As the group wandered through the halls, Callandra started shedding clothing, as it was suddenly too warm for them. "No offense, I really appreciate not being popsiclized and all," she muttered, "but how do you people stand this?"

Benedict shrugged slightly, "You get used to it. It's not always like this."

"Great," she said enthusiastically, as she picked up the stuff she discarded and carried it along with her. Ben agreed with her a bit. It was warm in the castle. He had felt much more comfortable outside. Bleys prattled on with "Flora". Ben ignored them, as he was preoccupied with the situation as a whole, and his worsening condition. Am I getting sick? he wondered. He had felt fine this morning, even just a half hour ago.. It was odd, and it troubled him. He stepped up his pace to the infirmary.

"What I would like to no," Fiona remarked suddenly as they entered the castle infirmary, "is why, whatever this manifestation may be--well, I suppose it's fairly well established it's Flora, why can you see it and the rest of us can't?"

Bleys nodded, "I've been thinking about that myself, any idea Flo?" He looked around the infirmary, looking uneasy. After a moment he answered himself, "Flora doesn't seem to know either, Fi."

Benedict concentrated on finding their sister's body, wherever they put it. Off to the side was a smaller accessory room, and Bleys headed towards it. Ben followed, and inside was a table, with a covered body on it. Ben approached, feeling apprehension. He hadn't seen her body yet. He didn't want to.

Bleys stopped outside the room, asking the air, "Are you sure you want to go inside, sis?" Fiona came out of her reverie and followed. Callandra trailed behind, looking queasy. Ben didn't blame her. He felt that way himself. Sure...he'd seen bodies before, but this was family. It was different, somehow. He wiped his brow clear of sweat, and scratched his jaw.

Finally, he pulled back the blanket. There was Flora. She was very pale, and her skin was tinged blue. There were no apparant marks upon her body, and she looked peaceful. Benedict glanced to Bleys then Fiona, then turned Flora over. The slick feel of her skin made him sick to his stomach, and he nearly dropped her. After the body was settled again, he parted her hair in the back, looking for the tell-tale mark. Fiona leaned in close to him, not getting in his way, but looking for the same thing. Near the base of the skull there was a sizeable lump and it had small traces of blood. Ben shook his head, muttering, "Can't be...can't..." He was disturbed. This was indicating that it really was Flora's body. It had to be a trick.

"What do you see, Ben?" Bleys asked from across the room.

"There's a lump...consistent with what Flora told us," Benedict replied dully. He shook his head, trying to snap himself out of the lethargy. He felt hot, and just wanted to go back to bed, and pretend this never happened. "You remember that...Shadow of me, don't you?"

Bleys nodded, "Yup.. Looked pretty nasty; I got yanked away before the fight really got going though."

Ben nodded back to his brother, "Just as well, it was as good, maybe better, than I." He stopped abruptly, remembering that fight. That...thing had called him "Brother". Ben felt like he wanted to retch.

"Not a cheery thought," Bleys replied. "This turn of events, if true.. would rather imply that we all have evil twins running around. Not pleasant." That's an understatement, Ben thought sardonically. His arm itched and ached, and the room started swimming before him. He blinked rapidly in a attempt to clear his vision. It worked...sort of.

"I first thought, it was..." Benedict started, then stopped. He leaned against the table, for support, as his legs started feeling weak. "...that it was a Shadow, but a close one. One maybe from near Amber or something..." He unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt as he talked, "I took a wound in that fight, when I should have given it a death blow. Took a chunk out of my arm.."

He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm and revealed the "wound". It was a good sized parcel of dead-looking flesh, in a roughly sized bite mark of a good sized mouth. The flesh around it was red and swollen, with streamers of red around it, creeping up his arm. The dead flesh was that...dead. It was pale, and looked to be slightly rotted, but gave off no odor. No...his own skin did that. He gaped at the wound, stammering out, "Well, that's new." And it was. It wasn't there six hours ago.

Fiona glanced up and focused on the spectacle. "Benedict!" She reached out and grabbed his wrist, "That's blood poisoning. You need to get that treated, right away."

Benedict resisted the urge to jerk his arm away. "It wasn't there this morning," he said defensively. The room started swimming again, and he quickly decided to just let his sister lead for now.

"Come on. They've got to have something for infections here...damn whoever ran off with the servants..." She tugged him gently toward the door into the main treatment room. It was all he could do to not lean on her. They passed Callandra on their way in. She gave a startled exclamation as the brother and sister passed her. "What...oooh, that's ugly. I knew something wasn't right."

"Want to help?" Fiona asked her. "See if you can find me some bandages."

Benedict grunted slightly. "It won't do any good to cut it out, by the way. I tried a small portion, and it grew back the same."

"We'll just have to treat the infection as best we can, then, until we figure out how to reverse the process." Fiona pointed to a table, and Benedict hopped upon it, grateful to be off his feet. His sister and neice then started rummaging through the cupboards, looking for bandages and antibiotics.

"Never mind the bandages, Callie, look for a fever reducer..." Fiona said over her shoulder.

"I never thought," he said as they searched, "That it was anything more than a Shadow. With what's been going on, and it didn't bother me, I figured when things slowed down I--we," he added hastily, "--could investigate further." He hung his head. He hoped they understood. It seemed incredibly important that they didn't think the worst of him.

"These things have a way of creeping up on you," Fiona muttered, stretching on tiptoe to reach a higher shelf. "Once the infection takes hold, though, it can spread like wildfire. You're lucky we caught it. It could have been a lot worse."

He couldn't stop his eyes from rolling, "Recent, I tell you. Bare hours ago." Of course he knew what it was. How often had he seen it before? Countless times...but he tried to temper his tone, since she was trying to help him.

"Well, regardless, we've spotted it now," she said as she took down a vial and held it up to the light, nodding in satisfaction, "and we can do something about it."

"Here," Callie called, tossing a small bottle at Ben. He caught it easily, and read the label. He took the appropriate dosage, then set it down beside him. He glanced over to Fiona, who was drawing medicine into a syringe. She rolled up his sleeve, and injected it into him.

"I was thinking," Ben said as she administered the medicine, "That's it's got a part of me too. We could track it through that, maybe. Somehow. And if it is the same that killed Flora..her 'evil twin'...if they're together..." He shrugged, barely knowing where he was going with that himself. But if we could just find them...

"Yes, that does make sense. Hmm. I wonder whether the stolen flesh it has is reacting the same way yours is here..."

He shrugged, "Good question. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say 'yes'."

"Then," she said, "I would postulate that, unless the double is as displeased by the situation as you are, he'll be back to finish the job as quickly as possible." That jarred him a bit, What a lovely thought Fi. Thanks. Rock me to sleep tonight with that one.

"My next question," he said as he mopped off his brow again, "is what in the hell was it doing in the same Shadow Gerard was? Where's the connection?" He paused and added, "Unless it was just tracking me, and found it an opportune time...but it said it's job was done there, by just delaying me from getting to Gerard."

"Obviously, then, it was not a chance encounter. And if it spoke of doing its job, it's taking orders from someone. Or something."

He nodded, saying again, "Where's the connection? Gerard died in front of us, if we go under the assumption we all have a 'twin', and they all want to take our places--flesh, whatever--then what about Gerard's twin? No chance there."

"Then perhaps Gerard does not have a twin...or perhaps he, it, whatever, is engaged in some other mission. What concerns me," she withdrew the needle and pressed a bit of gauze to the injection site, "is how we are to know that none of us have been replaced already."

He smiled a touch, "We can't--really. I would say that I'm the only one above suspicion, but I could be the 'twin', and have nearly finished off the real thing." He shrugged again, "There has to be some sort of connection, a way we can tell." Still, he was inordinately pleased with his sister. Here was someone else who was like him--no nonsense and efficient, and who used their head...something no one else seemed to do around here very much. The sound of breaking glass startled Benedict from his drug induced haze. Even as incapcitated as he was, his senses came onto full alert hearing that sound, and both he and Fiona made their way to the origin of the noise. Bleys was laid out on the floor, and shards of a broken...Trump? That's impossible Benedict thought dully, stooping next to Bleys. Trumps are indestructible.

"What happened?" Ben asked of his dazed younger brother.

"Um...freight train.." Bleys groaned out. Fiona kneeled by him as well, and helped him to sit up. Blood welled out of fine cuts in Bleys' arm, dripping onto the floor. "I think I tried something stupid."

Benedict resisted the urge to slap his younger brother. Instead, he rolled his eyes, "What did you try?"

Fiona stood up and started rummaging in the drawers again, most likely looking for bandages and the like. Bleys started picking pieces of the shattered Trump out of his arm, mumbling in explanation, "Nothing personal sis.." He finished with what he was doing and stood, wobbling on his feet. Benedict did the same. "I managed a Trump contact with Flo. I wanted to see what would happen, so I tried to pull Flo through the connection.. Apparantly, it wasn't a good idea."

Benedict raised his brows as he listened, then shook his head. "Apparantly," he remarked. He took a seat on the nearest table, not feeling too stable himself yet, though the drugs were already having some effect.

He glanced around the room. Callandra looked distraught, twisting a lock of hair between her fingers. Fiona returned with bandages, forceps, and assorted other jars and bottles. "First blood poisoning, now frostbite," she muttered, "All right, find a place to sit.." Bleys, wisely, complied with his sister's wishes.

"It's a good thing you heal quickly," Fiona remarked, plucking shards of Trump out one by one, and dropping them into a dish.

"I've never seen a broken Trump before," Bleys said finally. "Want to give me whatever you gave Ben, incidentally. This kinda tingles." Benedict rolled his eyes again, thinking, Well, of course you haven't, moron. It's supposed to be indestructible. Like so many other things that were supposed to be impossible..

"I think it's over here," Callie remarked to Bleys, walking to where Ben left the bottle. She brought it back to the redhead.

"Thanks, Callie," Bleys mumbled, trying to open it with one hand. After he tried, he finally handed it over to Fiona, who opened it up, and handed it back, before bending back to her work.

Finally, the initial push of anger subsided, and Ben rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "That's interesting, though. I would have never thought you'd be able to contact..." He trailed off, glancing about to where Flora most likely was standing, "..the dead through the Trumps." If it's impossible to break them, why in the hell not?

"She's to your immediate right," Bleys helpfully supplied.

Ben ahh'd quietly, and looked to his right. He put up his hand tenatively, to 'feel' for the cold difference. "What did she feel during this?" he asked of Bleys. Suddenly, Ben felt something icy cold clamp down on his shoulder, and he winced involuntarily. He dropped his hand to his lap again, staring at the empty space.

"Really? That's interesting," Bleys remarked. He turned to Benedict, "She says it was loud.. she could hear my breathing and heart and it was rather strange.. during the connect, she felt my hand when I touched her.. that's it?"

That was an interesting problem. Suddenly, a thought struck Ben. Should work...it should...being as the Pattern is more powerful than the Trumps... He lifted his head again, waiting for everyone's chatter to be done. When it was, he commented, "She was able to feel the Trump contact. What about other powers?"

Flora must have asked something, as Bleys said, "I believe he's referring to Pattern and such."

He nodded, "If nothing else, since our duplicates never walked it..." He stopped, too many ideas buzzing through his head at once, "...I don't know if the imprint would carry over or not." That was an interesting question. If Flora was replaced by her duplicate, did the Pattern Imprint that Flora carried with her carry over as well? Or didn't it?

Bleys nodded slightly at that, "Have you tried using any of your own powers?"

"I haven't been in Shadow since it happened," Ben replied, frowning. He stopped, and added, "But, that might just be a way for us to tell each other apart. If it doesn't..." he shrugged, "there might be some reaction to Flora as well."

"That's a very interesting point. Now, if we could just get close to the Pattern..." Fiona remarked primly, "but Flora, why don't you try bringing it to mind?" Ben nodded with that. It sounded like a good idea.

Time stretched on, until Fiona finally blinked. "I thought, just for a moment, I saw..."

"She can't do it..." Bleys said, translating for the ghost, "Ben, did you see anything?"

He shook his head, "Perhaps the other way? One of us--not you Bleys--brings it to mind, and perhaps she'll come into focus for us?" He glanced at Fiona, but she looked to be a step ahead of him. She was staring at the empty spot, with a look of intense concentration. Again, he was pleased with Fiona. Past arguments aside, Fi he thought, I won't start any more if you won't. After a few moments, Fiona smiled, "Flora, even dead, you still manage to look like the prom queen."

Relief flooded through Benedict, and he couldn't surpress a smile. That faded quickly enough as he started to concentrate as well, laboriously re-walking the Pattern in his mind. He hated doing this...loathed it, acutally, as he always had a problem when he came to the 3rd Veil, even mentally. It was where he faltered before, and just about died. It was...painful to him, but he suffered through, and was rewarded with a translucent vision of Flora.

"Oh," he said, smiling. He felt tears come to his eyes, and he blinked rapidly, "There you are." He bowed his head, trying to maintain the image of the Pattern and control his emotions at the same time.

"Hello, Ben," Flora said softly, as if the wind was bringing her voice to him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and murmured, "I'm sorry. If I had known it wasn't just a Shadow...maybe it could have been prevented..." He was starting to feel miserable again, and the nagging self-doubts of the past few days were returning to haunt him. This wasn't, needless to say, helping his concentration any.

"It's not your fault," she breathed.

"I'm sorry anyway," he said, letting out a sigh. "This whole damn mess...it's got..." He shrugged, at a loss for words.

"It's alright. It wasn't anything you could have done. We're going to try and fix it," she whispered, reassuringly. He wanted to be reassured, desparately, but something in him refused it, and he replied, "It's not just this, it's Dad, and Eric..." He scowled, thinking of Eric, and what that bastard had done, "...just everything." The anger surged through him, and helped him to collect himself. Finally, he lifted his head, feeling that he had reasonable control over himself once more. "Anyway...what tests?"

He felt Flora's icy touch on his hand, and he smiled slightly at her, even as Fiona was replying, "I have to get baseline readings before I try anything in the way of... well, resurrections, not to be too pompous about it."

Bleys spoke up, "Flo, you should probably try to not do that, it hurts a bit."

She smiled apolegetically, "Sorry."

Ben shrugged it off, "It's alright. I don't mind." He paused, and added, "Just don't leave your hand in one place too long. I'd hate to have Fi patch me up again."

"As would I," Fiona remarked absently.

As Bleys stepped away from the tight group to pick up pieces of the broken Trump, Benedict turned to Callie, "Interesting day for you."

"Heh. This is obviously some new definition of 'interesting' I wasn't previously aware of," she replies cockily, grinning. Ben almost returned it, but she turned away, and looked to Bleys. "Hey, Uncle Bleys..."

"Hmm?" Bleys replied absently, picking up the last of the fragments. Once again, it was hard to surpress the feeling of jealousy Ben got from that. He did his best to ignore it. Still, with all these emotions running through him, and his being sick, it was getting awfully hard to hold the image of the Pattern in his mind, something he hated doing anything. He felt the beginnings of a royal headache coming on.

"I know this is gonna sound like a really dumb question, but has anythign weird happened to you today?" Callie asked of his brother, "I'm talking major-league mind-boggling weird. Apart from that," she said, nodding towards the busted Trump shards.

That struck Ben as totally absurb, and he couldn't stop a smile, "Like this isn't enough?"

Bleys gave off a hollow sounding laugh, "Yes. Quite a few things, why do you ask?"

"Well, you wanted to know why you're the only one who can see aunt Flora. What's happened to you that didn't to anyone else? Or maybe not even today, but recently?" It was a good question.

Benedict's head snapped towards Bleys, "Didn't you run yourself into the Pattern room several times?"

Bleys nodded, "In a more enlightened moment, yeah.. I think the marks should still be imprinted on the walls if they haven't fixed it yet."

Fiona appeared in the doorway while they were talking, wearing a rather pleased expression. "Bleys," she said softly, "what about Gerard?"

"What about Random?" Bleys shot back.

She shook her head impatiently, "You were in Trump contact with Gerard the moment he died."

"Yes, I see," Bleys started, sarcasm creeping into his voice ever so slightly, "maybe there's some sort of residual aura of death on my beaing that allowed me to be in tune with her astral being at that moment, and thus I am able to communicate with her...and the whole thing was triggerd by the fact that I was also sort of using the astral plane when I talked with you on your Trump. I guess that kinda makes sense." He paused slightly, "Kinda."

Her eyes narrowed. "Well," she said icily, "it was just a thought." With that, she walked back to the room with Flora's body. Still, her thoughts didn't warrant that kind of sarcasm, at least in Ben's eyes. She had something there. There was a certain type of magick in some Shadows--magick he himself was proficient in, if not practiced--that manipulated the spirits of the dead, summoning, binding, and the like.

Patiently, he offered up to Bleys, "In a Shadow I was in, they believed the spirits of the dead could possess people." He shrugged slightly.

"So, what are you saying?" Flora asked, interested.

Benedict ignored her momentarily, but held up a hand to indicate that yes, he did hear her. He shuffled out Llewella's Trump and concentrated on it. It was a damned difficult thing to do, concentration on the Trump and the sign of the Pattern at the same time.

Bleys replied to Flora instead, "My soul is basically more dead than there. I guess."

Ben steadfastedly ignored the chatter, and focused himself more on the task at hand. He stared at the card, and finally superimposed the Pattern image on the Trump, to facilitate contact without losing the sign. It was an interesting technique, and one he wouldn't have thought of before. It worked, but before he could think more on it, Llewella answered him, "Yes?"

"I have good, bad, and worse news for you. Which do you want first?" he asked.

She braced for the worst, "Start with the worst and work your way up."

"Well, we've reason to believe that there is a set of...well, to put it bluntly, 'evil twins' of us trying to take our places. Bad news is that one partly succeeded--long story--with I. Good news is that Flora isn't totally gone." He smiled slightly.

Llewella gave him a look like his head was falling off. She was quiet for a long while, opening and closing her mouth several times before she finally said, "I see." She stopped there, completely flummoxed. He couldn't help but to smile a little more, finding some sort of grim humor in the situation. He held out his hand to his sister, and pulled her through.

While the rest were exchanging pleasantries, Benedict grasped Llewella's shoulders, pointed her Flora's direction, and told her to bring up the sign of the Pattern. She concentrated, and soon blinked. "F-Flora?"

Benedict riffled the cards through his hands the put them away, watching, and feeling very amused. Most of the good mood probably had to do with the fact that he could feel his fever going down, and felt about ten times better already. Good stuff they had in the cabinets here.

"Hi," Flora said cheerfully to Llewella, "You okay? You don't look so hot." Llewella took a step forward, towards Flora, then stopped in her tracks, her confusion not clearing up. "All right. Somebody tell me what's going on."

Benedict turned towards Flora himself, remembering what was said earlier. "As I was saying before, Flora, Gerard might have passed his last...spark? Essence? Whatever you call it, into Bleys. Heimdall had mentioned something about the spark being gone, having to find it again...all that, and it just got me to thinking here." He paused for a moment, "Now that I've had a chance to think, that is."

Flora didn't seem to be buying it. "Ok," she said slowly.

Ben shrugged, "Just an idea." He hrumphfed to himself though. A good one too, he thought to himself. He couldn't help it if he wasn't built the way the redheads were, with a flair for creative thinking when it came to metaphysical matters. His talents lay elsewhere, but didn't the effort he put forth all the more worthwhile since it was so hard for him? He had spent more time in the last couple years thinking about philosophy than he had his lifetime so far. And all wrong, I suppose, he added.

He turned to look at Llewella next, and filled her in. Bleys, Flora, and Callie made appropriate corrections and added on when needed. Sooner rather than later, Llewella was caught up on the situation.

She found a seat somewhere during the explanation. "Oh, my. Well. I was just going to remark on how unexpected and strange it all is, but I think that'd be belaboring the obvious."

The silence stretched for a moment before Bleys added unnecessarily, "Oh, and Callie's here too." Llewella acknowledged their neice with a small wave and smile, "Callie. How're holding up?"

"Hot and itchy," the girl replied pertly, "but otherwise, ok."

Ben frowned, and looked around the room briefly. He spied the other room where Random's corpse was laid out, and his frown grew deeper. "If this is all we think it is, where's Random then?"

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page