Since giving his statement Lucc had remained out in the woodland home he
shared with his father, Lagis, who was habitually taciturn. And though
they had discussed something of the night's events (as much as Lucc could)
he blessed the fact that his father left him to his thoughts.

Not that his thoughts were pleasant - he continually turned over in his
mind that he had stood by and let Hood cut the accused. And Lucc cursed
his inaction - for in his eyes it made him no better than the citizens who
had supported the Republica by their own inaction. He had been sitting by
an ancient oak - weighing his judgement - when he saw the glitter of black
eyes looking up at him from the bushes - and the sharp yips of a fox.

~Unhappy?~ was what he translated, and replied in kind, asking what was
wrong.

All he could make out from the fox's reply was that something was hurt. It
was at these moments he wished that it was Kit who led him, because there
would be a human intelligence within vulpine form and the answers would be
a lot clearer. Thoughts of the fox woman made Lucc's heart ache, and he
remembered that she too had had her moral dilemmas. But clear or not he
needed to go find out who or what was hurting.

The path the fox led him became increasingly familiar as he retraced his
steps back to the clearing and the grave.

And he soon understood why the wildlife were upset, because now the area
was permeated with a sense of pain and disquiet.

"Denlira?" he asked, sensing about for the only spirit that could be in
the area (all the others from the once mass grave had been laid to rest).

::You hunted him!! Hurt him!!:: a sharp thought stabbed at him.

Lucc couldn't see the girl's ghost but he could sense the chill of her
being pressing all around him, raising goosebumps on his arms, and he
found it ironic to be the victim of an accusing ghost. "Yes, I hunted him,
but I didn't hurt him," he said evenly, "Because he killed you."

::You hunted him!!!!! Hurt him!!!!::

Her anger and dispair intensified - trying to lay claim to him. And Lucc
found it remotely interesting that she couldn't influence his moods. He,
however, sincerely wished that either Serun or Elenia were here with him,
because they had always had had better luck with soothing agitated
spirits. Look how well Serun had done with Elektra - who had been a
withering mass of hate when her grave had first been found.

"He had to be brought to justice," Lucc said, deciding to sit down, since
this was going to prove a long discussion. Somehow he needed to get
Denlira to focus on her own state, and less on her murderer's.

Anger at Fillip Menagrem flared in Lucc and he remembered why he had stood
by while Eric Hood and Cari (aka Batista) had questioned the mage. The
death of this girl had been brutal and she had been hidden far away, in a
lonely place.

"You hunted him!! They all hunted him!!!!!!" Denlira shrieked - her
shivering voice tearing through the glade, and becoming lost in the
forest.

"He killed you," Lucc said bluntly. The sooner she recognized her own
death the better. It would ease the terror when Fall came again and the
Hunter rode; with his Hounds driving all lost souls towards the Void. "He
killed you and buried you out here - far from any who could mourn you. If
it wasn't for the foxes you would have never been found."

"I made him!!! I made him!!!! I made him!!!!"

"How?" Lucc asked, looking around the empty glade in puzzlement.

"I didn't believe in him!!! I made him mad!!!"

"And for that you deserved to die?" Lucc asked in stark disbelief.

"I made him!!!"

Though her views were puzzling in their own right he was also curious why
it had taken her so long to begin haunting. Both he and Yals had thought
that she had traveled on, unlikely after so violent a death, but they
hadn't been able to find her before this.

"Why are you haunting now?" he asked.

"He won't see me!!!" She wailed. "He still hates me!!!!"

"You've tried to manifest to him in jail?"

"I went to him - to comfort him....To let him know I loved him.....,"
Denlira managed, "But he screams at me and hides his face."

Lucc considered Fillip's reaction more a sign of a guilty conscious than
anything else, but instead he said, "So you've come here to haunt?"

From all around crying could be heard.

Making him wish even more strongly for his friends' diplomacy.

"Why are you so loyal to him?"

"I love him...!!!! He saved me......."

"Saved you? How?" Lucc asked.

"I would have been burnt - here and he saved me!!!!!"

"That doesn't give him the right to murder you now."

A wail pierced the clearing.

He fell silent - hoping the spirit would calm. It was hard to fight such
loyalty - misguided or not. And in the silence Lucc's thoughts turned
again to another whose loyalty had cost her much - lovely Kitrina. He
could far too clearly picture her cowering in fox form on a forgotten
grave; hiding from humanity and the pain that had torn at her heart. She
had loved wholeheartedly the Grand Inquisitor Blayne, who had brought
destruction to the Politi and hunted others of her friends. And
yet....now, looking back, Lucc could see - in juxtaposition to Denlira's
pitiful straights - a strange irony; Fillip, a mortal man, had
cold-heartedly used and murdered a woman who loved him, and Blayne, a Dark
Lord - a Vampiric Archdemon, had loved. Had loved not only Kit but all of
his Coterie, Linnell and Selene too, and had given them their freedom and
done all he could to ensure their safety - though tragedy had already
taken its toll in Linnell's slow decline into the  and the wounds
to Kit's and Selene's hearts. A demon who had raised most of Montfort's
dead. Who then was the monster?

No, the path of good and evil didn't flow into two clear streams. He had
already learned that well. In his own life (s) he had to deal with the
dilemma, and seen others cope. How had Geiren felt in asking Delgado (the
man who had nearly tortured him to death) for aid in saving the wounded
Politi - and in knowing that his wife, Morrighu, was safer in Republica
hands? The knowledge probably didn't rest any easier than the knowledge
that he lived with the truce that the Hunter had set up with the Cult of
Pain - who were responsible for his mother's death. And yet that quick
death had prevented a lingering, torturous, one from radiation illness.

Yet those mercies (large or small, intended or unintended) didn't erase
past crimes.

Though it did explain why he had no qualms in promising to keep Hood's and
Lovvorn's names silent. For that one evening they had been on the side of
justice - and their aid had been invaluable in tracking down Fillip.

For a long moment Lucc let loose of his philosophical quagmire and
focused on listening to the various birdcalls.

Finally he asked, "Denlira, do you understand that you are dead?"

The sense of her agitation still filled the area but she remained silent.

"You were killed," Lucc said gently, "And now you need to go on and rest.
There are those near that can guide you...."

"No, no, no...," she weeped. "I can't leave him. Fillip needs me to love
him......I have to make him see that I won't come to him with the knife
wounds ...He keeps seeing the knife wounds. He had to do that..."

"None deserve to be mutilated - alive or dead!!" he said firmly - barely
keeping an angers out of voice. ~I really need to get Yals or Elenia
here,~ he told himself, ~They would have better luck.~

But definitely _not_ Elektra. She might be learning some diplomacy, but
this discussion would try her patience beyond breaking.

"He had to hide me.......!!!" Denlira wailed.

The wail faded and she said in a more normal tone, "I'll go again....He'll
see that I'm pretty again...I'll be so pretty for him....."

Both Lucc's heart and head hurt and with a sigh he got to his feet. He
could well understand Elektra's sad fustration with young Fran, one of the
Republica's Young Guardians. It was hard to argue with self-delusion.

"I'll come back," he softly promised, though he had his doubts that the
spirit noticed. ~And I'll see about Yals or Alexandrin coming,~ he told
himself.