"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." 

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

                                                                     ***

All Sirius could do was stare. Then, his temper snapped. He could almost hear the crack. Before he knew what was happening, Rhys was on the ground and he was on top of the witch, a hand around his throat.

That didn't fall in with what he knew he needed.

"Sirius," Rick warned, but he didn't move to stop the Hellhound.

"What do you mean, he's not coming?" Sirius snarled. "He needs to go, she needs to see him."

The words hurt his heart. Admitting that there might be anyone else she could need more than him hurt, but Sirius knew better than any the Soul-rending torture Hell specialized in.

And Sirius wasn't going to trust that he would be able to force Theron to heal her properly if her body was still destroyed. Didn't trust that her body would be in suitable condition conveniently when they got to her. 

The bracelet Persephone had given him—the one that kept showing up in his pocket no matter what he did to be rid if it—grew heavy and cold.

"He can't," Rhys gritted out. He didn't move as Sirius' claws pricked into the delicate, vulnerable skin of his neck.

"Sirius," Rick said again quietly.

"He has to," Sirius whispered, darkness wrapping like satin ribbons around his arms.

The witch's eyes followed the darkness, but there was no fear anywhere in him. Sirius couldn't smell the tang that came with terror. His fangs flashed, aching to bury themselves in the witch's throat.

Rhys met his gaze calmly, the silver strands of his hair bright in the darkness. "Killing me won't help anything," he said, still insultingly relaxed. "And you won't do it anyway. So, if you don't mind, would you get the fuck off of me?"

Sirius realized immediately why the witch wasn't frightened. He was a telepath. He had read the chains across Sirius' mind, read how her words prevented him from really harming any of them.

"Why can't Logan go?" Rick asked, crouching down next to them to look into the witch's face.

Rhys never moved his eyes from Sirius', even as he answered the Hunter. "Because he can't."

Sirius gently drew his finger down the side of Rhys' neck, right next to the steady thrum that marked his carotid artery. Blood wept from the shallow cut, but the witch still didn't flinch.

"You'll have to kill me," Rhys said softly, "or ask him. It's not my story to tell."

A growl rattled in Sirius' chest, but Rick put a hand on his shoulder. Fisting his fingers in the material of Sirius' shirt, the Hunter pulled him to his feet and off the witch. Sirius threw a disbelieving look at him, but Rick just shrugged.

Rhys sat up, then pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dirt and pine needles from his hair and from his dark t-shirt. He traced a finger along the shallow cut Sirius had given him, then looked at the blood staining his fingers. "You'll have to do better than that to scare me," he said with a smirk. Then it faded into a grim frown. "How long has she been down there?"

Sirius knew he meant in Hell-time. Looking away, he hissed, "Too long."

"You know how we'll have to do this." It wasn't a question. It was a test.

Sirius looked steadily at the witch, throwing a spear of thought toward him. Rhys flinched slightly as the thoughts hit him, then his eyes narrowed. His gaze flickered to Rick, then he raised an eyebrow at Sirius.

"Yup," he answered. "When was the last time you'd seen one of them?"

"Precisely never. I try to avoid gods and their pets." Rhys cast another interested look over the Hunter, who bristled, then the witch shook his dark head. Silver winked again as he moved. Sirius wondered if the silver strands were a byproduct of the witch's brush with death.

"Smart," Sirius said grudgingly. "But do you think it will work?"

"Will what work?" Rick asked, exasperation making his tone short.

"I'll let Rover have that one," Rhys said, turning and waving a lazy hand over his shoulder. 

Rick turned to Sirius, who shook his head. "It'll be easier with everyone," he said listlessly.

When he had been able to force himself to think of what they would need to do in Hell, only one possibility had presented itself to him. He knew it was idiotic, but that's about all they had. 

Plans had never really worked for him before anyway.

He also knew it would not be easy explaining it to everyone. Rhys' answer had been less than helpful concerning whether or not it was a feasible idea as they joined the other Hunters and Logan, who was tending to the back of Caleb's head. Both of them were tense, and Alex watched Logan with a lazer focus that made even Sirius uncomfortable.

Rick joined his sister in watching over Logan's shoulder. The witch cast a considering look over the Hunter, then just went back to dabbing the blood away from Caleb's dark hair. The blood he'd drawn throwing the Hunter backwards when his brother had been interrogating Sirius.

Sirius stood at the very edge of the trees, wondering a little at that. Even with all the malice he had sensed from the witch when they'd first met, he wouldn't have bet that Logan would lash out at anyone other than Sirius.

It was relieving to think that perhaps he wasn't the only one not completely in control of himself.

Rhys stood a little apart from everyone, watching the proceedings with that unreadable gaze of his.

Again, Sirius' attention went to the witch, who suddenly turned to him. He pulled his thoughts in tight, a wall of blackened iron descending around his mind. Rhys twitched almost imperceptibly.

"Now how did you learn to do that?" he muttered, too softly for anyone else to hear.

I've played with mind readers before, Sirius thought, sending it toward the witch, slipping it past a crack in the wall before quickly closing it back up. 

A smile plucked at the corner of the witch's mouth. Rhys walked over to the Hound. "Then why didn't you keep me out earlier?" he asked quietly, staring blankly toward the dark forest.

Sirius' eyes slid to Logan. "Because you needed to see."

"Not that much," Rhys said dryly. "Your mind..." He hesitated for a long moment. "Your mind is difficult. It pulled me places I didn't want to go."

"You have no idea," Sirius muttered. That was practically the story of his life. "You caught me by surprise, actually yanking the memories up. After that, I couldn't control it."

Rhys shifted slightly, but he didn't apologize again. "Will the Hunters go along with it?" he asked, turning to eye the Hunters in question. "They have cute ideas about helping family and not splitting up."

Sirius couldn't stop the amusement pulling his mouth into a half-smile. If he didn't hate the witch so thoroughly, he decided, he might like him.

"Rick and Caleb would both like the idea of Alex just going to Purgatory with Logan," he said softly as they continued to watch the Hunters and Logan. "But she's almost as stubborn as Galloway."

"Is that even possible?" Rhys asked. There was a tone of familiarity in the witch's voice that made Sirius see red, his hackles rising as he was forced to consider the origin of that familiarity.

A growl slipped between Sirius' teeth and the witch stiffened. They each watched the other, neither turning to face each other fully. Then Rhys seemed to relax minutely.

Shaking his head, he murmured, "It didn't matter. She was so tied up in you it didn't matter, even when I was touching her. She never really believed what I said about you. Not the most comfortable moment of my life."

"Is that supposed to make it better?" Sirius asked, tilting his head back to watch the lights coming from the portal dance like a miniature aurora borealis high above the rolling plains of Wyoming. 

"Not really," Rhys said with a shrug. "Why does it bother you so much?"

Sirius stayed silent for a long time, mulling that over. It never had before, with any other woman. His eyebrows drew together, and Rhys didn't move, waiting for the answer.

"Because she was mine," Sirius finally said softly. "Because she is mine. Because it made me see red when she came home and all I could smell was you. Because..."

"Because you love her," Logan snapped, and Sirius startled badly.

He'd been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he hadn't been conscious of the other witch joining them.

"Yes," Sirius whispered, "because I love her."

Rhys was stone-faced as he looked at the Hound, but all he did was shrug. "I didn't force her. Couldn't even if I had wanted to. Which I didn't." He shook his head, looking grim. "I was just trying to keep her out of Hell. I didn't think she really meant anything to you. Or that you would do what you did for her. I thought you wanted to use her like—"

The witch cut himself off sharply.

"I didn't do anything," Sirius replied, voice dry and dead to his own ears, not caring to wonder over the abrupt stop mid-sentence. "She gave me everything I needed and I couldn't even keep her safe for a week."

Now both of the witches looked away, anger in Logan's eyes, regret in Rhys'.

Sirius sighed, something in his chest releasing at the admittance. He turned the words over and over in his mind, wondering at them. Wondering at how he could possibly feel so deeply for a woman who hadn't spent even a quarter of his time on Earth. Who had only touched his shabby life for less than a year.

"It's not about time," Rhys said, his face strangely blank and his voice hollow. "It just is what it is."

It took a moment for Sirius to realize that the walls around his thoughts had somehow dropped again. When he thought of her, he realized, he couldn't think of anything else.

Logan was giving his half-brother a strange look, his dark eyes shadowed. But then Rhys shook his head and walked away from them, going to stand by Caleb, who gave the witch a sideways look, but didn't move.

Something lonely and terrible seemed to surround the witch. Sirius tugged lightly at his Soul. The telltale purple of magic dominated him, but there was a soft green of life and knowledge there, and finally a deep silver. Cold dignity and a long-dead grief. One that kept him far removed from many people. All of his Soul was trimmed in darkness. One that billowed at the edges of the witch, trying to grow.

"You hate him because you're like him," Logan said. Then, without giving Sirius a chance to respond to that, he said, "Why do you want Alex to come with me into Purgatory?"

Slowly, Sirius turned his attention back to Logan. After a moment's hesitation, he admitted, "I swore an oath to Sekhmet to keep Rick safe. She holds his heart and he wears her brand. I need him in Hell with me, but if he's not worried about protecting his sister, that will make my job much easier."

"What did you deal?" Logan asked, voice frosted and somehow urgent.

"Something that's probably not entirely mine." Sirius sighed. "Will you take her with you?"

"Purgatory's not safe either," the witch pointed out.

"It's safer than Hell."

Logan merely snorted, then walked over to place a hand on his brother's shoulder. Rhys cocked his head toward Logan, then nodded slowly. Then, like they had practiced it, all five of them turned expectantly to Sirius.

He muttered several choice words under his breath, then heaved a sigh and walked toward them. His eyes slid first to Rick, then to Rhys. The witch raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"We'll have to split up," he said, deciding it would be best to just rip off the band-aid. They could argue and bitch all they wanted about it, but there wasn't any other way to go.

A stiff silence greeted him—the pause before a breath.

Then he was being battered from all sides by an uproar of sound, the three Hunters questioning his intelligence, his sanity and more or less just cussing him out for even daring to mention it.

When they finally ran out of steam, Sirius sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Well what would you all suggest? This is a stealth mission, not all-out war."

"But why do we even need to split up at all?" Alex asked, her arms crossed imperiously over her chest, lovely face twisted into a scowl. "That's like nine different kinds of stupid."

Rhys choked on a snort and Logan elbowed him. All three Hunters slowly turned to look at the witches, who returned their glares with blank expressions.

"What aren't you saying, Sirius?" Rick finally asked. "Alex is right. If Logan's not going into Hell—which, I'd like an explanation for that by the way—then it's already a pretty small group. Five people."

"Because there's more than one thing that needs to get done," Sirius said through his teeth. He held up his wrists to Caleb, who paled slightly. "This wasn't a promise to get her out. This was to kill Theron. We don't do that, you and I are royally screwed."

Caleb swore under his breath, mouth twisting as he rubbed at his own wrist, like he was trying to scrub away the line of black magic branding him. The Winters siblings looked just as unhappy.

"So can't we just grab the girl and then kill the demon?" Rick finally asked. "No playing Scooby-Doo down in Hell required?"

"That might take longer than we'll be able to realize," Rhys answered. "If we grab her first, they'll know we're there and the likelihood of you finding the demon you need will drop."

"Especially since he knows we're after him," Caleb added, shooting a sour look at Sirius.

Sirius held his silence. There were more beings than Theron he needed to kill. As far as he was concerned, the demon, four Hellhounds and any other sick bastard who had touched her down there now had a price on their heads and they'd pay with blood. They wouldn't have the time before the alarm was raised if they grabbed her first, and she wouldn't be in any condition to fight if things got ugly, which he fully expected.

But he didn't think that would go over spectacularly well just yet. He'd let them know when they needed to know. Or when he had no other choice but to tell them.

"There's another thing to consider," Logan said into the silence that had ensued. Everyone turned to him, but his eyes were solely on Alex. "I'm going to need someone to watch my back in Purgatory. So we're going to have to split up a little at the very least."

She returned his gaze blankly. Caleb and Rick exchanged glances, then looked at Sirius with identical raised eyebrows. He nodded, a bare dip of his chin.

"No fucking way!" Alex shrieked, making them all cringe. Sirius was almost surprised she hadn't busted the glass out of the car windows. She waved her arm wildly around the loose circle they were standing in. "I'm not sitting on the sidelines while my brother and my—Caleb," she blanched slightly as she tripped over her words, "go down into Hell!"

"Alex..." Rick started, already looking like he was ready for a fight.

"Don't you even fucking say it, Rick," she snarled, surprising Sirius both with her tone and her profanity. Alex wasn't as prone to either of those things as her older brother was. She continued, "I'm not a kid anymore. I don't need you to protect me and I don't freaking want you to. You're not sidelining me while you two idiots go down into Hell."

"Alex," Caleb tried but she just pointed a finger threateningly at him, and he fell silent.

"It has to be you," Sirius said when both Rick and Caleb seemed momentarily cowed. She shot a sharp gaze at him, but after months of surviving Galloway's epic stink-eye, it didn't have any effect.

"Rick is coming with me to kill Theron," he gritted out. He choked on the next words. "Caleb and Rhys are going to get Galloway. That leaves you to make sure Logan doesn't get turned into fishbait by all the nasties in Purgatory."

Alex opened her mouth, then shut it with a frown

Both Rhys and Caleb were giving him stupid, gape-mouthed expressions. Even the telepath hadn't seen that coming. Sirius felt as though the words had very nearly killed him.

It was something he had realized as soon as he made the deal. It was something he'd known as soon as he'd held her mangled body.

Theron's death belonged to him.

And because of this, he knew he wouldn't be the one to take her out of Hell.

"Why?" Rhys growled, looking suddenly suspicious. "Since when do you trust her with us?"

The next words were glass in his mouth. "It's not about what I trust... it's about what she trusts. She—she'll need someone she knows and trusts," he glanced at Caleb reluctantly, "then she'll need someone who can keep her mind together until she gets out." Now he looked at Rhys.

"You've been thinking about this," Logan said flatly.

"Since I felt her blood on my hands," Sirius admitted. "It's not... it's not an easy thing, leaving Hell. It trys to hang on. And she won't be in good shape." This was a warning for both Rhys and Caleb.

"She won't be corporeal," Rhys said, sounding exasparated. "We won't be able to actually touch her."

"Yes you will." Sirius shifted on his feet, squinting one eye slightly against the dull headache that was beginning to throb at his temple. At their blank looks, he said, "Souls in Hell are corporeal, even to you. You'll be able to pick her up, carry her. She'll bleed and move like she's in her body."

"What about when we come back?" Caleb asked, tightly. "How are we supposed to get her back in her body? How will her body even be able to hold her Soul?"

Sirius glanced at Rhys, who briefly shut his eyes. "They need her blood to open the gate," the witch nearly hissed.

When Sirius only nodded, he let out a sigh before turning to the Hunter. "Her body's fine. Probably in stasis waiting for her Soul while they try to get her to say yes to popping open the gates. If we can get it close enough, it'll settle in all by itself, especially if she wants to live."

"She will," Logan growled. "Galloway's too stubborn to die like this."

"It's not if she doesn't want to die," Rick said simply, "it's if she'll want to live after this."

Both Sirius and Logan flinched before leveling twin glares on the Hunter. He stood beneath their stares and scowled before his face turned grim. "There are more ways to torture a person than to hurt them. What do you suppose they could force her to do, or even just make her believe she did?" He looked straight at Sirius. "You think it's just her bones being picked apart, because that's what they did to you—because that's all they could do to you. I'm just wondering what kind of mind games they've been playing with her."

Sirius' insides turned to ice, his heart turning hollow as he stared past the people around him. He'd thought he'd known exactly what they were doing to her—thought that he'd be able to hold her when she bolted awake at night, sick and shaking from the nightmares, and whisper that he knew, that he understood.

Rick slowly looked away, like he didn't want to bear witness to the pain Sirius knew must be plain on his face as he realized the Hunter of all people might understand more about her tortures than Sirius would ever be able to. It almost made him wonder what twisted acts Rick had performed under Set's thrall all those years ago. Almost made him wonder if the Hunter was eaten by the horror of things he couldn't have stopped.

Rhys cleared his throat, shifting subtly away from Rick. Sirius wondered what memories this conversation had provoked. 

Softly, Logan said, "It doesn't matter. Whatever they did, however they hurt her, we'll pick up the pieces and glue her back together if we have to."

Silence reigned for a small moment after that. Each of them perhaps considering if they would want to be glued back together. If they would even want to be saved at that point.

Sirius had spent so long broken, he didn't know the correct answer to that question. Didn't know if it really would be better to just let her truly die—let her Soul disappear into the ether. His heart immediately rebelled at the idea.

No. A world without her wasn't a world worth anything.

Shaking his head, he snapped, "That's how we do this. You two grab Galloway and get her to her body while Rick and I kill Theron, making sure the darkness doesn't call in our debt. Alex and Logan can survive Purgatory until we get there and then we get the fuck out of Dodge."

He paused and looked at each of them in turn. "Unless someone else has any better ideas?"

No one offered up anything.

"Well all right then," Rhys murmured. He sighed deeply. "Just as long as we don't go near any gates, I'm good with it."

Logan flinched slightly at that, then looked at Alex. "Well?"

"Why do you act like you need anyone to watch your back?" she asked sullenly. "I know you don't."

"Yes I do," he said, voice utterly sincere. "No one gets through Purgatory alone."

Alex scoffed, but nodded her head once, Rick relaxing almost imperceptibly by her side.

Sirius looked to Caleb. "You take the demon knife. Kill anything that gets in your way."

Caleb nodded stiffly, then cast a sidelong glance at Rick. "What about you two?"

Sirius flexed his claws, nearly smiling. "I think we'll manage. There are a few things that are still useful against demons, even down in Hell. We'll kill Theron, and we'll meet you in Purgatory. Once you grab her, leave Hell."

"How long do we wait?" Rhys asked quietly, pragmatically.

Cold silence dropped over them like a sheet of ice water. Sirius watched Caleb's eyes flicker first to Alex, then to Rick. Logan didn't look at his brother. Alex stared at the ground.

"You'll know when it's been too long," Sirius finally answer. "Time doesn't really work in Purgatory, or in Hell. But you'll know."

He watched as all their expressions turned bleak and contemplative. But not afraid.

For one another, yes. That he could smell. But the sour stench of mortality—that realization that sheer chance separated them from death—wasn't present anywhere in the group.

None of them were afraid to die, he realized, and he wondered at that. Weren't all humans afraid of passing beyond the veil? Or, at least, weren't they supposed to be?

Caleb loosed a long breath. "Well all right then." He cut his eyes at Sirius. "This is stupid and I hate it, but if it's the only way—"

"It is," Sirius interrupted.

Caleb nodded. "Then I suppose it's about time we go to Hell."