IF IT DOESN'T, IT NEVER WAS
Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer



The sign read "Braniff -- 10 miles" when we turned off the highway onto a two-way road. After driving since 3 AM, I was pretty wiped, but Caine said we were almost to his destination, so I didn't feel like stopping now. During the last two weeks, I had driven all the way across the country, after picking him up back on Cape Cod, but I still didn't know exactly where we were going. I had asked him a couple of times, but I don't think he was sure either, except that he was headed to California. Wherever this nebulous destination was, I thought wearily, it had better be worth it!

I glanced sideways at my strange travelling companion. If I hadn't run into him when I did, I'd have been dead by now. As it was, instead of jumping off a bridge as I had first intended, I had lived through a couple of adventures that had made me feel that life might still hold interesting possibilities for a middle-aged, no longer beautiful, and damn near poverty-stricken gay man. But those adventures were coming to an end now. Caine would be going his own way pretty soon, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

No, that's a lie. I was all too sure how I felt about that: I didn't like it one bit.

"Jeremy, park the car over there," Caine said suddenly, pointing at a flat stretch of ground beside the road.

"But we're out in the middle of nowhere," I protested, even as I pulled over. The sun would be setting pretty soon, and all I saw was a lake not far from the road, with some hills in the near distance.

"One must -- walk from here." Getting out of my car, he flipped the seat forward and gathered up his things from the back. I didn't like the looks of that.

I got out also, stretching the kinks out of stiff muscles as I watched him drape the strap of the leather tube that held his flute over one shoulder.

"Uh -- is this the end of the line, or can I come with you?" I asked.

He glanced at me, then looked off across the lake as if he might find the answer there. "You -- may come," he decided at last. "You will need your blanket."

I released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Why? We're camping out again?"

"Yes."

So much for getting a good night's rest. Oh well, I was probably tired enough to sleep on the ground anyway. Last time we'd slept outside had been in Wyoming and we'd been wakened half way through the night by some women with guns, just before their barn burned down. Wherever we slept tonight, it had to be better than that.

Didn't it?

I followed Caine along the edge of the lake. The sun had almost set when he stopped and pointed up at a fairly high cliff looming above the water.

"That -- was my Temple," he said softly. And yes, the way he said it, the word began with a capital "T".

I adjusted my bifocals on my nose, squinting in the gathering dusk to make out what he was pointing at. He had told me about the Temple, way back while we were at Niagara Falls, so I knew what had happened here. What I didn't know was what we were doing here.

"Is this where you've been headed all this time?" I asked.

"No. There is -- somewhere else I must go after this."

"Where?"

"I -- do not know -- yet." He put his hand on my shoulder. "But when I leave here, I must go alone."

There was nothing I could say to that. Ignoring the sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, I shrugged off his hand.

"We're going up there, right? So let's get this show on the road. It's getting darker by the minute."

There had obviously been a path once, but it was pretty well overgrown. I tripped on every tree root and walked into every low-hanging branch between us and the Temple, while Caine glided ahead of me like a silent ghost. Damn! He was at least five inches taller and probably sixty pounds heavier than I was, yet I was the one who sounded like an elephant trampling through the brush. It made me pretty mad.

No. It was the idea that he was about to desert me that made me mad, but I didn't want to admit to that. Of course, there was no reason he shouldn't leave. Just because you save someone's life, it doesn't mean you have to stay with them forever. Part of me knew that.

But another part didn't want to hear about it.

After stumbling through the darkness for what seemed like half the night but was probably more like half an hour, I emerged from the trees and bushes and almost fell full length onto a flight of stone steps which were still mostly intact, although the building beyond was a mass of crumbled stone and blackened wood.

Caine grabbed me before I hit the steps and set me back onto my feet.

"We are -- here," he announced unnecessarily.

This whole set-up was making me uneasy. I didn't like the looks of the pall of shadows hanging over the Temple ruins, despite the almost full moon that shone through the treetops.

"Fine," I replied. "Now what?"

"We will go inside and find a place to sleep," he said matter-of-factly, starting up the steps.

"In there?"

He stopped, turning around to face me.

"Yes."

"Seems kind of creepy to me."

He gave me a look that clearly implied, "Creepy? My Temple? You must be mistaken," but all he said aloud was, "I can take you back to your car, if you wish."

I knew when I was licked. "Nah. Go on. I'm right behind you."

We found a corner that was still relatively intact and cleared away the debris. Caine scrounged up a couple of half-burned candles and lit them, giving us a yellow pool of brightness in the gloom. I had just about decided this might not be such a bad place after all, when I realized I had to go to the bathroom before I could even begin to fall asleep.

Bathroom? No, not much chance of finding one of those. That left the woods outside. Oh, well.

"Uh -- Caine?" I said. "I'm gonna go take a leak. If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, come and find me, okay?"

He nodded solemnly.

I retraced my steps back to the great outdoors. The moon was higher now, or maybe I just had a clearer idea of the layout. At any rate, I didn't trip over anything as I paced off a respectful distance from the building and then pissed against a friendly-looking tree.

All of a sudden, this odd memory flashed across my mind. I was at a urinal in a restroom in Provincetown, at the tip end of Cape Cod. I had spent a long and fruitless night at the gay bar, trying to forget that Bobbie had left me and wasn't coming back. I was considerably more than half-soused. It took me a few tries before I could successfully unzip my fly and get down to the business at hand. My bleary eyes stared absently at the graffiti on the tile wall as I pissed, hopefully in the proper direction. I read the uneven letters, scrawled in what looked like scarlet red lipstick: IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING, LET IT GO. IF IT RETURNS, IT'S YOURS. IF IT DOESN'T, IT NEVER WAS.

I've read that saying many times since, on everything from buttons to greeting cards, but never with the same impact it had that first time, gashed like a bleeding wound across the wall of the men's room. I had broken down and cried then, and I felt tears stinging the back of my nose even now, as I stumbled up the steps and into the brooding darkness of Caine's Temple.

When I got back, I found him sitting cross-legged in front of one of the candles, his eyes closed and this incredibly peaceful look on his face. As quietly as I could, I wrapped myself in my blanket and curled up in the corner, leaving Caine and the candles to stand guard between me and the ominous blackness.

Exhausted as I was, I couldn't seem to fall asleep. I counted sheep, tried a relaxation technique I knew, counted more sheep, squirmed around in an effort to find a soft spot on the stone floor; all to no avail. Nothing I did silenced the awful whisper in my head that just kept repeating, over and over again, "He's leaving you."

Frustrated, I glanced surreptitiously at my wristwatch, then over at Caine. More than an hour had passed, during which time he seemed not to have moved at all, although the candle before him was rapidly burning down. From where I lay, I could see him almost in profile, his face lit eerily from below by the guttering candle.

My eyes just barely slitted open, I stared at him as I tried to sort out my tangled thoughts.

Why was I letting this dude get to me so badly?

I shouldn't even have begun to find him attractive. In the first place, he was too old. And, despite all the impressive stuff I'd seen him do, he was certainly no Arnold Schwarzenegger. His clothes were shabby and rather nondescript. He didn't even have an exotic half-Chinese look, despite his ancestry. In a gay bar, he wouldn't have rated a second look.

And yet the more I tried to convince myself that it wasn't so, the more I knew that -- yes -- I wanted him. There was a grace to everything he did. Hell, sometimes I enjoyed just watching the man move.

This was totally stupid. One of the first things you learn if you're gay is to stay away from straight folks. It never leads to anything good.

But did I really want to have sex with Caine? I'd be less than honest if I didn't say the answer was yes, of course I did. Did I think I ever would? Nah. He was straight, and thus not available to me. End of discussion.

But the fact that I wanted him wasn't the most important thing. I've had the hots for many people in my life. That happens. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. Sex you can find on any street corner, if that's all you want.

Okay, then. Apart from all that, did I love him? No, not really. Not if you mean the "let's move in together and live happily ever after" sort of thing. That wasn't what I had in mind either.

So just how did I feel about Kwai Chang Caine? What exactly was it I wanted from him?

A father figure? Shit, Jeremy, you're pushing fifty; aren't you a little old to need a father? Besides, he's too young for that job. Older brother, perhaps, but that's about it.

No, I think I just wanted someone to show me it was possible to be good and decent and honorable, and not think myself a naive fool for being so.

It occurred to me then that it was very simple: I wanted him to teach me how to be like him.

Was that too much to ask? Yeah, well, maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't something one person could teach another. Maybe it wasn't even something one person should teach another.

Be that as it may, in that instant I knew I would have stepped off the edge of the earth with him, simply in order to follow him and learn from him.

But something else followed behind in the wake of this sense of overwhelming respect, something not nearly so nice and not nearly so easy to look at: he didn't want me around anymore, and I purely hated him for that.

He would leave me, as all the others had done. As Bobbie Ling had left me: alone and hurting, as if someone had amputated part of my soul.

Even as I continued to glare at Caine, I could see Bobbie's face in my mind. That had been quite a few years ago, but it seemed like only yesterday. No one else had ever quite been able to take his place -- and there had been a lot of others since then, believe me!

Bobbie was almost ten years my junior, and was quite simply the most gorgeous young man I had ever seen in my life. As you may have guessed from the name, Bobbie was Chinese. He had hair to his shoulders in those days, long, straight, and pitch black. I loved the feel of it. And eyes -- eyes that a man could drown in without hardly trying. To a thirty-something fairy, he was the youth I was rapidly losing, and the striking beauty I had never had even in my younger days. He was everything I had ever wanted in a lover, and more. Heads turned to follow us when we walked down the streets of Provincetown together, and I'm sure more than one person wondered what I had done to deserve such a beautiful boy.

Trouble was, I wondered myself. I never believed Bobbie could love me, and I made him crazy with my doubts and suspicions. I tried to hold him so close that I ended up driving him away. And knew, even as I did it, that it was wrong.

I sighed and turned over on the hard, cold stone of the floor. Somewhere in my head, I heard Caine's voice whisper the words he had told an unhappy and confused young woman back in Wyoming: "Love -- does not seek to possess and hold something -- against its will."

Shut the hell up, I thought angrily to the voice in my head.

Almost as if on cue, Caine opened his eyes. Without turning to look at me, he said softly, "Jeremy, you are -- not asleep. Something -- is wrong?"

I really didn't want him to know what had been going through my mind, since I wasn't particularly proud of the substance of my recent thoughts. Pushing myself up on one elbow, I said casually, "No. Guess I must be overtired."

"I can help you relax, if you wish."

Yeah, I told myself ruefully. You'll rub my neck, like you did last time you put me to sleep. Only this time I'll start to cry. Or maybe scream.

Sitting up quickly, I propped myself against the wall at my back. "I don't have to sleep," I said bitterly. "After all, I'm finished driving you around. I won't fall asleep at the wheel tomorrow and get us both killed."

"That -- was not my concern."

"Yeah, well, I guess I'm not your concern anymore either, am I?"

No, that wasn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to say thank you for all you've done. I wanted to say I'll miss having you around. I wanted to say when you're gone, there will be an empty place in my life where you should be. But I didn't say any of that, because if I did it would have turned into the same kind of begging, pleading, hysterical scene I'd been through with Bobbie once too often. And the end result would have been the same. Love hurts too much. It's easier to hate that which you know you cannot have. So I resolved to do just that. The hell with him.

Pulling my blanket tighter around my shoulders, I rested my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. "Just go to sleep and leave me alone, huh?"

"Jeremy?" he said in that peculiar way he had of pronouncing each syllable of my name as if it were separate and distinct.

I ignored him.

That didn't work. He came over and sat beside me.

"You are -- angry."

I laughed. "Oh, you noticed?"

"I -- could not help but notice. What is troubling you?"

"You're the one who reads minds. Suppose you tell me."

"I do not -- read minds. If you wish me to know, you must tell me."

"Maybe I don't wish you to know."

He sighed, as he often does. "If that were so, you would not be sitting here glaring at me."

Aw, shit! I got up and walked away from him. The blanket still hung from my shoulders and I remember realizing that I'd better be careful of the candles on the floor or I'd likely catch fire.

I turned on him and said scathingly, "You've been wandering from place to place for fifteen years, and even now you aren't sure where you're going, but you know you've got to go there alone. Tell me, in your entire life, have you ever stuck with anything or have you just walked out?"

I didn't give him a chance to answer before I continued with my tirade. I figured if I kept him on the defensive, maybe he wouldn't notice how badly I was hurting. Shit, maybe I wouldn't notice either. "Look at this place! From what you've told me, it must have been something really wonderful. Yet you let it be destroyed."

"I did not -- let -- it be destroyed," he objected.

"Oh yes you did! You walked away and left it, without even trying to build it up again. There must have been other survivors. Surely you could have gone on. But when you left, was there anyone else qualified to pull it all together again? Did you even wonder? Did you even care? Or did you only care that your son was dead and none of the rest of it really mattered?"

I was becoming quite eloquent now. I knew I could get to him like this. I'd done it before, at Niagara Falls, hadn't I? Like all the rest of us, Caine had buttons that could be pushed. Only thing was, with him you had to push them awfully hard before you got a reaction.

"Nothing matters to you, does it? You can just walk away and leave it all behind. Well, what about the people you leave behind?" No. Not the direction I wanted to go. Think of something else to say. "And what about the places like this, that have fallen into ruin because people gave up on them? Or did you ever really give a good goddamn about any of this?"

I should have shut up when I saw his eyes narrow, but I didn't have the sense to do that. Instead, I made a sweeping gesture with my hand and went on grandly, "Was your precious Temple nothing but a game to you? Or a cheap way to gain power and glory?"

I knew full well I wasn't being fair. In fact, I was being an absolute turd. But I didn't know what I was calling into existence until it struck.

I can't tell you exactly what he did then because it happened too fast. The next thing I knew, I was bent over backwards across a pile of charred wreckage, the blunt edge of a wooden beam damn near breaking my spine and Caine's hands closing around my throat.

I grabbed his wrists and struggled to suck in a few more molecules of oxygen. It took me all of two seconds to realize I wasn't going to be able to pry his fingers loose, but I tried anyway.

The look on his face was almost as terrifying as the fact that I couldn't breathe. Gone was the peaceful calm I had grown so accustomed to seeing. It had been replaced by an insane ferocity, compounded of utter fury mixed with despair. I hope I never see that look on anyone else's face again for the rest of my life.

In the next instant, Caine abruptly disappeared from my sight, consumed in flames and the acrid smell of smoke. The Temple was burning around me. Gunfire came in staccato bursts, as monks in black and orange robes fell before the onslaught of the invaders. I felt the ground beneath my feet rock with the force of a distant explosion. Blood ran from twisted bodies crushed beneath heavy blocks of stone. Screams and moans of pain added a human dimension to the awful noise. The children -- my child, my Peter! -- somewhere in this blazing hell, while I am powerless to save them.

And I knew who had done this and knew I had just let him run away. And an inferno of rage consumed my soul, as I watched the destruction that had been wrought.

Some part of me knew I was seeing all this as Caine had seen it. And I knew I was watching everything, absolutely everything, this man had ever loved destroyed before his eyes: his son, his Temple, his entire life. Could there possibly not have been such rage in his heart?

Then the images and feelings were gone and I was staring
into the insanity in the eyes of my erstwhile friend and mentor.

Do not wake the tiger unless you wish to be eaten. Jeremy, you stupid fool!

But at the same moment that I gave myself up for dead, I realized something else. Caine wasn't choking me, he was choking that other man, the one who had been responsible for destroying the Temple. Although I didn't know who he was, I knew he would have struggled and fought to the end, even as I was doing automatically, and futilely.

My lungs cried out for the air I couldn't get past my throat, and blood pounded in my ears, but I fought down my panic and stopped trying to pull loose. With one hand, I reached up and touched his face.

That worked, where my desperate attempts to get free hadn't. With a wordless cry of anguish, he released me as if I had suddenly turned to flame in his grasp.

I sucked in a couple of breaths of air, not daring to move from the pile of wreckage I was lying across. Caine looked so totally aghast at what he had done that for a moment I almost thought he was going to smash his fist into one of the walls. But he didn't. Instead, he held out a hand to pull me up.

Although I could still feel his fingers crushing my throat, I took the outstretched hand without a moment of hesitation.

"Jeremy, I am sorry," he said wretchedly, as he helped me get to my feet. "I am -- more -- than sorry. I --"

I shook my head and held up a hand to cut him off, as I coughed and tried to clear my bruised throat. I wasn't sure I trusted my voice just yet.

Now he was really worried. "Are you -- all right?"

I nodded and tried to say, "Yeah." It came out nearly normal, so I went on. "I'll live. Don't worry."

He didn't say it, but I could see from the look on his face that he was thinking he'd almost killed me.

"No," I said. "If you'd really wanted to take my life, you'd have done it instantly, not in such a way that you had time to change your mind."

"I did not think -- such feelings still lived in my heart. Nor did I think they could be awakened by nothing more than -- words."

"You'd be surprised what words can do," I answered. "Besides, I think I got a glimpse of where your anger comes from, and I can't say I blame you."

"I -- blame me."

"Well, don't! I've got a big mouth and I opened it once too often, that's all."

"You were -- angry at me. You still are."

"No. I'm not angry at you. I'm furious at you! But not because you tried to strangle me. Hell, you saved my life back at Niagara Falls, so I guess that gives you a right to take it, if you want to. I'm mad because you don't want me around anymore."

He looked at me without flinching. "You -- must find your own path now, Jeremy. You do not -- need me any longer."

So maybe I didn't need him, but I sure as hell wanted him. But I couldn't say that. I forced my lips into a smile. "Hey, look, don't worry about it, okay? I'm not mad anymore."

I guess my words came out as false as my smile, because he didn't buy them for a minute.

"Jeremy, feelings must not be denied. They must be acknowledged and accepted. Only then can they be controlled."

Damn! The man had just tried to strangle me, and now he was preaching to me. I couldn't let that get past without a snotty retort. "Yeah? The way you can control your anger?"

He just shrugged. "Although I know this, it is not always an easy thing to do. There is much here --" he gestured at the shadowed ruins, where moonlight fell in patches through the fallen roof, adding to the light of the flickering candles -- "that reminds me of what took place."

"So why'd you come, if you couldn't handle being reminded?"

That threw him a little. He hesitated more than usual over the answer. "I -- did not think that I could not -- handle it."

I'm not sure how to describe what happened then. It began with a noise almost too faint to hear and a prickling sensation of strangeness in the air, almost like static electricity. As the noise grew louder, this scary sensation ran up my spine, as if someone had almost but not quite touched me.

"Uh -- Caine? What's going on?"

"I -- do not know." His voice was just as calm and quiet as ever, but he grabbed me and pulled me closer to him, as if some danger threatened us.

The noise increased to a level that hurt my ears. At times it sounded like the thunder of Niagara Falls, but magnified to an unbearable point, as if you were directly under the cascading water. And then it sounded more like the crash and tumble of stone blocks and heavy wooden beams. Or maybe the roar of flames. Or maybe the intermingled cries of the tormented souls in hell.

I held my ears and squinched my eyes shut, as if that would keep it all out. But the noise went on unabated, ringing through my head until I thought I would go insane.

And then it stopped. I opened my eyes to sudden silence and beheld the most appalling and amazing thing I had ever seen in my life.

My first thought was that, somehow or other, we had managed to call up a Chinese demon. Now, I've never seen a Chinese demon before, but that was the only thing this apparition could possibly be. It was huge, at least three times the height of a person. Its body was dark purple and its head scarlet red. In one hand it held a double-bladed axe and in the other a trident. The face was one of those awful gargoyle-masks you've probably seen on oriental statues, while human skulls hung in a chain around its neck.

While the thing looked like something out of one of Caine's worst nightmares, it didn't seem particularly fond of Westerners either, judging by the way it took a swipe in my direction with the trident. Fortunately, it was even clumsier than I am. It missed by a mile.

My first response was that I had finally flipped out and was seeing things. However, it was quite apparent that Caine saw it too, so I discarded that possibility pretty quickly. Then I figured it wasn't real, but when it swung the axe at Caine and I saw him take evasive action, I was forced to reconsider that notion as well.

The monster took a step towards us. The hideously-grinning mouth opened and mocking laughter rang in our ears as we backed away. The oversized axe swung in our direction again, but didn't really come close. I had the feeling the demon was playing with us, as a cat will play with its intended prey.

"Puny mortals!" it roared. "Do you think to escape me? That is impossible!"

More laughter, and a jab of the trident. It came closer this time. I had to scramble to get out of the way, while Caine tried his best to defend us against the advancing juggernaut. But it didn't seem to matter what he did. If he kicked the creature, it simply didn't react. It wasn't as if his foot went through it or anything. He connected, but it didn't make any difference to the demon that it had been kicked. And the thing was so much larger, Caine could hardly attempt to throw it or push it aside. After all, how far would you get trying to trip an elephant?

By the time we had retreated to the point where my back hit the wall, Caine looked distinctly rattled. He was out of breath, frustrated, and probably starting to get seriously worried about our situation. As the demon swung his trident at us in a sweeping arc, I saw Caine do something I'd never seen him do before: he stumbled over a chunk of wood as he tried to get out of the way. The trident hit him sideways across his back and flung him face first against the wall not far from me. The demon was definitely toying with us, since it could just as easily have impaled Caine on that trident as hit him with it.

Even as I sidled over towards my fallen friend, I realized we were now literally cornered, as the demon had backed us into the intersection of two walls.

I helped Caine to his feet. Fortunately, he had taken the brunt of the impact on his hands, rather than striking his head against the wall, but he still winced as he straightened up.

"Jeremy, -- we are -- in trouble," he said, trying to catch his breath and swaying slightly as he stood next to me, one arm braced around my shoulders. "I cannot -- fight -- this creature."

I started to tell him I'd already come to that conclusion when the demon interrupted us with its mocking voice.

"Have you not recognized me yet, Kwai Chang Caine? Or you, Jeremy Joseph Langsten? You see, foolish mortals? I know you, even if you do not know me."

Caine looked up at the demon towering above us, frowning in puzzlement.

"Why -- do you attack us?" he asked. "What are you?"

"I am the spirit of this Temple, where men were taught violence and the ways of destruction," the creature proclaimed haughtily.

Caine stiffened and closed his eyes briefly, as if the demon's words had struck him a physical blow. Then he stepped away from me, took a deep breath, and made some kind of an odd circular gesture with his hands. I saw his face go calm as he answered, "No. You are not the spirit of this Temple, but you may be its shadow. And the brighter the light, the deeper the shadow. The two are always connected. The light includes the shadow, but the shadow cannot stand alone. This was a place of light and truth. You may not claim it for your own."

"Yet it is mine," the demon retorted. "Look around you." One huge hand swept the charred remains. "Do you see anything here but darkness and destruction?"

"Yes," Caine said firmly. "I -- do. And what I see can never be destroyed."

Suddenly the darkness was gone, and the ruins were ruins no more. I stood in a large and open room, surrounded by racks of blazing candles. Incense drifted through the air, mingled with the scent of flowers and summer air from outside. A group of boys stood watching silently as one of the older masters demonstrated a form, kicking, whirling, making intricate and graceful hand movements.

The scene before me shifted and slid away, out of focus. When it cleared, we were somewhere else in the Temple, where an elderly monk sat alone in his room, meditating. Then again, at an altar filled to overflowing with flowers, fruit, and candles, a young man lit a stick of incense and stuck it in a pot, bowing as he stepped back. In the garden, a group of monks walked slowly together, deep in discussion. And throughout the whole thing, there was this overwhelming sense of peace and love. But it wasn't just a goodie-goodie kind of feeling. This peace was earned through fierce struggle. And the love was built up a fraction at a time, day by day, with conscious intent.

There was a kind of holiness here that I had never felt before. My first impulse was to fall to my knees in awe and wonder. But where are the words to describe such a thing? If you've never felt it in your heart, my words will not be sufficient to show it to you. And if you have felt it, you have no need of my description.

My heart overflowed and my eyes filled with tears. I blinked -- and found myself no longer in that light but once again in the moonlight and shadow of the destroyed Temple, kneeling on blackened stone with a monster glowering down above me.

I glanced over at Kwai Chang Caine with eyes still half-blinded by what I had seen. He stood looking down at the ground a short ways in front of his feet, his legs spread slightly and his hands at his sides.

" 'And you will wander in samsara with all your projections turned into demons,' " he said softly, almost as if he were talking to himself. It sounded as if he were quoting from something, but I didn't recognize what it was.

Raising his head, he fixed his eyes on the demon's grinning visage. "You are -- not real. You are given form by our thoughts and our deluded passions. You cannot exist by yourself."

The thing laughed at us again.

"Fool! I am rage and aggression. I am passion and possession. And I am as real as are these feelings in the hearts of all humankind."

"That real, yes," was the quiet response. "But only that real. No more so. I have created you by carrying my own hatred into this holy place. And what I have created, only I can destroy."

He took a step toward the demon, placing himself in front of me and gazing intently up into those empty eyes.

The thing howled in triumph and raised the huge axe. Caine just stood there, to all intents and purposes entirely at ease.

A very bad feeling grated across my nerves. That demon seemed altogether too happy about the present state of affairs. Whatever Caine was doing, it wasn't going to work. He seemed to think he had called the creature into existence with the uncontrolled anger he had shown earlier, but he was forgetting something. The demon had also said it was passion and possession -- and somehow I didn't think it had been referring to Caine's feelings for me.

I looked at the grinning gargoyle and shivered. Could some part of that monstrosity be mine?

No, I couldn't face that idea. I'm not like that. I'm good. I'm nice. I don't go around stomping on people. Not me. Not Jeremy Joe Langsten. Oh no. Please. Not me.

The demon hesitated, axe flung back and ready to strike, while Caine just stood there, defenseless and all too vulnerable, thinking he had it figured out.

All right, so no problem. He wanted to be a hero. Let him. Maybe the demon would be satisfied with his death, or his soul, or whatever the hell it wanted. Maybe it would leave me alone.

I reminded myself how angry I was at Kwai Chang Caine for being so ready to desert me. Well, maybe I should just desert him. Who cared, anyway?

Torn, I stood staring at Caine as the seconds seeped by. He was directly in front of me, so close I could have reached out and touched him, and yet he seemed a thousand miles away.

I tried desperately to force the proper filters to fall into place in my mind, so I could look at him and see him for what he was: not some kind of savior or superman, but just another human being, whose death wouldn't count for much in the grand scheme of things.

So just what was he then? To the rest of the world, a bum without a penny to his name. A homeless vagrant. A drifter. One of the thousands of unwanted and superfluous people in our society. That was all.

I tried hard, I really did, to build up that picture in my mind. But then it crashed and collapsed against a reality more truly real than any I had ever known.

Merciful heaven, are we so blind that we place great value on power, but not on honor and integrity? On money, but not on kindness and compassion? On youth and beauty, but not on wisdom and insight?

Are we so blind? Or rather, am I so blind? For what else had I been doing when I had first met him, but judging as the world judges? Me? Who had flown in the face of society by being gay? Had I still bought all the rest of it?

Yeah, I had. But Caine had shown me otherwise, during the brief time I had spent with him. This one man, simply by being what he was, had undermined my faith in what society calls truth and let me see what truly mattered.

To that man, I owed far more than my life: I owed him my soul. And how had I repaid him, except with anger and jealousy?

All right. Pay back time.

Trying my best not to flinch, I forced my eyes to meet the demon's. It had raised the trident in its other hand now. That looked distinctly unpromising. Nevertheless, I told it as calmly as I could, "Kwai Chang Caine's not mine. He never was. Neither was Bobbie Ling. No person ever truly belongs to another. Part of you --" I almost choked on the words, but somehow I managed to get them out, although I doubt it was in more than a whisper -- "is me. If I have to pay for that, I will. But what I have tried to possess, I now release. Caine is free to go. Only don't hurt him."

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked forward into the creature's reach, not at all sure what would happen next. If I died right here, right now, in this place, that would be okay. I wasn't seeking death anymore, but if it came, I would be satisfied. For I had touched the light, and I knew it existed, beyond even the darkest shadows of any doubts.

It seemed an eternity passed while I waited to be struck down or carried off or whatever it is that Chinese demons do to their victims. When something touched my arm, I almost jumped out of my skin, but when I opened my eyes, I found it was only Caine. The monster was gone.

"Uh -- what happened?" I asked, feeling the riot of butterflies in my stomach beginning to settle. "Where'd it go?"

He shrugged. "Back -- where it came from."

No. I didn't even want to ask where that might be. If Caine knew, he was welcome to keep that knowledge to himself.

"We did it then? We defeated the monster?"

"Yes," he said, sounding rather more sad and weary than usual. "As much as one may ever -- truly defeat a demon."

And then I knew where the demon had gone. If I could have cut that part of me out and sacrificed it on an altar somewhere, I would have done so. But things don't work that way. I actually retched at the thought, as if I might be able to free myself by physically vomiting up that evil. It was fortunate that I hadn't had anything to eat for quite some time, or I probably would have thrown up. As it was, I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gagging convulsively.

Caine had one arm around me and was rubbing the back of my neck with his other hand. Okay, he wasn't all that upset and he'd had to claim a big chunk of that monstrosity as his own. It could be handled. I kept telling myself that until my stomach decided to stop turning inside out.

"I'm all right," I finally gasped. "It was just a shock, that's all."

"Yes. It is -- sometimes not pleasant to conquer demons."

I had nothing to say to that. I sank back into a sitting position, his hand still massaging the base of my skull. How much had he heard, and understood, of what I had said to the demon? Surely, he'd been fighting his own internal battle and couldn't have had much attention to spare for me. Or so I hoped.

"Jeremy, I would -- not have survived, if you hadn't realized what I did not."

So much for hoping he hadn't heard. But maybe the full import of my words hadn't gotten through to him.

"Good," I said cheerfully, reaching around and swatting his hand off my neck as I stood up.

"Good?" he repeated, with the closest thing to confusion I had ever seen on his face.

I strode over and picked up the blanket I had dropped earlier, wrapping it around my shoulders. "Yeah. That means we're even. I don't owe you one anymore."

"You never -- owed -- me one."

"Sure I did. You saved my life at Niagara Falls, remember?"

"Lives -- cannot be owed."

Oh, no? But I didn't feel like arguing the point.

"So what do we do now? Stay here for the night, or leave?"

He looked at the empty place where the demon had stood. "We -- stay," he decided with a slight smile, picking another candle out of the ruins and lighting it from one of our earlier ones. The moonlight fell in gilded patterns across the rubble-strewn floor, while shadows danced crazily on what was left of the walls.

I sighed as I sat down in the corner. "That's what I was afraid you'd say."

He dug out yet another candle, this one almost whole, and added it to our growing circle of light, continuing until there were at least a dozen flames throwing a golden glow across the silver moonlight. Then he came over and squatted down next to me, placing one hand on my shoulder.

"I would like to go to visit the graves of my -- wife and son, outside on the Temple grounds."

"What, now?"

"Yes."

Somehow I knew what he was asking by telling me this.

"And you don't really want me to go with you, do you?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't think so. Go on. I'll be fine right here."

"You -- are not afraid?"

"Nah. What's to be afraid of?"

He nodded. "I -- will be back." Giving my shoulder a slight squeeze, he stood up and walked casually off through the shadows, leaving me alone in the haunted Temple.

Yes, I still felt that it was haunted. But not by ghosts. It was haunted by hopes, ideals, and dreams, now crushed and ruined and lying in the ashes. But can you ever really destroy a dream, or does it just go on living in other ways, other places, and other people?

When I fell asleep, I dreamed of candles, and incense, and stone, -- and a light that shone brighter than any shadow.

I awoke to broad daylight and Caine's hand shaking me gently.

"Jeremy," he said. "Time for us to go."

I nodded and rubbed my eyes. Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, I allowed it to mix with the empty feeling in the middle of my chest. This was it.

Caine had his stuff already gathered together in a pile. All he had to do was get it arranged across his shoulders.

I did my best to smooth my rumpled hair and clothes, then laid out my blanket and began folding it up, resigned to the inevitable. On an impulse, I plucked a half-burned candle from its place on the floor, blew it out, and tucked it away in my blanket.

We made our way back through the woods in silence. We had almost reached the road before I trusted myself to speak.

"Any idea where you'll be going from here?"

"Chinatown?" he answered, almost as if it were a suggestion.

"Chinatown. Right. But in what city?"

Caine only shrugged. "I will know, when it is -- time -- for me to know."

"I guess I just don't understand."

"There is an -- old debt that I would like to repay. Someone -- I have been seeking since I heard -- certain rumors back in Boston."

Yeah, come to think of it, he'd mentioned Boston before, when I'd first picked him up.

He shrugged helplessly. "I -- cannot tell you any more. Perhaps -- I will find nothing."

We stood next to my car now. Unlocking the trunk, I tossed my blanket inside, fighting off the tears that threatened to fill my eyes. I slammed the trunk closed, then just stood there, both hands flat on the warm metal. If I moved, I'd have to get in the car and drive away.

Then something happened that I don't know how to describe. Something flashed through my mind -- faces -- a very old man -- two young men, one oriental, one American -- a crowd of people in elaborate Chinese clothing -- and Kwai Chang Caine, dressed in orange and black robes, bowing formally.

What the hell?

"Caine?" I said, frozen in place by the kaleidoscope of strangeness. "I don't understand exactly what it is you've been looking for, but someday you're going to find it -- and more."

"Why -- do you say that?" He put his hand on my shoulder from behind and the quiet intensity in his voice shocked me abruptly back into reality.

I shook my head, trying to get rid of whatever it was that seemed to be inside my brain. There. It was gone.

I turned around to face him, still puzzled by what had happened. "Damn if I know. It was just this feeling I had."

He nodded. His hand still rested on my shoulder. I didn't know what to do now. How do you say good-bye to the one person in the world you never want to leave?

Caine solved my dilemma by pulling me into his arms and hugging me. For the space of several heartbeats, I held onto him tighter than I'd ever held anyone in my life. And then, purposefully and deliberately, I stepped back and let him go.

Getting into my car, I started the engine, put it in gear, and pulled away, ignoring the tears that ran down my cheeks and fogged my glasses. In the rearview mirror, I caught a last glimpse of him standing beside the road, wearing his jacket and hat and carrying all his worldly possessions slung across his shoulders. I smiled despite the tears. That was exactly the way he had looked when I had first encountered him back on Cape Cod.

As the car picked up speed, I recalled that saying I had read on the bathroom wall so long ago in Provincetown about letting go of something you love. It occurred to me that perhaps the saying hadn't gotten it quite right. Maybe it's yours anyway. And then again, maybe it never was, and cannot be. It all depends on just exactly what it is you're letting go of, and what it is you expect to keep.

I knew Kwai Chang Caine would be part of me forever, even if I never saw him again for as long as I lived.


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