They appeared on the driveway in front of the monastery, bidding the Reverend, his head spinning from Marc's reply, a brief farewell before turning towards the House.

Stephen watched him leave and laughed.  "You've completely destroyed the man," he told Marc.  "I think he was sure you were his next case of possession."

"Just as well I distracted him, then."

They were all relaxed and comfortable as they trudged toward the House. Reno showed up on the steps of the House, somehow knowing they'd returned.  He waited for them there.

A change in John's eyes made Martin look over his shoulder.

Stephen had appeared. To their utmost surprise Marc Rogatien had appeared too. They came walking around the house, with some other people.

"Damn, we have to take care with what we do," Martin muttered. "Why is he here?"

John, sweating more extensively now, said "I don't know."

Marc and Stephen drifted apart, both being very much engaged in talks with the people around them.

"We must move quickly now. This is best we will get, I think," Martin telepathically sent to John.

Tommy tried to get to Stephen and bumped into John.  "I'm sorry," Tommy said as he pushed on.

Martin stepped towards Stephen also, trying not to attract attention. He no longer paid attention to John. It was now or never.

"John. Now."

Martin slid the bracelet off his arm. From his pocket he took a bead that would detonate the bomb. Then he did the mental trick he had practiced for so long and the two chemical compounds materialized inside the bracelet. It was perfect. He slipped the bead inside the hole. Three seconds, he thought, and he looked back to where John was supposed to be.

After one second of the three, he saw John pop out.

After the second second of the three, Martin tossed the bracelet in the air, towards where Stephen should be, surrounded by many people.

Marc out of the corner of his eye had seen John pop out. He reacted by stepping back toward Stephen. But Paul and Laz reacted as well, Paul knocking Marc to the ground and throwing himself over him, and Laz tackling Stephen to take him to the ground along with Doni and Melly.

Just before the third second of the three came to pass, the moment where Martin would pop out, something immensely heavy pushed down on him, preventing him from getting away.

Marc had seen Martin's movements and never took his eyes off the man. He sent out a bolt of energy enough to fry 10 people. But it was just a second too late.

Martin screamed as the bracelet seemed to erupt in flames just before the ground shook followed by a deafening bang.  The noise and the bomb stunned everyone for several precious seconds. It wasn't enough to allow Martin to get away, though, as he suddenly found himself grappling with Laz's security guards, who tackled him back to the ground and pinned him there.

Doni reacted first to the carnage around the around them, -pathically screaming for help as she shoved Laz off her legs.  She was struggling to her feet as she heard Reno shout and start running...not towards Melly, but towards a body on the ground that she recognized as Tommy.  "Stephen" she screamed, already glowing golden as she ran.

Stephen saw him as he heard Doni scream his name.  He shoved an elbow into Laz to make him move and zapped himself there, pulling power from the sun for her and feeding it to her, forgetting elegance and subtlety.  The bomb had taken Tommy's legs at the knee and shattered them leaving only mangled flesh, then tossed him like a doll in its aftershock.  There was no way he was still alive, Stephen thought, as he got a closer look. Then he realized he was alive, because Doni was pouring energy at an impossible rate into him, merging with him at a level beyond the cellular, her blood becoming his as she fought to control the bleeding.   He forgot everything else then, except the need to keep her alive, to not let her kill herself trying to save Tommy...if he could be saved.  He opened the bond between them, he and Doni, and poured power into it, his mind merging with hers, closer than it ever had.

Marc untangled himself from Paul, muttering "Merde A La Puissance Treize!" as he did so. He saw what was left of Tommy, Reno running toward him, Doni and Stephen diving in to help.  He turned his eyes on the culprit, who had been dragged to his feet by Laz's security guards.  People were streaming out of the House to help anyone they could.

Cassidy and Tabitha, among the first, took charge, setting up triage, moving those with minor injuries and the uninjured out of the way. When she saw he had it under control, Tabitha turned her attention to the scene around Tommy.

Marc, never taking his eyes off Martin, got to his feet and walked toward the man. "Who are you," he hissed.

Martin, holding his shoulder that had gotten quite a beating as he was bashed with energy, blinked his eyes. "Argghhh..." he muttered. He tried to think. Think if there was a chance to get away.  The situation looked quite lost, as he was on his own now. He felt as if he had been hit by two trucks from two sides.

"Martin. Martin Wilks."

"Maya and Margaret are dead. And you've failed."

"Hmmf."

"Show me what you are about. Open your mind or I will open it for you." Marc's eyes were whirling red and power was growing around him.

Martin was not willing to surrender just like that. He closed his eyes and blocked all outgoing thoughts and ideas as well as he could. He was not a master in it, but he did what he could.  Never, he thought to himself, would he be called a traitor.

Marc's smile was something that had made men tremble before. He drew power and reached into Martin's mind. He demolished Martin's shields with calm, deliberate precision, one block at a time. Martin, terrified as it happened tried to hide in one tiny little place in his mind, but Marc was relentlessly coming after that last little spark. When Marc took possession of it, Martin's mind and memories lay bare for him to read as he would.

What he saw was a lot of images, conversations, orders from "Geoffrey" that were given along from someone they only knew as the "project manager".  Martin was scared. Very scared. But he could not do anything to resist the sheer power that was peeling his mind open as if it were an onion.  There were images of training with the bracelet bomb. Images of the attack on Stephen in Malta. Memories of another man, John, who had been there too.  And then the best part came to the front.  There had been a conversation with "Geoffrey", in which this person had claimed that the orders were coming from Marc Rogatien himself. That the 'project manager' was only a go-between. Mixed with that was worry and wonder. Confusion. How could it be that the one who had ordered the attacks would be here, with the enemy? As if they were companions, friends.

Marc was so amazed by all that he saw, that he released the grip on Martin's mind slightly.

Martin, in the turmoil of being drained of all his memories, was hardly aware of this. The fountain of information was going on in such an avalanche that he could not stop it, and he started to tell everything that came up. Now he was saying it aloud. About the 'project manager', about the orders they had gotten through him from Marc Rogatien himself, everything. He could not stop it, even if he had wanted it, if he had been aware that he was doing it.

Cassidy, hearing him, in sheer disbelief, reacted the only way he could.  He leveled a punch at Martin's face, connecting hard enough to shatter his nose and jaw, yelling, "You bloody liar!" as Martin hit the ground.

Martin did not even seem to notice the blow. He kept on talking as well as possible with his broken jaw, and they all heard that he kept repeating what he had already said. There was no way he could speak anything but the truth as it was known to him...

Everyone else in ear shot was frozen into silence.

Marc advanced toward where Martin lay, power surging around him. Martin went silent and then his brain imploded under the strain of Marc's power. What was left of Martin twitched and lay still, brains and blood leaking from his eyes, his mouth and his ears.

Marc, recalling just where he was and what had happened, turned around and looked toward where Doni and Stephen labored over Tommy.

Marc found himself walking toward them, wading as if through a golden glowing field, rather than a bare dirt path through the grass. Golden motes danced in the air, leftovers from the stream of them that Stephen was drawing directly from the sun. That power Stephen was feeding to Doni, and it was as if not only their minds, but almost their bodies were merging into a coherent, and functioning whole. Doni was bent over Tommy, and as Marc watched Tommy's legs were taking shape as she drew her hands along what was left of them.

Marc examined the structure of the linkage between them. In his terms this was a metaconcert, but one of a different sort than he himself would have designed. It relied more on a true bonding, than most, and merged, almost down to the very molecules of the minds involved.

Marc tore his mind away from theirs as it felt almost like a violation of a sexual blending. Then, sensing someone standing next to him his eyes turned to his right.

Tabitha, aware of his gaze, said, as if to herself, "It is life calling forth life, can you hear it?  The next step.  Now imagine what their children will be."

Marc frowned at her, but his emotions were too wrapped up in trying to understand and integrate what he was seeing, not to mention what Martin had said, to be angry with her reverting to her beloved prophecy.  Instead he closed his eyes and did what he could to help channel energy into the matrix.

Stephen unaware, uncaring, simply accepted it and fed it to Doni, to himself, to Tommy...feeling the bond between Doni and himself expand and grow, becoming something new as the connection points between his mind and hers grew, the numbers multiplying faster and faster, until there was no point where she wasn't, where he was without her. It was an intimacy beyond anything he'd ever imagined, almost beyond what he could endure.  Under her hands he was aware that Tommy, who'd most certainly been dead was now alive, his legs growing cell by cell as Doni created them, drew them into being, perfect and whole, while breathing for him, her heart beating for his, pumping blood to his brain.

Marc watched this bonding as it was created, noting it, doing his best to understand it, to define it to, hopefully, design an even more efficient metaconcert utilizing what he was seeing grow here.

Reno and Melly coming up beside him, brought him at least a tiny bit back to reality. He also noted Tabitha's almost rapturous look. And then noted some wary frowns on some of the others nearby. Martin's accusations starting to take hold he noted with the rational portion of his brain.

Stephen sensing Doni begin the first minute disengagement from Tommy, releasing some of her control of him back to Tommy himself.  He began to release Marc from the matrix of power that had formed between them without allowing the smallest separation to occur between Doni and himself.  A part of him wondered if he would ever be able to again.  Then he zapped the three of them to the infirmary.

Tabitha followed them without hesitation.

Marc, coming more back to himself looked around for Dinah, suddenly terrified she'd been here, unsure.  So he 'reached' for her. He found her, at his house, unaware, but worrying since he hadn't arrived. He let out a sigh and he 'reached' again to touch her mind. It was then he saw something and tweaked it automatically, almost unconsciously, and then connected to her mind and translated her. She was suddenly standing beside him.  The second she was fully formed, her body slid down to the ground in a faint.