"Every day I learn what to say

And what not to have done

And I taste of ashes

Of a fire long since gone"

–"Blackheart Rodeo" by Tom McRae

Chapter Eleven

Sir and Envy eyed the transmuted hill blocking the hallway where the laboratory used to be with well-concealed dismay.

"Fucking Fullmetal," Envy pronounced after a moment.

Sir took a step closer and examined it with restrained awe.

"This is Fullmetal's work?" he asked in a low, avaricious tone. "Such power... A mere human can do this much?"

Envy snorted. "You really must be an amateur if this mess impresses you. Pipsqueak is really losing his touch."

Sir looked over his shoulder at him, as if he was trying very hard not to be annoyed by his rudely condescending tone. Envy smirked at him. They both knew that Sir would not dare make a comment, not with the Philosopher's Stone at stake. But Envy didn't bother to rub it in. In truth, he was a bit perplexed by this display.

It was not Elric's style in the least. Envy had been around long enough to know a natural alchemist's touch, even if he hated to give the brat that much credit. But his transmutations were... refined. Moving this volume of matter was no problem for the brat, but that wasn't the impressive part. Even in the heat of the moment, he could summon extraordinary concentration. Envy still remembered the incident with the walking statue in Liore. To perform a kinetic transmutation and still retain such control – it was something that took skill no one could deny. So the half-formed, lumpish wave of earth that tore haphazardly upward was unusual.

Something must have gone wrong. But what? Elric wasn't stupid, he wouldn't have tried some kind of alchemy in there and accidentally activated the arrays. That would just have left him and his precious Colonel splattered on the walls or inside the Gate. Envy didn't doubt the irritating little pissant was still alive – Hohenheim's whole clan laid claim to unnatural resilience. At any rate, this looked almost like a rebound, only... not.

Envy frowned. Like a rebound in reverse.

The real question was, what did it mean?

He narrowed his eyes to slits. This was exactly Edward was a potential danger – he was unpredictable at the most inopportune times.

"So, is there another way out?" he asked, keeping his observations to himself.

Sir stopped caressing the protrusion and turned back to face him. "No. This iis/i a dungeon. There is only one exit."

"Then I'll have to improvise." Envy stood back, tipping his narrow chin up as he studied the cracked stones in the ceiling. "You might want to stand back."

A heartbeat later, he leaped up, fist crashing into the ceiling's weakest point. Sir hastily dodged the chunks of falling debris. Envy resisted a derisive chuckle. Slow bastard. He bounced lightly off the floor and soared through the large hole his punch had created. When he'd landed neatly in the hallway above, he leered back down at Sir's nonplussed expression.

"We'd better move. Your hired goon is waiting for us out back," he said. He gave a slight, mocking bow. "On sir's orders, of course."

Sir's eyebrows rose before drawing down into a faintly displeased frown. "I have another servant here. It would be... wasteful to leave her behind."

"Sacrifices must be made, right?" Envy sneered callously in response. "Hurry up before I change my mind."

With a sigh, Sir clapped his hands together primly, then knelt to touch the floor. The stone fizzled away, then reassembled itself into a staircase rising up to join with the edge of the hole at Envy's feet. When the crackling red energy died away, Sir ascended the steps with a lofty gait.

"Do you know the way to the rear exit, or shall I show you the way?" he asked, coolly magnanimous, when he reached the top.

Envy didn't know whether to roll his eyes, grind his teeth, or make an obscene remark. He settled for an ironic twist of a grin and said, "After you, Your Majesty."

Roy sat at the back of the transport Hughes had ushered him into, quietly having a nervous breakdown. Things were happening too quickly, far too quickly. He almost longed for another distraction – Fuery fussing over Edward, lying in Roy's arms, Hawkeye berating him for forgetting his gloves, Hughes interrogating him. But no one was cooperating. A thick, uneasy silence filled the vehicle as they bounced and grated their way over drifted backroads on their way to the Central hospital.

There was next to no light, save for the dim glow of the communications machinery stacked to one side. Yet Roy could see as plain as day. He could see how everyone tried not to stare at him and Edward, and failed miserably. Questions no one dared ask lurked in their eyes before they would notice him watching and they'd look away. It was just as well. Roy had no answers.

Edward probably did, but he was as yet unresponsive.

Roy looked down at him, avoiding the stares of his men. Like this, the boy seemed so... small. Frail. He hardly weighed anything, even with the automail leg. His bangs were a mess, and without even really registering what he was doing, Roy lifted a hand to brush the hair back from Edward's eyes, which flickered reassuringly behind closed lids.

No distractions, nothing standing between him and his huge and terrible guilt.

God. What was he doing? What had he done?

He could still taste Ed's blood.

Sickness churned in his belly, in his mind. His soul. Everything had happened too quickly. One moment they'd been captives, the next he'd been on fire – and God, he'd known fire was a horrible way to die, he'd killed enough people to know that, but now that he'd felt it and it made him realize how cruel he truly was – all those people, those children, screaming, and the stench of burning bodies –

No. No, that was then. That was years ago. Forget it for now. Now was this transport, this boy – not that boy – and dammit, they were safe now. Roy breathed a long, shaky sigh.

After the fire, all he could remember of the hurried flight back to laboratory was the heady scent of Edward enveloping him like a mist. The powerful, perverse hunger, and Edward standing too close. Hadn't he realized that Roy had been balanced on a razor's edge, striving against the urge to grab him and tear into him like a dog with a juicy bone?

He could still taste Ed's blood.

What had he done?

All his struggle against himself for nothing. Edward was so stupid, offering himself, but... Honestly, Edward was a born martyr, it was only to be expected. Predictable. Roy should have been prepared. Should have had better reasons to say no. Should have said no. But everything had happened too quickly, and Edward's vivid, determined eyes had swallowed him, and he'd thought ijust a taste./i And even before he'd sunk his teeth in, he'd known it'd be much more than that.

Fuck. What had he done?

He could still taste Ed's blood. More than that. He could feel it inside him, surging in his veins with every half-mad heartbeat. God, he was going insane from it. And remembering the flush of color high in Edward's cheeks as the boy bared his throat, the rush of holding Edward against him, the shameful satisfaction of sinking his teeth into that perfect neck – and he'd never dreamt that blood would taste like that, so pure, so sweet –

He was a monster. A monster. Every bit as bad as Sir. Worse, because Edward had trusted him. And where did that trust leave him? Unconscious and bleeding in Roy's lap.

...Wait.

Roy looked down at his chest, at the blanket, at Edward. Bleeding. If Edward was bleeding, where was the blood? Roy had bitten him close to a vein, and they hadn't had time to patch it up before that completely bizarre transmutation had occurred. Edward's blood should be everywhere by now, not just on Roy's lips and conscience.

He glanced up to make sure no one was gawking at him before he carefully put fingers under Edward's chin and tipped his head to one side. His breath caught at the sight of unmarred skin. There were no wounds. Not even a hickey.

Impossible.

Well, maybe not relatively impossible, considering the genuine vampires. But healing with alchemy was a type of human transmutation. The only person Roy had ever heard of using alchemy directly on patients was Dr. Marco, but that was dealing with an alchemical disease. It was not healing wounds instantly, leaving no scar behind. That would only have come at a terrible price.

Was Ed paying for it?

He hated this. What the bloody blue fuck was going on?

"Roy."

He jerked, startled, and looked up. He realized belatedly that the vehicle had stopped moving, and Hughes had come to stand in front of him. Behind him, Hawkeye pulled open the sliding door, and the others all began to tromp out.

"Hospital?" Roy managed to ask.

"Yeah."

Roy swallowed and stood, hefting Edward. The blanket fell away as he did so, and he resisted a hiss as the cold air touched his skin. But Hughes didn't back away to let him pass.

"Wait. I'll have Fuery and Hawkeye take him in first," he said, frowning. "But we need to figure what to do about... well, you."

"Oh." He hadn't considered that. He wondered again just what he looked like. It wasn't like he'd grown a second head or anything. The only obvious change he had noticed were the fangs. "What about me?"

"Didn't see your reflection, did you?" Hughes asked, and there was some dark humor in the question.

Roy was not amused, but before he could respond, Hughes stepped aside to allow Fuery and Hawkeye to come forward. They took Edward from him without speaking. Fuery kept glancing up at him nervously, looking as if he expected Roy to bite his head off. If anything, this only exacerbated Roy's uncertainty. As the two left with their charge, he sank slowly back onto the hard bench and shivered.

Hughes shut the sliding door and turned back to him. He looked grim as Roy had ever seen him as he sank into the swiveling chair that was bolted down in front of the communications equipment.

"Do I really look that bad?" Roy asked quietly. He pulled the blanket back around his shoulders, trying not to hunch up in it.

"You look like... well, I suppose you could pass for an Ishballan mix, if no one knew better. But you've just been all over the newspapers, so no one would buy that. You've got their eyes," Hughes said, matching his tone. He didn't need to clarify which 'they' he meant.

Roy stared at the textured metal floor blankly. His eyes... Well, that wasn't nearly so bad as the other things of theirs he'd gotten. "Oh."

"Not to mention that flashy new tattoo," Hughes gestured vaguely towards Roy's chest. He'd almost forgotten about the strange red ankh, to tell the truth. What had Ed called it? Mark of something. But Hughes spoke again, stalling his memory. "What happened in there?"

He closed his eyes. God. He wasn't ready to talk about this. "That's a good question. Even I'm not sure."

"Dammit, this isn't time to play games," Hughes said shortly. "You've been gone for almost twenty-four hours, and you have a helluva lot of explaining to do. What possessed you to leave Edward alone, and without your gloves?"

That accusation startled him into looking up, and he met his friend's hard glare. So much had happened since the night before, he couldn't even begin to think of a rebuttal. He opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. "I – I was only going downstairs –"

"That's a pisspoor excuse, Roy, and you know it. You iknew/i they were after you two. What made you think it would be all right to leave the room unarmed? Why did getting tanked with a stranger in sunglasses seem like a good idea – when you were supposed to be guarding Edward?" Hughes demanded.

Well, when he put it that way.

Even for Roy, who'd seen the man truly angry a handful of times before, the barely-restrained fury in Hughes's words was something of a shock. It was easy to forget that Hughes was made of steel, underneath all that good-natured paternal exuberance. It had been a long time since Roy had found himself pinned by a green dagger gaze. Even worse, Hughes was totally justified. He had been unforgivably stupid the night before. As if he needed another reason to hate himself right now.

But now he was thinking. Obviously he couldn't tell Hughes that he'd realized he was infatuated with a subordinate fourteen years his junior and the idea had, for some strange reason, bothered him immensely. However, Fullmetal had given him ammunition to use, and Roy suddenly felt a flicker of his own anger. Glad to feel something other than self-recrimination, he latched onto the flicker and fanned it liberally.

"Oh, I don't know. About the same time you decided to cover up the truth about Lab Five," he said coldly.

Hughes's eyes widened, his rage faltering. "What?"

"Fullmetal told me everything last night. He had to, in order to explain his theory on these... things," Roy finished, albeit a little lamely. He plunged onward. "Homunculi in the military? Doesn't that sound like something I should have known about?"

"I didn't tell you because firstly, I didn't want you to charge in guns blazing, and second, the Fuhrer was involved with that mess and it was too early to tip your hand. It still is," Hughes countered. "Is that why you left Ed alone? Because you were pissed at me?"

"No! I was pissed, but I'm not fucking petty," he snapped. "Human transmutation, Hughes. Brought up some bad memories."

Hughes looked like he was going to speak, but he hesitated. That was all right. Roy knew what he wanted to say.

"I'm not saying that excuses anything. God, I was stupid. I know I was stupid. And as a result I put Fullmetal in danger, I put myself in danger. All of you, too," Roy said in a level tone. He dropped his eyes. "'Sorry' doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Well, it's a start," Hughes said. He didn't sound mollified, exactly, but the anger had subsided to a simmering note. "But if you ever do something so incredibly idiotic again, I'll kill you myself and have your goddamn gloves stuffed and mounted."

"Fair enough," he replied, even as he recognized that Hughes would likely make good on that threat before this conversation was over.

"Now. What happened after you left the bar?" Hughes asked, getting back down to business.

Time to bite the bullet. Roy swallowed, tongue thick in his mouth as he began to talk. He didn't go into too much detail. He skipped the part where he'd let himself be seduced to Sir's hotel room entirely. Some things Hughes had probably worked out for himself. But his words came more haltingly as he began to speak about the mansion.

Hughes's eyes widened at the bit with the wandering corpses, but they narrowed grimly again when Roy told him how he'd been... changed.

"Sir – that man, that's what he called himself – tried to force me to bite Edward," Roy said. He looked down and heard Hughes gasp. "He said if I didn't, he would. And he was hurting Edward right in front of me. I – I couldn't just stand there and watch that happen."

Hughes said, incredulous, "You - you bit him?"

Roy flinched. Slowly, he shook his head. "No. Not... not then."

The implications of that sank in and a deadly silence roared into being. Roy's heart hammered against his ribs. Vaguely he noted that he had started shaking. He only noticed because the broken chains of the manacles still around his wrists rattled. He clasped his hands together to try to hide the tremors. Still the silence dragged on, and he couldn't take it.

"Say something."

"...I... really don't know what to say."

"Please, Maes," Roy begged.

"Er... You're not, uh, still thirsty, are you?"

Roy jerked as if struck and looked up. "No! God –"

"Then why don't you just keep talking?" Hughes interrupted, face and tone unreadable. "I need the full story, Roy, not bits and pieces. Why didn't you bite Ed then?"

Roy drew a deep breath. Dredging up the last of his willpower, he mastered himself enough to continue. "You and the others arrived. One of Sir's underlings came to tell him. He was in the process of moving us to a dungeon cell when Fullmetal used the glove he'd brought for me. We managed to get away from Sir, back to the lab. Fullmetal was looking for a way to... fix me.

"And that's when I bit him," he finished. By now the shaking had gotten so pronounced there was no hiding it. "I – I drank his blood, Maes. God, I'm not even human."

"Shut up. Don't start talking like that. It gets us nowhere," Hughes snapped. He scrubbed at his face with his hands and then ran them through his hair. "Okay. Okay, so what was Ed doing? Did he fight back?"

Roy shook his head. "He... he just. Stood there and. Let me."

"Why?"

"He thought he was helping me. He thought it was the way to fix me." Bile stung the back of his throat as he swallowed again.

"And I'm guessing Ed didn't tell you anything about what he's discovered," Hughes said slowly, heavily. "About the Nosferatu."

Roy shrugged. "Only that he had found out something. There was hardly time for a lecture."

Hughes looked through him for a long, ominous moment. Roy could almost hear the gears turning. Then he shook his head. "Nope. I'll let Ed tell you himself."

"Hiding things from me again?" Roy asked without heat.

"Bet your ass I am," Hughes said. "I'm out of my depth when it comes to alchemy, so I'll leave that to the experts. I'm probably just jumping to conclusions."

And with that fresh lump of unease sinking in Roy's stomach, Hughes proceeded to finish grilling him about the escape from Sir's mansion. Now that the truth was out, Roy felt drained, exhausted. He answered questions on autopilot, thankful that there wasn't much left to tell, less to actually explain. He'd just finished talking, watching the questions start to form on Hughes's face, when a knock sounded from the sliding door of the van. Hughes gave an abortive shake of his head and shot Roy a glance that told him they weren't finished talking.

"Come in," he said loudly. The door clunked open and drew aside, revealing Hawkeye's stoic form. "Report, Lieutenant."

"Fullmetal's stable, but still unconscious," she said without preamble. She frowned slightly. "They say his only new wounds are bruises and minor scrapes, but he's suffering from anemia."

"Probably not getting enough iron in his diet," Hughes said dryly.

"What about the Colonel, sir?" Hawkeye asked briskly, but her eyes softened minutely.

Roy opened his mouth to object automatically, but in light of his recent... changes, he held his tongue. If he was in their place, he'd want to ascertain his competency, too. He looked to Hughes with a wary furrow between his brows.

"Well, for the Flame Alchemist, he's not so hot," the Lieutenant Colonel said, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly with one hand. "But he's alive. We should get him inside. It's getting cold in here."

"I took the liberty of preparing a secured hall to minimize awkward questions," Hawkeye said, barely batting an eye at the reasons for needing a secured hall. This is why Roy had to love the woman. Even in the face of tense situations – such as her boss becoming possibly undead and definitely an alchemical freak of nature – she kept her head and her impeccable efficiency.

And with that efficiency, Roy found himself whisked into the hospital via a service entrance, up three flights of stairs, and down to the end of an empty hall. The room was a double, Edward ensconced on the bed nearest the window.

The white covers were pulled up to his chest, showing that they'd put him in a thin hospital-issue gown. His hair was unbound and freshly washed – he'd been mildly scorched and filthy with rock dust, as Roy himself still was – and was almost the only spot of color on the bed. White bandages stuck here and there to his arm and face, a livid collar of black bruises in the shape of fingers circled his throat.

Roy froze in the doorway, aghast, feeling his stomach give a sudden roll. He'd done this. Oh, God, he'd done this. He'd put Edward here. His mind balked, and he couldn't look away, and dear God – They hadn't even reattached his arm yet, and Roy couldn't help the thought of the first time he'd laid eyes on Ed, a scrawny eleven-year-old – No. No. He couldn't. If he thought of Ed as that child – or that child – and all he could smell is the ash on him, the choking stink of burned-flesh –

Roy felt something in his head begin to unravel dangerously.

With his sanity at stake, he forced the memories away, dissociating the first violently from the young man laying so still on the bed. Reality seemed to slip sideways before falling abruptly into place with an almost audible click.

Roy swayed on his feet, fighting a sense of dizziness. Hughes and Hawkeye, for their part, were speaking quietly beside Ed's bed, appearing oblivious to his distress. And when he looked hesitantly at Edward, there was a harsh stab of guilt, of course. This time it did not threaten his sanity. He gave a soft, shaky sigh.

His nineteenth nervous breakdown of the night thus avoided, he forced his leaden legs to step farther into the room. He closed the door behind him slowly, taking deep breaths while he tried to school his expression blank. He doubted it worked very well, but he turned back towards the others.

"Fuery and Breda have gone to get Alphonse from your office," Hawkeye was saying to Hughes.

"I'll stay here in case he wakes up," Hughes replied before giving a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Sir, I really think that's unnecessary," she said, her tone and expression thawing. "You have a family to get back to. I know you haven't slept since Edward called you."

"Because you've been there the whole time, too," he countered. "Don't think I don't know you're just as exhausted as I am. Don't you have to walk Black Hayate or something? Wouldn't want to come home to puddles."

"He knows better," Hawkeye said with a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Go home, Hughes."

"I'll stay," Roy volunteered quietly. Both of them turned to stare at him bemusedly.

"Well, yeah," Hughes said after a beat. He pointed helpfully. "That other bed isn't mine, and it's not just for show either. Why do you think they got us a double?"

"No," Roy frowned and shook his head. "I'll stay awake until Alphonse gets here. Have someone else stand guard – Havoc or Falman. You two have done enough. Go home and rest."

They seemed a little dubious and exchanged glances, silently communicating. Hughes sighed and turned his attention back to Roy.

"Fair enough. I think we all need to rest," he intoned tiredly. "Hawkeye, get out of here. I'll see to the arrangements with the hospital staff before I leave."

"Yes, sir. I'll send Havoc up," she replied, saluting smoothly before looking at Roy with a warmth that might have surprised most who knew her. "Good to have you back, Colonel Mustang."

"Good to be back, Riza," Roy replied sincerely, dredging up a thin smirk. "Sorry for the trouble."

"Then don't make a habit of it," she said. "Good night."

Once she'd gone, Hughes turned to Roy, producing a thin lockpick seemingly from thin air. "Let's get those manacles off, hmm? Unless you like to make that kind of fashion statement."

Roy sat on his bed, holding his arm out for Hughes, kneeling on the floor beside him out of some innate fatherly instinct. They were silent while the intelligence officer worked. The first cuff snapped open and Roy caught a glimpse of raw abrasions on his wrist. In the next heartbeat, they healed over with a shimmer of alchemy, a bit more slowly than when he'd been burned. Hughes stilled, not raising his gaze as he stared openly at Roy's arm. After a moment, he gave a soft cough, then started working on the second manacle. Roy squeezed his eyes shut grimly, refusing to acknowledge the tremors that had started up again.

Hughes finished the second one silently. Roy heard him stand, followed the sound of his footsteps towards the door.

"Ed knew what he was doing," Hughes said suddenly, causing Roy to open his eyes. His friend stood in the doorway, looking at him with an uninterpretable expression. "Remember that, Roy. Ed knew what he was doing."

Before Roy could ask what he meant by that, Hughes was gone.

Archer glared at the abrupt dead end in the dungeon passage as if the rough edges of transmuted stone blocking his path had insulted him personally. He and his men had been coming around the corner when the minor earthquake stalled them. A minor skirmish with the last of the... gruesome corpse-like creatures further delayed them – though not for long, the things they encountered this time were much ravaged with decay and much easier to handle. The rumbling aftershocks had faded before they were able to press on, only to find this latest impediment.

It was anticlimactic, to say the least. Archer had to swallow a frustrated growl.

"Sir," Second Lieutenant Reeve, the communications officer of his squad, spoke up. He cupped an ear-piece of his headset with one hand. "Charlie squad reports the mission objectives are outside and leaving with Lieutenant Colonel Hughes."

Archer spun on his heels, lips curled into a snarl. "What? How?"

"Some kind of alchemy, sir," Reeve said, opening his mouth to add more, but just then Major Baker shouted a warning, "Behind us!"

Instantly the squad fell into firing position, aiming into the darkened hall they'd navigated previously. Searching beams of flashlights illuminated no impending threat. Baker clenched his square jaw, hands tightening on his rifle.

"Saw its eyes. Like a damn cat's," he said.

Possibly a chimera, then. Archer scanned the hall, his heart thudding in his chest. Where could it be hiding?

A light scrabbling sound above them and to the left drew Archer's eyes up. He gasped. A woman clung to the ceiling by her fingertips, back pressed flat to the wall. Her eyes flashed reddish-orange, and her lips parted in a dangerously pointed grin.

"There!" Archer shouted, but she was already moving. Moving fast. The rapid fire of the rifles blasted in Archer's ear drums as she fell on him, hissing. Her slim hands seized his arms, squeezing with strength that she should not have been capable of, lifting him off the ground as she snapped at his throat. He felt the burning sting of her teeth scraping his skin – he managed to lift his sidearm, finger jerking down on the trigger desperately.

The bullet tore into her side, making her screech as she dropped him. She pressed a hand to the gaping hole above her hip. As she did, Archer took aim and delivered another shot into the center of her forehead. She fell back, skidding into the wall. But to Archer's shock, she did not fall. Instead, she straightened, smiling as gore dripped down her face. She lifted her bloodied fingers to her lips and licked them lasciviously, her eyes never leaving Archer's.

"Need to do better than that, sugar," she purred.

The men stared, dumbfounded horror on their faces, and Archer lost his temper. "Fire, you idiots! Kill her!"

The woman tensed and sprang into the air, lunging for the nearest man – Reeve – only to find herself face to face with his rifle's mouth. He fired twice and missed both times, the woman twisting in the air around his shots, and she fell on him with a mad cackle. He landed a foot in her gut, though, and shoved her off him as the hit the ground. She rebounded instantly, surging through a hail of bullets to tackle Baker as well.

Archer rose to a crouch and launched himself at her legs as she passed him. She nimbly veered away, taunting with another laugh – which cut off suddenly as Baker's bullet struck her throat. As she faltered and gurgled and choked on blood gushing like a faucet from her ruined neck, the squad fired in tandem, repeatedly. Archer emptied his clip, reloaded, and emptied the next as well. The air grew thick with gunsmoke, the bright flares from barrels angrily punctuating the darkness.

Finally, the woman – what was left of her – stopped twitching, and they ceased fire.

Archer grabbed his fallen flashlight, and he shone the light on her remains, despite the squeamish groans of the men. Her legs had very nearly been sheered off at the hips, her guts strewn and splattered everywhere, the wall behind her painted nightmarishly with blackish-red blood. The corpse lay sprawled half against the wall, and Archer could clearly see into her chest cavity, her ribs splintered and jutting like the petals of some twisted flower. Her lungs were so much raw meat, and her heart an oddly-shriveled, unmoving lump.

He heard someone start retching onto the tiles behind him, so he considerately turned his flashlight back towards his men. They were all giving the Major his privacy as best they could, while Reeve fiddled with his headset again.

"Sir, your orders?" he asked.

Archer lifted a hand and brushed away the slow seep of blood from the wound on his neck. "Has there been any sign of other suspects?"

After a brief radio relay, "No, sir. Flame and Fullmetal were the only persons seen leaving the compound."

That didn't mean much, given the thick fall of snow. He clenched his reddened fingers into a fist. Damn it. The Fuhrer's information had indicated more members of this... terrorist sect. Men, and a boy according to the newspapers. And Archer would bet those things in the hallway were probably the befouled bodies of the kidnapping victims. This woman-thing, though. No one had mentioned anything like her. Regardless, the whole thing stank of a set-up. A long trail to a dead end, his objectives escaped, his quarry absent. He'd been had.

"All squads fall back. We'll search the perimeter," he bit out. "And tell the investigation team they have their work cut out of them."

"I'll tell them to bring their spatulas," Reeve said, not even half-joking.

"Move out," Archer commanded, already marching stiffly himself. An icicle of cold fury froze in his chest. He felt cheated, and it wasn't a slight he'd soon forget. That idiot Hughes would be unbearable about it, too, the cheerful cretin.

Ed flew out of his body and up and up and through and beyond, carried by an enormous surge of alchemy clenched tightly in his control. Little else registered but utter dismay, remembering a similar sensation when he'd faced the Gate.

But there was no Gate here.

And it didn't feel like the Gate, that disturbing sense of an alien intelligence focusing with terrifying intensity on him. He soared in a dark void, but there was light in the form of glowing, flowing streams of alchemical formulas. They were illegible at best and constantly shifting, never quite forming a whole thought, hints of proper symbols mixed with the gibberish lines and whorls.

Ed squinted at them as they rushed by, but sensing it was useless, he turned his gaze away – or attempted to. But the strange arrays spanned the whole of his vision wherever he looked, a vast chaotic kaleidoscope, shifting and fractal. They spun and swirled and divided and intertwined around him, rainbow panoramas of energy. They mesmerized him, their motions like perfected clockwork yet utterly unpredictable. The further, deeper he went, the more complex they became, until even the dark spaces between arrays were arrays as well.

And then it dawned on him, sudden realization pushing all other thought from his head. He knew what this was.

All is one and one is all.

TBC