Room 275
Building #1, (Barracks)
Task Force 38 Intelligence Area
Secure Area
Alfenwehr, Germany
0330 Hours
28 October, 2004

When Aine brought me out of the bathroom I saw Vandemire, Langemire, Georges, and Hernandez sitting in the chairs and on the bottom bunk of the bunk beds by the window. They all looked beat, although Vandemire looked like death warmed over.

"Isolda, take Van into the shower and get him warm," Aine said quietly, "You will need to help him stand up and keep him from falling asleep, no matter what it takes."

Hernandez nodded, getting up from the bunk and walking over to Vandemire, who looked up at her groggily. She held her hand out to Van, who looked at it dumbly for a long second.

"Let's go, champ," She said, "Time to get naked and wet."

Van blushed. I paused to cough, deep wracking liquid sounding coughs. When I moved my hand I had blood spray in it, and when I looked up both Georges and Langemire looked at me in shock.

"You're coughing up blood," Langemire said.

"Is that metal sticking out of your face?" Georges asked.

"Yes on both, gentlemen," Aine said. I just grunted and started coughing again, feeling like someone was standing on my chest. Van pushed Hernandez away and staggered over to me, digging under his top to pull out one of the small bottles of O2.

"Two breaths," He said, grinning. I nodded, putting the mask over my face and twisting the feeder valve. The bottle hissed and the air flowed into my mouth. I inhaled deeply, resisted the urge to cough, then repeated it. It no longer felt like I was drowning, but that iron band was still tightening on down to the point where I wasn't sure if I'd be able to breathe much longer. I shut down the feeder valve and leaned against Aine. Aine helped me over to the bunk beds. My chest felt on fire with an iron band tightening around it. She laid me down carefully, then squatted next to the bed, reaching under it to slide her pouch out.

"I'm going to make you a cup of tea, Ant, to help your breathing and ease your pain," Aine said gently, taking out what she'd need. "I need to remove all that shrapnel from your body, although the piece of metal in your cheek is fashionable in today's body piercing culture."

I just grunted, staring at the ceiling while Aine ground and measured herbs out of her pouch, then put a clay heater with a candle in it and set a cup with water and the herbs in it on top of the clay candle holder to heat it. She moved and sat on the bed, completely uncaring about her nudity. She shook her head as she looked at me, flipping a towel over my waist to hide my crotch.

"You still awake, DeMarky?" Georges asked.

"Yeah," I said quietly, then coughed. Aine held out a cravat and rolled me on my side so I could cough up more dark, half clotted blood.

"Colonel Sawyer is downstairs trying to sort things out," He said, "When he sent me and Langmire up here, Carmichael was damn near dead."

"Fuck him," I managed to gasp out between the coughs. "Not. A. Traitor."

Finally the coughing fit ended and Aine rolled me back onto my back, putting her hand on my chest.

"According to Captain Blake, if you hadn't have been along, they'd all be dead," Langmire said, shaking his head. "He said one of those dead guys grabbed Kelvin, and it seems that some of the guys have seen them before."

I nodded, staring at the bottom of the top bunk. "Yeah. In the CO's office. One was masquerading as one of the snake eaters up here."

Aine lifted the tea, "Drink, Ant, this will help." I was exhausted, barely able to breathe, so I didn't argue, sipping at it while she rubbed my back. Several times she had to have Langmire or Georges hold the cup while I coughed up thick partially clotted blood.

The tea made me drowsy, filled my chest with a tingling feeling, and everything was slightly dreamy and shimmering. Aine leaned over me, smiling, and gave me a gentle kiss, a slight burning and tingling from her lips like I'd been brushed by stinging nettles.

"Do you remember what kellys Nagle, Cromwell, and Taggart had to do when you were badly wounded, Ant?" She asked me.

I nodded dreamily, "Tie me down so I don't fight and hurt someone." My voice was slow sounding, slurred and blurred by the tea.

"Langmire, if you would help me," Aine said, bringing out thin braided cords of red strands mixed with gold.

Her and Heather's hair, tightly woven and braided.

"What do we need to do?" He asked, standing up.

"We must tie Aodan to the bed. Aodan or Anthony would be safe to work on, but I fear that the mountain has brought out someone else," Aine said softly, working the braids of hair so they had loops at the ends for my ankles and wrists.

"What do you mean?" Langmire asked, moving over next to us.

"Aodan compartmentalizes everything in his life," Aine said, lifting up one of the braids and looking at it. She plucked a few strands of her hair and began weaving them into the braid she was holding, "Aodan is different than Anthony who is different from Ant," She looked at it again and smiled, "Ant is the one who uses flamethrower, calls in fuel air bombs, or prepares chemical strikes."

"Dis-associative identities, got it," Langmire nodded.

"No, they are not completely separate, just different parts of the whole, which is my battle-sister's and my Anthony," Aine slid the loop down over my left hand, careful to avoid the splinters of black plastic. "Ant, who is part of Aodan and Anthony, has no qualms, no conscience, no doubt or fear."

Georges moved up, sitting at the end of the bunk. Aine handed off the end of the braid to Langmire, who tied it to the end of the bed, while she slid the other loop over my right hand and snugged it tight to my wrist.

The repeated it for all four limbs, Aine explaining to them that I would fight back, try to get free, but she would do her best to control me.

"Why hair? Why not 550 cord or leather belts?" Langmire asked.

Georges laughed. "I saw this motherfucker break steel handcuffs." Not quite the truth, I'd slid my hands out of them. "You say hair will hold?"

"It is more than just my hair. It is hair from myself, his beloved, and my own mother. He cannot break these bonds any more than he can break his vows to his beloved military." Aine said. The smell of apple blossoms was increasing, along with that feral smell with a tinge of blood. She looked at the other two men, "Do you believe in magic?"

They both shook their heads and she smiled, "It's never too late, gentlemen." She lifted up a pot of paint and began painting designs on my skin.

"I thought you were going to remove the shrapnel," Langmire said.

She nodded, "I need to paint him properly, otherwise the thing that caused the wounds will contaminate the wounds, contaminate him." She drew lines and circles on my skin in red and blue, and I watched bemused, my thoughts cloudy and scattered.

"Done," She said. She sat down next to me, looking down at my face. Sharp cheekbones had risen out of the normal softness of her heart shaped face, and her small and even teeth looked sharper than normal. Hey eyes, always looking too large for her face, were wide ovals. Bright emerald eyes that seemed to glow with an inner light.

"This will hurt, Ant, but you can handle it," She said, then kissed me. She moved her face over, and I felt her teeth clamp down on the chunk of steel spring. She hummed softly and put her hand on my forehead, rubbing and caressing for a moment before she began drawing her head back. I screamed, struggling, but she still kept at it, until the piece of metal pulled free with a crunch.

She used her teeth to pull the long thin splinters of plastic out of my hand, more out of my forearms, then leaned back, looking down at me as she straddled me. She fed me a couple more sips of the tea then kissed me for a little until my lips were numb and pleasantly tingling.

"You may not die, Aodan," She said softly, looking down. "You may hate me for what I am about to do, but you will at least be alive to hate." She looked behind her, "Hold his wrists and legs if he begins to fight."

I watched as she moved her hands on my chest, humming to herself, rocking side to side as she did so. Her hands would come up, slimy with blackish fluid that she would wipe on the decorated cravat she had prepared. Every time her hands vanished from my view it got hard to breathe and my whole chest tingled and burned.

I wanted to fight, to struggle. Part of me knew what she was doing, but the lizard had his hand on the button that kept me from doing anything, kept me from fighting.

"What is that?" Hernandez asked as Aine wiped her hands off. They were red and blistered, and I watched her scoop salve out of a small jar and rub it all over her hands. While I watched the blisters shank to nothing and the red faded from her skin.

Aine giggled, a sharp thing like broken glass, rather than the clear silver bell of her normal giggling. "Blister agent. My Aodan inhaled some many years ago, in a dark place full of secrets and madness, and it has been slowly destroying his lungs," Her hands shifted and I gasped as that tightness returned. Her hand came back, clotted blood and worse filling her hand with slime. "My mother and his kelly should have insisted this be done many years ago."

"Is it normal to want to run screaming because of what you're doing?" Hernandez asked.

Aine giggled again.

"That would be a yes," Vandemire said. "Seeing a weird little redhead scoop goop out of a man's chest by sinking her hands into it like it's made of water without breaking the skin is not the weirdest thing that I've seen today." He shivered.

I watched, still detached, as her fingers pushed into my skin, digging deep and moving, then slowly withdrew, holding what looked like a flattened bullet made of shimmering clear jello. She squished it between her fingers and it evaporated away in silverish threads.

"OK, I'll bite, what was that?" Hernandez asked.

"His body and spirit remember this bullet, so I have removed it so that the memory of it no longer pains him," Aine said, her voice musical and beginning to sound as if there were more than one of her speaking.

Her face was more narrow, her eyes too big for her face, her white and even teeth looking sharp enough to sheer through surgical steel. Her face's planes were inhuman, sharp, and predatory, the green of her eyes bright and luminescent.

I stared at her, smiling slightly.

"I thought you said he would fight this," Georges said, standing over me and looking down at my face, "He looks gorked out."

"That is my fault," She said softly, still smiling, "We are both older, and I have forgotten that while I grow stronger, age dilutes his strength," She smiled again, wiggling her pert naked bottom against my groin, "Then again, perhaps it is because many years have passed since he has felt me touch."

"You definitely appear to be getting a reaction out of him," Hernandez laughed.

She smiled at that, winking, and returned her attention to me. "I cannot remove that piece of darkness within your shoulder, Aodan, that lies beyond my power."

I just nodded, still smiling.

...bitch, you're contaminating me...

She stood up, still naked, and nodded at Langmire, "Untie him, I will go change, and wash my hands with clean water." She turned to Hernandez, "If I had my way, Isolda, you would wet your hair with love-sweat and use it to wipe him down of the markings, but I will settle for you cleaning him off with a rag and warm water. Although you may want to consider making use of the reaction he has to my touch and my body."

I looked over at Hernandez to see her flush.

Langmire undid the loops, holding up the hair and looking at it. It was blackened, singed looking, and brittle in his hands. When the last one was removed, I laid there, smiling, and staring at them.

"He looks so weird," Hernandez said, sitting down with a cravat. She started wiping away the paint that Aine had used on my body. I could feel her warmth, smell her scent, and felt a surge of lust toward her. I could tell when she had broken the last of the symbols that Aine had painted me with.

Rage boiled up, wiping away the last of Aine's venom, and I struggled to my feet. Warmth blossomed in my chest, the rage spreading out into my limbs, wiping away the pain in my hands and foot, wiping away fatigue and doubt. I wasn't sure if I wanted grab my Gerber and start working on everyone in the room, or if I just wanted to fuck Hernandez and maybe Vandemire too.

Instead I started dressing in old BDU's with Corporal rank sewn on the lapels.

Aine came out of the bathroom in her ginghm dress, smiling gently. She saw me and her smile got wider. Her face was still inhuman looking to my eyes and when Hernandez looked at Aine the larger woman shuddered slightly.

"Angry, Aodan?" She asked, leaning against the desk.

"How dare you do that to me, Aine McCullen?" I snarled. "How dare you contaminate me like that?" I buttoned up the BDU blouse, glaring at her.

"Because you are a boy, and as a boy you fall under the authority of kellys such as myself and my battle-sister, not to mention my mother," Aine laughed. "Complain all you want, like an old man who wanted veal but was served steak, but it will not change that my battle sister charged me with making sure that you returned to her and your children."

I sat down, pulling on my boots, while she continued, "You have accrued debts over the decades, Aodan, and those debts have to be paid. You cannot pay them if you die here, in this place, choking on blood hemorrhaging from your lungs."

The speed laces made a whining sound as I pulled them up and began winding them around my shin so I could tie them off. "You had no right," I told her.

"I had every right, Aodan. Even Miss Nagle and Mrs. Taggart agreed with this," She said softly. "I even asked Jonathon Bomber, and he agreed. You may not die because you are too stubborn to save your own life. If I must drug you, if I must lie to you, then that is what I must do."

She smiled at me. "You may be angry, Aodan, but look at you. Standing up straight, no longer slightly curled, no longer struggling to breathe. Your strength and endurance are returning to you, and the nagging pains you have held off with your will are now gone, allowing you to apply your will to surviving in this dark place."

She opened my wall locker that was full of my military uniforms. The mirror reflected her as she bent forward to grab something from my locker. When she straightened up she was holding the boot sheathe rig with a Gerber in it.

"Catch," she smiled, tossing it to me. I caught it, still glaring at her. I kept walking toward her, my hands shaking with anger that she would dare do that to me.

The lights flickered and dimmed down, the night-light kicking on, and the temperature in the room plunging. Two of the open beers on the desk cracked, the foam freezing.

Vandemire was sitting near the window, and he kicked off, rolling into a somersault away from the window. I started to turn toward Vandemire, so I only caught it out of the corner of my eye.

Tandy lunged out of the mirror, grabbing Aine's shoulders, his talons squeezing, puncturing through the dress and into her skin. He was leering at me over her shoulder as he pulled her back toward the mirror.

Everything slowed down as the lizard hit the button.

The knife slid easily from the sheathe as I threw the sheathe to the side, my legs powering me toward the two of them. I no longer felt the tickle when I inhaled deep, no longer had to suppress the urge to cough, no longer felt the heaviness and tightness in my chest.

One step.

His fingers tightened and blood began to spread around the talon punctures, quickly freezing around his fingers even as the blood spread.

Two steps.

Aine's mouth turned into a perfect little O of surprise, her too big eyes widening in pain, her hands reaching for Tandy's wrists. There was another crunch and his talons sunk in deeper.

Three steps.

Aine screamed, a high pitched sound of agony that sliced at the ears. Crystal glasses and beer mugs shattered, glass bottles cracked, and three of the beers on the table exploded.

I was reaching out toward her, reaching to grab her, my fingertips grazing her gingham dress.

Tandy yanked her into the mirror and the glass exploded outwards. I managed to turn, get my arms up, protect my face and my one good eye.

I could hear Aine screaming outside.

I finished the turn, rushing toward the window, keeping one arm up. I'd power through the window, into the snow, and find them.

Find her.

Then I'd cut whatever passed for life out of Tandy.

"I'm coming," I yelled.

Two steps from the window.

Vandemire tackled me, his hand reaching up to grab my knife wrist. Langmire grabbed my other arm, pulling it straight out. Georges grabbed my legs, while Hernandez wrapped her arm around my neck, pulling me down on top of her.

"No! No!" She yelled in my ear.

"You can't save her," Vandemire yelled, banging my hand on the floor.

"LET ME GO!" I bellowed, struggling.

But there was four of them.

Aine's scream turned into a banshee wail outside, a howling warbling cry that slowly trailed away.

And with it, my will to fight.

I started crying, great whooping sobs, and the others let go of me, except for Hernandez, who pulled me close and sat up, rocking me side to side as I wept.

...my Aine, my little Fruit Bat...

Hernandez held me close to her even when I started screaming.