Death of an Adept

"Will you please let me decide what you need?" Ximena said as she stripped the packaging off a large bore needle and plugged it into the IV line on a bag of Ringer's lactate. "You're in no condition to do anything that smacks of exertion."

"Just do what I'm telling you!" Adam rasped, as she pumped up the blood pressure cuff again, searching for a vein. "I need my head clear! Do whatever it takes. And don't worry if I seem to slip away for a bit."

"You haven't even got any decent veins, your pressure's so low," she muttered. "Do you have any idea what you're asking?"

"Ximena, he knows," McLeod whispered. "Please - help him do what he needs to do."

Her expression was mutinous, but as she rolled her eyes, she ran her fingertips along the side of Adam's neck.

"All right," she said, tearing open an alcohol swab, "but I'm doing this under protest. If you die, I'll never forgive you. Peregrine, give me some light here on his neck. Adam, I'm going to have to go for the jugular, so bear with me."

"I've married a vampire," he whispered weakly, his faint smile twitching as the needle slid home.

While Peregrine set about scrubbing the blood from his chest with more alcohol wipes, and McLeod righted the heavy candie-holder to improvise an IV stand, Ximena began plugging various medications into Adam's IV. As he sought a level of trance to assist his body's recovery, he could feel himself already beginning to rally. Vaguely aware of hands shifting him to wrap more blankets around his body, he embraced a brightness reaching out to him from the heart of the Inner Planes, bringing with it the promise of restoration and remedy. Extending himself in turn to meet and welcome it, Adam suddenly found himself once again in the luminous presence of Andrew Kerr.

Relief flooded through him, for here at last was the link by which Soulis might be defeated - and McLeod was at hand this time, to be Kerr's voice. Spreading astral hands in a gesture of momentary suspension, but remaining deep in trance, Adam opened his eyes to seek out McLeod, who now was kneeling at his left side.

"Noel - I have contact with someone who can help us, but he needs a vessel. I can vouch for him without question. Will you let him in?"

McLeod traded quick glances with Peregrine.

"I think he's been knocking at the door ever since we arrived," he told Adam with a faint smile. "Aye, he has my permission to enter."

"Then take my hand," Adam whispered, closing his eyes again as McLeod complied.

Still poised with Kerr on the threshold of the Inner Planes, Adam saw the other Huntsman's face transformed with relief as his image likewise came to clasp Adam's hand. As the other's likeness faded, becoming no longer discernible on the astral, Adam sensed the transfer of essence and place and opened his eyes again, though he remained in trance. The presence that looked back at him through his Second's blue eyes was recognizably that of Andrew Kerr.

"Be welcome here," Adam whispered.

Nodding, Kerr released Adam's hand and scanned swiftly around them.

"Where is Soulis?" he demanded urgently.

His voice was lighter and clearer than McLeod's own gravelly bass. The sound of it made Ximena start and stare, but Peregrine only smiled faintly and shifted closer to watch and listen in wonder. With no time for explanations, Adam gave his full attention to his historical counterpart.

"Soulis has gone, at least for the moment," he told Kerr. "His spirit was conjured here by a black Adept called Raeburn, but he broke the bounds meant to contain him and took flight into the night. Redcap is also free."

Kerr, wearing McLeod's aspect, looked visibly shaken by this disclosure.

"This bodes ill, indeed, if those two are at liberty," he muttered. "The future of many is in jeopardy."

The blue gaze clouded, focused in some other time and place, and McLeod's breathing deepened.

"Aye," Kerr continued in the same troubled voice, "the tapestry begins to reweave itself even as we speak, as that which was destined not to be now once again becomes possible."

"Forgive me, but I'm afraid I don't understand," Adam said.

Kerr turned back to him, the blue gaze holding him fast, willing him to comprehend.

"Soulis was no common evildoer," he explained grimly. "So monstrous were his crimes that it was decreed his existence should be cut short - not just once, in what is now your own past, but for all time to come: by denying him all future incarnations. In releasing Soulis from limbo, this man Raeburn has restored the potential to incarnate. The consequences of that act now threaten to change the whole fabric of creation, from this time forward."

Adam's mind reeled at the prospect. "Is it possible to put things right?" he asked.

"It is," Kerr responded sternly, "but it will not be enough simply to send Soulis back to the Other Side. The doors to his own future must also be closed against him."

"Do you know how to do this?" Adam asked. "For I do not."