Kurt woke up in one of the most comfortable beds he'd ever experienced in his life. The mattress was soft, but not too soft, the sheets and quilt were heavy enough to make him feel cocooned in pleasant warmth. Despite the gentle nudging and calling of his name, he really didn't want to leave his little pocket of bliss. Then someone reached under the sheets, grabbed his feet, yanked them out from under the covers, turned him perpendicular to the bed in the process, pulled his feet farther out, and set them on the floor, pretty much forcing him to sit up on the edge of the bed. As he sat up, he came face-to-face with George. "You've got visitors," George said, smiling.

Kurt, did a groggy physical inventory. They hadn't undressed him, but they had removed his boots. "Boots," he said to George.

"Entryway closet, by the front door. Everyone's got their shoes off downstairs. You'll fit right in."

Kurt took that statement with a grain of salt. Fitting in because he was shoeless might be one thing, but being 23, scared out of his wits, responsible for multiple lives and souls, and possessed of enough power to turn a demon back into an angel... he didn't think he was going to find that club gathered around the punchbowl. "How long have I been out?"

"Couple of hours." George tilted his head toward the door.

Kurt continued sitting on the bed. He didn't want to go downstairs and face Marie's friends. He was sure they were nice people, but he'd had enough reaponsibility heaped on him in the last few days, so much so that his mind seemed to be crumbling and he was having to be knocked out to keep from hurting himself. He'd go, of course, and face whatever came along as best he could. He just wanted to delay it a bit more. "How you holding up, George?"

"I'm okay," George said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, seriously," Kurt protested. "Everyone's all worried about me, but I'm still alive."

"Oh, that," George said, shaking his head. "Yeah. For some reason I can't get too worked-up about it. Maybe I got too used to the idea of dying in Afghanistan, maybe it's some defense programmed into soul bodies to keep people from freaking out all the time. Dunno. My parents were mighty pissed I died without giving them grandchildren."

"Your parents?"

"Yeah, since you were gonna be out a while, Marie had Duke take me over to my mom and dad's place. It's not too far from here." George paused, seeing the conversational paths before him, and realizing they all led away from the reason he'd been sent to get Kurt out of bed. "Look, we need to get downstairs."

Kurt figured his delaying tactics had hit a wall and motioned to the door. "After you."

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Kurt felt a craving for some caffeine and some calories. He gave George a pat on the shoulder. "Can you get me one of our Cokes?"

George gave him the high sign and headed off to the kitchen as Kurt followed the sound of conversation into a room of mostly unfamiliar faces. He knew Duke and Nybras, of course, Marie, and then there was Elvis... Kurt stopped. Elvis — the young, Jailhouse Rock Elvis — was teaching Junior how to play "Blue Hawaii" on a ukulele.

When Junior saw Kurt, he dropped the ukulele, hopped out of Elvis's lap, and ran to Kurt, leaping into his arms and hugging him fiercely. Kurt held him tight, fighting back tears. "I thought we lost you there for a bit, little man." Junior squeezed tighter. Nobody disturbed them as they just hugged, needing a couple of minutes for the joy of reunion and the pent up anguish of the separation to ebb to manageable levels.

When Kurt was finally able to put the boy down, or more when Junior would let Kurt put him down, Marie took Junior's hand and led him to sit with her in her chair so Kurt could give his attention to the others who had come to see him. Kurt looked around. The other people in the room were... "I'm sorry," Kurt asked. "Are you the Elvis?"

The man looked him up and down. "Actually," he said in a nasally voice, "my name is Herman Borowitz. You see they let us pick how we want to look when we get here. Oy, there are more Marilyn Monroes than you could shake a stick at."

"Really," Kurt asked incredulously.

"Of course not, son," Elvis said, slipping into his normal voice as he reached out a hand. "Elvis Presley, pleased to meet you."

Kurt shook Elvis's hand as other visitors turned it into a sort of receiving line, passing by and introducing themselves. The four other visitors included Leonardo Da Vinci, the King Arthur, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Barbara Greenstein.

As Barbara introduced herself, Kurt paused. All of the other visitors were famous. "And what are you famous for," he asked her.

"My noodle kugel," Barbara said, smiling demurely, and went back to her seat.

With everyone sitting again, all eyes were on Kurt and the silence was oppressive. He had no idea what to say, how to start, but everyone seemed to be expecting something of him. "Thank you all for coming," he said, unable to think of anything else.

George arrived with his Coke and handed it to him. Kurt stood there and sipped it, hoping someone would jump into the fray. George did.

"They're all up to speed, buddy."

"The way I see it," Arthur said from his chair, "is we all need to find God. This is the common cause that draws us together. I propose a quest..."

Eleanor rolled her eyes. "Not another quest. This is not the round table, dear."

"Yeah, man," Elvis concurred, "how are we gonna go lookin' for him anyway? I can look behind the couch, but unless there's a guy back there who says 'hey, I'm God, nice to meetcha,' I got no idea what he looks like or where to look."

"Look inside your heart," Barbara said, smiling sweetly. Kurt couldn't tell if she was being sincere or making a joke, but Elvis frowned.

"What we need," said Leonardo, staring directly at Kurt and waving a hand as he spoke, "is a miracle. A few miracles, perhaps. This is what Mr. Gray brings to the table, eh. Armed insurrection is doomed. No war machine I could design can stand up to Michael's flaming sword. We need miracles. Force is not an option."

Leonardo's repeated insistence on miracles made Kurt remember the conversation in Nowhere. He was the young padawan to Mick's Obi-Wan. He was Daniel-san to Mick's Mr. Miyagi. But last time he saw Mick, he was crucified upside down on a walkway through the Asmodeus Arena. How could he get him here? From a little acorn, a mighty oak grows, Jack's voice echoed in his mind's ear.

As the rest of the group argued, Kurt put down his Coke, then quietly found his way out of the room and out of the house into the walled garden. The garden consisted of a red brick patio surrounded by a foot-and-a-half wide border of dirt between the patio and the wall. Most of the dirt was planted with low white-flowered shrubs as ground cover with taller rose bushes spaced every few feet. The flowers perfumed the air and Kurt was tempted to go sit in one of the chairs by patio table, luxuriating in the warm sun and beautiful smell.

Kurt remembered his mission, and in a corner of the garden, he found a patch of dirt that seemed big enough. He dug a small hole with his hands and put the severed soul finger in it, shoving dirt over it and patting it down.

He watched it... nothing happened. Why wasn't something happening? He racked his brain for any clue as to how you'd make a planted bit of soul grow. In every sword and sorcery book he'd ever read, when you planted something magical into the ground, you had to invoke it, usually by moonlight. He didn't have moonlight, but he was a wordsmith-in-training on Madison Avenue. He could come up with an invocation... "Michael Barlow, I command you to rise."

Nada.

"We welcome you into the embrace of Heaven, Michael Barlow. Use this connection between its soil and your soul to find your way to us."

Nope.

"By the powers vested in me by a sick and perverse universe, I forgive you, Mick. I give you my love. I give you your freedom. Come join us in this heavenly garden."

Not really.

By now a crowd had gathered in the French doors into the garden to watch Kurt perform his latest miracle.

Kurt didn't know what else to say. "Mick," he mumbled under his breath, "stop fuckin' around down there and get your ass up here, now!"

"You need to water it," a small voice said. The crowd in the doorway parted and Junior walked out into the garden, followed by Marie who held a pitcher of water. Jack had said that a mighty oak would grow from an acorn, so it made logical sense. Kurt took the pitcher from Marie and poured some of its contents on the spot where he'd buried the pinky.

Nothing happened. Kurt felt Junior tugging at his shirt. When he looked at him, Junior beckoned him downward. Kurt knelt so he was on Junior's level and Junior leaned in. "Holy water," he whispered in Kurt's ear.

Kurt closed his eyes and put one hand over the pitcher. He'd done a half-assed blessing in Duke's office and it had worked, but he really wanted it to work this time. The problem was that the only Hebrew blessing he could remember was the blessing over the sabbath wine. It would have to be good enough. "Baruch ata Adonai, elohenu melach haolam, boray p'ree hagofen. Amen."

Kurt looked down at the pitcher and the water had turned dark. He sniffed it. It smelled like Manischewitz. He quickly poured it out on the dirt, hoping no one would notice he'd just accidentally turned water into wine. On the other hand, he thought, there was probably no better way to invoke the soul of a bartender than with an alcoholic beverage.

It only took a few seconds before a pink shoot rose from the soil. Quickly, like watching a stop-motion animation of a plant growing, more shoots rose, twining into vines, growing upward. The stalks split, becoming legs, intertwining again at the pelvis and growing into a torso, sending out small shoots from which leaves unfurled. Stalks split at the shoulders to form arms as the main stalk became a skull, the leaves fleshing out the exoskeleton of branching vines, creating a man-sized topiary. As the leaves expanded and their edges touched, they fused together, gradually creating a seamless skin. More leaves sprouted from the skin and fused to become pants and a shirt.

Over the five-or-so minutes this took, everyone watched, transfixed, including Kurt. Despite it being a miracle — his miracle — he couldn't avoid feeling like he was watching some reimagining of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and that instead of it becoming Mick, he was growing the pod-person version of himself. He stood up to peer at the face, and as he watched, he kept willing himself not to fall asleep... just in case.

But when the fusing stopped, the eyes opened, the mouth opened, and Mick gasped, falling forward. Kurt caught him and steadied him. "It's okay, Mick," he said. "Breathe. Breathe."

Mick leaned against Kurt, panting, gradually gaining control of his legs and arms. When he could stand on his own, he gently pushed off of Kurt and stood back. He stared at Kurt for a moment, then grabbed Kurt's head in his hands, kissed Kurt on the cheek, and still holding Kurt's head in his hands, an incredulous look on his face, Mick laughed. It started out light, but grew in intensity and joy. Mick let go of Kurt, leaned back, raised his arms toward the sky, and just stood there, laughing until tears ran down his face.

---

"Have a seat," Albert said, waving Alain toward a stool in his lab. "Can I get you anything? I should have some imported beer available shortly."

Alain sat, watching Albert like a hawk as he kept his other senses at peak sensitivity so he could be sure where Kolya and his boys were. "And what earned you three whole cargo containers," Alain asked, figuring he already knew the answer.

One of Kolya's men walked in with a styrofoam cooler and put it down on a low table. Albert walked over, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of vodka. "Kolya, why don't you share this with your men? I'll be safe with Mr. Beaudreaux here."

Kolya wasn't a loyal soldier, and the way he licked his lips, it seemed he hadn't had either vodka or a cold beverage in quite some time. He took the bottle and went back down the hall toward Albert's garage area, his men following behind.

"They move pretty well for blind men," Alain said.

"There are different grades of blind," Albert replied. "They're not so blind they see nothing but black, but they'd be considered blind for all legal purposes. Everything's a blur with moving blobs, but most of them have had time to adapt to it and they can still be pretty effective. Camouflage works really well, though."

Alain realized they were getting off-topic. "Back to my original question..."

Albert paused and dug in the cooler, pulling out a bottle of Canadian beer with a twist off cap. He popped the cap and took a long drag off the bottle before turning his attention back to Alain. "Someone in Pandaemonium was quite interested in making sure Kurt arrived intact. Word was put out that there'd be a big bonus for whomever found him and got him across the seventh ring safely."

"So you knew who we were when Ty brought us to you. Was he looking for us?"

"Yes and no," Albert said, settling down on a stool and taking another sip from his beer. "I knew there was a reward for getting a vampire and two mortals through this ring safely. But there's a little over 3,000 square miles of seventh ring and about 8 million souls here. Putting out lookouts would be futile. Ty brought you to me because he thought Kolya would hold you for ransom and torture you for fun."

"And where is Ty?"

"Sleeping. You know Kurt healed him before he left, right?"

"Had no idea."

Albert put his beer down on the table and stood up from his stool. "Look, I'm not your enemy and I'm not your Judas. You're obviously not here with Hell's blessing and you wouldn't come back for fun. If you're just passing through on your way back up, I've got some rock climbing gear I'll be glad to give you. If you're here for another reason, maybe I can help."

Alain crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back as fas as he could on a backless stool. "And what would be in it for you if you helped?"

"What part of he healed Ty was unclear to you? He beat that pit thing!"

Alain raised an eyebrow. "They broadcast the fight everywhere in Hell," Albert said with a dismissive wave. Albert began pacing. "They talked about the bet in the pregame show, how souls were on the line, how Kurt would get a chance to try to get through Purgatory to Heaven if you won... how he has to convince God to save your soul or he loses his. They played up how souls were on the line to boost the drama."

Albert stopped pacing, standing rooted to one spot. "If he loses, I don't think it's just a matter of Hell getting another soul. I think if Hell gets him, it's a game changer, and it's going to change things in a very bad way. I'm offering to help you because I honestly believe that if I don't, we're all going to suffer."

Alain thought for a moment. "So let's say I decide to believe you. Let's say I let you help. All your guns are going to be no use against demons. What can you do to help?"

Albert smiled and walked over to Alain. "Well, first off," he said, smiling, "did you know that your friend Kurt pisses holy water?"