"Toto I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."
-Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

        The gang returned to Zhara’s to find an unwelcome pair of guests were taking tea in the parlor with the mistress of the house, who looked none too happy to have them there. Zelas Metallium sat in the large, wing-backed chair farthest from the door, her legs primly crossed at the ankles, and a napkin and saucer balanced on her knee. She wore a lavender suede suit with a short skirt, peplum jacket, and matching spectator pumps, gloves, hat and snakeskin bag. The bag sat on the small table at her left, her silver cigarette case and matching lighter nearby. Her golden hair was pulled up on the sides and secured under the hat, leaving bright curls to tumble over her shoulders. Xellos occupied the couch next to his daughter. Like his master, he politely balanced his napkin and saucer on his knee. He was wearing Urlich’s best suit, just to be irritating, but Urlich clenched his fists, took a deep breath, and forced himself not to be annoyed, which was one of the best ways he knew to spoil his father’s fun.
        Ullan bustled in with a tray full of cups, saucers and napkins. Zellan was right behind him, carrying a large teapot that was shaped like green dragon: The tail curved around to form the handle, the dragon’s feet were naturally the teapot’s, while tea was poured out of the dragon’s snarling mouth. The cups and saucers on Ullan’s tray were designed to look as if they’d been made from dragon scales and each had a claw for a handle. The lads favored the newcomers with forced smiles and sharp looks that told them it would be best not to ask why Zhara was taking tea with the bad guys. So Urlich grinned at his father and said beamishly: "Dad! I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I really think that suit looks better on you than it does on me!"
        Xellos pretended to be modest in the face of such false flattery and smiled just as broadly as his son when he replied: "Does that mean you’ll let me keep it?"
        Urlich choked, then his smile reasserted itself, and he said: "But of course! But you must remove the stains from my cravats first."
        "Stains?" Xellos scratched his jaw and made a big show of trying to remember staining Url’s cravats, then suddenly he gave Urlich an impish grin. "Ah! Those cravats!" He snapped his fingers and added magnimoniously: "The stains are gone! May I assume I am now the proud owner of the suit formerly known as your favorite?"
        "Not if there is any damage whatsoever still on my cravats," Urlich chuckled back at him, mimicking his father’s trademark finger waggle and smirk. He sat down on the couch between Zhara and Xellos and reached for the tea pot. Ullan stopped him with a wave of his hand and did the pouring for him. Urlich sat back with a jolly smile and declared: "Well! This is the life, isn’t it? Kicking back with family and friends over a pot of tea and a shitload of paranoia. Ah yes! It doesn’t get any better than this, eh, Sis?"
        "I’m going to kill him," Zhara thought but what she said was: "You bet your bottom gold piece, Brother! Zellan, would you please go upstairs and see what’s keeping Princess Amelia and Naga? Thank you."
        Zellan glanced up at Beast Master as he finished topping off her tea, and got a saucy look for his trouble. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You don’t give up, do you, Zelas?"
        She giggled and fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Not when the prize is so…tasty!"
        "I’m not a cookie," Zellan muttered with a blush, then hurried off to do his mother’s bidding.
        Lina watched him go for a few seconds, then grinned. "Oh yeah," she purred and turned a wicked sneer on Beast Master, "you two used to be an item, didn’t you?"
        Unruffled, Zelas sipped her tea, then replied sweetly: "We still are, he just hasn’t gotten back into the swing of having a girlfriend. All he had for eight hundred years was his brother and a chess board! How dull. Xellos-darling, you could have at least chosen a more exciting game than chess."
        "Nonsense!" Xellos countered indignantly. "There is no game in this or any other world more mentally stimulating than chess!"
        "Not even Strip Chess?" Urlich asked innocently.
        There were two heartbeats of startled silence, then Zelgadis turned red and spat out his tea, which sent Xellos, Urlich and Lina into a giggle fit, and really got Gourry thinking. Then Sylph saw how embarrassed Zelgadis was, and how big Gourry’s smile was getting, and she started giggling, too. "Oh, Zel! Any game’s more fun if you add the stripping dimension to it!"
        Zelgadis slammed down his teacup, sloshing tea onto Zhara’s nice, walnut coffee table. Blushing even more, he grabbed for napkins to mop up the mess and managed to hit the dragon teapot in the process. He hastened to grab it before it tipped over. Ullan and Jessica grabbed for it at the same time, but none of them got a good grip on it, so over it went. Everybody but Xellos and Zelas scrambled to heap napkins onto the spill, Zhara bemoaning the fate of her poor table, and Zelgadis apologizing and knocking things over. Finally, Zhara ordered Zelgadis to just keep his hands to himself and let the rest of them clean up the mess, since he was only making it worse. Zel sat back in his chair and sulked, muttering apologies until Zhara told him to shut up.
        "Strip Chess…" Gourry mused with an ear-to-ear grin. "Hmmm…"
        And that got the giggles going again.
        "What’s so funny?" Zellan and Amelia asked at the same time when they arrived in the parlor with a rather woozy Naga in tow. Then Zellan saw the mess, cursed, and headed for the kitchen. "I’ll get some towels."
        "Thank you!" Zhara called after him.
        Gourry was still tripping on the Strip Chess thing when Naga toddled over to stand beside him and wait for the chair Ullan offered to bring her from the dining room. "Strip…Breakfast…" he giggled, "Strip…Chug-a-Lug!"
        "OH-HOHOHOHOHO!" Naga cackled dizzily and bent over to look Gourry in the eyes, giving him a lovely view of her two best friends. "Are we playing strip games?" Then she leered at Lina, who sat on the other side of Gourry.
        Before Naga could say anything, Lina held up her hand, which had a small fireball forming in it. "Don’t even go there, Naga. I’m not in the mood for breast jokes."
        Zhara’s patience was at its limit by now. First Xellos and Zelas showed up, then Zelgadis spilled tea all over her nice table, now Lina was threatening to throw around fire spells in her parlor. Not to mention Urlich’s lewd jokes. What was with him, anyway? Was he still smarting over his memories of Dolgen? She looked at her brother out of the corner of her eye but found no clues in his face as he took towels from Zellan and helped him sop up the spill. Everyone but Zelgadis and Princess Amelia seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Even Lara Sorez was having a laugh over Zelgadis’ discomfort. Ullan returned from the dining room, bearing extra chairs for Naga, Amelia and Lara and helped the ladies settle in. After that, he helped his brother salvage what was left of the tea.
        Zhara had a sudden moment of deja vu as she looked around at the familiar faces in her parlor. They’d been gathered in that very place, having tea, a little more than a week ago—all but Naga and Lara. Back then, they’d discussed what the Lord of Nightmares might do to Xellos when she arrived for dinner that night. In a move Zhara had found rather odd, L-Sama had chosen to spare Xellos’ life for the affront of killing her half-mortal offspring on Shabranigdo’s orders a thousand years before. Now most of those same players were present once again, and Zhara’s mind buzzed with questions, as she was sure Zelgadis’ mind probably did, as well. Namely, what was Xellos’ game with Zelgadis? And did he know he and his master were supposed to be part of Zel’s cure? Zhara wondered how the two monsters felt about that. Knowing her father and his boss, they were probably amused and thought they could screw it up for Zel somehow. Since the only one who could find and use the cure was Zelgadis, Zhara doubted any interference Xellos and Zelas might try would be successful—unless they killed Zel, making curing him a moot point. She decided not to bring that up.
        "Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met," Xellos was saying to Naga with a happy smirk. "I’m Xellos the Trickster Priest, chief Priest and General of the mighty Beast Master," he gestured grandly to his master, who smiled beatifically at the hung over sorceress, "one of the five Lords under the Dark Lord Shabranigdo. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?"
        Naga’s besotted brain did the math, and her expression gradually molded itself into one of dizzy awe. "Shabberniggo?" She struck her cackling pose, then suddenly stopped and gave Zelas a keen look. "I thought the Lords were guys…"
        Zelas’ smiled tightened. "Actually, my favorite form is that of a ferocious beast, but Zhara won’t let me through the door unless I put on my Calling Face." She lit a fresh cigarette and blew the smoke in Naga’s direction, causing it to take the form of a snarling wolf before it dissipated.
        The sorceress was impressed. With a conspiratorial wiggle of her eyebrows, she exclaimed: "So, you do parlor tricks!"
        Zelas cringed at the terrible pun, as did most of the rest of the group, but Xellos and Gourry thought it was great joke, and Urlich rather liked the idea of Zelas Metallium doing cute, little sideshow tricks to entertain guests.
        Lina cleared her throat to stop the silliness before it went too far (and Naga started to think her jokes were funny). "So! Here you are with your Calling Face on, and Xellos all spiffed up in Url’s best suit! Just popped by for a spot of tea and bit of chat?"
        Those who had spent any amount of time traveling with Lina Inverse knew that tone of voice and very quickly shut up and braced themselves for a fight. Or at the very least, for a nasty argument.
        Lina leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair and grinned at Zelas. Beast Master was less than intimidated. "While I find Zhara’s conversation stimulating," she replied coolly, showing Lina her fangs, "that’s not why we’re here." She turned her simmering gaze on Zelgadis, who stiffened and gave her a mean glare in return. He hadn’t forgotten what she did to him in her laboratory before L-Sama had showed up to claim him. And the way she was looking at him just then, Zel knew she remembered strapping him down naked to a table, too.
        "Why are you here?" Zelgadis snarled, splitting his hatred between Zelas and Xellos. "You’re not on some kind of missionary trip, are you? I told you, I won’t join you—"
        Zelas waved an impatient cigarette at him in disgust. "Yes, yes, so you’ve said. You’d think I had bad hygiene, the way you say that!"
        "You smoke," Zel retorted sourly. "Close enough."
        Beast Master flicked ashes at him, giving them a little magical boost to make sure they hit him in the face. "What a rude young man you are, Zelgadis," she drawled and blew smoke. "Pity Xellos and I are part of that cure L-Sama left for you. I guess you’ll just have to put up with us, won’t you?"
        Zelgadis called down curses upon her head as he rubbed the ashes off his cheek. "Since you can pretty much appear wherever and whenever you like," he growled, "and killing you won’t help my cause any, I guess I am stuck." He grinned at Xellos and added in dark tone: "Of course, I might destroy you, anyway, as soon as I have what I need from you."
        "And what might that be?" Xellos and his master asked at the same time, then exchanged glances and snickered.
        Zelgadis grinned, showing a mouthful of fangs that his old friends thought looked disturbingly longer than they used to. "I have no idea."
        The Metalliums’ expressions were a weird mix of annoyance and pride at Zel’s uninformative response. Xellos sighed with a wistful little smile and said: "You get more and more Mazoku everyday! Children grow up so quickly!" He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "I’m so proud of you, Zelgadis!"
        "Eat shit and die, Trickster."
        Xellos sniffled. "Oh, Master, did you hear the hatred in his voice?"
        Zelas smiled. "It was lovely. You’ve done such a good job with him. And you used to tell me you’re a terrible parent!"
        "He is a terrible parent," Urlich and Zhara muttered--Zhara under her breath, Urlich quite a bit louder.
        Zelgadis seethed in his chair and would have left if Lina’s hand on his arm hadn’t stopped him. Their eyes met, and he realized he was just wasting his energy rising to Xellos’ bait. He had to keep a cool head if didn’t want to lose that nice emotional feast he’d had that afternoon. He looked from Lina to Sylph, who sat across from him, in a chair to Zhara’s right, giving him meaningful looks. Right, he thought and took a deep breath, stay cool.
        "So," he began cautiously, "are you saying you’re actually here to help me find my cure?"
        Zelas blew another smoke wolf and caused it to jump onto the table, then disappear in a puff. Naga applauded until Beast Master frowned her into silence. "If you get this cure, as you call it, what will you be? Human? Mortal? What of your magic powers, which are substantial thanks to Xellos’ gift?"
        "You call that a gift?" Zelgadis snapped back, then remembered to play it cool and calmed himself. "If it was a gift, he wouldn’t use it to control me like a puppet, would he?"
        "You can do that?" Zelas asked Xellos in mock astonishment. "Why, Xellos! How clever!"
        Xellos modestly waved his hand and chuckled. "Oh, Master, it’s really nothing. You can do it, too, since you made me. Why don’t you give it a try?"
        "Sure, Zelas, go for it," Urlich growled menacingly, "since you’re so in the mood to perform parlor tricks for us tonight."
        Zelas and Urlich locked hateful stares while Zelgadis trembled with dread and rage. Once again, Lina’s hand on his arm calmed him. "This isn’t accomplishing anything," she declared loudly to get Zelas’ and Urlich’s attention. "If you’re just here to jerk Zel’s chain, mission accomplished. Go home. We have a quest to get going on and really don’t have time to play your little monster games."
        "But we’re part of that quest, Lina," Xellos reminded her smugly.
        "Yeah," she shot back, "and so’s everybody else in this room. That doesn’t mean they’re traveling with us."
        Zelas fingered her hair and commented casually: "I noticed the pack horses on the way in. Isn’t it a bit late in the day for a road trip? Wouldn’t you rather get a good night’s rest here, then set out in the morning?"
       Actually, that had become their plan since Zelgadis and Sylph had decided to dawdle in the city all afternoon. Lina sighed: "We were discussing that on the way back here from town, now that you mention it."
        "And…?" Xellos prompted curiously.
        Lina looked from face to face, hoping someone would jump in and say something to convince Xellos and Beast Master to bugger off. They just shrugged, leaving the decision up to her. With a sigh, Lina said: "Well, we were going to leave after lunch, but certain people lost track of time, so I guess we’ll be staying the night." She looked to Zhara, who nodded her approval.
        Urlich stood up with a grunt and motioned for Gourry to follow him. "Well, Gourry, guess we should unpack those horses for the night."
        Gourry was relieved to be excused from the conversation and hurried to follow. Zelgadis tried to tag along, but Zelas stopped him with a command, freezing him in place like a very angry statue.
        Gourry and Urlich turned at the door to see if Zelgadis was behind them, and their jaws tightened when they saw what condition he was in. "Let him go, Zelas," Urlich snarled through clenched teeth at the same time as Zhara slammed down her teacup and growled: "Release him immediately! The next person to use magic in this house will be expelled!"
        Zelas started to laugh at that, then remembered how Zhara had thrown her and Xellos out of her house before by taking them by surprise. She snapped her fingers and released Zelgadis, who immediately pulled back a fist to hit her. Lina jumped up and grabbed hold of his arm, while Amelia wrapped herself around him from behind.
        "That’s exactly what they want you to do, Zelgadis!" Amelia cried into his back. "Don’t give in to your anger! Anger leads to the dark side!"
        "She’s right, Zel!" Lina chimed in. "You have to resist, or you’ll use up all your energy! You’re not good enough at being Mazoku to control your energy flow!"
        Zelgadis relaxed abruptly. He looked over his shoulder at the sorceress hanging off his arm and asked in a teasing voice: "Does this mean you think I should practice?"
        Lina choked. "Well, not as such, no…"
        "Of course that’s not what she means!" Amelia shouted and shoved him away from her. As she stomped back to her chair, she grumbled: "I swear, Zelgadis, sometimes you can be so Xellos!"
        "So now I’m an adjective," the Trickster muttered in a hurt voice and plopped a dollop of honey into his tea. "What happened to all that accepting me for what I am hogwash you were spouting back at the inn this morning, Princess?"
        Amelia grinned. "I take requests, if you really want to hear it again, Mr. Xellos!"
        Xellos fumbled his teacup but managed not to spill any. Those who’d borne witness to Amelia’s Happy Rant that morning chuckled and hoped she’d do a command performance, just to see how well it might work on Beast Master. The Mazoku Lord raised an eyebrow and looked suspiciously between the Princess and Xellos. "She said she accepts you as you are? What are you talking about, Xellos?"
        Xellos gulped. "Eh-heh-heh. You really don’t want to know, Mas—"
        "Oh, Zelas!" Amelia gushed with euphoric stars sparkling in her eyes. "You’re the most beautiful Dark Lord I’ve ever seen! And so fashionable! I love that suit and the way you can make wolves out of cigarette smoke is so…so…Oh, you’re just so talented!"
        Beast Master frowned and leaned over to flick ashes into an ashtray on the coffee table. "Nice try, Princess. That might work on my servant, but I am one of the five Generals of Shabranigdo. It’ll take more than a pathetic feel-good speech to make me even a little uncomfortable."
        Amelia deflated. "Are you sure?"
        "Give it up."
        "Not even if I did this?" Amelia persisted. The stars lit up in her eyes again, she clasped her hands under her chin and sighed: "Oh, Zelas, I never knew I could feel this way about another woman, but…I LOVE YOU!"
        Zelgadis had his fingers in his ears and was humming loudly, but the vibes still turned his stomach. Good thing he’d had a big meal before coming back to the house.
        Zelas turned a little green and had to put down her cigarette. "Jessica," she gagged, "I think this is more up your alley."
        "I love you, Zelas Metallium! You’re so powerful!" Amelia carried on. "I wish I was powerful like you!"
        "You’d have to be evil to be powerful like her," Zhara sighed, "so give it a rest. She’s a Dark Lord, it won’t work."
        "And we won’t find out why they’re here," Lina added impatiently, "if you make her sick."
        The Princess gave up at that and sat back to pout. "Well, it was worth a try!
        Groans all around, then Gourry asked hopefully: "Are you really gay, Amelia?"
        She rolled her eyes. "No, I’m not really gay, Mr. Gourry. It was part of the rant. Go with it. Why do men like gay girls so much, anyway?"
        "It’s not that," Gourry explained, "we just like to watch! Right, Url?"
        Urlich whistled nonchalantly, spun on his heel and headed for the front door. "We better unload those horses before somebody kills you, Gourry."
        The big swordsman followed him, scratching his head in confusion. "Did I say something wrong?"|
        Zhara motioned to her sons. "Please help them, then make sure the horses are secure for the night."
        "Yes, Mum!"
        Zhara thought Ullan and Zellan looked a little too relieved to be excused as they dashed for the door.
        After the door closed behind them, Jessica tried her hand at intelligent, productive conversation. "If everyone will just hold their angst until after we get answers, please?" She glared at each person in turn, then had to smile when her eyes fell on Naga, who was passed out cold and snoring softly in her chair. Realizing she was messing with the stern image she wanted to project at the moment, Jessica wiped the smile off her face and asked Zelas: "Why are you here? It has become clear that your servant Xellos has more than a passing interest in Zelgadis and Princess Amelia. However, if you’ve come for either of them—Zelgadis in particular—bear in mind whose favor he seems to have."
        "Yours?" Zelas snorted just as the truth leapt into her mind. "No," she corrected herself, "the Lord of Nightmares. Is that who you mean?"
        Jessica nodded slowly. "Exactly. L-Sama allowed Zelgadis to return to the world of the living, then went to the trouble of creating a cure for his curse and making it one that only he can find and use. I believe she did that to prevent his enemies from tampering with it. Enemies like you and Xellos."
        "That is assuming he has her favor at all," Zelas replied smoothly, "and not just her attention. It’s really very dangerous to have the Lord of Nightmares’ attention."
        Jessica smiled. "In that case, nothing you can do to him could be more terrible than any plan of hers."
        "All the more reason for him to come to me," Zelas retorted, the smile on her painted lips never dipping. "I’m the lesser of two evils."
        As the women spoke, everyone else’s head went back and forth, from one speaker to the other, as if they were watching a game of Brass Rackets.
        "Remember how she felt about you ‘recruiting me’ last time you tried it," Zelgadis reminded her in a poisonous voice.
        Zelas shrugged. "As I recall, she took you away and killed you."
        Zelgadis’ mouth clamped shut. That was true, but L-Sama had had to kill him to remove the part of him that was becoming the world’s most deadly Dark Lord. Of course, he’d almost had to trick her into allowing him to come back to life. Where did Jessica get that he had the Lord of Nightmares’ favor? The way he saw it, the woman was out to get him. He tried not to think about how that actually put him on the same side of the argument as Beast Master, who, he added to himself, was not the lesser of two evils; she was just another evil. Period.
        Zelas chuckled. "I won’t kill you, Zelgadis," she smiled and took a nice, long drag off her cigarette, but not long enough for anyone else to join the conversation, "nor will I try to suck out of you the parts that give you your power."
        "What if I don’t want those parts?" Zelgadis countered in hard voice. "That’s the whole point of this cure: To reverse what Rezo and Xellos did to me. I want to be human, even if it costs me the power I’ve grown accustomed to."
        Zelas frowned. "I wouldn’t be so rash, Zelgadis. Remember your life before the Red Priest gave you this power you have. Do you want to go back to being a mortal who can only just barely cast a light spell? You’ll have no more magic than—" she looked around for an example, then her eyes fell on the front door, and she said: "than that blonde-haired twit Gourry Gabriev!"
        "He may not have magic," Zelgadis retorted, "and he may be a twit, but Gourry’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had and absolutely the finest swordsman I’ve ever encountered. I always know he’s got my back in a fight and never have to worry about him letting me down." He smirked and added: "I’m more than just a sorcerer. I’m a damn good swordsman, too. Gourry has shown me that I don’t need to be a mighty sorcerer to be worth something in this world. I can make a pretty good living off my sword."
        Amelia bit her lip against the pride welling up inside of her that was just dying to emerge as a major speech. It would make Zelgadis sick and might hurt Jessica’s chances of getting the truth out of Xellos and his master. So Amelia kept her feelings inside, saving them up for later, when she could weave them into a fantasy about her and a human Zelgadis living happily ever after as the Royals of Seyruun.
        Amelia’s pride was shared by Lina and Sylph, but Xellos and Zelas were looking a little frustrated. "You’d be mortal and easily killed," Zelas told him harshly.
        "I can be killed now," Zelgadis replied with a shrug, then grinned. "So can you and Xellos, now that I think about it. Everything dies, Lady. It’s the nature of the universe."
        "Then we won’t help you find your cure," Beast Master shot back with a smug little huff and tossed her head. "You can’t find it without us, L-Sama said so, herself!"
        Jessica chuckled. "No, she said, through Melfinius Egatius, that you and Xellos are part of Zelgadis’ cure."
        "Meaning, you need us," Xellos interrupted, "or Zelgadis fails. Isn’t that the way it is?"
        The ancient kitsune had nothing to say to that and looked to the others for support. No one could think of a way to refute Xellos’ claim, so the room was quiet for a while. Then Xellos turned his attention to Lara suddenly and asked with his usual happy grin: "Seen your monster friend lately, Miss Sorez?"
        She was too startled to answer at first, having expected the conversation to continue in its previous vein for at least a few more minutes. She certainly didn’t expect it to turn to her. "Monster? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. The only monsters I’ve seen lately are you and your master."
        "And Zhara, Urlich, Ullan, Zellan and Zelgadis," Xellos sighed dismissively, "but who’s counting? I was referring to the one you sent to kill Lita. I encountered it outside your window the other night and was wondering if you might be able to tell me why it was there."
        "Outside my window?" Lara asked, continuing to play dumb. "Where?"
        Xellos’ good humor was starting to slip. He opened his eyes and fixed her with a long, cold stare. "In Seyruun, when you were arguing with Zelgadis. When it realized who I was, it didn’t hang around for chit-chat, beyond telling me it was there for you. I hoped you might enlighten me further. What interest could a low level Mazoku have in you? This wouldn’t have anything to do with your experiments, would it?"
        "That is assuming she’s Lara," Lina interjected darkly, "and not Lita."
        "If she’s Lita, then the monster wants her dead," Zelgadis said. "That’s what Lita told us, remember? But if she’s Lara, the monster is taking orders from her."
        "Specifically," Lina finished for him, "to kill Lita."
        "Which would put it in rather a tight spot," Xellos added, holding up a finger to make his point "since Lita and Lara seem to be occupying the same body."
        All eyes turned to Lara, who struggled to keep her composure beneath their scrutiny. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," she declared indignantly. "First of all, I don’t believe your ridiculous story about me claiming to be Lita. Secondly, I can’t command Mazoku of any level, much less convince one to be my personal assassin. Wouldn’t that be a bit beneath your kind, working for a human?" She looked from Xellos to Zelas, but their expressions remained hard and unconvinced.
        "Our kind participated in your experiments," Xellos reminded her. "I wonder what those experiments entailed, that you needed to involve Mazoku?"
        Lara folded her arms and looked away. "I wrote a number of professional papers on that research, which are readily available to any—"
        "I’ve read your research," Sylph told her, "and I don’t remember any mention of Mazoku being used in your experiments."
        That seemed to take Lara by surprise. "Then you obviously didn’t read everything I published if you missed such an important detail!"
        Everyone looked at Sylph now. The kitsune grinned a feral grin, knowing she’d found the hole in Lara’s story. "Oh no," she replied keenly, "I’ve read everything you’ve ever published and even attended that seminar you held in Sairaag four years ago. No mention of Mazoku there, either, and kitsune have excellent memories."
        Lara’s heart was pounding, and her breath caught in her chest. There were too many of them for her to run—no, running would be suspicious. That kitsune woman was lying, that was all! She was part of their conspiracy to destroy her! First they called her sanity into question and slandered her to everyone they’d encountered since. Now they were lying about her published research! She forced herself to breathe naturally and not look directly at Xellos or Beast Master. So, they were the ones behind it all. The ones who’d sabotaged her experiments and put out the contract on her life! It hadn’t been Garv, as she’d thought before. Of course it couldn’t have been him, since he’d been destroyed by the Hellmaster! Zelas Metallium wouldn’t feel any loyalty to Garv, so she wouldn’t carry on any plan of his after his demise. Therefore, it had to have been Zelas Metallium all along! At last, the Great Beast shows her hand! But even with her connection to one of Hellmaster’s lesser servants, how could she hope to stand against Beast Master and Xellos the dragon slayer?
        Xellos chuckled as he watched her nervously drum her fingers on the arm of her chair and sweat ever so slightly. Other than that, he found her control admirable. She was managing to keep her expression reasonably bland for someone who’d just been caught with her pants down. The truth was, he’d read all of her published work, too, and it hadn’t indicated she was using Mazoku in her experiments. She discussed them in theory, going to the possibility of the Lord of Nightmares being the source of the Source of All Power called upon by the mages of the world. But the mention was slight, just a top-down hierarchy of the power structure from the Lord of Nightmares, then the branches of Seified and Shabranigdo with their various underlords. The usual graphical representation had been included, with its circles, lines and symbols for each god and major lord. He’d found out about his race’s part in her work from certain monsters who’d been part of it. But damn him if he could figure out who that puff of darkness of hers worked for. There were clues from what he knew about her experiments which pointed at Phibrizzo, but that would have required him to let some of his creepy pets out of Hell. Xellos hadn’t heard of Hellmaster doing that for anything less than a threat to his position—certainly not for a human scientist’s experiments. Perhaps Phibrizzo had wanted to find the Source of All Power, too, but even so, Xellos couldn’t see him releasing some of his hellions to be subjected to close human scrutiny. Hmmm…Xellos bit his knuckle thoughtfully. What if Lara Sorez had succeeded in finding the Source of All Power, only to be killed by monsters on Hellmaster’s payroll, who then took the secret to their master? No, that didn't add up. By the time Lara was murdered, Hellmaster had been dead for almost a year. Without him, it was unlikely his minions would feel the need to carry out his orders, especially if they hadn’t been told what the real goal was. Not an unusual way for Phibrizzo to do business, as Xellos knew from personal experience. Still, it wasn’t unreasonable to imagine the creatures Hellmaster had loaned to Lara for her experiments abandoning their orders upon his death and killing every human in the lab. Phibrizzo’s lot weren’t always long on sanity, which was why he’d kept most of them chained up in Hell.
        "Alright, Miss Sorez," he spoke up at last, cutting off the scathing accusation Lina was in the middle of levying (and getting a very nasty glare for it), "let’s assume you published your experiments on Mazoku, and Sylph is merely mistaken. Who’s Mazoku did you use? Since it’s part of the public record, I’m sure you don’t mind telling me."
        That was better than what she’d intended to ask, so Lina forgave Xellos and batted her eyes at Lara instead. "Yes, Lara. Whose minions were they?"
        Lara decided to play the offended scientist instead of giving them a direct answer. "Read the research."
        "What’s your problem with telling us if the information has been published?" Zelgadis demanded.
        "You’ve insulted me," Lara spat, refusing to look at him.
        "Oh for crying out loud!" Lina exclaimed. She jumped out of her chair and went over to grab Lara by her shirt and shake her. "Stop being such a big baby and tell us whose monsters you were using! If you don’t, we’ll know you’re not really Lara Sorez, but just this alternate personality of Lita’s!"
        Zhara ran over to try and pry Lina off of Lara, who was revving up to break Zhara’s new rule about casting spells in her house. Zelgadis recognized the spell as the one that had just about put him through a stone wall back at the Seyruun Royal Palace and jumped up to try to stop her from finishing it. With a disgusted growl, Jessica left her chair to shout at the little huddle to break it up and leave Lara alone because they wouldn’t accomplish anything by beating up on her—and what was that spell? Xellos and Zelas were asking themselves the same thing as the power built up around Lara’s hands and seeped out between the bodies of the people crowded about her chair. The Metalliums jaws dropped at the very moment that Jessica’s hands got through the crush of bodies and wrapped around Lara’s hands. The spell erupted, throwing the whole pack over the coffee table and the astonished Amelia and Sylph and into the wall by the front door. Since Jessica had such a firm grip on her hands, Lara was dragged with them. When Jessica hit the wall, Lara slammed into the kitsune with terrible force. Lara’s forehead hit the wall with a sickening crunch, then Zelgadis crushed into her from behind, and his head slammed into hers, leaving both of their skulls throbbing and bleeding. Lara fainted into Jessica’s arms, and the two of them slid through bodies toward the floor, landing on Lina’s and Zhara’s legs. Zelgadis stumbled a few steps backwards, then fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands and moaning painfully.
        Sylph saw the blood streaming from Lara’s skull and ran to her, a healing spell glowing in her hands before she even reached the stricken woman. Amelia was close behind her, her own spell ready to help Zelgadis. "Oh, gods, tell me she isn’t going to turn back into Lita because of this," he moaned, but it came out too slurred for anyone to understand anything beyond "Lita" and the dismay in his voice.
        Meanwhile, Xellos and Zelas were in a state of shock, unable or unwilling to believe what their senses had told them. If they were right, then Xellos figured he could guess who Lara’s monster served—or used to serve—though he was still puzzled over why he hadn’t been able to sense the creature’s allegiance. He looked to his master and found she was as stunned as he was. "Master," he whispered to her, "did you feel it?"
        She nodded. "I can’t believe it. I thought his destruction was complete. Phibrizzo was always more thorough than this. To have left something…"
        Lina pulled her legs out from under Jessica in time to overhear that conversation and ask with a terrible, sinking feeling in her gut: "What are you talking about?"
        Xellos and Zelas gave her identical innocent looks. "Oh, it’s nothing," Xellos told her, "ignore us."
        Lina got up and straightened her clothes. "No way. You guys felt something familiar in that spell, just like I did! It drew on Garv’s power, didn’t it?"
        The monsters looked enormously relieved. Xellos nodded. "That’s right. Amazing, isn’t it, since he was destroyed by Hellmaster."
        "But not as completely as you thought," Lina interrupted him. That chill in her belly was getting colder. She walked over to stand in front of Zelas but not too close. She wanted to see every nuance of the Dark Lord’s reaction to what she said next. "You said Phibrizzo left something when he killed Garv. A piece of him, maybe? Something that could be reborn into a human, the way bits of Seified and Shabranigdo keep getting born into humans?"
        The action by the door stopped abruptly, even the healers paused in their work to stare at Lina with pale, unbelieving faces. "That can’t be…" Sylph gasped.
        "We won’t know if she dies," her sister admonished her gently and urged Sylph to finish healing Lara with a quiet touch on her hands. As Sylph returned to her task, Jessica tried to bring her heart under control. A piece of Chaos Dragon in this human? But hadn’t Phibrizzo utterly destroyed him? Then again, that’s what Shabranigdo had supposedly done to Seified, but Knights of Seified still appeared from time to time, bearing a piece of the Dragon God in them, like Lina’s own sister Luna. She got up to join Lina in grilling the Metalliums.
        "I felt it, too," she told them quietly. "It was just a glimmer as she cast the spell, but I’m sure it was him. I’d know the power of Chaos Dragon anywhere." She bowed her head and staggered over to collapse into an empty chair and catch her breath. That was one hell of a spell that human cast, she thought with a tremble. There were few spells Jessica couldn’t stop a mortal from casting the way she’d tried to stop Lara, but this spell had completely overwhelmed her. "Perhaps if I had all of my power," she thought sadly, "and not just a portion of it."
        She barely noticed when Zhara flopped into the chair next to her and twined her fingers in hers. "Garv," the daughter of Xellos sighed bitterly. "I guess we can be thankful it’s him, not Hellmaster."
        Jessica nodded dumbly and said nothing.
        "But this is still not good," Zhara added with another sigh. Finally, she let go of Jessica’s hand and got up. "I guess someone should tell Url," she decided aloud.
        Jessica volunteered herself since it sounded like a good excuse to get some fresh air. "You’re right. He won’t have felt the spell, being on the wrong side of your barrier."
        "He won’t be happy," Zhara observed wearily.
        "Oh, like we are!" Lina snapped at her but the tremble in her voice gave away the fear inside of her as she flopped into the chair Jessica had just vacated. "I can’t believe I have to deal with that guy again!"
        "Urlich?" Zhara asked in puzzlement, finding her mind was a bit muzzier than she had at first suspected. That was some spell!
        "No," Lina retorted impatiently, "Garv! I fought him in the shrine of the Claire Bible and at Dragon’s Peak. I couldn’t destroy him, even with a full-power Laguna Blade!"
        "Then Hellmaster destroyed him just by snapping his fingers," Amelia added in an awed whisper as she and Zelgadis stumbled over to collapse onto the couch. The Princess didn’t even seem to care that she was sitting next to Xellos. She snapped her fingers to illustrate Phibrizzo’s method. "Just like that."
        Zelas smoked at her. "He was the most powerful of the five lords under Shabranigdo, and Garv had just spent a thousand years being reborn over and over into human bodies. Such a display of power on Hellmaster’s part doesn’t surprise me. The little brat always was a show off." The disgust in her voice was mixed with admiration and a little bit of fondness, as well. She finished her cigarette and lit up another, carefully fitting it into its long, silver holder.
        "How’s the healing coming along, Sylph?" Xellos called to the kitsune for the pure joy of watching her back stiffen and feeling her burning desire for him to die a slow, horrible death.
        When Sylph refused to answer him, Zhara reiterated the question.
        "I’m almost done," Sylph called back, "but then we should take her upstairs to rest."
        Naga had passed out sometime in the middle of Jessica’s interrogation of Xellos and had miraculously managed to sleep through Lara’s spell. Now she awoke, with a stretch and a great, big, happy yawn to find everyone looking like they’d just come from a battle. Confused, she turned to her usual font of information: "Lina?"
        She got no further than that. Lina held up a hand and sighed: "If you’d lay off the sauce, you wouldn’t miss the good stuff. Now pay attention, because I’m only gonna brief you this one time, ok?"
       Naga gulped and nodded sheepishly. What good stuff had she missed? The plans for some major heist?
        Lina took a deep breath and rattled off the highlights of the conversation Naga had slept through, then waited for the obvious question. Dealing with Naga and Gourry had taught her that the really important bits were bound to turn out to be the holes in their knowledge. Things like…
        "Who is Garv? A bad guy, obviously," Naga said, trying to look thoughtful and intelligent.
        "He was one of the five lords under Shabranigdo. Like Zelas over there," Lina pointed at Beast Master, drawing Naga’s bleary attention in that direction. "But Hellmaster—another of the five lords and the most powerful—killed him. Then the Lord of Nightmares—sort of the top dog in our universe—"
        "I know who that is!" Naga interrupted impatiently. "I’m not a complete idiot, you know!"
        Lina begged to differ but let it go this time. "Anyway, we think a piece of Garv got into Lara somehow, but it doesn’t make sense! Garv was killed a year ago, long after Lara was born, or Lita was created—if that," she pointed at Lara, "is actually Lita just thinking she’s Lara and not the other way around."
        "Eh?" Naga interrupted in confusion.
        Lina waved a hand at her. "I’ll explain later. It’s really complicated, and I don’t feel patient enough to tackle it right now."
        Zelas smoked thoughtfully. "That’s a very good point," she mused. "For a piece of Garv to get into a human, it would have to happen before the human is born, while it’s still in the womb. If that is in fact a piece of Chaos Dragon, then that person can’t possibly be Lara Sorez. It must be one of her copies, one that was created sometime since Garv’s destruction."
        "Which would mean she’s not Lita, either," Zelgadis chimed in, "because Lara supposedly made Lita something like four or five years ago, I think."
        "Assuming she was telling us the truth," Lina added. "She might have been led to believe by her creator that she was older than she really is, though I can’t think why Lara would’ve done that—"
        "Unless she wanted to hide the fact that her copy had a piece of Garv in it," Xellos cut in excitedly, then his expression grew thoughtful. "However, there were others involved with her research who might have known the copy’s true age—even that it bore a piece of Chaos Dragon in it."
        "She’d have to kill them all to keep the secret," Lina sighed. "But that’s a lot of work, especially if some of the people in the know are Mazoku." She suddenly thought of the monster that was following Lara around and two and two added up in her head. "So the monster that’s following her could be one of Garv’s, since it hasn’t killed her. But why couldn’t you tell who it served, Xellos?"
        The Trickster coughed and looked embarrassed. "If it was one of Garv’s servants, I would know it, since Garv had very few monsters willing to rally to his flag against Shabranigdo. My initial theory was that it’s one of the creatures Hellmaster has kept prisoner all these millennia. I never knew all of his minions, since so many were confined to Hell. And evil as I am," he added with a grin for Princess Amelia, who cringed away from him, "I’ve never been to Hell."
        Gulp. "Th-that’s nice," Amelia stammered at him and cowered against Zelgadis’ side.
        "But would one of Hellmaster’s servants take orders from the spirit or whatever of Garv?" Lina asked. She looked from Xellos to Zelas and back again, but neither Mazoku seemed to have an answer. "Do you think it resented being held prisoner in Hell enough to swear allegiance to its jailer’s enemy?"
        "Hmm," Xellos tapped his finger thoughtfully against his lips, "now there’s a thought. Master?"
        Zelas nodded. "A viable theory now that Hellmaster is destroyed. Were he still alive, it would be out of the question. Of course," she added with a smirk, "if he was still alive, the creature would still be in Hell."
        Zelgadis motivated himself to pour a cup of tea and gulp it down. "Guess we’ll know if we can get Lara to talk without blowing us into a wall." When no one answered him or even reacted to his statement, Zelgadis looked up from his teacup to see if anyone was even paying attention to him. They weren’t. Their eyes were fixed on the front door, which had been jolted open when they’d hit the nearby wall, and the dark cloud that filled it. Zelgadis got to his feet, just as the others did and started for the door.
        Zhara started to reinforce her barrier, then she saw her family and Gourry through the cloud, fighting the thing as if it were an entity, and she redirected her energies to analyze it. "Mazoku!"
       "It’s Lara’s friend," Xellos told her with a cunning smirk. He brought up his staff and leveled it at the creature, but Zhara pushed it down.
        "It’ll go right through and hit them!" She pointed to Urlich, Ullan, Zellan, Jessica and Gourry. "I think there’s enough firepower out there to handle one of Hellmaster’s lesser minions, don’t you?"
        "If that is, in fact, what it is," her father shot back.
        Zhara grinned. "That’s what my wards tell me. It stinks of Phibrizzo."
        Xellos shrugged at his master. "Well! Mystery solved!" He stepped up to the doorway but didn’t raise his staff, mindful of Zhara standing behind him.
        "It can’t see or sense us," she told him quietly, "nor can it hear us."
        "Can we attack it through your barrier?" Lina asked.
        "One way to find out!" Crowed Naga and wound up to launch a fireball with a hearty: "OH-HOHOHOHOHOOO!"
        Everybody in the path of Naga’s spell, including the people it wouldn’t have harmed (Xellos and Beast Master) ducked with a yelp. The fireball hit the creature with the visual equivalent of a giant splat but otherwise did nothing more than get the thing’s attention. It flickered in their general direction, then pushed against the barrier. It drew back as if to consider where the fireball had come from, but Jessica threw her own spell at it, forcing it’s attention back to its previous fight.
        "Naga, you idiot!" Lina screamed in her friend’s face. "Zhara said not to throw spells at it!"
        "But, Lina," Naga argued smugly, "I’ve proven that we can attack it through Zhara’s barrier!"
        "Yeah, yeah," Lina grumbled, "thank you Dr. Naga, Scientist Supreme. Just don’t do it again!"
        Naga pouted. "Ingrate…"
        Zhara grabbed her father by the coat and hissed in his ear: "You and Zelas can teleport, Daddy, so why don’t one of you pop out there and deal with that thing, since I’m sure as hell not bringing that fight into my house!"
        Xellos gave her a wounded look as he brushed off his sleeve where Zhara had grabbed it. "Oh, very well. You don’t have to be so mean."
        "You’re a monster!" She snarled back. "You like ‘mean’!"
        He giggled. "Oh right. Forgot." Then disappeared.
        Much to everyone’s surprise, the instant he reappeared on the other side of the barrier, the monster disappeared. They waited for it to come back, maybe to launch a sneak attack from the Astral Plane, but as the minutes went by, they realized the monster was definitely gone. Xellos popped back into the house to shrug at his daughter. "Funny, it didn’t do that before."
        "It didn’t?" Lina asked curiously.
        "No," Xellos told her as Urlich let Gourry through the barrier, then politely held it open for the others, though they could open it just as easily as he could, "we actually had a brief conversation. Nothing informative, of course, but it didn’t immediately run away."
        "How odd," Lina agreed. "Guess it didn’t like that suit."
        Urlich took umbrage to that and thumped her on the head. "That’s a very expensive suit, you know!"
        "It was a joke, Url," Jessica sighed.
        Urlich had a witty rejoinder handy, but Lara chose that moment to regain consciousness with a soft, painful groan, and everyone decided that asking her about her monster friend was more interesting than joking about Url’s taste in clothes. As he knelt beside Lara, Urlich instinctively checked to make sure she was completely healed, though he trusted Sylph’s ability. "Lara?" He asked, but she just groaned at him. Urlich carefully picked her up and carried her to the couch. She opened her eyes and looked up at him for a long time before recognizing him. "You’re Urlich," she said with a weak smile.
        He nodded. "That’s right," with a knot in his belly, he asked very carefully: "You’re Lara, right?"
        Fear. "Wh—what?" Tears welled up in her eyes and she covered her face and turned toward the back cushions with a sob.
        Url wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Lita?"
        The woman on the couch cried even harder and nodded.
        Urlich sighed heavily. "Is this gonna happen every time you get a good scare or a thump on the head?"
        Lita buried her face in a handy throw pillow and wept in earnest.
        "Wonderful."

ZOTR 21