"The wind blows hard against this mountain side, across the sea into my soul It reaches into where I cannot hide, setting my feet upon the road"

[-Kyrie, Mr. Mister]

The purr of the motorbike beneath me, the open road before me, the turmoil within me. The mountain of my faith is scoured by the torrid wind of dissonance and I can feel reality slipping from my grasp. My soul, my goddess, lends a deaf ear and will not answer me, though I know she is there. She sees.

Dimly, the fuel gauge registers in my mind, disrupting the train of my thoughts. I do not want to stop. What I would for a horse or some other steed which my magick could keep sound and fit for the road. But the motorcycle was the closest to hand... and cost me no money. Not after the owner was relieved of the burden of his illness. Just another murder-homicide in the Motor City. They will say that the abuse he suffered as a child drove him to kill his wife and child... and they will be right. I knew this from the moment I discovered him attempting to bury the grisely evidence. Someone should have helped him long ago to overcome his past.

As I watched him, it became clear that he was truly repentant for this act of rage and violence. Remorse and regret drove him in his unhinged state to give his family into a final resting place, not fear of punishment. Thus was my decision made. With these murders, the path of his life would never recover. He would never heal or know a day of joy without the torment of guilt. As he rested for a moment on the handle of his shovel, wracking sobs watering the earth he prepared, I went to him, and took up a shovel, and helped him to complete his task.

He did not question my presence. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they beg and plead and grovel, or try to barter, bribe and trade, or try to run away, or even try to take you instead. But they always know when you have come for them. Call it instinct or whatever you will, they know. When we were finished, he stood regarding me for a long moment, then spoke three words "Make it end."

I did.

The incessant red needle of the fuel gauge drives itself into my awareness again. I must stop soon.

I followed his death, walked after him into the shadows. I had done this but once before and then unknowing of what I did, but my need for answers was beyond the danger of the Agama Te. The price of his peace was to be my guide until his journey back to the Wheel ended. And I saw his soul pass further then mine had gone on my initiation, to be cleansed and purged of conscious and taken from this shadowy realm into his next life.

But as I turned to cross back into the world, to my horror I saw the murdered spirits of his wife and daughter. His path they did not tread, moving neither towards the Wheel or Nirvana. It was the wife who spoke, a "Thank you" croaked from a ruined throat before she turned aside, taking her child's hand in her own and walking further into the shadows. Frozen, I watched until they could be seen no more, my questions ramming against the inside of my skull and unanswered, battering against the bulwarks of my faith and instruction.

Vampires escape the Wheel by sacrificing their immortal souls, but mortals are not supposed to so easily slip the grasp of karma and reincarnation! It is not supposed to be possible, save by attaining Nirvana, yet there I witnessed it again, as I witnessed before the ability of these shades to reach across from death into the living.

I must know the truth. I must regain confidence in my beliefs before I loose myself in their destruction. Perhaps I can find the answers in India... but first I have a promise to fulfill in New Hampshire.

And I have to get gas.