Entry tags:

fandom: due south, pairing: fraser/kowalski, year: 2009

due South: Katabasis (Part I)

Fandom: due South
Rating: R
Word count: 17,057
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Summary: "I talked to your dad, I went through this place called the Borderland, I had a boat ride, I fed a wolf a doughnut, and I told stories for your soul," Ray interrupted. "This does not mean you are not insane."

Katabasis

{Part One | Part Two}

If Ray was gonna take a guess, he'd say it started on the way back from the funeral home.

Besides getting Van Zandt and his goons into holding -- which was taken out of their hands pretty quick -- it was up to him and Welsh and Fraser to wake everybody up and explain how Fraser hadn't actually been dead but was just under the influence of the secretions of the Whatsit Toad. Ray found himself doing most of the explaining, though, because Welsh was busy making like he wasn't ashamed of all his detectives keeling over like that, and Fraser ...

Fraser was just quiet. Maybe Ray should have asked.

Okay, Ray did ask. Fraser climbed into the GTO and Dief bounded over him into the back, and as Ray peeled out of the parking lot he asked, "You doing okay there, Frase?"

"Yes, Ray," Fraser said, and maybe Ray shouldn't have left it -- Fraser would probably have to be dying, or at least seriously pissed off, before he'd admit to not being okay -- but if Fraser's quiet was a different sort than the normal silence Ray was used to, well, funeral homes sure as hell weren't Ray's favorite place either and he hadn't spent all night in one.

They went back to the station and signed off on the paperwork, and Ray figured Fraser was better because leaving the bullpen they were walking in step, and when Ray tried calculating how long Van Zandt had before his parole was due, Fraser said right away, "A hundred and forty-three years." And he did look pleased about it, though maybe not animated like he usually was at the close of a case.

"Wanna get lunch?" Ray asked. He probably meant breakfast, since neither of them had eaten yet, but it was almost noon so he didn't really care which meal it was.

"No, I'm afraid I --" Fraser started. He stopped in the hall and looked around, frowning. "Where's Diefenbaker?"

"No idea." The mutt had been with them all the way into the station, but he'd beat it the second it looked like there was going to be paperwork. Ray didn't much blame him. "I think maybe he's sulking somewhere."

"Oh dear." Fraser frowned. "I hope he will come to understand, given sufficient time."

"And doughnuts," Ray said. It was probably too late in the day for doughnuts.

"I would prefer not to bribe him, Ray."

Ray grinned a little and slung an arm over Fraser's shoulder. "Lunch?" he repeated.

"I'd love to, Ray, but ..." Fraser went sort of tense under Ray's arm, so Ray backed off. "Would you mind taking us to the Consulate?" Fraser asked. "I'm afraid I'm neglecting a backlog of forms."

Which meant the Ice Queen didn't want Fraser out of her sight much right now. Ray didn't really blame her, though. "Yeah, okay," he said.

They found Diefenbaker downstairs. He made grumbling noises when he learned there were no doughnuts in his future, but he climbed into the back of the GTO and sulked quietly. Up in front, Fraser was just as quiet, although Ray didn't think he was sulking. Just ... not really all right.

"Hey," Ray said, pulling out of the station lot, "are you, um --?"

"No, I should have the forms well in hand by noon tomorrow," Fraser said, completely ignoring Ray's tone.

Ray sighed. "Okay. I probably got my own paperwork to do." So that was it as far as conversation went.

He parked in front of the Consulate. Fraser got his hat and let Dief out, shut the door and smiled at Ray through the glass, the first real smile Ray'd seen from him that day. Ray waved him off and didn't think about the way a Fraser smile destroyed all the suckiness of paperwork and weird cases and sulky wolves. It'd been that way for months now, ever since the crazy case with the gold and the ships. Fraser'd said he wanted to keep being partners, had smiled at Ray, and it was like he had a light switch to the goddamn sun. And it just kept on, every single time he smiled now, with little laughter-crinkles around his eyes.

Ray shook his head and went back to the 27. He got some takeout on the way, but it just wasn't the same eating alone and not sneaking any to Dief.

Hours and a lot of paperwork later -- at least Welsh would be happy -- Ray decided he deserved to go home, maybe have a night in, feed his turtle, have a beer, read the beat-up romance novel he'd stolen off Frannie's desk for the hell of it. He shuffled the last few papers around his desk to make it look like he was a bit less of a slob, said "What?" a little too defensively when he caught Francesca looking sideways at him (you never knew, she could definitely be suspicious about her book vanishing like that), and clocked out.

He went home, ate and watched the turtle eat, told it, "I am so glad you do not talk back like Dief does." The turtle didn't pay any attention to him, so Ray grinned to himself, broke out the beer and the paperback. This one was about an English lord and a beautiful heiress; the English lord was still in love with some dumb girl who'd gone and married an earl, and Ray was willing to bet -- probably because the back cover had a few hints about it -- that in a few pages the beautiful heiress was going to be kidnapped, and the English lord would realize he'd been pining after the wrong girl, and go save her come hell, high water, and some two-dimensional bad guys.

So Ray got his kicks where he could. But this sort of thing was an easy read, there'd been this brief phase when Stella kept bringing them home so there was something comfy about them, and Ray figured they probably told him a lot about Frannie's psyche, which might be useful one day.

He found his place, bookmarked with the receipt from the last pizza Sandor had delivered. Kitty took one last glance into Gerald's smoldering eyes before she turned towards her suite, little suspecting the long cruel days that would unfold before she would set eyes on him again ... "Don't gimme that look," Ray told the turtle, and settled in to read.

*

In the morning Ray drove in feeling pretty good, like maybe Welsh was gonna be nice to him and just for kicks Fraser would lick the right thing this afternoon and they'd have some breakthrough on one of Ray's stalled cases too -- and reaching the station parking lot, Ray slammed the brakes too hard, jolting to a stop with a screech.

Diefenbaker was sitting at the 27's side entrance, this daub of white in the gray universe without any accompanying daub of red.

Ray was out of the GTO and crouched next to Dief in about two seconds flat. "Heya, Dief," he said, fingers wrapping in the wolf's ruff to keep Dief from licking him or getting away. "Where's Fraser?"

Dief whined a little and managed to lick the end of Ray's nose anyway. But he didn't try anything else, just did that little whine and gave him this sincere amber-eyed doggy look. Ray'd maybe been hanging around Fraser a bit too long, but he was pretty sure the big eyes weren't saying I'm looking innocent so you'll give me doughnuts -- no, Diefenbaker was saying I don't know and I'm upset. Ray didn't know when interpreting Dief had started getting normal, but he did know that going with his gut was something that'd pretty much always been normal, and that meant an easy equation: early morning plus Fraser's wolf here freaking out minus Fraser equals bad feeling.

Another whine, another little lick. "Hey," Ray said. "Cool it, buddy, we'll find him." He got to his feet, and tried not to feel like he was nuts or panicking or maybe in a Lassie film. "Where'd you see Fraser last?" The mutt cocked his head and gave Ray this considering look, like he was figuring out whether Ray was serious about this. "I'm serious about this," Ray told him. "I am all over it if Fraser's doing some stupid thing, Dief."

Diefenbaker snuffled a little, apparently satisfied with this, and took off for the street. Ray followed him.

He'd already gone about six blocks when he realized he hadn't clocked in, that he was about fifteen minutes late for work already, and that Welsh was going to chew him out no matter how many good excuses he had, but Ray had this weird feeling of just not caring. The job was the job, and when Marcus Ellery was in town or Diefenbaker thought Fraser was missing, good career moves were not on the top of Ray's priority list.

A couple more blocks and Ray realized they were heading the quickest street route to the Consulate. He wasn't sure whether this meant he should be relieved or pissed off or freak out a bit, but whichever, it would still be quicker to go back for the GTO than to walk the rest of the way. Ray ran up next to Dief, stopped him with a well-placed foot in his path, and, when Diefenbaker looked up reproachfully, said, "Are we going to the Consulate?"

Bark.

"Okay, I got it, now let's go the fast way with the car."

Bark, bark.

Fifteen minutes more, and Dief seeming a bit less agitated after the treat of riding in the front next to Ray, the GTO was parked in front of the Consulate and they were heading up the steps. Ray knocked on the door. Knocked again. Was just reaching into his pocket for a credit card to jimmy the lock when Turnbull answered it. "Ah, Detective Vecchio!"

Diefenbaker took advantage of the gap in the door to rush in past Turnbull. Ray made to follow and found his way blocked by a wall of Mountie, so he sighed and said, "Hey, Turnbull, where's Fraser?" He peered over Turnbull's red shoulder at the dim Consulate interior, but a) it was pretty dark in there, and 2) he wasn't wearing his glasses, so everything more than three feet away was a blur anyway.

"I haven't yet seen Constable Fraser this morning," Turnbull said, a tiny frown marring his bland face.

"Is he here?" Ray asked, about as patiently as he was ever able to with Turnbull.

Turnbull's face lit with a sudden idea. "I'll check!"

"Nah, I'll just --" Ray pushed in past Turnbull, who made a couple of protesting noises which Ray ignored. The Consulate seemed empty -- no one else staying at the moment, he figured. He heard a doggy noise from Fraser's little box of a room, so he headed that way.

Fraser was lying quietly on his cot, which might've been okay except that Fraser was not a guy who slept in, and Dief was nudging worriedly at one of his limp hands and whining again, and Fraser was not wearing his ridiculous red thermal things, he was in pumpkin pants and suspenders and Henley. Limp hands. Fraser, very still. Ray's brain, running on autopilot, did a quick detective's check of the room -- boots placed neatly next to the cot, Stetson on the desk -- but by then he was at Fraser's cot, leaning over and shaking him a little. "Hey. Fraser. Frase."

Nothing.

Ray checked quick for breath and pulse, but it was nothing again. Ray really did not feel like panicking yet, so he snapped his fingers in Fraser's face a couple of times, shook him maybe a little harder than he should've, knelt next to the cot and said, quiet and angry in Fraser's ear, "You didn't tell me this was one of those, like, trick wells you fall down again even if you don't mean to!" Nothing. "Dammit, Fraser!"

Dief barked.

Ray looked up slowly and saw Diefenbaker pawing at Fraser's closet. "Yeah, I know the uniform's in there," Ray said. "It'll be fine, Dief, it's not the important thing right now." Dief looked reproachful, but Ray just gritted his teeth and called, "Hey, Turnbull, get in here!"

"Now, Detective Vecchio," Turnbull said reprovingly, appearing in the doorway, "it only takes an extra second --"

"Yeah, shut up and help me with this please," Ray interrupted. "Fraser's, uh, trying this top-secret experiment for this case we're doin'. So you gotta help me carry him out to the car."

He didn't know where that had come from. Ray's mouth and Ray's brain and Ray's body all seemed to be running separately. What his mouth was saying, it was flimsy as hell, especially considering that everyone had seen the results of the top-secret experiment yesterday. But it was also Turnbull, so he tapped the side of his nose wisely and helped Ray half-drag, half-carry Fraser down to the GTO. "Thanks," Ray said, actually meaning it, when they had Fraser safely stowed in the back seat. "And if the Ice Qu -- if Inspector Thatcher gets ticked off Fraser left, you can blame it on me."

Turnbull frowned confusedly. "Yes, Detective Vecchio. Have a safe trip!"

"Yeah," Ray said, and peeled off.

He didn't start getting the shakes until the first red light. Diefenbaker, in the back keeping Fraser company, leaned up and licked the whole side of Ray's face, and Ray kinda yelled at him. Diefenbaker didn't even get offended, just nuzzled at Ray's ear. Ray gripped the steering wheel hard and gunned it.

*

He'd hoped he'd be able to sneak the spare wheelchair out of the supply closet downstairs and get Fraser to Mort, no mess no fuss, but this was not Ray's day. No one prone to asking Ray questions should've even been in that part of the station, but Ray wheeled out the chair and there was Francesca in the doorway, looking startled. Ray swore inwardly.

"What do you need that for?" Frannie asked.

"A thing," Ray said shortly. "Move, Frannie, I'm in kind of a hurry."

"A thing?" Francesca repeated. She followed him down the hall. "Oh my God, you haven't found another dead body in the walls?"

"Keep it down," Ray snapped, harsher than he'd meant, and when he saw Frannie's eyes go theatrically wide, he added, "And no, no we have not found any dead bodies in the walls. That is the sort of freakishness that doesn't repeat itself." They were almost at the outer doors. He stopped, leaning up against them and blocking Frannie's way. "Don't you have, like, telephones to answer or something?"

Frannie crossed her arms. "Just so we get this over with now, I'm following you outside."

"Uh, no, Frannie, you don't want to do that." Ray saw her face stubborning up and had the weird idea he wanted to hug her, like she really was his sister and a hug might make them both a bit better. "Trust me, I don't want to do it."

"You're digging yourself a hole, pal," Frannie told him.

"Okay, okay, fine," Ray said, and went back to the GTO with Frannie trailing him. He unlocked the door, let Dief out from where he'd been sitting guard, and felt the exact moment when Frannie realized what was up; heard her little indrawn breath and the way she froze. Ray angled the wheelchair up next to the car and started dragging Fraser into it, carefully as he could. "Told you you didn't want to," he said.

"Is he --?" Frannie whispered. Louder, "I mean, he's just -- doing the thing with the toad again, right? It's not -- it's nothing serious."

Ray hauled Fraser upright in the chair, pulled it back and closed the car door with a bump of his hip. He looked up at Francesca and she looked back at him with this pleading in her eyes even worse than Dief's, and that was ... good, that was a good thing, because if everyone else was busy freaking out, then Ray could be the cool one, not freak out, keep a handle on things. "I got no idea," he said. "I'm taking him to Mort."

Frannie's face started stubborning up again. "So let's go then," she said.

They went.

*

"Well, he is not dead," Mort pronounced.

"Yeah, I know," Ray snapped, about half the tension in his shoulders vanishing. "It's the, uh, he had a relapse from the toad thing, or --?"

"A relapse?" Mort looked up and fixed him with one of those Mort looks that wasn't actually a glare but damn well felt like one. "No, there is no reason for the secretions to have aftereffects. It would have left his system by, let us see, ah, yesterday evening."

"So something else happened to him!" Frannie edged up anxiously next to Ray. "Right?"

"No, I think we can safely say that this is the work of our friend the bouga toad," Mort said. He set his little eye-flashlight thing back on a tray and frowned thoughtfully down at Fraser's still form. Ray shifted unhappily, and Mort looked back up at him. "Do you have any idea why this would be?"

"No," Ray said. Thought of the handful of aborted attempts at asking how Fraser was doing. Realized, feeling really dumb, that the last time he'd tried, Fraser had actually headed him off with the most transparent of Fraser-tricks, the guileless subject change. "No." He shook himself quickly in a way that might've made Dief proud. "Okay, I don't know how long he's been like this. Maybe an hour, maybe all night. But he's gonna come out of it sometime soon, right?"

Mort fixed him with an awful Mort-look.

"So ... what do we do?" Frannie asked, real quiet.

"I do not know," Mort said, and shrugged, began pottering around the room. "I deal with them when they are already dead, yes? Perhaps you should take him to someone who deals with the live ones."

"A hospital?" Ray asked. And yeah, hospitals creeped him out a hell of a lot less than the morgue did, but -- "No, no, they'll stick him full of needles and they'll ask questions and, jeez, they'll sure as hell want to hold him for psychiatric; we'll lose days of work and the Ice Queen will kill him. Nah. I'll take him home, he can sleep it off there."

Mort didn't say anything to this, but when Ray looked at Frannie she nodded a little, and together they got Fraser off the slab and back into the wheelchair. Diefenbaker, waiting just outside the doors, yelped and danced up on his hind legs when they came out; Ray pushed him back down and tried to give him a reassuring look. Dief seemed less than reassured, but he trotted after them as they went back out to the parking lot.

"Okay," Ray said, turning to Frannie when Fraser was safely in the GTO's back seat again, "you gotta cover for me until I get home. Then I'll call the lieu."

Frannie's eyes were glued to Fraser, utterly still and silent somewhere behind Ray. "What are you gonna say?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," Ray admitted. "But not this. There is no way anyone knows about this. You got that?"

Frannie looked back at Ray. Her eyes were shiny with tears, and Ray felt a little bit sick. "I got it," she whispered.

*

Ray got Fraser hauled upstairs and settled onto his bed with the help of Mr. Mulligan from the first floor. Mr. Mulligan, probably aided by Fraser's pumpkin pants, concluded that Fraser'd had a rough night out; Ray made a few grunting affirmatives, thanked Mr. Mulligan, and more or less shut the door in his face.

He hated seeing Fraser lying like that, spread out on Ray's quilt, his skin too pale and his eyelids unmoving. Ray's insides were getting all twisted up, maybe from how damn helpless Fraser looked, maybe from how it was ... so close, so close to the back corner of Ray's brain that thought maybe Fraser plus Ray's bed equals greatness, but, God, not like this. Ray carefully rearranged Fraser's limbs from the awkward sprawl he'd been set down in to something a little more comfortable. Then Ray sat on the edge of the bed, his fingertips about an inch from Fraser's cool ones, and whispered, "Fraser, this sucks."

Diefenbaker came up and rested his muzzle on Ray's thigh, whimpering softly. Ray scratched Dief behind the ears, feeling about as miserable as the mutt sounded. "Dief, buddy," he said, "would you like a doughnut?"

Dief actually hesitated before giving a little yip of confirmation, which twisted Ray's insides up even more. He brushed his fingertips over Fraser's knuckles, left the bedroom, and fumbled around the kitchen until he found a day-old paper bag full of the powdered sugar doughnuts that Dief loved even though they made him sneeze. Ray got one out, shoved the crinkling bag absently into the pocket of his khakis, and gave Dief a treat for holding it together so damn well. Dief sneezed and scarfed the doughnut and gazed sadly back up at Ray. It was not a feed-me-more look, just a ... look. Ray dropped down next to the wolf, sort of carded his fingers through Dief's ruff, and then leaned forward and hung on, the way he'd wanted to when he was about eight years old and his parents wouldn't get him a dog. He breathed in deep, not really caring that Dief smelled like slightly damp dog hair and every street in Chicago, because by now the GTO smelled a bit like that too. Dief really was a damn smart wolf, because Ray was probably holding him too tight to be comfortable, but he just shuffled a little and sat patiently until Ray felt okay enough to let go.

Ray got up and called the station.

"Vecchio, where the hell are you?" Welsh demanded the second he was put through.

"Uh, personal thing," Ray said. "Came up suddenly. Put it on my sick days."

An ominous silence. "Detective," said Welsh, "is there the remotest possibility you're going to tell me what's going on?"

"No," Ray said. Held the phone a little too hard. "Sorry, Lieu."

Welsh sighed. "Fine. I expect you to be here first thing tomorrow," and he hung up before Ray could say yessir.

"That went well," Ray told Diefenbaker, and frowned. "Dief? What the hell." He went over to where Dief was snuffling and whining by the door -- wrong door. He'd been standing sentry over Fraser, but now he was at Ray's front door. "There is no way you are having a doughnut craving right now," Ray told the mutt, and Dief threw him an injured look, so, okay, no. "There is no way I'm playing Twenty Questions with a wolf," Ray added, but it was mostly just on record to the universe, because the next thing he said was, "Is it something we need at the station?" Growl. Okay. "Uh, the Consulate?"

This time he got a bark and a jump and the wild waving of Dief's tail. Ray felt a little crazy and a lot tired, and mostly dumb again because, yeah, he had some Turnbull damage control to do, and probably more excuses to make, and Fraser would probably appreciate a change of clothing when he woke up. He had the brief thought that he sure as hell didn't want to leave Fraser alone right now, but Dief -- who was, what, psychic now as well as maybe a lip-reader? -- solved that problem by trotting back into Ray's bedroom the second it got obvious Ray was going to the Consulate after all.

So twenty minutes and Ray was parked in front of Canada, up the stairs, and dealing with Turnbull again for the second time in about as many hours.

"Welcome back to Canada, Detective Vecchio!" Turnbull said, looking up from the reception desk. At least the Consulate was unlocked this time of day. "How is the top secret mission going?"

Ray'd spent those twenty minutes in the car figuring out what to say to Turnbull. Well, that and beating back his rising panic. Or, well, he'd spent so much time beating down the panic that he hadn't really come up with any sort of plan. He was a little surprised, though maybe less than he should've been, when he said easy as anything, "Still top secret, okay? So don't say a word. Not even to the Inspector, you got it? Because it's American top secret." This was almost as flimsy as the first thing he'd told Turnbull, but the words were just coming, so Ray listened and let it happen. "Uh, if she asks, Fraser was feeling kinda under the weather this morning, so he's over at mine, uh, filling up on soup and cold medicine and stuff, and he doesn't want to get the Inspector sick or anything."

"Ah!" Turnbull looked delighted. "Very cunning, sir. You can count on my discretion."

Some of the panic eased up a little. "Great. Thanks, Turnbull."

He went into Fraser's little room. The cot was unmade, which Ray already knew, but it still made him just stop for a minute. He stared at the crumpled sheets and everything became real. Fraser was three-quarters dead and Ray was acting calm and Frannie was acting fucking calm and what the hell was Ray doing getting Fraser a change of clothes when he should be taking him to a hospital? But Ray already sort of knew the answer to that one, even if he didn't want to look at it straight on. "Okay," he muttered, "okay, let's just --" and snatched Fraser's Stetson up from the desk. He didn't want it to get crushed under his arm, so he jammed it onto his head, just for safekeeping, and went to the closet in search of the red tunic and maybe some civvies.

On the other side of the door, it was sure as hell not the inside of a closet.

Ray stood in the doorway, staring. It didn't even look like the inside of the Consulate. It looked -- it looked a lot like what he imagined cabins in the Great White Nowhere looked like, and there definitely seemed to be a lot of snow outside the cabin windows, and it was in the coat closet.

"I'm goin' nuts, I'm goin' nuts," Ray chanted quietly, and pushed his way past the coat hangers. The floorboards creaked under his feet and the air was different somehow, thinner, fire-warmed. "Uh, hello?" Ray called.

A shape unfolded from the chair in front of the fire. Ray tried not to twitch, to act nonchalant like he'd seen this guy here the whole time, and -- the wry knowing look on the older face was familiar, as was the hat. Mountie, then, and maybe a relative of Fraser's, although it could be all Canadians looked like that. "Hi," Ray tried.

The man looked him up and down. "You'll be the Yank," he said. "Well, the other Yank." He nodded decisively and held out a hand. "Bob Fraser."

Ray stood there. Okay, he was in a cabin inside a coat closet and Fraser's dead father was offering him a handshake. For a second he felt like crying, or maybe punching the guy out, but he fought it off and took the hand, which felt warm and dry and a little wrinkled; an old guy's hand, sure, but not a dead one. "Kowalski," he said. "The other -- whatever. What the hell is this?"

"My cabin," Bob Fraser said, which, okay, kinda obvious, Ray maybe deserved that a little. "I take it you're looking for Benton?"

"No, I was -- um." Ray felt stupid with the Stetson still perched on his head, and shuffled a little. Outside, snow shushed up against the windowpanes. Behind him in the Consulate Turnbull started up a vacuum cleaner. "He's at my place."

Fraser's dad gave Ray a sharp look. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah I'm --" Ray started, before the available facts started lining up in his head. His mostly-dead partner was in his apartment and his mostly-dead partner's definitely-dead father was having a conversation with him in said partner's coat closet, and a lot of things Ray thought he knew were getting drastically revised very fast. Think, Kowalski. "His body's at my place."

"Now you're thinking," Bob Fraser said approvingly. "Tea? Pemmican?"

"What --? No." Ray watched Fraser's dad narrowly. Bob Fraser had gone to a corner of the cabin and was putting tea on in an old iron kettle with a lot more ceremony than he needed to. Ray knew a Fraser delay tactic when he saw one, and he didn't have time for it now. "How come Fraser's laid up?"

"Oh, he's stubborn, you know that. You're sure you don't want any tea?"

"I'm sure," Ray snapped, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

Bob Fraser sighed. "He was a bit lost the other night," he said. "Heading towards the white light, all that sort of silliness. I, ah, took him on a detour. The Borderland, you know."

"Borderland?" Ray demanded. Fraser's dad waved vaguely out at the snowscape. Ray nodded. "Okay, good, he didn't head for the white light."

"However, I may have piqued his curiosity," Bob Fraser admitted, although he mostly admitted it to the tea kettle, with an edge of pissiness that Ray was really familiar with. "I told him it was a waste of time. But he declined my offer of a guided tour out of my cabin. Said some nonsense about having to figure it out for himself."

"So, what, he put himself in a coma to figure out the meaning of life or something?" Ray asked. Bob Fraser nodded and pressed a hot cup of tea into Ray's hands. "That's stupid," Ray pointed out, and sipped the tea angrily. It was bitter and scalded his tongue a little. He sputtered and stared at it. "Jesus, that stuff's real!"

"Of course it's real," Fraser's dad said impatiently. "And so is Benton's mind, out there somewhere. I'd go get him myself, but he never listens to me, and it might be best if someone ... living went after him. He might get the right sort of ideas then."

Ray set the tea aside with a thump. "Or he's just gonna be stubborn and work it out in his own time. What makes you think he'll listen to me?"

Bob Fraser looked really uncomfortable for the first time. "He may have been ... compelled."

"Compelled," Ray repeated flatly.

"The Borderland is not kind," Fraser's dad said. "It's a sort of waiting room. I'm allowed to live here because of my unfinished business, and I get the occasional visitor from both sides -- Benton, you know, and last week I went ice fishing with Roy Davison, whom I'd last seen at the Depot in '73. We'd been caught in an avalanche together and I thought an invitation to go fishing might assuage some old diff --"

"Yeah, great," Ray interrupted. This guy alone was an education in Benton Fraser, which didn't make him any less annoying. "So what's so bad about this waiting room deal?"

"Oh, well, outstanding obligations aside, they like you to make a definite choice in one direction or the other," Bob Fraser said reasonably. "That's Benton's problem, you know. He misses the Territories, and he won't say a word as long as he's held up in Chicago. And, well, you've seen him around armed felons. I'm not saying I approve, but he really should make up his mind whether or not he wants to get shot. More trouble than it's worth, if you ask me, but there you are."

"He --" Ray tried, and thought angry things, but out of the gut-punched feeling all he actually said was: "They'd like you to make a choice one way or another?"

"Oh yes, it's all very organized," Bob Fraser said. "Death and taxes, you know, someone's got to oversee all that." When Ray continued looking blank, he sighed. "There is a reason for all those stories you hear about travels to the underworld, you know."

"Oh," Ray said, and picked up the teacup again, fiddled with it a bit, took another sip of tea. It tasted just as disgusting this time. "How long have I got?"

"Not much time at all," Bob Fraser said. "You'll be wanting snowshoes."

"Hell no, I'll spend all my time on my ass." Ray glanced back at the door. Turnbull was still vacuuming upstairs. He looked back at Fraser's dad. "Which way?"

"Out the window, son," Bob Fraser said, and didn't say anything more, but he got a look on his face that made Ray feel a little better. It was pride, and real solid faith in Ray, and he even gave Ray a leg up onto the windowsill. Ray looked back, and Bob Fraser nodded; Ray gave him a little salute and tumbled out into the snow.

*

It melted.

Everywhere Ray touched it felt like the melt of cotton candy, and when he got to his feet there was a Ray-shaped snowless patch, all covered with short green-brown grass and little white flowers. Ray shook himself and glanced back at the cabin; it was covered in snow and looked pretty much like he'd expected it to: small and made of logs. "Okay," Ray said to himself, and set off in a direction that was basically Away.

All around him were snowy woods, full of tall straight silver-barked leafless trees. He tramped on through, doing just fine without snowshoes. It was completely still. Ray's heart was going about a mile a minute, not because he was scared, exactly, but because he was so far out of his depth he was in another pool entirely. At least Fraser'd taught him to swim.

After a bit Ray glanced back the way he'd come. The cabin was out of sight now; he was surrounded by the woods in all directions. But he could see his footprints, freakishly straight like his path had been drawn with a ruler, and in each hollow in the snow there was a Ray's-foot-shaped patch of flowery grass. "Weird," Ray mumbled; turned, kept going.

The ground was rising now, first gently, then steep enough that Ray tried leaning forward and using his hands to help him up. The snow did its freakish cotton-candy-melting thing again, but Ray ignored it; the flowers were pretty, anyway. Ahead of him the snow was thinning out, too, turning to grass and then rocks right before Ray got to the top of the embankment.

He stopped.

Embankment was the right word. No way. No fucking way. He was down on a little patch of gravel, a river in front of him, car bridges one on each side a couple hundred feet away, and right across the river was the Sears Tower. Ray glanced back a little wildly, and yeah, about a foot from his nose was a wall of concrete backing the river. Adams on one side, Jackson on the other, the Chicago River right in front of him. Ray backed up until he was pressing against the wall, which felt real, rough and grainy and solid under his fingertips.

He squinted up again. Light glancing up in sparks off the river. Twin spikes atop the Sears Tower gleaming. What was wrong with this picture? Oh yeah. He could see clear as anything and his glasses were still in his pocket.

Someone was coming up the river.

An old man, humming to himself loudly enough to be heard over the engine, puttered over on a motorboat. He reminded Ray a little bit of Mort: same hum, same creepiness. "Hi!" the man called out, and that at least wasn't like Mort; that was a Chicago voice all the way. "Want a ride?"

"Don't know yet," Ray called back. "Where're you going?"

"Anywhere you like!" the man called back, "long as it's in city limits."

The boat's stern bobbed up enough Ray could read it. CHARON, the boat said.

"Have you seen Fraser?" Ray asked. "Mountie. Uh. About my height, dark hair --" but the old guy was shaking his head, so Ray shut up.

"You want information, pal, you gotta give me a penny. It's the rules."

"Oh," said Ray, and dug around in his pockets. He only had laundry quarters, so he flipped one of those the few feet to the Charon. The old guy caught the quarter deftly, examined it, and said, "Yeah, I saw him. Ferried him to the far shore."

"Take me where you took him, then," Ray told the guy.

"Rules," the guy said, holding out his hand again.

Ray sighed and tossed him another quarter -- that was a load of socks and underwear right there -- and jumped from the bank into the boat. It rocked a little, puttering idly. Then the old guy pulled on the throttle and it took off up the river, rising and falling in gentle rhythm. Ray held on hard to its white side and watched the Sears Tower go sliding off behind him. They passed under the Adams St bridge and kept on. Ray started counting bridges. Munroe, one. Madison, two. Randolph, four. Ray blinked a couple of times. "Hey, you missed one."

The boatman chuckled. "I'm only taking you on his route. Don't like it? Complain to him."

"Huh," Ray said, and then they passed under the train cage of the Lake St bridge, rounded the curve in the river, and were out on a lake. Ray stared around, at the pine trees shivering on a distant shore and the silver of fish flashing by under the boat. Even the water was the wrong color. "This is not," Ray said decidedly, "Lake Michigan."

"Don't like it?" the old guy said. "C --"

"Complain to him, I got it," Ray said, but he did like it. The air was -- nice, water-washed. It smelled like trees. He took a couple of deep breaths and watched the dark trees rise as the boatman pulled them in towards the shore. Ray felt a little funny about it. He'd thought maybe all of it was going to be snowy, but everything here was green. "You sure this is the place?"

"Yeah," the boatman said. He glanced back at Ray, and he didn't look like Mort at all anymore. He just looked like an old guy worn out from too many tours of the river. He looked a little like Ray's dad. "Listen," he said, "you get off here, getting back's a lot harder."

"I figured," Ray said. He stared at the dock coming up to meet them, and knew with instinctual clarity that if he asked the boatman to turn back, he'd get dropped off outside some door, and on the other side he'd be back in the Canadian Consulate. He could get in the GTO, get Fraser, drive him to a hospital. And there'd be nothing. Empty Mountie. Getting back's a lot harder. "This is my stop," Ray said.

"Got it," the old guy said, pulling the Charon around to a purr, idling in the water. "Hey," he added as Ray hopped off onto the shore. Ray took a moment to get his balance on the half-rotted wood of the dock, then turned. The boatman gave him a long look and said, "Here's some free advice: watch out for the wildlife. Don't go towards the light. Honesty is the best policy."

"What, are you a fortune cookie all of a sudden?" Ray asked.

The old guy grinned, making him look less like Ray's dad, maybe more like Mort again. "They don't want cops here," he said. "They want poets," and his boat roared to life, chugging out again into the lake and making waves slosh up hollowly under the dock.

"Huh," said Ray, turning, and started walking again.

Like the snowy woods, there was no path here, just random patches of plant life and clear space. Ray headed off to the left, keeping up against the shore, because it seemed like the thing to do. He wondered how long he'd been here, but of course his watch had stopped working, or there was no time at all, because the hands were frozen at a little after ten. If there was wildlife, it was staying out of Ray's way, which was fine by him. He listened to the faint splash of water on the lakeshore, the crunching of his own feet, a wind hissing softly through the trees.

He walked on like that for a while -- minutes, hours -- watching for a flash of red even though he didn't think Fraser had brought the serge with him. Then he became aware of a sound outside himself, different than the wind and water: a sort of snuffling. It sounded a lot like Dief did when he was contentedly chilling on Ray's beat-up old armchair while they all watched some hockey. Watch out for the wildlife, the boatman had said, and Ray was all over that, but something that sounded like Diefenbaker couldn't be that bad --

He stepped into a clearing and stopped, because, right, Dief was half wolf, and this thing ... was definitely not doing anything by halves. A huge black wolf, lots bigger than Ray thought wolves had any right to be, was lying indolently across the path. It raised its head and fixed Ray with a look, and its eyes ... its eyes were a lot like Dief's, smart and looking for the next meal, but basically okay.

"Hi," Ray said.

The wolf snarled one of those low rumbling snarls Diefenbaker made when cornering a perp. Okay. How did he calm Dief down?

Doughnuts.

Ray suddenly remembered absently shoving the bag of powdered sugar doughnuts into his pants back at the apartment. He fumbled in his pocket and came up with the crumpled bag. The wolf lifted its head a bit more and looked really interested. Ray opened the bag; the doughnuts were a little squished, but basically edible. "Here's the deal," he told the wolf. "I give you a doughnut, you let me keep going."

The wolf gave a little snort that sounded a lot like Dief agreeing, so Ray said, "Okay, cool," and gently tossed a doughnut in its general direction. It lunged up, huge, and caught the doughnut midair. Settling back on its haunches, it gave Ray a smug look. Not one to waste an opportunity, Ray gave it a little salute, stuffed the paper bag back into his pocket, and hurried on.

He was starting to remember a few things from tenth grade English. Most of what he remembered from tenth grade English was that Stella liked to sit at the front of the class, with her hair all long and golden, and that Ray liked to sit in the back even though that meant he couldn't see the blackboard because no way was he wearing his nerd glasses to school, and that he went through about a pack of mint gum every class because it was the last one of the day and after that he could usually convince Stella to hang out a few minutes by the back fence and kiss him before she went off to do her homework. But all of that seemed hazy with distance, or maybe like it had happened to other people on TV, and now, tramping through a lakeshore forest outside the material world, Ray was remembering other things. Like Charon the ferrier of the dead. Like the three-headed dog that was only soothed by music -- or doughnuts, Ray figured. And he'd only seen one head. But he was getting the picture. He tried to figure out what might be coming next.

Problem was, he'd been paying a lot more attention to Stella than to any of the Greek stuff, so trying real hard to sift back through twenty-three years of irrelevant memories, he came up with a guy who pushed a boulder, something about a pomegranate, and how the music thing was probably important for other stuff besides the dog. On the other hand, it was probably irrelevant. The dog liked doughnuts and Ray hadn't sung a note.

The path opened up into a clearing ahead of him, full of green-brown grass and small white flowers. Ray shivered a little and started tramping across. About halfway through he noticed that maybe the shiver hadn't just been from déjà vu; it was getting colder. He could see his breath. And the meadow was a lot bigger than he'd thought. Snowflakes began swirling down around him. Ray thought about it and then zipped up his jacket. The grass gave way to building snow, and when Ray glanced back, the cold hollows of his footprints were being filled in fast.

"Okay," Ray muttered, although it really wasn't.

The ground started going uphill again, and just before Ray decided to start panicking about how maybe he was stuck in some sort of freakish loop and in a second he was gonna turn up on the edge of the Chicago River, he almost bumped right into a door. He caught himself in time and stumbled back, blinking. Wooden door. Wooden house, bigger than Bob Fraser's cabin. "Okay," Ray said again, and raised a fist to knock, but a particularly violent gust of snowy wind behind him blew the door open.

He went on in.

{Part Two}