joegoda | The Kansas Incident.

The mouth of the cave was smooth and free of debris. It looked like the sort of cave that a child would draw, just a semi circle drawn on the face of a hill. Sort of like a hobbit hole. There was a sickly reddish light coming from inside the cave, and of course, we stepped carefully into the mouth.

"How's your vision?" Sherry asked, taking and squeezing my hand. Her Goddess body had taken on a bright bluish haze, probably from a combination of excitement and fear.

"I'm fine, honey," I told her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. "A bit fuzzy still and some after flares, but that's all." I shoved the tip of my staff at the interior of the cave. "What do you think of this?"

Sherry inhaled deeply and thought for a long second. "I think it's a bad place. It smells of... evil. Old, old evil."

"I think I should take you with me more often," I said, smiling briefly.

The interior of the cave was dark, lit by that reddish, ruddish light, which waxed and waned, tossing shadows upon the wall. Where the cookstove had been was a short shelf of stone, which glittered like crystal blood in the light. The shelves and cabinets had become rocky outcroppings and stalactites, and the sound of water dripping was constant, but where the water was coming from or going, I couldn't tell.

"Let's move very, very carefully," I warned her.

"You don't have to tell me twice," she said as she nodded.

Another step into the kitchen and we heard the sound of moaning. It was soft and low, but it was there.

"Sounds like a man," Sherry said, her voice filled with concern.

"I kind of expected it," I told her. "Follow behind me and keep an eye out for anything creeping up on us."

"That'll be easy," she said. "Everything's creeping up on us."

I was a bit surprised that we hadn't been attacked by any thing. No 'Bads, no creepy crawlies from the Otherwhere jumped out and bit on our ankles as we made our way through the small kitchen area to where the dining room would be.

That area, where chairs hung on the walls and a big table sat in the center hadn't changed all that much. That is if you don't count the bubbling pool of red liquid in the far right corner and that all the chairs had turned into four foot bat-things, which glared at us with malevalent red eyes. The table had become a stone slab and on that slab lay the body of Ammit.

The image of Ammit was frightening, even if it had been standing in a shopping mall. Ammit has the head of a crocodile, with long horrible teeth and slit like eyes that were closed. His forepaws and forebody is that of a hippopotamus and his hindlegs and haunches are that of a lion. It sounds comical and impossible, but there he was, laying there, seeming asleep, and the image reached into me and grabbed at something deep and terrified it.

"Yep," Pan grumbled from inside my head. "That's the guy. We didn't hang around those egyptian types very much, but I rememeber him. Not much laughs, was old Ammit."

The sound of dripping water and the sound of the moaning both increased and we could see where it was coming from. There was a constant drip of liquid into the red pool in the corner. We followed the path of the dripping and Sherry moaned at what we saw.

Stuck to the ceiling of the cave was a man. A naked man, about sixty years old and in obvious pain. He seemed to be held in place by his own circulatory system. His skin was lay open in places and his veins and capilaries reached out of his body and had attached themselves to the cave. What blood leaked from the connections dripped down into the pool.

"Oh my God," Sherry whispered. "Do you think that's...."

"Yeah." I nodded. "Andrew Lawrence, in as much flesh as he has left."

"That's horrible!" Sherry shuddered.

"Keep in mind," I told her quietly, "this is just how he appears here in the Otherworld. He's allowed himself to be submerged by Ammit and this is his price. Part of his self imposed pennance, I guess. We all have things we've done that we beat ourselves over." I nodded at the poor man attached to the ceiling. "That's how Lawrence pays his price."

"Still," Sherry said, gulping back a tear, "it's a horrible, horrible thing."

"Yes," I agreed, "it is. I say it's time we tried to free Mister Lawrence."

Before Sherry could stop me, I reached out with my staff and tapped Ammit on the snout. "Say! Ammit, old boy. It's time to wake up."

Ammit's crocodile eyes snapped open. They were horrible eyes, sickly greenish yellow and full of hate. He hissed and intake of breath and the bat-things on the wall stirred, making the sound of old papers being shuffled.

"Beebe," the voice was deep and full of spite. "Chester Beebe." A long tongue flashed briefly and licked crocodile lips, which is pretty disturbing, once you see it.

With an agility that was suprising, Ammit sat up on his haunches. His lions claws clicked like beetles on the stone slap. He yawned expansively, and his tongue once again flicked in an out. He blinked twice and faced us.

"Ammit," I said with more boldness than I felt. "Your time here is over. Leave this man," I indicated Lawrence, hanging from the ceiling, "and go back to the underworld where you came from!"

I lifted the eye of Osiris high and pointed it at him. I didn't know what I expected. A flash maybe. Some peals of thunder, perhaps. Instead, I got laughter.

"Idiot," Ammit said, the word rolling distorted out of his mouth because it was, after all, a crocodile mouth. He chuckled, a dark rumbly sound. "I suppose you have the eye of Osiris. Pity you don't know how to work it. It has no affect on me here." He glanced up at Lawrence. "I don't intend to release Andrew from his promise. I like it here, in this sleepy little America. So many unworthy souls, so large a feast."

I glanced down at the eye and it looked back at me. Just a bunch of gold wires on a black base, with an emerald in the middle. Stupid thing. Then it winked at me. Hmmm.

"So you see, little wizard" Ammit leaned down and placed his long chin on his chest, looked down at me, "unless you have something serious to discuss, I suggest you leave." He snapped his terrible jaws at me. "Just because I'm the eater of the dead doesn't mean the dead is all I eat."

Sherry whispered to me from over my shoulder, "I thought he was supposed to be confused and dazed."

I had forgotten that little fact. Casually I waved my hands in front of Ammit's snout. I got no reaction. I poked my staff at his snout and he batted it away, casually.

"So," he grumbled deeply at me, "I may not see that well, but I can hear and smell you well enough."

I stepped back to where Sherry was standing, and whispered. "See if you can free Lawrence, okay?" I nodded at the corner where Lawrence was hanging.

She looked shocked. "Me? I don't want to get near him." She looked doubtful. "I'll try."

"You're an earth goddess, Sherry," I reminded her. "We're in a cave. IN the earth."

"Oh!" Sherry nodded at me. "I'll see what I can do."

"Carefully and quietly," I warned.

"Well, duh." She said, quietly moving across the cave floor.

The bats on the wall shuffled and hissed at her and I could tell she was frightened by it all, but bless her heart, she made it. Kneeling down, she placed both hands on the floor and closed her eyes. I didn't have any idea of what she was doing, and I hoped she did.

"Looking around my little cave, Mister Beebe?" Ammit let loose another grinding chuckle. "I didn't like what the old crone had done to her house, so I did a bit of redecorating. I do hope she doesn't mind." He croaked out a laugh. "Of course, she's in the garden now, so I don't think she has much to say about it." He laughed all the harder.

I stepped back to Ammit.

"Ammit, old buddy," I said, "I have a chum of mine looking for your old boss right now. When we find her, you're pretty well screwed."

Ammit snorted. "I doubt your 'friend' will be able to find Osiris on the internet." He shuffled a bit on the stone table, which I took for a bit of uncomfortability on his part. Maybe the mention of Osiris made him nervous.

"Plumb tried that as well, you know, in his own bumbling fashion." Ammit blinked his eyes a couple of times, and adjusted himself so that his eyes bored into mine. "Ah, I feel that my sight is starting to return, Mister Beebe. I would suggest that if you are going to do something, you should do it now."

He was right, of course. All this talk was just buying him time to recover from the flash at the windmill. I grasped the eye of Osiris in my hand hard enough that it cut into my skin. A bit of blood flowed onto it, something that I thought was impossible in the Otherworld.

With the eye clenched tight in my fist, I pushed as much will into it as I could and I was rewarded with a bright blue glow, leaking out between my fingers.

"Then I'll try this," I said, as I jammed my fist into Ammit's mouth.

He immediately bit down on my forearm and and snapped my hand off. Yes, it hurt like an SOB, and yes, I didn't want to do it, but I got the idea that if the eye was somehow joined with Ammit, something would happen. I was hoping so, anyway.

Now, before you get all freaky on me, let me explain. A wound to the Astral body is not exactly something to sneeze at. It's also not something that will necessarily kill you. An astral body can loose a limb and the worst that would happen in your world is that the limb would be numb and pretty useless for a time, sometimes a long time, until the astral body grew a new one.

Now, if your astral body is killed, well then, that's all she wrote for you regardless of where you are. Dead is dead.

As for my hand, I knew I wouldn't be pitching any little league games for a while, but I would recover. In a few months, maybe a year, I'd be good as new. Fortunately, I had lost fingers, toes and an ear once to fighting various meanies in the Otherworld, so I knew I could speed the process up just by applying a constant bit of will to the area. Lucky me, huh? The loss of a hand wasn't that big a deal, here, as long as I didn't need it any time soon.

I screamed in pain, and through my squinting eyes, I looked over at Sherry. She was still deep in meditative thought, hands pressed against the floor. She wasn't without some success, though. I could see the definite green of grass growing from where her hands were and it was spreading rapidly up the wall to where Lawrence was held. The constant drip from his wounds had slowed to nearly nothing and he wasn't moaning any longer. In point of fact, his eyes were open and looking at me.

"Help me," he mouthed.

I gritted my teeth through the pain. I nodded curtly at Lawrence and then turned my attention to Ammit. With my right hand, my remaining hand, I swung my staff and slammed it against Ammit's head. He roared in pain, and I smiled.

"How does it feel, you bastard." I gritted the words out at him. I shoved my will down to my torn wrist and willed it to grow. I felt a throbbing there and knew I had started the process of regrowth. "You've been so generous in causing pain, I think you should have some for yourself."

I twirled the staff over my head like a kung-fu fighter and slammed it against the other side of his head, knocking out a few of his crocodile teeth. I felt a certain sense of pleasure in that until I noticed they grew back really, really fast. I need to learn that trick.

Ammit shoved his head forward and tried to bite me. "Your hand was a nice little bit," He growled, "I wonder how your head would taste."

I ducked under his feint and shoved the tip of my staff hard into his belly causing him to gasp in pain. While below his chin, I glance over to where Sherry squatted. She had begun to glow a bright blue, just like the blue of the eye, and her forehead was covered in sweat. The wall of the cave nearby her was now a soft carpet of grass and I could see where the ceiling was changing too. The green had started to reach Lawrence and his face, once contorted in pain, had softened. The veins and arteries that had once tied him to the ceiling were turning green and starting to pull away from him.

Ammit swiped at me with one of his forepaws and I took it on the chin. The blow tossed me across the room and my staff rolled out of my hand. He took this opportunity to jump down from the stone table and pinned me to the floor, sitting on my legs and holding me down with one massive hippo paw on my chest.

"Mister Beebe, you are quite the troublesome insect." He raised his head high and howled in frustration. "All of you Beebes have been a pain in my side since Egypt."

"Wha?" I tried to shove the words out, but it was hard. Hippo paws are heavy. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't know?" Ammit showed surprise. "You honestly didn't know that your family came from egypt in the third century?" He chuckled. "Well, I won't spoil it by telling you the story. You Americans, so prideful. Thinking you are the end and the beginning." He chuckled again, but was cut off with a sudden look of pain.

"Ammit," a male voice said, the same voice I heard back at Thom McCann's. "I revoke my promise to you, and may you go straight to hell!"

Andrew Lawrence was still tied to the ceiling, but this time it was with flowery vines and soft grasses. His face was clear of pain and his eyes were shining. Down on the floor, standing tall and smiling, was Sherry. But she didn't look like the Sherry she started out being. This Sherry, this new Sherry, was tall, about eight feet tall, and had green skin and was dressed all in white. Her face and her hands were dark tanned and smooth.

I heard Ammit gasp out one word: "Master?" before he fell silent and started quaking.

"I did it, Chet," she said, softly. "I set Lawrence free." She walked over to where Ammit was holding me down and with a single swipe of her delicate hand, cuffed the beast off of me.

"Sherry," I gasped, able to breathe again, "What the hell?"

"Do you like it?" Sherry spun in place. "I found out who my Aspect is. I think it happened about the same time that Ammit bit your hand off."

Ammit crouched, whimpering, in a corner of the cave, which was no longer a stony cave, but a softly padded room, full of flowers and greenery.

"Let me guess," I whispered. "Osiris?" Did I ever mention that I'm incredibly lucky with this stuff?

"Well," Sherry said, nodding. "Not all of him. Just a shard, or so he says. I don't know as much as you about this stuff, but apparently an Aspect can pop up in a bunch of different bodies." She shrugged at this. "I've got enough of Osiris to handle the likes of him, though!" She strode majestically over to where Ammit sat, whimpering and miserable.

"You have disappointed us, Ammit." Sherry's voice was no longer hers, but masculine and high. "We find your running loose to have caused enough trouble for these humans."

Sherry, fully in the form of Osiris raised one hand over her head and plunged it deep into Ammits belly, causing the beast to howl and cry in pain. With a jerk, she pulled the eye and my hand, which by the way, looked really gross with crocodile spit all over it, out of Ammit's stomach.

Tossing my hand to me, she winked in my direction and said, "Hold onto that for me." Then she turned back to ammit and taking the eye in both hands she pulled at it until the obsidian base became long and thin. Patting Ammit on the head, she fastened the collar around his neck, saying "You've been a bad, bad, doggie."

Sherry took hold of the collar around Ammit's neck and hauled him to where the pool sat in the corner. It was now glowing bright green, rather than red. "Go home, Ammit! Go home and await me there!" Bodily, she shoved the beast into the pool headfirst, and he went, without a struggle or a word.

She walked across the room and stood over where I lay, a small smile on her face. "I made a deal with this Osiris," she said. "I told him I'd give him up so he could go home, if he'd fix you and Lawrence."

"That means you'll not have an Aspect body, Sherry," I told her. "You sure you want to give up being a Goddess, er, God?"

Sherry laughed loudly and said, "Oh, honey... I was a Goddess way, way before I was a God. I figured it was a fair enough trade." She knelt down at my side and took my left hand from me. "Now, lay still," she said, her brow wrinkled in concentration. "This may pinch a little."

It didn't pinch even a tiny bit. She just put my hand where it should have been, muttered a word or two and it was as if the thing had never been gone from me. I flexed the fingers of it just to make sure it worked all right.

"Thank you." I stood slowly, because my body was still aching from having a ton of Ammit on it. "Really," I said with all the sincerity I could muster, "Thank you."

"None needed," Osiris nodded and smiled at me. "Thank you for returning my pet to me. Your companion, your Sherry, is a good woman. I thank her in returning me to me."

Osiris left Sherry's body, and she returned to the old Goddess she was before, still as pretty as ever, dressed in a grass green gown that flowed in the slight breeze that came in from the garden. "Well," she said, blushing brightly, "who'd a thunk it? Me, a God and a Goddess."

"Sherry, honey," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking deep into her hazel eyes. "Nothing you do ever surprises me." I leaned on her and nodded towards the door. "I guess we should see what the others are doing."