See Part One for Disclaimers

He searched her face for a moment, trying to understand what was happening here and failing.  If he was going to get to the bottom of this, he was going to have to keep going.  He led the way back to the bike and climbed on, resuming the helmet while he waited for her to mount behind him.

She slid onto the extended saddle as he started the bike.  Her arms went around him.  The touch struck a chord within him.  There was something comfortingly familiar about her touch.  He frowned as he backed the bike up and turned it toward the road.  What was he missing here?  Who was she that her arms round him felt not just comfortable, but familiar?  She settled her head against the back of his shoulder, molding herself to his back, the inside of her thighs gently settling against the outside of his.  With a mental shake, he headed back the way they had come.

They stopped at a light for a moment, and he thought to ask her where they were going.  He flipped the faceplate up and looked around at her.  She snuggled against him, but nothing more.  "Miss --"  Damn, he didn't have a name for her yet.

Sleepy sound.

He frowned at that.  She was asleep on the back of the motorcycle, so certain of his abilities that she trusted him to get them where they were going while she slept.  It was flattering and frustrating.  With another mental shrug, he headed toward his own home.  He'd reclaim his Jeep Renegade from the party in the morning.

He pulled into the drive, dropped the kickstand and turned off the engine.  She stirred and loosened her hold on him, allowing him to get off the bike.  She blinked at him sleepily, brushing her hair out of her face.  He held out a hand to steady her as she slipped off the saddle.  She accepted and ended standing on the driveway facing him and looking bemused.  He picked her up and carried her into the house.  He wasn't surprised when she put her arms around his neck and leaned her head against his shoulder.  She was asleep again when he laid her down on the couch.

He stood there looking down at her face as she slept.  She looked younger, calmer.  Then a slight frown drew her brows together.  Again there was an air of familiarity.  Why couldn't he remember where they'd met before?  He was certain they had met, and he was beginning to be certain that she was not the woman at the museum.  He pulled off the soft-soled moccasin boots and set them aside before going to find a blanket for her.  He gently pulled the blanket over her.  He thought he heard her mutter a thank you, but he wasn't certain.

"Good night," he said softly and leaned over and kissed her cheek.  The gesture surprised him.  He drew back, frowning, and went out to meditate for a while before going to bed.

His dreams were unsettling, the usual borderline nightmares of facing the Black Dragon clan interspersed with visions of the thief at the museum and a double of himself with black flames in his eyes.  He tossed and turned, awakening at dawn feeling little rested and a touch disoriented.  He was thirsty.  He slipped on a black silk kimono and padded out to the kitchen for a glass of juice.

She awoke with the sunrise, a little disoriented at first.  She poked her head out from under the blanket and frowned at the pale cushions beneath her nose.  It didn't look like the bed in the hotel room she'd rented.  She shifted slightly, hearing someone moving about on the other side of the couch.  She leaned up and looked over the back.

Tall, dark haired, wearing a black kimono and black pants, the man she'd met the night before was getting a drink in the kitchen.  He looked as though he had not slept well.  She watched him move, the familiarity of the body language causing her to frown.  She knew him, and not just from their current encounter.  She closed her eyes and she could see him with a sword in his hands going through a kendo exercise.  She could see him -- her eyes snapped open.  She recognized the house now, remembered being here, remembered the man who was looking at her with his black brows raised in inquiry.

She blushed and disappeared back under the blanket to gain some composure.  Apparently, he did not recall their previous encounter either.

"Good morning."

She peeked over the edge of the blanket at him, her eyes twinkled with silent laughter.  "Hi.  Fell asleep did I?"

"Yes."

"On the bike?"

"Yes."

"Interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Well, yeah.  How many people do you know you'd trust to drive your vehicle with you asleep in the back seat?"

"Not many."

"Makes two of us.  Could I use your shower?"

"Certainly."  He was wearing a bemused look by this time.  The conversation was not going any of a number of directions he might have expected it to go.  He watched her as she got up, neatly folded the blanket and padded bare foot out to the bike to retrieve a change of clothes from her saddlebags.

She disappeared into the bathroom.  The water felt good.  She washed her hair, wondering if it was time to cut the waist length mane of blue black strands.  She dried, pulled on the clean t-shirt and denims and padded out to the kitchen still blotting her hair dry.

There was a glass of juice waiting for her.  She drank half of it down gratefully and went looking for her host who was sitting on his meditation deck, staring out over the ocean.  She stood at the edge of it watching him curiously, sipping the juice.  Finally, he got tired of being watched and turned to face her.  The look in her eyes was disconcerting.

"Kropotkin."

"Oh.  Her.  Well, probably."

"That's what you said last night.  Twins?"

There was a brief hesitation before she corrected him with 'cousins'.  "First cousins."

"What disturbed you last night?"

"I told you, you bear a really disturbing surface resemblance to -- a really nasty piece of business."

"Does he have a name?"

"Rand.  David Gabriel Rand.  He's a cyberneticist.  Or, he was."

"Was?  In jail?"

"Dead."  Yet there was something about the word that didn't ring quite true.  And there was a haunted look in her eyes when she talked about him.

He stood up and moved off the platform to stand in front of her.  She could feel her temperature rising at the proximity.  Her heartbeat picked up as well, and she was having a touch of difficulty with her breathing.  Damn, he wasn't supposed to be that devastating, was he?  Memories of touching and being touched surfaced.  Oh, yes.  He was definitely that devastating.

She took refuge in her glass of juice only to find it empty.  "Well, hell," she muttered.

"What aren't you telling me?"

She looked up and grinned suddenly.  "My life story, for one.  Long and boring," she said with laughter in her voice and eyes.

His immediate instinct was to force some truth out of her.  He found it over ridden by a deeper, more visceral instinct as he pulled her into his arms.  If he was surprised to find her willing, even eager, it was only in his mind.  His body seemed to find her supple melting against him expectable, a repeat of another time, another place.  Their mouths met.  He felt exhilarated and like he was coming home.

They parted for breath.  Half closed eyes met and he remembered her.  Slimmer then, half starved, amnesiac.  "You."

She smiled up at him.  "Sorta seems that way, doesn't it.  Could we -- mmmmm."  A long lazy kiss took her words away, her breath away and any coherent thought she might have considered for the moment.

A long time later, she rolled onto her stomach beside him to look into his velvet dark eyes.  She kissed him lightly.  "Penny for your thoughts."

"I thought you were dead."

"Good start.  Nope.  Not even.  How did I manage to forget you?  Well, having forgotten everything else, I guess misplacing you when I got my memory back is par for the course.  I'm glad I've got that set of memories back."

He reached up and stroked the silken hair, so like Aki's and so unlike.  "So am I."

"Still, there's that fake skull wandering around with Tanya."

"And I would like to retrieve it, regardless of its origin.  The museum thinks it's real."

She nodded.  "So, we go looking for Tan."

"We?"

"Do you really think you'll find her without me?"

"Do I really think she's still in Hawaii, might be the better question."

"Well, there is that.  Except she saw you."

He frowned at that.  "What has that got to do with the skull?"

"She saw you, she's -- oh, boy.  This is going to sound nuts.  She's trying to retrieve our dear departed Dr. Rand.  You look like him.  I told you that."

"You're right.  It sounds crazy," he agreed, stretching lazily.

"So does -- Oh, hell."  She turned over to stop looking at him.  Between waves of pure lust and desire; she was also afraid for him.  If Tanya thought she had the real skull and access to its purported ability to bring the dead back to life, finding a physical double for the dead Dr. Rand would probably keep her in the islands until she could find a way to get the ghost and the body together.  There had to be a way to send Jonathan on a wild goose chase to get him out of harm's way.  Except she'd already told him too damn much to get him to go.  Shit.

He could sense the flurry of thoughts going through her head.  He could feel the flow of tensions as she considered and discarded ideas.  "Just tell me the truth," he broke the silence.

She looked around at him, that odd opaque look she'd given him the night before in her eyes again.  He felt as though he was being weighed against some invisible scale.  Then the look softened and she reached for him, pulling him into a fierce hug that felt somehow protective as well as loving.  He returned the hug, holding her to him, feeling her cool skin against his; wondering what was passing behind her eyes.

"All right," she told his chest.  "But remember, you asked."  Her stomach growled and made her laugh.  "Maybe we'd better eat and talk."

That was a lunch made memorable both by her easy acceptance of what he prepared and the story she told.  Unlike so many of the women he had let into his life, the Japanese food did not surprise her, she used chopsticks as though born to them, her expressive hand gestures including the sticks like extra fingers.  She ate and talked of her encounters with the unstoppable Dr. Rand, his created assassin, Tanya Kropotkin, and the problems of practical immortality.

When she was done, she wondered if she'd overloaded his ability to take in the improbable.  A long silence developed.  She finished her lunch and sat back to wait.

He regarded her for a long time, weighing what he had heard.  That she believed it to be true, was obvious.  The tale was preposterous, a story out of the legends of the past.  And yet -- he was standing on the edge of believing her.

"It must be lonely."

A look of almost disbelief crossed her face.  "Of all the things to have said -- You're amazing."

He frowned slightly at that.  "Why?"

"Because you cut to the heart of things so easily.  Hell, my best friends when faced with the proof of what I've said, tend to hit the "wow, immortal" wall full tilt before they get to anything else."

"It's why you can't kill him."

"What?"

"Look, I'm not saying I accept the immortality tale, or even Dr. Rand's existence, as reality.  But if you are, then that's why you haven't found a way to dispose of him permanently."

She blinked at him, trying to take his evaluation in.  "Oh.  Well.  That actually makes sense.  Of course, there is the small problem of killing a ghost.  It's not easy to do in the dead, you know."

"No.  But there are people who purport to know how to do so."

She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and thought about it.  "The Legacy."

It was Jonathan's turn to blink.  "The Legacy?"

"Luna Foundation?"

He'd heard of the Luna Foundation somewhere.  "That I've heard of.  Although not in connection with ghosts."

"It's a cover story for the Legacy, an ancient society dedicated to fighting the forces of darkness.  I -- uh -- met the head of the San Francisco House about five years ago."

"After you were here."

"And after the last encounter I had with Dr. Rand."

"Why didn't you ask him for help?"

"Well, we -- uh -- there was another problem on hand and by the time it was over he wasn't in any shape to work on the Rand problem.  Hell, he'd have a hard enough time believing in my being what I am without trying to do something about me.  Unfortunately, to the Legacy, if it's not Christian, it's dark side.  Well, most of the time.  And the training tends to color the attitudes of even the most liberal of them."

"Hmm.  Still, if you need to deal with this ghost, they would seem like the people to contact."

"Agreed.  However, there's no guarantee she's located him.  And she doesn't have the real skull."

"So you say."

She made a face at him.  "All right.  I can check on the skull.  And -- you can call San Franciso."

"Me?"

"Yes.  Then they get the skeptic's point of view and I don't trigger any strange memories in Derek Rayne until absolutely necessary."  She grinned at him.  She reached over and touched his face gently.  "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not immediately thinking you needed to call the local funny farm and have me locked up."

He gave her a faint smile that warmed his eyes.  "I'll wait until something you've told me turns out to be untrue.  Then I'll call the authorities."

She laughed and kissed him.  They cleared the table and washed the dishes in companionable silence.  "I'd better check in with my accompanists.  I could use the pay from last night.  I'll be back."

He stood and watched the bike disappear down the street and around the corner.  Something inside told him it would be a long time before he saw her again if he didn't move on his own.




He called Ski.  The phone rang and rang and rang.  He hung up with a frown.  He dressed quickly and drove over to where Ski's boat, the aptly named Brewski, was moored.  The boat was open.  He entered the cabin and was disturbed to find it even more of a mess than usual.  Someone had tossed almost everything Ski owned onto the floor of the boat, breaking what was breakable and making a royal mess of everything else.  Ski's cell phone lay smashed among the wreckage.

Jonathan's face clouded with anger at that.  He moved swiftly back onto the deck and jerked as something hit him high in the back.  The sensation of having every nerve in his body jangled by electricity was swiftly followed by unconsciousness.  He hit the deck bonelessly.

A slender woman, long tawny hair pulled back in a ponytail, stepped onto the deck from the dock.  She checked his pulse.  Then she turned him over to make certain that he was not too badly damaged by his fall.  A bruise was turning purple and swelling on his forehead.

"I told you not to damage him," the woman said softly, her voice a shade lower pitched than Cheri's.

"You told us not to fight him," the man standing on the roof of the cabin corrected her.

"Perhaps I did," she agreed and shot him between the eyes.  She looked around at his companions as the body dropped and rolled into the water.  "Get him into the car.  And take care not to inflict any more damage."

A trio of nervous nods answered her.

Ski returned to his boat from his information chase to find a number of police cars and policemen swarming the area.  The body of the man shot on his boat had just been fished out of the harbor waters.  The police wanted to know where he had been, what he had been up to and why people were getting killed on his boat.  Ski wanted to know what the police knew.  By the time he was finished, he knew Jonathan was in trouble and thought it had something to do with the skull that had disappeared.

"Damn museums.  That is the last time I take a security job with a museum.  More trouble than it's worth, dammit."




While Ski was trying to find out anything that might lead him to his friend, Jonathan Raven was waking up to a reality that bore a strong resemblance to a nightmare.  He tried to sit up and discovered he was strapped down to the hard surface on which he had awakened.

He turned his head to look around and realized he was lying on a large, flat stone.  He turned his head the other way and got a cold chill running down his spine.  On top of a slightly larger stone sat the skull he'd been seeking.  It gleamed eerily, as if with an inner light.  He pulled against his restraints, seeking any slight give that could mean escape.  Nothing.

"Ah.  You're awake."

He looked around at the source of the voice.  The face was Cheri's.  The hair was now paler, the eyes paler also, much closer to blue than the startling green of Cheri's eyes.

"Who are you?"

"I thought you knew.  Tanya Kropotkin.  And you -- you are Jonathan Raven, Black Dragon, Assassin, -- security consultant.  You are a  perfect specimen."

"Specimen?  Of what?"

She laughed.  "For what, Mr. Raven.  For what.  To become Dr. Rand's new body, of course."

"Of course."  Science fiction, horror, nightmare.  The lady was crazy.  But that wouldn't make him any less dead if that was included in her program for returning Dr. Rand from the dead.

"And what does Dr. Rand think about this?"

"I think it's a wonderful idea, Mr. Raven.  A wonderful idea," a hollow echo of his own voice answered him.  Slowly, as with great effort of will, a form solidified beside the stone to which he was secured.  Dr. David Rand, his face a serene counterpart of Jonathan's with hellfire burning in his eyes, stood looking down at his physical counterpart and smiled.

Jonathan Raven had feared little in his life.  He found himself very afraid of this apparition, of Tanya Kropotkin's plan for him and of the power he could just sense pulsing inside the Shikitami Skull.  He was in deep trouble here, and he wasn't certain Ski or anyone else would locate him in time to change the outcome of what the ghost and the woman had planned.

Perhaps he should have called the Luna Foundation  before he went to rescue Ski.

Continued

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