A few days after Talia's visit, Dr. Elliot returned to the house, bringing with him the results of the latest MRI and CT scan. Earlier that day Arthur had undergone another round of chemo. Knowing that his patient was awaiting the findings, he decided to bring them over after work. Besides, he wanted to talk to the couple face to face, rather than over the phone.

"Tommy, right on time for dinner, as usual," teased Dee as she let him in. "Arthur's in the living room. We're in the middle of a game of Scrabble, so feel free to interrupt. I swear that man has memorized every dictionary out there."

"He knows his words." Elliot paused just inside the door. "Delilah, I didn't come for dinner tonight. I need to speak with you both."

"Of course."

She led him into the living room, where Arthur was busy pushing around his Scrabble letters on the tabletop. As the doctor entered, he turned them over, and leaned back in his chair.

"I told you it would be Tommy. He probably smelled the chicken and dumplings from his office. You'll forgive me if I don't get up?"

"Certainly, Arthur. I was just telling Dee that this wasn't really a social call, though dinner smells wonderful."

"Thank you, Tommy," she said as she perched herself on the right arm of Arthur's chair. She draped an arm around him.

"What have you come to tell us then?" Arthur asked.

"I received the test results this afternoon. Arthur, they aren't good. The films show the cancer has returned, as well as spread. Not only is it in your brain, but its now in your lungs and liver. At the rate it's growing, even with treatment, I can't assure you more than two or three months."

"So I just wasted three hours in an infusion center, that could have been spent doing something better."

"The treatments could still..."

"Damn the treatments!" shouted Arthur, pounding the vacant armrest. "Do you think I'm going to waste what time I have left too sick to move because of the chemo and radiation? Why shouldn't I enjoy what time I have and do a bit of traveling? Truthfully, Dr. Elliot, do you think that by continuing treatment I will beat this and go into remission?"

He had asked for a doctor's opinion, not a friend's opinion. Dr. Elliot looked sad for a moment before a stoic veil settled on his features. "No, Arthur. If anything, the treatments will simply slow the growth of the tumors. They will continue to spread." He paused, not daring to look at Dee, afraid of how she was reacting. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Are you the one who gave me this cancer? Of course not. You haven't got anything to be sorry about, Tommy."

"Either way, I am sorry that you had to go through this. I'll leave you two alone now. I'm sure you have some plans to make. I'll let the other doctors know that you're ending treatment."

"Wait, Tommy," Dee said. She stood and put a hand on his arm. "Have dinner with us. I made enough just in case you were coming. Please. Have dinner with us?" she asked.

He was surprised to see that she didn't look angry, or upset at the news he had brought. Well, the two had had time to come to terms with the inevitable. Accepting the invitation, he sat in a seat opposite of Arthur, while Delilah went to fill soup bowls.

~ ~ ~

Three weeks after Dr. Elliot had given us the news, we packed our bags and were leaving Philadelphia. We were, in fact, leaving the United States. I had chartered a plane that would take Dee, the tigers, and me to northeastern China, in the Manchurian region. The area had been chosen because of Dee's ability to speak Chinese. With her, I wouldn't be in need of any other translator. At Talia's insistence, four members of her personal guard, gleaned from her father's followers, would escort us to the pit and prepare it. Talia assured us we could trust them. It wasn't as if we had a choice in the matter.

It was Dee's decision to bring the tigers. Talia had told us that the fewer people who knew where we were going, and what we were doing, the better. The tigers would be our form of pack animal, as well as protection, should Talia's people turn out to be not so trustworthy. The tigers were already used to carrying equipment into jobs, so this would be normal for them. In order to reach the pit, it would be at least a four-day walk.

"We're almost there," Dee assured me, as our plane winged its way north toward the town of Wudaogou, located in the Xiao Hinggan Ling, or Lesser Hinggan Mountains. "The pilot said there's a landing field, but that it's going to be a bit of a rough landing."

"Then you'd better bring me another pillow or two."

She laughed, doing as I asked. While she constantly swore to me that I looked good to her, she found my recent need for extra cushioning amusing. All of my bones were beginning to stick out, leaving me a mass of sharp angles. Too often I found myself unable to eat, nauseated still by the chemo drugs that were working out of my system, as well as the cancer that was invading my system.

"There you go, Skeleton Man," she said, tucking a small pillow on either side of my hips. She then helped me raise my seat and get ready to land.

The landing wasn't as bad as we expected, but I was thankful for the pillows. I began to wonder exactly how I was going to handle the trip to the pit on the back of a horse.

Dee and I left the tigers behind in the plane as we headed into town to purchase our supplies, leaving the men behind with the airplane. I insisted on coming along, just so that I could get out and walk. We quickly found someone more than willing to supply us with five stout Mongoloid horses. I watched as she argued in Chinese with the man for a while. Finally, he nodded, and turned to go around the back of his barn. She looked at me and smiled, giving me a thumbs up.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"You won't have to ride. Mr. Li said he has a wagon that he takes on the roads when he goes into the mountains. It isn't big, but he said he'd sell it to us, after I told him that you couldn't possibly ride one of the horses. It's got a hitch for one of the horses, so we'll divvy the supplies between a couple of the other horses so you can ride. The tigers can carry light packs."

I was pleased with this, though my happiness waned slightly when I saw the rough cart. Stretching to my full length would be impossible. Still, it would be more comfortable for me than sitting in the hard saddle that he brought out as well.

Before long, Dee had us supplied with food, extra blankets, pillows, and saddle bags for the horses. Though my appetite had diminished greatly, I looked at her choices with a cautious eye. Much of the food was dried or preserved somehow. Either the tigers or her would hunt fresh meat when we wanted it, a benefit of her being able to shape shift into a feline. She promised me that everything, including the tiny, whole dried fish, were edible. To prove her point, she popped a couple into her mouth, head, bones, eyes, and all, and then offered me one.

"They're crunchy, like a chip."

I took it, and with a deep breath, put it in my mouth. Though it had a pungent fish taste to it, it really wasn't too bad. Of course, my palate wasn't exactly what it had been before the chemo, the drugs having killed off many of my taste buds. Only strong flavors really got through now.

We stayed the night in the plane, making certain that everything was packed and ready to go early the next morning.

The first day's journey was rougher than I expected. In the end, Dee had to stop and rearrange the blankets and pillows, making certain that they were cushioning me everywhere. She then gave me a shot that slipped me into semi-consciousness, making the trip easier on me. I lay there with my eyes closed, listening to the crunch of the dirt under the wheels, the chuffling of the tigers, and the plod of the horses' hooves along the road. Dee walked most of the way, holding the reins of the wagon horse, leaving the men to follow, trusting only the tigers to scout ahead for danger.

At night, the temperature dropped so steeply, I was left shivering, even under all the blankets. Under the cart, the tigers huddled, bumping the bottom every now and then. Once she had fed me, and secured everything for the night, Dee joined me, holding me to share her body heat. We barely spoke, and she was quickly asleep, leaving me to the long hours of the night that bothered me most.

It was in those hours I considered my own mortality. We weren't certain this would work, even if Talia had given us the information. I did the cliché thing, and looked back on my life. I wondered what death would be like. When I forced myself off that train of thought, I found myself considering the one riddle I had always wanted to solve, but never gave too much serious thought to. But now, like my cancer, it gnawed at my brain.

Who, exactly, was Batman?
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