egg simply in order to ransom it back to its owner, whatever her motive. We may want to communicate with Mr. DeBoer and see if she has contacted him."
        Ray was surprised to hear that acknowledgment, and it took him a moment to realize that the Mountie was replying to him and not the wolf.
        "Good idea, Benny. He pulled out his cellular phone and dialed the station. Elaine picked up, and he barely waited for her to finish her greeting when he started speaking "Hey Elaine, it's Vecchio."
        "Ray, where are you? Lieutenant Welsh has been asking for you."
        "We're over at the Drake staking out our suspect, and I don't have time to talk to Welsh right now. I need the number of that DeBoer guy who owns the egg. It's on my desk."
         Elaine sighed, and he pictured her annoyed look, but she consented to go get it. As he waited for Elaine to find it, he waved his hand frantically at Fraser, who somehow figured out what he wanted and extracted a pen from his jacket. Ray snatched it from him and scrawled the number on the back of his hand as Elaine read it off, then hung up on Elaine and dialed the number on his hand. After three rings it was answered.
        "DeBoer International, how may I help you?" A beautifully modulated female voice answered.
        "This is Detective Ray Vecchio with the Chicago P.D., let me talk to your boss."
        "I'm sorry, Mr. DeBoer is unavailable at the moment. May I take a message?"
        Vecchio rolled his eyes. "Yeah, tell him we may have a lead on his egg and he needs to call me. Here's my number." Vecchio rattled it off and hung up, then looked at Fraser. "Seems real concerned, if he's not even bothering to take my calls."
        "Perhaps he's trying to keep the line free for a call from Ms. Woolf?" Fraser speculated.
        "Yeah, maybe, if he's the intended buyer. She could be selling to anyone. You said yourself that people steal on commission these days."
        "True, I just have a hunch he's the intended target, not the money, per se."
        "One and the same, Benny. It's one and the same."
        "In this case, I tend to agree with you."
        Diefenbaker whined, and barked, staring at the hotel. Ray glanced up and didn't see anything interesting.
"What's his problem?" Ray asked Fraser, who was staring at the hotel with intensity equal to the wolf's. "Ray, that red-haired woman near the taxi. . ."
        Ray took a second look at the woman in question. As he did, the wind whipped open her leather trench-coat, revealing her svelte, black-clad figure and Ray swore, starting the engine. Her hair might be long and red, overlarge sunglasses might hide her face, but he'd recognize her breasts anywhere.
        "It's her. Good work, Dief. Remind me to get you a box of Milk-Bones."
        He pulled out into traffic six cars back from the taxi and followed it easily. It made one stop, at a copy-shop near the University, where she went inside for about five minutes before returning to the taxi. As they took off behind the taxi once more, Fraser looked back over his shoulder, frowning.
        "Ray, there's a black Mercedes behind us."
        "So what? There are hundreds of them in the city."
        "I noticed one parked near us at the Drake."
        "You probably did. People who own Mercedes tend to like to stay in places like the Drake."
        "True. And it may not be the same vehicle."
        "Probably not. Why would someone in a Mercedes want to follow us, anyway?"
        "I don't know, but perhaps we should find out."
        Vecchio looked over at the Mountie and sighed. "Look, we can follow the suspect, or we can do a traffic stop on the Men in Black back there, which would you prefer?"
        Fraser considered, and rendered judgement. "It would be logical to continue to follow Ms. Woolf. If they are indeed following us, then we will eventually end up at the same destination. If they aren't following us, then we would be distracted from our pursuit by stopping."
        "Good thinking. I'll keep following the taxi." He fished out his phone and handed it to Fraser. "You call Elaine and have her get someone to check the copy-shop and find out what our suspect was up to there."
        Fraser complied as Ray drove, and by the time they had gone a few more blocks it suddenly hit Ray where they were going, and he looked at Fraser. "St. Benedict's," he said cryptically.
        "It does appear likely," Fraser said, without missing a beat. "Although we may have jumped to an erroneous conclusion. She may in fact be what she said she was. Why else would she be interested in an abandoned church?"
        "I don't know, but I can't think of any real good reason why she would need to put on a disguise to go make copies and look at real-estate, either."
        "Excellent point."
        "I thought so."
        They drove in silence for awhile. Eventually the taxi pulled up next to St. Benedict's and stopped. Ray drove past casually, circled around behind the building and pulled into an alley where he eased the car into a building shadow and killed the engine. He started to get out, and Fraser put a hand on his harm, holding him back.
        "Wait. She's not going to try the front door, not when it faces a busy street. She'll come around here."
        They waited a couple of minutes, and as predicted, a petite figure came strolling around the corner, looking up at the tall spires of the Gothic structure as if merely sightseeing. She made a quick check right and left, then trotted up the stairs to the arched wooden doorway that had a chain and large padlock across it. She took something from her pocket and bent down, obscuring whatever it was she was doing. After about a minute and a half she dropped the chain and padlock on the step and turned her attention to the door lock. That took only a few seconds work, and then she was opening the door and slipping inside, closing the door behind her.
        As one, Ray and Fraser exited the car, Diefenbaker on their heels. When they got to the door, Fraser leaned down to speak to the wolf. "Stay, Dief. Watch the door, and if she comes out without us, keep her here till we show up."
        Diefenbaker yipped assent, and skulked over into the shadows. Vecchio wondered if his life would ever be normal again. Quietly they entered the building through the same door that their quarry had just unlocked with a professional's skill. It was dim and very quiet inside, but there was just enough light coming in through the tall, and surprisingly unbroken windows to see that their pursuit was made easier by the single set of footprints which made a clear path in the thick coating of dust that filmed every surface. Fraser walked precisely in Amanda's footprints, scarcely disturbing the dust. Ray found himself doing the same, though he wondered who the hell cared if he messed up dust.
        He glanced heavenward, feeling guilty for even thinking the word 'hell' in a church, even if it wasn't in use. It was still a church, and old habits died hard. He imagined he could smell the faint sweetness of ancient incense in the air, and felt a strange compulsion to cross himself, which he resisted. It was just programming. They came to the doors of the sanctuary, one of which was ajar. From inside the room they could hear a faint scraping sound. Fraser lifted a finger to his lips and eased up to the doorway, then looked inside. Ray did the same.
        Amanda was kneeling in front of the altar, working at it with a small pry-bar. He frowned. He hadn't expected her to be here intent on vandalism. After a moment a stone came loose, and she put down the pry-bar and carefully worked the stone away from the altar and set it aside. She bent and shone a flashlight into the hole, and he could see her teeth flash in a smile as she peered down into the cavity. Picking up her handbag, she removed a small object from it, which she placed inside the recess, then replaced the stone. Stepping back, she put the pry-bar into her bag, dusted off her hands and then frowned as she studied the scene.
        After a second she unwound a scarf from around her throat and used it to dust off the entire altar, then to his surprise made a quick genuflection before looking up at the ceiling and giving a thumb's up gesture. Ray looked upward to see who she was gesturing to, and saw no one. Odd. Was she talking to God? He couldn't imagine who else it might be. Suddenly she gasped and stiffened, looking wildly around the room. Almost simultaneously, Fraser grabbed him and shoved him behind a wooden screen that stood a few feet from the doorway. Before he could demand an explanation, Ray finally heard the footsteps that had alerted Fraser, and apparently Amanda as well, to the fact that they weren't alone.
        The footfalls rang loudly in the quiet, as if someone wanted to be heard, and a figure came into view. It was a tall, strongly built man whose trench-coat flared out behind him like wings as he moved. He stopped in the doorway looking into the sanctuary, affording Ray a good look at him. He had a face like a Nazi from an old war movie, with harsh, aristocratic features and short-cropped, iron-gray hair. His hands were leather-gloved, and the suit and shoes beneath the trench-coat spoke of wealth.
        "I knew you were here, and I knew you were one of us. I can feel you."
        The man's voice was strangely familiar; deep and with a hint of an accent. Ray struggled to identify it, knowing he'd heard it before, and recently.
        "Hey, Stevie," Amanda said, her tone full of haughty bravado. "Nice of you to come, though I have to admit it's a bit of a surprise. How'd you find me?"
        "You were surprisingly careless. I followed the policemen who followed you."
        Fraser shot Ray an 'I-told-you-so' look, and Ray shrugged, trying to pay attention to the conversation.
        "Oddly, they don't appear to have followed you in, I'm not sure why. Perhaps they had to get permission to enter the building, or they're waiting for backup. Not that it matters. When they return, they will find only your body. It's a bad neighborhood. I'm sure that your death will be just another crime statistic, even if the cause is a bit . . . unusual."
        "This is Holy Ground, Stefan, or have you forgotten?"
        "Oh, I haven't forgotten, my dear. But you will have to come out sometime."
        "What makes you think you can take me? It's been a long time since you faced anyone."
        Ray suddenly realized where he'd heard the voice before. It was the egg-guy, DeBoer. How the hell had he managed to track Ray and Fraser down to follow them? They hadn't even checked in until twenty minutes earlier, and by that time they'd been en route here. Had they been followed all day as they attempted to locate Amanda? It seemed the only answer. Ray felt embarrassed that he had managed to miss an all-day tail. He'd never live that one down, if it got out. It only marginally helped that Fraser hadn't noticed either, not until the last little bit.
        Being embarrassed tended to piss him off, and he felt anger rising. Before he could even reach down and unholster his weapon, Fraser put a hand on his arm and shook his head silently when he had Ray's attention. How the hell had Fraser known he was thinking of stepping out and announcing his presence? Sometimes he thought the Mountie must be psychic. With reluctance he nodded his agreement to wait, and mouthed 'DeBoer' at Fraser. Fraser's eyes widened, and then he looked thoughtful.
        "Just because you haven't heard of me taking anyone recently doesn't mean I'm out of practice. There are benefits to being obscenely wealthy," DeBoer said mockingly. "Among them, the ability to dispose of one's enemies without interference."
        There was a short pause, then Amanda spoke again. "Who?"
        "Recently? Let me see if I remember, there have been several. Oh, yes, I remember now. Since midsummer, there were Taliesin, Al-Qataan, Riviera, oh, and Duvall."
        Amanda's breath hissed in a gasp. "Etienne Duvall? But I saw him just three months ago! No one told me he was gone!"
        "As I said, just because you have not heard of something, does not mean that it did not happen. I'm very discreet."
        Ray looked at Fraser, wondering if the Mountie understood the conversation. Fraser shook his head, looking as puzzled as Ray felt.
        "So, what's your name, in case anyone asks me that question, afterward."
        "Amanda. Amanda Darieaux."
        "Ah, yes, the lovely thief. I should have guessed. I've heard of your exploits, though I thought you usually traveled with the Highlander."
        "Sometimes I do, not always. He's a friend."
        DeBoer laughed. "A friend? Come, my dear. We have no friends, at least not of our own kind."
        "You're wrong, you know. It's possible."
        "You say that now, but when the Game calls, you will find otherwise."
        "Like you did, when you took Gregor?"
        This time the caught breath belonged to DeBoer. "How could you know of that?"
        "I have my sources." Amanda said coyly. "I know you let other people soften him up for you, first. Hardly playing by the rules."
        "Sometimes one must make ones' own rules. Gregor had become a liability. He'd started to believe his own press. Always a bad idea."
        "He lived long enough to help you bring down the Romanovs."
        "He was useful there, yes. But that's old news. Where is my egg?"
        "Safe. I faxed you a picture of it, but I guess you weren't there to get it."
        "No, I was here, looking for you."
        "Too bad. Have you made the deposit?"
        "Why would I do that, when I can get it back without spending a cent?" He moved further into the doorway. "Frankly, I'm interested in seeing how you plan to get out of this. In order to leave here, you must pass me."
        "Not necessarily," Amanda said. "There are always alternatives."
        DeBoer laughed, shaking his head, then froze, his gaze on the floor, where Ben and Ray's footprints in the dust diverged from Amanda's and led toward the screen. His gaze narrowed, and before Ray could snatch his weapon from his shoulder-holster, DeBoer tipped the screen aside and leveled a nine-millimeter automatic at them. Slowly Ray let his hand shift to Fraser's arm, as if he hadn't been reaching for his gun. If he could keep the weapon, he might get a chance to use it.
        "Well, well, gentlemen. If you hadn't stepped out of the lady's tracks there at the last, I would never have guessed you were here. How convenient for me, though. Just the leverage I need." Smiling, he gestured for Ray and Fraser to step into the sanctuary. They complied, allowing DeBoer to herd them toward the front of the room, close to where Amanda stood. "See what I've found, Mistress Darieaux? Now, shall we discuss the location of my property, again, or will you force me to take steps to ensure your cooperation?"
        Amanda's face was pale in the dimly-lit sanctuary. "You wouldn't."
        "Oh, but I would, I assure you," DeBoer replied silkily.
        "But this is Holy Ground," she whispered, clearly shaken.
        "So it is, and while that prevents me from disposing of you here, as you know there's no rule which says I can't kill them on the premises."
        Ray saw Amanda's jaw tighten, then she looked at him, and Fraser. Her gaze anxious, and she seemed to be trying to communicate something to them. He had no idea what.
        "No, there isn't, is there?" she said, sounding defeated. "If I tell you where it is, will you let them leave safely?"
        "I'll consider it."
        "There's another church, St. Teresa's. I left it there. I have the address in my organizer, can I get it?"
        DeBoer nodded, his gun still trained on Ray and Fraser. "Get it, but no tricks. "
        "No tricks," she agreed, turning to pick up the bag.
        Ray tensed, preparing to go for his gun. Amanda was up to something, and he wanted to be ready. He knew she hadn't had time to go to St. Teresa's, so there was no way she'd stashed the egg there. He was pretty sure that the item in question was tucked snugly into a hollow within the altar, not four feet from where they stood. The one thing he was sure about was that he and Fraser wouldn't be leaving the church alive, even if she did hand over the bauble. They knew too much now. He still wasn't sure exactly what he knew, but they'd heard DeBoer as much as admit he was a murderer, and that he planned on killing Amanda, too. That alone made them too dangerous to be allowed to live.
        Amanda turned, holding her Polaroid camera, her fingers poised on the shutter button. DeBoer frowned. "What are you . . ."
        She hit the button and the flash went off. In the dimness, it was searingly bright and in that scant instant of surprise it afforded, Ray dove for the floor, shouting "Down!" and reaching for his gun. He heard DeBoer curse, and rolled onto his back, releasing the safety on his weapon just as he saw DeBoer sight on Fraser, who had for some idiotic reason taken it into his head to put himself between DeBoer and Amanda. As Ray brought up his gun, Amanda grabbed the Mountie and turned, reversing their positions, then she shoved him away from her as hard as she could. Fraser fell backward just as the thunderous crack of a gunshot split the quiet, echoing in the stone-walled cavern of the sanctuary. Amanda staggered, and went to her knees, then toppled limply to the cold stone floor. DeBoer aimed for Fraser again, and Ray shot him without a second thought.
        It was a nice, clean shot, and DeBoer fell, his weapon hitting the ground with a metallic clatter. Fraser scrambled to Amanda's side as Ray grabbed his cellphone and called for backup and paramedics. Wrestling Amanda out of her coat, the Mountie's hands came away dark with blood. He flipped her onto her back and started CPR as Ray leaned down to pick up DeBoer's gun, and feel the man's throat for a pulse. Nothing. Feeling rather pleased by that, he checked the clip in DeBoer's gun, and sighed as he realized what it held.
        "Benny," he said quietly.
        Fraser didn't look up from where he was trying to resuscitate Amanda. Ray tried again.
        "Fraser, he was using hollow-points, mercury filled. There's no point in trying to revive her. She's probably got a hole in her the size of Kansas."
        For three more breaths, Fraser ignored him, then finally he sat back and looked down at Amanda's still figure before him. He looked at the amount of blood on the floor, at her half-open, sightless eyes, and an expression came over his face that made Ray hurt for him. He knelt beside the other man, a hand on his shoulder.
        "Benny, it wasn't your fault."
        "Yes, it was, Ray. If I had let you draw your gun and announce your presence when you originally wanted to, none of this would have happened. If I had thought to tell Diefenbaker not to let anyone in, as well as telling him not to let Amanda out . . ."
        "If you'd done that, he'd've shot the wolf." Ray said flatly. "He wasn't the type to wait around for someone to call Dief off. And if I'd gone out when I started to, we'd probably both be dead now. You were right to wait, it was just bad luck he saw the footprints. Look, Amanda knew the chance she was taking. She knew DeBoer had a gun, she knew he was going to kill us. She could have let him do it and had a chance at escaping, herself. Instead she chose to use that flash to distract him, and she chose to put herself in the path of that bullet. She may have been a thief, but she was a good enough person to not want innocent blood spilled on her behalf. Don't dishonor her sacrifice."
        Ray had no idea where he was getting what he was saying, but it sounded pretty good. He'd probably heard it in a movie or something. Fraser closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. Ray saw the gleam of tears on his face, but his mouth was set and determined now.
        "You're right, Ray. It was clearly an intentional sacrifice on her part, one that should be respected." He looked down at his bloody hands a little helplessly, and Ray pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to him. Fraser wiped his hands as clean as he could, then reached down to gently close Amanda's eyes. After a long, silent moment, he stood up. "We should continue our investigation, Ray. We're still looking for motives. We'll need to notify the Canadian authorities that they should investigate DeBoer, as well. Clearly the man has been concealing a criminal past."
        Ray nodded. In the background he could hear sirens nearing. Time to see what could be salvaged from this mess.

* * *

        "So, what do you think all that talk about 'holy ground' was, anyway?" Ray asked.
        Fraser turned from watching the crime scene photographer at work. "I'm sorry, Ray, what did you ask?"
        "Both DeBoer and Amanda referred to this as 'holy ground,' like it meant something."
        "Well, it is holy ground. All churches are."
        Ray sighed. "I know that, Fraser. What I meant was why would that make any difference to a thief and a killer?"
        "I don't know. Frankly, it makes no sense."
        "You mean you don't have some old Eskimo story that explains it?" Ray asked.
        Fraser smiled faintly, realizing that his friend was trying to annoy him out of his mood. "Inuit, Ray. Not Eskimo. And, no, I don't. I would have guessed their conversation referred to the concept of 'sanctuary' but that clearly wasn't the case, as DeBoer had no qualms about killing us here, just not her."
        "Which he ended up doing anyway. Weird."
        "Perhaps he felt it would be bad luck."
        "Well, that it was, since he got himself offed too."
        "Quite true. I was also wondering about the references to 'Gregor' and to 'the Romanov's.' Since there is a Fabergé egg involved, one might almost assume that they were speaking of Gregor Rasputin, and the Imperial house of Romanov, but since they seemed to be speaking of people they knew personally, that can hardly be the case."
        "Could be Russian Mafia," Ray offered. "They'd probably love to get their hands on something like what Amanda snatched."
        "Hey, guys?" A uniformed officer who was kneeling next to DeBoer's body waved them over. "Look what I found in his coat. Is this weird, or what?"
        Fraser moved to where he could see that the man held what appeared to be a sword-hilt in his latex-gloved hand. About four inches of blade showed beneath the hilt, the rest of its length was hidden in a special sheath which had obviously been engineered into the coat to hold the weapon. Ray whistled.
        "I've heard of concealed weapons before, but never a goddamned sword. Man, that's gotta make it tough to sit down."
        The other man snickered and Fraser knelt to examine the blade, even more puzzled by the case now.
        "He had a gun, why would he need a sword?" He mused aloud.
        "In this day and age, why would anyone need a sword?" Ray retorted.
        He had a point. Fraser got a pair of gloves from the evidence kit the other cop had brought and pulled them on, then took the sword. It wasn't a reproduction, at least he didn't think it was. There was nothing decorative about the blade, it was simple, utilitarian. The edge was keenly honed, and there were definite wear-patterns on it. There was something about it that felt old, felt used. "I believe this weapon is an antique, Ray. Perhaps DeBoer belonged to some sort of recreationist group?"
        "Nah, I know people who do that. They wear funny clothes and bash each other around in parks with big sticks wrapped in duct tape. They don't carry real swords in trench coats. This guy was nuttier than I thought. Make sure that gets bagged for evidence, okay?"
        Fraser nodded, handing it back to the uniformed officer. He looked over at Amanda, and frowned. Walking past her, he went to where he'd tossed her coat aside when he'd tried to save her life. Was he imagining things, or had there been . . . he nudged the pile of fabric cautiously with his toe and something clanked on the floor. No, he hadn't imagined it. He'd been too upset to wonder about it when he'd taken the coat off her, but now he needed to know. Kneeling, he sorted through the folds until he found what he had half-expected to find. Slowly he eased the long blade free and held it up.
        "Ray?"
        Ray turned, and his eyes widened. "She had one too?"
        Fraser nodded. "Apparently so. It's a different style, but as authentic as DeBoer's. This shorter, wider blade would probably have been more appropriate for someone of Amanda's size and build."
        Ray rubbed his forehead. "So, what have we got here? A couple of maniac fencers? I don't get it, what have antique swords got to do with a stolen egg?"
        Fraser shook his head, equally baffled. "I have no idea, Ray. From their conversation I would say they had not met before, but they did appear to know some of the same people. When DeBoer named his recent victims, she knew at least one of them, and he apparently knew a certain amount of information about her, even if he didn't know her personally."
        "So, are you saying it's some kind of cult? That there's a whole bunch of these people out there with a kink for long, sharp, pointy things?"
        "It's possible. We should look into it, at any rate. So far it's about all we have to go on."
        Ray sighed. "Fraser, just once I'd like to be involved in a case with you that doesn't get weird. Just a nice, simple homicide where we can arrest the perp and declare the case closed with a minimum of fuss. You're like a magnet for the bizarre!"
        "I'm sorry, Ray. I don't mean to be."
        "I know that, Benny. You can't help yourself. So, maybe they were part of some kind of nutso militant religious cult or something. That could explain how they knew of each other, but hadn't actually met, the references to 'holy ground' and the swords. We need to check out those other names DeBoer mentioned, see if we can come up with anything that links them to bladed weapons. And speaking of checking things out, let's take a look-see in here." Ray bent down, picked up Amanda's bag and dumped its contents on the altar's flat surface.
        Fraser's gaze quickly catalogued a lockpick kit, cellular phone, an electronic organizer, a small makeup case, a hairbrush, and a wad of paper. He snagged the paper, flattening it to find it was a newsletter from a group called "The Children's Fund." The lead article thanked contributors for their generosity and described how their donations helped children from all over the world. The second story reported on the difficult adjustment period of two Native American children who had been taken in by the charity after their parents had died within weeks of each other. Scrawled in the margin next to the story, in an ornate, feminine script, were some notes and figures. He looked up.
        "Ray, I think I was right. Taking the egg was a political statement of a sort."
        Ray came to stand next to him. "What did you find?"
        "This." Fraser held it out.
        Ray read, then looked at him blankly. "I don't get it. A manifesto this ain't."
        "The children in that story. They were both from the Territories, from an area very near DeBoer's uranium mine. I would guess that their parents died of radiation-related illnesses contracted by unsafe conditions in those mines."
        "Why would anyone work there if it's not safe?"
        "Because there's very little work to be found that area of the country. They probably took jobs there hoping to better support their children, and ended up losing their lives instead. Look at what she wrote in the margin. DeBoer's name, underlined. The name of the museum, the letters WPE, which likely stands for 'Winter Palace Egg.' Note also the figures '2.4 mil' and '4 mil.' One is the appraisal value of the egg, I suspect the other is probably what she was asking for it. Then she's written 'half to CF, remainder to smaller groups' and 'university study?'. I suspect those were notes for how she planned to disburse the funds once DeBoer paid her. "
        "You're reading an awful lot between the lines there, Fraser," Ray said gently.
        "Yes, Ray, I am, but I know that area, and I know its people. I believe that a few minutes spent researching this will confirm my theories about the children and their parents. After that, the seems fairly obvious."
        "Obvious is a relative term, but I suppose it's possible. It's also possible that she just wanted the money."
        Fraser looked into Ray's cool gray eyes and shook his head. "I don't believe that, Ray. Do you?"
        Ray held his gaze for a long moment, then shook his head, making a wry face. "No, Benny. I don't. God help me, I don't believe it either. Now how do we prove it?"
        Fraser sighed. "I don't know."
        "Back to the station then, sounds like it's time for you to hit Elaine's computer again, while I make some calls." Suddenly Ray groaned. "Oh God, I'm also going to have to file an incident report on this."
        Fraser looked at Ray, knowing the seriousness of that. "I'll gladly supply any supporting affidavits you need, Ray. It was clear that you had no choice."
        "I know that and you know that, I just hope they believe us. Come on, let's go."

* * *

        Amanda gasped herself awake. God, waking up was such a bitch. It was like sticking her finger in a light socket. The first thing she realized was that she was naked, and very cold. She tried to look around, but everything was kind of a soft, glowing white, and for a moment she wondered if somehow she'd managed to end up stuck in a snowdrift. Then the tingling, itching ache in her back reminded her what happened, and she realized that the reason she couldn't see anything but white was because there was a sheet over her face. Oh damn. Damn, damn, damn. That meant she was in a morgue.
        She fingered her stomach, relieved to find that it felt normal, not weird like her back. That meant they hadn't started an autopsy. Thank heavens for small favors. She listened carefully, and could hear someone singing opera, 'La Traviata,' she thought. The sound was distant enough that she risked tugging at the sheet until it slipped down to the middle of her nose and let her see. Yep. Definitely a morgue. Whoever was singing wasn't anywhere in sight, and she started to sit up, then heard the singing move nearer.
        Quickly she lay back down and closed her eyes most of the way. An older man in green scrubs wandered into the room, still singing. Without sparing a glance at her, he picked up a saw and turned back the sheet which shrouded a body on the main table, then the phone rang. Muttering to himself, he moved off into the outer office once more. Amanda quickly sat up, wrapping the sheet around herself like a sari. She had to get out of here, and quickly. She saw a door across the room from the one through which the pathologist had exited, and she went over and opened it. Drat, a closet.
        Standing there she looked back at the exit, and as her gaze went past the corpse on the table, Amanda realized she had another reason to get out of here quickly. It was DeBoer. At this point half his face was barely recognizable due to the damage from whatever had killed him, a bullet probably, but she could tell it was him. And, since she was awake, that meant that his recovery process was well underway and he'd probably be coming to, soon, himself.
        If only the old man hadn't taken that saw with him! Since her sword was nowhere to be found, it would have been the next best thing. She eyed the tray of scalpels for a moment, and decided they wouldn't really work for what she needed, besides, the Quickening would bring the entire population of the building running. Plus, it would be cheating to kill DeBoer when he was dead. No, getting out was the best option she had.
        Clothes, she needed clothes. Inside the closet was a shelf that held stacks of scrubs like the pathologist was wearing. They wouldn't win any fashion contests, but they would attract a lot less attention than a sheet. She was about to take a set when she noticed that pushed toward the back of the closet was a box with what looked like fabric in it. Inside the box she found a pair of jeans and a drab gray jersey turtleneck. They were dusty, apparently they'd been there for a long time. Probably someone had put them in the closet and then forgotten about them. Both were about four sizes larger than she was, but they were even better than scrubs. Fortunately huge, baggy clothing was 'in' among certain segments of the population, so no one would think anything about it.
        Ducking into the closet, Amanda pulled on the sweater, stepped into the jeans. She had to fold the hems up four times to get the jeans short enough not to trip her, and use the drawstring from a set of scrubs to belt the waist of the pants tight enough that they would stay on. For a while she could faintly hear the old man talking on the phone, then he finally stopped and she heard a door open and close, then silence.
        Cautiously easing the door open, she found that the room was empty. Good. Spotting a couple of bags beneath the table she'd been lying on, she checked them on a hunch and found that one held her clothes, the other her shoes. Unfortunately her purse wasn't there as well. Of her clothes, her sweater was a shredded, bloody mess, and there was blood all over her pants, too. Somehow, both her shoes and her panties had managed to survive unscathed. The shoes were a bit of luck. She stepped into them, stuffed her panties in her pocket, and headed for the door.
        Opening it, she glanced around. The hallway was a busy one, people heading every-which way in controlled chaos. A pair of policewomen came out of a door several yards away, both of them had wet hair. Smiling, she headed for the room the women had just left. Sure enough, it said "Women" on the door. When she stepped inside she found not just toilet stalls, but showers.
        Quickly she skinned down and ducked into a shower to wash the dried blood from her back and hair. After drying off with a handful of paper towels, she dressed and headed out once more. No one even glanced at her as she moved deliberately down the hallway, toward what she hoped was an exit. A familiar voice made her bend quickly to get a drink from a fountain, hiding her face.
        "Well, I guess someone needs to call the Consulate," Vecchio said as he passed. "Damn it, this has to be one of the worst days of my entire life."
        His voice faded as he and the black man he was with rounded a corner. Amanda straightened and stared after them, her mouth suddenly dry despite the water she'd just sipped. Call the Consulate? Why? And what would make him say that about it being the worst day of his life? Fear arrowed through her. She'd tried to get Ben out of the way. What if she hadn't succeeded? What if DeBoer had shot him after she had died? She realized that there had been an third body in the morgue. What if that had been Ben?
        Amanda swallowed convulsively. No, please, God, no. Please don't let her have been responsible for his death. How could she find out? She looked back the way Ray had come, and saw a room that was obviously a bullpen of sorts. If she could find his desk, she might also find something about Ben. Walking deliberately, she stepped into the room and went up to the first person she saw, a stocky, dark-haired man who looked harassed.
        "Excuse me, can you tell me where Detective Vecchio's desk is?"
        "Yeah, over there," he waved a hand. "It's the one with all the files on it. And if you see him tell him I'm looking for him. IAD wants to talk to him."
        Amanda nodded, though she hadn't a clue who the man was. "I'll tell him."
        She wove her way through the crowded room to the indicated desk. A quick scan of the surface revealed nothing but chaos, but there a sheet of paper in the typewriter caught her eye. Reading through the misspellings, she saw it was the start of a report on the incident at the church, but to her frustration it stopped at the point where DeBoer had found Ray and Fraser behind the screen.
        Nervously she looked around, no one seemed to have noticed her yet, but she couldn't count on that continuing. She was about to give up and go when Vecchio's Rolodex caught her eye. Swiftly she flipped through it and found a card simply labeled "Fraser." There was no phone number but there was an address. Grabbing a pen she scribbled the address on her hand, then picked up the card file and looked around. Seeing an open file drawer in a cabinet a few steps away, she put the Rolodex in the drawer and closed it. She was pretty sure DeBoer wasn't as clever as she was, but there was no point in taking chances, and if Fraser was all right she wanted him to stay that way. Making herself as unassuming as possible, she slipped out of the building, unnoticed in the everyday chaos.

* * *

        Fraser sat by himself in the janitor's closet, going over his actions of the past few hours, trying to think of anything he could have done differently, any way he could have circumvented the tragedy. Somehow, though his thoughts just kept returning to the jeweled egg he'd last seen in Lieutenant Welsh's office, sitting incongruously on the paper-scattered, scarred wooden desk. While he acknowledged that it was beautiful in a very artificial sort of way, the fact that it had fit easily into the palm of his hand seemed wrong, somehow. Something that had cost two people their lives should be larger, more imposing.
        He couldn't fathom why anyone would kill over an object with no intrinsic value at all. Unlike a real egg, it couldn't be eaten. The resources which had gone into making the gift for a long-dead Czar could have fed many of that ruler's starving subjects for a year. Sometimes he really didn't understand humans. Animals killed for many reasons, but sheer greed was rarely one of them.
        He tugged at his collar, suddenly feeling claustrophobic, though the closet had never made him feel that way before. For the first time he was bothered that it had no windows, and no air circulation. Maybe it was because Ray wasn't here with him. Usually when he came here, it was with Ray, and that helped him not notice the smell of chemicals and the closeness of the tiny room. But Ray was busy. Any time a gun was fired, things got messy. While Fraser understood that, it didn't make it easier to be alone right now. He felt guilty, and sad, and angry. He wanted Ray to help him focus, and get past that.
        Deliberately he channeled his thoughts into more productive areas. He should really spend some time researching Amanda Darieaux to see if he could confirm his suspicions about her. Somehow he knew she would rather be remembered as someone who had tried to do a good deed, than as a common thief. He hadn't known her for very long, but it had been long enough to realize that she had been as one of a kind as the jewel she'd stolen. He sighed, and Diefenbaker looked up with a soft groan. He reached down and put his hand on Dief's head, not exactly petting him, just a touch, a reassurance.
        "It wasn't your fault, Dief. I didn't tell you to stop him. You couldn't have known."
        Dief whined, and Fraser smiled. "Thank you. Ray told me that as well."
        "I told you what?" Ray said, opening the door and peering in. "I thought I'd find you here."
        Fraser sat up straighter, a little disconcerted. "Nothing, Ray. I was just musing aloud."
        "Better not let anyone else catch you talking to the wolf like that or they'll put you away again," he said, with a grin. "Thought I should let you know, I had Lieutenant Welsh call the Dragon Lady for you and tell her you solved the case. She was impressed."
        Fraser boggled, trying to imagine that. "She was?"
        "Well, no," Ray admitted. "But I thought you'd like to hear it."
        "I see. Well, thank you for the thought. Ah, how was her mood?"
        "Well . . ." Ray hedged uneasily.
        "Understood. I'll be prepared when I see her Monday."
        "Good idea. Maybe a little peace offering?"
        Fraser lifted his eyebrows. "Such as?"
        "Um . . . Good question. A pool boy, maybe?"
        "Ray!"
        "I know, I know. I shouldn't be disrespectful. Anyway, I'm going to be stuck here for awhile longer, filling out paperwork and meeting with the shooting team. Why don't you go on home? Dief probably needs a walk. I'll come by after I'm done, we can get a pizza or something."
        Fraser hesitated. "Don't you need me to corroborate your story?"
        "Don't worry, Elaine's already got the statement you gave her all typed up, all you have to do is sign it on the way out and she'll notarize and file it. Right now we're just in the talking phase, if they need you, they'll get in touch."
        Fraser eyed Ray with concern. He wondered if his friend was upset by the shooting, and just covering it up, as he tended to do. "You're sure it's all right?"
        "I'm sure, Benny. Go on."

* * *

        Amanda was lurking. There was no other word for it. She was lurking outside a small market a little ways from Ben's building, waiting for Ben to appear. She'd gotten the address from Ray's Rolodex at the station, and come here to keep vigil, hoping her wait wasn't in vain. She hadn't been able to think of any other way to assure herself of Fraser's safety.
        She had no idea what had happened after DeBoer's bullet had taken her between the shoulder blades as she hurled herself between him, and Ben. She knew Ray was all right because she'd seen him, but she hadn't seen Fraser, and Ray's comment had worried her terribly. She'd thought about calling the Consulate, but decided not to, since that might attract attention. No, this was the only way.
        For the thousandth time since she'd come to her senses on the cold metal of a morgue table she cursed her own stubborn, impulsive nature. If only she hadn't been so cocky, so damned self-confident. She'd never expected DeBoer to come after her, especially not with mortals around. She hadn't figured on him wanting to remove anyone who might connect him to her death. Stupid. Really stupid. When would she learn?
        A flash of red caught her eye and she turned, hopeful, heart pounding, only to find that it was just a brightly colored knit cap on a young girl. She sighed, and shifted, trying to find a place to stand where the cold wind didn't cut right through her borrowed clothes. Too bad there hadn't been a coat in that closet, too. Just because she was an Immortal didn't mean she was impervious to the elements. Once she had reassured herself about Fraser, she'd sneak back to her hotel and get her things, and be gone from the city, leaving the cop and the Mountie safely behind, she hoped.
        That brought up new quandaries. If they were both okay, how could she make sure that DeBoer didn't try to hurt them again? She knew the answer. She had to take him. But unfortunately she had no idea where to find him in the city. More time passed. The sun dropped behind some buildings and the shadows lengthened as dusk approached. It was getting noticeably colder, and it hadn't exactly been warm to begin with. Tugging the collar of the turtleneck up as far as it would go, she tucked her hands into her armpits to keep them warm. After a little while she started shifting from foot to foot, just trying to keep the blood flowing.
        There. Scarlet. Not just red, or burgundy, or orange, but the distinctive scarlet she'd been waiting for. Ben seemed to materialize out of the shadows, walking steadily, head down and face obscured by the brim of his hat as he conversed with Dief. Amanda sighed as she saw that he was fine, and that Dief looked fine, too. The relief she felt was profound. She couldn't have lived with herself if her carelessness had brought injury to Ray, or Fraser, or even Dief. They didn't deserve to be harmed because of her. They were good people, even the wolf.
        As if thinking of the wolf had alerted him to her presence, Dief suddenly stopped in his tracks, his head swinging toward her, nose lifting as he sniffed the air. With a sinking feeling Amanda realized that she was upwind of him. Damn. Another stupid thing. Of course the wolf could smell her, and he recognized her scent. She stayed perfectly still, barely breathing, hoping he would give up. She should have known better. His gaze focused on her, then he gave a short, decisive bark and trotted toward her a few feet, then stopped to look back at Fraser, clearly intending him to follow. Damn it, Dief would choose this moment to do his Lassie imitation.
        Fraser lifted his head, and looked where the wolf was looking. She could tell the instant he saw her. His eyes widened, his lips parted as if to speak, and he stood like that for several seconds, then he sighed, and shook his head, with an expression she could only describe as resigned sorrow coming over his face. He took a step toward her, then another, then a pedestrian passed between them, startling both of them and breaking their eye-contact. When she looked again, his eyes were closed, but they flashed open again before she thought to move out of sight. He called Dief, and looked over at her again, nodding toward the door of his building as if inviting her to join him.
        Amanda frowned, puzzled by his reaction. Most people, on seeing someone alive who'd been killed right before their eyes, would not be quite so blase'. Fraser seemed to find it not entirely surprising. Very strange. He took a few steps, then stopped and looked back at her expectantly. She shrugged, and followed. Who was she to argue? At least she'd be out of the wind. Dief seemed pleased, and followed her in.

* * *

        Fraser didn't speak, he just led Amanda's ghost up to his apartment, opening the door and letting Dief, and her, precede him into the room. She looked around, shaking her head; a not uncommon reaction to his apartment, but somehow it surprised him coming from a dead person. Of course, his father's personality hadn't changed substantially after he'd died, either. He knew that most people found his rooms to be excessively austere, but he liked their simplicity. All the windows were open, rendering his apartment almost as chilly as outdoors, which he preferred to the stale, overheated air of most buildings. Amanda finished her perusal of his rooms and shivered. He smiled a little.
        "You don't need to do that any more, you know."
        She frowned. "Do what?"
        "Shiver."
        "But it's cold in here."
        "If you say so." He figured it must take a while to get used to being dead. Speaking of which, he didn't want to offend her, but really, he had to nip this 'appearing in public' thing in the bud before she got as annoying as his father was.
        "Ah, while I realize that it's really not my place to tell you how to do your job, I think since I'm going to have to be putting up with you from now on, I think I'm entitled to make one request. If you could please confine your appearances to times when I'm alone, I would greatly appreciate it. It tends to complicate things when you. . . ah . . . people show up when I'm in public."
        "'You people'?" Amanda repeated, an odd look on her face. Sort of a combination of puzzled and offended. Of course, she probably hadn't much thought about how she wanted to be referred to. What did one call a ghost, anyway? After a moment she shrugged, and nodded.
        "Well, certainly, I'll try to respect that, Ben. But you won't have to 'put up with me' for long. I just wanted to check on you, be sure you were okay. I, ah, kind of lost track of what was happening there for awhile."
        His gaze searched hers. "You're not staying?"
        Amanda stared back at him, seeming to consider his words, then she smiled, slowly, with a disturbingly sensual smile for a dead person. "Well, if you really want me to . . ." She purred throatily.
        "No!" Fraser exclaimed, then realizing from the look on her face that his vehemence had hurt her feelings, he backpedaled. "I mean, not that you're not welcome to stay, if you like. I mean, after all, what happened was my fault and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to– well, haunt me, for lack of a better term. I just meant that, well, it wasn't really necessary for you to stay." He chanced a look at her. She still looked hurt. He sighed. "I'd love for you to stay," he lied.
        Amanda laughed out loud, shaking her head. "You're such an awful liar, Ben."
        He didn't quite know what to say in response to that, and while he was trying to figure it out, another voice spoke up.
        "Scrawny little thing, isn't she?" The voice said. "Why, she doesn't look strong enough to heft an axe to split a log! And besides that, she's a thief. Son, I just don't understand what it is in you that makes you go for this sort of woman. I thought I raised you better than that."
        Fraser stiffened as he saw his father standing beside Amanda. Oh, his day had only needed this to be complete. "As I recall, you didn't raise me at all," he retorted testily. "You left that task to Grandmother."
        His father chose to ignore that, though Amanda looked completely mystified.
        "Not bad looking, though, I'll give you that," Robert Fraser added, studying her critically. "Though the hair's a bit short."
        "That's rude," he admonished the older man.
        "What's rude?" The second ghost asked, looking at him blankly.
        "What's rude?" Amanda echoed.
        Fraser scowled at his father. "Talking about her like that when she's standing right there."
        Amanda looked around. "Talking about who? I wasn't talking about anyone."
        "Not you, him." Fraser clarified, nodding toward where his father stood, a few feet to her left. He noticed that his father's gaze was fixed in the general vicinity of her chest. "Dad! Really!" he said, scandalized.
        Amanda started to back up, very slowly. "Ah, Ben, are you all right? I mean, you didn't get hit on the head or anything during the fight, did you?"
        "No, why do you ask?"
        "Well, um... because you're talking to someone who isn't there."
        Fraser considered that. Coming from a ghost, it was a fairly petty quibble. It did make him realize something, though. "You can't see him?"
        She shook her head. "I see you, me, and Diefenbaker. I know you talk to Dief all the time, but since he's over there on the bed, it can't be him you're talking to."
        Puzzled, Fraser looked at his father. "You can see and hear her?"
        "I'm dead, son, I'm not blind," Bob Fraser said, looking not a bit ashamed of himself for having just moments earlier been noticing things no self-respecting, not to mention dead, parent should be noticing in front of their son. Fraser ignored him.
        "She can't see or hear you?"
        Amanda shook her head vehemently as his father answered.
        "Of course not, son. I'm dead. You're the only one who can see me."
        "I just figured that you two really ought to be able to see each other, all things considered."
        "All what things considered?" Amanda and Bob asked, almost in unison.
        "Well, what with you both being dead, and all. I suppose I simply assumed that disembodied spirits would be able to see other disembodied spirits."
        Amanda took a quick step sideways, away from where Fraser's gaze was fixed, and thus away from his father. She eyed the space next to her mistrustfully.
        "Disembodied spirit?" she asked, her voice a little higher than normal. "You mean, like a ghost?"
        Fraser nodded. "That's one word for it, yes. However, being one yourself, there's really no reason for you to be alarmed. Even if you weren't dead, Dad wouldn't bother you. He only bothers me."
        "She's not dead," his father said.
        "I'm not dead," Amanda said, on about a two-second delay.
        Fraser grimaced. "Will you two stop that? Or at least synch it up."
        Amanda and his father looked at each other, or at least it seemed to Fraser that they were, though he realized that only one of them could actually be doing so. Amanda's gaze moved back to Fraser.
        "So, what you're telling me is that your father's ghost is standing there," she pointed vaguely toward his father. "And he's talking to you? About me?"
        Fraser nodded.
        "Oh." She considered that a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I've certainly heard of weirder things. If you're used to seeing ghosts it would certainly explain why you didn't react more to my reappearance. So, you think I'm dead, and a ghost too, right?"
        He nodded again. His father made a disgusted noise, shaking his head.
        "I tell you son, she's definitely not dead. I think I can be considered a bit of an expert on that, and I assure you I know the difference."
        Amanda moved closer to Fraser, smiling that frighteningly sensual smile of hers. "I'm not dead."
        Fraser swayed backward a little, but decided it would be ungentlemanly to actually take a step back. Strange. He was imagining he could feel body heat. He tried reasoning with her.
        "Amanda, I know you're dead. You were shot through the heart at relatively close range with a Sig-Sauer nine millimeter automatic pistol using a mercury-filled hollow-point bullet. I saw you die. I saw you in the morgue. Mort even said you were dead, and as a pathologist one assumes that he would know."
        "Mort needs to have his eyes examined," his father said disgustedly. "So do you."
        "Dad, please!" Fraser exclaimed, exasperated.
        Amanda moved closer still, bringing her body up against his. Odd, he hadn't thought a ghost would have any substance. His father never did. Maybe it was because Amanda was 'fresher.' Speaking of fresh, how did she manage to smell like, well, like an odd combination of soap, and clothes that had been hanging too long in the back of a closet? He was having hallucinations. Olfactory ones.
        "I'm really not dead, Ben," she said huskily. "Could a dead person do this?"
        She put her arms around his neck, then went up on her toes to lift her mouth to his. Her lips were soft, and warm, and very, very nice. Without conscious thought, he found himself holding her, tilting his head a little to one side to deepen the kiss, his hands molding the slender line of her back.
        "Er, I'll just be going now . . ."
        He heard his father distantly, but didn't think much about it. It dawned on him after a little while that he was kissing a ghost. There was something abnormal about that. Of course, she really didn't feel like a ghost. Not at all. Her question echoed in his mind, 'Could a dead person do this?' He drew away from her, still tasting her on his tongue, trying to ignore the way her fingers felt in his hair and concentrate on the question.
        "To answer your earlier question, there is the myth of the succubus, but technically the succubus is considered a female demon, not a ghost."
        Amanda smiled. "I do love an educated man," she whispered. "Now where were we?"
        She flowed in against him, her body all curves and heat. Her mouth was warm, and soft as it found his again. He closed his eyes, cupping her head in his hand, absorbing the sensations she caused, feeling an unfamiliar heat expanding inside him. Suddenly realizing he was enjoying the feelings, and that his control was in danger of slipping, he pulled back, though slowly enough not to offend her. She put her head against his shoulder, rubbing her nose along the curve of his chest. "Mmm, you feel good, but you'd feel better without all this scratchy wool," she said, bringing her hands around front to unfasten his collar.
        Fraser caught her hands in his. "Wait. I don't understand. You're not dead."
        "You noticed!" she said, clearly amused.
        Fraser shook his head, completely confounded. "But . . . how? Amanda, I saw you die."
        She looked into his eyes, suddenly serious, and sighed. "I know you did. As for how, well, that's a very, very long story."
        "We have time, and despite appearances, I can be a good listener."
        Her smile flashed again, quick and bright. "Yes, I can tell." Her hands returned to his tunic, finding the first button, sliding it deftly from its hole. "But there are other things I'd rather do right now than talk."
        "Amanda," he said, gentle reproach in his voice.
        She let her hands fall, and stepped back with a sigh. "Oh, all right. Men," she said in disgusted tones. "Go figure. They're all over you unless you want them to be, then they won't even think about it."
        Amanda shivered as she moved away from the warmth of his body, and Fraser was instantly remorseful. He tended to forget that not everyone was as acclimated to the cold as he was, and she'd already said once that she was cold. He realized she'd probably been waiting for him outside for quite some time, without a coat, hat, or gloves. No wonder she was chilled. He looked around and decided the best course of action would be to get her into the warmest place in the apartment.
        "Why don't you get into bed while I make some tea? Dief, get down and let Amanda have the bed." Assuming both she and the wolf would do as he suggested, Fraser turned, reaching for the teakettle to fill it.

* * *

        Bed? Amanda brightened at the Mountie's suggestion. That sounded promising. Actually the tea sounded pretty good, too, she was still freezing. As Fraser worked in the tiny kitchenette, she turned and after a moment realized that the bed was pretty much the only furniture in the apartment other than a couple of crates, and the kitchen table and chairs. Really, the place gave new meaning to the word 'Spartan.' How could a person live like this, without the simple necessities of life? Clearly he just didn't feel the need for much in the way of possessions. The prospect of 'bed' seemed a trifle less promising with that realization. It was entirely possible that he'd suggested bed simply because it was the most comfortable place to sit. Still, it was a start. She could work with it.
        Standing beside the narrow bed, Amanda untied the drawstring that held up her stolen jeans and immediately they slid off, pooling around her ankles. Fraser was ostentatiously not watching her. She smiled. It might get wearing after a while, but at the moment, she was enjoying the novelty of his attitudes. Ben was a throwback to a time that had never really existed. After stepping out of both the jeans and her shoes, she caught the hem of her thin jersey turtleneck in her hands and started to tug it upward, then stopped, shooting a glance at Ben's red-clad back, and thought better of it. Better not rush things. Instead she picked up her jeans and in deference to her host's compulsive neatness, folded them and placed them with her shoes on the floor beside the bed before turning back the covers and sliding beneath them.
        There was a warm spot where Diefenbaker had lain. It felt good. She huddled under the thick, wool blanket on the bed-- a Hudon's Bay, of course, what else would one expect from a Mountie? Shivering, she lay back, and watched Fraser in the kitchen, wondering a little wistfully what it would be like to have someone do this sort of thing for her all the time. Of course, he was used to doing things for himself. It was clearly just him, and the wolf here, and maybe occasionally Ray. Yawning, she looked down at Dief lying on the floor, gazing at her with a slightly reproachful air as if to question her presence in Fraser's bed. Grinning, she reached down to ruffle his thick fur.
        "Don't worry, Dief," she whispered. "I'm just borrowing him. I'll give him back, I promise."
        Amanda had almost dozed off when someone's presence next to the bed brought her back to full alertness. She looked over to see Fraser crouched beside the bed, regarding her with that intent, solemn gaze that she'd come to realize was his trademark. In his hands he held a steaming mug of tea. Sitting up, she took it from him, cupping her own hands around it, inhaling the fragrance. The liquid in the cup looked oddly cloudy but she knew he wouldn't offer her anything harmful. Sipping the steaming tea, she discovered it was both sweet and milky. Her eyebrows lifted as she gazed over the cup at Fraser. She hadn't figured him for the milk and sugar type.
        "My grandmother always said it was the best way to warm up," Fraser explained, apparently having read her mind. "The sugar and caffeine stimulate the metabolism while the milk keeps it from being purely empty calories."
        "How do you do that?" she asked, truly curious. Sometimes she was sure the man was telepathic.
        "Do what?" he asked, gazing at her blankly.
        "Never mind." Sliding over to make room, she patted the bed next to her. "So, come sit and I'll tell you my long, long story."
        Fraser regarded the empty spot dubiously. "I'm quite comfortable here, thank you."
        She sighed. "Come on, I don't bite, much. And I'll behave, okay? But first you have to go change."
        Again he resisted. "I'm fine like this."
        Amanda gave him a look. "Ben, if I wasn't here, what would have been the first thing you did when you got home?"
        He was caught. Innately truthful, he wouldn't lie to her. "I would have changed out of my uniform," he admitted reluctantly.
        "I thought as much. So, go change. I promise I won't peek."
        He looked as if he were going to argue until she held up a finger and shook it at him, at which point he finally he gave in. Amanda drank her tea and pretended not to notice when he ducked into the closet. A few minutes later he emerged, looking marginally less prim in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt with a thermal undershirt beneath it. Figuring he'd been wearing that all along, she realized why he wasn't cold, too. Then she noticed that he was also wearing shoes. Sneakers, to be sure, but shoes.
        "Benton Fraser, would your grandmother have approved of you putting your feet on the bed with your shoes on?" Amanda asked, shaking her head in theatrical amazement.
        "Ah, no," Fraser admitted sheepishly, toeing them off as he gingerly sat down next to her, bolt upright, on top of the covers.
        Amanda smiled. If this man wasn't a virgin, he was 'as close to it as made no never mind.' It was kind of sweet, actually. She might just have to behave herself. It would be difficult, but some things you just had to leave in their natural state. Then again, no one ever said virginity was a natural state for a man. She sipped her tea, and stared across the room at the outline of a bricked-up fireplace. Too bad it had been filled in, fire would have been nice. After a few moments of silence, she finally decided it was time.
        "Ben, how old do you think I am?"
        Fraser regarded her with the trapped terror of a rabbit facing a lion. "Er . . . how old?" he asked nervously, and she realized at once what was wrong. Clearly he'd experienced the usual outcome of accurately guessing a woman's age.
        She smiled. "It's all right, I promise you won't offend me. Go on, how old am I? Be honest."
        The fear left his face and he studied her intently. "Thirty two?" he hazarded after a moment. "From your skin I would have guessed younger, but some of the things you've said lead me to believe you must be older than you appear."
        Amanda laughed. "There's the understatement of the year! Thirty two? That's very nice of you, Ben, but actually, you'd about have to multiply that by itself to even be in the ball-park."
        Fraser calculated, and his gaze narrowed. "Impossible."
        "Not impossible."
        "You can't be over a thousand years old. It's impossible."
        "Ben," Amanda said, looking into his eyes, her own gaze steady and serious. "I am. I swear to you. Remember how I was dead?"
        He thought about that, and nodded. "Yes, you were. But you're not." He looked hopelessly baffled.
        She nodded. "That's right. I was before, but now I'm not. You see, I can die, but I just don't stay dead very long. I don't know why, myself, but I don't."
        His gaze took on a hint of pity. "Amanda, you don't really believe that, do you?"
        For a moment she started to get offended, then she shrugged it off. She'd hoped he would believe her since he seemed willing to accept the most extraordinary things. But apparently this was too much. She was going to have to show him. Damn, she hated that. It was painful, messy, and a real bitch. She slid out of bed, bent over and picked up her jeans, removing the hunting knife she'd lifted off him when she'd kissed him earlier. All she'd been thinking of at the time was making sure she wasn't completely unarmed when she left his apartment, but now . . . unsheathing the blade she looked at it and sighed deeply.
        Fraser rolled off the bed, his expression focused, and a little fearful. "Amanda, I think you should give me that," he said coaxingly, holding out his hands.
        She looked at him steadily. "Promise me something. Don't call the cops, or the paramedics, or the fire department, or a doctor. No one. Not a soul. Don't do anything for me, either. You have to just leave me alone."
        He nodded encouragingly. "Of course. Whatever you want. Now, give me the knife."
        "You can have it in a minute," she said, and turned it inward, driving it up with a short, hard push. She gasped and whimpered as pain flowered around it, barely biting back a scream. The knife fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, and then darkness descended.

* * *

        Fraser caught Amanda before she hit the floor and eased her down carefully. Diefenbaker had sprung to his feet and was whining anxiously as Fraser grabbed the pillowcase off his pillow and wadded it into a pad, placing it over gaping wound just below her sternum and applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding. Reaching up he put his fingers on her throat to feel for a pulse, but found none.
        Abandoning the attempt to stanch the blood, he yanked her shirt out of the way and moved into place to begin CPR, until he realized that the compressions could damage her torn heart even further. As he tried to decide what to do, he noticed that her bleeding had stopped on its own. That, more than anything told him she was gone. Without a heartbeat, there was nothing to keep the blood flowing. She was dead.
        Firmly reminding himself that he never panicked, Ben slid an arm beneath her legs, another beneath her back. He would take her out to the street so he could flag down a car and get her to a hospital. Then he remembered his promise. Don't call anyone. Don't do anything. Just leave her alone. How could he have promised anything so stupid?
        He almost decided that since she was dead, he didn't have to keep his promise, but he knew better. That made it matter even more. Wait. . . he hadn't promised he wouldn't call Ray! Ray would know what to do, how to help. For a moment Fraser seized on that, the thought 'call Ray' playing like a tape loop in his mind. Ray hadn't promised not to call anyone. Sure, that would sort of be cheating, but in a good cause.
        Slowly he settled Amanda's still form back to the floor, and sat back. His hands were shaking. In fact, his whole body was shaking. She was dead. Why? Why had she done it? How had she done it? More to the point, why hadn't he stopped her? He still couldn't believe it. He'd been so sure no one could possibly kill themselves in such a manner, it just wasn't possible to do that kind of damage to oneself, but clearly, she had. He'd underestimated her strength, and the power of her delusion. Dead. Again.
        He'd liked her, a lot. He hadn't known her long, but there was something about her that was as real, and decent as Ray was. Sometimes, with some people, an honest facade hid a core of deceit. With Ray and Amanda, it was just the opposite. They both had a liar's face they showed the world, but beneath that lurked a clear and honest soul. And she'd called him Ben.
        She was the only person who'd called him that since his grandmother passed on. Not an impersonal 'Fraser,' or 'Benton,' like he was in trouble, or 'Benny,' like he was twelve. The only person he put up with that from was Ray. No, she'd used Ben. He'd liked that, and also the fact that she'd looked at him without the vacuous infatuation that so many women seemed to display around him, which made him feel somehow more object than person.
        Not Amanda, she'd treated him much as she'd treated Ray, as a man, not an object. Now she was dead. Twice. Wait. His brow furrowed slightly as he realized this was the second time today that he'd seen her corpse. He rubbed his forehead, realizing that he'd just left a streak of her blood across his face. He'd have to do something about that later. Right now he had to think about this. How could someone die twice in the same day? Who could he ask . . . ? A thought came to him, and he looked around hopefully.
        "Dad? You here?"
        Silence met his query, or as much silence as an apartment in the heart of Chicago ever afforded. Dimly he heard sirens and wondered if someone had called an ambulance, before realizing that was unlikely since he was the only person who knew what she'd done, and he didn't have a phone. His gaze skimmed the form on the floor, unwilling to really look, then he forced himself to do so. She was so pale, so limp, all the wonderful, flashing life of her gone, drained into a slowly spreading scarlet pool. Scarlet, like his uniform. Was that why the uniforms were red? So blood wouldn't show?
        She was unnaturally still, this woman who had been all motion and intensity. Even in death, she was lovely, small, but lushly curved, pale, completely unmarked save for the blood on her smooth skin. Smooth skin? Confused, he looked closer, and found no wound. He blinked, and gently touched her, finding her skin surprisingly warm. Beneath his fingers he felt a strange tingling sensation, almost electrically charged. While he knew that people often thought he was crazy, for the first time in his life he wondered if he really was. He knew damned well there had to be a wound there.
        Closing his eyes he used his other senses. Yes, the iron-and-copper scent of blood was strong in the air, he could almost taste it. His fingers searched her flesh, finding only softness, wholeness. Beneath his hand her ribs moved suddenly, strongly, and she gasped. His eyes flew open and he found himself looking into Amanda's dark, and very much living gaze. He nearly screamed. Dief let out a yelp and skittered away, eyeing her with caution. She put a hand on her midriff, where the wound had been just minutes earlier, her fingers grazing his hand where it still rested on her, frozen with shock.

* * *

         Amanda woke up with the awful rush of returning sensation that meant she had just rejoined the living. She found herself looking into Fraser's stunned gaze, and remembered. Oh yeah. She remembered.
        "God, I really hate that," she groaned. Levering herself up on her elbows, she looked down at herself and her eyebrows went up as she saw that her shirt was well above her breasts.
        A blush climbed his face and he snatched his hand away as if she were a flame. "I, ah, was trying to help."
        She smiled gently. "I know that, Ben."
        His expressive face revealed his every thought as if he had spoken aloud. He thought he was losing his mind. She could see it as clearly as she could see him.
        "You haven't lost your mind, Ben. I'm alive. I told you, I can't die. Something happens to me that looks like dying, and pretty much feels like it too, but it's temporary. I always come back."
        Fraser stared at her mutely, trying desperately to make sense of things. She knew it was rather a lot to ask, on top of a lip-reading wolf, a dead but apparently still-present father, a best friend with questionable morals, and a host of other oddities. With a grimace, she sat up and carefully removed her blood-soaked shirt, using it to wipe up the blood that remained from her 'suicide. Leaving him to think, she went to the sink to rinse the shirt out and clean herself off. As she stood there, someone knocked on his door and poor Ben almost jumped out of his skin for the second time in ten minutes. Amanda looked toward the sound, irritated.
        "Ignore it."
        He seemed ready to comply when whoever it was knocked again.
        "Hey, Benny, you in there?"
        It was Vecchio. Amanda saw Fraser's gaze fill with relief and pleasure, and a hint of suspicion flowered inside her.
        "Ray's here," Fraser said unnecessarily.
        Again, she could practically read Ben's mind in his expressions. He was thinking that Ray would know what to do, Ray would help him, and reassure him that he wasn't crazy. He was on his feet and moving before she could ask him not to, but as he reached the door, he suddenly stopped, as if realizing that Amanda might not want all and sundry to know about her secret.
        He looked back at her, his question unspoken, but clear. She thought about it, and slowly nodded permission. She knew she could trust Ben, and she was pretty sure she could trust Ray, too. Being basically untrustworthy herself, she'd learned to read that flaw in others quite well. Outside the door, Ray banged again as she mentally prepared to let another person in on her secret.
        "Fraser, I can see light under the door and I know you're in there. Open up!" Vecchio demanded.
        Fraser opened the door a little, blocking it with his body. Ray stood there with a pizza in one hand and a six-pack of soft-drinks in the other.
        "Hello, Ray, what brings you here?" He asked, somewhat stupidly.
        Ray's gaze searched his face worriedly. "I was at the pizza place when I had this weird feeling that something was wrong, that you need . . ." His gaze fixed on Fraser's forehead and his gaze narrowed. "You're bleeding!"
        Fraser touched his forehead, looking puzzled. Ray dropped the pizza and the drinks with a loud crash and grabbed Ben's hands, holding them up to the light. Amanda realized Ben still had her blood on his hands. A lot of it. Frankly he rather looked like he'd killed someone.
         "Benny, what's going on? What happened?" Ray asked anxiously, trying to see past him into the apartment.
        "It's difficult to explain, Ray, why don't you come in?" Fraser said as he stepped back from the door and let his friend inside.
        Ray leaned down to pick up the pizza and drinks, then stepped inside. Benny closed the door behind him, and the lanky detective stopped, frozen in place as he took in Amanda standing next to the sink wearing only her panties. His gray-green eyes darkened with something she could only call hurt, and that suspicion she'd just had blossomed into full fledged knowledge, puzzle pieces falling firmly into place. She waited expectantly, and sure enough, the hurt in his gaze faded as utter disbelief replaced it. The pizza and drinks hit the floor again. It would be hours before the cans would be safe to open.
        "What the hell?" Vecchio barked. "But . . . how can she be here? She's dead!"
        "So I believed, also, Ray," Ben said quietly, and Amanda heard the relief in his voice as he realized that Vecchio could indeed see her as well, proving that he hadn't lost his mind.
        Ray's gaze swept her, momentarily lingering on her secondary sexual characteristics like he usually did. Another puzzle piece clicked in. Okay. Things weren't quite as simple as they seemed. Of course, they never were. Poor Ray, poor Ben. She'd bet money that neither of them had a clue. It happened like that sometimes. She decided that maybe she ought to put on some clothes, at least for the moment. All kinds of ideas were percolating in her mind, but there was a lot of talking that was going to happen now, and it was cold in the apartment. She picked up her jeans and put them on, then looked at Ben.
        "Ben, can I borrow a shirt?"
        "Certainly," he said, putting the food on the counter so he could remove his flannel shirt and hold it out to her.
        She pulled it on, feeling his warmth surround her, and sighed. It would have been nice. It really would have been. She shot a glance at Ray, and hid a smile. Of course, it could still be. After all, they did practically everything together . . . oh, bad girl. Stop that. Be serious.
        "So," she said. "I imagine you want to know how I came to be alive."
        "Oh, yeah, that'd be a good start," Vecchio said sarcastically. "And a few hundred other things when you get done with that. "
        "Fair enough," she said evenly. She couldn't blame him, really. She'd almost gotten both him and Ben killed, he had a right to be a little testy.
        "May I make a request?" Ben said hesitantly.
        Amanda and Ray both looked at him curiously. "Yes?"
        "I would ask that you find some, ah, less drastic means of convincing Ray of your veracity."
        Amanda smiled. "Don't worry, three times in one day would be too much even for me. Besides, I won't have to. He'll believe you."
        "Believe what?" Ray demanded.
        "That I'm immortal. I can't die."
        Ray snorted. "Yeah, right."
        "It's true, Ray, she really doesn't stay dead."
        "Nice try, Benny. Now pull the other one."
        Ben held up his hands. "I assure you, I witnessed the phenomenon myself. She killed herself right in front of me and now she's alive again. That's where all this blood came from."
        Ray snorted derisively. "Yeah, right. It's probably stage blood or something. I bet if tasted it, I'd find out it tastes sweet and kind of minty."
        "Very well." Fraser extended a hand toward Vecchio, one eyebrow lifted expectantly.
        Vecchio looked disgusted. "Geez, Benny! You don't really expect me to do that, do you? Licking stuff is your thing."
        "It was your idea, Ray," Ben pointed out reasonably.
        "I wasn't serious!"
        "Perhaps you should be. It is a useful investigative technique."
        "You really want I should lick your hand?" Ray demanded, clearly astonished.
        "Yes, Ray, I do."
        They stared at each other for a long moment, then Ray rolled his eyes and grabbed Fraser's hand. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he said, and licked Ben's palm.
        Amanda saw a faint tremor go through Fraser. Vecchio didn't notice, he was too busy gagging melodramatically.
        "Augh, that's horrible! It tastes like . . . it tastes like . . ."
        "Blood?" Ben supplied, deadpan. Amanda was starting to realize that he really did have a sense of humor, it was just wickedly dry.
        "Yeah." Vecchio admitted reluctantly. "But still, it could be cow's blood, and she could be, like, Amanda's twin sister or something."
        "Remember the photo from Interpol? The woman who 'died' thirteen years ago? Remember how surprised we were by the resemblance?"
        Vecchio nodded. "Yeah, but the picture could have been doctored."
        Amanda sighed. Ordinarily she wouldn't bother, but she knew it was important to Ben that Ray believe her. She opened a drawer and pulled out a kitchen knife. Fraser's face went white.
        "Amanda, please. . ." he said, starting toward her.
        "Relax, Ben. It's just going to be a little demonstration. Nothing dramatic, I promise."
        He stopped and nodded, still looking worried.
        "Ray, come over here please."
        Ray complied, warily. "You gonna stick me with that?"
        "No, you're gonna stick me with it," she parroted, reversing the knife to hand it to him handle-first. He took it, gingerly. "But just a little bit. I've already died twice today and I'm really not up for a third time. Here," she held out a hand. "Just cut me across the palm."
        Ray looked at Ben, eyebrows lifted. Ben nodded. "It's all right, Ray. Go ahead."
        Dubiously Ray put the blade against her skin, then stopped and looked into her eyes for permission. She nodded, and with a quick, sharp movement he sliced her palm open. The wound was neither deep nor serious, but it hurt and she drew a breath over her teeth in a sharp hiss as she continued to hold her hand steady, where he could see it clearly. After a moment a tiny flicker of sparks danced along the edges of the wound as it closed itself neatly and faded away without a trace.
        "Whoa!" Vecchio exclaimed. "Okay, I'm impressed." He was silent for awhile, absorbing the realization that both Fraser and Amanda were serious, and not lying to him. Finally he shrugged as if to say 'I give up' and looked at Amanda. "You better not have any communicable diseases, since I was licking your blood off Benny there."
        "A small advantage to immortality–" Amanda said archly. "Full spectrum immunity, and I can't be a carrier, either. Germs just don't like me. There's lots of things that are different for us. We don't age, we don't get diseases, we can't have kids . . ." She stopped abruptly, biting her lip. They didn't need to know that. She hadn't thought it bothered her so much but if it was slipping out like that, it must. "Well, anyway, you get the picture," she finished brightly.
        Ray nodded, thought for a bit more, then looked back at her. "So, how'd you get to be immortal? Somebody bite you?"
        Amanda laughed. "No, Ray, that's vampires. Actually I was just born this way. Of course, I didn't know it until the first time I died, during the Black Death."
        Ray did a double-take. "The Black Death? Wasn't that, like, a really long time ago?"
        "You could say that."
        He thought about that, looked at her, and shook his head. "You know, for an older woman you're in really great shape."
        Amanda couldn't decide whether to smack him one or laugh, so she just shook her head instead. "Thanks, I think."
        "So, that's why you threw yourself in front of Benny today. You wanted to make sure he didn't get hurt, and you knew a bullet wouldn't do any permanent damage to you, right?"
        "Right, but I was still taking a chance. DeBoer knows what I am. If you hadn't taken him out for me I'd probably be dead for real."
        Ben looked confused. "I thought you said you couldn't die."
        "Well, there is one way to kill me that would result in a very permanent death, but I'd really rather not say what it is. No offense."
        Fraser nodded. "Understood," he paused, then frowned. "Might it have something to do with swords?"
        Amanda sighed. It figured he'd guessed that. "Yes, Ben, it does."
        Vecchio was looking at her speculatively. "So, if this DeBoer guy knows what you are how come he hasn't had you grabbed and hauled off to some lab to find out what makes you tick? He's got the bucks. I would think a rich guy like that would definitely want to know."
        "He doesn't need to. He's like me."
        Ray scowled. "Oh great! There are more of you?"
        "Quite a few, actually."
        "Some people have all the luck," Vecchio said, clearly annoyed.
        Amanda stared past him at the night outside Fraser's open window. "No, Ray. It's not lucky at all," she said, knowing he wouldn't understand.
        "It would be terrible knowing that you will almost always outlive all the people you care about," Ben said quietly, cutting right to the heart of things with a glance at Ray that told her he understood all too well.
        "That's exactly it, Ben. Exactly," Amanda said, grateful that for once someone understood, quickly, and instinctively. "It's horrible."
        Even Ray seemed to understand that, he nodded solemnly. "That would pretty much suck. But I thought you said there are others like you. Can't you just hang out with them?"
        Amanda sighed. "It's . . . complicated. Sometimes you can, I do have a couple of friends I can do that with. Unfortunately most of the time it's impossible."
        "I understand," Ben said. "Just because you have something in common with someone doesn't mean you can be friends with them. For instance, Constable Turnbull and I are both Canadians and officers of the RCMP, however I don't consider myself to be his friend."
        Vecchio chuckled. "Proving once and for all that you're not as dense as you sometimes act."
        Fraser shot a wry glare at his friend, and Amanda smiled. Sometimes he reminded her of. . . who? It was on the tip of her mind, but just out of reach. All she knew was that it was someone she liked very much. Someone she missed, terribly.
        "Speaking of Turnbull, did you ever give him that sign?" Vecchio asked innocently.
        Fraser looked puzzled. "What sign, Ray?"
        "The one I made for you. The one that says 'I'm mentally deficient.'"
        A corner of Ben's mouth twitched infinitesimally as he controlled a laugh. "No, Ray. I saw no reason to hurt his feelings."
        Vecchio sighed. "You're too nice, Ben."
        Ben shrugged, and again she felt that tug of familiarity. Who was it he reminded her of? Damn it, it had to be someone . . . Her eyes widened as it hit her. Rebecca. Benton Fraser reminded her of Rebecca. That stainless sense of honor and duty, the strange combination of wisdom and deliberate naivete. The resemblance didn't stop there, either. Fraser had Vecchio, just as Rebecca had once had her. The dichotomy of good and bad, the innocent and the ambiguous. Ray and Ben were herself, and Becca. Oh, god, Becca. She felt her eyes fill with tears and turned away to hide that from them.
        "Hey, wait a second," Vecchio said suddenly. "Does this mean he's walking around somewhere now like you are?"
        Amanda took a deep breath, controlled her tears, and turned back. "Yes. That's why I wanted to make sure you and Ben were okay."
        "Oh, great!" Ray said sarcastically. "Two dead people walkin' around Chicago. Just what we need."
        "Do I look dead to you, Ray?"
        "You know what I meant," The detective snapped. "And he still wants his egg back, and he still wants to kill me and Benny, and you."
        "Quite likely," Amanda confirmed.
        Ray leaned against the wall and gently banged his head against it. "Wonderful. A dead guy wants to kill me. That really makes my day. What did I ever do to him?"
        "Well, Ray, you did kill him," Fraser pointed out evenly. "People don't generally take very kindly to that."
        "He tried to kill you first!" Vecchio exclaimed. "And he did kill her! What was I supposed to do, ignore that?"
        "Of course not, Ray, that was against the law which, as a police officer, you are sworn to uphold. But you could have just -- winged him."
        Ray stared at Fraser, shaking his head. "I will never understand you if I live to be a thousand. The man tried to kill you, and you want me to just 'wing' him?" He shot a glance at Amanda. "You're old, do you understand him?"
        Amanda looked at Ben and smiled. "I think I might, a little. Ben is one of those rare individuals who wears their virtue like a shield. It protects him." She grinned then. "Unfortunately for most of us, that doesn't work for beans."
        "Personally, I prefer something a little more substantial, like a gun, or a bulletproof vest, or a dead perp," Ray said drily.
        "Me too," Amanda said fervently. "Ben, that uniform of yours doesn't come with a dress sword for an accessory, does it?"
        Fraser looked at her, frowning. "No, why?"
        She sighed and shook her head. "Nothing, never mind." Her stomach cramped painfully, reminding her that she hadn't eaten very much all day, and that two resuscitations had taken a lot of energy. She looked hopefully toward the counter. "I don't suppose that pizza is still any good after being dropped?"
        Ray laughed. "Only one way to find out."

* * *

        "Okay," Ray said, settling down with a slice of slightly scrambled pizza. "So let me get this straight. You're telling me that Fraser was right? You stole the egg so you could ransom it back to DeBoer and then give the money to charity to get back at him for running a uranium mine that cost a couple of kids their parents?"
        Amanda looked embarrassed. "Well, yeah. But don't tell anyone, okay?"
        Ray shook his head, looking at Fraser. "I don't know how you do it."
        "Do what, Ray?"
        "Figure out stuff like that without the slightest clue at all."
        "Actually, there were clues. The theft of a single object out of all the valuable items at the exhibit was one. The newsletter and the notes another."
        "Two clues, then. And from that you deduce the whole shebang? I'm telling you Fraser, you're a freak of nature."
        "No, he's not!" Amanda said, jumping to his defense. "He's just very observant." She looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, Ben, Sir Arthur would have loved you."
        "Sir Arthur?" Benny asked, puzzled.
        "Conan Doyle."
        "Who?" Vecchio asked. The name sounded vaguely familiar but he wasn't making the connection.
        "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," Fraser supplied. "The creator of Sherlock Holmes. I'm flattered, Ms. Darieaux."
        Amanda sighed. "Please, Ben. It's Amanda. I really don't have much use for last names, since I don't tend to keep them for very long. And I was not flattering you, Artie really would have loved you. You'd have been validation that his theories could actually work in practice. You've turned the art of observation into a science."
        Vecchio stared at her. "Wait, are you saying that you knew this guy?"
        "Yes, actually, I did. He was very sweet. Remember his 'Irene Adler' character? He modeled her on me."
        Fraser smiled. "I can understand that."
        "Even fictional detectives have to have a love interest," Amanda said, nibbling her slice of pizza, and capturing a stray strand of melted cheese with tongue action that made Ray sit up and take notice.
        "Technically Miss Adler was not a love interest," Fraser said, oblivious. "Although, as Dr. Watson put it, 'In his eyes she eclipsed and predominated the whole of her sex.'"
        "She was a love interest, believe me. Artie just couldn't write that back in the 1800's." Amanda said archly.
        "I believe that Sir Arthur, and the character himself, both disavowed that speculation," Fraser said, a little apologetically.
        Amanda shrugged. "Well, Artie's wife didn't much care for me."
        "All of his biographers agree that he was devoted to his wife, and quite devastated when she died," Fraser pointed out in response to her implication.
        Amanda glared at him. "Who's telling this story?"
        Before Fraser could reply, desperately wanting to distract them from their discussion of literary theory, Ray tried changing the subject.
        "Okay, back to present day, DeBoer's probably out running around looking for you now, so he can off you permanently?"
        Amanda looked nearly as relieved by the topic shift as Ray felt. "Yes, in all likelihood. And not just me. He'll be after you two, as well. He's not a man who takes interference well, and he has little regard for mortals."
        "'Mortals'?" Ray asked, startled.
        "Yes, you know, people who die and stay dead the first time."
        "So that would make you what, immortal?"
        "Well, sort of. More so than most."
        "This is too weird," Ray said, grabbing another slice of pizza. "Too damned weird. But I guess that means we need to watch our backs until we can find this guy, right?"
        Amanda nodded, her expression serious. "Yes, you will. But you don't need to find him, I'll take care of that. You don't need to be involved."
        "We're already involved," Fraser said solemnly. "And you're vulnerable. DeBoer is taller than you by several inches, and proportionately strong. His height means his reach is greater than yours to begin with, and he carried a longer weapon. If as I surmise, you must defend yourself with and against a sword, you are at a disadvantage."
        Amanda bounced to her feet, arms akimbo. "Listen mister, I've been fighting my own battles since before the printing press was a gleam in Gutenberg's eye, so don't you go impugning my abilities!"
        Fraser managed to look simultaneously stunned and apologetic. "I'm very sorry, I meant no insult," he said sincerely. "I was merely stating a fact. I'm sure you must be an excellent swordsman."
        "You better believe it," Amanda said, then she sighed. "Unfortunately you guys confiscated my sword. And it was my favorite, too! The only saving grace is that his got taken, too. However, he's probably got some goon whose job it is to keep him supplied with a weapon, and I don't."
        Fraser looked thoughtful, then stood up. "Excuse me, I'll be back in a moment," he said, and was out the door before either Ray or Amanda could ask where he was going.
        "I have no idea," Ray said in response to Amanda's lifted eyebrows. "He does that now and then. I've just learned to live with it."
        Amanda grinned. "I understand. He's quite . . . unique, isn't he? It's got to be hard living up to his standards."
        "You know it," Ray said fervently. "Heck, I've even stopped lying. Well, mostly. To him, anyway."
        "I have a friend like that. He's a terrible influence on me."
        Ray chuckled. "Sucks, don't it?"
        "Rocks." Amanda concurred.
        They both looked up as the door opened, and Fraser returned to the apartment, bearing what was unmistakably a sword. A bright yellow tassel dangled from its hilt.
        "Ooh, a Union cavalry saber!" Amanda exclaimed excitedly, examining the weapon. "Very nice! It's even in decent shape, though it's dull as a butter knife."
        "Where the heck did that come from?" Ray demanded, dumbfounded.
        "Mr. Grant in 2-E. He believes he can trace his family back to a second cousin of Ulysses S. Grant and is quite proud of the fact. He collects Civil War memorabilia."
        Ray shook his head in amazement. "Only you would know that."
        "Actually, since Mr. Grant likes to put on his Civil War regalia and drill in front of the building on Memorial day, most of the neighborhood knows it."
        "Well, you're the only one who would remember it in a useful context, then."
        "Now that is quite possible," Fraser admitted, looking a little embarrassed.
        Amanda removed the ornamental tassel from the sword's hilt, and did a couple of experimental thrusts-and-parries. "This has nice balance," she commented. "Thanks! Got a whetstone and some oil?"
        "As a matter of fact, yes," Fraser answered, retrieving the items in question from a cupboard in the kitchen.
        "I figured you would," Amanda said. "Your knife was nice and sharp. Hardly even hurt when I killed myself." She took the implements from him and sat down, setting to work on the time-dulled edge of the blade, oblivious to how odd her words sounded.
        Ray looked from Amanda to Fraser, and back. "I hope no one is recording this conversation," he said, shaking his head. "So, what are we going to do?"
        "Nothing at the moment," Amanda said without looking up. "I'm too tired to be out hunting him tonight. I've died twice today, I need some recuperation time, and some sleep. Once I get this sharpened I'm going back to my hotel room."
        "Ah, no, you're not," Ray said. "We notified the hotel that you were dead, and took all your stuff in as evidence."
        Amanda dropped the whetstone and looked up, aghast. "You did what?!" she asked, her voice rising ominously. "My Valentino? My Vera Wang? My Ellen Tracy? Tell me you didn't!"
        Fraser looked puzzled, but Ray winced. He might be a man, but he had sisters. He knew she was talking clothes. Expensive clothes.
        "Well, we did think you were dead," he said apologetically. "And dead people don't usually need clothes or hotel rooms. We could try to get your stuff back from the evidence room for you, tomorrow."
        Amanda sighed longsufferingly. "No, I don't want you guys to get in any trouble if someone catches you. I'll just have to buy new things." She brightened a little. "And I have a good excuse to shop, now."
         She went back to sharpening the sword, and Ray took a few moments to finish off two more pieces of pizza.
        "Why swords?" Fraser asked.
        Amanda replied without looking up. "It's just this thing we do. I can't really explain it. It's traditional."
        "A ritual?" Fraser asked.
        "Sort of. There are rules."
        "That's why he said he couldn't harm you in the church?"
        "Yup. Holy Ground is definitely off-limits. Any religion or denomination."
        "I see," Fraser mused. "I don't suppose you would . . ."
        "No." Amanda said, cutting him off. "I'm not going to tell you any more. You already know a lot more than you should. I'm relying on you two to keep this to yourselves."
        "Of course," Fraser said.
        Amanda looked at Ray, who stared back in amazement.
        "Tell? Tell? You think I'm going to tell this to anyone? Like they'd believe me! You think I wanna get fitted for a strait-jacket? Been there, done that, have no interest in doing it again. Tell someone? Sheesh!"
        "Thanks." Amanda said drily and put down the sword, looking around. "Bathroom?"
        "Down the hall fourth door on the left." Ben answered.
        "Down the . . . you mean, out there?" She pointed at the apartment door, eyebrows raised.
        Ray nodded. "Yep. Out there."
        Amanda shot a disbelieving look at Fraser, and shook her head. "Not much for creature comforts, is he?" she asked, then stood up. "Excuse me, gentlemen, I'll be right back."
        They nodded, and she left. After a moment, Ray looked at Fraser, frowning slightly. "Benny, I gotta ask you something. I mean, she's a thief, why are you helping her? Isn't that, like, against your moral code or something?"
Ben sighed, looking at the floor between his feet for a moment before lifting troubled eyes to meet Ray's gaze. "Yes, Ray, it is. But once before I took the moral high-ground on a similar issue, and have regretted it ever since. I suppose, when I weigh the moral culpability of what Amanda did, versus what DeBoer has done, the scales tip in her favor."
        Ray nodded as he realized what, or rather, who, Fraser was talking about. Victoria. If he'd let Victoria go that first time, instead of sending her to prison, a whole tragic chain of events might have been avoided. He nodded. "Yeah. It might have been better. And you're right about those scales. Okay. I understand now. But when you came back in here with that sword, I wondered for a minute if you were a pod-person."
        "A 'pod-person'?" Fraser asked blankly.
        "Never mind. So what are we going to do about this situation? I mean, it's not like we can put out an APB on a dead guy."
        "Very true, although . . ."
        Whatever Fraser had been about to say went was cut off by Ray's phone ringing. He pulled it out and switched it on. "Yeah, Vecchio."
        "It's Welsh," said a familiar voice. "We got a little problem here."
        "Such as?" Ray prompted.
        "Such as two missing bodies."
        "What?" Ray exclaimed in exaggerated surprise. "Whose bodies?"
        "The two corpses from the shooting at St. Benedict's this afternoon. They've both disappeared."
        He'd been expecting this. "Impossible. How can two bodies disappear? They couldn't have just gotten up and walked out, right sir?" Ray asked with a broad wink at Fraser who was watching curiously.
        "Nobody knows. Morton got called out of the morgue for about an hour, and when he got back he saw the man was missing. While he was looking for him, he discovered the woman was gone too. We've looked all over the station. I hate to ask you this, but did you and the Mountie put them somewhere?"
        "Oh right! Like we're grave-robbers now?" Ray exclaimed indignantly. "That's disgusting! I can't believe you asked me that!"
        "Sorry, Vecchio, but it was your shoot, and you have to admit, sometimes the Mountie has some peculiar ways of solving a case."
        "Not that peculiar! Geez! You know, sir, he'd be very hurt if he knew you thought he might be involved."
        Fraser lifted his eyebrows, and Ray shook his head. No point in making things worse.
        "You're right, Vecchio. I'm just at a loss here, clutching at straws, as it were."
        As it were? Sometimes Ray thought Welsh talked as weird as the Mountie. "So you want I should come back down or something?"
        "No, no, that's not necessary. I just hoped you might know something."
        "Well, I don't. Probably someone showed up from a mortuary to pick up bodies while Morton was out, and they didn't want to wait so they carted off the wrong ones."
        "I suppose there could have been a mixup like that," Welsh said doubtfully. "But it does look kind of bad. The shooting team won't be able to complete their report without the bodies."
        Damn. That did look bad. Ray hadn't thought of that.
        "There wasn't anything, ah, wrong with that shoot, was there?" Welsh asked in a troubled voice. "They wouldn't have found anything amiss?"
        Now Ray was offended. "No sir, there absolutely was not," he said flatly. "It went down exactly as I described in my report."
        "Yeah, I figured as much. You may be a little eccentric, but you're a good cop, Vecchio. Besides, Fraser's statement matched yours exactly, and he would never lie."
        Ray crossed his fingers. "No sir, never. Let me know if you find them, right?"
        "Right. Keep the phone on in case we need to contact you."
        "Yes, sir."
        Ray clicked off the phone and put it away with a sigh as the apartment door opened an Amanda returned. She looked from one of them to the other, and frowned.
        "What's wrong?"
        "Just got a call from the station," Vecchio said, talking to both of them. "Strangely enough, your body has turned up missing. So has DeBoer's."
        Amanda sighed. "I figured he'd be out by now. It takes longer to come back from a head wound, but not a lot. So, he's out there. Looking."
        "Yes."
        "Will he find us here?" she asked, looking at Fraser.
        Fraser thought about that. "How did you locate me?"
        "I got your address out of Vecchio's Rolodex."
        "You walked right into the office, looked through my stuff, and nobody noticed you?" Ray asked, simultaneously amused and appalled.
        "No one noticed me at all. I asked someone where your desk was, he didn't think twice about telling me."
        "Who was it?"
        "I'm sorry, I don't know. Older than you by a few years, tall, but beefy. He was wearing a white shirt and tie, and looked kind of harassed."
        "Welsh!" Vecchio exclaimed, shaking his head. "Oh man, I'd love to bust his chops about that. Too bad I can't. Oh well. So, if you thought to look there, would DeBoer have done the same?"
        "Probably not. I hid it when I was done with it, on the off chance he had the same idea. Oh, and by the way, it's in the file cabinet behind your desk. Even if he'd thought to try to look through your desk, he'd have been a lot more noticeable than I was. The only thing left in the morgue he could have found to wear were a bunch of scrubs. No, I bet he used the pathologist's phone to call someone to come get him. He has infrastructure. I don't."
        "Infrastructure?" Ray asked.
        "Employees who don't ask questions."
        "Ah, 'infrastructure.' I get it. Okay, so he probably didn't look up Fraser's address there. Is there anyplace else he could get it?" Ray asked, looking at Fraser. "You don't have a phone so he couldn't find you in a phone book."
        "The Consulate, perhaps, if he thought to check there. May I borrow your phone?"
        Ray handed it over and listened unashamedly to Fraser's half of the conversation.
        "Ah, Constable Turnbull, it's Benton Fraser. No, you're Turnbull, I'm Fraser. That's right. Yes." He paused a moment, looking as exasperated as he ever got. "No, that's quite all right, Turnbull, it was an understandable confusion. Now, has anyone called the consulate today asking for my address?"
        There was another pause, then Fraser spoke again. "Very good, Turnbull. If anyone does make such a request, I need for you to decline to give it out, politely of course. Yes, it does have to do with a case. No, I'm not under cover. No, I can't tell you what it is. Yes, yes, it's very important."
        Fraser actually rolled his eyes. Ray grinned. "Yes, thank you very much, Turnbull." He clicked off the phone handed it back to Ray with a sigh. "Honestly I have no idea how he ever passed the examinations necessary to obtain his position."
        Ray burst out laughing, and Amanda looked between them, curiously.
        "If you ever meet Constable Turnbull you'll understand," Ray said. "Somewhere there's a village that's missing its idiot."
        "I know the type," Amanda said. "So, we should be safe here?"
        Fraser thought about it, then turned to Ray. "While we are relatively safe here, I believe it would be advisable to send your sister and your mother away for the weekend. DeBoer could easily get your address, and that would put them at risk. Even if he didn't attempt to use them as leverage, one of them might inadvertently let slip our whereabouts, too."
        He had a point. Ray thought about his recently paid-off credit card and sighed. "Yeah. I'll call them. Uh, what should I tell them?"
        "The truth, Ray?"
        "That some cranky dead guy might come looking for me?"
        "Well, no. But it would be accurate to say that a known malefactor might be attempting to locate you and that you fear for their safety should they remain in the city."
        "Male-what? Oh never mind. I'll figure out something. So, looks like we're staying here tonight? Wonderful. I love sleeping on the floor."
        "As do I, Ray," Fraser said, looking pleased, totally missing the sarcasm in Ray's voice. "I have plenty of blankets, and my bedroll would serve for the three of us, provided we sleep crossways."
        Amanda looked intrigued by that suggestion. Ray didn't have the heart to tell her that what she was thinking was never, ever, going to happen.

* * *

        Amanda lay awake, enjoying the warm cocoon of blanket, Mountie, and cop. The only thing that would have made it better was if the Mountie, the cop, and herself, hadn't been fully clothed, but hey, one rarely got everything one wanted from life. It was certainly better than many alternatives she could think of. No, it just wasn't fated, not this time. There simply wasn't time to try to break these two out of their self-imposed blinders and show them what they were missing. Not when she had work to do.
        Besides, she could tell already that Ray would be a problem. After watching them interact, Amanda had come to the conclusion that Ben was quite aware of the potential between them. He just chose not to act on it out of deference to Ray, who had been raised in that time-honored macho tradition that held that a 'real man' would kill himself before he'd admit he might be attracted to another man. Sad, really. If he'd been more open-minded tonight might have gone a great deal differently. Unfortunately she seemed fated to fall for Scottish boy-scouts and their wise-ass best friends, who deep inside would rather boff each other than her. Whether or not they'd admit that to themselves.
        She couldn't see her watch and Ben didn't keep a clock handy, but she was pretty sure it was somewhere around two in the morning. Time to go hunting. She had a feeling she knew exactly where to find DeBoer. In the course of conversation earlier, she'd casually asked what had happened to the egg, and learned it was being held in the District 27 property room for safekeeping until the investigation was completed. Since DeBoer wasn't one to let go of something he considered to be his, he'd have gone after it. It would be tricky to do that close to a station full of cops, but somehow she would take him there and remove the lingering threat he posed to Ben and Ray. Carefully she eased her way out of the cop 'n' Mountie sandwich. Ben stirred sleepily, and she put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
        "Just going to use the bathroom, hon. It's okay. I'll be back in a bit."
        Her lie lulled him, and he relaxed again, slipping easily back into his dreams. Ray didn't even twitch. Amanda felt Diefenbaker watching her as she picked up Ray's trench-coat and removed his keys and phone from its pockets, placing them on the table next to his weapon before putting it on. Then she picked up her shoes, and the saber Ben had found for her. She made a mental note to make sure the weapon was returned to Mr. Grant. She wouldn't want Ben to be held responsible for it. Quietly she slipped out of the apartment, hid the sword beneath the coat, and made her way out onto the street. This was a mess of her making, and she wasn't going to let someone else clean it up like she had with Kalas. No, this one was all hers.

* * *

        Ray woke up slowly, aware in the dim glow from the lights outside the window that he was curled up against a warm body. That was unusual enough that he had to think about it, and remembered he was doing the slumber-party thing with Amanda and Fraser. Right. Okay, so that was explanation enough. He closed his eyes again, relaxing, enjoying the unaccustomed comfort of being so close to another human being. It had been awhile, although he wasn't about to admit that.
        He tried to drift back off, but after awhile he could tell he wasn't going to get back to sleep. He wondered what time it was, but was too comfortable to move and check his watch, besides, he might wake up the others if he did. It really was nice, lying like this, even though he was fully clothed, and the floor was kind of hard, and the apartment was cold. Beneath the heavy woolen blankets he was warm, and snuggled up against a really world-class backside. It had been waaay too long since the last time he'd felt that, too. He found himself thinking about that, probably a little more than he ought to.
        Judging by Amanda's slow, deep breathing, she was still soundly asleep. Ray couldn't help himself. He shifted one hand slightly until he could cup that denim-clad curve in his palm. If she woke up and objected, he could always plead that he'd been asleep and dreaming when he did it, and she wouldn't be able to refute that. She stirred a little in her sleep, but didn't wake. He grinned, inordinately pleased to have gotten away with it.
        Leaning forward he nuzzled the back of her neck where her short-cropped hair left it bare and vulnerable. She smelled good, a simple, clean, faintly soapy scent. That surprised him a little, he'd had her pegged for 'Joy', or maybe one of the Chanel's. Again, she responded to his touch with a little shiver, but didn't wake. Emboldened by his successes, he moved his hand forward, up beneath her shirt where it rode up a little, baring her midriff. Her skin felt like warm satin under his hand, though her abs were rather more firm than he'd expected. Obviously the lady worked out. Must be the fencing, or whatever you called whacking on people with swords.
        He was starting to get a little turned on, although he knew darned well that this wasn't going to go anywhere really interesting with Benny only inches away on her other side. Still, he couldn't help but enjoy the forbidden adolescent thrill of 'copping a feel.' Surreptitiously he attempted to ease his hand higher, only to be stopped by an arm in precisely the wrong position. Undaunted, he decided to try for a different destination. Very gently, he inched his hand downward again, this time beneath the loose waist of her jeans. He was momentarily startled to find that beneath the jeans she had on a pair of long-johns, until he remembered she was borrowing clothes from Benny and that he shouldn't be surprised she was wearing them, since the Mountie kept his place only marginally warmer than a refrigerator.
        Inching his fingers lower down the side of her smooth, flat abdomen, he finally came to the soft, wiry brush of pubic curls. Torturing himself, Ray curved his hand to cup her as low as he could, nuzzling her earlobe again as his fingers found . . . Ray froze as he registered that the world-class butt he'd been snuggled up against belonged to Benny, not Amanda. When his mind started working again, he realized that somebody must have moved during the night, since he distinctly remembered that Amanda had been between him and Ben when he'd drifted off.
        Ray resisted the urge to yank his hand away, figuring a sudden movement would wake his friend, which was pretty much the last thing he wanted at the moment. Slowly he began to ease his hand away as he considered the highly disconcerting fact that he'd just been feeling up Benny. And the even more disconcerting realization that his arousal had not entirely fled the moment he'd realized who it really was. In fact, it was just as strong as ever. This was not a good thing. Definitely not a good thing. He did not want to know this about himself. He really didn't. He was Catholic, for God's sake. Lapsed, sure, but he'd been brought up to think it was a sin to even think about doing what he was thinking about doing. And with Benny, of all people!
        Sure, he'd noticed that Benny was gorgeous, how could he not? Everywhere they went, the sort of glassy-eyed looks on people's faces when they saw the Mountie reminded him of that fact. And yeah, he'd noticed that Benny had a great butt before, but he'd figured he'd only noticed because women were always pointing that out to him. Sure he sometimes got a little irritated by the attention Benny got, and maybe a little relieved by his friend's lack of interest in what was so freely offered, but that was purely a guy thing, right? It was annoying to see some other guy get all the attention, and when he ignored them that meant there were more women left for Ray, right?
        So, why was he lying here with his hand in Benny's jeans and a yen to keep it there? Worse, why was he wondering what Ben's face looked like when he came? Oh man, this was really bad. He'd never in his life had this kind of thoughts about another guy. He'd dated, he'd had tons of straight sex, he'd even been married. He liked women. Females. In fact, Amanda was quite the babe. He reviewed a gallery of curvacious beauties in his mind, and was relieved to find that pastime was still was as pleasurable as it had always been. Ray kept emphasizing that to himself. He wasn't gay. He wasn't. No way.
        Finally managing to extricate his hand from the confines of Benny's clothing, Ray inched away a little bit to put some much-needed distance between them. His panic began to fade. It was a fluke. An aberration. He must have been dreaming something erotic and that was what had done it. That was all. He let out a sigh of relief, and then Ben sat up, destroying his newly-restored equilibrium.
        "She's gone," Ben said.
        Having expected a very different comment, it took Ray several seconds to make sense of the two words. She's gone. She who? Gone where? Finally it hit.
        "Amanda's gone? When? How?"
        Benny turned and leaned down, sniffing the bedroll between them. Ray pulled back from his nearness as if he were carrying something virulently communicable.
        "I'd say at least an hour, perhaps longer," Fraser said, reaching for his boots. "Her scent has faded considerably. I have a vague memory of waking up and realizing she had moved, but she told me she was going to use the facilities, and I didn't think anything about it at the time. Clearly I should have been more vigilant." He began to put his boots on as Ray sat up, shaking his head.
        "You were sleeping, Ben, you couldn't exactly be vigilant in your sleep."
        "Exactly my point, Ray. I should not have slept. I should have realized she would do this."
        "Do what?"
        "Go to find DeBoer on her own. Amanda feels that he's her responsibility, and doesn't want us involved. She sees us as more vulnerable than she is, and she has strong protective instincts. Come on, we need to go."
        Ray scrabbled around, looking for his shoes, thanking his lucky stars that Benny hadn't woken up about eighty seconds earlier, or he'd be having a lot of explaining to do. Ben finally turned on the light so he could locate his shoes, and Ray put them on quickly as the Mountie stood impatiently by the door. He reached for his coat, and swore.
        "Oh man! She took my coat!"
        "Camouflage, Ray. She needed something long and loose enough to hide the sword in." He opened the door, then turned to the wolf and looked him in the eyes. "Dief, find Amanda."
        Dief barked assent, and headed through the door at a brisk trot. Fraser followed, and Ray brought up the rear, closing the apartment door behind himself, some part of him still amazed after all this time, that Fraser never locked it.

* * *

        Fraser tried to keep focused on tracking Amanda, but part of him insisted on remembering the feel of Ray's hand on his bare skin. It had been clear from his friend's reaction that Ray had thought he was touching Amanda, but it had taken a great deal of willpower for Fraser to not betray his own response to that mistaken caress. Knowing that Ray would be terribly embarrassed if he realized that his accidental touch had not gone unnoticed, Fraser had said and done nothing, though his own mind was somewhat in turmoil because of it. He'd liked that touch. A great deal. Maybe too much, since Ray was not the kind of man who, well, never mind. Don't think about it.
        He loved Ray, he had known that for a very long time, but he had never before allowed himself to think about exactly how he loved Ray. He knew that he would die for Ray, in a heartbeat, but did that make what he felt anything other than the love one would normally feel for a friend? Fraser honestly didn't know. He did know that he had experienced an erotic stirring at Ray's touch, but that could just have been the natural response of a somewhat touch-deprived body to a stimulus. Amanda's kiss had provoked a similar response, so it was probably more akin to autonomic reflex than to conscious desire, though she was an extremely desirable woman. And Ray was . . . Ray. His best friend.
        Growing up extremely isolated as he had, he'd learned to ignore such feelings in himself, but then Victoria had taught him the pleasure that came from not ignoring them. Since then it had been much more difficult to disregard the inclinations of his body. Although he knew those feelings were simple biological urges, and felt he should be able to control them easily, that had proven rather more difficult than he had expected. While he had figured out how to deal with being attracted to women, of late he had discovered that there was a whole other segment of the population that was equally dangerous. He remembered that Eric had once told him he was a 'two spirit person' and explained that it meant he had both a male and a female spirit within him.
        At that time, when Ben was young, he had simply told him that being 'two spirited' sometimes indicated that a person was a candidate for 'angakok' or shaman. Ben had never pursued that, but sometimes he did wonder, like when he saw his father's ghost. That was something only a shaman should be able to do. Only later had Fraser realized the phrase 'two-spirit person' had other connotations, one of which he was experiencing right now. It implied sexual ambiguity.
        Upon reflection, he decided his current best course of action was inaction. He would have taken anything Ray offered, but a mistake was a mistake, and he knew that. He would simply have to continue on as he always had. In his own experience, and from what he had observed in others, giving in to one's desires often led to more pain than was offset by any fleeting pleasures.
        After several blocks, Fraser became aware that Diefenbaker was leading them toward the District 27 station. Why would Amanda be going there? After only a moment's thought the answer came to him. She had gone there because DeBoer would have gone there. The other Immortal wanted his property back. He jogged forward until he was in front of Dief and the wolf could see him.
        "Dief, stop."
        The wolf stopped and sat down, panting, looking at him quizzically. Fraser turned and waved to Ray, who was pacing them a few yards back in the Riviera. Ray came to a halt beside them and leaned out the open window.
        "What?"
        "I believe she's gone back to the station. She must believe that DeBoer will turn up there to get the egg back."
        Ray's mouth hardened. "Yeah, that sounds right. Get in, let's go."
        Fraser opened the door and Dief jumped in, Fraser followed the wolf a moment later. Ray floored the car as Fraser attempted to fasten his safety-belt, a task made a great deal more difficult as Ray tore around corners like a maniac. Fraser gritted his teeth and finally got the belt in place. While he'd gotten used to Ray's driving, he still didn't enjoy it. Four minutes later Ray screeched to a halt before an all too familiar building.
        "You think they're inside?" Ray asked, staring at the nondescript brick facade.
        Fraser thought about it, and shook his head. "No, doubtful. She would not want to confront him in public. It's likely they're nearby, but not actually in the building." He got out, then leaned back inside and dragged Diefenbaker's muzzle around until the wolf could see him. "Stay here," he said firmly, then closed the door. Ray got out of his side, rolling the window most of the way up as a deterrent to Diefenbaker's escape.
        "So, where do we start looking?" Ray asked.
        Fraser held up a hand, and Ray quieted instantly. He walked around the building to the alleyway behind it, and stood still, listening. Gradually closing his mind to the normal city discord all around him, Fraser found one noise that stood out, a sound that made him think of horses. Why horses? The answer came. The sound was metal on metal, like the strike of hammer against shoe at a farrier's.
        He tilted his head from side to side to catch the Doppler shift in the sound, then leaned back, as if he were looking at the stars he could never see in the shimmering Chicago sky. After a moment, Fraser opened his eyes. "The roof, next building over from the District."
        Ray looked up at the building, dismayed. "The roof? You're sure?"
        Fraser nodded. "I'm sure."
        "It's gotta be fifteen stories high!"
        "Only ten, I believe. Come on, we'd best get started."
        Ray groaned, but followed as Fraser went up to the back door of the building. As he placed a hand against it to try the handle, it gave beneath that slight pressure, swinging open. He listened for a moment, heard nothing, sensed nothing, and stepped into the dimly lit hallway.
        "Where's the elevator?" Ray asked, following him in, looking around.
        "Right over there," Fraser said, indicating the open doors of the elevator. "But it appears to be locked down for the night."
        Ray sighed.
        "There's our access," Fraser said, nodding toward the door to the left of the elevators with its discreet sign that read 'stairs.' Ray followed his gaze and sighed more deeply.
        "I knew it. I just knew it. You're determined to kill me, aren't you Fraser? Fine, I always wanted to die of a heart attack. Lead on."
        Fraser did, and Ray followed him through the door, then stopped, looking up the stairwell, and groaned.
        "I really am going to die here."
        "Nonsense Ray, it's good for you," Fraser said encouragingly, already a flight up. "Just pace yourself."
        He trotted up the stairs, trying to move quickly, but conserving energy. Even so, by the time he was halfway up he was beginning to feel a slight burn in his thighs, and his breathing was faster. He frowned, making a mental note to increase his exercise routine. City life was making him soft. Stopping for a moment he leaned over to look down the stairs. Ray was only a quarter of the way up. Ray saw him, and waved him on.
        "Keep. . . going! I'll . . . get there!" Ray yelled between panting breaths.
        Fraser nodded, and started moving again. The mental image of Amanda dead again, this time permanently, spurred a surge of energy. He took the stairs two at a time, eating up the distance, and finally reached the top. It felt like hours had passed, though objectively he was sure it had been less than five minutes. He put his hand on the door that said 'roof' and felt a subtle vibration in it. Beyond the pounding of his heart and the harsh rasp of his breath he could hear the sound again, a blacksmith's hammer, metal on metal. It was louder here, muffled by intervening concrete and the fire-door, but there. She was still alive. He found the fire-bar and pushed, the door swung open, and he stepped into the night.
        Two figures danced on the rooftop, one tall and broad, one slight and graceful. Coats flared out like cloaks with each thrust and each parry. For a moment he simply stood and stared, caught up by the strange beauty of the deadly pas de deux. As he watched, he realized he'd underestimated Amanda, terribly. She didn't need his help. She didn't need anyone's help. She was strong, and fast, and skilled.
        In comparison to Amanda's grace, her opponent appeared to flail and lunge like a lumbering bear, strength his only asset. As Fraser's eyes adjusted to the darkness he could see that Amanda's sword had stung DeBoer more than once already, his clothes bore mute witness to that, stained and torn in places. She seemed to be untouched. He suddenly had no doubt what the outcome of this duel would be.
        Behind him the door opened and Ray stumbled out, gasping like an asthmatic. After a few moments of recovering his breath, he saw what Fraser was seeing, and instantly went for his gun. Fraser reached out and wrapped his hand around Ray's wrist, feeling the long, narrow bones beneath his fingers, feeling the wiry strength there. For a second he remembered how much he had wanted to do this earlier, to stop Ray from moving his hand out from beneath his clothes. Then, in the present, Ray tried to yank his hand from Fraser's grasp and broke the spell.
        "What the hell's wrong with you Benny? Let go of me! We gotta help!"
        "No, Ray." Fraser said quietly. "We don't. Watch."
        Reluctantly Ray stopped trying to reach for his gun and did as Ben had suggested. He watched the lethal ballet for a few seconds, and then looked back at Benton, his eyes wide.
        "Wow," he breathed reverently.
        "Exactly," Fraser agreed.
        They both watched, mesmerized, then suddenly, shockingly, it was over. Amanda executed a series of movements that looked as if they had originated in a Samurai movie, and brought her opponent first to his knees with a blow to the midriff before a single, controlled slide of her blade finished the duel. The man's body fell one way, his sword another, his head yet a third.
        "That was for the kids, you bastard." Amanda said into the sudden stillness. Then she looked up, and saw them. Her expression was horrified, and tragic.
        "NO!" she screamed.
        The sky screamed back, a lash of incandescent energy setting the world ablaze. Ears ringing, Fraser blinked, eyes tearing and pained. He was confused. Lightning? In January? Out of a clear sky? Shielding his eyes with a hand, he could vaguely see swirls of phosphorescent mist rising from DeBoer's body in coils and tendrils that snaked toward Amanda. Lightning flashed again, and again.
        Amanda stood in the middle of a maelstrom of rising wind and plasma, her body rocking, shuddering, yet she made no move to escape it. Into Fraser's less-than-coherent mind came the realization that while he and Ray were protected by a slight overhang near the door, Amanda was vulnerable to the deadly blasts that were turning the night into hell. Instinct kicked in. Protect. Without hesitation Fraser launched himself at Amanda and took her down, tumbling to take the brunt of the fall and keep from grinding her into the gravel on the roof, then pushing her beneath him, using his body to shield hers. Beneath him she felt small and fragile, though he knew that she had just killed a man.
        "Ben, off!" Amanda gasped.
        Ignoring her plea, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled with her toward the meager shelter of the overhang. The world became brighter, and he found himself encased in that weirdly luminous fog. It slid along his skin, cold, yet hot, seeking something and not finding, moving on. Amanda shuddered and gasped in his arms. Brilliant light flared and something struck right through him and into her, not a spark, not electricity, something far stranger. He gasped as well as the sound of a hundred voices filled his head from the inside out. Before they faded, another bolt struck, more voices, ecstatic pain. He moaned, so did Amanda.
        Somewhere in the distance he could vaguely hear Ray's frantic voice. "Benny? Amanda!"
        Sensing that Ray could no more leave him alone in the fire than he could have left Amanda, Benton tried to find voice to warn him away, but nothing came from his throat except another strangled gasp as yet another bolt of . . . whatever, struck. Voices, memories, anger-pain-love-pleasure-sorrow-delight. Vaguely he was aware that it barely brushed him, saving its full intensity for the woman he held. Ray was there then, pulling at them, trying to drag them toward the door.
        "No! Get Ben away!" Amanda panted, nearly monosyllabic.
        Fraser refused to let her go, refused to abandon her as he so often had been abandoned. Ray babbled, tugging at him. The world went white again, fusing him into those voices, those lives. The mist licked and swirled around them. Ray howled like Diefenbaker on the hunt, and Fraser felt his friend's arms close around him. Yes. Together. That was right. A last, searing flare, a last, confused impression of a kind of bizarre, human travelogue, and finally the sky quieted, the wind died, and they were left alone, the three of them, lying on the roof amidst smoldering tar fires, with a corpse a few feet away.
        Fraser discovered that a certain portion of his anatomy, one he didn't usually pay much attention to, was hard as metal and aching. And it was pressed quite firmly up against Amanda's shapely backside. He couldn't understand his reaction. It was not the kind of reaction he normally had to a brush with death. Or had that been what had just happened? He wasn't really sure.
        Realizing that he was being decidedly ungentlemanly, he attempted to ease himself back away from Amanda, only to find himself coming into closer contact with Ray who was behind him, and unless he was delusional (always a possibility, he admitted) Ray was in much the same state as he was. He was trapped between a proverbial rock and a hard place. Move forward and make Amanda uncomfortable, move back and make Ray uncomfortable.
        "Oh, dear," he breathed, at a loss for what to do next.
        "You can say that again!" Amanda said.
        "What the hell just happened?" Ray demanded plaintively, still wrapped around him like white on rice.
        "Ray, language," Fraser admonished his friend automatically. There was a lady present.
        Ray chuckled. "Well, I guess we know Big Red's okay. But I still wanna know what happened."
        Amanda sighed. "A friend of a friend calls it 'a kind of magic.'"
        Fraser swallowed until his dry throat was moist enough to accommodate an entire sentence. "I felt. . . I heard . . . voices. Souls. Didn't I?"
        Amanda eased away enough to turn and look into his face. In her eyes he could see his answer, the reflection of those souls. She looked slightly stunned, but also . . . tender?
        "Yes, Ben. That's exactly it. I don't understand how you know that, how you could possibly have felt that since you're not . . . well, never mind. Anyway, you're right."
        "So, this is like some 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' kind of deal?" Ray asked.
        Amanda burst out laughing. "Not exactly, but sort of."
        She disentangled herself from the pile. Fraser felt immensely relieved and immediately rolled out of Ray's loosened grasp and got to his feet, extending his hands to help both of his friends up. Amanda brushed herself off, looked around, and frowned.
        "Gentlemen, I suggest we get out of here in a hurry unless you really want to try to explain why we're up here with that . . ." she gestured to DeBoer's corpse. "My little light show will have attracted attention, probably from next door. Since the last time any of your compatriots saw DeBoer he still had his head and there was a big hole in it, explaining how that got fixed and then the whole thing got detached from his neck is going to be iffy at best."
        "She's got a point," Ray said. "Actually, a bunch of them." He got out his handkerchief and used it to open the door to the stairwell. Propping the door open with an elbow, he used the handkerchief to wipe their prints from the handle and the emergency-bar. No lights glowed from inside the building as they had before. The 'light show', as she'd put it, must have short-circuited them.
        Fraser hesitated. A voice in his head, peculiarly unfamiliar, urged him not to argue, but he pushed it back and looked at Ray. "It's unethical to just leave him here."
        "Sometimes life's like that, Benny," Ray said, tugging at his arm. "Come on. Look, he was dead before, and he's dead now. Just think of it as death with an intermission. Let's get outta here, I think I hear Welsh."
        Fraser listened, confirmed that one of the voices faintly drifting up from below was indeed the lieutenant's, and looked at Ray, surprised. "I didn't realize you could hear that well."
        "Welsh I could hear from the Space Shuttle," Ray said drily. "Come on. We'll go a couple of floors down and duck into a hallway, wait for them to pass us, and then scram."
        Fraser let himself be persuaded. His head was aching, and he felt very strange. All he could think about at the moment was getting away somewhere by himself, so he could close his eyes and try to absorb what was happening to him. "Very well, Ray."

* * *

        As they hid in a hallway four flights down waiting for the police to pass them, Amanda realized she almost felt high. The remnants of the Quickening coursing through her were potent, and in combination with the adrenalin rush of hiding from the police, and the sheer pleasure at having rid the world of a complete scumbag, she was just about walking without touching the ground. Manic energy pulsed in her, making her edgy and wild.
        Fraser was very quiet, but then, he usually was. The only thing that seemed unusual was that Ben was standing very, very close to both her, and Ray. Whenever either of them moved a little away, he shifted to bring them closer again. That could just have been worry, though. Overall, it was hard to tell how he had been affected by the Quickening. Ray, on the other hand, was wound like spring steel, twitching at every sound, bouncing lightly on his feet like a race-horse pawing at the ground. He had one hand on Ben's shoulder, the other on hers, as if to assure himself they were both staying put. Clearly he feeling much as she was.
        Her relief that they both seemed unharmed was nearly as delicious as the energy the Quickening had left behind. She'd never had mortals so close during a Quickening before. She'd been afraid it would harm them, but thankfully it hadn't seemed to, even though it had struck through them on its way to her. Ben, though-- how could he have sensed what the storm that lashed around him was, when he wasn't even a pre-Immortal? Whatever he was, or wasn't, the one thing she was sure of was that he was an amazing individual. And Ray wasn't half bad himself. She found herself looking from Ray, to Fraser, and back, and licking her lips.
        Voices nearing froze them all in place. Even Ray managed to keep still. They heard a group of people tramp past the door at the end of the hallway, then the voices faded. They waited an extra few moments to be sure, then Fraser headed for the door. Ray started after him, and Amanda grabbed his arm, suddenly compelled to say something to him about Ben. She just couldn't stand to see Ben get hurt, and she was sure he would, unless Ray was more careful.
        "Ray, wait."
        He turned, squinting at her in the dark. "What?"
        "Don't push love away just because it's not in the package you think you're supposed to want. Don't be afraid of it. One thing I've learned in my long, long life, is that you take love wherever you can find it, because it's rare and sweet, and far too precious to waste."
        "Hunh?" he asked, clearly confused.
        "You know what I mean," she said quietly. "Or maybe I should say 'who.' I know you do. Think about it."
        "I don't have time to think about anything, we gotta go," Ray said irritably, grabbing her arm.
        Amanda sighed and let him steer her to the door. Men. Sometimes she wondered what it was she saw in them. Then the Quickening still humming in her body reminded her. Oh yeah. That was it. They did have their uses.
        They slunk down the stairs to the first floor. Fraser paused a moment at the door, listening intently, then waved them out into the lobby. There were people standing outside the front door with flashlights, but apparently no one had yet thought to go to the back door. They probably still thought they were just dealing with a freak thunderstorm and power outage. There was no reason for them to think any different. Yet.
        Ben guided them toward the back door and into the alley, from there they walked down to the end of the block, and out onto the street. Ray pointed at a well-lit bus stop half a block from the alley.
        "Amanda, you wait there. We'll come around and pick you up. Fraser, with me."
        The immortal woman nodded and sat down on the bench as they walked away. They hadn't gone more than three feet when Ray stopped to look back at her with an odd expression on his face. He slowly looked from her, to the Mountie, then back again, and she could almost see the light dawning. His jaw dropped.
        "Fraser?" he asked, utter astonishment coloring his voice.
        Amanda smiled and nodded.
        "Yes, Ray?" Fraser replied, puzzled.
        "Not you, I meant her. Oh, never mind."
        Fraser looked even more puzzled, but shrugged and nodded. "As you wish," he said, striding off in the direction of the station.
        Ray looked at Amanda again, shaking his head, and then turned and followed Ben. Amanda smiled. Gotcha.

* * *

        Geez, what was he, radiating 'I'm gay' vibes or something, Ray wondered as he followed Fraser toward where they'd left the car. Realizing he was staring at Benny's butt, he instantly lifted his gaze higher, to his shoulders. He had nice shoulders. Strong, broad, rounded . . . Oh crap. Damn it, Amanda, why'd you have to go and say that? It was a nutty thing to say anyway. He was straight and Fraser was straighter. Straight as an arrow. That metaphor conjured images which he hastily banished, or tried to.
        Straight. As in not gay. Not as in an upright . . . no, don't EVEN go there. Fraser was straight. Or, was he? Come to think of it, Benny had turned down nearly every woman that had ever come on to him. Which was just about every woman he knew, or had ever met. In all the time Ray had known him, there had only been Victoria. And maybe Frannie but Ray refused to think about that. What his sister did on her own time was her business. Ray had always put Fraser's unassailable virtue down to some sort of maple-headed, grandmother instilled sense of morality, but what if that wasn't it at all? What if Amanda was right?
        He thought back over the time he'd known Fraser, and little things began to click into place like pieces of a puzzle. The way Fraser sometimes looked at him, the way he was always there whenever Ray needed him, or didn't need him, he was just always there. Fraser's willingness to put himself in harm's way to keep Ray out of it. The little touches-- that could just be cultural, or could be more. Benny would never, ever push, but he could . . . want. And if Amanda (who, granted, had a couple of thousand years worth of experience in reading people) thought he did, then maybe she was right.
        The idea stopped him in his tracks. Then he realized Fraser was standing at the car, waiting for Ray to unlock it. He hurried to do so and Fraser got in without a word, sitting quietly, staring into space. Something in Ray registered that his friend was acting a little oddly, but he was feeling pretty odd himself so he didn't give it much thought. Ray slid in behind the steering wheel. Glancing over, his gaze slid across Benny's lap as he fastened his seatbelt, and he had to drag his eyes back to the wheel so he could locate the ignition slot with the key instead of fumbling at it like a virgin with his first girl.
        "Never had trouble finding the damned hole before," he grumbled under his breath, irked.
        Ben looked at him, eyebrows raised. Ray felt himself blushing, and was very glad it was dark. "Sorry. I guess whatever happened up there has me kinda . . . keyed up."
        Fraser nodded. "I must admit to feeling unsettled, myself, Ray."
        Ray looked at his friend's composed features, and shook his head. "Coulda fooled me."
        He finally managed to get the key in the ignition and turn it. The Riv growled to life and he pulled smoothly out into what passed for traffic at screech-o-clock in the morning. He turned the corner at the end of the block and started to laugh as he saw Amanda standing at the bus stop with her thumb out, his borrowed coat open and swept back to reveal baggy jeans that she had allowed to slide so low as to just barely be legal, and Fraser's flannel shirt, which she'd tied up under her breasts and unbuttoned all the way down to the tie. She looked like some sort of ragamuffin white-trash hooker.
        Pulling up to the curb next to her, Ray stopped the car and Fraser started to open his door to let her in just as she leaned over to look inside the car, in the process just about falling out of the shirt.
        "Hey, babe, wanna date?" Amanda asked, pretending to snap nonexistent gum.
        Ray grinned. "Get in the car before someone sees you and my reputation goes even further into the toilet than it already is."
        She laughed and waited for Fraser to get out and put the seat forward to let her in. "Just trying to give you a plausible excuse for picking me up!" she said as she slipped into the back seat next to Dief.
        "Gee, thanks." Ray said drily.
        "Anytime," Amanda said, grinning as she settled in, her gaze darting from Ray to Fraser, who had returned to his seat next to Ray and closed the door. Ray noticed that his friend looked a little pale and was frowning, but he figured it was a holdover from having just been on a first-name basis with Amanda's cleavage. Fraser didn't generally deal well with close proximity to female anatomy. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Ray's gaze was caught by Amanda's as she ran her tongue across her teeth and nodded toward Fraser with her eyebrows lifted in a suggestive query.
        Ray stared at Amanda for a moment. She couldn't mean what it looked like she meant, could she? As if in answer to his unspoken question, she nodded. He almost gasped. Oh man . . . That would not only be like serious Penthouse Letters material, but it meant he could touch Benny without it seeming too damned weird.
        He swallowed, or tried to, but there was no saliva in his mouth. He felt a little dizzy, precipitated, no doubt, by the sudden rush of blood away from his head and into his groin. Ray concentrated hard on the difficult task of pulling out into non-existent traffic and headed for Benny's place so fast that the Mountie went even whiter than he already was.
        As he drove he thought about what Amanda had said in that dark hallway, and about what he'd been thinking earlier. Suddenly he felt really shallow for having had that stray thought about Amanda's presence making it okay to touch Ben. It shouldn't be that way. That wasn't fair at all, and it wasn't completely honest. He had to admit to himself that right at the moment, her presence didn't make a bit of difference. He wanted to touch Ben with, or without her. He was confused as hell, and so aroused he was surprised he could actually steer.
        The short drive to Benny's place seemed to take ages but finally he found a space about half a block from the apartment building and parked. Fraser threw open the door and exited the car like his seat was on fire, actually stumbling in uncharacteristic gracelessness. Ray frowned. Fraser was never clumsy. The Mountie took two steps toward the apartment, then stopped in his tracks looking dismayed and apologetic. Diefenbaker was dancing at his heels, whining in concern.
        "Thank you for the ride, Ray. Good night."
        As Ray absorbed the brusque farewell, Fraser dashed for the building and disappeared through the doorway. Diefenbaker stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring at Ray intently, then he took off after Fraser. Ray blinked. He'd never seen Fraser act like that before. He'd never seen Dief act like that either, almost like he was trying to tell Ray something.
        "What the hell was that all about?" he asked no one in particular.
        Amanda frowned as she leaned forward to stare out at the door to the apartment building. "I don't know. While I haven't known Ben long enough to say for sure, that didn't seem very normal to me."
        Ray was frowning too. "It wasn't. Not at all. Hell, normally after a night like this you'd have to stuff a sock in his mouth to shut him up, but he hasn't hardly said a word since we left the roof. And he's never, ever rude, which that almost was."
        Amanda was silent for a moment, then she looked at Ray, worried. Almost simultaneously they spoke the exact same words.
        "Something's wrong."
        Ray threw open his door and hit the ground running, Amanda close on his heels.

* * *

        Fraser exploded into his apartment, shoved the door closed and slid down it to sit on the floor with his back against the old, warped wood. His heart was pounding faster than it had been after scaling ten flights of stairs. He looked around, half expecting to see his father there, chiding him for running away from his problems instead of confronting them. He hadn't run away from anything in over twenty years. Until now.
        He just couldn't face watching Ray look at Amanda like a starving man looks at food. He wanted that look too much for himself. On top of the strange things he was feeling and seeing, and hearing in his head, it was just too much. He'd had to get away, to run for the only sanctuary he knew, outside of Ray's presence. It wasn't much, but it was home.
        Propping his elbows against his knees, Fraser put his head in his hands, trying very, very hard not to cry, feeling much as he had the last time he'd tried to run away from a problem, when he was ten. Why was it he always ended up wanting the one thing he couldn't have? Was it a character flaw? Was it stupidity? Was it just plain bad luck? He ached with the effort of control as he tried to intellectualize his feelings, to take away the hurt.
        Diefenbaker whined softly and butted his nose under Fraser's elbow. He laughed shakily, and reached out to bury his fingers in the wolf's soft fur, needing to touch something warm, and living. Needing to not be alone, even if it was just Dief.
        "I'm okay, Dief. Really," he lied baldly, trying to ignore the flashing images that kept leaping into mind as if they were his own memories.
        Ever since that lightning had hit him on the roof it had been getting steadily worse. At first he'd thought it was just a momentary thing, feeling those others. But they were still there inside him. It was like he was losing himself, losing hold of who he really was and sliding into random lives– some male, some female, none of them familiar. Other souls, other spirits. He was not just two-spirit now, he was many-spirited. How many? He couldn't tell, they all clamored for attention, lost and confused, just like he was lost and confused. He felt as if he stood naked in a room full of strangers.
        Making things worse was a surging, glowing heat that ran through him and made him ache, made him burn like he'd never burned before, not even with Victoria. He hurt with it, as if electricity, not blood, flowed in his veins. Out of control. Out of control. He couldn't allow that. It was not who he was. Sometimes he thought control was all he was.
        He put his hands over his face, and felt them trembling, knew his whole body echoed that tremor. Fear, and loneliness overwhelmed him, despite the other voices, or maybe because of them. For the first time he realized how alone he normally was, both within his skin, and outside of it. He was going to shatter, and there was nothing he could do about it, and no one would know, or care.
        A knock vibrated the wood at his back, shocking him into a heart-pounding adrenalin surge, stunned that he hadn't felt the tremors in the floor as whoever it was had approached his apartment. How could he be so unobservant? He scrambled to his feet and put a hand on the knob. It could be anyone, he reminded himself, his neighbors often stopped by. But not generally at four in the morning. He found himself hoping that it was someone closer than a neighbor, even though that hope was astonishingly painful. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
        Ray.
        And Amanda.
        They looked oddly solemn, even worried, standing there in the dimly lit hallway. Oh, God. Ray was here. Amanda was here. Not out in the car, not driving away. Not leaving him alone. Neither of them were leaving him alone. Not alone. Something as cold as a glacier started to thaw inside him and without a word he swung the door wider and stepped back to let them in. He couldn't have spoken if his life had depended on it. He was afraid of whose voice would come out.
        In his head, new sounds joined the voices. A deep, syncopated drumbeat. The hollow, haunted skirl of a wooden flute. A rich, dark voice, half-singing, half-chanting. Fraser reached for that voice, trying to hear it above all the others, grabbing for its unfamiliar familiarity. The room skewed. Someone caught him. Ray. Fraser held on to his friend, wrapping his arms around his lean, hard form, burrowing his face into his shoulder, the fabric of his suit smelling faintly of coffee and garlic, exhaust fumes, and . . . Ray. The scent grounded him a little. He found his voice.
        "Don't leave me!" he gasped. "Lost!"
        Whatever reply they made, their voices faded into the chorus in Fraser's head, and he heard no words. He just felt. Amanda's hands, Ray's solid strength supporting him. Safe. He was safe. With that realization, all but one of the voices in his head suddenly stopped. Everything went dark, but not black. It was the dark of a forest at night, which to the accustomed eye, wasn't dark at all.
        Firelight flickered faintly in the distance. Snowflakes whirled faintly in the air. The drumming was louder, as was the flute, and the chanting. He walked naked in cold and dark, yet felt nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing. Only sight and sound seemed to operate here. Looking down at himself, Fraser saw his own skin was white, as white as the snowflakes that dusted the night, vaguely translucent. He appeared to be made of ice. It was a strange realization.
        Moving instinctively toward the light, toward the presence there, Fraser stepped into a clearing and saw a person sitting before the fire, facing away from him. Long, wavy, dark hair spilled over shoulders draped in loose deerskin. Where skin showed above the hide, it was fair, which startled him. Somehow he'd expected the singer to have skin the color of fall leaves.
        "Eric?" he ventured, because Eric was the only shaman he knew, and he was sure the singer was a shaman.
        "No, not Eric," came the reply. Another shock. The voice was warm, and rich, and female. "Come to the fire."
        Fraser hesitated. He was ice. If he neared the fire's light and warmth, he would melt, and disappear forever, his being absorbed by the earth. He was afraid.
        "I can't," he finally admitted.
        "You can, but you won't." The woman replied. "I understand. It's a fearful thing, fire. It can burn you. It can hurt."
        Fraser nodded, though the woman couldn't possibly see him.
        "You'd rather be cold, then?"
        Fraser hadn't felt the cold before, but now he did. It hurt, down to his bones. He gasped. Why did he have to feel it now? He had preferred the numbness. A shiver racked him to his core.
        "Cold is as painful as heat, Benton, is it not?"
        Fraser was startled and confused. How did the woman know his name?
        "I have always been part of you, Benton. From the first. You just haven't ever acknowledged me before. I am you, I belong in you But these others do not."
        Suddenly the clearing was full of people. Male and female, old and young, though most in their prime. None were babies, though. Why was that? They all looked bewildered. He wondered if he should say something to them, something reassuring, but he had no reassurance to give.
        "You must put them back where they belong," The dark-haired woman continued. "If you don't, they will destroy you. You aren't made to contain so many, though you were made to contain more than most. Come to the fire, Benton."
        Fraser took a step forward, then stopped.
        "I can't."
        The woman turned finally. Ben stared into his own face, softened. She was fair skinned, blue-eyed, a scattering of tiny dots were tattooed across her nose and cheeks like blue freckles. Small bird bones decorated narrow plaits on either side of her face. Huge amber beads glowed at her throat. A gleaming, black stone knife was tucked into a plaited leather belt a her waist. Her hands were rough, callused, in one she held a sprig of plant with thin, spiky leaves of dusty silver. Artemisia absinthium. Wormwood. Used from time immemorial in many cultures to induce visions.
        Tall, and strong, she looked like a warrior, and a mystic. Her gaze was deep. Ageless. Wise. Sad. The eyes of a shaman. He knew now, who she was. This was his other spirit, the one Eric had told him about. The one he hadn't, until now, ever had the courage to confront. She studied him for a long moment, and some of the severity left her face. She looked from him to the fire.
        "You must, Benton. If the fire dies, it cannot be rekindled. Set them free, set me free, and set yourself free. Remember, you once told someone that if you know who you are, you have no need to hide."
        She dropped the plant she held into the fire. Bittersweet smoke began to rise, and suddenly the clearing was empty, and there was no one at the fire. Now that the woman was gone, Fraser could see that the fire was very small. Just a few slender branches, rapidly being consumed. A few feet away there was a pile of dry branches, clearly waiting to be placed on the fire.
        The fire was important, that was obvious. It meant something. What? What did it have to do with putting the spirits back where they belonged? It was a riddle, and he had to solve it. He considered the clues, and found nothing of substance. Maybe it was a metaphor. Perhaps the fire personified the spirits? As he deliberated, the fire grew dimmer. He began to worry. It would be a bad thing if he couldn't solve the riddle before it went out, that much had been clear in the shaman's warning.
        Something struck him hard between the shoulder blades and scored his back, leaving him bleeding and sending him stumbling forward a step. Whatever had struck him had broken the skin of ice that comprised him, he could feel the heat of his blood melting the ice of his back. Across the clearing an owl landed in a tree, staring at him with the shaman's blue eyes. He stared back, and suddenly he understood. There was no answer to be puzzled out, no riddle to solve. The answer was as simple, and as difficult, as taking a few steps, picking up a branch, and placing it on the fire. That was all.
        He forced himself to move forward, closer and closer to the fire. The fire that could destroy him. He began to feel its heat, felt little trickles of melted self beginning to run down his surface. If the fire was the spirits, then letting it go out might mean their permanent loss. The shaman had warned him the fire couldn't be rekindled, once it was extinguished. He had a choice. He could stay away from the fire, stay safe, stay intact. Or, he could move closer to it, give it fuel, and risk losing himself in the process.
        Why did so many of his choices seem to be like this? Why did he always have to put his own needs aside for some vague greater good? Why did he always do the right thing, instead of the selfish thing? He sighed. It didn't matter. Doing the right thing was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes, or the otter-tooth scar. He moved forward and leaned down, carefully choosing two smaller branches and one larger one. He knelt beside the fire and carefully eased the smaller sticks into the dying flames until they caught and brightened. He waited a few moments to be sure they were well kindled, then he placed the larger log atop the rest.
        It ignited as if it had been soaked in gasoline, became a brilliant, sparkling torch. He couldn't snatch his fingers back fast enough, and the flames licked at them, warm, so warm, and strangely wet. Wet, because he was melting. The skin of ice began to slough away, leaving his hand bare and clean, and flesh once more. The flames leapt up again, reaching for him, engulfing him, burning away the ice. Fire danced on his skin for a moment without burning him, then it seemed to dive inside him and once again he was filled with that current of living flame.
        "Benny? Benny, you okay man? Talk to me, Fraser! Now!" Ray's voice was grating, demanding.
        "Benton? Damn it, Ben, wake up!" Amanda was just as demanding.
        The voices shocked him. They were from another world, one where there was no forest, no flame, no other self. For a moment that world seemed less real than the one in his head. Then, gasping, he opened his eyes and looked up into Amanda and Ray's anxious faces. His body sang with energy, it seemed to be running just under the surface of his skin, making him burn, making him need, making him . . . Comprehension came to him then, on the heels of need.
        He was right that the fire had been a metaphor, but not about what it symbolized. Not the souls, but passion. The most common metaphor there was for desire. He could either feed it or kill it. He started to laugh, realizing that for once he'd chosen the path that was not just for the greater good, but for himself, too. With that choice he'd also been given the clue he needed for how to give back the souls who had been drawn to him instead of to her. Amanda had been born a reservoir for these brilliant, burning spirits. He had to give them back to the one who was made to hold them. He reached up, curved his fingers across the back of her head, and pulled her mouth down to his.
        Conflagration. Fire leapt between them, lightning sparking across their lips, their tongues. One soul found its way through him, to her. Amanda collapsed against Ben with a provocative shudder and his body responded instantly. He spread one hand across the small of her back to hold her to him, though it wasn't necessary. She was already moving against him in a way that told him she shared his need. Folie a' deux. Except it wasn't. It was folie a' trois.
        Sensing that Ray was withdrawing in the face of what was occurring, Ben reached out, wrapping his fingers tightly around Ray's wrist, dragging him back. He pulled his mouth from Amanda's, leaving her dazed and gasping, and reached up to frame Ray's face between his palms. More afraid than he could ever remember being in his life, Ben made another choice. The only choice he could make. He kissed him.
        It was a mistake. He knew it as soon as Ray pulled away with a startled grunt, staring at him with an all-too-familiar expression-- dismay and disgust mixed. He'd seen that look many times before, though never before in so painful a context. Ben dropped his hands from Ray's face and turned away, closing his eyes, feeling that shell of ice begin to reform around him. Freedom had its price. He wondered if he could bear to pay it.

* * *

        When Fraser had opened the door, he'd just stood there, looking like warmed-over death. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, but Ray could see the almost painful leap of hope in Ben's gaze as he registered their presence. Hope? Why? What was he hoping for? They had stepped into the apartment, and then, without saying a word, the Mountie had collapsed against Ray like he'd been cold-cocked, staggering him a little. Bracing himself against the sudden weight, Ray tried to see Ben's face.
        "Fraser? Benny? What's the matter?"
        Fraser wrapped his arms around him, hiding his face against Ray's shoulder, and his words were broken and barely audible when he spoke.
        "Don't leave me! Lost!"
        Amanda stepped forward, looking worried, touching Ben's head, his neck, his shoulder. "We're here, Ben. What's wrong? Can you tell us what's wrong?"
        "Voices. Spirits." Fraser mumbled, shaking his head.
        Amanda's put a hand over her mouth, looking shocked . "Oh my God! That's impossible. You can't possibly . . . I've never heard of such a thing!"
        "What?" Ray demanded. "What's impossible?"
        Amanda looked over at him, her gaze shadowed. "I-- I think somehow Ben caught some kind of flashover from my Quickening," she told him. "I should have realized it sooner, when he said he'd 'heard souls.' But he's not even a Potential! I know he's just a mortal, or I could feel it! How can he possibly have taken part of it?"
        "What the hell are you talking about?" Ray demanded, confused and scared. Fraser could be dying, and Amanda was babbling? What the hell was a 'quickening?' He had a vague recollection from something he'd overheard his sister say that it had something to do with being pregnant, which didn't make any sense at all. First off, Amanda had said she couldn't have kids, and second off, there was no way Fraser could be pregnant.
        "I'll explain later," Amanda snapped, suddenly getting her act together. She nodded toward Ben's bedroll, still spread on the floor where they'd left it earlier. "Let's get him over there. He's burning up, we need to cool him down."
        Together they maneuvered the limp Mountie over to his bedding and managed to manhandle him out of most of his clothes, leaving only his undershorts on. Amanda went to the sink, soaked Ben's shirt in cool water and brought it back over, using it to sponge him down. He was hot enough that Ray didn't even have to touch him to feel the heat. Feeling scared and useless, Ray grabbed his cell-phone.
        "I'm calling an ambulance," he announced.
        Amanda looked up at him, shaking her head. "Don't bother. No doctor's going to be able to fix this. On second thought, give me the phone. I think I know someone who might be able to help."
        Hoping she was right, Ray surrendered the phone. She started dialing. And continued dialing. He frowned. "Where the hell are you calling with that many numbers?"
        "France," she said shortly.
        "France?" Ray echoed, aghast. "Do you have any idea what that's gonna cost on a cell. . ." he stopped, thought about it, and shut up. What were a few dollars in comparison to Benny's life? He picked up the wet cloth Amanda had abandoned when she'd taken the phone, and went to work on Ben again. He thought his friend seemed a little cooler, but now he was muttering something half-aloud, sounded like it was Russian, or more probably in Inuit. Whatever it was, it wasn't English.
        "Adam? Is that you? Are you alone? Oh, thank god," she said, sounding relieved. "Listen, you're the only person I could think of who might know what to do. Have you ever heard of a Mortal taking part of a Quickening?" She paused, listened, and scowled. "No, I am not joking. I'm deadly serious. A life may depend on this!"
        She listened again. Ray wished the phone had a speaker function so he could hear the other end of the conversation. Her frown deepened. "No? What do you mean, no? In five thousand years you've never heard of anything like this? Not once?" She demanded, sounding skeptical. She listened some more, then she sighed. "Yeah, I know, I know, you're just a guy. No, I don't have time to explain. Goodbye."
        She clicked off the phone and put it down, then looked at Ray, defeated. "I'm sorry. I was sure he would know what to do, but even he hasn't heard of a case where a Mortal got part of a Quickening, and if anyone would have, it would be him."
        "What the hell is a Quickening?" Ray asked, continuing to swipe at Benny's bare skin with the wet cloth. He was definitely cooler, no longer radiating heat like he had been.
        "It's hard to explain," Amanda hedged.
        "Make an effort," Ray suggested strongly.
        "It's that 'Indiana Jones' stuff you were talking about. The light show."
        "Oh," Ray knew she was holding back, but before he could call her on it, Amanda put her hand on Fraser's forehead, and yanked it back, looking shocked.
        Puzzled, Ray touched his friend's shoulder and was equally stunned. In barely five minutes Ben had gone from fever-hot to icy-cold. His skin was as cold and pale as marble. Ray tossed aside the wet cloth and grabbed a blanket, Amanda got another one, and they layered them over Ben. The blankets barely seemed to be making any difference. Ben started to shake.
        "Get under the blankets and help me warm him!" Amanda snapped, burrowing beneath the covers to plaster herself along Ben's left side, untying her shirt to expose more skin. Ray discarded his coat and fumbled with his own shirt buttons to do the same, and then crawled under the covers. He gasped as his bare chest came into contact with Ben's. God he was cold. Positively frosty. A whine from nearby made him look over to see Diefenbaker observing them worriedly from beneath the bed.
        "Don't worry, Dief, he'll be okay." Ray said, reassuring himself as much as the wolf.
        Diefenbaker edged out from beneath the bed and nudged one of Fraser's hands where it stuck out from beneath the blankets, making that odd little groaning sound that meant he was concerned.
        Ray looked back at Amanda. "Are you sure we shouldn't call a doctor? What if this isn't what you said? What if he's just sick?"
        "There is no sickness that acts like this. Fever, yes, but not cold. This isn't something that can be cured in a hospital!" She reached up to slap Benny's face. "Ben? Can you hear me Ben?"
        "Hey!" Ray objected. "He's bad enough off without you smacking him."
        "I was careful!" Amanda said defensively. "Sometimes that works."
        "I thought you said you'd never seen this happen before," Ray said suspiciously.
        "I haven't," she snapped. "But it's certainly not the first time I've been around an unconscious man."
        His unease faded. "Oh. Sorry."
        "Apology accepted," Amanda said primly.
        Between them, Ben flinched and jerked. They both stared at him, worried. Ray wondered if he was having some kind of seizure. He flinched again and the hand by Diefenbaker's nose twitched. Dief licked it. Fraser shuddered, and a tide of heat flushed through his body, strong and startling.
        "What the. . . !" Ray exclaimed, pulling back a little. The change from ice to fire had happened so fast it had almost been painful against his own skin. Amanda echoed his motion, frowning.
        "I don't know, but we'd better get these blankets off him again," she said, dragging at the heavy, scratchy wool. Ray helped, and as they got the blankets off he leaned down and shook the perspiring figure roughly.
        "Benny? Benny you okay man? Talk to me Fraser! Now!" Ray ordered angrily. Damn it, how dare he decide to pull this kind of a stupid stunt? He wasn't about to lose him now, not before he got a chance to figure out exactly what he felt for the stubborn, irritating Mountie.
        "Benton? Damn it, Ben, wake up!" Amanda sounded both annoyed and scared.
        Ray reached across Ben to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, even though he was just as worried himself. Suddenly Ben's eyes flew open. He focused first on Ray, then on Amanda, with a look of wide-eyed wonder, and then a smile lit his face like the sun coming out, and he started to laugh. God, he was beautiful. He practically glowed, pleasure shining out like light from beneath his skin. Utterly beautiful.
        The reality of him went through Ray like an electrical shock, centering right in his groin. As he tried to absorb that reaction, to Ben of all people, he started to wonder about himself again. After all, it wasn't like any of his relationships with women had been roaringly successful. No, his longest, and strongest relationship was with Ben. He'd thought it was just friendship, but maybe, just maybe, there was more.
        Just as that idea began to breach his defenses, to Ray's utter shock, Ben reached up and grabbed Amanda, hauling her down for a kiss. And it was a hell of a kiss, too, that much was easy to see. It was long, soft, wet, and very, very thorough. Ben's hands moved, one of them cupped her head tilting it slightly to improve the angle, the other slid beneath her open shirt, fingers stroking down her spine, then spreading over the soft curve of her buttocks to push her hips down into his. That was kind of reassuring in a weird sort of way. Victoria must have taught him a lot in that one night. Either that, or he'd found the sex manual section at the library, if there was such a thing.
        Suddenly he realized that he was watching them and getting turned on like some kind of peeping Tom, and that squicked him. His lips were tingling like he was the one getting kissed, and he licked them uneasily. Amanda had to be wrong. Ben wouldn't be kissing her like that if what he really wanted was Ray. Embarrassed, Ray started to ease away from the couple, but suddenly Ben's hand shot out and yanked him back into place so hard it made his wrist ache. Ben took his mouth from Amanda's and looked into Ray's eyes. There was fear in his gaze. Terror even. Letting go of Ray's wrist, Ben lifted his hands to Ray's face and half-sat up, moving closer, still looking scared, until he got so close he had to close his eyes, as did Ray, and their lips met.
        Shocked, Ray jerked back and stared at the Mountie. Jesus, he'd just kissed Ben! Or rather, Ben had just kissed him. The reality of it bounced around in his head like a ping-pong ball in a handball court. He could barely even remember what it had felt like, it had been so quick, but he was sure it had happened. Then he looked, really looked at Ben, and saw the pain in his eyes moments before his lashes lowered to hide his feelings. His hands dropped away from Ray's face and he turned his head to the wall.
        Ray panicked. That wasn't what he'd meant to do. It wasn't how he'd planned to react. Well, he hadn't planned to react at all, he'd just done it. And done it wrong. He looked helplessly at Amanda, begging her for a way to fix his screw-up. She was looking a bit rattled and it took her a minute to respond, but finally she looked from him, to Ben, and back. She sighed, shook her head sadly, then rolled her eyes and tapped her lips with a finger and pointed at Ben. Oh. Right. Yeah, he could do that. That might work.
        Ray reached out and tipped Ben's face back toward him. Ben didn't open his eyes. His face was expressionless. That hurt more than he wanted to admit. He wanted that glow back, that smile, that pleasure. With a glance at Amanda for reassurance, Ray leaned down. Feeling incredibly self-conscious and as awkward as a teenager on his first date, he let his mouth touch Ben's in a quick, dry brush. The kind of kiss you'd give your aunt or your grandmother at a family reunion. He drew back hastily, a little freaked out. Ben's eyes flew open and he stared up at Ray, a dizzying mix of anguish, hope, and desire in his guileless blue gaze.
        "Oh my god," Ray breathed, struck full force by that look. Amanda was right. She really was right. Unable to verbalize any of what he was thinking or feeling, Ray said the first thing that came to mind. "You okay, Benny?" As the words came out, he was startled by the sound of his own voice. It was husky, breathless, and almost seductive.
        A slow smile curved his friend's mouth. "I think so, Ray. Or I will be, if you . . ."
        His voice trailed off and a faint flush flared across Ben's face, and Ray grinned as he realized Fraser couldn't say any of those things either. That made him feel better.
        "Understood." Ray said, deliberately using one of Fraser's favorite responses.
        Benny looked anxious,. "Are you sure? I mean, I have to . . . this time, it has to be . . ."
        He stalled out, incapable of completing his sentence, but the way his gaze was shifting back and forth between Ray and Amanda made his meaning clear. Ray knew exactly what he was trying to say. Actually, that made it a little easier. For this first time, they could both pretend a little. Take things one step at a time. Ease into it. He nodded.
        "Yeah, Benny. I know. Me too. Okay?"
        Fraser looked unutterably relieved. "Thank you, Ray."
        Ray had to smile. Only Benton Fraser would say 'thank you' at a time like this.
        Ben's gaze shifted over to Amanda and he caught his lower lip between his teeth. "I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the logistics of this particular situation," he admitted, looking embarrassed.
        Amanda laughed. "Don't worry, I know what to do. Ray, close your eyes, Ben, close your eyes too."
        Ray closed his eyes and waited. He heard a feminine whisper, but couldn't make out any words. Next thing he knew, he was getting kissed. Really kissed. The whole nine yards. Tongues and everything. He explored, finding the slick, even surfaces of teeth, the soft, yielding palate, the little hollows beneath the tongue. God, it was good. He had no idea who he was kissing, either, and that was a turn-on in and of itself. He was barely even tempted to open his eyes.
        He felt movement, and someone's hands were on his hips, urging him to shift position. As he settled against a body in response to that guidance, Ray figured out who he was kissing without opening his eyes. The shape, and bulk of the body against his told him that. Especially one particular shape, matched by a very similar shape of his own. Acting purely on impulse, he rolled his hips, dragging his own erection against the other man's, and Ben shuddered, his fingers digging into Ray's flanks to hold him there, a soft groan low in his throat. The sound was raw, and urgent. Ray pushed again, and again, bringing their bodies as close as he could through his clothes and Benny's shorts.
        Warm lips feathered against his ear, making him shiver. Amanda. She tugged Ben's hands from his hips, and pushed Ray to one side, then urged him up against Ben's thigh by spreading her hand across his butt much as Ben had earlier done to her.
        "Give me your hand," she whispered, her voice a sibilant caress of breath against his ear.
        He complied, and she led his hand first to Ben's chest, then drew it downward, beneath elastic and cotton so his fingers touched the taut expanse of Ben's stomach. One finger dipped into the well of his navel. It was strange knowing this was Ben he was touching. Amanda let him pause there for a moment, then she leaned close to his ear again.
        "Touch him, Ray," she urged breathlessly. "Touch Ben."
        Her words brought a surge of arousal so intense it made his breath catch. Hesitantly he let his hand ease lower, as it had once before, though that time he hadn't quite realized what he was doing. This time he did. So did Ben. Beneath him he felt the tension in Benny's body torque up, felt his pulse thundering under his own. His fingers found and curled around the rigid shape, settling into a familiar curve around the blunt-tipped shaft. It was like touching himself, but even more erotic.
        There was definitely expansion going on beneath his palm, Ben was responding to the touch. Somehow Ray found the heat and silken skin beneath his hand startling, though he knew damned well what a penis felt like. But this wasn't his own, and he could feel the differences. While they were similar in size, Ben was slightly thicker, the curve of him more pronounced, the head broader. Instinctively he set a rhythm that echoed the ache in his own groin, and Amanda stroked his hand encouragingly.
        Suddenly he faltered. Ben was going to kill him. Well, actually he wouldn't. Ben would never do anything so declasse'. But he would be upset, wouldn't he? A soft whimper of protest at the change in pace answered that question. It was clear Ben would be more upset if he stopped. He slowly rebuilt his tempo.
        Amanda slid down, moving lower, and lower. Even with his eyes still closed, Ray had a pretty good idea what she was up to. Sure enough, her hands went beneath Ben's shorts and pushed them down, then a moment later he felt her lips brush his fingers. Automatically he moved his hand out of her way, without removing it entirely. Ben shuddered and let out a low moan as her mouth found him. Ray couldn't believe Benny was letting them do this. It was mind-blowing. The amount of trust he had to have in them . . .
        Ah, damn it. Trust. How could he do this to someone as trusting, and as vulnerable as Ben? How could he let Amanda do this? On the other hand, how could he not? No normal man would object to what Amanda was doing, and most normal men wouldn't even object to what Ray was doing, as long as there was a woman somewhere in the mix. But then, Ben wasn't like anyone else, and Ray really had no idea how he would feel about this. Sex simply wasn't something they had ever discussed. The very thought of trying to discuss sex with Ben made Ray grin, despite the situation.
        He found himself moving his hand in counterpoint to Amanda's mouth. Ben's breathing sounded quick and harsh in the relative quiet of the room. Ray had to look. He had to see. He opened his eyes, and looked into Ben's face. As his pleasure built, his head tipped backward, exposing the vulnerable arch of his throat. Ray leaned down and kissed him there. He was so damned beautiful. That hint of softness in the line of his jaw, the little out-curves that would someday be smile-lines around his mouth, the fan of dark lashes against pale skin. His lips were parted, and god, he had a fabulous mouth. Looking lower, he saw his own hand holding and stroking Ben, watched Amanda's mouth slide wetly down gleaming flesh. He nearly lost it. No, don't think that. Not yet, not yet. This is for him, not you.
        He tightened his arm around Ben's waist, pulling him closer. The action both eased and worsened the ache in his own groin where it was pressed into the Benny's thigh. The ache he kept trying to pretend wasn't there. Ben put a hand on Ray's arm, his fingers clutching convulsively on his forearm as if to anchor himself to reality. Ray reluctantly admitted to himself that he really wanted to kiss Benny on the mouth again. So he did.
        As his mouth moved over Ben's, he felt in his hand the tightening, the thickening that heralded an orgasm. He found himself wishing it were his mouth, not Amanda's, that was bringing Ben to this point. Suddenly Ben's body tensed in his arms, a shudder went through him, and Ray finally found out what he looked like when he came. Perfect, blind innocence and delight. Ben slowly relaxed, and he sighed Ray's name with a sound like coming home, and the sound hit Ray like a brick. His name. Ben had said his name when he came. Not Amanda. Not Victoria. Hell, not even Francesca. He'd said 'Ray.' That realization stunned him, but when it finally sank in, he felt wetness on his face. He was a little stunned to realize he was crying.
        Amanda let Ben go, and slid up against him, and putting her arms around Ben too. They held him between them for a long time, as if he were still in danger of freezing. Ben was silent for so long that Ray was starting to worry, when he finally spoke.
        "Thank you."
        Ray put his forehead against the Benny's shoulder and groaned in mingled relief and incredulity. "Thank you? Is that all you're going to say?"
        "What else is there to say, Ray?" Ben asked, sounding . . . amused? No, he couldn't be.
        "Uh, good question. I guess I just figured you might be mad."
        "Why would I be angry, Ray?" Ben asked in a very reasonable and curious tone.
        "Well, because we didn't . . . ask."
        That inspired several more seconds of silence. Was he imagining it, or had Fraser's neck just gotten warmer? Was he blushing? Ray rather thought he was. Finally Benny spoke again.
        "I, ah, I could have objected, were I so inclined."
        Well. That was certainly true. But it also raised a host of other questions. So far as Ray knew, there had only ever been one person in Fraser's life with whom he'd been intimate. Where had this Benny that was open to a menage a trois come from? Suddenly Ray felt insecure. What if it was just that 'quickening' stuff? What if he regretted this later?
        "You really don't mind?" Amanda asked, sounding oddly tentative. Maybe she was insecure too. Perversely that made Ray feel better.
        "No, not at all." Ray could hear the smile in Ben's voice, and relaxed a little more. Ben reached out and stroked his fingers lightly down Ray's face. Opposite him, he did the same thing to Amanda.
        "Oh, good," she said, her voice more natural now, a throaty purr. "Because there's lots more fun we could have."
        Benny got a little tense and started to speak "Um, I don't mean to . . ."
        Shut him up, Ray thought at Amanda. Letting him talk would be bad. He'd talk himself out of this. As if she'd heard him, Ben's words were abruptly cut off as Amanda's mouth found his. From this close, Ray could hear their kiss, the soft, moist sounds of lips clinging, moving. His own lips were suddenly dry, and he moistened them, trying to ignore the fact that the ache in his groin was at the point of being painful. As the kiss continued, Ben gradually relaxed a bit and his hands unclenched from Ray's arm. Only then did Amanda draw back.
        Immediately Ben tried again to speak. "Not that I don't . . ."
        "Benny?" Ray interrupted.
        "Yes, Ray?"
        "Shut up."
        "Yes, Ray," Fraser said meekly.
        Amanda laughed. "Nice technique there, Ray. Maybe you should try something a little subtler."
        "Like what?" Ray asked, though he thought maybe he knew. He wanted it, too. Bad.
        "Well, you could try my method," she suggested archly, covering Ben's mouth with hers again. Ray watched jealously, until Amanda drew back, and immediately leaned over to Ray, her mouth soft, and warm, and moist. Ray kissed her back, hungrily, tasting her, and-- oh god, he remembered just where her mouth had been a few minutes earlier. He groaned, and chased that salty-sweet taste with his tongue. She cupped his face in her hands and continued to kiss him while she shaped a hand over the rigid, nearly painful arc of his cock where his clothes restrained it. Wait, if both of Amanda's hands were on his face, that meant that the hand . . . the hand . . .
        Understanding went through him like an erotic shockwave and he groaned again, bucking against the hand that somewhat awkwardly stroked him through the constricting layers of his clothes. He tensed, and not just in anticipation. He was scared. This was a big step. A very big step. Irrevocable. Weird how it had been so much easier to touch Benny than it was to let Benny touch him. Amanda must have seen the panic in his eyes, because she leaned close to whisper in his ear.
        "I know you've been taught to think it is, Ray, but really, sexuality is not an either-or proposition. Think of it like a spectrum. At one end there's completely straight, at the other end, there's completely gay. Most people fall somewhere in-between, not on one end or the other. As much as I adore men, there was a woman I met when I was young who was very special for me. We had a relationship that was every bit as deep as any I've ever had with a man. She taught me that you don't have to put a label on love. It just is."
        God, she made it sound so easy, so normal. But what was happening to him was way past normal, for him. But it felt so good, so right. Why couldn't it be normal? What was normal, anyway? Especially right now. Normal had gone right out the window the minute he'd walked into the room. He was waaaay down the rabbit hole on this one. Images of Ben in a white rabbit costume, Amanda as Alice, and himself as the Mad Hatter suddenly flitted through his brain, and he couldn't help himself. He laughed. Both Benny and Amanda looked at him curiously.
        "Share the joke?" Amanda asked.
        He grinned. "Nothing, nothing at all. I'm just . . . happy."
        And he was. Weirdly, unaccountably, he was. The look on Benny's face when he said that made him even happier.
        "Good. We want you to be happy, right Ben?" Amanda asked.
        Benny nodded solemnly.
        "So, now let's make you even happier," she continued, fingers going to the zipper on his trousers.
        He tensed, then reminded himself of all the times he'd changed clothes, or even showered with Ben not four feet away. So, it wasn't like Benny had never seen him nude, he tried to tell himself. It was just a difference in context. Of course, the reverse wasn't true, he realized with a start. He'd never seen Benny completely, one-hundred percent au natural. He'd always just figured the Mountie was shy, which he was, but maybe that wasn't quite all of it. Maybe he hadn't wanted Ray to notice any physical reaction. He thought about that for a minute, and decided against it. No, Fraser was just shy. It was as integral to him as breathing.
        Which thought led him back to amazement about what was happening now. For Benny to be this outgoing meant he had to want it bad. Really, really bad. Bad enough to overcome his inborn reserve, and throw caution to the wind. Ray flashed again on Benny's expression as he hit orgasm, and the sound of his name sighed in complete ecstasy, and his arousal returned like a steam train on full throttle. God, it shouldn't be erotic, but it was.
        Amanda murmured approvingly as she peeled down his trousers. Ben untied his shoes and removed them. Together they had him stripped in short order. As Amanda moved away to finish removing her own clothes, cold air hit his skin and he shivered. He felt vulnerable, exposed, and downright chilly until he looked at Benny, who was devouring Ray with his gaze. Heat flushed through his body instantly in response, warming him despite the coolness of the air. He struggled for composure, and found it somewhere.
        "Take a picture, it lasts longer," Ray said, grinning, resorting to being a smart-ass to cover his discomfort.
        Ben shook his head, a tiny smile curving his mouth. "No, Ray. A picture never lasts as long as a memory."
        Ray gulped. Ben's words made no sense at all, but at the same time they made perfect sense. That was scary. He was starting to think like the Mountie. Was it normal not to be totally freaked out by what he was feeling? Amanda's words came back to him, and he realized that it probably was. Sure, he and Benny both liked women, but maybe there was room to like men too. No, that was much too general a way to put it. They liked each other. Not men. Each other. He couldn't imagine ever feeling like this about any man other than Benny. Lots of women, sure, but not a lot of men. This was special. Unique.

* * *

        Amanda watched the two men, trying very hard not to grin openly. God, they were so cute. And it made her so damned horny to know that they were not only getting off on her, but on each other. Why was that such a turn on? She had no idea, but it was an undeniable fact. She'd almost come herself, just from watching Ben go over the edge when Ray kissed him. Such a simple, tiny act, with such explosive results.
        Then when Ray had gone after her mouth so wildly she'd known exactly what he was doing. He was trying to taste Ben on her lips, on her tongue, to find some trace of his flavor in her mouth. Under different circumstances she might have been offended at being relegated to third-fiddle in this trio, but for some reason it didn't bother her a bit this time. Actually it was kind of a kick playing Fairy Godmother.
        Funny, she'd really thought it would be harder to get Ray past his hang-ups. He was either farther along than she'd thought, or more open minded than he liked to let on. Or he was just a hell of a smart man, which she'd already suspected. Street-smart, like herself, rather than educated, like Ben. He and Ben made a good pair that way, mental and physical opposites.
        Just as their ways of thinking were complimentary, Ben's classically handsome features and proportions were offset by Ray's lanky, intense charm. Although, now that she'd seen him 'before and after,' she found that Ray presented better with his clothes off, because then you could see the long, lean muscles, and the endless legs that were hidden by his penchant for baggy clothes. He was built like a thoroughbred. Hopefully he had the stamina of one too, because she had no intention of being slighted tonight, and she didn't want to leave Ben out of the equation.
        Ray was leaning back on his elbows, looking a little skittish again. Time to distract him. Slowly Amanda peeled down her panties and stepped out of them, kicking them aside. That definitely got Ray's attention, and his eyes were glued to her as she sank to her knees, straddling his thighs. Having noticed before that he seemed to rather like her breasts, she leaned forward until they brushed his chest. His eyes closed, and he smiled. Behind her, she sensed Ben's warmth, and a second later his hands came firmly down on her shoulders, thumbs circling, fingers fanning deep into the muscles of her back, finding and soothing sore spots she hadn't even known she had.
        "Ahhhhh," she sighed, closing her eyes, letting her head fall back in pained pleasure. God, that felt good. Not particularly sexy, but good.
        Something brushed her nipples, fingertips, she rather thought, and her breasts tightened instantly. A few seconds later something soft, warm, and moist covered one taut bud, suckling. She shivered, keeping her eyes closed, savoring the dual sensations, one sensual, one sexual. Very nice combination. There was hope for these two yet, if they could just get past that 'nervous' point.
        Ben's hands drifted down her back to her hips, and very deliberately he guided her in a circle over Ray's prominent erection. The touch of his hands on her hips and Ray's body between her thighs was delicious, even if Ben's actions were a little surprising. She hadn't thought Ben would be so bold. But then, he wasn't doing it for him, he was doing it for her, and for Ray. That made more sense. She'd just have to make sure he got his share of attention tonight, since he would never dream of pushing.
        Amanda sighed as Ray's mouth left her and his hands moved up to cup her breasts, thumbs stroking over the tight-furled nipples, sending waves of pleasure through her to pool between her thighs, adding to the sexual glow that a Quickening always left in her. That thought brought back the realization that something about that first kiss Ben had given her had stirred echoes of that glow into flames. It had almost been like a miniature Quickening in itself, complete with a little memory-surge. Very weird. It must have had something to do with that 'flash-over' effect. She made a mental note of it. Methos would want to know.
        As if sensing she was distracted, Ben's mouth moved along her shoulder in soft, butterfly touches until it reached the juncture of neck and shoulder, where he bit, very gently. Sparks seemed to surge through her, and she moaned and shivered. How was he doing that? God, it was fabulous! But she wanted more. Amanda reached down to her hip, caught one of Ben's hands in hers, and drew it forward. He got the hint. His fingers slipped down, curling over her soft mound, into the shallow cleft there, searching. She gasped and jumped a little when he found the right spot. He paused, touched her there again. She made a little sound of pleasure, just to make sure he knew he had it right.
        If Ben was anywhere near as inexperienced as he appeared, then giving him hints would be necessary, though so far he seemed to be a quick study. Proving that, Ben edged forward, until she could feel his thighs pressed against her buttocks, and the swell of his erection against her lower back. Impressive recovery time. It hadn't been all that long since she'd taken him over the edge, and already he was hard again. Between her thighs, his fingers dipped lower, then back up, using her own moisture to make his touch slide effortlessly against swelling skin.
        She shivered, and shifted her weight so there was a little more space between her and Ray. That hint worked perfectly, too. Ben was either very well read or he had incredible instincts. His other hand left her hip to move into that space, then lower. Ray gasped, looking down, realizing whose hand was on him. His eyes widened, but Amanda reached down and put one hand over Ben's, and lifted one finger of the other hand to her lips in a 'shushing' motion. Ray bit his lip, but didn't protest. And he certainly didn't seem to be adversely affected. To the contrary, he moved under Ben's touch like a man on the ragged edge of control.
        Hmmm. She'd thought to let Ray take the more traditional role here, but perhaps that wasn't necessary. While she was sure neither of them was ready for certain things yet, Ray's reactions to what he'd already done told her he was less conservative than she'd thought. He also, judging from where he kept looking, seemed to be fixated on Ben's mouth. Not that she blamed him. Ben's mouth just naturally made one want to have it placed against intimate portions of one's anatomy. She had no doubt at all that Ben was willing; he seemed to be quite in tune with his own desires, if chronically too unassuming to pursue them. Yep. Time to make some changes here. Reaching back, she slid her fingers along Ben's jaw and urged him forward until she could turn her head and whisper in his ear.
        "Do you want to taste him?" she whispered.
        The surge of his cock against her back gave her his answer before he even managed to whisper a strangled affirmative. She smiled. "Move back a little," she suggested.
        Ben moved so fast he nearly lost his balance. She grinned and lifted herself up and off, to kneel next to Ray, who looked up, clearly about to object to their desertion. Positioning herself to leave Ben plenty of room, Amanda leaned forward and stopped Ray's protest with her mouth as she motioned with one hand for Ben to move in. Ray was a very good kisser, at least until Ben found him. After that he was even better, nearly desperate. While she couldn't see what he was doing, the way Ray moaned into her mouth told her it was good. Men were always good at this because they knew what they liked better than any woman could.
        She slid a hand down Ray's chest, down his belly, found where Ben's head rested against him. She trailed her fingers along his jaw, feeling it work as he sucked, and slid. She let her hand move lower, felt the wet rasp of tongue against hard, male flesh. Oh yeah. Even if she couldn't see, feeling was enough to let her envision the scene. She felt hot all over, flushed and swollen and tight, need a pulsing ache between her thighs. But she knew she could wait. While her basic nature was rash and impulsive, there were some things that were always so much better if care and time was taken.
        Ray's hands stopped clutching the bedding and lifted, finding her breasts. His long, lean fingers tugged at her aching nipples and she arched against his touch. Lifting her mouth from his, she cupped her breasts, offering herself. He accepted, still teasing one taut crest with his fingers while his mouth found the other and suckled, hard. She gasped and shuddered as a tiny quake went through her, almost an orgasm, almost. She moaned, so did Ray, bucking hard enough that she almost went sprawling.
        Amanda took that as her cue to lean back and watch. Unashamedly she let one hand slide between her thighs, keeping her own arousal high, though she barely needed to touch to do so. Watching did enough on its own. There was something so incredibly arousing about Ben's mouth sliding down the rigid, blood-gorged length of Ray's cock, tongue swiping at him like a kid with an ice-cream cone, licking, sucking, even gently nibbling as one of his hands stroked in counterpoint, and then dipped down to cup the tightening sac between his thighs. Ray was back to clutching the bedding, and finally his body arched, and three ragged words tore from his throat.
        "Oh. . . God. . . Benny!"
        She had to admit, it did look like a religious experience as Ben's mouth covered Ray, his throat working as he wrung every last drop of sensation from the rangy form beneath him. A true test of masculinity. A man who swallowed.
        Finally Ray went boneless with a sigh, relaxing with eyes closed, chest heaving, a smile playing around his mouth. Ben lifted his head, delight dancing in his eyes, delight, and something darker, wilder. It surprised her. She hadn't thought he had a dark side, but there it was. It was suddenly clear to her that like his wolf companion, Benton Fraser was only partly domesticated. He could act the part, could keep the wildness hidden so well it seemed nonexistent, but it waited, patiently, for the right moment. She shivered as he sat back on his heels and reached for her. This was the right moment.
        He pushed her back until her head and shoulders were pillowed on Ray's midriff. Ray didn't seem to mind being used for a pillow at the moment. Her feet were on the cool wooden floor, her butt on a slightly scratchy woolen blanket, but she didn't care. Only one thing mattered now. She waited, feeling a little feral herself, playing submissive as Ben nudged her thighs apart with his own. He slid one hand between her thighs, parting her, stroking through wet curls to test her. Two broad fingers slid easily inside, she was far more than ready. She moaned and arched against his hand. He moved his hands beneath her, lifting her to his heat and hardness. She used her gymnasts' flexibility to push herself down onto his upthrust cock and then he was finally in her and every nerve in her body seemed to explode.
        Lightning pounded into her, through her, around her. Then the memories came, memories not her own, flared and spun in her mind. Confusion and bliss ruled her as each thrust of his body into hers brought yet another surge of pleasure, and pulses of energy burst through her, almost as if he were their source. It was a Quickening, yet not. She grabbed for his shoulders, trying to stop the world from spinning, and as she stared into his eyes she was pulled in, pulled deep.
        It was dark, and yet brilliant. They lay in the heart of a fire as blue as Ben's eyes, but weren't burned as the flames licked around their fused bodies. They weren't alone, either. A little ways away she saw a woman watching them with a smile on her face-- Ben's face, but not. She was naked, her body flushed and damp, and she was straddling a sleeping, smiling Ray. Amanda knew that meant something, but she didn't know what. It didn't matter. What mattered was Ben inside her, the fire, the need. She opened to him, yielding totally as he drove in, and in, and in deeper. Finally Ben lowered his mouth to hers, and the circuit was complete. Flames seemed to rush into her in a spiraling tempest, and it was too much, too much, too much . . . she screamed.
        Shockwaves of ecstasy burst through her and everything faded for a for a little bit in the face of that, then she gradually became aware again, pulse starting to slow as her orgasm slowly faded. She was back in reality. Someone had a hand over her mouth, and she knew the scream hadn't just happened in her mind. Ben was still between her thighs, but gentle now, the liquid glide of his half-hard penis inside her prolonged the last echoes of pleasure until he collapsed against her, his face buried in the curve of her shoulder, his breathing shallow and ragged.
        She stroked his back, trying to understand what had just happened to her, to them. That hadn't just been sex. That had been like sex in the middle of a Quickening. Not that she'd ever had sex in the middle of a Quickening, but if she had, she was sure it would have been like that. Apparently having decided the yelling was over, Ray lifted his hand from her mouth, soothing it for a moment with a fingertip before stroking sweat-soaked hair off her forehead, then dropping to curve over the back of Ben's head like a benediction. Amanda couldn't even think of moving. She couldn't ever remember feeling so tired in her life, not her life since before her first death, anyway. Ben's body was warm, and solid, like a blanket over her. Ray was warm, and solid at her back. She felt safe, and protected. She closed her eyes. So tired.

* * *

        A groan woke Fraser up. A groan that wasn't lupine in origin. Startled, he sat bolt upright, or tried to, but found himself too entangled in arms, legs, and bodies to move. Everything started to come back to him, and he felt himself reddening as he met Amanda's sleepy gaze. The groan came again, and slowly Ray worked his way out from the bottom of the pile and sat up, rubbing his back. He looked at Amanda, then at Ben. Ben's face got even hotter, and he thought Ray might be blushing a little too, but his friend met his gaze without difficulty as he swept a hand through his disordered hair.
        "Oh, man, next time we get a hotel room," Ray said, wincing. "One with a king-size bed, okay? I gotta tell you, I am not cut out for sleeping on the floor."
        "Bed sounds lovely," Amanda concurred, stretching. "And so would room service."
        How did they manage to seem so nonchalant, Ben wondered. As if waking up with two people after a night of incredibly wild sex were perfectly normal? Of course, he was rather pleased that Ray didn't seem to be at all averse to the idea of doing it again. Still, Ben hadn't a clue how he was supposed to be acting right now. No etiquette book he'd ever read had prepared him for this so he did nothing, just lay there, looking at them, clutching the edge of a blanket across his midsection.
        Amanda giggled. "I think Ben's asleep with his eyes open."
        "Nah, he's just reviewing the Mountie Handbook to see if this situation is covered under their Code of Conduct," Ray teased, his tone warm.
        Ben started to relax a little. If Ray was okay enough with everything to tease him, then things were going to be all right. "Actually, Ray, I can safely state that this situation is definitely not covered. Now, if there were a moose present, or, say, an otter . . ."
        Ray laughed, looking at Amanda "Canadian humor. They love to see just how much they can make us dumb Americans believe. Give it up, Benny. I know what you're really doing. You're trying to figure out a way to get up without either of us seeing you in the altogether, as if we hadn't already.
        Ben shot Ray a startled look. Ray must know him better than he'd thought. He did wish he knew where in the tangle of bedding his boxer shorts were. It was one thing to be naked with Ray and Amanda while in the proverbial throes of passion, it was something else entirely to wander around his apartment that way in front of them. Although, clearly, neither of his companions was having much difficulty with that aspect.
        Amanda took pity on him and dove under the blankets, surfacing a moment later with a rather wrinkled pair of shorts. Ben grabbed them gratefully and pulled them on, only then getting to his feet. He was well aware that it was a case of closing the barn door after the horse was gone, but it made him feel better. He seized on the fact that Amanda had said something about room service, and decided that the best thing to do would be to make himself useful. At least then he wouldn't feel quite so awkward. He headed for the kitchen.
        Amanda and Ray both looked at him, then at each other. Something seemed to pass between them, and then suddenly Ray was pushing him down onto one of his chairs and pulling one up for himself. Amanda joined them, and they looked so serious that Fraser had the urge to comb his hair and polish his boots. He knew 'lecture mode' when he saw it. Even if the lecturers were both stark naked.
        "Benny, relax," Ray said quietly. "It's okay. Nothing's changed."
        Amanda rolled her eyes, exasperated. "Don't be silly, Ray, of course they have. But not the important thing."
        "The important thing?" Ben asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.
        She smiled. "Yes, the important thing. The way we feel about each other. Both of you are very special people, both to me, but even more to each other. That was clear from the moment I met you. That hasn't changed, and it never will."
        Ben looked at Ray, hoping for confirmation. What he saw in his friend's steady gaze filled him with relief even before he spoke.
        "Yes, Benny. It never will. You're my friend, my best friend. No matter what happens, or happened, or doesn't happen."
        Ben chewed the inside of his lip, trying to decipher that statement. Amanda sighed.
        "Ray, you're hopeless. Ben, I think what Ray is trying to say is that regardless of what happened last night he still has the same feelings for you that he always has. And I think, in his own clumsy way, he's trying to say that if what happened last night happens again, he's okay with that, or if for some reason it never does, he's okay with that too. Am I right?"
        Ray nodded. "Yeah. Exactly." Then he grinned, broadly. "Although, frankly I'm not sure I could survive another night like last night. What exactly was going on there? I thought we were having an earthquake, or one hell of a thunderstorm. For a few minutes there I was worried something important might get zapped. Is it always like that with you people? I always thought fireworks were just a figure of speech!"
        Amanda blinked. "That wasn't just in my head?"
        "Nope, very real. I thought you were gonna set the place on fire, until I realized it was kind of like on the roof."
        She looked at Ben, who looked back at her innocently. "I think we need to talk."
        "Talk?" he asked, with some trepidation.
        "Yes, talk. About what happened last night. And I don't mean the sex part. I need to know what happened. That's never, ever happened to me before, nor to my knowledge, to anyone else. If you two weren't who you are I'd have suspected one of you gave me a hallucinogen, but I know neither of you would do that. Besides, Ray saw at least part of it, too. So, that tells me it was real, and that somehow you're the key. Spill it, what happened?"
        Ben sighed. "I'm not quite certain yet. I have a theory, but before I can confirm it, I need to know something from you. You spoke of something called a Quickening. What is it?"
        Amanda started to speak, stopped, looked from him, to Ray, and back, and finally sighed. "Oh, all right. You know everything else, I don't see what difference this is going to make. Guess I'm going to have to call Joe and have him recruit you two after this. This probably won't make sense to you, it hardly does to me and I live with it. You see, every time one of us dies, I mean really dies, not the temporary kind of death, it releases a kind of energy, which is in turn absorbed by the Immortal who killed them. That's called a Quickening. It's cumulative. Each successive absorption makes that Immortal's Quickening stronger. The older you get, the more Quickenings you've taken, the stronger and more complex your own becomes."
        "Okay, so then what did Benny mean about 'hearing souls'?" Ray asked.
        "When we take a Quickening, along with it comes what could be described as memories, almost like a recording of the person who died. Since it's cumulative, if the person who died has taken any Quickenings, we get those 'recordings' too. Some say it's really the souls of the dead that we absorb. I don't know if that's true, but it does seem that way. That has to be what Benny meant. He must, somehow, have been able to sense those 'recordings,' those souls."
        Benton nodded. "I thought as much. That was the only thing that made sense."
        "What makes sense?"
        "I believe what happened last night was that somehow, some of the souls that should have gone to you during the Quickening came to me instead."
        "But why? Why you, when no mortal has ever done that before?"
        "We don't know that it's never happened before, you simply have not heard of a case. You referred to the Quickening as a kind of magic. I suspect that it happened because of who, and what, I am. When I was a boy, an Inuit shaman told me that I had two spirits, and that I had the potential to become a shaman myself. I never pursued that end, but still, apparently the presence of that other spirit within me was enough to confuse the others."
        Amanda stared at him, frowning slightly. "Two spirits?"
        Ben nodded. "Male, and female. Most people only carry one, but some few have two. Myself among them." He shot a glance at Ray to see how he was taking this. He looked puzzled, but interested. Of course, Ray would have no reason to know the significance of that. To him it would just be another 'Inuit story.'
        Amanda's eyes widened. "The woman with your face! That's who she was!"
        It was Ben's turn to stare. He frowned. "You saw her? When?"
        This time Amanda did blush. It went down quite far. "Um, well, when we . . ."
        "Understood," Fraser said, saving her from having to complete the sentence. "That's . . . unusual. Shared visions are usually deliberate, not accidental."
        "A woman who looked like you?" Ray queried, grinning. "You been cross-dressing again, Benny?"
        Amanda lifted her eyebrows at Fraser, clearly waiting for an explanation.
        "It was for a case," he told her with a quelling glance at Ray. "Undercover work."
        Amanda studied him for a long moment. "Well, I'm sure you made a lovely woman," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching in an effort not to smile. "Wish I'd been here then. I would have loved taking you shopping! I think you'd do very well in Ralph Lauren. Of course, nothing says we can't still . . ."
        Ben looked at her worriedly, and she relented, if a trifle wistfully.
        "Oh, I'm just teasing you, you know that. But I still don't understand how you, a Mortal, could have taken part of a Quickening. It's not supposed to happen."
        "I know that. She told me that as well, and told me I had to give them back to you. They would have destroyed me otherwise. You were made to contain them, I was not."
        She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Did you see them, in your vision?"
        He nodded. "Yes. I believe so."
        "Was there a man, silver-blond hair, gray eyes, mid-forties?"
        Ben thought back, and nodded. "Yes."
        She sighed. "Etienne. Then you really did see them. I missed him the first time, I thought DeBoer must have lied about killing him, but then last night, he was there. He must have gone to you first."
        "Apparently so."
        She studied him thoughtfully, tapping a finger against her lips. "Fascinating. Joe and Methos are going to want to know all about this."
        Fraser stared at her, feeling heat rise in his face again. "You're going to . . . ?" he couldn't finish, he simply couldn't.
        Amanda shook her head, smiling, and leaned in to plant a kiss on his lips, then drew back. "Ben, they surely broke the mold with you. You've got to be the only man I've ever met who wouldn't claim bragging rights." Amanda shot a glance at Ray, who grinned and spread his hands as if to say 'who, me?' before returning her attention to Fraser. "Now, you must know that a lady never kisses and tells. I promise your name will never pass these lips. I can tell him all about what happened without ever mentioning where I was or who I was with."
        He glanced quickly at her hands, then her feet. Neither her fingers, knees, or toes were crossed. Relief flooded him and he started breathing again. "Thank you."
        "No need, Ben."
        She stood up and picked up his flannel shirt from where she'd tossed it the night before, sliding it on and buttoning it. It covered her more than some dresses he saw on women on a daily basis. She went to the door and peeked out, then looked back at them.
        "Good, no line. Back in a few."
        She left the room, closing the door behind her. Ben looked everywhere but at Ray. Diefenbaker was sitting on the bed, his back to the humans, staring pointedly at the wall. Ben smiled as he realized the wolf was expressing his displeasure.
        "Dief's jealous."
        "I don't blame him," Ray returned.
        Fraser looked back at him, surprised, and Ray grinned. "If you were mine, I wouldn't want to share you either . . . with certain exceptions." He nodded toward the door through which Amanda had just exited.
        Fraser blinked. Ray was saying this? Ray? Apparently his surprise was obvious. Ray leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
        "Look, Benny, I know I'm kind of thickheaded at times. I'm sorry it took being smacked upside the head with it for me to figure things out."
        "Figure what out?"
        "That I was being stupid. That there are . . . feelings, between us."
        "Feelings?" Ben knew he was on dangerous ground. He was prompting. Not good. But he couldn't help himself.
        Ray gave him a lopsided smile. "You're gonna make me say it, aren't you?"
        That was enough. It told him exactly what he needed to know. He shook his head. "No, Ray. I'm not."
        Ray looked relieved. "Good, because I've always been really lousy at that. It's not something we're good at, in my family."
        "Nor mine, Ray."
        Ray nodded, his gaze sympathetic. "Quite a pair, ain't we Fraser? I suppose you'd like me to get dressed." He walked over to the bedroll and started hunting for his clothes.
        Ben smiled, slowly. "Well, Ray, that all depends."
        "On what?" Ray asked, picking up his shirt and tugging his pants out from under the bed.
        "On whether you want breakfast sooner, or later."
        Ray turned, startled. "What did you say?"
        "I think you heard me, Ray."
        Ray stared at him, and then he started grin. "Boy, you save a Mountie's life and he makes you pay, and pay, and pay . . ."
        "You know what they say, Ray."
        "What do they say, Benny?"
        "That Mounties always get their man."
        "I thought you told me that was just a myth."
        "Well, it may not be the official motto but there is a grain of truth in it."

* * *

        Amanda left the bathroom and padded barefoot back down the hall toward Ben's apartment. She stood outside the door for a moment, listening, hearing the murmur of male voices through the paper-thin walls. Then it got quiet. Very quiet. She smiled, and waited. Waited a little longer. A strangled moan sounded. Her smile broadened. After a moment's thought, she returned to the bathroom and started filling the tub. Clearly she wouldn't be missed. Half an hour later, scrubbed and damp, she returned to the apartment and slipped inside without a sound. Ben and Ray were sprawled on the narrow bed in an magnificent tangle of masculinity. Sound asleep. Poor things. Of course, they had been up most of the night. They needed their rest.
        She stood by the bed just watching them sleep for a little while, then lifting a hushing finger to Diefenbaker who was looking rather put out, she silently gathered up her clothes and put them on. Then she located Ray's wallet and lifted a fifty from it. She'd return it first chance she got. Quietly she slipped out of the apartment again. Time to go home. She had new identification and a supply of cash hidden away at the airport, and wanted to be long gone from Chicago by the time Ben started to feel guilty for aiding and abetting a thief. She'd give them time to get over that, and to get used to each other, before she came back to visit. Which she definitely planned on doing. Someday.

* * *

        The door opened and Ben heard quiet footsteps cross the floor, knew Amanda had finally returned. He left his eyes closed, face still pillowed against Ray's shoulder, waiting to see what she would do next. She stood for a little while next to the bed, then gave a soft sigh and he heard clothing being gathered and donned. After dressing, she picked up Ray's pants and went through the pockets. He had to smile against Ray's skin. 'Once a thief,' as the saying went. But he also had a feeling that whatever Ray was missing would turn up in a few days. Finally he heard the door open and close. She was gone. He was a little sorry that she'd chosen to leave, but he understood and appreciated it. Perhaps they might meet again someday. He had a great deal to thank her for.

* * Finis * *

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