"What is it?" Nikita queried, leaning forward in the passenger seat to view the structure. The large house seemed a tangle of ivy siding; masses of roots jutted from the basement, impaling the foundation with brown stubs. The window frames, the only break in the green covering, housed tongue-like tattered curtains, flicking outward in billowing breaths that seemed to greet them.

"Birkoff?" Michael looked in the rear-view mirror at the pale-faced boy. His glasses had one lens missing, and they hung half-haphazardly at an angle on the bridge of his nose.

Shifting the broken spectacles in place, Birkoff answered Michael after a sustained burst of activity across his keyboard. "It's not in any of the databases. I can't give you a schematic; it's probably too old." He shrugged, looking again toward Michael.

"Fine." Michael acknowledged, opening his driver's side door. "Give us a couple of hours, then contact the Section with our location."

Nikita hand reached unsteadily to open her door. Birkoff noticed her shakiness and grabbed her shoulder before she could exit. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine." Nikita answered with a shaky smile, shaking off Michael's jacket. "I feel like we're in a James Bond flick, dressed like this," She managed to quip. Birkoff wrinkled his forehead and frowned slightly, unconvinced by her false bravado.

She exited the van, closing the door behind her and resting her head against its cool metal frame briefly. Her left arm felt totally numb, as if a gigantic hose had replaced the appendage that hung from her shoulder. Her vision was becoming intermittently blurry, but she willed herself to focus on this mission. Michael was already twenty feet ahead of her, white shirt highlighting his cat-like movements.

Side by side inside the graying house, Michael and Nikita inspected the darkened rooms and hallways, drifting slowly towards the pale sliver of light emanating from the farthest doorway. Time slowed and movements became deliberate in their overwhelming rush and hesitancy to get to that room.

Inside a lone light bulb spotlighted Operations' body, appearing as if he might be stealing a mid-afternoon nap in the comfort of a parlor chair. His head flopped backward from his neck, revealing a wide-mouthed grinning laceration extending from ear to ear. The neck cartilage reflected pearly gray in the gleam of the lighting. Blood surrounded his chair as a moat of water surrounds a castle. His feet - a draw bridge - extended stiffly over the moat in a reflexive response to death.

Nikita involuntarily shivered and turned her head in respect, but Michael approached slowly. He tipped the old man's head forward, finding eyes still widened with the knowledge of impending death. The gray head sagged like a rag doll, falling parallel to the plane of his shoulders.

The sound of a match being struck, the flicker of flame illuminating a shadowed face, and Aslan emerged from the outlying shadows puffing slowly on an antique wooden pipe. The sweet smell of tobacco mixed with sour stench of death. Clothed totally in black, his exposed hands and face glowed surrealistically in the inadequate lighting.

Nikita looked to Michael who reflexively raised his gun before lowering it at the sight of Aslan's smile. He seemed paralyzed at the mere site of the Legend.

There were no signs of hate or evil intention in Aslan's blackened orbs. The shadows outlined his features erratically, concealing and revealing as he progressed along the outer circumference of light.

Michael raised his gun again, then lowered it. An unseen battle seemed to be waging inside him, causing these outward signs of indecision. Michael's eyes searched Aslan's body for signs of a weapon but found nothing.

"She doesn't look well." Aslan motioned with his pipe towards Nikita who had drifted backward into the safety of blackness.

Michael whirled to face Nikita, seeing her paled expression for the first time. Leaning heavily against the wall, she attempted to straighten under his appraisal; but her body pitched forward involuntarily, gasping for air. Her left arm hung useless from her shoulder turned at an odd angle from her torso. Her right hand tore at her throat in an attempt to rid the unseen constriction felt there.

Michael cursed himself inwardly for not paying better attention. Kneeling beside her, he stripped the glove from her left arm, finding that the ivory skin was turning bluish gray around the metal sheath. Red streaks marked her veins, snaking upward towards her shoulder.

"Fix it!" Michael cradled the left arm, turning in anger to Aslan.

"You broke your word, why should I keep mine?" Aslan regarded Michael, and slowly paced the ring of light.

"Do it." Michael raised his gun.

Aslan smiled fully, and laughed aloud at Michael's order. He extracted a small vial filled with yellow fluid from his jacket pocket. "Come here," He motioned to Nikita.

Nikita staggered forward, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light. Pausing half-way between Aslan and Michael, she looked at each of them. "I won't let you do this to Michael." Her voice sounded far away inside her head, and she repeated the phrase just to be sure that indeed it had been spoken at all. Deepened and low, Nikita's voice reverberated off the bare walls, echoing slightly.

Slowly lifting her 9mm, she aimed it at Aslan's chest.

"Nikita, NO!" Michael warned, jumping to his feet, too late.

A dagger that seemed to emanate from Aslan's flesh arced across the room, landing squarely in Nikita's left shoulder. Stunned by the warmth coursing down her chest, she dropped to her knees, appearing to worship Operations' body for a brief instant.

"NO!" Michael screamed, propelling himself across the room to her side.

Nikta fell sideways, staring at the instrument in disbelief. Her gun slid from her grasp across the floor as her shoulder contacted the unforgiving floor. A small, sanguine river pulsed across the concrete with each beat of her heart.

Michael holstered his gun and knelt beside her, holding her torso in his arms and gently rocking back and forth. "Don't do this, Nikita!" He ordered fiercely.

Aslan threw his pipe disgustedly against the wall and reached down to help, but one look at Michael's face pushed him back a few steps.

"Why?" Michael whispered in her hair. "Why!" he shouted to Aslan.

Aslan was still in shock over these unexpected turn of events. "It wasn't supposed to be like this." He shook his head in disbelief.

Nikita grabbed Michael's shirt, pulling him downward to catch her whispered words, "You have nothing to lose...." Her meaning hit him fully, piercing the armor of his soul to flower deep inside him.

Sapphire eyes rolled uncontrollably in their fight to focus, but her body won as the circles of blue settled backward inside their orbits.

"Nikita?" Michael touched the quivering dagger reverently, not knowing what to do.

"She's dying, Michael." Aslan offered sadly.

Michael felt her body slide off his lap to rest in a crumpled heap beside his knees. His mind denied the events that had just transpired. Everything had happened so quickly. One minute everything was under control, and all the world was right, and now... now.

Aslan gripped Michael's shoulders. "Kytlet, that village... do you remember,"

Michael blinked, lifting unseeing eyes to Aslan's. He licked the sudden dryness from his lips, and tried to understand the words that Aslan spoke. So many thoughts were vying for his attention.

"There was no Kytlet, Michael. The Section created the whole scenario. They orchestrated the sale of your soul to the Devil." Aslan released Michael to grip a fistful of Operations' hair, shaking the head for emphasis. Drops of blood flew outward, slapping Michael in the face and bespeckling him with their crimson spray.

Michael looked at his hands wet with Nikita's blood, and instantly he was transported to that village that haunted his sweaty nightmares. Once again, he found himself trapped in some terror, searching for life and finding none. "I knew. I knew what they did. I had to tell you before..." Aslan's voice softened to a plea.

Michael looked from Operation's lifeless body to Aslan's pleading face. Hatred and malice turned his hazel eyes black. "You had to tell me?" he choked bitterly.

"You still have a soul." Aslan's right hand clasped in a tightened fist, raising it upward to signal victory.

"I sold it, Aslan. I sold it!" Michael stabbed his finger repeatedly into his chest, punctuating each syllable of his declaration. Hoarse with anger, he scoffed, "Killing the few to save the many...I traded every part of my soul."

Michael stood, new purpose giving him strength beyond mortal ability. He felt the power that comes from surging adrenaline. His heart pounding and his breathing ragged, every muscle prepared itself for the battle of his life.

"'The ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times.' Shakespeare spoke of you, Michael." Aslan stressed, lifting the palms of his hands upward to invoke a sense of submission and vulnerability.

Michael rubbed his forehead furiously, his breathing coming in short rasps. His eyes widened to attempt understanding in this dim reality. "Always, Shakespeare, Aslan. Stop trying to recreate the past!" his voice shook with anger.

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat the past's mistakes." Aslan grabbed Michael's shirt, peering downward into the reviling abyss that darkened sour grape eyes.

Michael pushed Aslan away and unsheathed his weapon. Pointing it squarely on Aslan's chest, he pulled the hammer back, "What do you know of the past, Aslan? You never had one!"

Aslan's pounding heart against the muzzle of the gun caused it to jump wildly in its place on his chest. Michael's voice sharpened, donning an accusatory tone as he continued, "You've never loved; you've never had a weakness. What do you know of pain and what could *you* possibly know of love?"

The gun trembled then fell from Michael's hand as he nearly collapsed under the onslaught of emotions he felt. His extremities shook under rage, trembled with fear, jumped at hope.

"I loved you, Michael! I loved you like a son!" Aslan words echoed the sound of the metal gun hitting the concrete floor.

"Then why did you leave?" Michael's eyes closed, and he covered his mouth with one hand in a desperate attempt to block the outpouring of words. Nikita's blood still staining his fingers, trailed across his upper lip.

"I couldn't continue to be the cause of your corruption, Michael. My absence was a gift to you - from a father to his son." Aslan's hand carefully wiped the blood from Michael's lip.

"You are not my father, Aslan!" Michael spat vehemently, pushing away Aslan's offending hand.

"What is a father, but the creator of offspring?" Aslan questioned, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. "Who made you what you are today?" Aslan demanded, inches from Michael's face. "Don't tell me that I'm not your father!" Aslan took a step backward, crossing his arms over his chest with great consternation, posing as the Greek gods of old.

"There was a time, that I thought it impossible to kill you." Michael started slowly, drilling deep into the dark recesses hidden in the eyes of his mentor. "But now... now I think my heart will rejoice, when I bask in the warmth of your blood." Michael lips curled from cursing snarl to sainted smile in a split instant as his words sprung from his soul through his mouth instantaneously.

"Just as you bask in the warmth of her blood, Michael?" Aslan's words fell like hammer blows.

Michael reeled as if he had been physically struck, toppling backward and rocking in the berth of such verbal onslaught.. His breath left him in one prolonged wheeze, leaving his lungs deflated and burning with hot fire.

"I can give you power..." Aslan's hand extended to a Operations.

"Or freedom," His finger turned to point at the open door.

"And I can give you your soul." Aslan's voice softened to caress and assuage the near fatal verbal blow which he had landed.

"What I want - you can't give me." Michael's words flowed uninhibited now, all sense of logic and reason had left him. Try as he might he couldn't find that familiar mask which concealed unwanted emotions.

"You don't know what you want." Aslan surmised, viewing the slow death of his pupil's heart.

"I do." Michael murmured, looking down at Nikita's still form.

Aslan looked downward at the firearm and Nikita both abandoned on the floor, trying to discern if it were death or love for which Michael yearned.

"No," Michael spat vehemently. "No weapons " He kicked the gun across the room.

"Let the battle begin then - between lost souls, lost hopes, lost boys." Aslan voiced purposely.

************

Leaning in exhaustion against the wall, Michael wiped the stinging sweat from his forehead. Each muscle screamed with its saturation of lactic acid, and his reactions were slowing as his body neared its breaking point. Past the swollen flesh surrounding his eyes and nose, he regarded his mentor whose breathing remained unlabored. Michael grudgingly burgeoned new-found respect for Aslan, amazed that he could have forgotten the skills that this man possessed.

A small thrill of satisfaction ran through Michael, noticing a small bleeding cut beneath Aslan's left eye. In all his years of training, he had never been able to draw blood from this hero. It was a small victory, but bigger battles had been won with less.

Aslan's demise, however, would not accurately portray what was transpiring within this half-lit room. Closing his eyes, Michael realized the end could not be far, and a senseless image crossed his thoughts - the vision of a carrot twirling 'round a string just inches away from a hungry horse's mouth. The horse was Death, and she was slowly taking nauseating bites from his body.

Michael's arm swung out half-heartedly, missing Aslan by inches. "You're not concentrating." Aslan dryly commented, easily avoiding the arcing crescent kick that followed.

The oddity of such a statement in the heat of battle struck Michael almost humorously. Aslan never seemed incapable of reverting to his former role as Section One guide and mentor.

"Why are we fighting, Michael?" Aslan inquired, batting down yet another kick and returning a punishing blow into Michael's carelessly exposed ribcage.

Michael paused, holding his chest and leaning forward to catch his breath. He didn't answer, couldn't answer. The reason remained hidden even from him, hence they persisted the more so in their monstrous endeavors.

***

Nikita's body jerked like a cork-screwed topsail as consciousness and pain hit her with the force of a steel beam. Her fingers slid across the coolness of the concrete floor trailing a path through tepid fluid until they touched her face. Blinking through crusty eyelids, she realized that her palm was covered with blood. Holding back the wall of pain that threatened to plunge her into blackness once again, she focused all of her strength on the magnanimous task of turning to her back. The substance in her body created intense burning throughout her system. Pain was blinding and all-encompassing, and she found herself craving death like an addict craves his next fix.

Sounds of struggle reached past the ringing in her ears as she became acutely aware of two figures lost in battle. A spectator, Nikita watched in wonder their deadly dance for what seemed an eternity.

Michael fought well, but without heart - his blows lacked potency. Although conducting the majority of the offensive, he warred as one whose victory would be better served in losing. Bruised and swollen, his face was hardly recognizable; and his steps held the uncertainty of a drunken palsy.

"Michael," Nikita whispered, her thickened tongue forming the words and thrusting them through her swollen lips.

Both men turned at once to regard her.

"By the gods," Aslan exclaimed, taking steps towards her. His face appeared close to hers, and she cringed - his was not the face that she longed to see.

At the sound of Nikita's voice, Michael's heart had leapt in his chest. The simple act of drawing air had come to require conscious effort, but Michael delved into his deepest reserves to reach Nikita. Taking two steps towards her, he stumbled, his body failing him now when he needed it most. His body screamed her name by the pattern of his lips, but his air no longer supported his voice. His heart's cry left him unheard.

Nikita fought through the pain, biting her lip and clawing at the floor with fierce determination in her efforts to reach Michael's fallen form. Aslan halted her progress, and she submitted, not having the strength to offer resistance.

"Let me look at you!" he soothed, kneeling beside her and cradling her upper body in his arms. Face as pale as new fallen snow, the wells of her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "Nikita... sweet Juliet." He cherished. "Your Romeo is choosing death, but I think you can convince him otherwise."

Nikita's watery eyes moved past Aslan to the recumbent form of Michael. She swallowed hard, enduring the careful inventory which Aslan's hands were taking of her throbbing body. Her right hand hung limply across her chest; it twitched coming in contact with the hilt of the knife. She closed her fingers around it, and brought it from her flesh towards Aslan's with a warrior's cry. He deflected the blow easily instead turning the blade to rest against her throat.

It nicked the soft flesh, and he wiped the blood from the flat of the blade over her skin as his other hand retrieved a small vial. Pouring the viscous liquid into Nikita's mouth, he forced her to ingest the honey-sweet stickiness. Nikita's eyes widened, pleading with him before painful spasms plunged her into blessed nothingness.

Blood pumped furiously from the gash in Nikita's left shoulder. Aslan ripped off his shirt, tying the sleeves securely around the wound in an effort to stop the bleeding.

"Aslan!" Michael exclaimed, standing above Aslan's form.

Aslan reacted swiftly, exacting a blow to Michael's thigh and essentially paralyzing the muscle temporarily. Michael hauled the massive man backward across the floor, straddling his bared chest and pummeling the handsome face with repeated blows. Aslan expertly shifted his weight, rolling Michael to the side.

In this compromised position Michael's hands searched indiscrimanently for anything to aid his plight. His fingers fell over the dagger, and with a powerful grunt he plunged the blade deep under Aslan's ribcage.

Aslan groaned and gurgled, managing one final blow across Michael's face, rendering the operative unconscious. Crawling to Nikita's fallen body, Aslan kissed her half-open lips. "Farewell, sweet Juliet." He unfastened her bracelet and dragged her body over his own. In hushed tones he murmured into the umbrella of hair that covered his face, "Blanket of sweet warmth comfort me now in my dying hour. Breathe your sweet scent over me. Noxious Death, refrain thy sweet lips' kiss."

Nikita's body draped Aslan's like a funeral shroud. Her hands entwined with his, flaxen hair filling his open mouth. He bit at the golden tangles until the last, tearing them in his pained frustration. Michael lay inches away, flattened against the floor as if he had chosen the electric bulb to sun his ivory chest.

************

Consciousness assaulted Michael, jarring his body into awareness by stages. He laid there for a full minute before finally realizing that ten, maybe more, operatives had wedded their gruesome blood-bath. Propping himself on one elbow, his gaze traveled across the trunkless silhouettes. The pale light cut them off at the waist, leaving the rest a mystery. It seemed that angels - maybe demons - had come to collect both living and dead.

His eyes traveled to what held them transfixed. Showcased in a band of light, both living and dead, although the naked eye could scarcely discern the distinction. Operations' blood-drained body, now pasty white and totally limp, throned the vast chair like Ozymandius of old. On the floor Nikita's body was jack-knifed over the hilt of the dagger still buried in Aslan's chest. Nikita's mouth opened over the bare flesh of Aslan's shoulder. Hands grasped like two lovers; one of his legs bent sharply shielding her lower body from Michael's sight.

Michael retched, shutting his eyes and opening them again to test the reality of this nightmare. Death was all around him, appalling and irreversible. There was no sense of satisfaction in this victory; he felt only guilt.

The sighing of Nikita's breath swept over him like a wind song, filling Michael's lungs to bursting. His insides caught fire with the sparks of emotions. Two fingers reached hesitantly to her lips, confirming the air that rushed between those bluish lips.

"Leave." Michael commanded, looking to the ghostly observers. They filtered out slowly, wordlessly single-file.

Reaching under Nikita's shoulders, Michael pulled her flaccid frame upward, resting her back against his chest. Her body, cold and inanimate melted against his. Fragile sighing breaths escaped her lips, and he held face gently.

Shifting his gaze to regard the sprawled form of Aslan's body, he felt no pity observing the burnt toast eyes that peered upward unseeing. Blond hair mixed with dried blood and spittle, crowding the corners of Aslan's mouth. Michael traced the curvature of the rib cage arcing upward, studying it for movement and finding none. The silver hilt of the dagger gleamed a silver ornament, casting reflected light outward in a sparkling display. Even in death this warrior seemed inviolable.

Nikita shifted against his chest, taking the first deepened breath of waking. Eyelashes fluttered against the hand that supported her face. Michael tilted her chin upward. Blue met hazel, and strength was reborn with such simple connection.

Nikita's rolled her head towards Aslan's still form. One of Michael's fingers traced her lips as the others supported her chin. "I'm sorry." she spoke to the fingers.

He hoisted her in his arms as he stood, surprised at how light she felt cradled there.

Her left arm flopped lifelessly over his shoulder, and she barely had strength to keep her head erect. She locked eyes with him, speaking softly "You should be alone..."

"No." He shook his head, propping her higher in his arms and offering a slight smile to soften his refusal.

......Footsteps, the tweaking of rubber soles on concrete, echoed off the bare metal walls.....

Michael circled Aslan, speaking Shakespeare's words as fitting eulogy to his leader, his father, his friend.

"I still don't understand." Michael spoke softly to the still form of his mentor.

"Sleep well, Aslan." Nikita added hoarsely, weakly resting against the frame of Michael's shoulders

Michael backed out of the room, leaving the naked globe to cast remembrance on the Legend. Kicking the door closed with his foot, the loud metal ringing tolled the new era of hero emerging.

Together, Michael and Nikita departed the dilapidated building. The fiery bulbous orb of the morning sun crowned its victors, welcoming them back from the brink of hell. *** The lurching of the Section vehicle shook Nikita from an exhausted sleep. Beside her, Michael's face was profiled in the glow of a Section laptop that rested precariously on his lap. Heedless of the intense pain in her left shoulder, she leaned forward. Michael's bloodied hand reached to cover her swollen fingers on the gurney. Lifting them gently to his mouth, he brushed them against the roughness his cracked lips.

"How do you feel?" he inquired, shifting to study her face.

"I'm fine, Michael," she choked, closing her eyes slowly and swallowing hard against the lump rising in her throat.

Michael nodded and returned his attention to his typing. Resting her chin lightly behind his shoulders, she read what he was typing....

"Act Four, Scene Three." she whispered, sending chills down his spine. She fell back against the gurney, her strength exhausted.

He shut the lap top, nestling his head against the gurney and entwining one hand with hers.

THE END! Little side note for those who are not huge fans of Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandius"

I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

THE END

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