At some point, Ethan came back around. When he did he found that Daniel was just staring at him, unsure of what to say.

"Sorry..." the Alchemist breathed: "That last one..."

"... told you... wasn't safe..." the man sighed: "... should leave... told you..."

"There's no time for that," Ethan replied, doubling his resolve: "Daniel, we have to keep going. Please... please empty your mind, again."

"...hurts..."

Ethan was going to reply to that, but then he noticed how much less of a subject he had. Now there was nothing left of the man but an upper chest, neck and head. While they'd been talking, Daniel had been disappearing.

Oh shit... Ethan thought, not knowing what to say. He'd told the man, right from the start, that there was probably nothing he could do for him. But had he been hastening the end?

Look, you knew this was a possibility, his Shadow told him: And you knew he didn't have too long to go, either. You don't have the time for sentimentality, here. Buck up and get on with it.

Ethan hated to agree with his other half, but the thing had a point. He couldn't afford to be squeamish - not now that he was on the brink of making a great leap forward for the Guild.

Not to mention himself, of course... but he hated to think of it like that. Such thoughts made him feel unworthy - even more unworthy than he already felt, at times, if that was possible...

He was so lost in his thought that it took him a moment to realize it was happening again.

"iT takeS aN awfuL loT oF timE tO climB froM undergrounD," the voice announced: "betteR theN tO leT chainS flY anD brinG thE wholE worlD dowN..."

"Which means... what, exactly?" Ethan asked himself.

Then he heard it: a rasping, dark chuckle.

The voice was laughing at him. It heard his question, and responded.

Dear Maker... he thought. Was this possible? Could he ask questions of the voice and get an answer, as opposed to just waiting for chance pronouncements?

His Shadow didn't seem to have an opinion, so Ethan took a leap of faith. He leaned a little closer to Daniel, looked him in the eyes and spoke: "You can hear me... through this man?"

Daniel looked dumbfounded, again, but not for long: "wE werE abouT tO asK yoU thE samE questioN..."

Ethan grinned behind the mask. Finally! Now they were really getting somewhere.

"Who are you?" Ethan asked.

"it'S whitE anD blacK anD reD alL o'eR," Daniel intoned, a strange smirk playing at his features: "buT you'rE jusT blacK anD bluE. sO havE yoU hookeD yourselF a worM... oR doeS thE worM havE yoU?"

"What?" Ethan yelled, the sound of his voice enough to make his subject recoil, in spite of the pain {and lack of limbs}.

"... told you... don't know..." Daniel whispered, all too unaware that things had taken a harsh turn.

"What do you know of the Worm?" Ethan screamed, leaning in as close as he could: "What?"

Daniel just looked at Ethan, dumbfounded. It appeared that the Alchemist was losing his mind.

"motheR hateS uS, father'S gonE, we'lL jusT havE tO carrY oN," the voice announced, that nasty look coming back into Daniel's eyes again as it did.

Ethan froze: "What... what do you-

                                               -mean it's no sense pretending, pal," the police detective says, leaning in much too close for Ethan's liking, his immense presence seeming to take up the entirety of the interview room: "Your mother's medicine bottles had your fingerprints all over them. She was too weak to get her own dosage at the end, so you helped her. You said that yourself."

"I didn't kill her," Ethan whispers, not able to look him in the eyes.

It's the truth. Oh, he'd wished she'd just die, but he hadn't helped her along. He couldn't have done that. Never in a million-

                                           "wE hatE motheR, noW she'S gonE, anD wE wilL folloW beforE lonG..." Daniel said, still smirking with an alien malice Ethan wouldn't have suspected him of bearing.

"You... where is this coming from... where? WHERE!?!"

And Daniel replied, every fiber of his being set into motion by the voice that spoke through him: "yoU knoW wherE."

"Damn you! Tell me! Where's-"

"it'S nothinG yoU haven'T seeN alreadY-

                                                           - sees the wooden fence. It's lit both by his headlights and the flickering of red and blue lights from behind him.

He sees the darkness beyond the fence, too. It's where he's going.

They're coming for him, now. They don't believe him. And if they thought he was guilty, before, his panicked attempt to skip town just clinched it.

So he just guns the motor, one last time, and drives the car into the protective railings - through them.

There's a moment of forward motion, then weightlessness. And as the car tips forward and shows Ethan just where he's going, he has just enough time to wonder why the lights aren't reflecting off of the water-

                     - righT, ethaN?"the man smirked.

That was it. Ethan lost it. He bolted forward and reached for Daniel's neck, ready to look the man in the eye.

"Tell me, damn you!" Ethan shrieked, grabbing hold of what little remained of the wraith's shoulders. The mere touch of his fingers made Daniel's corpus collapse even further - creating hand-shaped depressions on either side of his neck - but in his anger the Alchemist was blind to his subject's pain.

"... please..." he begged: "...can't stop it... please..."

"I'm sorry, Daniel," the Alchemist insisted: "This is for the best.."

"...don't... know... don't... no..." the Legionnaire whimpered. More and more of himself fell away and became dust, soot and smoke as Ethan shook him.

"Tell me!" Ethan shouted to whatever was on the end of : "Tell me! You have to tell me, damn you! TELL ME!"

"buT yoU alreadY knoW thE answeR," the voice hissed: "yoU won'T admiT tO iT, buT yoU knoW iT alreadY..."

"TELL ME!" Ethan shrieked as he reached back his hand, and -

                                                                                        - Ethan doesn't see the slap coming towards his face. Her hand moves so fast that he can't register it as more than a blur.

Then there is the noise of her hand striking his cheek -

                                                                            - Daniel's head didn't recoil from the blow so much as it gave in to it. What little was left of his mouth came off, right then and there: jawbone and upper teeth shattering and flying away as the few, loose strands of dusty connective tissue and jowls disintegrated and followed thereafter. His jawbone slammed up against the boiler and turned into a U-shaped puff of smoke.

All that was left of the man's head was what lay above his rapidly-dissipating nose and cheekbones. But - oddly enough - Daniel didn't seem too fazed by the blow; He didn't even blink. It was as though he had finally gone beyond pain, and beyond caring.

But then he looked up at his interrogator, one last time. His eyes were no longer dulled with pain or puzzlement, but full of understanding: a dark one at that, if the maddened look that emanated from them was any indication. Ethan had seen that look on people's faces before, and it never meant anything good -

                                       - And her eyes are terrible things: wet and red, cold and hateful. They cut through him like knives -

                                               - "untrustworthY iS thE slavE whO musT bE drovE bY master'S calL..." the voice announced, its tones bouncing around Ethan's corpus without needing to be spoken out of a mouth, or heard by an ear, or understood by whatever passed for a brain in this dead world.

This was the one, true voice of the land of the dead, speaking. And it would say what it liked, whenever - and however - it cared to.

"What...?" Ethan whimpered, all illusions falling from his mind - shaken apart by the voice.

"...betteR, theN, thE slavE whO serveS withouT knowinG a thinG aT alL."

As it spoke those words, the world went black to white, and white to black. Daniel's body gave up its ghost, collapsing into a man-shaped cloud of ashes. And the detritus expanded rapidly, coating every inch of the room with a thick, grimy layer of black soot.

It invaded as it coated. Nasty, runny tendrils of shadow slid under Ethan's skin, down his throat, and into his ears and eyes. They brought the darkness with them - a wiggling, gnawing absence of joy, hope and lies that devoured its opposites and grew larger still.

Then - and only then - did the voice tell Ethan everything he'd wished to know. It told him exactly why it had picked Daniel. It told him exactly why Ethan, alone, had been given the summons to come here.

And it told him exactly where this was leading, too, but Ethan was unable to register it, just then. He was on his knees, saying prayers to any and all powers that he could think of. But if the Maker was listening, It didn't care to respond by way of a rescue - leaving Its humble servant to gag on the ravenous darkness that was eating his soul.

He had just enough time to try and scream - for all the good it would have done - and then the positions of Ethan's fractured self were spun right around. The inside became outside and the jailed became the jailer. The shadow became the light, and Ethan was fully eclipsed by it.

First there was a wraith. Then there was no wraith.

And then there was...

Ethan's former Shadow took stock of its situation quickly. The transformation took nowhere near as long as he'd thought it might. And before too long he was also taking stock of his body - his body, at long last - and finding it to be good.

The newly-hatched Doppelganger flexed its fingers and curled its arms, looking at the palms of his hands as though there were wonders aplenty to be found there. Before long he rose to his feet, and took a few careful, exploratory steps around the room.

He no longer felt as though he were a guest in someone else's house. Now he felt as though he'd been given the key, shown the secret rooms and told to have fun.

As he got used to the limits and contours of his new, full time home, he couldn't help but bend down and gather up a handful of what had been poor Daniel. The black soot still sifted about, there on the floor, moved by unseen currents of dead air.

He let a measure of it slip through his fingers, and watched it float and purl into smoke that looked like jet black mother-of-pearl.

Ashes to ashes... he mused, barely able to contain his laughter.

Out in the hallway, the Iron Marshal was waiting. He had never truly left, and even though the matter had taken longer than an hour, he had not gone inside. He had merely stood there, hands folded before him as though in prayer, and waited.

When Ethan walked from behind the door, they regarded one another, but not warily. Instead they smiled, and removed their masks in turn as a sign of respect: fellow servants of the Void saluting one another by showing their true colors.

(You) know what to do, /now/, the old man "said," blackness all but dripping from his shadow-eaten eyes. It was not a question, but a statement.

Yes, the Doppleganger answered: (I) /will/ return to /Rome/, and tell (the Guild) nothing of what /was/ heard, /here/. /This/ /was/ a fool's errand - nothing more.

Well done, the old man replied: Matters are /soon/ to resolve themselves.

The former Alchemist nodded, smiling; Wasn't that the understatement to end them all? What a glorious enterprise this had all turned out to be!

He had only been able to peer around the corners of the plan, before, when Ethan had been in control. But now - now that he was connected to the Hive Mind - he knew this dust for exactly what it was. At long last he understood...

Not everything, you don't! the Psyche formerly known as Ethan whimpered behind the bars of its soul-cage. The Doppelganger chose to ignore it, though he acknowledged there was some truth to the words; A few pieces of the matter yet eluded his gaze, but surely these too would be made clear in time.

Do (you) have any other instructions? he asked.

Not /yet/, but remain alert, the old man replied, smiling: The final pieces of the plan /are being/ shaped, /even now/. And of all (the factions), (The Guilds) /must/ not suspect anything /is/ wrong.

(I) understand.

Further instructions /will/ come to (you). the old man added, putting his mask back on: Wait for them.

(I) /will/ do that, Ethan - the new Ethan - affirmed, replacing his own

It would be no trouble at all, really. If there was one thing that both he and his Psyche were good at, it was waiting.

And it seemed they would not have long to wait, after all...