Sebasti For the Holidays (Part 5) St. Patrick's Day
18:48 Dec 20 2009
Times Read: 605
“Slavery,” Elaina hissed. “You have got to be joking! People don’t still do that!”
“Elaina,” Thaddeus barked sharply, “don’t do that again! Stay out of my mind if you are going to blurt everything I think out like that. You don’t understand what the word means when concerning these kinds of people, so don’t start on me! Not about this…”
Louanne laid a hand on his arm and Thaddeus looked her in the eyes. “Do you think he is in trouble?”
“I haven’t a clue. Either he is dead, or in trouble…What kind of trouble could be a thousand things minor,” he admitted softly, “but if he is in bad trouble…time is a critical priority.”
“How often are people like us being taken,” Louanne asked.
Thaddeus frowned down at the floor hiding any chance to see his face, but Lou had an ace up her sleeve. She glanced up at Elaina and cocked an eyebrow in query. “Very often, Lou…” From the look in her eyes, Lou knew that Thaddeus thought Sebasti was in deep shit and sinking fast.
Thaddeus got off of the phone looking grim. “You are not going to like this,” he stated softly thinking Louanne was asleep. “The people I was just talking to told me that Sebasti is a damn spy. DeSago said he was working a high risk job in a place no sane person will willingly travel inside. No one has dared to step foot there in so long few people remember it still exists,” Thaddeus stated.
“I don’t know what we are going to do,” he sighed thoughtfully. “The two of you are going to have to stay here and let me go after him by myself.”
“The hell you say,” Elaina snapped at him. “Someone else can handle it. You are not a body guard, Thaddeus. Lou would stand a better chance at defending herself than you could.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said loudly in indignation. He glared at her offended by her remark. “I may not be very old or very powerful, but I am not a female and I would fit in better if I were discovered. If they caught Lou, do you know what they would do to her?”
“She would have the time of her life until we rescued her from their naughty clutches,” Elaina mumbled taking him off guard until he choked on his next words with a sour face as he looked at the old woman pretending to sleep on the couch.
“That is just not right, woman…” Elaina giggled as he sighed looking down at her from behind the back of her seat.
“I don’t think I want to delve too deep into what the two of you did together before Danny and I came along to sweep you off of your feet, do I?”
“You were never interested in what was between us,” Elaina stated primly.
“Actually,” he drawled playfully, “I didn’t look into the subject out of respect for her being Danny’s wife. As alert as he was, all it would have taken was one stray thought and he would have been chewing my ass out for looking at her with that kind of expression on my face. He loved her, and it wouldn’t have been right thinking sexy thoughts about the two of you…”
Elaina leaned up and kissed him. “That is one of the sweetest things I have ever heard,” she murmured.
“Hmm…” Thaddeus reached down and lifted her out of the chair easily. “That sounded distinctly like a cue…Was that a cue?”
“You better believe it, you young hunk,” Elaina fussed pretending to be the old woman she was used to looking like. Thaddeus chuckled playing along.
“Do you think you can handle a young stud, grandma?”
“Oh, I think I can not only handle him…I think I can out maneuver and outlast him too,” Elaina teased back boldly.
There was a tell-tale pause before Thaddeus gave her his usual long suffering sigh of consternation. “You are probably right,” he admitted happily.
Louanne snuck out when they left to go into the bedroom changing back into her youthful look which no longer sat comfortably on her shoulders. She did it mostly to avoid sympathetic faces of the people who knew her. In her hand, she held Thaddeus’s cell phone.
After calling Charlie for a detailed report on Danny’s death, she decided to call Maggie. “I know that, Mags…He is the most infuriating man I know. I just think I need to talk to him, that is all.” Lou waited while Maggie tried to talk her out of it and began to feel like she was making a mistake. “No, it was about his brother…”
Maggie hung up the phone. Louanne swore startled that she would do that when a voice caught her off guard. “Hello, Lou, you wanted to see me?”
Louanne looked up and down the treelined lane and back at the man who had spoken to her. “Do I want to know how you did that,” she asked nervously.
“Probably not, and either way I am not inclined to teach infants how to behave unless they are…perhaps, my own,” DeSago stated firmly with his usual frown. “I thought you had something you wanted to say? Did you not ask to see me?”
“No,” Louanne said without thinking. His frown increased as he stared at her with a strange expression. “I called,” she said. When he simply stared at her some more, she added, “I know it sounds lame, but I was hoping to speak to you without having you right there frowning at me like I am a pest you can barely stomach.”
DeSago gave her a rare smile that was bordering on being seriously friendly. It surprised her until he spoke, “But you are a pest I can barely stand.”
“Why? I haven’t done a thing to you.” Her indignant outburst only succeeded at making him frown again.
“What did you do to Sebasti?” She didn’t answer. As far as she knew, she had not done anything to the man.
“What did he do to me,” she countered and made him smile again. This one was sinister and made her skin itch.
“I don’t know. Hopefully it was something good and worthy of our name,” DeSago stated watching her face for a reaction.
“It was…” Louanne stopped as she remembered all of the things Sebasti had done when he was trying to seduce her. Without the fear of what he was or being a male clouding her thoughts, it just seemed indecent and sexy as sin. “It was…”
Lou managed to make herself blush without being able to answer him. It made DeSago laugh merrily. “I always wondered before if he simply hadn’t known what he was doing, but obviously he was right all along. You just weren’t ready to accept him.”
DeSago touched her cheek fondly and Louanne flinched away looking disgusted. “You are a hard little demon to catch, I see…You will get burned by Basti if you don’t watch that attitude of yours, little one.”
Louanne shook her head at the switch in topic trying to catch up to whatever he was talking about. “I haven’t a clue what you…”
“He will only push your limits if he thinks you won’t mind him doing it,” DeSago explained patiently. “Run from Basti, and you will one day lose him…If you haven’t lost him already,” he added ominously. “Trust me, woman; you don’t want to lose the only true mate you will ever have.”
“Excuse me? I don’t even know Sebasti. The two of us have never really met. He chased me, caught me, and let me go. We haven’t talked. Not once…”
“Never,” DeSago asked doubtfully. “You haven’t dreamed about him once in all of the years since he has left here. I know he wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“Yes, I…Little things, but yes,” Lou admitted.
“He comes into my dreams to see if I am still happy and okay. We don’t talk. He just smiles at me or…little brushes of his hands,” Louanne mumbled blushing again much to his amusement.
“The only time he has spoken is when he told me he was going away and wouldn’t be back for a while. He told me he could still hear me if I wanted him, all I needed to do was think hard about him. Then, nothing until…recently,” she whispered.
“Recently, yes,” DeSago said calmly. “Thaddeus tried to explain it to me. You saw the flash of a knife and felt pain in your chest, but did he say anything? Did he think about where he was? Anything,” he urged.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t know how to recognize it if he had,” Lou protested.
“Gods, you are too young to get anything out of. I don’t know why I am trying to ask you anything! Damn, Basti to hell for this! I never liked the little prick and now I am charged with trying to locate and rescue him…”
“You are,” Lou whispered. “I want to come with you.” DeSago looked interested in the idea unlike Thaddeus who would have screamed at her for suggesting such a thing. “I can help you if he wakes up!”
“Yes, you could, but you will be a liability if he doesn’t,” he stated grumpily.
“From where I am standing, you look like you could use all of the help you can get to figure this out. Who charged you to find him? Your parents, perhaps,” Louanne asked leadingly. DeSago gave her a patient and very irritated look that only the very old can do effectively. “I was just wondering if they were worried about him,” she whispered feeling silly and childish standing around the man.
“Yes, actually, they will be when they discover he is missing. Right at this moment, no one in their right mind would dare to tell them. Basti is the youngest and they didn’t think they were going to have any more kids when he came along, so he is by far their favorite,” DeSago stated grumpily. “I am hoping to find him first and then tell them.”
“Do you have other brothers or sisters that want him found?”
“A few, but they are not the problem…Antonio is. Anyone who has ever seen the Sieve Gadoma when he was angry, would not dare to turn him down when he tells you to ‘do something and do it now’.”
“The Sieve Gadoma…” The puzzled look in Lou’s eyes only made DeSago’s frown grow.
“My Gods, you are worse than an infant! The Sieve Gadoma is the guardian protector, or the most ancient of all of the ancients, for this world! Even an idiot of our people knows that much. Didn’t your parents teach you anything at all about our kind?”
“No,” Louanne snapped. “They died! I hadn’t a clue I wasn’t a normal human until Sebasti started this madness! No one has taught me much of anything…Thaddeus has tried when he can, but not diligently.”
DeSago’s face actually turned pale at her little outburst surprising her more than it should have. He even managed to look sorry for his abrupt rudeness for a second. Then, he opened his mouth and spoke surprising her even more with his words. “Alright, you can come…”
DeSago chuckled at her look of disbelief. “I don’t expect Basti would be a good teacher to a whelp like you that knows nothing of us. Besides, you distract him far too much while he is trying to get your attention and not offend you.”
“I guess I could take Dylan and teach you both as we go,” DeSago sighed thoughtfully.
Louanne couldn’t believe it. “I thought you said I was a hindrance and a liability! How could involve a child in this? Won’t he be worse trouble than a full grown adult?”
DeSago gave her a half patient considering look of disdain. “For your information, that boy knows more about us than you do. I am not leaving him here if I have to traipse around God knows where with you. If we run into trouble, he would know what to do!”
“I won’t! Is that the point you are making?”
“While I am taking care of it, he will probably have to show you what to do, because I won’t have time,” DeSago growled grumpily making her feel even lower, “so don’t insult my son again.”
Louanne started to protest thinking she had done nothing of the sort, but DeSago snarled, “Know this: I care for nothing else in the entire universe like I do that boy!”
Lou was speechless. She had no idea that the surly complacent jackass could care for anyone. DeSago just seemed too emotionless, but perhaps that was his age showing. He certainly didn’t look ancient. He was built like an ancient Greek warlord and had the face of a movie star.
A face that at this moment held a peculiar smirk, she noticed. “Get that smug grin off of your face! I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were my only hope of staying alive. I’d rather die first!” DeSago frowned at her again, but oddly it was more comforting than his smile.
“I am not even going to try to understand you,” DeSago sighed in frustration. “For the record, you have to understand me and not the other way around. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly…”
Neither of them looked thrilled or comfortable with this bargain, she knew, but the facts remained that they needed to work together to find out what had happened to Sebasti.
As little as she cared, she could not turn away and leave him if he was in trouble. It was her job to protect the people who needed it the most. Even in her wildest dreams, she had never imagined Sebasti needing her for anything…maybe that was why this situation disturbed her so completely.
“Be ready in two days,” DeSago ordered her. “I will come and get you. I won’t wait for you to stand around explaining things to your friends either. When I say ready, I mean ready.”
“Okay,” Lou growled infuriated at his disrespectful tone. He narrowed his eyes at her and turned away.
Lou blinked while he was walking away and blinked again in disbelief. DeSago was nowhere along the tree-lined lane. He had vanished as rapidly as he had appeared. Louanne turned and looked all around hastily. “I really want to learn how to do that one! If you weren’t such a prick, I would ask you to teach me.”
Lou scurried back inside almost certain she could hear the man’s dark sinister laughter in her mind mocking her. She went to bed since Elaina believed she was sleeping anyhow.
2007, (Jenna Karro). All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author.
Sebasti For the Holidays (Part 6) April Fool's Day
09:31 Dec 19 2009
Times Read: 615
Elsewhere…“Search the lowlands first and send several scouts into the mountains…He can’t be far. Tell the men to stick together when they are looking for him at all times. Bring me anything suspicious, but especially bring me a naked male traveling alone out here,” the captain grumbled in complaint.
His subordinate officer stuttered in paranoid protests, “Sir, I haven’t the slightest idea how he escaped. We did everything you told us to do!”
The captain considered being cruel. It was written all over his blank face if you knew the man as well as you knew yourself. The poor subordinate had no clue that his captain was contemplating punishing him for something he knew the poor officer had no control over. No one could have stopped this prisoner from getting away, he thought irritably.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the captain sighed through gritted teeth.
“Yes, sir,” the officer agreed without paying much attention to him. “I know it is; I just can’t figure out what I did wrong with…”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Captain Rimmerlain growled more firmly. “Flame has gotten away from every single person who has dared to trap him.”
“Flame, sir,” a nearby guard hissed in stunned surprise paling beneath his warm brown complexion as he spoke. “Why were we holding Captain Flame prisoner, if I may ask, sir?”
Captain Rim glared at him as he snapped ‘Insubordination’ in a tone that implied the guard was bordering on it for opening his mouth.
No one could hear the soft chuckle behind the nearby rock cropping. Likewise no one saw the pale, slightly pink skinned creature that crouched behind those very rocks. Nor did anyone see as that figure moved slowly higher into the charred red rocks that blended with his hair, or the lighter pink areas of ash that blended with his skin, as he avoided moving into the darkest places where the rocks were burned black.
There were several small openings that he could hide inside by fitting his limber frame into the tiny crevices while allowing his long hair to hide his paler skin from prying eyes. He passed two guards in this way who were scouting the rocks swiftly missing even the rock he had accidentally dislodged as he scrambled into the hiding place. The men never separated. Thankfully, they were lax in their scouting abilities.
Norn glared at the two as he made his way higher into the cliffs of the mountainous terrain. After a while, he stopped seeing so many troops looking high and low for his distinctive features, or any small sign of his passing. Norn didn’t allow his body to relax for a single second. He had made that mistake already. Unfortunately, as he hid himself in a tight spot near dusk, he realized that he had already made another potentially fatal mistake. The two men he was hiding from decided suddenly to stop and bed down less than two feet from where he was hiding.
Resisting the urge to curse, or flash fry the two unwary soldiers, Norn remained very still in his uncomfortable hiding place. He knew any motion or sound would cause one of the pair to raise an alarm.
Even as trained as he was, he could not resist the urge to slowly turn his head to look through his shielding curtain of hair. The guards started a fire near the wall where he was hiding to keep the lashing winds from blowing it out before it could grow warmer. Norn knew if he moved his eyes too swiftly they would catch in the light and give him away even through the thick red pelt covering them.
Norn sighed as the flames nearly licked his skin with heat. Any normal creature would have been getting third degree burns or a blast of inflamed hair, but Norn’s heavy pelt remained in place despite wind and flame growing warmer against him. It almost made him relax and he caught himself drifting back into the heat until he remembered something that frightened him.
“Look at the flames,” one man whispered in a low tone. Norn glanced at him and tensed waiting for what he already knew the man had seen. It wasn’t anything he could control, so Norn had no choice as he waited for discovery.
“Why are they turning blue near the cliff like that?”
“Captain Rim said we are chasing Captain Flame…It always burns hotter and higher near him,” the alert guard stated scanning the cliffs and nearby rocks suspiciously.
“How close does he have to be,” the sleepy guard asked suddenly turning more wary. The other one said ‘hmm’ thoughtfully as he looked around. “Hey, man…I asked you a question, you deaf idiot! How close?”
“That is what I was trying to remember,” the guard stated.
Norn narrowed his eyes trying to tell who was beneath that thick concealing armor. He knew most of the men in the troops, and chances are he knew this one too.
“I am sure he is nearby, but we already knew that. I’ll keep watch. You go on to sleep. I don’t think we should both be sleeping if he is out there. I know his habits well enough that I can spot his pink hide in these red hills even in the dark,” the guard bragged arrogantly. “Besides, Rim was awfully concerned that Flame would try to attack us if we split up. I wonder what he did to make Captain Rim so angry.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it…It was bad enough before I knew that creature was Captain Flame…
“Yeah, clever of Rim to not tell anyone who we were holding, wasn’t it? He should have told us who we were trapping,” the more wary guard mused. “Funny, I never knew Flame was so damn good looking in all of that heavy metal he wore.”
“You have got to be kidding,” the second guard snapped in a tone that drew Flame’s notice more than the openly sexual comment before it. “That man was spooky! It scares me to think I have been anywhere near it! Did you see its eyes?”
“Well,” the sympathetic male chuckled. “I knew Flame. I’ll wake you up if I see him creeping up on us.”
“Are you absolutely certain you would see him if he did?” The timid guard so wanted to close his aching eyes, but fear laced his questioning tone. Despite his weariness…or the soothing warmth of the fire…he was too afraid to settle down into sleep.
“Oh, yeah…I know I would see him,” the other male bragged firmly. His certainty made Norn smile.
The prey he sought was less than three feet away from the pair. Still Norn knew he couldn’t allow his restless body to relax as it began to ache from the niche he had used in a hurry to hide from the silent tread of the two outside. The wait seemed endless. Norn had to turn his eyes back into the crevice to keep the glowing redness from his discomfort from giving him away. It was flickering on the rock before him like the same flames that were behind his back.
Just when Norn was concentrating on the agony of holding still, and no longer worried about the two men at his back as he focused all of his attention on remaining still and wary, he jerked as a broad hand touched the small part of his bare back through the silk of his hair. “Don’t you move,” a very soft voice threatened dangerously against the edge of his ear.
Norn held still out of two parts fear that the guard would raise an alarm and he would not be able to escape again and one part anger that he would dare to order him around when he was helpless to do anything about it.
“I could have spotted that bright, fox pelt anywhere, Commander Nor’ander…”
Norn shivered nearly relaxing as he realized who the guard was beneath that thick plating. “Now, what are you going to do?” Norn kept his voice so low that no creature except their own highly sensitive race could have heard him.
“I know what I would like to do,” the male behind him sighed against Norn’s thick pelt of hair. “I would like to skin this mane off of your head and curl up in it every night…” The guard breathed in deeply causing Norn to shiver in a fashion characteristic to his clan. His kind did not like to be cornered when they were found.
“I have one question before I decide your fate,” the guard teased as his hand dipped into the rocks to travel under Norn’s legs to his dangling privates. Norn tensed, but he had to admit the guard handled him gently when he could have been cruel. “Did you take it…or did Rim?”
Norn almost growled as he slid back out of the crevasse and twisted enough to kiss the startled male. The shaky sigh that escaped his captive captor was a good sign.
“Wait here, Commander…” Norn held still tensed up to bolt the second the slow moving guard shouted for the others to come trap him. “Stay,” he whispered softly barely using any air traveling past his lips to calm the high-strung creature before him. The sound was softer than the wind over a non-existent blade of grass.
The guard pulled a knife and Norn jerked in fear upon seeing it and realizing he had seen that exact blade before…recently. Norn’s wide eyes flashed up at the guard and burned in angry awareness and alarm.
The guard knelt over his sleeping partner…and plunged the long, wide blade deep into the man’s chest without a single hesitation. Working around the blade, he swiftly stripped the armor off of him before he could bleed too badly. “It isn’t yours,” the guard stated softly, “but it is the best I can offer you at this time…” Nor’ander waited tensely in suspicion that this was another trap.
“Please, Commander…consider it an apology for what I did to you earlier.”
“Which part of it,” Norn snapped before he could control his ill-advised comment.
The guard grinned unabashed. “Well, I won’t lie and say I am sorry for taking a moment to entertain myself at your expense. I am sorry about hunting you down when Rim ordered it. He forgot to mention that it was you, sir. He said we were hunting,” the guard paused to look Nor’ander over suspiciously, “a free fox Commander…son of the prince of his people…by the name of Nor’ander Éire,” he finished softly.
“If he had told us we were hunting Captain Flame, half of the troops would have sat down in protest.” Norn smiled knowing how true that was; his men loved him. “You look good. I didn’t have a clue I worked for a nearly extinct Fox Clan Elder.”
Norn walked forward warily and moved straight over the fire as he came for the armor to conceal his distinctive features. Torun’s features softened in male appreciation since he had taken the helmet off to better convince Norn he was not going to betray him. “Gods, Captain…You…” The guard flushed and laughed softly moving away to the side to further put him at ease. “I don’t know if I should say you shouldn’t do that, or do it more often. You look damn near exotic without standing in a bonfire.”
Nor’ander finally relaxed smiling at him in mild amusement. “If you keep flattering me, I might think you were getting obsessive about it. I already know I don’t want you for a stalker. Who taught you to hunt so meticulously and quick like that?”
Torun shifted uncomfortably looking away sadly. “You don’t want to ask me that, Captain…especially not if you really are the Prince’s son…”
“You know who I am, Torun,” Norn stated as he pulled on the plated pants buckling them into place slightly surprised by how well they fit him. Either he looked amazed or Torun wished to end that line of the conversation because he chose to explain.
“I picked him because he was about your size, Captain.”
“You have really good eyes,” Norn said with a little sigh of frustration.
His careful attention to the little details was even more proof to the truth of how dangerous the guard could be if made into an enemy. Definitely not something a man like Norn needed in his life. Was there any way to end this without making an enemy out of the man? “Thank you for the clothes, Torun…”
“But you wish I had not seen you,” Torun finished in amusement when Norn paused. Norn eyed him warily.
“It complicates things for you, I know,” Torun admitted. “It is okay. I don’t mind. I know you are not overjoyed to have me anywhere near you, but when I heard who you were…I just thought maybe I owed you, since it was my blade that caught you in the first place.”
“I remember the knife,” Norn stated shortly and a bit grumpily.
“My sincerest apologies, sir,” Torun sighed again looking truthful. “Captain Rim uses my hunting skills often, but I never imagined he would use me against one of our own men!”
“Has he used you lately…besides me,” Norn asked suspiciously in alarm. That would certainly explain a few things, the Captain thought to himself. Torun nodded at him wondering why he was so suddenly curious. “Show me who,” Norn ordered him faintly as he hurriedly finished dressing.
“Yes, sir…but we will have to be gone from here come daylight,” the guard stated firmly. “Someone will see the body and ask him what happened. I can promise you, he makes a very bad enemy…”
“How do you know he will survive the wound? It is a deadly blow to most of even our kind. You caught him by surprise; it could definitely be his last…”
Torun frowned interrupting him. “No, sir; that is the other reason I chose him. I have seen him survive such wounds before, even when taken unaware by a good friend.”
“That is a handy trait,” Norn mumbled wondering if Torun and the silently dead guard at his feet were friends, or if Torun had meant someone else.
Torun was swift to take off leading him to the place where the other captive was being held the second he saw Norn snap the last buckle closed on the stolen armor. They were well trained neither one making the slightest of noises as they re-crossed the barren rocks back towards the camp.
Norn began to suspect where Rim was holding his prisoner. Pushing past Torun, Norn crept over the ledge into a tiny crevasse that led deep below. Torun stayed up above keeping an eye out for any soldiers on lookout duty.
It was pitch black inside of the deep hole that swiftly widened into a small cavern that Rim had once used as a dungeon. This room had seen tortures but not of the deadly kind. It had been a room for play between the two secretive lovers.
Captain Flame lived up to his title as his body began to cast off a bright yellow glow throwing red and orange highlights onto the sulpherous walls. Norn wasn’t afraid of the sulpher catching fire, because he could control the heat and every other aspect of the blaze swelling like an elusive flame just above his skin.
In the firelight he could see lying on the floor, the distinctive long, curling mass of black hair from a man Norn knew very well indeed. He had just delivered a vital message to Norn several days ago. Rim must have caught him before he could leave.
Scared that his best friend of so long might have crossed a dangerous line by killing the messenger, Norn ran over and turned the limp body up to face him. There was a matching silver dagger in his chest to the one Torun had so recently used to catch a cunning fox.
Torun suddenly scrambled down into the cave nearly falling on him in his haste. “We have to go! They have found the body and are searching for the two of us! There are three men right above us and nearly a dozen more within shouting range of where they stand!”
“I can’t leave him here,” Norn protested angrily. “He risked his life to deliver…”
“We can’t get out. You have trapped us in here!”
“I can get out and I highly suspect you could also,” Norn hissed furiously. “My only concern is that he would never make it past the guards, but I can’t just flee and leave him helpless in here.”
“You can’t heal his wound and neither can I,” Torun snapped. Norn hadn’t thought of that, but Torun was right. If they couldn’t heal him, they couldn’t take him out with them.
“Pull the dagger out and leave him to take his chances on his own,” Torun urged. “It is the most you can do for him, Flame! We have got to go!” Norn nodded sadly as he pulled the dagger out.
The thick blood that spurted from his chest concerned him, so Norn took the time to pack the wound with thick dust from the floor. It wasn’t the rich soil he needed, but the sulpher would stop the bleeding. Still, his only chances rested on whether or not Rim would check on his prisoner any time soon.
Leaning close to the dead man’s ear, Norn whispered to him, “Forgive me, my friend,” while Torun waited for him impatiently. Then, the two of them tore out of the cave like two raging demons bent on the deaths of anyone who stood in their paths. They trailed destruction and havoc in their wake…
2007, (Jenna Karro). All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author.
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