SAGN: Chapter Fourteen-The Stone Garden free porn video

SAGN: Chapter 14- The Stone Garden Alagosta Gardens, Stafford: Day 437, 1500 hours Darcy La Fleur sat in the back seat watched the leaves passing outside of the taxi's passenger window like a green smear against the glass. The Blue Checker cab wasn't really traveling that fast, but with no other traffic on the road it somehow made it feel that she was traveling faster than she actually was. She shifted in the plastic coated bench seat and felt the crinkling sound of the smooth covering squeaking and murmuring under her weight. Not that there was that much weight to bear down on the plastic coated fabric beneath her. Like most of Daddy's girls she wasn't what you would call on the large side of anything. The fact was that even compared to them she was one of those that leaned toward the smaller side of the fence. For that she had her mother to thank and her grandmother before her. Both of them had been small women and she was just like them. Grandma had come to California with a shipload of other refugees fleeing from Southeast Asia in 1979 and while many of those who came with her remained on the west coast grandma hadn't been one of them. The others might have been satisfied to just reach the Promised Land, but not grandma. She had somewhere to go and if she had managed to get this far she intended to go all the way. She made it all the way to Georgia within a month of being allowed to legally seek refuge and even though the others had leapt at the low paying jobs that they were offered by all those owners to willing to use them as a stick to keep the local laborers in line, grandma hadn't. The whole way across the Pacific she had one thought that she held on to like a promise and that was if she could only get to this one place then everything would be alright. The place that she held out her hope for turned out to be a town consisting of a crossroads with two stop lights and half a dozen small businesses. She knew where she was going to because of the address on the stained carefully tended envelope that she had carried like a totem to protect her and if you asked her she would have said that protecting her was exactly what it had done. The rusty leaking ship that she had managed to find refuge in didn't have much room but it had room for her. It was a battered coastal steamer and to say it had seen better days was more optimism than description. The pumps that kept the leaks at bay were constantly thumping during the entire passage. They made a constant background to life aboard the old ship. Her mother told her that her Grandmother said that she felt it as the ships heartbeat, each thump keeping them alive. The sounds of the seawater pulsing in the old ships wake the blood that carried them along. From the coast where the scattered fishing boats had carried them to the rusting ship for a price to Victoria Harbor and Kowloon the thudding of the pumps was the only thing that mattered. As long as they were there she knew that they were still alive and still moving. The typhoon that carried it along the edge of its fury hadn't sunk it and while she clenched her eyes shut below the heaving decks and screamed into her arms there was still the letter there next to her skin promising her that it would be alright. So she screamed and the sound was lost in the howling storm held at bay by the rusting steel walls and she hoped because that was all she had left. When there was barely anything left for her to eat because what little she had brought was exhausted she grew thinner, but not enough to despair. The men who took everything she had when they had taken her aboard could have left her to starve or they could have demanded other currency in exchange for scraps but that was coin she did not have to pay with. Some would say she was lucky but she wouldn't. It was the letter protecting her and even if others would say it was a foolish idea she believed it. When the two big men who worked deep in the bowels of the ship wandered up and through the crowd of refugees and decided that because she was young and pretty and alone that meant that she was theirs just because they decided it should be so, she could be forgiven if she lost faith when they tried to haul her out of the hold and back to their quarters. But they hadn't gotten what they wanted after all. A nearby family that included three men who had fought the northerners in the central highlands and didn't like the two men taking liberties had made them pay for the assumption that because she was alone she was unprotected. She could have lost faith then and it would be understandable but when the men were turned away and forced to leave her alone in the darkness of the stinking cargo hold she gave thanks to whatever spirit that the letter had drawn to watch over her once more. Her letter and the protection that she believed that it gave her was her comfort and her talisman but it was not the hands that had defended her. Those belonged to the men who had stood up for a stranger for no other reason than they felt it was the right thing to do. It would have been reasonable for them to have turned a blind eye to the two men taking her. After all she was no kin to them and they had their own to look after, but they hadn't even though they risked reprisal. There must have been nothing said about the incident because no one came down to demand who it was that had dared to interfere with the two men and the others who might have been eyeing a young woman traveling alone afterward did nothing more than look. When she thanked the men they asked her where she was going after this and she told them where she wanted to go. That might not have been a wise thing to do with some of the others who were fleeing with her when they found she was intending to go to him. They might have been angry that she was chasing after the soldier she met there. The one who was kind to her. The one who told her that he loved her and when he left she couldn't reasonably hope to see again. A lot of her countrymen were possessive over what they thought was theirs and someone like her having been involved with one of the big foreigners who flew around in the sky and lay waste to the land for so long would not be accepted, but the three brothers never gave her any hint that they were one of those. In their own way they had adopted her almost. They drew her into their family circle and faced outward like a spiny bush. The youngest of the brothers was the only one who was unmarried and it would have been reasonable for him to feel that she owed them for the protection that they had offered her and expected something, maybe anything in return. But he didn't and when the boat finally reached the Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong all she knew was that she was going to get to where she meant to go. She had the letter. The last letter that had made it all the way across the sea. The letter that had found its way to her against all of the odds that told her that he was home and that his only regret was that he could not take her with him. She kept the letter close to her. First hidden in the bundle of clothing that she kept where she lived and later close to her skin when it became necessary to flee. Necessary to hide from the regime that had decided that people like her; people in the south that had just tried to make as good a life as they could under the circumstances were insufficiently revolutionary and needed to be corrected for that mistake now that the war was over. Hiding was a nightmare of flight across the countryside, hoping that the person you had just left would not set the dogs on your trail and the person you were running to had not decided it was safer to turn you aside or lead you like a lamb to slaughter to curry favor instead. Three times they had almost caught her and if they had the letter that she clung to like a broken spar in a black pitiless sea would have meant her death. She would have been safer to destroy it and just remember what it said instead but she couldn't bring herself to do that and she held on to it instead and with each passing of whatever danger that threatened her she began to believe that it was what was the reason that she had managed to come this far at all. She could have gotten off in Hong Kong. Some of the others did, but she stayed with the brothers until the nearly unseaworthy steamer docked in Manila and disgorged them all. The refugee camp at Bataan could have been as far as she went, but she had faith that letter that she cherished so much would take her beyond even there. Faith that she felt was rewarded when she turned down the red dirt road that led to the farm she was looking for. The end of that road was where faith died. Dead as the man she had come so far to be with. The cancer that had taken him from her and his family had nestled in his bones with the Agent Orange that killed him even though he had walked away from its touch. She kept the letter though even if she could have been forgiven for throwing it away. If there ever had been any protection for her in those pages it was only what he had given her as a final gift when all that was left of him was spirit and memory. It was kept and when Darcy was a little girl her mother would take it out and show it to her and tell her of her grandmother and how there were greater things than what you saw that could come to you if only you just had faith in them. Darcy wasn't sure what that could possibly be when she was little but when she met Daddy she thought she finally started to understand what that might be. She loved Daddy and he asked so little of her so she was glad to do this little thing for him, even if others might not understand if they knew. And it wasn't like it was forever. The other girls talked about how good they had it with Daddy and how well things worked out for the other girls when they finally decided to move on. Darcy didn't know if momma or grandma would understand how she felt about Daddy but she was sure that grandma would understand her faith in him and what it meant to her. The green that lined the road wasn't broken by very much in the way of housing and she couldn't say that the neighborhood that she was supposed to meet today's date in did anything more than make her wish that it was some other place than here. The truth was that she didn't like going to Olympia at all. Most of the time if she went here it meant that she wasn't going to have very much to be thankful for when it was over. There was something about the clients there that just didn't sit well with her. Most of the people Daddy arranged for her to meet at least were decent to her, but there was something about the ones in Olympia that felt like they believed they had license to be as bad as they didn't dare be with anyone else. To her it seemed that it didn't matter at all to them. She knew how much Daddy demanded from them, but even with that value placed on her time it was like when they bought her time they felt that what she offered them was little more than what they could get from a common streetwalker and sometimes she wondered why Daddy didn't just sent one of those to take care of them without some of those jokers being the wiser for it. Daddy wouldn't do that though. Daddy had standards even if they didn't. Not all of Olympia was trashy though. Some parts of it were much nicer now than they had been. The whole area had been gradually cleaning up and even if some of the worst offenders lived in big expensive houses there they were not the only ones. There were plenty of gentlemen there who were deserving of spending a little time with one of Daddy's girls. The part of Olympia that the cab was traveling through now was different than the overpriced housing that had gone up along the riverfront. It had seemed that the whole area was going to be torn down and replaced with cookie cutter McMansion's for a while but that hadn't happened. The minor earthquake months ago had a lot to do with stopping that from happening. She didn't pay that much attention to business or finance but even she understood that the earthquake that had happened just before she came to work for Daddy had everything to do with what she was seeing today. If it hadn't been for that earthquake then it was likely that no one would have found where that toxic dump had been hidden in the earth of the wooded strips between the old housing there. That had been the end of the redevelopment plans and Darcy wasn't that sorry that it had turned out that way at all. All that the redevelopment plans would have meant to her was that there would have been more bad Johnnies for her to visit living in overpriced undersized houses. Bad Johnnies who had no intention of treating her like the lady she really was. It was hard to believe it was even the same place now. Looking out the window of the cab as it made its way down the road it looked like there never was any housing here now. You couldn't tell that it was the reasons for causing such a stink that people were still talking about it even now. She listened to her Johnnies even if they didn't think that she did. Daddy made certain that all his girls understood that what they heard was more important than what they did while they were together and he was very interested in what was going on in this part of Stafford. This whole area had been shut down and evacuated months ago because of what they found there and some of her Johnnies were very vocal about how much that happening had cost them. It didn't matter to them that the company that was responsible supposedly had been hit with tremendous fines for leaving that poison there or that so many people had to leave. All they cared about was that the investment hadn't paid off. The developer had been forced to cancel their plans because of the contamination and people like her Johnnies had lost enough that they still resented it. According to the man who was behind it there was nothing he could do and that he was lucky that he could even get pennies on the dollar for what he promised them would be worth so much more. He had advised them to sue the company like he did but because he had accepted the settlement that he had there had been little left over for men like her Johnnies. Back in the early days of the company rushing to settle there had been so much traffic in this part of town. It seemed that there were months where you would see moving companies hauling houses that had been quartered for easier transportation moving down the roads and snarling traffic in all directions. According to what the stories said about what was going on the company responsible had not only been forced to pay to evacuate most of the people in the affected area somewhere else, they had been forced to pay to move the uncontaminated homes as well. If there was any time that Darcy wished that she owned her own place it would have been back when that company was throwing money around like it was water to buy its way out of trouble. She lived in the apartment that Daddy kept for her though and she didn't have anything like that. As much as she would like to have had a place like one of the ones that were left she probably wouldn't anyway. That was alright. Daddy took care of her and she would be fine as long as he did that. The company had been held liable in other ways as well according to what she had heard. Not only had they been forced to pay to move the people who had lived here away to another place, they had been forced to pay the cost of cleaning up the mess they had left hidden here. How they went about doing that was strange on the surface though. She would have thought that one of the things that would have been done would have resulted in the whole area being dug up and the contaminated soil hauled away, but that hadn't happened. Supposedly they had chosen to plant the area over until now it looked like people had never lived here at all. According to the story she had heard there was something about the vegetation that they had imported. Something special. It was supposed to have properties that made it more likely to leach out the poisons and over time, at least that is what people said, it would gradually clean the whole stretch of land. Supposedly that was something that they did in other places and it would take decades but in the end it would be clean and until then it wouldn't be safe for people to live here. The strange thing to her was that, even though the whole area was looking completely different now in its own bushy, wooded way, she was less comfortable passing through here now than when it was a dump. Ever since the clean up was concluded Darcy found it almost impossible to reconcile what she saw out of the passenger window now to what it before. So many homes had been either demolished or removed during the clean up that this part of the city was almost like driving through the boondocks on the edge of town. The taxi passed lot after lot that now was nothing more than trees and quickly growing bushes and grass and the deeper that they went into it the more unsettled she felt about being surrounded by the tunnel of green that stretched out from both sides of the road and met to form a solid canopy overhead that the sun rarely pierced. The taxi slowed as it made its way down the silent streets. Not everyone was gone from here. There were still a few places that were far enough away from the worst of the contamination that they were allowed to remain. Those places were mostly on the far edge of the area though and coincidentally they mostly turned out to be some of the newest homes to be added just before they found the dump site. Them what has gets, them that don't get lost, she told herself and as far as she was concerned this was just another example of that coming true. According to the authorities this part of the area was supposed to be safe, but every time Darcy came here she still felt a hint of growing nervousness as she watched the wall of green sliding by the window of the back seat. One of her Johnnies had a fairy tale fetish and liked for her to play Red Riding Hood when she visited him. It was a good thing that he didn't live here though. There were a lot of woods here now. It was almost like someone had left a forest growing in the center of this part of town and if you didn't know it hadn't been there before you might have thought that it was intended to be that way. If her Johnnie who liked to be the Big Bad Wolf lived here she wasn't sure that she would be comfortable with so much greenery outside of the windows for real. To get to this side they had to come from the other side of the forest. For some reason it still wasn't possible for you to access the homes on this side of the area. To get there you needed to pass along the access road that fronted the river and it still took time to get there. You knew you were almost there when you saw it though. Darcy watched a still occupied house slid past her window. At least there were still some people around who were here and all at once the area didn't feel so lonely and empty. Not all of the people she visited when she came here were bad though, some of them were even the kind of Johnnie that she liked to be paired with. But good Johnnie or bad there was one thing that most of them held in common and she supposed that the new Johnnie she was supposed to meet tonight was more of the same. Her Johnnie's were those with new money who liked their privacy. It was probably one of those types she thought; Daddy was particularly interested in them for some reason. He kept sending his girls here almost like he was looking for something. The new money ones were not always the best hosts, but sometimes they could surprise her. And since the whole area had been evacuated, other ones who lived here, the ones who had lived here for decades but were poor, were gone now. They may have lived far enough away from the toxic dump to stay here, but the company had bought them out just the same, so if someone lived here now it was pretty certain that they would have the money to pay Daddy for her time. The blue checkered cab slowed near Magnolia Circle and stopped in front of the big house by Grove Street. She looked up at it and asked the driver if he was sure that this was the place. The driver pointed to the house number painted on the curb and told her it was. She reached into her small purse and fished out a pair of twenties to pay the fare. He waited long enough for her to get her small bag out of the back and then she started walking up to the front door while he drove away. Daddy didn't like her or any of his other girls to use Uber or Lyft when she went to meet a Johnny. He said it was just too random for him to guarantee her safety and he preferred them to take regular taxis. Darcy thought that was just him being old fashioned, but it was his money and since she was on his dime a taxi it was. She still wasn't so sure about this place though. The house had definitely had some work done to it, but not as much as some of the other surviving ones. Maybe whoever owned it didn't sweat some of the small stuff. After all it wasn't like the paint was peeling off or anything and maybe the Johnny who lived here preferred to save that money so that he could enjoy it with someone like her. That wouldn't be the first time she had run across that. She just hoped that whoever he was he wouldn't be another weirdo. That was another occupational hazard. Some of these guys who still lived out this way thought that because they had money someone like her didn't matter. And if they thought she didn't matter then it was only a short trip to thinking that that meant that they could do as they pleased with her with no repercussions. The problem with that way of thinking was that when it happened it meant that they had forgotten that she mattered to Daddy. Anyone who went too far with Daddy learned that he could push back hard. They also learned that the new money they thought made them special didn't really work the way they thought it did. All that really meant to her was that it was more evidence that just because you had a fat wallet that it had zero relationship to how much class you actually had. She hoped this guy had class, but if he didn't she'd smile and do what she was here for and if he went too far then Daddy would deal with him. It didn't mean that she was looking forward to it though. Not many of her Johnnies were worth looking forward to and each time she got a new one she hoped that she could add one more to the list of good Johnnies rather than to the list of bad ones. She walked up to the door and rang the bell. "Who is it?" a question warbled from a small speaker set in the doorjamb. "Darcy LeFleur," she answered back. "You called my company about a renovation project. I've brought the samples that you requested." That was the script and Darcy had it down cold. There was an art to doing something like this in the open without drawing unwanted attention to yourself and it there was one thing Daddy didn't like it was unwanted attention. So that meant every base had to be covered. Darcy never wore her working clothes while she traveled. Those were in the bag. While she was in the public eye she dressed no differently than any other girl who packed samples to homeowners to examine in the comfort and privacy of their homes. That was what Daddy wanted people to see and what Daddy wanted Daddy got. The lock rattled and it opened. The door was drawn back to show her a heavy squat man of about middle age waiting for her on the other side. He had short graying black hair and a heavy mustache beneath his prominent nose. I'm almost taller than him she thought and felt a bit exhilarated at that idea. Usually her Johnnies dwarfed her and even if this one wasn't a young guy that wasn't such a bad thing for her. Some younger guys that she had been sent to were nothing more than a life support system for a dick and it showed in how they acted; particularly around girls like Darcy. Guys this age were a crapshoot sometimes as well. Some of them were real honest to god gentlemen, but there were just as many that were twisted in some way too. They just didn't let that side of then out to play where other people could see it and then there were the real scary ones. The ones that Daddy had to have some words with after her visit to straighten them out. She looked at this new Johnnie on the waiting for her on the other side of the door and hoped that he was a gentleman. The squat man introduced himself as John; that was expected. It didn't matter what their real name was if anyone asked her she was always with John. The house wasn't as ill-kept on the inside and Darcy mentally moved some weight onto the side of the scale that said that he was someone who put his money onto the plate when he wanted something special. That argued to her that he wouldn't be as likely to treat her too badly, but then it could just as well mean that he had serious kinks as well; he didn't look like old money. He didn't look like new money either though and that argued for her that he might not be too loopy in what he wanted from her. The ones that had money falling out of their ass for the last ten generations were almost as bad as the one who only had it for the first or second generation. Both kinds thought of her as a thing to be used and discarded and no matter what they said otherwise that attitude always came through. The house had high ceilings and as the door closed behind her she thought she heard a faint buzzing whirring sound. She wondered if he kept a bird in the house too. One of her Johnnies kept a big blue and white macaw and it always flew freely around the house as long as he was there when she visited him. The only time it saw the inside of the big cage Johnny kept for him was when he wasn't home. When he was home the big bird mostly hung out on the heavy wooden perch next to the window, but there were other spots it liked to visit when she was there. Like her Johnnie's bedroom for instance. She wasn't sure which one of them was the bigger perv. Every time she visited the bird would come into the bedroom or wherever else they were going to tend to things. It would find a comfortable spot and all the while she was there it function as his cheering section. She kept meaning to ask him sometime if he had taught the bird to do that or if he had gotten him that way and every time she forgot to do it. The whirring grew louder, whatever it was it was approaching from overhead. She hoped that whatever kind of bird it was that it wasn't going to crap in her hair while it was up there. That would be a real pain to deal with and if that happened she would try to find a way to charge him extra for it. After all if that happened she would have to wash her hair before they could begin and then she would have to pay a stylist to repair the damage when she finally could leave. Whatever kind of bird it was it was coming close, Darcy looked up and was shocked to see instead of a parrot or a macaw there was what looked like a woman with dragonfly wings hovering over her. Darcy's mouth gaped open and before she could make a sound the woman quickly dove down and dropped something shiny around her neck and then backed off of her and hovered a few feet away. Pain lashed Darcy's mind. It was the worst headache that she had ever felt in her life. Like someone was literally taking a machete to the middle of her head. She couldn't help it; she grasped both sides of her scalp and pressed her temples tightly to try to push the pain back from wherever it had sprung from. She dimly recalled hearing her own voice howling in sudden agony and dimly felt the smooth wood of the floor thump against her stocking clad knees. There was nothing of the world around her, but the pressure that compressed her head like a vice and just when she thought it would never end, it did. She blinked and the light that came streaming in through the windows made her eyes hurt. She was lying on the wooden floor half rolled over and looking up at the ceiling high above her. The flying woman was still there hovering, watching her and the man stood further away still not saying anything. Darcy looked up at the miniature woman. "Pantra?" she asked. "Is it really you?" She lost control of herself then and for a moment her vision blurring until it seemed everything she saw echoed on itself just like the sound in her ears was echoing as well. The flying woman came closer until she was hovering over Darcy's lips. She smiled down at her and instead of feeling afraid she felt no danger. "Yes detective Brighton, it's really me," she said as Darcy lost consciousness and blackness took her. --------------------------------- The Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 437, 1540 hours Singh looked down on the young woman lying on the bed. It was the first opportunity that he had to truly see her up close. The pictures of her that their surveillance had gathered had captured some of who she was and what she looked like, but up close the little details that the camera missed were much easier to see. She was only a few inches taller than Singh himself and like Selicia had very long dark black hair. That was where the resemblance ended though. Where Selicia's hair was fine and soft like silk threads, this woman's was much coarser in texture. She had skin the color of warm honey and wide high cheekbones. Her closed eyes were not set very closely to her face and there was an epicanthic fold that proclaimed the Asian portion of her ancestry in the corner of her eyes. Like all of Fetterman's girls she was physically very beautiful and from what he remembered of her demeanor before Pantra had slipped the pendant over her head she seemed to have bright merry eyes. Her voice was sweet as well; Fetterman seemed to specifically look for women who spoke in such soft tones. Whether that was personal preference or responding to market demand Singh didn't know for certain. He could see how her appearance would make her popular among Fetterman's clientele, but that was not why she was here. Jacen had carried her from the bait house and taken her upstairs laid her on the bed where she was resting now. Once he had arranged her comfortably he had gone downstairs to summon M'Tehr and bring her up to this room join him. "Can you hear anything Friend Singh?" she asked as she entered the room. "Is there any trace of what you are looking for now that you have rejoined her body to who she was?" Singh had retired to a corner and now rested in an armchair with carved wooden armrests. He was leaning towards her with his elbows resting on the edges and his hands clasped beneath his chin. "There is nothing there for me to read yet, Lady M'Tehr," he said. "She is like the others. Whatever wrought these changes in her also built into her a strong natural mind shield. I doubt she is even aware that she possesses such a thing." "Something is aware that she does," M'Tehr said to him. "Something made very certain that its creations have no chance to betray it through ignorance." "That is my concurrence as well," he answered her still watching the motionless woman lying on the bed. "Will it be possible for you to access her secrets while she carries her mind? She asked. "I do not think we should try such a thing yet, Lady M'Tehr," Singh said. "We already know just how fragile she is right now and we can take no chance that we might push her too far and shatter what little opportunity we have that remains for her." "The slow way then my friend," she said to him. "The slow way," he agreed and moved to raise his bulk from the chair and move to the side of the bed. "You should wake her now. The time she has had to rest may have given her enough time to recover from gaining back all of who she is all at once." "Don't push her too far too fast, friend Singh. She is very delicate at this stage and we still have time. The clock has only begun to tick." M'Tehr leaned over her and reached down into the earth. She had not often attempted to shift life from plant to animal before she came here. It was something that she had mistakenly thought was better suited to the Satyr's that moved in balance with her sisters, but that was her own naivety. The Arath' Mahar Selicia had shown all of them that they were only limiting themselves by thinking that and in her time here the Mother of the Grove had helped her to bridge those two more easily. At first it had been difficult for her but now she did it with little more effort that she had when she thought that her touch limited to things that grew in the earth rather than things that walked upon it. They watched the color in her cheeks return and her breathing quicken as consciousness swam up from the pool it rested in. As her eyes started to shift and move beneath her painted eyelids M'Tehr stopped feeding her life and withdrew from the room before she fully woke, leaving Singh and Pantra behind as the only ones who would be there to greet the waking woman. Her eyes opened and reflexively her hand rose to cover them, to shield them from the light streaming in through the window. "Oh my head," the woman moaned in soft words almost inaudible. "Don't try to move just yet," Singh said to her as gently and calmly as he could. "Do you remember who you are?" he asked. "I remember a planet sized headache, but now it's only rubble sized and thankfully it's fading," she said grimacing. "Do you remember who you are though?" Singh asked again probing softly. "Do you remember who we are?" "Singh and...Pantra. We worked together I think. It's hard to remember," she said. "Don't try to force it," Singh said to her. "Let it come when it does. It has its own pace and you should let it lead you just to be safe. You've already been through quite a lot and I'm so very sorry to tell you, that this is just the beginning." ----------------------------------- Darcy looked up from the bed at the walls of the room. There was something familiar about them. She'd been here before. She couldn't remember why she had been here, but she knew that she had been. The room itself had a pair of tall windows that let in a large amount of natural light. The bed she was on was broad and soft with just the right level of firmness to the mattress. The man, no, not the man. Calling him the man like she didn't know him would be wrong. Singh, his name was Singh and she knew him as well. Singh was sitting again in the old fashioned armchair gently talking to her. The fairy Pantra was sitting nearby perched on one of the knobs at the foot of the bed. No, that's not right, she reminded herself as another part of her memory slipped into place. She's not a fairy; she hates being called a fairy. The pixie. That's what she was and if you forgot it she would cop a real attitude over the slight. There was a half open door behind her facing the foot of the bed. Through it she could see a mirror over a bathroom sink and to the right of that one was another door that leads to the stairs that would take them to the ground floor. She knew every part of this house, she was sure she hadn't lived here, but she was also sure that she had been in here before. There was a reason connected to just why she had been here before, an important reason but it just wouldn't come to her. Not just yet. "Do you remember who you are?" Singh asked her again. That seemed to be important to him, but she didn't know just why that would be. He'd asked her over and over and until now she hadn't been able to answer. "Darcy," she said finally dragging the name out of her mind. "Darcy...Brighton?" she half asked as if she still couldn't quite remember completely. "Almost right," Singh said to her. "And what is your job Darcy Brighton? What is your calling?" he asked her. "I'm a police escort," she said. "An exotic detective?" she half asked again. Singh exhaled and it seemed to her that he visibly relaxed a little when he did that. "Very good Darcy Brighton. You've already exceeded my hopes for you a hundredfold at this point," he said to her. "Now though I think you should rest a little longer. Let your thoughts come in their own time and at their own pace. You've had a rough time of it today and for now you should rest before we ask too much more of you. Pantra will keep you company while I go down to the kitchen and get you something to ease that headache you are feeling." "Thank you," she said, "I don't know what to say." "Let it come in its own time, Detective Brighton," he said to her. "We have all night for that before we must to deal with what comes next," Singh went down the stairs after he left the room. She could hear his heavy solid steps as he moved down the stairs. He's going down to the kitchen she told herself. Next to the Florida room where... oh I can't remember. She told herself. Something happened in the Florida room. Something that started there and ended ...here she thought looking at the wooden ceiling above the bed. "Pantra?" she asked. "Yes detective Brighton?" she said fluttering toward her and landing on the bed next to her. Seeing the tiny woman looking at here and filling her vision with her body Darcy was struck by a sense of familiarity. She'd seen her from this angle too. Somewhere, some other time. There was smoke she remembered. Smoke and something more. Something dangerous in the smoke. No, that wasn't right. The smoke wasn't dangerous; the smoke was what was protecting them." "You were hurt," she said. "You were hurt bad and we couldn't find you. We had to leave you," Somehow just saying the words made her feel ashamed, like there was something more that she could have done and at the same time she knew that wasn't true. "I got better," she said. "You'll get better too, detective Brighton. Just let it come, don't try to force it. You've got a lot swimming around in that mind of yours right now and it's best if you let it come naturally." "Darcy," she said. "My name is Darcy." "Of course it is," Pantra said to her forcing a smile. ------------------------------------ Carol was making some tea on the stove while Singh, M'Tehr and Jacen sat on chairs around the kitchen table. M'Tehr had long ago learned to become comfortable using human furnishing and had little trouble using them now. Jacen too, gave little indication that he felt any discomfort from his surroundings. Both of them had raised their glamour's while they were gathered for this purpose, but that was only for Brighton's benefit. Carol had long since stopped noticing whether they were in their natural forms or their camouflaged ones. "Is she making any progress?" M'Tehr asked him as he came down once again from the upper room and resumed his seat at the table with them. "Better than I had hoped," he said. "Her memory is blended. When she answers she takes part of what she says from her life now and part from what she remembers from her life before." "That is to be expected. She may have the mind she had before accessible to her in these moments, but it still has to be filtered through the mind she has now until she strikes a balance between the two," M'Tehr said to him. "That is part of it," Singh said, "but at the same time I think there is more to it than just that. Carol brought Singh and Jacen both some coffee. She had been surprised to learn that Jacen rabidly adored coffee and was particularly fond of Columbian blends. When he spent time here when not in the Grove itself she was finding that she was very comfortable around him the more she got to know him. His natural appearance aside he spoke to her with deep respect as he spoke to all he encountered and she was learning that it was just how he talked rather than an affectation. Besides she enjoyed his company especially when Sakura came along as well. Singh thanked her for the cup. He was another one that Carol had learned to appreciate as well. When he interviewed her before all this started, his manner of speaking had stood out to her and she had remembered it for its kindness, even though she had been battling her own feelings in the wake of what had happened. "Part of her problem stems from who she is I think," Singh said taking a slow sip of his coffee. "She is affected by the change in the same way that Arath' Mahar Selicia was affected." "So there is co-relation then?" M'Tehr asked. "We can confirm that?" "Yes, I think there is," Singh said. "What was torn out of her was what was torn out of the Arath' Mahar as well. When I asked her to tell me her name, she immediately reached for the name she carries now." "That should not be surprising friend Singh," M'Tehr said. "She has borne this name the whole of her existence now. It is engraved deeply in her because of this. Joining what was to what is will not overcome this so easily." "It is more than that," Singh insisted again. "There is no recognition in her of that part of her just as the Arath' Mahar showed us before. She is not aware of any other part of herself and with no awareness of what is taken she only sees what remains. She is a being composed almost completely of anima just as the Arath' Mahar is; Just as all her line are." "There is a hunger in her as well," M'Tehr said. "When I shifted life to her as she slept, I felt it gnawing away at what I gave her. The wound that the Arath' Mahar suffered still weeps in this one as well." "Do you think it can it be healed?" Singh asked. "Or do you think it will it take her as well?" From the tone of his question M'Tehr could tell that this was something that troubled him deeply. "I do not think that I have what I need within me to heal this wound, friend Singh," M'Tehr. "Of all of those in the Grove the Arath' Mahar may be the only one who might be able to do so." "We will have to leave this in her hands then. When will she return?" Singh asked. "Soon, friend Singh. She widens her circle even now. She catches a hint of the trail and follows it as far as she can reach, but she does return. The call of the Grove brings her back and she does not wander far when she does." Singh dipped a spoonful of honey out of the pot on the table. Unlike M'Tehr and Jacen he was drinking strong tea. He allowed a large dollop of the golden fluid to slowly drip into the cup and then sank the coated spoon into the tea and began slowly stirring. The faint clink of the metal moving against the heavy sides of the cup a sharp sound that echoed between them. "Speak to her of this when she returns then, Lady M'Tehr," Singh asked. M'Tehr nodded her head in agreement, but spoke nothing more. There was no need for further words; Singh knew that she would do this when Selicia returned from her search. Singh rose from his chair and reached for the second cup of tea that Carol has placed still steaming on the table beside his own. "I must check on our guest," he said. "And I did promise her some refreshment as well." Singh carried the cup out of the room and they heard his feet make the risers groan on the stairs as he ascended them. ------------------------------------- Pantra was still sitting unmoving by Brighton when Singh entered the room carrying the cup of tea. "Do you think you feel well enough to sit up and drink some of this?" he asked her. Darcy nodded slowly and tried to shift herself into a sitting position against the pillows. There was the faint mrrow, mrrow, mrrow coming from somewhere behind Singh and then without further announcement the big ginger cat that followed him up the stairs leaped on the bed and cautiously stalked over to Pantra. "Not today Andromeda," she said to the cat. "I can't play with you today. Go take a nap you little buzz saw." Andromeda made a disappointed sound and opted instead to curl up on the foot of the bed and watch the three of them through half closed eyes. She folded her feet underneath her body as she did so and a few minutes after she made herself comfortable she began to rumble with a full bodied purr. "That's Carol Desilva's cat," Darcy said. "I remember you asked her to put her in the other room when we spoke with her," There was a look of dawning comprehension on Darcy's face as she spoke. Chapters that she was not aware of were being filled in and she closed her eyes briefly as if the effort of finding space for them on her mental bookshelves was too much for her. "Yes, you are correct, Detective Brighton," Singh said offering her the tea. "Ms. Desilva is under this roof as is Andromeda as well. Darcy flicked her eyes around the room again. "This is Barnes's house isn't it?" she asked placing names to what was around her now that the connection was made. "It is," Singh answered. "We needed a safe location in order to speak with you and the gatehouse of the Grove was the safest place we have available." "Why is Carol Desilva in Barnes's house?" she asked. "Ms. Desilva acts as the gatekeeper of the Grove. Much has changed in the time you've been away detective Brighton," Singh said slowly. "How long?" she asked. "How long has it been?" "Let me answer that after a little longer if you would indulge me detective," Singh said to her. "Your grasp on what was and what is is still tenuous and I would rather not strain a bond so newly forged if I could avoid doing so just yet. I have answers to some of your questions, but not just yet. Not until the bond is stronger and can take the weight of that knowledge." Darcy nodded. She didn't know how she knew that he was speaking the truth but she trusted what he told her. "Do you think you have the strength to return downstairs?" he asked her. "Perhaps something you see there may aid you in recovering naturally what you lost. That way the more that you can remember of your own volition the less you will need to hear secondhand from others." "I think I can do that," she said and started to raise herself up from the bed. She didn't rise very far and after two failed attempts she extended her wrist to him and asked if he could help her to stand. Singh reached out his hand to her and slowly eased her to her feet. Leaning against him the pair slowly walked to the door and carefully made their way down the stairs. Andromeda half rose from her curled position on the bed and mrrowed at Pantra as she rose into the air behind them and flitted across the open space to where she could comfortably sit on Singh's shoulder. Pantra pointed her index and middle fingers at her eyes and then pointed her index finger back at the cat. "Don't even think about it Andromeda," she warned the cat in her high chirpy voice as the animal started to move to follow them. "I'm watching you," Andromeda made a disgusted cat sound and settled back on her corner of the bed and watched them depart from the room. -------------------------------- Carol Desilva passed them in the entrance hallway as they slowly made their way down the stairs. "Do you think that's the smart thing to do right now detective Singh?" she asked looking Darcy over with a critical eye. "She looks like she needs more time up in that bed if you ask me." "If that were possible that is the path we would take Ms. Desilva," Singh said. "Unfortunately such time as we have now is limited by other factors. I promise you though I shall not to tax her beyond what she can bear if it is within my power. My word to you on that." "See that you do, detective," she said. "We don't need her collapsing in here. We don't need...that...happening again," she added shuddering and moving away toward the kitchen. "I defer to your authority then, Mistress of the Gate," he said to her departing back. "Pfah," she called back to him. "Just don't push her too hard." Singh helped Darcy move slowly into the living room and gently guided her to the couch centered in front of the hearth in the center of the room. It would have been nothing for him to have picked her up and simply placed her there but that was never an option. It was important that she make as much progress as possible during the time that they had. No matter how slowly that Darcy was moving it had to be under her own power as much as possible. She needed to do that to knit together all that had been severed. "The flame," she said abruptly, pointing at the blaze after she was seated. "The flame is blue! I've never seen a flame that blue. It's like ice burning." "Curious," Singh said. "I didn't expect that you might be able to see the flame as it exists. What else do you see?" "Desilva's hair is longer. It was shorter before, now it's almost halfway down her back and the color is lighter as well. I've been gone a longer than just a few days haven't I Singh?" she asked him. "You have," Singh said. "How can you even be here?" she asked him. "This is Barnes's house but the last time you were here it looked like it was killing you and you said Pantra couldn't even come near the center of this place but she's here now and she's moving around like she did when you introduced her to Mitch..." Darcy stopped talking abruptly and looked around again. "Where's Mitch?" she asked. "Detective Brighton..." he started to say. "Darcy," she said interrupting him. "Call me Darcy please. I know I have another name but I can't connect to it and I think that enough has passed between us that you shouldn't feel the need to talk to me like I'm someone you just met." "Darcy then," he said. "I do have answers to some of the questions you have now, I may even have answers to the questions that come to you later, but trust me when I say that I can't give you all of those answers you wish just yet. As I said before the connection between what is and what was is only tenuous right now and I don't dare strain it that much just yet." "Listen to him, Darcy," Pantra said. "If he could he'd tell you everything all at once. I've been watching him climb the walls for weeks before today trying to pare down what he wants to tell you to what he thinks you can take right away. Just let it come in its own time is my advice." "Weeks?" she said. "Just how long have I been like this?" Singh looked at Pantra as if to ask her if he should answer. "Tell her Singh," she said to him. "Because if you don't tell her I damned well will. She needs to know what she's up against and hiding something like that isn't going to help her with this." "Of course you're right Pantra," he said to her. "You usually are in most cases." "Of course I am," she agreed. "That's part of why you keep me around." "I thought that was why you allowed me to stay?" he said. "So you could be right?" "Knock it off and just tell her already," Pantra said. "We can stroke each other's egos later." Singh looked into Darcy's eyes and reached for her hand. As her hand slipped into his she could tell that she didn't want to hear what it was he was about to say and she needed to hear it at the same time. Hearing it would make it real and she needed it to be real as much as she needed it to be a dream. "Fourteen months, Darcy," he said. "You've been gone for fourteen months. We only found you a few weeks ago. We've been looking for you for a very long time. We were beginning to think that we might not find you in time." "Fourteen months?" she said. "I've been like this for fourteen months? Why can't I remember? And how come I can remember who I am now and I couldn't before?" Singh reached out and touched the crystal teardrop that hung from the slim gold chain around her neck. He lifted it up so that she could see it clearly. "This is why," he said. "The crystal acts as a recording of who you were the moment that you held it. All that you were at that moment is contained within its matrices right now. If it helps you to understand any better than just look at it as a piece of hardware, in its own way it acts in a similar fashion to the way a dongle does when you use it with a computer. While the computer still holds the primary operations directives, the instructions in the dongle can override and provide direction while it is in place." "The problem is that right now it is very fragile. It's trying to overcome what has been done to you to allow you to access who you were before. The connections it needs to make takes time to fully mesh. That is why I could not tell you what the crystal was for. If either of you had known its purpose, then the one who did this to you would know of it. He would know of it and he would have scorched those connections beyond recovery. But he didn't and now it is slowly working to give you what you need to remember what was and understand what is." "Why can I see the fire?" she asked softly. "And how come you both can be here now without feeling any pain? Singh took a deep mental breath. Ever since they had located Brighton he had been rehearsing everything that he could possibly be called on to tell her. Everything seemed to vie for attention when he was settling on just what it was that he would say. Now the moment was here and all there was for him was to speak the words. "Shortly before the status of the Grove was settled, the Arath' Mahar forced herself to enter within the boundaries of the ward she called into being when she was still Barnes. She entered it because she was the only one who could. Only her hand could change how it was that ward functioned; by her hand it was called into being and by her hand it struck. She endured great pain while she did so, but much less than she expected to. She reached deep within the heart of what she summoned and she adjusted it so that its rules were no longer so absolute. The ward now protects as she intended it to do when she first raised it, but it does not repel indiscriminately any longer. So long as it recognizes you as friendly to the Grove you are allowed to enter without penalty." "Why can I see the flames?" she asked. "That is a question that I have no answer for Darcy .... yet," he said. "It is something unexpected. But if you are willing, I think that we might be able to explain it. Would you feel up to a kind of experiment?" he asked her. "I suppose I could. What kind of experiment?" she asked. "Just a simple test of sorts," he said and leaned over to whisper to Pantra." "Are you sure?" Pantra asked him. Singh nodded and with a thrum of her wings Pantra lifted off and darted out of the room. Darcy looked quizzically after her and then turned back to Singh for an explanation. "Pantra has gone to ask someone to come in so you can see them," he said. "I won't tell you who they are. Just answer as best as you can and tell me what they look like if you would." Darcy agreed and a moment later the thrum of Pantra's wings was heard growing louder as she re-entered the room. The sound was loud and noticeable, but Pantra was nowhere to be seen. "Darcy, look around the room if you will and tell me if you can see Pantra?" he asked her. She gazed cautiously looking in a slow pattern that Singh recognized as the same one used to search out a hidden suspect in a room by room search. That was a good sign he told himself. It meant that some of the deeper part of who she was had surfaced even if she was unaware of it doing so. The sound of Pantra's moving form shifted around the room. Louder one moment and then softer the next. Close by them and then far away. Moving and then still. High and then low and never the same place or near the same thing for longer than second or two. "There she is," Darcy said, pointing to where Pantra had hung suspended behind the lampshade of a tall thin floor lamp. Pantra dropped her shimmer, flew over and landed lightly on Singh's shoulder. "Pantra, if you must use me as your perch please shift shoulders occasionally. I'm going to stand lopsided if you continue to favor that one." "I think you'd look good as a hunchback," she said to him, but she did indulge him and hop over to sit on his other shoulder as she replied to him. "Hardly my dear," Singh said to her. "I simply would not appeal to any form of Esmeralda if that were true." M'Tehr and Jacen both stepped into the room and stood by the door without speaking. Darcy looked at them for a moment and then pointed to Jacen. "I see that you see our other companions. If you would Darcy, would you be so good as to tell me these two people are?" "Jason," she said, pointing toward the satyr "No, it's not Jason, that's not right, but it's something very close to it. Almost the same thing but not quite. Jacen!" she said suddenly. "That's what it is, it's not Jason, it's Jacen." "Very good Darcy, you are correct. And the lady beside him?" he asked her. She looked at her for a long time or at least in the silence it seemed long to them. "M'Tehr," she said finally. "Her name is M'Tehr. She's...she's important somehow. I can't remember why but she is." "And can you tell me how you see them?" he asked pleased that she was able to recall that much unprompted. "M'Tehr looks like a tree," she said. "And Jacen is almost eight feet tall with black horns that curve back along his head and he's covered in umber hair. He has black eyes. Why did you want me to tell you how they look?" "Does their appearance surprise you?" he asked her waiting to see how she would answer. "No," she said. "I've seen them this way somewhere...somewhere close to here. Why do you want me to tell you this? She asked. "An answer to a question," he said to her. "When I asked Pantra to go have them come join us I asked her to tell them to cast a full glamour before they entered the room instead of the regular glamour they use for common interactions. When you saw the flames in the hearth I wondered if you would be able to see them as they are and as you have demonstrated what I suspected is true." "And what is that?" she asked. "While you wear the crystal, Darcy. While both of your minds are working in tandem, and because they are doing so you can see through glamour and see things of the aether that manifest in this plane. I know that you did not possess this ability before Pantra slipped it over your neck. I know this because when you stepped into the home where we met, Jacen was standing in front of you between the two of us just in case you had an adverse reaction when we first used the crystal on you. He cloaked his presence in a shimmer in the same way that Pantra does when she does not wish to be seen. While he did so you had no idea that he was even standing there." Darcy lowered her head. "Fourteen months," she said. "What was I doing for fourteen months?" she asked. "What were you doing?" "Among other things looking for you. It took us a long time to locate you," Singh said, "I almost thought we wouldn't find you in time once we were sure what had happened to both you and detective Travers." "What happened?" she asked him. "What happened to Mitch and to me? I can't remember. If I could just remem..." The word trailed off to silence as her eyes locked on her wrist. The silence dropped down like a scythe cutting through the words she might have said before she could finish uttering them. The image that had drawn her sight had left what she was going to say stillborn and she couldn't tear her gaze away from the place on her arm where it was fixated. "NO!!!" she screamed and starting to tearing at her arm. Her fingers clawed into her flesh and tried to dig deep, to tear away what she saw there. "NO, NO, NO!!!" she repeated with each word rising in volume as the meaning of what she saw sank into her understanding and she tried to deny what it was that her eyes were telling her was true. Singh reached out and clasped his hand around her wrist and pulled it away from where her fingers were scrabbling trying to gouge the rose mark from her right arm. As if by excising it she could make what it meant go away. "Yes," he said to her as gently as he could hold her as she struggled to resume tearing the mark from her flesh. "I'm sorry Darcy, but you were hidden, just one amongst the many. You were difficult to find because you are one of his special girls. The ones that he only sends to select clients. You were never seen and when you were it was but briefly at any time. That's why we couldn't find you so before now. We only found you at all, because it was time for you to become a lamb." "No!" she shrieked again struggling against him ever stronger. "No, no, no, no, no!" she said repeatedly forcing her hand back so that her fingers clawed again against the black rose marking that spread up her inner arm and bloomed there in her chelidon. M'Tehr swiftly closed the distance between them and took her head between her hands. "Peace," she whispered to her and poured into her such strength as she could to buttress her against the knowledge of what she had become. Darcy stopped tearing at her flesh and began to beat feebly against her chest and sobbed that it wasn't true over and over again until she passed into unconsciousness and lay still against M'Tehr. She held the unconscious woman against her until she ceased to move and her mind passed into deep slumber and then lay her down on the sofa. "That was almost too much for her, friend Singh," she said reproving him. "It had to be done M'Tehr," Singh said. "It was a risk and it was one that needed to be taken. As her mind cleared it was inevitable that she would see how she was marked and realize what it implied. Better that it happen sooner with us beside her early enough to shock her out of her shackles without tearing away her control." "Her control is hanging by a thread," M'Tehr said. "This knowledge nearly broke that thread." "But it did not," Singh replied to her. "Is the crystal intact?" she asked him shifting the topic slightly. The terrible thing was that M'Tehr knew deep in her heart that there was not ever any gentle way to reveal to detective Brighton what had happened to her. Singh reached for it where it lay at the base of her throat and held it up to the light. "It seems to be," he said in a deep tone of relief after a moment. "This is not the same as it was before," he said. "The risk is the same," she said to him pointedly. "That has not changed." "But she is not the same," Singh pointed out. "She is not past the point of no return yet. We still have time." M'Tehr tapped the wide petals of the blooming rose on her inner elbow. "She is not far from it either, friend Singh. Be careful that you do not push her over that edge even as you try to snatch her from it." "It could not be helped," Singh repeated. "And she is not as close as that yet." "We don't know that for sure," Jacen said. "We are in uncharted territory here. She may be closer than we think." "And that is why we agreed that this must be done now," Singh said, "While we still have this chance to avert it." "So we continue then?" Jacen asked. "Or do we stop for now and bring her back another time?" "Wait until she regains her consciousness," Singh said. "We can decide the path we walk when our guide returns to us." The four of them watched Darcy slumped in sleep on the couch and waited for her to awake again. In her slumber there was only the blank slate that unconsciousness granted to her and that respite was all they could offer her for now. ------------------------------- Darcy stared at the twisting black rose marking her inner right arm. "How?" she asked. "How did this happen?" Darcy had been able to regain control of her emotions when she woke, but that control was only barely there. The wound was raw now that the scab of ignorance was torn away. How long she would be able to bear it was weighing on all of them almost as much as it did on Darcy herself. M'Tehr was sitting beside her now motionless as she would be if an outsider were to catch a glimpse of her in her natural form. Her arm was drawn around Darcy's shoulders and she clasped her hand in the other as she did so. She had continued to sit with her as long as she had remained asleep from the calming that M'Tehr gifted to her. When she awoke a few moments before she was there as she intended to be, waiting; ready to aid her if she needed to and all the time she did so she was channeled what healing she could offer her into the woman's sleeping mind, allowing what trickle of the life she could link to flow into the woman hoping that it would strengthen her bit by bit. "Do you remember what we were speaking of before you and detective Travers left to confer with Lt. Clayton?" Singh asked her. "Flashes of it. Nothing really much at all," Darcy said. "Just enough to make me afraid of what you are going to tell me." "Can you try to remember Darcy?" he asked her softly. "Not everything, I won't ask that much of you, just a little if you can." Darcy shuddered. The trembling was echoed in M'Tehr because she was still holding her. She took a deep breath trying to draw calm to her centre, but it was a struggle for her to do so. "I remember we did talk to Clayton. She was shocked at what we found out. She had no idea that it was anything as deep as we told her it was," Darcy said. "And do you remember anything that she might have said when you spoke to her?" Singh asked probing as gently as he could. "No, everything after that is a blur," Darcy said. "Clayton phoned me at the ACC later that evening to tell me that you both had been killed shortly after leaving the precinct. I told her that I had also spoken with you and that you had told me that you both needed to speak with Lt. Clayton and me. I told her that it seemed that you were very agitated and I thought it was important. She told me then that neither you nor Detective Travers had spoken with her. But she was very interested in knowing if you had spoken to me. That seemed of particular interest to her. I had always intended to conceal my knowledge of what the two of you shared until she came to speak with me about this matter and when she told me that she never spoke with you I deemed it wise to keep that knowledge hidden from her afterward." "But what happened? Why would someone fake our deaths? How did they make me into this woman? Why would they even do that when it would have just been easier to kill me, to kill us for real instead?" she asked plaintively. "Those were the same questions that I needed to find out the answers to when Clayton told me that she never spoke with you. The night we spoke, the night you intended to speak with Lt. Clayton, you and detective Travers were supposedly killed by two men who were robbing a store that you were in. The investigation of the circumstances was not in dispute. The store's surveillance footage showed that you were killed almost immediately and after wounding one of the men detective Travers was also fatally injured and died before backup or medical assistance could arrive." "That didn't happen," Darcy said to him. "So much of what did happen is a blur, but I know that didn't happen." "I know," Singh said. "I know because the moment I was informed of your deaths I immediately sought out the crystals that I handed to you. When I opened the box where I kept them, both of the crystals that I asked you to take in your hands were still filled with light. As long as those lights were shining I knew that neither of you were dead. I realized that whoever it was that arranged for the both of you to apparently be killed in the line of duty was either connected to what was happening or was responsible for it." "And then what did you do?" Darcy asked faintly while M'Tehr held her and continued to allow life to trickle into her to strengthen her. "I did the only thing I could do. I kept my intentions hidden and started discretely investigating what I could independently. It took much longer than I would have preferred. You were very well hidden, but as the lead agent for the FRT and later the liaison with the Grove I have resources at my disposal that none would be aware that I could access. The Arath' Mahar is also looking for the one responsible for this and as I told you before, she enlisted my help in finding him. Arath' Mahar Selicia was the one who first saw you and she was determined that when her investigation led us to finding you a few weeks ago that we should bring you here." "Why did you bring me here? What is so special about this place that you had to bring me here?" Darcy asked. "Because here is the one place that we would have the best chance of returning who you were to you. This is not the same Grove that the four of us entered months ago. Arath' Mahar Selicia was just the beginning of what welled up when she called it. It was strong then and it has only grown stronger with each passing day since then. Here is the only place that we reasoned that we would have the best chance to save who you were without sacrificing you needlessly." "Why didn't you go to Clayton? She would have done everything she could if she knew that we were not dead. If she knew that we had this happen it might be hard for her to believe but I am sure you could have convinced her," Darcy said. "I did not ask her because I have suspected for some time after I knew that you had not been killed that someone in a high position in the department had a hand in your disappearances, but I could not prove that was the case," he said. "Why would you think someone there had anything to do with that?" she asked. "Because I suspected that Clayton was lying to me when she told me that the two of you had not spoken with her. When the two of you left my office I knew that Clayton was there and that the both of you would easily find her and speak with her. I expected to be summoned to her office shortly after you lay out the evidence that you had shown to me, but that call never came. Instead when I did hear from her it was to report your deaths. I couldn't prove it at first, but I granted her the benefit of the doubt. Just because I expected that she would be there to listen to you doesn't mean that she was there. When she said at that she had not that had the potential for proving to be true, but after your apparent deaths, her actions spoke more clearly than her words." "Are you suggesting Clayton did this?" she asked. "Why?" "I can say now with absolute certainty that yes that was indeed the case. As for why that is going to take some time for me to explain," Singh said to her. "At first I wasn't sure that I saw what I thought I saw. As you might have expected after losing two of her own, she focused all available resources to the task of aiding homicide in tracking down the two men that had supposedly killed you both. In the first few days afterward she focused on it with so much that she excluded any other case from consideration and she very quickly exhausted any resources that may have been used to pursue why you had needed to speak with her in the first place." "By the time that effort had run its course it was clear that any imperative to look into why she had not spoken to you or me as was suggested was no longer possible. The effort to track down those responsible for killing you had consumed time more than anything else and the trail was growing cold. And once those deemed responsible were found there was the pressing need to return to what was set aside once again. I sought out any trace of what you had taken to present to her, but there was nothing left to pull together but the scattered fragments that remained of what you found. At first I thought that you had kept everything so quiet that any copies disappeared to you, but it soon became obvious that there were traces left but they were just unavailable and without them to point to; the why that explained the reason you had really been removed was quietly buried under the false how." "But you knew better," Darcy said plaintively. "At the time everything that was offered as an explanation seemed reasonable. But as I continued my private investigation, other things began to slip into place and once too many other possibilities became apparent, then her involvement could not be denied any longer," he said. "What did she do that makes you say that about her?" Darcy asked. "I think that is a conversation for another time, Darcy. Despite M'Tehr's efforts I do not think you will be able to remain with us for much longer," he said. "I need to know," Darcy said. "I need to know what happened to us both." "That is going to be a longer conversation than we have time for and it would be better for you to hear it when the connection between both halves of who you are is stronger than it is right now." Darcy's eyes were starting to have a glassy cast to them and even though her mind was demanding answers her body was showing the toll it was taking on her. "You may be right; I think I might need to rest," Darcy said. "I think this is taking more out of me than I thought it already did." Singh leaned close to her, looking intently at her face as he did so. "How do you feel right now?" he demanded urgently. "We need to know exactly." "I feel like I'm being stretched inside. Like part of me is rubber and something is pulling on it," Darcy said her voice sounding fainter like it was receding already. Singh turned to Jacen who was lounging in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. "Jacen, I think you should take her upstairs immediately. You know what to do," Singh snapped to him. Jacen crossed the room quickly and gathered her from M'Tehr into his arms turned and sped her from the room. "Where are you taking me?" Darcy asked him weakly her head lolling against his umber fur. "Away from this room," Jacen said to her. "Your connection is failing. You have to be away from those in this room before the matrices fails. No one can know who you have been speaking with today." "It's failing?" she asked weakly. "Will I be able to come back?" she asked as they went up the stairs. "We think so," Jacen said to her. "But for now I must remove the crystal while you are still present," He was moving swiftly up the stairs to the master bedroom taking two steps in each bound. "What happens then? What will happen to me when you take it off of me?" she asked him as he stepped into the bedroom and lay her on the bed. She looked up at him as he bent over and reached for the crystal suspended by the thin chain and lifted it from her. Her eyes glazed over and she faded for a moment. "What you were sent here for," Jacen answered but no sooner than he had finished speaking the words than her eyes fluttered open again and she smiled and reached up for him. ---------------------------- Singh, Pantra and M'Tehr had retired first to the kitchen and then while Jacen occupied Darcy to the separate Florida room. Singh had sealed the door behind them and strengthened it to prevent Darcy from becoming interested enough in it to try to open it if she should take a notion to do so. Although the master bedroom was in the upper portion of the older house and some distance from the newer portion erected by Barnes they still could hear the two of them clearly through the wood and insulation. When they were discussing what they would do before bringing her here one of the things that they had complete agreement with was that under no circumstance was the woman that had been created out of detective Brighton ever to know that any of them had any connection with her visit here. While Jacen provided her with the image that she expected to see, the rest of the little group remained out of sight and spent their time in hushed discussion of what they had seen now that they had found her. Singh made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed that she had not been able to maintain her bridge longer than she had been able to and made it plain that he blamed himself for pushing too much on her too soon. He almost got away with blaming himself for it as well. Before he could sink too deeply into a funk, Pantra leaned over and backhanded his fleshy nose as hard as she could. "And what, pray tell was that for you intemperate Pixie?" he demanded of her as he rubbed the sore spot she had inflicted on him. "For being a jackass," Pantra said. "You didn't push on her anything that she didn't demand to know and even then you managed to skip as much as you could. Stop blaming yourself for something you can't control, Armin." "I didn't have to answer as much as I did," Singh said. "If I could had found a way to minimize just a little more of it I think she would have had more time." "More time for what?" Pantra demanded from him. "More time for you to find other creative ways to tell her as little as possible? Just don't even go there Armin," she said. "We all knew that link is weakest when it is first made. We all knew that crystal was going to have to come off of her sooner rather than later. So just drop that cross you're lugging and be happy with what we did manage to get." When Singh didn't answer her. Pantra took to the air and hovered in front of his nose glaring at him. "I mean it Armin. Whatever it is you're blaming yourself for quit it now. Quit it or I'm kicking that fat nose of yours so hard you'll be able to put a hat on your head and walk backward." "You wouldn't," he said to her. "I damn well will and you know it. So knock it off or get used to people calling you cousin It. We've got bigger fish to fry." Singh settled down after that and stopped brooding so much; he still remained quiet though. M'Tehr looked at Pantra. "Did I ever tell you why I like you so much?" she asked Pantra. "Naw, I don't think you have," she said lighting on the wicker table next to her and using the flame from her hand to light a cigarette resting in the tray on the table. "It's because you're the only one I know that keeps him in line." M'Tehr said solemnly. "Without you around he takes too much on himself." "Well somebody has to keep him in line," she said. "Might as well be me." "I'm still here you know," Singh said irritably. "Like we could ever forget it?" Pantra said to him and rose in the air to dive bomb Andromeda who had slipped into the room behind them before the door closed and was stealthily making her way toward Pantra. -------------------------- When they had arranged for Darcy to come to a place where they could have a chance of placing the crystal around her neck without anyone else seeing what they were doing or interfering with the contact they planned on making they didn't have any firm idea of just how long it would take for her to recover or how long she would be able to maintain control after they made contact with her. Arranging for her company was something that was both easier and more difficult than they had expected it to be. The biggest problem was that she was popular and consequently in demand to such a degree that they had some difficulty arranging her company for the entire night. Money wasn't the problem. Between the resources of the FRT and the Grove that was the least of their hurdles, now that they had made contact with Darcy, the real Darcy, they had to arrange additional time afterward. While not impossible it was a contortion worthy of Odysseus to arrange it. The bait needed to be right and money wasn't what they needed. Money was the mantle that covers the need, but influence among those that held it was what who they were looking for was one of the things that the man who held the keys to her wanted. Influence and a generous source of Animus that would make him willing to part with her for however long that she could be pried away. There was also one other thing that they reckoned worthwhile as well, the knowledge that it could be important to keep her under observation for the remainder of the night. The first joining was the most critical one and once Jacen under the guise of who she was expecting to see finished playing his part, keeping her under so they could monitor her the remainder of the night was almost anticlimactic in its own way. In the early morning hours they had withdrawn back to the quiet of the Florida room to continue to observe where they would not be seen when she awoke. The room itself was fundamentally unchanged from when they first had seen it, but now in addition to the white wicker furniture and the central brick hibachi there was now table on one side out of the line of sight that held the monitoring system that the FRT had linked to the pinhole cameras that Selicia had installed when she was called Cecil Barnes. The fact that they were watching Darcy in flagrante delicto when she awoke and insisted that Jacen should have all that he had asked and more was immaterial to them. It was more important that the cover that they had crafted to justify her being here was maintained. And just as important was what Jacen would tell them afterward. According to the plan they had arranged for her to leave early the next morning. The checker blue cab slid silently into the space in front of the house exactly at the time arranged. There was no chance that a random driver would be allowed to come here for this pickup. An FRT driver was waiting for her instructed not to break cover under any circumstances. The sun would not rise for almost another hour when she woke and by the time Jacen had escorted her to the door and had a final taste of her lips the sun had barely begun to pierce the early morning gloom. The house numbers on the curb had been painted last week to match those of the other address she had been delivered to yesterday. They were fairly certain that in the early dim light of the morning that she might not notice that there was a slight difference between where she arrived and where she left from. It was a chance, but it was one that they thought they could take. She carried her bag as she walked down to the sidewalk to where the cab waited. As she slung the bag into the back seat she quickly turned around and winked up at Jacen and blew a kiss to him where he stood in the half open front door. It was important for her to think that he was slipping under her spell. From the research they had done they had determined that after the amount of contact that she had with Jacen it was expected that she would have that effect on him. She stepped into the car and closed the door. They watched via the cameras mounted facing the road as it circled and headed away from the house. Jacen stepped back from the doorway and closed it behind him as soon as she was out of sight. He met them exiting the Florida room and wordlessly handed the teardrop crystal to M'Tehr who held it up to the bright incandescent lights in the kitchen and examined it closely. "Is it intact?" Singh asked. "It appears to be," she said and turned to Jacen. "Did what we think was going to happen actually happen Jacen?" she asked. "It did," Jacen said. "While she was with me she began to feed on my animus. Just as Arath' Mahar Selicia did the first time I was with her. It was the same hunger, but this was not the same need." "What was the difference?" Singh asked. "Depth and desire," Jacen said. "She fed on me, but she restrained herself while she did so. She took but a small amount, barely noticeable, even to one such as me; but even as she took so little I could feel her raging inside to take more than she did. Something is restraining her that was absent when I met the Arath' Mahar in the aether. This one has a control over her hunger that Arath' Mahar Selicia lacked when I first met her." "Hmm," Singh grunted in his thoughtful way. "What is it Armin?" Pantra asked him. "Spill it, you have something tickling that mind of yours and I want to know what it is." "I'm not entirely sure," Singh said. "Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's everything. It's very difficult to say right now with certainty. When can we arrange for her to return?" "My agent has already made the arrangements for her to rejoin us in a day or so. She is very popular, but I think that when she reports in and if we what we suspect happens actually does then we can expect that we may find that she can return then with little conflict between her other clients," Jacen said slowly. "Can we arrange to keep her for the same amount of time?" Singh asked. "The more time that we have with Darcy is the less time that LeFleur had opportunity to discover that all is not as she thinks it is under this roof." "It may be possible, but we should not count on it for certain," Jacen said. "Better to take what chances that we can without drawing more attention than we want." M'Tehr handed the crystal pendant to Singh. "Confirm whatever arrangements need to be made then, Jacen. As soon as it can be done. With each contact what we need to know gives us a more complete basis to compare what she does then with what she has done now when only one mind guides her." "I'll do what I can Lady M'Tehr," Jacen said and left the three of them behind in the room. ------------------------------------- The Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 440, 1800 hours "Are we safe here?" Darcy asked Singh. "I mean are we really safe?" She was looking out the window from where she sat on the far side of the room. As she had done every few moments ever since Jacen had brought her from the bait house after Pantra dove on her and draped the necklace holding the crystal around her neck. Unlike when she had first come here with Mitch Travers the view outside the glass panes was a mass of trees looking across the circle road instead of the homes that had been sited there when they first arrived to investigate Barnes's house. "We are as safe as we can manage Darcy," Singh said to her in as soothing a manner as he could project. "When the Grove finalized negotiating the transfer of the territory around Alagosta Gardens, the majority of the former residents were moved from here. For some of them that included the cost of moving their homes away as well. This part of Stafford is now very secluded and the few people who do remain are not anywhere near where we are. The homes that remain are occupied by members of the FRT and if anyone approaches the gatehouse of the Grove, the sisters of Phar' Naqua will watch them closely and if they do have malevolent intent they will deal with them." "How many are there now?" she asked. "Three who belong to the Grove itself; four with M'Tehr," Singh answered. She looked out into the silence of the wood around her. Even as she watched a doe and a pair of fawns stepped cautiously onto the pavement of the road and crossed it to the other side before disappearing into the leaves of the thicket. Except for the road and the one lone fireplug she could see it was as if the city had never been here at all. "How could they have done this?" she asked. "How could this happen in just over a year?" "Money is a wonderful lubricant, Darcy," Singh answered her. "And once the Grove understood what was here and what it meant they would pay any price to secure its future. And since this was the first time this particular set of circumstances was tested under the Concord they knew that they needed to be generous. The precedent they sought was worth more than the funds. And they have a great deal of funding." "So we are safe then," she said. "Yes, we are as safe as we can arrange it to be," Singh said. She stood up and walked closer to the window. She was dressed in similar business dress as she had worn on her first visit. This was in a lighter shade of peach though and like before the casual observer would have not identified her as an escort at first or even second glance. If anything all she would appear to be was a young professional who was slipping away for a quick tryst. Even the money that passed hands did so from a distance and was written down as a non-refundable deposit toward the future purchases that the meeting was intended to secure. "But what about me?" she asked. "Am I safe?" "For now you are safe," Singh said to her. "What about when I leave here again?" she asked "How long before I have to take this off again?" she said pointing to the crystal hanging from her neck. "Each time you wear it, the time you can remain in control of who you really are lengthens," Singh answered. "But you cannot keep it on indefinitely." "Why not?" she demanded from him. "Why can't I do just that?" "The bond is not strong enough yet," he said. "In time it may be possible to restore who you were permanently." "And this?" she said indicating her body. "Can this be reversed as well?" "No," Singh said to her sadly. "What was done to make you as you are stripped every trace but the barest remnant of natural animus from you. There is nothing there remaining for your body to rebuild it from." "So what can I do?" she asked. "I can't go back and when I leave here I'm no longer safe. What can I do?" "For now we can use the time we have to rebuild your mind," Singh said to her. "We can look for weaknesses in what you know but can't access to see what we can find and try to fit it in with what we know." "And how will that help?" she asked. "Because it seems like none of you really know very much and what you do know you are very careful not to tell me. So how can any of this help me? "When I started looking for you and detective Travers, I only knew what you had discovered and that both of you were still alive. Each day expanded upon that and brought us to this point. What we find out over the next few days will bring us closer to ending this and safeguarding you." "How can you be sure of that? How can I be sure of anything?" she said. "Sit down if you would, Darcy," Singh said to her indicating the couch where M'Tehr was sitting quietly listening to them. "Perhaps if I start by telling you first how we found you maybe that may help to ease your mind?" Armin suggested. "I can't see where it would hurt. And if it helps explain how I woke up looking the way I do and being who I am now I want to know," she said calmly walked over to join M'Tehr sitting on the couch. As she sat down Singh noticed that she had been careful to sit in such a way so that she could not be seen casually from the street through the windows. ----------------------------- Fourth Precinct, Stafford: Day 41, 1033 hours The room stank of freshly dried blood and spilled bowels. The store was only a small walk in cubbyhole. Just large enough to fit four twelve foot metal shelves sandwiched between a bank of glass refrigerated doors on one side and a long counter with stacked candies around the front of the register. The posters spattered on the wall behind exhorted customers to buy tickets for the various flavors of lottery that the store offered for sale. An overhead drop down case held the various packages of cigarettes right in easy reach of the clerk. On the long countertop behind the register, firmly in the clerks domain were stacked the various other forms of tobacco. The pouch chewing tobacco, the tall rolls of stuff and the boxes of various sized cigars. There were some scattered blood misted inventory papers that had been upset when one of the men here had put two bullets at close range into the clerk punching her against the countertop and causing the papers to drift out of their formerly neat stack. Her lunch or maybe it was her dinner; a cheap pot pie on a paper plate that had been passed through the store's microwave sometime before her death walked through the door still had a disposable plastic fork sticking in it with congealing turkey gravy already drying in a hard rind on the yellow plastic. Behind the register, at eye level where any customer would not fail to see it, posted prominently between the advertisements for lottery tickets and flanked by sealed plastic bags holding Playboy, Hustler and other offerings of the adult magazine variety was a yellow on red sign that loudly proclaimed that there was less than one hundred dollars in the safe. Singh knew without looking behind the counter that there would be a drop safe there nestled in between whatever else was deemed necessary to keep the place in operation when the doors were open. Obviously the sign had done little to deter the two men who had walked through the doors the night before and ended not only the clerk's life but also the lives of detectives Jim Brighton and Mitchell Travers. Yellow crime scene tape marked do not cross in black was stretched across the entrance. Singh identified himself to the officer guarding the shattered glass door and ducked under the taut plastic. The bodies had already been removed hours ago and all that remained to mark their place was the outline on the hard linoleum floor and the pools of blood that was only just tacky in a few places in the center where it was thickest. The cans and bags and boxes that had been dislodged and tossed on the floor by the physics of what had happened still lay where they had come to rest. Festive looking red streamers stretched down from various points indicating that the blood spatter techs had already come and gone. Blue chalk string was being stretched in long lines by a three man team when he walked in. Ballistics busy documenting the path of each of the bullets that had been fired so the picture of what had happened could be collected and documented and analyzed later on. As Singh looked closer he saw that each of the spider webs of blue chalk dusted string was actually a different shade indicating a different shooter. Singh waited until the men finished setting up and measuring the trajectory of the bullet path that they were working on and then walked around the nest as best he could to talk to the man in charge. "Special Detective Singh with the FRT task force," he said identifying himself. "Who is the detective in charge?" The man looked up at him in surprise. Whether that was because he was with FRT or because of his appearance was immaterial. The man blinked quickly in a rabbitty way and jerked his thumb to indicate one of the pair of men standing off to one side watching them in between speaking to each other in low barely audible whispers. "Detective Freemantle, the tall guy with the glasses," he said and went back to his measuring without giving Singh another glance. Singh stepped around another long blue string that stretched the length of one of the aisles from the back to almost the front and made his way back to where Freemantle was standing. When they saw he was making his way toward them the two men stopped talking and focused on his approach. Detective Sgt. Sam Freemantle, Homicide," he said in response to Singh. "What can we do for you here? This is a local matter, both these guys were ours." "Yes they are, or rather they were," Singh said gravely, "but they also were attached to the FRT task force in Olympia as well, so I am afraid gentlemen that this is not just a local matter. The FRT is involved." "Ah crap," Freemantle's partner, a wiry detective who introduced himself as Kevin Yates said. "These were our guys. For the love of Mike please don't be telling us that you're here to throw your weight around. We've just started working the case..." Yates didn't get a chance to finish; his partner managed to get him to put a cork in it and then turned to apologize to Singh. Singh looked at both of them, he wasn't familiar with them and clearly neither of them recognized his name right away. It was those three magic letters FRT that made both men's minds automatically lump him in with the organization he was currently overseeing rather than let their minds make the connection with who he was outside of the FRT. "If you would have allowed me to finish Detective Yates, I would have told you that the FRT has no interest in asserting jurisdiction over this case. It is, as you say, a local matter. Something for Stafford P.D. to deal with, but at the same time we also have an official interest in whatever details that you uncover in the course of your investigation. Moreover, since I am also a member of Stafford P.D., I can assure you in absolute confidence that this will remain your case. Now what can you tell me so far?" Singh could almost see the light go off inside their heads when they mentally shifted gears and made the connection to who it was that was speaking with them. Still it didn't stop Freemantle from shifting mental gears with remarkable agility. "This is what we have so far," he said, "roughly around 2040 last night detectives Brighton and Travers stopped by this store on their way from the station. They walked in made their way to the back and about one or two minutes later a car drives up, parks near the door and two unidentified males enter carrying one .38 caliber revolver each. Detective Travers must have identified the situation as a robbery in progress, he threw a carton of milk he was already holding at the one that was at the end of the aisle and then he and Brighton draw their weapons and identify themselves as Stafford P.D., one of the suspects discharges his weapon without aiming and by sheer bad luck manages to place the shot exactly where it needs to go to ricochet directly into Detective Brighton's chest. He goes down without firing a shot and detective Travers puts two in the direction of the suspect on the right who fired. The suspect by the door seeing thing escalate way too quickly turns and shoot two rounds into the clerk while his partner is diving for cover behind the end of the shelf. The suspect who fired killed the clerk then shoots in the direction of detective Travers. Detective Travers is already sweeping to him and discharges two more shots forcing him to take cover. Travers swings back at the first suspect and first through the shelving at him. At least one of his rounds hits and that suspect goes down. Travers is swinging back to the second suspect when he gets a lucky shot in and shatters the glass from the door behind him. A three inch piece of it hits at just the right angle and speed to slice through his carotid artery and Travers loses interest in him. He's too busy trying to keep from bleeding out. With Travers down the second suspect dashes over and drags the first on out to the car and fishtails out of here before the first officer arrives on the scene three minutes later. By then Travers has already lost too much blood. The paramedics arrive within eight minutes but there's nothing for them to do. He's already gone." "And the suspects?" Singh asked. Freemantle flipped through his notes and found the information. "Car was a 93' Taurus; it was dumped about six blocks from here, probably stolen. The officer who found it reports that the passenger side seat was soaked in blood, looks like Travis got a solid piece of him, serious for certain, hopefully fatal. There was smears of blood on the driver's side as well, but hard to tell if that means he was hit as well or he just had the other suspects blood on him. The officer identified a clear blood trail leading from the drop car to another vehicle. We're checking traffic cameras in the vicinity. If this guy is panicking he likely tripped one of the cameras and got a ticket we can use to pay him a visit with. If we're really lucky he smiled for the birdie and we have a face to make a positive I.D. with. Won't know until we check. There's a BOLO out for hospitals, clinics and veterinarians offices to be on the lookout for one possibly two males in their late twenties seeking medical care, one of them in possibly serious condition." "Were you able to recover the weapon used in the murder of detectives Travers and Brighton?" Freemantle flipped more pages. "We recovered one .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with four expended rounds. Ballistics is trying to get a match from the ones they dug out of the walls. We won't be able to get a match for the shot that killed Brighton until Medical Examiner removes it during the autopsy." "What do you think about what you see here detective Freemantle? What is this place telling you?" Singh asked. "You want my honest opinion? My honest opinion is it's a goddamned bad luck story with only one bright spot so far. And that is that one of these pricks is already cold. It was damned bad luck that the first scumbag jerked his pistol like he was playing skin the weasel and got off a shot that happened to impact just right so that it kills Brighton at the start, worse luck that the other douche bag shatters the glass at just the right angle to put Travers down. Those fuckers should have come in and bought lottery tickets instead of sticking up the place. They'd have hit the Powerball "In that respect detective we are in complete agreement. Now was there anything useful as far as prints go for sure. You recovered one weapon at the scene. Have you been able to process anything in that direction as yet?" he asked. "We lifted a clean set of prints from the .38 Either way they don't have any more luck coming their way, not when we lay hands on them. Store surveillance camera says one of them grabbed the edge of the counter there to steady himself when he returned fire at Travers. We dusted it and we're processing what he has so far now. We were just about to head over to take a look at the drop car now. Forensics is already there getting blood samples and seeing if either of them left any prints we can use as well." Singh thanked detective Freemantle and asked him to keep him informed of any changes in the case as soon as he broke something. While the two detectives finished up their discussion, Singh remained where he was and slowly turned around in a circle taking in the scene and inch at a time. Ballistics had already finished detailing the path of the various bullets and had moved over to the cold case and was laying out the trajectory of what Singh could only assume was the piece of glass that had ended detective Travers life. There was something wrong about this; Singh could feel it, even without what he already knew. He moved around the far aisle and kneeled beside the ballistics techs trying to maneuver a similar sized piece of glass in what he could only assume was an effort to duplicate the fatal arc that the other shattered piece had taken. "I am given to understand gentleman that this, he indicated the outline of Mitch's body and the pooled blood on the floor, is a result of a piece of shattered door glass, is that correct?" Singh said. "That's what it looks like," the tech he had spoken to earlier said. "I don't see it though." "Why do you say that?" Singh asked. "Because the glass would have had to be going a whole lot faster in a tighter arc to cut deep enough to do the damage that killed this man," he said. "It shattered all around him but the majority of the glass was falling inward into the cold case," he finished. "So how do you explain the fragment that inflicted the fatal cut on detective Travers?" Singh asked. "In my opinion, it shouldn't have done that at all, oh he was going to get cut up, no doubt about that. No way he could have avoided it standing where he was standing, but the worst it should have done to him is surface cuts. Million to one chance that it managed to hit him from where it was and also managed to cut deep enough to do serious damage." "But clearly it did just that," Singh pointed out. "Oh it did that alright," the tech agreed, "but if I was to call it without the video backing it up I'd have bet money that someone used that piece of glass to cut his throat. That makes sense for the angle and the amount of force necessary to do that kind of an injury. But the video says otherwise. Like I said freak accident." Singh crouched near the men looking around from the section of frame where the piece of glass was supposed to have originated to the string laid out to approximate the path it took to the blood still pooled on the floor and then slowly rose. "Thank you gentlemen, you have been most enlightening in this matter. One more question if I may?" "The tech looked up at him again. "Sure." "The bullet that killed detective Brighton, is it correct that it was likely a ricochet that was likely the cause of death?" "Yeah that's another funny one," the tech said. "How so?" he asked. "It's funny because we have the video showing us what happened, and we traced the path of the bullet, but the fragmentation patterns on the glass behind him don't match." "In what way don't they match?" Singh asked. "Because the fragmentation patterns in the glass say that the bullet that killed him was aimed directly at him from somewhere over by the door. It passed through him hit the glass behind him and then he goes directly back into the glass. The bullet we traced doesn't fly that way but the evidence says that it's the one that hit him. First time I've seen something where I have two sets of evidence about the same thing telling me two different stories. I can't figure it," he said. "Anything else?" "No thank you, but make sure that you send me a copy of that report as well if you would be so kind," Singh said. "No problem," the tech answered and turned back to finishing up. ----------------------------------------- Fourth Precinct: Day 50, 1642 hours The surveillance video was a grainy black and white recording. The camera and the system that recorded it were cheap. Not surprising since the little store was mounted in was the only one of its kind and not part of a chain. The plain fact was that they should be glad that it even had a recording system of any kind, a place like that had less resources to draw on and was just as likely to go without a security camera as to have one in the first place. Singh adjusted the playback and ran it again frame by frame at one quarter speed while he looked for anything that would grant him any insight into just what it was that he was really seeing as opposed to what he was intended to see. Another time for Singh to get a first generation copy of this tape would have taken he expending one of his valuable favors, but since he was still in charge of the FRT task force and Brighton and Travers had both been assigned to the operation as well he had more than enough authority to ensure that he had one all of his own. Unlike the copies of copies that other officers were referencing while they looked to track down the two scum buckets who dared touch one of their own, Singh's copy was as close to the original as could be gotten. That was important to him. What he was looking for was already hidden in plain sight and with each successive step away from that original recording there was less there for him to see what it was that really happened to Brighton and Travers. A knock on his half open door made him lift his head toward it. Lt. Clayton was there leaning into it. "Are you seeing anything in there?" she asked. She had checked in with him several times since she had heard through the grapevine that he had been given a nearly pristine copy of the tape. Singh leaned over and eased back in the chair. He motioned her over and pointed to the screen. "Are we certain that we are only looking for two men?" he asked her. "Now we're looking for only one," she said with deep satisfaction bubbling up from the soles of her shoes. "Is that for certain?" he asked her. "M.E. recovered a body stuffed into a drainage culvert that matches the description of the suspect that Mitch got a piece of," she said, "Coroner says time of death is shortly after the robbery. His partner must have stuffed him in there before he left him." "That is good news to hear," Singh, "but there still is his partner to find as well." "He's got a lot less room to hide in than he thinks," Clayton said. "Why do you say that? Did his late unlamented partner have things to tell us even in his state of decomposition?" Sing asked. "He told us plenty," Clayton said. "We got a print match, blood match and an I.D. for him and a short list of his most likely accomplices. We've already got people out beating the bushes for him. He's running out of places to hide and if he hasn't figured that out by now he's one of the spectacularly dumb ones." "That is indeed very good new lieutenant," he said, "but I think that if we should catch this remaining fugitive we may have some pointed questions for him." "What sort of questions?" she said suddenly looking closer at the screen. "I'm not sure," he said, "but from the sequence here it suggests that there may be a third man present in the store as well. "How do you mean?" she asked. "Watch the playback," he said and released the recording to run at half speed. "There are detectives Brighton and Travers coming into the store. They cross in front of the register and go down the center aisle back to the cold case. You can see both of them talking while they do so." "Do we know what they are saying?" Clayton asked. "Impossible for me to tell. Perhaps the department should have a lip reader examine this. They might be able to see if they had more warning than it appears that they did from what I am seeing here." "I don't think we have one, but I'll see if we can scare one up. There's a long of heat coming down because of this. The chief wants the hides of everyone involved in this nailed to the wall yesterday." "Lieutenant I think it is safe to say that the entire department wants precisely that same outcome," Singh responded. "Look there." Clayton focused her attention on the screen. "Detective Travers is reaching for a carton of milk here and then he pauses." "You think he saw something? Maybe in the reflection of the glass?" she asked. "Possibly," Singh replied. "You see here just before Detective Travers reacted, detective Brighton turns his head toward the front of the store. "He heard the door opening," she said. "Yes, he heard it open and out of habit looked in that direction," he said. "But watch closely now," Singh added letting the recording continue. They watched as Mitch spun and pitched the carton of milk he had taken from the case at the head of the man who was facing them while his partner covered the clerk behind the register. The carton impacted against the man's head and burst open filling the man's eyes with milk from the ruptured packaging. Mitch and Jim spun around the end of the shelving for cover as they both drew their weapons and leveling them at the two men. "The man Travers hit reflexively fires into the shelving hitting detective Brighton and killing him," Singh says pointing to the slowly unrolling footage. "But I think that the footage is deceptive." "Why?" It looks pretty solid so far," Clayton said to him. "It matches what they found at the scene." Singh pointed at the gunman's pistol in the upper right frame. "Look at the angle of the gunman's weapon," Singh said. "He is still bringing it to bear when Mitch hits him with the carton and blinds him momentarily. The impact makes him drop his muzzle. It's too low now. From that angle the shot should have impacted somewhere on the floor rather than passing through the shelving." "A ricochet is what ballistics said is the most probably explanation," Clayton pointed out. "Perhaps," Singh said, "but look at both cameras again." Singh rewound the footage and let it play out at the same speed and then froze the playback. "There," he said pointing at the screen. "What am I looking at?" Clayton asked. "Detective Travers has already started to throw the milk carton," Singh said. "But in this camera there is no indication that either man has a weapon of any kind and they have not yet said anything on the audio playback. So why did detective Travers do that?" "Maybe he saw the pistol grip in the reflection of the glass?" she asked. "Perhaps," Singh said and let the recording resume. They watched the man fire blindly again and saw Jim go down against the glass behind him and lay limp on the dirty linoleum floor. Mitch fired two shots at the first gunman who had ducked behind the other end of the shelving. The second gunman immediately shot the clerk in the chest and turned to fire again toward Mitch two more times. They watched the man dive behind the corner of the counter steady his position and fire twice more at Mitch who had crouched down. Mitch fired back at him two more times and then shifted to fire twice more at the other man on the far side of the length of shelving. A pair of shots from the man at the far end of the shelving missed Mitch and impacted in the glass of the cold case doors shattering it. The glass showered down on Mitch just as he leveled his pistol at the second gunman and fired through the thin sheet metal at him. They watched as one of the rounds impacted against him and spun him around from the force of it. Mitch crouched in the shower of glass trying to cover himself from it and then fell blood spraying from where the glass had cut and severed his carotid artery. Mitch dropped the pistol and grasped at the wound trying to stem the blood pouring from his throat while he lay on the floor. The first gunman rushed to the second and helped him to his feet and they immediately fled together out the entrance door. Singh stopped the playback. "How many shots did you count Lieutenant?" he asked her. "I would say that eight or nine between the two suspects and Mitch got off eight. Jim was down before he could even fire." "That was my count as well," Singh said. "Detective's Travers and Brighton both carried department issue nine millimeter automatics. Each of those has a magazine capacity of fifteen rounds with an additional round in the chamber. Both of the gunmen appeared to be carrying six shot revolvers for a combined count of twelve shots before they both would need to reload." "The first gunman fired six times. Twice into the clerk's chest killing her instantly and then four more aimed at detective Travers. The second gunman fired three times; once killing detective Brighton and twice more at detective Travers. He missed hitting detective Travers but did manage to shatter the glass behind him. One of those fragments was apparently traveling at the correct angle to fatally injure Travers. Detective Travers managed to fire eight times and he was able to wound one of the gunmen while under fire simultaneously from both of them," he said concluding. "That matches what I'm seeing here so far so what is the problem?" "Where did the tenth bullet come from?" Singh said. "What tenth bullet?" Clayton asked. "The bullet that killed detective Brighton at the very beginning of this altercation. The one that was fired from the corner here in the shadows. The one that passed though the upper area of the sheet metal shelving and was aimed directly for his heart." "Forensics only recovered sixteen bullets Singh," she said "Seven nine millimeter and eight thirty-eight caliber rounds matching a Smith and Wesson model revolver. The thirty-eight's had two distinct rifling patterns. We'll probably get Travers eight bullet when they autopsy the guy they found in the culvert. So forgive me if I'm not seeing this. We have all rounds but one accounted for, ballistics on the scene is matching the video evidence and I'm not seeing conclusive proof of anything more than that. There isn't any indication of another shooter that I can see." "Have them check the crime scene again Lieutenant. There was a third shooter. The angle of impact from the first gunman's shot shows that it is impossible to match with the one that struck Detective Brighton." "How can you be so certain?" she asked him. Singh rewound the recording to the beginning and played it again at one eighth speed. "I spoke with the tech who was conducting the measurements at the crime scene. He stated that he was almost certain that the bullet that killed Detective Brighton came from somewhere near the door. That it impacted him and when it did he is thrown directly backwards by the impact and into the glass of the cold case behind him. If the bullet that killed him was from the hasty shot fired by the gunman that Mitch hit with his improvised missile it would have entered him traveling at an upward angle. That would have changed the direction in which his body traveled as it fell. He would have fallen to the left of the shelving and he would have struck the far door of the cold case rather than the one directly behind him. The angles of impact say that the only way that detective Brighton could have fallen the way he did was if another shooter was aiming directly at him and fired a level shot that passed through his heart and sent him backward into the glass where he hit and shattered it before falling to the floor." "Oh shit you're right. You're goddamned right Singh," she said. "I'm going to get forensics out there again looking for that tenth bullet and we've got to get the lab boys to work trying to break down the image in that corner. If there is a third shooter then we have make sure whoever he is he gets every ounce of all the regard we have for him. We've got one of them, we're going to have two pretty soon. We have that and it's only a matter of time before we have something that can tell us who that was. You keep at it Singh. When we nail all three of these scumbags and what you just did will going to play a big part in making that score even." Clayton turned and hustled out of the room to get the ball in motion and Singh rolled back the recording to the beginning freezing it and staring at the screen. "Why did you need to be here for this Shadowy man?" he asked himself quietly. "What was so important about this that you made certain that you were here to oversee it? Why would you risk your cover for this?" ---------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 440, 2100 hours "He was there?" she said to Singh. "He was actually there on film?" "I can't be absolutely certain that he was Darcy," Singh said to her. "But from what I saw on that film I am relatively certain that he was there in the aether. And I think that I know also how he managed to make the glass and the bullet behave the way they did. I think that the shot the first shooter fired was redirected from inside the aether and that is why there is no trace of it on the sound files and that it passed directly into whomever it was taking your part's heart." "I think that while he was in the aether he intercepted that first bullet after it passed through the sheet metal of the shelf and he changed the trajectory. I went over the information they recovered and if that bullet had not had its trajectory altered it would have missed your doppelganger's heart and lodged in his left shoulder spinning him around but leaving him also alive and able to return fire. That would not work for this play that we are meant to take for truth. The first shot had to be a kill shot and the only way it could be so is if it changed direction in mid-flight. Something the physical laws tell us does not happen in this way, but physical laws are fungible in the aether." "When they recovered the bullet during the inquest it was found to match the weapon that the second gunman used. I also suspect that the glass that ended this carefully staged scene had its path altered as well to hit precisely with the correct angle and the amount of force necessary to sever Traver's carotid artery." "Why go to all that trouble?" she asked. "Why not just have whoever was supposed to be me shot in such a way as to match the ballistics?" Singh smiled inwardly hearing her question. She may not be aware of doing so, but she had just posed her question in exactly the same manner that she would have before this happened. He took it as a positive sign and mentally crossed his fingers that she was starting to set her feet more firmly on the path back to who she was. "The only reason that I can think to stage a scene such as the one I have suggested is that it was being done quickly. The planning for this seems rushed, almost as if it was being done in haste. I already know for a fact that when this film was saying that both of you were being killed in the line of duty that it was a fraud. The crystals told me that. But both of you had to be removed from the picture. And death, when it can be staged, solves so many problems if you can get away with it." "Can I see this film?" she asked "Are you certain that you want to do so?" Singh said. "I chose to describe this scene because it may be more traumatic for you than you might think seeing that happen to you even if it is a staged scene." "I want to see it," she said. Singh reached into his inner pocket and withdrew the dongle with the file on it that he kept there. When they had committed to this plan to recover detective Brighton he had copied as much evidence as he could in case it may be needed to ease her memory back along familiar tracks. The security camera footage was part of that evidence. Darcy followed him over to the desktop computer that still sat in the corner of the room and inserted the dongle into one of the USB ports. He navigated his way through the nested passwords that kept others from accessing this information and located the file. He shifted the file to the media player and then muted the sound and waited to one side of her as she watched the events of her death play out. M'Tehr had moved silently up behind her in case she should also need her intervention while Jacen stood close by in case he would be needed to intervene in his own fashion. If this was too much for her, if the crystal needed to be removed then he stood by ready to spirit her away. None of their precautions were needed though. She watched the events play out without any visible expression on her face. She didn't even flinch when her body dropped to the floor or when the glass sliced into Mitch's throat leaving him to bleed out beside him. When Singh reached over to stop the playback she reached out to the images and rested her finger on her body. "That is not me," she said and then moved her finger again to rest over Mitch. "And that is not Mitch." Her finger moved again and touched each other person in the room. "That is not a young woman and these two are not men at all," she said with quiet authority. "Are you certain of that?" Singh asked her. "Completely," she said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to see here but what I see is five very old women in this store. Two of them are wearing Mitch's and my clothes but they are still both of them very old women. I'm surprised that they're even standing. They look like they're about to fall over, all of them." "I suspected as much," Singh said to her. "Maybe not for all of them but definitely for the ones intended to be taken for the two of you and the clerk." "How did you suspect that? Could you see it like I just did?" she asked. "No," he said. "As I watch it over and over it struck me that the movement of the people in the film did not quite match the movement the images suggested. There was a hesitation in it as if the image overlaying it was not always keeping in sync with what it was supposed to show and then there was what your Dr. Gregor showed me. ---------------------------------- Stafford Morgue, Stafford: Day 62, 2300 hours Singh slipped in through the side entrance to the morgue. Gregor had suggested to him that he make his entrance there. Fewer people came that way and the ones who did usually avoided looking at a door marked prominently as morgue entrance. The phobia of the general population toward that particular subject was a factor in Singh's favor now and he had no hesitation about taking advantage of it. Gregor met him at the door. He looked at him carefully and asked him a few questions to verify that he was indeed the person that had spoken with Brighton and Travers as well himself. When he was satisfied that Singh was the man that he was here to speak with, Gregor stepped aside and waved him in; Singh allowed the assistant M.E. to lead him through the corridors until they passed into a small examination room that was toward the back. "Tell me Dr. Gregor, were you by chance on duty the night that detective Brighton and detective Travers were brought in?" He asked. Gregor paused a moment and then told him that he was off that day and only heard about it when he came in the next day. "That's alright, you do know that both of the suspects in their shooting were killed don't you?" he mentioned. "I think I heard something about it, but I didn't work on them in they came in here. High profile case like that the M.E. is going to be all over it." "I understand. Office politics of course. But perhaps you could verify some information about those cases if you could," he asked. "Do you have access to that case?" Gregor asked him. "If you don't have access to that case I'm thinking that will be a little more serious than either of our jobs." "You may relax Dr. Gregor; I have full access to all aspects of the murder investigation of detectives Brighton and Travers. Now about the bodies of the men suspected of killing them. The first one was found hidden in a drainage culvert after being placed there a week ago. The other was run down and died while trying to escape the dragnet that was closing in on him. I was present for the death of the second one, but I'm more interested in the first one. The one that was hidden and allowed to decay. What can you tell me about that one if you would be so kind?" he asked. Gregor pulled up the report on the man and spun the screen around so that Singh could read it without crowding him. "According to this the M.E. did perform this autopsy and he states that he did retrieve a nine millimeter bullet from the body in question." "Is there anything strange about that information?" Gregor asked. "I don't know yet," Singh said, "What did the M.E. list as cause of death?" "Gunshot wound that penetrated and exited the subject's liver. Subject appears to have received no more than minimal medical treatment and expired shortly afterward before being hidden for approximately one week. Well that certainly seems to line up with the evidence that that we have from the crime scene. So on to other things then. When I called you I was told that you had something in particular to show me. Where is it please?" "This way," he said turning away from the computer. Singh watched as Gregor went back to the bank of refrigerated cubicles and pulled two of them out side by side. "Jane Doe #5519 and Jane Doe #5528," he said. Found on opposite sides of town about a week apart. 5528 was flagged as a possible hate crime, because it was evident that she suffered a gunshot wound prior to death." "What do you mean was flagged?" Singh asked. "M.E. told me to gather the particulars and give them to him to evaluate. When he was done he told me that it was his opinion that she was hit by a stray bullet and was just a bystander that was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then he told me that he would forward what needed to be passed on to the relevant authorities." "And did he?" Singh asked. "Not that I can tell. As far as I can see he's still sitting on it right now," Dr. Gregor said. Singh leaned down and examined both of the women lying on the stainless steel trays. He asked for a pair of surgical gloves and once Gregor handed them to him put them on and prodded carefully at the wound in the woman's abdomen. "This is now injury caused by being in a cross fire, this a kill shot. Whoever inflicted this injury did so deliberately intending to kill," he said, "Especially so without immediate treatment. "You better believe it is," Gregor said. "Straight though the liver transecting and severing the hepatic artery. Whoever this was died not long after this wound was made." "And did you recover a bullet as well?" Singh asked stepping back from the woman's body. "I have a suspicion I'd like to verify." "I pulled it out of the lumbar spine. From L2, it must have lodged there. Even if she did get treatment right away and live she wasn't going to be walking again for the rest of her life. Just give me a minute and I'll get that for you. Like I said the M.E. is still sitting on this one. I can probably get it and the other one for you and put it back when you're done with them without him even knowing either one was even gone." Singh looked at the other woman. "And her?" "Same as the ones that I told the other two detectives about. Both of these are exactly like the others. The only difference is the bullet pulled out of that one over there." Singh looked at the two withered faces lying cold and naked under the sheet that concealed their flesh and the stainless steel tray beneath them. "So you are confirming then that both of these women are special cases," he said. "Absolutely," Gregor said. "I've run them through every test and examination that I could swing just like the others. Everything lines up." "I'll need that information then, Dr. Gregor," Singh said. "And I'll need that bullet. Prepare a chain of custody receipt and I'll take possession of it. If anyone asks, tell them it is suspected as being a possible link with an ongoing homicide investigation." "I'll get those for you right now," Gregor said and exited the room leaving Singh alone with the silent bodies of the two Jane Doe's. Singh walked over closer to them and looked into their faces carefully. "Who were you?" he asked softly. "Who were you before this?" The bodies gave no answer that he could hear, but that didn't matter. As far as Singh was concerned they had already spoken volumes in their silence. The door behind him squeaked and Singh turned to see Dr. Gregor bustling toward him. He had a worried expression on his face. "Is something the matter doctor?" Singh asked. "I don't know, maybe, maybe not. When I went to find the bullet that I extracted from the special it was missing. At first I thought that the M.E. had forwarded it, but everything else that should have gone with it was still there. So I went and pulled the evidence from that other case that you asked about. When I looked it over I recognized it as the same slug that I extracted from the special. The deformity is the same and then I looked and it's still in the evidence bag that I submitted." "I don't know why he put this one in the wrong file or why it was there in the first place but this is it. Do you still want the chain of custody paperwork?" he asked. Singh nodded and then quickly inspected the paperwork before he signed that he was taking custody of the recovered slug. Singh held the plastic bag containing it up to the light to look at it. "Nine millimeter," he said placing the bag in his pocket. "Is that good?" Dr. Gregor asked. "It's a beginning," Singh answered and took his copy of the paperwork and the other relevant materials that Gregor had pertaining to both of the unknown women. Dr. Gregor walked with him back to the side entrance. When they reached there he held open the door for Singh so that he could carry the paperwork without shifting his grip. "Dr. Gregor, if any further special cases that come to your attention, I need for you to inform me immediately." Gregor leaned against the open door the faint cool night wind played over him ruffling his hair and carrying the scent of honeysuckle from where it was growing over a nearby overpass column. "Detective Singh, me not informing you is the least of your worries," he said. "I beat my head against a wall for so long that you better believe that I'll contact you. I've finally got somebody who listens about this and the last thing I'm going to do is slack off now." "That is good to know, doctor," Singh said. "I'll be in touch." --------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 440, 1022hours "As I suspected the bullet recovered from the Jane Doe and falsely planted in the evidence gathered from the first suspect matched the scoring of the other 9mm rounds recovered from the scene. Bullets that were confirmed as being fired by detective Traver's service weapon." "What did you do after that?" she asked. "It's not like you could take that to Clayton even if you did have a positive match linking that Jane Doe to Mitch's weapon." "No, I could not do that," Singh said, "Even if the chain of evidence was solid there was no chance that it would be believed and with what I suspected about Clayton's possible involvement all I could do was to keep the evidence secure while I continued to pursue my own investigation." Darcy had been listening quietly the entire time that Singh was speaking. She was being a sponge, hearing the word and absorbing them so she could extract the fullest possible meaning from them before reaching out to absorb whatever was coming after that. Her questions were minimal and for now it seemed that she was content with that for now. "So what did you do next then? You said you continued your investigation. How were you intending to proceed?" Her turn of phrase was even more precise tonight than it was the night before. Her voice may have changed timbre and tone but he thought he was beginning to hear the words of Jim Brighton coming to life in Darcy's voice. "The next logical step was to examine the other victims that died in that store. I managed to obtain a copy of the autopsy conducted on the slain clerk and both of the bodies that had been identified as you and Detective Travers. In all three reports, no discrepancies were noted in any of the three reports. You and the clerk were declared as homicides with cause of death being listed as gunshot. Mitch was also listed as a homicide with cause of death listed as exsanguination." "Who did they have looking at us Mickey Mouse? How did they not notice Mitch and me suddenly developing a uterus? I'd think something like that would have stood out just a bit when they were cutting into us," she said disgustedly. "All three autopsies were conducted by the Medical Examiner himself. He claimed that due to the high profile nature of the case that it was something that demanded that he be involved," Singh said. "And he signed off on all three?" she asked. "From what I could tell, the medical examiner confined his inquiry to verifying cause of death and confirming the identity of the deceased." "Who did they bring in to confirm our identity? Clayton?" Darcy asked. Singh didn't need to look at any notes. He looked Darcy directly in the eye and for a moment she could see that he didn't wish to tell her but he also knew she needed to know. "Andrea Travers is the one listed who positively identified the bodies of both you and Mitchell Travers." "Oh Goddamn it!" she swore. "Why did they have to bring her in for that? What cruel shit bag looked at a list of all of the possible people who could have done this and then deliberately choose the one person that is absolutely terrified of having to do exactly that one thing in all the world. Who was the one who put her through that? She has been dreading the possibility that she would have to do exactly that for as long as I've known her," Darcy said sinking her head down until none of them could see her face through the hanging hair that covered it. Singh remained silent and didn't offer an answer. He knew of course but he also knew that she really didn't want to know. What she was doing was venting her anger over how someone that she knew and cared for was made to feel more pain than necessary. When she was railing in anger for a moment Singh could hear Jim's voice clearly and it was a good sign to him. That she could show at kind of emotional connection so strongly was a good sign that Darcy was beginning to blend more of who she was in her altered form. It was a good solid step toward her becoming herself for good sooner rather than a later that might be too late. He looked at her with her head held down and the thing he had to remind himself once again was that while for him this was information that was fourteen months in the past, it was not even yesterday for Darcy Brighton. What she was hearing bristled with the immediate and each stroke scourged her anew. "Where is she?" Darcy asked finally when her explosion of temper guilt had begun to run its course. "How is she?" "Mrs. Travers sold her home and moved to Edgewood to be close to her family. I have kept in a small amount of contact with her and she is adjusting as well as you might expect given the amount of time between then and now." Darcy had sunk into the sofa and cradled her face in her hands while Singh related to her what had happened with Andrea after Mitch's funeral. When Singh finished speaking, she raised her face to his and asked if it was possible for her to see her. It was hard for Singh to stress to Darcy that what she was asking for was impossible right now; especially given the nature of the changes that she had experienced that would make it almost impossible for Andrea to believe. Singh tried his best to reassure her that when the time was right he would come with her and bring all the evidence he had assembled so that Andrea would know the truth about what had happened both to her and to Mitch. But only if that was what Darcy wanted when the time came. But Singh hoped that it didn't come to that. It was far better in his opinion that Andrea remain ignorant of the true nature of what had happened to the two men rather that tear open barely healed wounds. "What about the clerk?" she finally asked. "How did they cover up an old woman looking young in that case?" "As far as they were concerned, Darcy, there was nothing to cover up," Singh said. "Unlike the other special cases the forensics matched her appearance, even if that appearance was nothing more than a glamour. Even her previous criminal record for prostitution supported the story that she was a young woman who was trying to get out of that life and make a fresh start. A young woman who had the bad luck to be working in a shop the night that two police detectives were killed along with her during a failed robbery attempt. The only thing of value that I was able to gain from her report was her fingerprints." "Figures, the only one there that was anything like what she actually was and no one even looked any deeper than her face," she said. Darcy leaned over and dragged her fingers through her hair. She allowed her neck to go slightly slack so that when she tugged on her own hair she raised her face back up to face what it was that Singh was waiting to tell her next. "So I know the film is faked because I can see it, but how did you find out? You seem to have done a good job tracking everything else down. How did you confirm the film?" "I never confirmed the film," Singh said. "I look at it today and all I still see is what the glamour tells me I should see. It was Pantra who confirmed for me that none of the participants were as they seemed to be." "When did Pantra leave her cocoon Singh?" Darcy asked eager to delay what she knew was coming even for a moment with news that was good even if she had already seen the evidence hovering over her already. ------------------------------- Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day 67, 0451 Singh was leaned back in the heavy leather padded chair in the director's office. He didn't actually need to sleep in this manner anymore, but when he was in this office he had grown used to doing so. So much so that after this long it had become somewhat restful to him in its own way. The problem was not that he was sleeping in this office; it was that he felt the need to sleep in this office. The advisory council had informed him that they had nearly reached an agreement earlier in the week. While he welcomed the news it meant a milestone had been passed. Once the agreement was signed and witnessed by him it immediately came into force. His job as a pressure bandage was done, but that did not mean that by any means that it was over. The moment the agreement between the Grove of Phar' Naqua and the City of Stafford came into effect it became his job to implement it and with the cover story that they had maintained and protected that meant that now it was in his hands to implement it. It also meant that better than half of the FRT force at his disposal would be withdrawn. The reward for a job well done is the chance to go out and do it all over again he reminded himself. It was not like this was even any kind of surprise for him. But it would mean a shift in focus over the next few months. While the lawyers that the Grove had hired to represent the class action suit faced off against the lawyers the Grove had hired to defend the company that was responsible for uprooting so many residents would spend the next couple of months tearing at each other in a public spectacle intended to wean the public's attention off what was happening in Alagosta Gardens, the job of the FRT now was to prepare for the physical movement that was going to have to proceed like clockwork once the kabuki theatre reached its inevitable conclusion. And after that would be yet another contraction and still one more after that. As the situation in the Grove was resolved the FRT would grow smaller until all that remained was a small custodial force that would have as its only reason to exist to act as an auxiliary police force to continue to keep the impact of a growing number of fae under the radar of the general population for as long as necessary. Even with reduced responsibilities eyes were still going to be on him and Stafford after this. The Concord was only the beginning, the problem was that each of the days afterward were going to be written with his actions and every time he asked himself if he really wanted this level of scrutiny he reminded himself that he had said yes a long time ago when he felt the powder burns that sealed him onto this course for the rest of his life. That was the future though and it would have its own problems to plague him anew. Right now his problem was that he was sleeping here because he had good reason to suspect the something else that he had felt brewing in Stafford, something crouched underneath the bubbling cauldron that was the situation with Phar' Naqua was also starting to boil. The smaller bubbles from this one rising to the top hidden beneath the larger ones breaking the surface. And that brought him to this, leaning back in this chair after poring over the details of what he had gathered so far in his efforts to not only ferret out the truth about what happened to detectives Brighton and Travers, but his attempt to rebuild all of their painstaking work based on what he remembered and what he had been able to piece back together. He let his eyes drift down and stay there. The only sounds in the darkness the faint ones drifting through the door and the stretching sounds that had been coming from Pantra's cocoon more frequently of late. His eyes dipped once, then twice and then stayed there. He smelled smoke. For the longest time he thought he was dreaming. It wasn't smoke from a burning building that would wake him up and bring him to instant awareness. This was tobacco smoke. He'd smelled it before in his dreams. Usually when he did he knew it was his mind reaching out for what was no longer there. He was coming up from the dream now, his consciousness rising like a diver ascending to the surface. A lucid dream he thought to himself, how pleasant. It wasn't often he had the chance to experience one of those. Even if you don't remember them the average person has four to six dreams each night. A small percentage of those are remembered. Of those only a smaller percentage of those are bad with only the worst ones that crawl out of your subconscious stark enough to warrant remembrance. Lucid dreams were even rarer on average. Some people only have one during their entire lifetime. Singh was more fortunate than them if you could call it that. The problem with lucid dreams was that eventually you had to wake from them and then all that had fooled you so vividly vanishes into faint wisps of memory that were forgotten before the day has ended. This was a lucid dream and it was one that he enjoyed having. Pantra reclining on something nearby him and leaning back against something else smoking one of her thin cigarettes. The tiny slivers rolled with leaves making them more like cigars that were the size of broken off pieces of toothpicks. This was going to be good he decided. A lucid dream featuring Pantra was an opportunity to speak to her even though she was gone, wrapped tightly in her healing cocoon. "Hello Pantra," he told her, "I've missed talking to you." "Doesn't look like you've done that shabby without me," she said blowing a rapid series of miniature smoke rings. He watched as she blew a pair of thin stream of smoke and somehow got them to weave in and out of the rings that were still floating around them. "Showoff," he said to her. "Ever since you saw Lord of the Rings you been determined to make a better smoke dance than the one they filmed." "And why not?" she demanded of him blowing another series of rings in the air. "You know who they had making those rings, not CGI, no sir they didn't do that. They let everyone think it was CGI, but that wasn't it at all. It was my idiot cousin who can do exactly ONE thing in her whole life that doesn't involve making an idiot of herself and that is she can smoke dance." "If she's an idiot like you say then why do you begrudge her having one small thing she is good at then? It's not like she could outshine you in more important things." "That's not the point," Pantra told him starting to pout over it. "Then what is the point?" he asked her through sleep gummed lips. "The point is that she's an idiot. She's an idiot and I'm not and I should be able to do something that simple better than an idiot can." "So the point has nothing to do with her, it has to do with you?" "Exactly!" Pantra said triumphantly blowing another thin stream of smoke skyward. "You know I don't even care that the first thing you want to do is rehash this old argument again. I'm just glad to hear you." "Geez, you really are lost without me," she said leaning forward and breathing out another long streamer of smoke. "And you're wrong actually; I wasn't interested in hashing out this argument again when I got out of the cocoon. What I wanted was a smoke. A nicotine fit is bad enough when it's someone your size, a nic fit for someone like me at my scale is torture that even Goblins wouldn't dare try on purpose." "It must be so awful for you unable to taste it but feel it drift through your threads and still not able to do anything about it," he said to her. "Do you want me to blow on your cocoon? I won't mind doing it." Pantra cocked her head and started at him. "I can't tell it's been so long. Was that funny, sarcastic or you making an offer because deep down you whipped by a Pixie?" "Maybe a little of all, maybe none," he said. Pantra leaned over and placed her elbows on her knees and took another slow drag before blowing it out. "Damn, I may have to get a new straight man. Do you know how much a pain in the ass that's going to be at my age? I just got you broke in and here you go doing something like this!" "What's the matter with that my dream a little dream?" "That's it, you know the rules. Short cracks get's you a kick in the schnozz!" "Such a serious little dream," he murmured. "I'll serious your dream," she muttered giving her wings and exploratory flap. This was going to take some warm up. She had no intention of pulling one of her recently healed flying muscles just to teach that big doofus a lesson." She stretched out good and then she picked her spot. She backed up and started to get a running start. She felt the shifting of the air around her as her body displaced the air she was moving though. She felt her airspeed pick up as she circled. She cast her head over her left shoulder and snatched a quick look backward. "I've missed watching you fly," she heard him mutter. "Did I ever tell you that you look like the best eighteen inches I ever saw?" "Don't say it," she hissed to herself. She promised herself that if he said that stupid dirty joke she was going to do more than just give his nose a damned hard thump." "I wish you were really here," she heard him mutter before he sank deeper into his REM cycle and started snoring softly. Pantra flared and came in for a landing. "Alright," she said looking up at him. "I won't slug you this time." Pantra stretched out her wings one more time before she let them slip into back into the straight tube they formed when she was not using them. She picked her way across the desk, found a comfortable place to sit and lit another cigarette. She looked up at Singh towering above her. "I missed you too you big idiot." -------------------------------- Gatehouse of Phar' Naqua: Day 480, 1115 "The next morning when I woke I found that it hadn't been a dream after all," Singh said. "I don't know who was more relieved, Pantra or me." "So it took you a while then after she woke up," Darcy said. "I guess I can understand that. I probably would have done the same thing." "No we didn't," Pantra said to her. "After being in that cocoon for so long the only thing I wanted to do was to move and do things and as soon as Armin brought me up to speed I pushed him to not hold back." "So what's the first thing you did?" Darcy asked. "The same thing you did, I wanted to see the tape." ------------------------------------------------- Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day 67, 0933 hours "Play it for me again," Pantra said looking up at the computer screen towering over her. When you're Pixie sized, just about any video was the same as a drive it as far as her race was concerned. "So you're certain it's not them?" Armin asked her again. He had that tone of voice that she really didn't care for and she knew what it was about that particular tone that she didn't like. It was the same way that people who didn't believe that she even existed spoke when someone else spoke up who knew better. The reason that she hated it coming from Armin's lips was that it felt almost like a betrayal is some fashion, even thought she knew it was nothing of the sort. "Yes Armin," she said. "From the first time to this time it's the same each time we see it. I don't know who those old bags are, but not one of them is Jim Brighton or Mitch Travers. Someone is thrown a whole wool blanket over everyone's eyes with this one. You know I've heard it being discussed that it might be possible to film a glamour, but I've never heard of anyone trying to do it. I mean we can as long as it's not a night lens, but you look like shit while you do it." She looked again at the images on the towering screen overhead and still failed to imagine what you would have to do to make something like this work. "I don't know how they did it; you tell me that you see an almost perfect copy of Brighton and Travers both die with only a little flutter to give it away. Honestly I'm in awe. Whoever it is that came up with this has some serious mojo. So how did you figure out that they weren't really dead if you see them just like everyone else does?" "You can't tell anyone," Singh said to Pantra in his ultra serious, I'm definitely not fooling voice. "I got it," she said quieting down. Singh leaned over until he was close by her and then whispered in that ultra low whisper that they had perfected for use with each other. "I gave them both a guardian's tear," he said and leaned back up against the chair. "Bleah!" she blurted out as he did. "Geez, Armin brush your damned teeth if you're gonna do something like that again. I swear I saw half a damned cow between your teeth. Yuck! Guardian's tears. She thought while she spun a cover so no one would think of an actual secret. Holy shit he's not screwing around. That's major mojo. If he had them using that he definitely didn't need to be able to see it was a fake, he knew for sure. "So what is the next step?" she asked. "I think I need to show you some pictures that Dr. Gregor, the assistant M.E. took for me." Pantra took flight and hovered at eye level so he could see him. "Armin I swear to god if I look at these pictures and I see necrophilia I am so kicking your ass. And then I'm going to find this guy and do the same thing to him but twice as much because...ICK!" -------------------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 481, 0021 "So I take it that there was no trace of necrophilia?" Darcy said. "Far from it," Sing said, "Pantra was the one who matched both Jane Doe's to the actual features of the supposed robbers in the film and she was the one that confirmed for me that the two women who posed as you and detective Travers were almost identical in their true appearance as the others there that night." "How could you or she have done something like that? She asked. "What could you do that would give you that kind of certainty?" "I did the only thing I could do. I exhumed both your body and that of Mitchell Travers," Singh said. ----------------------------- Greenlawn Cemetery, Stafford: Day 70, 2140 hours "I'm not sure I'm up for this Armin. I mean three days out of the tube and I'm roped into doing something that's going to turn out bad. I just know it is" Pantra said in his ear as he made his way down the winding paved road that snaked through the manicured lawn and topiary of the cemetery. "The most important thing I need for you to do Pantra is to tell me what you see once we are there," Singh replied to her. "Everything that follows after that depends on what it is that you see." "That's not what I mean Armin," she said. "If they find out that we are involved with this that's going to be both of our heads on a pike." She reflexively ducked and glanced upwards. The high pitched sound of bat sonar whistling overhead as they hunted insects generated that sort of automatic response in her. Not because they were a predator, but more importantly it was the only way to avoid a mid-air collisions with the fast agile mice of the sky. "In your case perhaps a toothpick would be more apropos," Singh answered, stepping over a pair of headstones set flush with the dark green lawn. "Ha ha, very funny Armin," Pantra spat back at him and leaned over to swat his earlobe. Singh paused and winced at the tiny blow and once he had recovered he turned his head so that he could see her in the dark. "Was that truly necessary Pantra?" he asked her. "Was that toothpick crack necessary?" she asked him back Singh snickered. "I'm afraid it was," he said starting to laugh a little more. Pantra wound up and hit his earlobe even harder the second time. Singh winced even harder that time. "And what was that for?" he demanded. "Interest," she said. "I owed you a little something extra for laughing again." Singh looked at her perched on his shoulder with her fist balled up ready to tag him again and started laughing some more. "I have missed having you around Pantra. It just hasn't been the same since you were injured. I'm so very glad to have you back with me," he said. Pantra unballed her fists and settled on his shoulder. "Okay," she said. "You're forgiven. If anyone gets to bust my balls I suppose it's you. Just don't abuse the privilege you big idiot," she said back to him. "So how are we going to do this? The moment you start to do something it won't be long before someone is going to go by and see what you're doing." "I'm going to be right out in the open about it. Hiding it only draws attention," he answered. "If I don't hide that I'm doing it, then most people won't pay any attention to me." "Most people, not all people," Pantra said back to him. "It's that little difference between the two that's setting my teeth on edge about this whole idea." Singh flicked on a flashlight started walking again across the grass. The light that he was sweeping revealed headstones that were laying flat against the earth, with just as many looming out of the dark vertically. Occasionally the sole of his shoe would tap against one that he missed with the light. Singh managed to avoid tripping over any of the low lying stones and eventually the two of them reached their goal. "So what now Armin?" Pantra asked him. "Blind, deaf and stupid might have missed you coming over here. Unfortunately for you I don't think the guards are named that." "Now we wait," Singh said and settled in. It was only an hour or so past sundown. They had decided that they needed to visit Jim's grave first. It was the most exposed to any other visitors who might also pass by. Mitch's was toward the back and the ornamental shrubs and trees that masked that section would give them more concealment for what they were here to do. They didn't have to wait long, barely twenty minutes had passed before another flashlight pierced the darkness and swinging in time with the steps of the person carrying it was making a direct line to where they knelt beside the grave. "Make yourself scarce Pantra," Singh whispered to her while the man was far enough away not to hear that he had even spoken. He felt her weight lift from his shoulders and she slipped into the darkness somewhere above them. "Hey!" the man's voice called across the darkness of the stone garden. "You there! Who are you? What're you doing here?" Singh stepped into the light and raised his badge so the person challenging him could see it clearly. "Special Detective Armin Singh, Stafford police department. I'm visiting a friend. And who might you be?" he asked. "Greenlawn security, detective. Sorry to bother you sir. It's just after dark we have to check everyone who comes here when we see them. Make sure that they're not up to anything screwy." "Your vigilance is appreciated sir. Has there been any trouble? Should I request some assistance for you?" Singh said letting his flashlight play down to illuminate Jim's headstone. Particularly the part that identified him as a fallen Stafford detective. "That won't be necessary detective," the guard said to him. "Most of the time it's not anything serious. Mostly kids sneaking in looking for an out of the way spot to drink or make out. Sometimes some vandals. But mostly it's folks like you is all. Still have to account for them though." The security guard aimed his flashlight down where Singh's was pointed. "You knew him pretty well?" he asked. "We worked together several times on different cases," Singh said. "He and his partner were both killed during an attempted robbery not long ago." "Oh man, I read about that," the guard exclaimed looking down at the granite headstone a little closer. "So this is him then?" "Yes," Singh said and pointed toward the darkness in the general direction of Mitch's grave. "And when I have finished paying my respects here I intend to pay my respects to my other colleague as well. Will that be a problem?" "We're actually closed now detective Singh, but we make all kinds of exceptions. Sometimes the bereaved stay the night. When that happens we mostly suggest that they should go home and come back in the morning, but we don't push it, if you understand my meaning," the guard said. "I believe I do," Singh said. "Will my being here cause any difficulty?" The guard shook his head. "No detective Singh it won't, I'll let the other guards know that you're back here so you can have your privacy. Just be good enough to flag one of us down when you get ready to leave if you would," he said and turned around to walk quickly away from him. In the distance they could hear him speaking on the radio as he walked away until he reached the road and flicked off his flashlight and vanished from sight. Pantra landed immediately on his shoulder again. "Well that was pretty slick Armin. So what's next?" "Now we wait here a little longer," he said. "Then before we begin you can make a quick sweep to make certain that we are alone here. Now that the security is aware that we are here they will pay little attention to us as long as we are discrete." "Meaning while they are giving you your space you're going to open up both these graves and because you were open about being here you've got them pulling security for you instead of stumbling over you. That's nice," she said. "Very neat." --------------------------- Greenlawn Cemetery, Stafford: Day 70, 2210 hours. Pantra swooped in the darkness as she made her check. She didn't bother with using her shimmer and flying freely at night was something she was comfortable doing. A lot of the time when she needed to just get out and fly she would do that at night anyway. So far she hadn't seen anything that threatened what Singh had planned. The guards were keeping far enough away that there was little chance of them seeing anything and contrary to what the security guard said there were no other people here at this time of night. She ducked to avoid an owl that thought she might make an interesting change of diet. It didn't take much to change his mind and make him decide that he was better off looking to find something else to dine on. A quick tightly focused pop so that the owl could see that the pillar of heat came directly from her was enough to change his mind. It wasn't often she encountered an owl like this. Most of the time it was bats and they tended to leave her alone since she was clearly much larger than the bugs and other small flying creatures that they were after. She arched into a dive and flared a bit so she could land upright on Armin's shoulder. She had never been more relieved than when she had emerged from the healing cocoon with her wings intact and her metamorphosis forestalled a little while longer. After he had gotten over the fact that she really had emerged from her cocoon and was really here, Singh had spent the first few hours getting her up to date and the first thing that he had shared with her how long the surgical team had worked on her to do the best they could to make sure she kept her wing. Their best had been pretty damned good too. When this was over she was going to find some way to really pay them back for what they did for her. As far as she was concerned she couldn't owe them enough for what they did. "All clear Armin," she said. "Guards are hanging back like you thought they would and there's no one anywhere near here. If you're going to do this now's the time." Singh nodded and reached for the earth and concentrated. He closed his eyes to conceal the increased illumination his eyes produced whenever he linked with the earth. In his mind's eye he looked down into the earth and felt the metal and wood that was the casket and grave liner that supposedly held the mortal remains of one Jim Brighton. Whoever was in that coffin there was one thing that he was certain of and that was that it wasn't Jim. The earth had settled a bit since this coffin was interred. But it was still loose enough that he could encourage the earth to shift apart a little more to make this even easier. Beneath the six foot chest he increased the pressure so that it began to force itself up through the loose soil that lay on top of it. Beneath their feet there was a slight faint rumble as the soil shifted. The grave was still barren of grass so when the lid of the casket emerged from the soil pushing it upward Singh was certain that it would not be very noticeable from a distance. Singh had not raised it completely above ground level. The top of the sealing casket that covered the one that held these remains needed to be removed before they could examine the body inside of it. Singh placed his hands and forced the metals that made up the outer covering to separate from each other and then guided it as it shifted to one side with only a slight scrape of sound and lay in the grass. Pantra had been circling overhead as he was doing this. Making certain that they were not likely to be surprised by any uninvited guests to their private party. When the lid broached the earth and he leaned over to unseal it she took one last look around and then dropped back down so they could get this over with and get this box containing whoever it was back into the earth where they belonged. "Armin," she said in an alarmed tone after sniffing the air for a moment. "We've got weirdness. I don't smell a damned thing coming from that box." "Then we must be careful Pantra as well as swift," he replied and bent to lift the lid. The hinges had not been submerged in the earth long enough for the oil that lubricated them to squeal when they opened. There was a faint creak of wood but no other sound than that. More disturbingly there was not the slightest whiff of corruption rising from the box that had been sealed underground for the last few weeks. Singh's eyes had taken on a slight glow when he was earth weaving, now that he was no longer doing so his eyes still retained that faint glow. It took Pantra a moment to make the connection that he was using this as a way of increasing his night vision rather than using the flashlight and risk drawing attention to them. "That is not Jim Brighton," Pantra said immediately. "It's some old woman in men's clothing." Singh was already reaching into his pockets to take out a small video camera. Before he started setting it up him passed some adhesive strips so she could gather prints as well as make a search. "Make a quick search Pantra," he whispered. I'm going use the night vision camera to record this while you do." "Wonderful," she said. "That'll be exhibit A at our hearing. You're really considerate gathering evidence for the prosecutor. You know that?" Singh aimed the camera at the body starting from the foot and slowly panned upward until he had taken all of it in. He zeroed in on Pantra and widened the screen so as to see the whole of it while still getting a close record of what she was doing. "The faster you attend to this, the less likely there will be a hearing Pantra," he said to her steadying the camera to keep the frame wholly within the casket. Pantra dropped down into the box and got started. When they were discussing what they needed three things stood out. They needed to verify that who was in there was not who was supposed to be there, they needed fingerprints if they could be obtained and they needed the night vision recording of this to examine later to see if there was anything that they had missed in their haste. Fingerprints were something of a long shot. The chance that even if the body had been embalmed, it may not be possible to get a clean set was something that they considered. Now that she was here and passing the clear adhesive over the fingertips of whomever this was, Pantra was starting to wish that what they had expected to find was actually here. The cold flesh was stiff to the touch but not as stiff as it should have been in her opinion. She finished with one set and hopped over to the other one to compete the job. It only took minutes for her to do it but for her they were minutes that crawled and when she lifted the last print she was only too glad to get out of that damned box and put some distance between her and whoever was in it. "Done, Armin," she chirped. "Can we box this hag up now? Or do you have something else in mind?" she asked. The counter on the night vision camera said they had only had it open for about four minutes. Singh had planned for this to take as long as six. "One more thing Pantra," he whispered. "Open the shirt and check the cause of death. I need to see something. It may be important." "You want me to WHAT?!" she demanded. "Just do it," he whispered urgently. "As soon as it is done, the sooner we can put everything back the way it was, now hurry up please." Muttering under her breath, Pantra slipped into the casket again and started clearing away the cloth where the buttons held it in place. She pulled the shirt aside and stopped. "We've got serious trouble Armin," she whisper-hissed at him. "This wound is healing." Pantra slowly started to rise when Singh whisper-hissed back at her to freeze. "Pantra," he asked, "can you produce a high intensity flame with very little light?" His hands were starting to shake and the very fact that they were doing that at all did not bode well in her opinion. "Yes," she said not sure if she wanted to ask why. "When I tell you to, I want you to fly as fast as you can straight up and hover just over the body. I want you to use that flame and put it directly into both of this woman's eyes, you need to burn through all the way through to the brain." Before Pantra could ask why she felt the faint twitch of movement coming from the hands lying alongside the body, like something that hadn't moved in a while was trying to force itself to. "Now!" Singh whisper-hissed to her. Pantra flew directly upward and hovered overhead, below her she could see the hands still moving toward where she had been standing. If they had been looser or the mind had been quicker they could very well have gotten her in their grip. She concentrated on the open eyes of the woman below here. Eyes of deepest violet that were following her even if the rest of the body was not yet able to do so. She aimed and poured the hottest flame that she could in a short sharp burst directly into both of the eyes that were tracking her. There was little light to go with the heat. It was a tightly focused beam that flashed down and was gone. What little light there was remained close to her palms. From a distance it could be easily mistaken for the flash of a firefly. The two sharp high pitched cracks that were all that marked the passage of the heat blast she generated were low enough that the sound blended into the night and faded away quickly enough. Anyone that did hear them probably mistook them for cicadas. The heat punched through the violet orbs and bored into the brain behind them. There was the hissing sizzle of burning meat that rose from the ruined orbs but the majority of the damage she had done was contained within the skull itself. The body bucked slightly and lay still in the coffin once more. Around them the odor of cooked meat was spreading. "Get this hag in the ground Armin! Do it now!" she whisper-hissed at him. Singh quickly knelt and lowered the lid. He placed his hands on the earth and the lid of the liner slid over and sank back into place with only a faint scraping groan of metal on metal. As soon as it was in place and sealed the soil began to boil beneath the casket as the earth dragged it back down again. It was over and still in a little over a minute leaving a scattering of fresh turned earth that was the only indication that this spot had been disturbed. Armin gathered up the clear print sheets and slipped them into his inner jacket pocket. He stopped the camera and checked the time before flipping the power off and slipping it into his outer jacket pocket. Pantra landed on the earth beside him. "What the supreme fuck was THAT Armin?" she demanded. "Because whatever it was, it damned sure wasn't dead. I didn't sign up to go toe to toe with who the hell knows what!" "I wish I knew what we just saw Pantra, I wish I knew," he said to her and picked up the flashlight. He turned it on and then started walking away from Brighton's grave and toward the far darkness. Pantra flew after him and when she drew level with him she half flew half hovered at head level while she matched his pace. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" she demanded. "We're only halfway done Pantra," he said. "There is still detective Traver's grave to examine." "The hell we are," Pantra said. "We don't have to open that damned thing up. I'll tell you what you'll find right now. Another violet eyed hag just like the one we just saw. That's what you'll find. And that's too damned risky. Walk away Armin, we've got enough." "And we should leave whatever that is in there waiting for someone else to find? For it to perhaps find its way free somehow? That's too great a chance for me to take," he asked her. "If nothing else, if it is the same as we just saw, then it needs to be put down as well." Pantra fumed for a minute as she watched him as he continued walking in the direction of Mitch's grave. "Fine!" she spat and flitted after him "But only under one condition," she said as she drew level with him. "And that is?" he asked continuing to pick his way through the gravestones. "As soon as that box is open the very first thing we do is fry its brain to a cinder," she insisted. "My dear Pantra," he said stepping over a pair of low lying headstones. "That is precisely my intention." ---------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 480, 1122hours "And what did you find when you opened Mitch's grave," Darcy asked. Her voice when she spoke was as quiet as it could be and still carry sound. There was a faint trembling in it as well. Fear that she was still engaged in bringing under control, but fear that was still lodged there like a stone in her throat. "We found the same thing that we found when we opened your grave Darcy. Almost down to the same details. The difference was that this time the moment that I opened the coffin lid, Pantra cremated the brains inside that creature's skull before it could begin move against us. Like what we found in what was supposed to be your coffin there was no decay that we could detect and the wound that was on her neck was likewise nearly healed as well." "Was there anything else?" she asked. "There was one more thing," Singh said. "I almost missed it in the dark, but the camera picked it up. We saw it when we reviewed the footage later. When I had Pantra shift the clothing around to get a good look at the wounds I also had her bare the wrist and inner arm of each of them as well. And in both cases there was the faint outline of a rose tattoo on both of their wrists and inner arms." ------------------------------ Overall, Darcy reacted much better than Singh thought she might when he told her about what he had found buried under her name in Greenlawn. At least she had not asked to see that footage as she had when he told her about the robbery footage that showed the both of them dying. If there was anything he had to be grateful about then that was it as far as Singh was concerned. He and Pantra hadn't had as much time to be scared when that was actually happening. The first time happened too quickly and there was only time to react as best they could; the second time they had an inkling of what to expect and they dealt with it immediately and were finished and away from there in even less time. It was only later on that looking the video of what they had done that he got truly scared. ----------------------------------------- Area Command & Control, Stafford: Day 71, 1015 hours Reviewing the tape to check for any clues they could glean from exhuming the two bodies was worse than going through and doing it in his opinion. It was clearly so for Pantra. She outright refused to even watch it and had gone directly to her futon and started in on the mini bottle of whiskey that she kept there for occasions like this. Seeing those eyes snap open on the film had made him nearly jump out of his skin when it happened and the fact that he knew it was coming made it worse, but he forced himself to review it another two times afterward just to make certain there wasn't any details that he had missed. Pantra was already snoring after her second mini bottle and Singh was wishing that he could imitate her just this once, but deep inside of himself he knew that there wasn't enough alcohol to wash away what he had just seen, even if he wished that he could. Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 481, O225 La Fleur wasn't going to spend the night tonight. Jacen's agent had only been able to secure her for about eight hours this time. After nearly six and a half hours, Jacen took her upstairs and removed her crystal teardrop. When she came back down the stairs to go out and climb into her cab, Jacen made certain to escort her to the cab's door. It was best if he did that this time they had decided. As long as he was there demanding her focus then there was less chance for her to notice that she was still leaving from a different house than the one that she entered. From the window Singh watched La Fleur display the exaggerated affection that she had before. Jacen stood outside and played along until she was out of sight around the corner and then he came back inside. "Was it as before?" M'Tehr asked him as he closed the door behind him. "It was and it was not, Lady M'Tehr," he said to her. "How did it differ?" she asked anxiously. "She took more from me this time. Still a small amount, but noticeably more. Her hunger I think is even greater this time as well. I think that whatever discipline she has is barely keeping it in check and there was one more thing that may be important." "And what is that Jacen?" she asked him. "The outer row of petals on the rose that marks her. It is only four petals from completion," he said. "I think her time is nearly upon her." Singh saw M'Tehr's head move backward slightly as she focused on him and what she said. That faint movement was as telling as a sharp intake of breath would be for someone who needed to breathe. "Then we may have much less time than we hoped for," she said to him and looked at Singh. "Friend Singh, it will have to be soon if it is to be at all." Singh nodded his head. "Speak with the Arath' Mahar. Let her know it will be soon," he said. "And I will begin preparations as well."