SAGN: Chapter Fifteen-The Lambs free porn video

SAGN: Chapter 15-The Lambs West Benson Avenue, Stafford: Day 441, 1410 hours Darcy LeFleur had barely taken half a dozen steps away from the door of her Johnnie's home when she heard the whoop whoop of a police siren being activated briefly from the street beside her. The red and blue lights were already flashing on the roof of the black and white before she had even completely turned her head to face them. Well this is just super. She mused as she set the case containing her work kit down on the sidewalk and lowered her hands palms facing outward and waited absolutely still for the officers to come to her. That was what Daddy told her to do if something like this ever happened and if she didn't do exactly what he wanted her to do, he would have his own ways of finding out and once that happened he would not be pleased with her. Disappointing Daddy was more of a worry for her than being picked up by cops. He told her so. Cops he could deal with, her disappointing him was out of the question and there was more chance of the sun rising in the west then there was for her to do something that would ever let that happen. Today she was wearing a charcoal gray business suit with a modest knee length skirt. The Johnnie she had just left wanted her to dress precisely in this outfit. He'd specified it as a matter of fact when he had set up his afternoon consultation through Daddy. He'd also requested that she get her hair restyled in a French braid as well. He had smiled so deeply when he let her into the apartment that she knew that she had once again managed to present herself in just the right degree to fire his fantasy. To him she was always Marie when they were together; she was never Darcy, not ever. From the time the door closed when she first arrived to the moment she gave him that last desperate kiss he wanted her to give him before leaving. Each one of her Johnnies was a game to her, a puzzle to put together. Bad Johnnies were easy to figure out and easier still to satisfy; she could handle them almost on autopilot. Bad Johnnies only wanted a few things and the sad thing was, only the best of them made it about the sex. Johnnies like that had never really grown up in some fundamental way. Something inside of them had retarded them, kept them from seeing her or any other woman as anything more than a vehicle to slake their desires with. Until something forced that blockage inside of them shift aside they never moved beyond that shallow greedy outlook. She might come to their door and be held and stroked and touched behind it, but to bad Johnnies like that she was nothing more than the sexual equivalent of a pizza delivery. Something to be consumed and later discarded; a symbolic consumption of every woman their eyes fell upon and it was never personal. The fact that it wasn't personal made it worse in her opinion. It wasn't just who she was and what she did that made her think that. Bad Johnnies would do what they did to her when the door closed to any woman whether it was one of her street corner sorority sisters or the woman they had convinced to come home after too many drinks or the woman that they worked with that finally said yes to meeting later on; to bad Johnnies they were all whores and the only difference was the price that was paid by them so they could consume them. At least she was ranked a little higher in their estimation, if only because of her price. The amount that Daddy extracted from them meant that she was more of a status symbol even in their own minds, but that was where it ended. She would never think otherwise but those were the easy ones. The other bad Johnnies, for them, it was never about the sex. For them it was always about doing what they didn't dare to do ever outside of the doors she entered with them. The ones who had chained themselves inside in some way that hobbled them from growing beyond that. Those Johnnies had a monster inside of them; a monster that they satisfied with women like her because only by buying her for a time could they justify what they did and still look in the mirror afterward. She supposed that they thought they were good even as they did this and she was under no illusions that they would ever have enough introspection to see that they really weren't. Pain, humiliation and worse were what they fed their monster and they fooled themselves into thinking that it ended there and they could go back to who they were when the door closed and it never occurred to them that what was inside of them was growing because they were feeding it. It never occurred to them that the monster was who they were and the face they showed everyone the rest of the time was the mask they wore to hide it. This Johnnie was on the upper end of bad though, as best as Darcy could figure the second time she met with him, he was using her as a placeholder for whoever Marie was in his real life. He never wanted her to be anyone other than Marie when they were together. Whoever Marie was in that life, his supervisor at work, someone he knew well socially or just an image so strong in his mind that she had become real to him; Darcy was the one who became her when the door closed and the game began. Whether it was just acting out a fantasy of desire or of dominance she still wasn't quite sure which yet. But the important thing, the thing that mattered more to her was that when she did step through that door with him, he didn't treat her badly while it was closed; that is what made him better than most bad Johnnies. Still, and only recently had the thought occurred to her, she was starting to wonder what how he would react if the next time they were together she was the one consuming him. The seed of that idea was delicious concept growing inside of her and she couldn't help but think about it more and more lately and the constant attention the police were suddenly paying to her was not helping matters. It was a distraction and she didn't like it when it happened; especially recently. Both doors of the police cruiser opened with a single sound. The driver stepped to one side so that he was facing her directly from the exact angle that he would need to use if the contact turned dangerous. From where he was standing now he could quickly drop down between the junction of the open door and the car frame and open fire if he needed to. His partner stepped to one side and out from behind his own door. As he approached her he never stepped into the potential line of fire that his partner who would be covering them both would need to use. "Darcy LeFleur?" the approaching officer asked her as he came within a few steps of her and paused. "Yes, Officer. I'm Darcy LeFleur," she answered in her most pleasant tone of voice. Daddy says we should always speak respectfully to the police when this happens she thought. "Is there a problem officer?" she asked. "Darcy LeFleur I'm placing you under arrest for violation of section 15- 16-90 of Title 16 of the criminal code; specifically for the crime of prostitution," he said simply and without emotion. "Turn around and place your hands against the wall." Darcy turned to face the wall of the building she had just exited from. This was happening a lot more frequently now. It used to be that no officers even paid attention to her, but over the last couple of months it seemed that whatever it was that had kept them from doing so had vanished. At first it was just once every few weeks, but now it seemed to her that she was being pulled in two sometimes three times a week. This would actually be her fourth time being arrested this week so in a way it was a new record in itself. The only good thing was that Daddy wasn't upset about the sudden increase in how much money that bail and fines were costing him. It fact, now that she thought about it, the only day she hadn't been arrested this week was at the beginning when she had that special that Daddy had set up for her. As the officer moved slightly behind her and to the right she started to smile just thinking about that one. She had no idea of just what it was about him, but that was certainly one that she wouldn't mind going back for again and again. Maybe if she asked Daddy nicely he might arrange it for her she wondered as the officer slipped the cold steel of the cuffs around her wrist and guided her unresisting hand behind her back. "You have the right to remain silent," he intoned to her as he reached for her other wrist as his hand held her cuffed on in place. "Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law," His hand closed on her remaining free wrist and guided it down beside her other one. "You have the right to an attorney and to have one present with you during questioning?" he said, slipping the steel of the other bracelet around her wrist. She heard the zzzzt sound of the steel teeth meshing in the cuffs and the vibration of it whisper through the metal as they ratcheted tighter immobilizing her hands in the small of her back. "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish." She felt his left hand fall and rest on her upper back as his right hand held her arms behind her as he turned her away from the building and started walking her to the rear door of the cruiser. The other officer had abandoned his position once she was in restraints and had moved around to open the door. Now he was waiting by the rear of the car. "You can decide at any time to exercise these rights and not answer questions or make any statements," the officer continued droning in a bored tone as he walked her there. When they reached the car his hand moved to the crown of her head and bent it down as he seated her in the back seat. "Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you? Having these rights in mind do you wish to talk to us now?" "Yes I understand," she answered. "And no I do not." The door closed behind her and she breathed in the taste of the air in the back of the cruiser without expression. That was all there was to do as far as she was concerned. She looked down at her legs reflexively. She was checking to see if how he placed her in the car, even in the relatively gentle way he had done so had caused her charcoal gray stockings to run. It didn't seem that had happened so she settled back in the seat and watched as the officer picked up her case and loaded it in the truck of the cruiser. She heard the deep sound of the trunk lid closing and saw him walking around to the driver's side of the black and white. Both officers climbed into the car in unison. She felt their combined weight make the car settle a bit as they sat down and then felt something drop around her neck. The coldness of the metal of whatever it was kissed her skin as it settled just below her collarbones. Darcy blinked for a moment and her eyes went glassy. Pantra dropped her shimmer and launched herself from the rear deck behind Darcy's head and landed on the seat beside her. She looked up at the two officers looking back at her. "Drive," she ordered them. "This operation has a time limit and the clock's ticking," The FRT agent who was dressed as a Stafford police officer sitting behind the wheel only nodded and turned his eyes forward and started the cruiser moving forward down the street and toward the Grove. With the lights and the siren in play Pantra watched from the back as the traffic ahead of the parted away from them like a school of herring making way for a seal. She looked up at Darcy and watched her as her mind shook off the effects of the unexpected joining. "Sorry about the cuffs Darcy," she said to her. "They have to stay on for now for appearance sake and we don't have much time for this. We saw an opportunity and we took it." Darcy squelched her eyes closed and shook her head before shaking it again to clear the last of the cobwebs from her mind. "I can live with it," she said. "We are going to be taking you to the station afterward to book LeFleur, but first we're going to take a little detour along the way." Darcy nodded and turned her eyes out the window trying to see just where in Stafford she was right now. It took a few minutes for something she recognized to place her location, but when the far edge of the fairgrounds came in sight she recognized where she was. From here it would be about forty-five minutes to the nearest bridge that crossed the river proper if she were driving by herself. In a cruiser with the siren on, the way they were traveling now, it wouldn't take even half that long. If this were a real arrest they wouldn't be using lights and siren and from this location it would be at least an hour and fifteen minutes before she was finally walked into the fourth precinct, assuming that was where she was being taken, for booking. All told they could likely squeeze a bit more out of that time frame and still have LeFleur open her eyes just outside of the road leading to the station without anyone noticing how long it had actually taken. She settled in and tried to make herself as comfortable as she could during the ride to the Gatehouse. ----------------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 441, 1437 hours The minutes unspooled on her mental clock as the black and white brought her to the Grove. Pantra didn't volunteer any further information to her, but Darcy was fairly certain why that probably was. It wouldn't take long for them to actually get there, but speaking to her about this sudden meeting while she was still groggy from suddenly regaining control over her own mind once again would be a waste of time. It was taking less time for her to pass through that murky sensation than it had before, but it was still there blocking her ability to think clearly for a short time after the joining. The mental fog didn't fully clear until she was inside the boundary of the ward. Then it was as if the last lingering traces of Fleur scattered and after that her head seemed clearer. It was a good feeling to have but now that it was here, it made her feel normal and for an instant she could almost forget that she was only hijacking her own body while this feeling lasted. The police cruiser slowed to a stop in front of the only house remaining on Magnolia Circle. Both of the officers exited the car and while one stood watch on the street side of the vehicle, the other opened the door and removed the cuffs from Darcy's wrists. "Wait here," Pantra told them. "This won't take very long and you have to be ready to deliver her to fourth precinct as soon as we put the cuffs back on her." The officer nodded and took up a position facing the house. "Come on Darcy," Pantra said slowly flying down the sidewalk leading up to the front door. "We don't have much time for this. We're taking enough of a chance as it is." Rubbing her wrists to relieve them of the constriction imposed by the tempered steel and to restore some of her circulation, Darcy slowly followed her. When they reached the door it opened almost the moment they were there. Singh waved the two of them in and hurriedly closed it behind them. They were standing in the hallway while they spoke, once Singh had closed the door behind them he had started speaking right away. "Darcy this will be a short discussion, I'm afraid. We won't have much time to speak before you will need to depart, but considering what it is that I have to tell you, Pantra and I thought it best to do so under these circumstances." "So the others are not here right now?" she asked. "We will all be meeting later," Singh replied. "The agent that Jacen employs to arrange our time together has already confirmed that you will be returning in a few hours. Pantra and I thought that if we could arrange for you to be picked up in this manner, just after you have left a client that for a short time you would be able to meet with us for a short time and strengthen your link." "What if I don't want it to be a short time?" she asked him. "I feel strong right now. Why don't you just arrange for me to stay here? That way I could just disappear and..." "And what Darcy?" Singh said gesturing into the living room. Darcy took a few hesitant steps into the room and turned around and answered. "Maybe if you had more time. You might... you maybe could find a way... a way to put me back the way I was before," she said almost inaudibly. The words were so softly spoken that if he hadn't seen her speak them he might not have understood them. As she had spoken them Singh had a clear unbidden mental picture of a small child trying to convince a parent that the punishment already meted out be annulled after the fact. It was a strong illusion and Singh understood when she finished saying what she said, that he had to make it clear to her that there was no way for them to do this. Her time in control was already limited and they would never be able to pass on to her what it was that she needed to know for them all to be ready if her mind was constantly being drawn back to a futile hope that she could undo what had already happened. This was Darcy trying to bargain with him. She had already experienced shock and anger when she was returned to control, it should not have been unexpected that she wouldn't try to bargain her way out of this in the time they had available at some point. This wasn't why he and Pantra had thought it worth the risk to increase the time that Darcy was in control of her mind. By diverting her here and arranging for her to be picked up without anyone suspecting what they were doing they hoped that they could strengthen her hold further. But that was less important than this Singh thought. If focusing on the topic by itself helped them get her past this, then the time was well spent. Without the siren song of false hope diverting her she could focus with them on what it was that they could do then. Convincing her of that reality potentially made this stolen time with her more valuable than what he and Pantra were originally intending to speak about with her. "I'm sorry Darcy, but that is something that is beyond our abilities, no matter how much time we have available to try otherwise," he said Her head jerked up from where she had let it hang down as she had spoken. Deep down inside her, Singh thought, she knows that there IS nothing that we can do, but at the same time she is still driven to ask. Darcy started backing away from him moving deeper into the living room. Someone else watching them from a distance might get the impression that she was trying to keep her distance from him while they spoke because she was afraid of him, when it was the truth of what he was telling her that she actually feared. "So you're certain...you're really, really certain that there is no way to reverse what's been done to me?" Darcy asked Singh. She had turned as she spoke and now she had moved near the hearth as she asked him. Her eyes cut past him and she glanced out the pair of windows facing out to the wood shrouded street in front of the house where the two FRT agents dressed as Stafford police officers waited by the cruiser for her to return. Singh wished that he could have told her differently and his knowledge of what must happen warred with his sympathy for Darcy. From her point of view the night had abruptly shifted to day and it was somewhat disorienting for her, but since she knew the reason that lay behind it the sensation was not as confusing as it might otherwise have been. Don't let your humanity get in the way of what is necessary he told himself again. Looking at her as she started to pace in circles around him, he could tell at once that, even though she had settled more firmly into control this time, she was also making it immediately obvious that she wasn't going to be calm during their stolen time. Darcy was slightly agitated from the beginning. He could see it clearly the moment she walked into the room. It didn't present itself as anything as obvious as an outburst made in anger; it was more seen in the aura of increased nervousness that cloaked her now. Her hands would not keep still once she was inside the walls of the house and she was constantly rubbing them against and over each other as she circled the room. Her fingers twitched as well as if ants were pricking her and she was finding it difficult to keep even this small part of her still. "I'm sorry," Singh said again, "but you have to accept that returning you physically to who you once were is something that is far beyond what any of us can do Darcy," Singh said to her. "As he did when he attacked Cecil Barnes, the shadowy man did the same when he attacked you. There is a part of you that was torn away and consumed by him and without that, there is no chance to reverse what he has done. True, there is a small trace of it left. He could not take all of it entirely, that crumb that he left remaining in you that is still there is faint. He left you only the bare sliver that remained of it because it is needed to keep you alive and no more than that." Darcy raised both her hand and rubbed her face, her head tilted back as she did so. After a half a dozen strokes she allowed them both to drop to her side again as she continued pacing around the room. "Isn't there any way that you could try? Couldn't you use that little bit that he left in me to make more of it?" she asked, "Like the way that scientists culture cells when they need more?" "The sliver of your animus that remains is not the same as what you would need to make you whole again, to make you physically Jim Brighton. If he had just been less thorough in consuming you and if he had left behind some trace of what you need to restore you as you were, then what you suggest might, just barely be possible. But the hard truth is that he didn't even leave you that. I'm sorry Darcy, but there is nothing we can do to make you physically any more than what he made you into," Singh said. Darcy stopped pacing and abruptly sat in one of the chairs clustered around the hearth. The blue of the flames burning there shifted across her, bathing her face and form in shades of shifting indigo. She raised both her hand to cover her face and rubbed it briskly again before dragging her fingers up over her braided hair. They passed down her neck as if she was seeking to exorcize the tension that was knotting the muscles there. She let them fall to rest, palms upright in her lap; a pair of dead birds lying still in the valley of the charcoal grey of her skirt. "So I'm really stuck like this. Forever," she said looking back up at him her eyes searching his face for a hint that she was mistaken. "Yes," Singh said to her again sadly. "There is no way for us to change that. Even if we knew how, we would not have the power to do so. What he took from you was easier for him to take, than it would be for us to replace. To do what he did to you required only that he destroy, and we cannot rebuild that part of you no matter how much we might wish to." "But I don't have to be entirely like this all the time though right? You said that this could give me back myself all the time the longer that I wore it right?" Darcy said reaching for the crystal teardrop and holding it between her fingers, raising it up to where it could sparkle in the sunlight as it was level with her eyes as she spoke. "It would be best if that remained in contact with your skin as much as possible right now," Singh told her hastily. "The link to your previous self is stronger that it was at first, but contact with the crystal makes it stronger still and your connection is not as strong as any of us would like it to be yet." "Right" Darcy said and let the crystal fall from her fingertips to rest just below the hollow at the base of her throat. "Of course. Wouldn't want to let Fleur out would we?" she said in a shuddering tone. "But it can be done though? I may be physically stuck like this, but I don't have to be stuck like this." As she spoke her hands moved to indicate her body and when she said the last both of her index fingers were raised to point back toward her head. There was desperation in the way that she was looking to him. It would be so easy to lie to her, to do it just so that she could be reassured and Singh didn't have that in him. "It will be difficult to permanently restore your mind. To place you in control of your body without needing the crystal to suppress Fleur," Singh answered her. "And there are no guarantees that it will be successful in the end, but we think it can be done. All we can do in the end is try. But the only way we have a chance of success is if we wait for exactly the right moment." Darcy dropped her hands back to her sides. "So there really is nothing you can do now is there?" "There is a chance that there is something we can do soon, but before we make the attempt I have to know that you understand what it is that you will be facing and what might still happen. But if we are successful all that will do is restore you to full control over your body," Singh said. "And what is it that am I facing then?" she asked. "You brought me here without any of the others present to speak to me. What is it that you have to tell me?" "That you have to accept that there is a very real prospect that we may still fail," he said. "That when the time is right and we can move to restore you, that even doing everything in our power may not enough to save you. You have to accept that you may still become a casualty in our fight against the shadowy man and there is nothing any of us can do that can change that." "Is that what happened with Mitch?" she asked. "Is that why you haven't told me anything about what happened to him yet?" "What happened with detective Travers has a great deal to do with this, yes," Singh said carefully. She was watching his face carefully as he spoke, every line that creased his face, every flush and variation of blood moving in the capillaries beneath his skin. She focused on him with aching intensity watching his eyes for traces of truth that his tongue might not mean to reveal. "He's dead, isn't he? He's really dead," Darcy said finally, turning away from Singh and looking back towards the indigo flames of the hearth. "Even after this was done to him he found a way to escape didn't he? He found some way to make the shadowy man kill him if he couldn't be himself, didn't he? He didn't surrender and that's why he's not here. That's why you're the one talking me through this and he's nowhere in sight." "I'm sorry," Singh said to Darcy. He dropped his eyes from hers while he spoke and focused on the slate ringing the fireplace and as he spoke and she could hear the regret bleeding from his words. "Mitchell Travers is dead and there was nothing we could do to save him," Singh said, his voice a steel coldness marinating in regret. "How did it happen?" she said softly. "Will what happened to him happen to me? Is that why you don't want to tell me?" "I'll tell you," Singh said to her, "But telling you will have to wait until later. The time that we have managed to steal is almost over. I promise you though that when we speak next I will tell you exactly what happened to Mitch Travers." He handed her a box of tissues that was sitting on the small table beside him. "You might want to repair some of the damage our conversation has inflicted on your face Darcy," he said as kindly as he could. "Fleur may be fooled by what we have done, but only if we leave as few hints as possible for her to see. When you are ready Pantra will take you back to the cruiser. When we see each other again I will tell you what you want to know." He watched her as she left the room and sought the toilet and after he stood at the window watching her depart with Pantra floating beside her. Pantra would slip the necklace off of her and cloak herself in the back seat. With any luck no one would notice that it had taken a little longer to deliver Fleur to them to be booked. ----------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Stafford: Day 444, 1837 hours It took much longer for Jacen's agent to arrange for them to fit a block of time in for them. The few hours that Singh expected to elapse ended up stretching to days instead and as the time between meetings increased Singh's worry that they would miss their target increased. As the man told him it was almost as if when they were scheduling her they were trying sandwich in as many people as they could in a short a time as possible. Singh had his suspicions as to why that might be the case and although they didn't speak of them he was fairly sure that there was no need to. The others knew just as much as he did about what was happening and there was no need to spell out the obvious between them. As she had before a Checker Blue taxi delivered her directly to the front door of their decoy home. Once she entered was met by Jacen who was once again hidden by his glamour and by Pantra hiding behind her shimmer. This was the pattern they wanted to impress on Fleur's memory each time the door closed. The moment that there was no chance of their actions being observed, Pantra slipped the necklace over Fleur's head while she was occupied with Jacen. Each time that Darcy regained control she found that she spent less and less time being disoriented. Having the portion of her mind that was still untouched by what they had done to her locked away in the crystal may keep her safe, but there was still a price to be paid when she resumed control. Singh hadn't told her how long it would take for her to adjust and to reach the minimal time needed to reassert control each time. But she had to be approaching it soon. Already returning to who she really was had begun moving more smoothly with each time it happened. The first time her true mind joined with her reshaped body had let her helpless, lying in a bed for hours before she could move with any surety. But today it had only taken less than ten minutes for her to regain her bearings and tell the two fae that she was ready to leave the bait house and walk to the gatehouse itself. Her heels clicked on the pavement as they walked down the road. The sound of them a sharp tok-tok-tok echoing over the asphalt. Each time that Fleur was brought here the entire street in front of the Gatehouse was masked from her by an illusion of forest. To her eyes the only thing facing the bait house was a vast impenetrable wall of green, but once the three of them stepped through that dense thicket of trees and underbrush, the illusion fell away and there hidden behind it was the little cul-de-sac of Magnolia Circle; a single home with a thick veil of green gathered around it. The three of them stepped into the warm circle of light spilling out of the windows of the Gatehouse. Here away from the light that blazed all around them was probably the only place in the city where you could see stars at night clearly. Darcy looked at the indigo night sprinkled with starlight with the distant ring of city light peeking over the very tops of the trees. This was a good place she thought to herself and this is a good time to be here. I'm glad I had this moment even if I don't see it ever again. She told herself as she walked up the walkway to the door. The door opened and Carol Desilva ushered them into the living room. As she expected Singh and M'Tehr were waiting for them. With the lights lit and the icy fire in the hearth blazing still all she could see of the windows from inside was the reflection of the room and the black behind that reflection as she sat down and waited for what it was that they were going to tell her. Singh lowered himself into one of the heavy chairs that lay opposite the couch she was sitting on with the hearth to their left and the narrow coffee table between them. "Darcy," he said to her, "I regret that we were unable to arrange for your return sooner than this, but circumstances dictated otherwise." "What were you going to do? Snatch me off of the street again?" she asked. "No, of course not. As long as we can preserve our presence from Fleur becoming aware of it the better for all. But I did make a promise to you when last we spoke," Singh rumbled. "You promised to tell me what happened to Mitch," she said to him allowing her gaze to fall on each face that was looking at her in turn so that she might impress on them that she wanted to know and she expected them to tell her." "You understand that we needed to make certain that you were strong enough to hear this. We are not trying to conceal anything from you," Singh said gravely. "I understand," Darcy said, "and I think I am. Ready to hear it that is." I hope that is so for both our sakes," Singh replied, "As I said before when next we speak what I have to tell you will be everything with nothing held back for good or ill. I'll tell you everything that we know, but for you to understand it I have to tell you more than just how Mitch Travers died. I have to tell you why he died and everything that led up to that moment." "Then tell me," she said steeling herself inside. ------------------------------------- Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day 71, 0730 If there was anything worse than spending the morning in close quarters with a hung over pixie Armin Singh didn't want to know what it was. The thing was Pantra had a good reaction to alcohol under most circumstances; something in the pixie metabolism minimized the effect for the most part so that they tended to get more of the good that came from a night spent drinking than the bad. As she had explained it to him part of that came from how they metabolized alcohol. Their mental state when they started drinking was like the guardrails in its own way. Since most of the time when Pantra had a few she was in a good mood to begin with, that mood tended to carry over until it was fully out of her system. Her mood the night before had been anything but good. While Singh was going over the footage they had taken looking for the tiniest scrap of information that would give them any indication of just what it was that they had found there; Pantra was more interested in forgetting that it had ever happened at all. Most of the time, when she had a drink she would not go through more than half a mini bottle; last night she had emptied two of them. And to make it worse it wasn't the Gentleman Jack that she normally reached for, it was tequila. Some people have wildly different reactions to tequila; they fight, they drop inhibitions as if they never had them or they get wildly happy or in turn deeply morose. Not that other breeds of liquor didn't do the same thing, tequila it seemed to Singh just did it faster. Or at least it did in his opinion, which was one reason he avoided the stuff. When Pantra drank tequila he knew it was going to be bad. It wasn't what she did while she was drinking it, she was remarkably even while she imbibed and tequila was no exception. It was what it did to her. Tequila put her to sleep like someone had dropped a sack of cement on her head and when she woke the next morning, that was when the true nature of a pixie hangover was in full view for all to see... and run from if they had any sense. The mistake Singh made was in even speaking to her once she had actually moved out of the miniature futon she slept in. He knew he was in trouble when she reached under it and hauled out the small box that she used as a foot locker and rummaged around in it until she found her hangover glasses. They were a pair of mirrored sunglasses that she had somehow managed to find in a size that fit her. Not that there wasn't a market for fae of her dimensions to buy things of that sort, but not these particular ones. Singh didn't even know where she had gotten them, but the only time he ever saw them was when she was hung-over and mean enough to take on anything that twisted her tail and win. The only thing that was safe to do when she was like this was avoid her and Singh intended to do just that if he could. The problem with that plan was that, at present, they were still in the office he was using in the ACC and no matter what he did to minimize it, the slightest sound he made was going to hit her super sensitive hearing like a steam whistle in close quarters. The only good thing he had going for him was that Pantra knew herself and even when she was like this she would make the effort to cut you the tiniest amount of slack, but she didn't do it for long and by Singh's estimate he had less time than he needed to get clear and warn the people outside of the office door to avoid the very volatile pixie inside the office. She was drinking coffee from her thimble when he reached for the doorknob. That was what he called it privately, her thimble. Even though if he had something of similar size it would hold about a half a gallon easily. "Where do you think you're going?" she said to him fixating the shining mirrored eyes on him. Too late, he thought to himself, if he had managed to get clear before she had gotten good and settled he might have gotten clear before she was ready to launch. If you left her alone when she was like this she would sit like a rocket sputtering on the launch pad, but never somehow lifting off. He'd missed his window and she was ready to let it rip. "I thought it would be best to let you rest," he said turning to her. "After last night, I think that it is time that we bring others into our orbit given what else we know about the situation." "Why did I know you were going to bring that up, before my eyes are even fully open," she said wearily. Singh suppressed a sharp inward breath, she sounded reasonable when she said that, even resigned in a fashion if you didn't know her better. The problem was that Singh did know her better, this was just the opening act, and the main event already was on the way. She cocked her head looking at him from across the room. "You haven't slept yet have you?" she asked him in a reasonable tone that was anything but. "I'll manage," he said to her, "I thought it better that I let you recover from your binge last night while I attend to what needs to be done separately." "Do I really look that bad?" she asked coolly. "I've seen you look better," Singh said as calmly and diplomatically as he could. She reached up and pulled down one side of her mirrored glasses and regarded him with one bloodshot eye. "You look good too. In fact you look really good for someone who's been awake for as long as you have," she said, the one eye he could see narrowing at him. We have liftoff. Singh thought to himself. "In fact you look too good. Especially since now that I think about it I haven't really seen you sleep all that much since the night that I came out of my cocoon. Now why could that be I wonder?" she said to him. "I should really let you get your rest, Pantra," he said to her reaching for the doorknob again. Drunk, hung over or sober Pantra was faster than most people thought she could be...and stronger. Singh barely heard her wings moving before he felt her hands clasp on his jacket and she was hauling him up to dangle into the air. That was part of the deceptive nature of pixies; they didn't use the actual strength in their flesh for something like this but rather the strength of their connection with the aether and she had a lot of strength to draw on. Strength that was increasing even now. "And I think you should tell me the truth Armin," she said to him keeping him hanging in mid air while her mirrored glasses bored into his eyes. "How long has it been since you really slept?" "Pantra, you need to put me down," he said to her. Maybe just maybe if he could disarm her suspicions, he could get her to back down. "You want me to put you down?" she asked him. "Yes I do," he said. Speaking to her calmly was the only weapon he had against her right now and sadly it was not likely to be very effective against her the way she was right now. "Then answer the damned question Armin. How long has it been since you really slept?" she demanded of him, hauling him another full foot higher and spinning his body around so that now he faced the door. "The night you broke your cocoon," he said to her. It was already too late he realized. If she hadn't gotten drunk the way she was and started the day hung over like this she wouldn't have been so hyper aware and she wouldn't have made the connection so easily. "Four days?" she said incredulously, "Four days! You haven't slept in four days!" The thrumming of her wings increased in volume and he felt her drag him across the room and toss him into the padded leather chair. It squeaked with the sudden addition of his weight and before he could regain his feet she was planted firmly in front of him staring at him from close range. "And here you are looking like you haven't even missed an hour. You're bright and alert and oh so very stoned aren't you?" she said accusingly to him. "Of course not," he started to say to her. That was a mistake; he knew it the moment he said it, but that still didn't stop him from doing so. "Lie to yourself Armin, but don't lie to me," she said to him. "I should have known something was up when you pulled that commando raid last night. There was no reason why we had to do that ourselves. We've got the resources of the whole damned FRT outside that door, but instead you drag me along for a little cloak and dagger with a pair of coffin creepers." Singh was leaning back in the chair now, his body in an incline and Pantra...Pantra was circling angrily around his chest her small feet digging into his chest, her full weight directed in one single spot and all the heavier for it when it impacted against him. "You're starting to make bad judgment calls Armin. Now tell me the truth or I'm going to weld you into that chair until you do. How long have you been stoned?" she demanded. "Since we found the Grove," Singh admitted. It was no good saying otherwise. She'd seen him take on the earth and stone then to make up for the impact that the protective ward had on him. "Oh tell me you're making that up Armin," she said to him. "Tell me you really have not been stoned for over two months." It wasn't the anger in her voice that stabbed at Singh when she said that, but her deep disappointment with him. That was worse, they had made each other angry many times before, but disappointment, the awareness that you had failed the other in some vital way was much, much worse. "I needed it," he said to her quietly. "It was too much to carry by myself," Even as he said it he recognized that it was the exact wrong thing to say to her, if it wasn't he wouldn't have reached for it first. If he had a real reason that she would accept then he would have told her that instead. "Christ on a fucking pogo stick Armin!" she spat at him and then landed on the desk and started kicking papers in frustration. The papers flew in a blizzard of white until she had cleared an area large enough for her to stomp unimpeded. "Earth weavers!" she spat and glared up at him. "Every single one of you thinks you can handle doing something like that and you're all wrong every time!" She glared up at him. "So what was your excuse going to be when you were cut free from here Armin? I'm sure you have one brewing in the back of your mind even if you aren't willing to admit it yet. If you're breaking a four day stretch without sleep when things are winding down I know you have to have at least thought of something, anything to keep it going." "I was going to stop," he said to her. "As soon as the charter was signed and the mission was downsized, I was just going to stop then," Even saying the truth like he was just now it still sounded self serving and artificial when it was spoken aloud. "Now you're lying to both of us," Pantra said to him. "I don't know how long you've been telling yourself that but we both know that wasn't going to happen. Not when it's gone on this long already." Pantra paused in her pacing and suddenly looked up at him suspiciously. "Is that what us charging in and going after this shadowy man is about? Something you secretly are using to justify huffing stone every day so you can put off what's coming?" she spat at him. "No, that doesn't have anything to do with this," he said to her. But now that she said it directly to him he had to doubt his own motivations. Yes, going after the shadowy man was important, probably at least as important as integrating the Grove into Stafford was, but she was right about how he had gone about it? "I think it does," Pantra said to him. "I think this whole lone ranger act was something you mentally bought into because deep down in your earth weaving heart you can't let go of the rock just yet." "That's not it in the slightest," Singh replied weakly, but he knew that she could see that she had scored a hit. "It isn't?" Pantra said to him cocking her head. "Okay, we'll play it that way then. If that is really true then no more lone ranger crap. You act like a professional and put together an actual full investigation and not this cloak and dagger routine...and you're off the stone. Starting right now." "Okay then," Singh said to her. "If that is what it takes to make you believe me then that is what I will do," It was surrender but there was a part of him that wanted that. Relying on his element had propped him up for so long already that now that he was forced to confront it the thought of going without it made his heart stutter. "I want your word on it Armin," she said stalking across the desk to him, eighteen inches of cold fury that looked so much larger than she was physically. "You have it," he said and the moment he spoke the words he meant them, but making the mental agreement triggered a longing to reach for the rocks in his pocket even as he said them. "Not good enough. I want your oath on your element," Pantra said to him firmly. "I want to know that you're serious about this." "I don't that is really necessary," he said. "Bullshit Armin," she retorted, "Drawing on your element is supposed to be a band aid. You've been mainlining it like a college kid sucking down energy drinks twenty-four seven. If you're really serious, swear on your element. Then I'll believe you." She fixed him with an unblinking stare and waited for him to say something. "Go ahead," she said, "I know there's some stone in your pocket right now. Swear on your element that you'll only use it for real emergencies and then we can get ready for that truckload of fresh hell that comes after this." Singh reached in his pocket and laid a handful of stone on the table. "By my affinity, I promise that I will call on it only in direst need," he said. "Good boy," she said to him backing up from him. "Now I think you better bring that Agent who's been running things while you are away into this before that bill you've been running up comes due." "I hope you know what you've done," Singh said to her. For that matter he hoped that he knew what he was doing. He'd dealt with withdrawal from relying on his element before but never for this long. "What I've done is kept you from relying on your element for so long that you lose the ability to exist without using it. Considering how that plays out I can say, yeah, I'm pretty sure I do. And I don't regret it one bit." The thing was that Singh should have remembered something before he said that. He should have remembered that when Pantra was a rookie herself some ninety years ago her partner had been an earth weaver then too; an earth weaver who had lost control of her element and drowned in her need and Pantra had not had the experience to recognize it when it happened at the time. Singh stood up and walked around the desk and headed to the door. As he looked back he saw Pantra had flitted back to where her futon was and was laying down. She saw him looking at her. "You had better get started before the withdrawal hits. Armin," she said to him. "Two months straight use is going to cost you. You need to be ready for it," she leaned back and stretched out on the futon and watched him depart from behind her mirrored sunglasses. Singh opened the door and went out in search of Fitzhugh; because of his oath the stone was no longer there for him now and in just a few hours the bill for all of that borrowed vitality was going to come due with a vengeance. Hung over pixies had no mercy when it came to sensing when something was wrong with someone they cared about. And it did no good to try to mislead them; they locked on to your own inner doubt like a shark following a blood trail and would not stop. "And tell them to keep it quiet out there," she called to him as he closed the door. He needed to find Fitzhugh. The next few days were going to be some of the worst ones of his life before very long. He only hoped that it wouldn't put him out of the picture for too long. What they found last night was more serious than what he was doing to himself and needed to be handled. Singh stopped and thought about what he had just considered. She was right. He was already using what was coming next to justify not stopping and he couldn't afford to be sloppy with this. There was too much at stake. Fitzhugh would have to handle it while he was out of the picture, the only good thing that he could see about what was coming his way over the next few days was that he knew she'd be able to. ---------------------------------------- Fitzhugh had taken over one of the smaller rooms that lay to the right of the main doors as you entered operations. With the door open she could see all the way across operations and into what was serving now as Singh's office. Unlike Singh she had no qualms about squeezing in the green aluminum frame army surplus cot or about flopping down on it when she needed to. With the door open whoever was on duty could easily summon her to address the issue that had demanded her personal attention and then in moments she could drop back onto the tight stretched fabric and be back asleep without missing a beat. As always her door was open so she could keep one ear trained on the hustle that was just heating up for the coming day. Singh reached out and gave the doorframe a quick rap to announce that he was there. There was a shifting of cloth coming from inside the darkened room and after a moment Fitzhugh's bleary eyed face swam out of the shadows. She had just gone to sleep an hour or so ago after she turned over control to her relief. Singh hated waking her for something like this but it was necessary. He saw that now. "I'm sorry to wake you Agent Fitzhugh," he said, "I know you've had night duty the last few days but I need to speak with you about an important matter," This definitely wasn't something that he wanted to do, but Pantra was right, for the next few days he was going to be worthless and it was better that Fitzhugh be made aware of it now. Fitzhugh reached over and flicked the light switch, the sudden brighter electric light eclipsed the steadily growing daylight that was spilling in through the glass panes of the front doors and creeping down the linoleum floor. "What's this about sir?" she asked him, slightly more alert than she had been a moment before. "Two things of importance Agent Fitzhugh," he said to her. "The first thing is that for the next ten days I will be handing effective control over the FRT operation here in Stafford to you with operational control covering an intermediate time afterward." That made her blink. He could tell that she hadn't been expecting him to tell her that. Apparently he had done a better job concealing his dependence than he thought. "And why is that sir?" she asked. "Because during those ten days I will be unable to physically perform my duties. I will be here during that time but in all likelihood I will be unfit for any sort of use. If there is anything that must be passed on to me that cannot wait then inform Special Detective Pantra. She will be able to assess the response that is appropriate in that event." Fitzhugh let out a low whistle at the news. "That's a serious step to take sir," Fitzhugh said to him. "If I may, what is it that has brought a decision like this on?" It was a difficult admission to make but it would get easier if he just said it. "I have been relying on my element entirely too frequently over the last few weeks, and it has been pointed out to me that not only is it affecting my judgment, but it has reached the point where I must rectify the problem." "I had no idea that was the case sir," she said, "But if you are the one who is coming forward to deal with this, then I'll step up until you're back. That is part of what I am here for. I must say it answers a question I've been asking myself. I was wondering how you were able to keep up the pace you've set since this started. I guess now I know. So what do you require from us while you are indisposed?" Good Singh thought, it would be so much easier with her taking this course of action. She could very well have insisted that he turn over full control to her permanently. She would be within her authority to do so, but clearly she wasn't inclined to do so. "Only that you continue to demonstrate the professionalism that you have already shown. But there is another matter that will come into play after I return which leads me to the second matter." "And what is that sir?" she asked him curiously, if he felt it was important enough to mention is the same conversation as taking himself out of the loop for the next few days then it was something that demanded her full attention. "This," he said handing over his phone with the recording he had made last night already ready to play. Fitzhugh took the Smartphone and looked it over for a moment while the screen shifted directions. She got it to stay in one position long enough and then she hit play. Singh watched her face as she silently observed what the camera had recorded the night before. From the look on her face as the footage progressed, he could tell that she was as aware of what it suggested as he was. The film was only about ten minutes in duration and it didn't take long for it to come to an end. Her finger stabbed down to end the recording and she reached over and passed it back to him. During the entire viewing she had made no sound or done anything that might interfere with her absorbing what it was that she was seeing. "I obtained that footage when my investigation into the deaths of detective Brighton and Travers confirmed for me that not only was their death staged, but that they had been taken for some unknown purpose. What you saw in the film is what was actually buried in those graves," he said to her. Fitzhugh looked across at the frozen screen of the phone that was stopped with the still image of one of the creatures displayed. The night vision filter had pierced the illusion completely and there was no need for her to have another verify what it was that the camera had captured. "This is no accident Agent Fitzhugh, what special detective Pantra and I uncovered is directly connected to the presence of this Grove in some crucial way. So before I hand over control to you for the time being I'm authorizing a full investigation of this matter. I want you to arrange for both of those coffins to be exhumed as discretely as possible and what is in them thoroughly examined. After that examination I recommend that those bodies be cremated." "We will also need to send for Lady M'Tehr and ask her to join us here in a few hours. I believe that this evidence is directly connected to something that the Arath' Mahar has requested FRT assistance with and for this investigation to be successful we are going to need the full cooperation of the Grove as well. I will be resuming my position when I have recovered." "I understand sir," she said. "Is there anything else that I should know?" Singh thought about it a moment and then said. "I think it best if we keep this as quiet as possible for the time being. Until we know more only key FRT personnel should know about what we are doing. If we need to bring others in later we will." "And when will you be removing yourself officially sir?" she asked him. Singh thought it over and then after calculating how much time he likely had left before he would start to be noticeably hampered in his abilities he told her. "After I make arrangements for my recovery there is one more thing that demands my attention. An additional person that should be part of this investigation. I am clearing him on my authority. He is already aware of some of what has already passed and that in my opinion it is that experience that makes his presence necessary. Fitzhugh acknowledged his instructions and stepped into the operations room and before he had even gone half a dozen steps down the hallway she was already allocating resources in a flurry of action. He walked down the hallway looking for a quiet place for him to spend the next few days. It would be at least that long for him to dry out and it was in no way going to be easy or pretty until it was over. But as he had told Fitzhugh, there was one other task that he needed to do first. The first symptoms of stone withdrawal would not be apparent for several hours and based on what he had seen last night Dr. Gregor needed to be warned about what was resting on his table. --------------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 1903 hours Darcy looked at the solid man sitting opposite to her. The idea that someone like him could have been sucked into addiction seemed almost unbelievable. And while she had not heard of what he was dependant on before she could see that it must have been serious. She remembered gathering earth and stone for him in the wake of their first entry into Barnes's house and seeing the toll that it had taken on him to face that. Still it was hard to look at him the same way that she had before now that he had admitted this to her. "So it just took you ten days to get over that? That doesn't sound so bad?" Darcy said. Singh shook his head negative when she finished speaking. Obviously it wasn't that simple. "No, I'm afraid I may have given you a false picture by suggesting that ten days was the entire duration of my affliction. Ten days was needed for me to cleanse my system. Ten days of blinding headaches, full body cramps that resembled an attack of the bends, nausea and screaming hallucinations and by insisting that I swear my oath by my element Pantra had effectively made it impossible for me to draw on the earth again; the earth would withhold what I asked for. She had made it a partner in forcing my recovery." Darcy looked at Pantra again, there were depths to the pixie that she had not suspected were there. That was more a failing on her part rather than Pantra's. Her own contact with the pixie was limited to the short occasion she had known her on the case that preceded the Barnes case and early in the Barnes case she had been injured. The truth was that Darcy didn't know her that well at all. "When the ten days had elapsed then the real recovery could begin. I was of little use for some time after that. You see Darcy, drawing on your element as I was doing as not just an elementalist's trick that was like, as Pantra compared it to, drinking too many energy drinks. What I was doing was relying on the earth itself to fuel me. It kept my body moving long past the time when it should have quit." Darcy's ears perked up when he said that. Until now she had assumed that when he said that he was relying on the earth that he was just taking additional energy. What he sounded like he was talking about seemed more serious than just that. "And each time I used it to support myself, my own natural system was weakened. Had I continued, my body's ability to support itself naturally would have been compromised permanently." "Without the stone to support me, after my system was cleansed of its influence the bill for it came due. I slept twenty hours a day for weeks and when I was awake I was gripped by a hunger so intense that it was all I could do not to spend my waking hours gorging myself. You see, as well as going without sleep for days at a time, I also had not eaten either; that is the trap of stone addiction. It relieves you of almost every natural function while you rely on it, but once removed there is no moderation in you. The body burns calories at a frightful rate even doing nothing and it takes weeks for you to adjust back to what we would consider a normal physiological rhythm." Darcy looked again at Singh. She hadn't noticed it because she had been utterly focused on the rest of what they were telling her but he was clearly not the same man he had been when last she saw him as Jim. He was much thinner than before and his clothing hung looser than it did before. He was still a big man in his squat fashion, but he no longer had the same sense of solidity that he had before. "I was out of the investigation for almost two months while I recovered. When I was lucid again, it was all I could do was keep myself abreast of what Pantra and Agent Fitzhugh were organizing with M'Tehr. But that was what lay ahead of me, first I needed to speak with Dr. Gregor," he said. "In case it happened to him," she said. Good, she thought. He is turning back to what happened. Not only was that more important to her in the near term it allowed them to no longer discuss the aftermath of his addiction and she felt relieved that she wouldn't have to hear any more about it. "Yes, he is the only one that we knew of that had the closest proximity and the most frequent contact with any of these special cases and that put him in greater danger. Whenever one came in to the morgue, whether he knew it or not, a time bomb was resting on his table and without knowing what sort of creature we were dealing with the chance that he would meet one of them in the same manner that Pantra and I had done was too great of a risk." Darcy looked over at Pantra who was playing tag with Andromeda while they were talking. The ginger cat was charging across the polished wooden floor with fur standing on end and tail puffed out slipping and sliding when she lost her footing and tumbling with a thump in the corner, before launching herself after the pixie again. "When you talked about her having a bad hangover you made it sound like it was something frightening, but she sounded more concerned to me," Darcy said. "Of course she was concerned," Singh said emphatically. "A hung over pixie is the biggest mother hen in all of creation." "I heard that Armin," she called back to him as she looped and avoided a high leap Andromeda made that spilled the cat into another heap. "You were meant to," Singh replied and turned back to Darcy. "After I spoke with one of the detachments doctors about what I was facing I only had a few hours remaining where I would be useful so I called Dr. Gregor and I arranged to meet with him. It was fortunate that I did so. It was also fortunate that there was no need to go to the morgue to speak with him," Singh said. "Why not?" Darcy asked. "There were consequences for him as well. When he provided me the bullet he had recovered, the one that the M.E. had filed as being retrieved from the body of the man found in the culvert, he wasn't aware that the chief M.E. was keeping a closer eye on it than he supposed. The chain of custody paperwork that I had signed couldn't be challenged by him because I had filled out the proper paperwork and it was indeed part of an active homicide investigation. When I turned it in to be examined there was nothing he could point to that was unusual other than I had secured the evidence without notifying him." Darcy nodded. A screwed up chain of custody could torpedo a slam dunk investigation and she didn't see a chief M.E. taking evidence being handed out without his knowledge being taken well. "The examination that ballistics conducted proved that, the bullet in question had indeed come from detective Travers's service weapon and there should have been no further challenge. The body of the man in the culvert was confirmed as one of the shooters and the narrative that for whatever reason he had wished to support was strengthened." Singh paused for a moment though. It looked to her like he was putting his thoughts in order before speaking. Either he was just getting his facts straight or he was considering not telling her something. Which it was she would have to figure out. "But he did take action in reprisal, he suspended Dr. Gregor for violating procedure by failing to inform him when that piece of evidence was removed and taken into my custody. That reprimand, along with the paper trail of reprimands that Dr. Gregor had accumulated during his own off the books investigation, was enough to earn Dr. Gregor a suspension without pay. A suspension that conveniently would cut off his access to any special case that would pass through the coroner's doors in his absence." ------------------------------- Del Cafe, Stafford: Day 71, 0930 hours So far he was not feeling any ill effects, but that was not going to last for much longer. At best he had another twelve or fourteen hours before the first twinges of withdrawal would start to affect him. He tried to put it out of his mind, but it was not going to be shelved so easily as that. His thoughts were going to turn to it regardless and the best he could do was push ahead for now and do as much as he could in the time remaining. The place that Dr. Gregor had suggested that they meet was near Millennial park, part of the riverfront redevelopment that had been progressing in fits and starts over the years. Singh hadn't been in this particular coffee bar before. It was located facing a street on the other side of the river looking into Olympia. From the windows that looked out into the street you could see the river flowing just past the open area of the park itself, next to the riverbank. Just past the park's boundaries the sections of the river walk peeked out from the trees that grew on the river side of the walkway. The building that the coffee house was housed in was a series of two and three story structures that had been built in the early twentieth century. It was surprisingly busy even at this hour. According to the sign in yellow chalk on the wall they were open from six A.M. to two A.M. Alongside the slate listing the hours was a larger one that listed the various creations that the baristas were offering and the price. The early morning smell of the small room was a combination of the coffee itself, the subtle undertone of the flavorings used in their creations and the smell of warm pastries that were, most likely, reheated with a microwave in the back before being presented to the patron. It was a good smell and even with the high turnover of people passing through at the moment the sound never really rose high enough to be disturbing. It was not surprising that there was so much foot traffic; they were, after all, not far from the cluster of neighborhoods that surrounded the state university annex. The cluster of buildings that made up the campus actually lay closer to the center of Stafford than where many of its students resided here on the edge. Whoever had chosen to site this shop here had a good eye for his market. Looking around Singh expected that whoever it was did good business on the students alone. Like most of the buildings here in this part of town their construction dated from the early nineteen-twenties to the late thirties. As Singh entered Del Cafe's interior he took in what it was that he was seeing. The first thing he noticed was a door on the outside wall leading into a space shaped more like an enclosed alleyway that stretched about halfway down the length of the room. You had to look for it, but if you knew to do so you could see where the wall that had been removed to open up and enlarge the main room just met at the edge of the doorframe leading out. Once Singh saw that, other things that seemed inconsequential at first took on new significance in his eyes. The low cramped stage tucked into a corner in the far dark part of the gallery for instance. The one that was shoehorned into the shadows and from what he could tell from the flyers posted on the bulletin board was now used for open mike night and poetry slam; that small stage had once been a small bandstand that, if he was not mistaken, was large enough that it would fit a small jazz combo. The waffled look of the walls stretched back into in that part of the building. The ones that peaked through the coverings no doubt still served their function as soundproofing and were, in his estimation, as effective today as they were when they were installed. That was probably why the current owner of this establishment had opted to site his business between these walls Singh figured. The open doorway that framed the edge of the bar itself may have had its door removed and the wall that crossed where the bar met it broken up but the bones of what once had been here were still there to see. The part of the bar that extended into the street-side part of the room didn't quite match the one that extended into the back. The colors of the wood were not quite the same and the one in the back looked like it had seen harder use, but Singh could tell what it was he was seeing. He knew without looking, that if he went into the small kitchen and storage area in the back, the one that you caught glimpses of when someone moved through the swinging door that now separated the two. If he looked in the right places he would probably find a set of stairs, probably in one of the storage rooms. Heavy brick stairs that led down into the old part of the sewage system that ran under this part of the city streets. The part that was not a pipe running through the earth, but made of arched brick and had been useful in more ways than just removing waste and flushing it into the river when prohibition had been the law of the land. Singh reached for his coffee and dosed it with a pair of sugars and waved the cream at it so it knew to behave. He looked over to Gregor seated at his elbow waiting for him to speak. Gregor had been waiting for him when he arrived and had been good enough to continue waiting while Singh had procured the coffee before they spoke. "Did you know this establishment was a speakeasy at one time Doctor?" he asked Gregor who was sitting opposite him drinking some Italian blend that Del Cafe had on special today. Gregor put his cup back on the table and looked at him in surprise. Gregor looked around and then back at Singh. "Yeah I heard something about that when I started coming here, but how did you know? You had to ask me for directions when I suggested meeting here." "I haven't been here before today," Singh said and quickly began pointing out to him the things that he had noticed while he was looking around the room. Gregor seemed fairly interested in what Singh had to say about it and as he pointed each area of interest out to him Singh could see him making the connections in his own mind as well. "I've been here dozens of times and I didn't notice any of that," Gregor said taking another sip of his fancy coffee. "So what do you think this place was before they started redeveloping this part of town?" he asked. "I would think that when it was no longer necessary to conceal what it was that it simply continued as a riverfront drinking establishment only now it was in the open rather than clandestine as it was before." "You're probably right. I heard that most of these riverfront places were pretty rough back in the day." He looked out at the early morning crowd walking in front of the big plate windows as they shopped or strolled or just went around their business. "Can't say that now," he added. He leaned across the table so that he could speak to Singh in quiet tones that were less likely to be overheard. "You said you had something you wanted me to see?" he asked. "You said it was vital that I know what it was." "What I need to show you is extremely sensitive information. I need you to watch it and leave with me afterward with as little reaction as possible to what you see." "Should I be seeing this here? If it's that sensitive I mean?" he asked. "This is a public place and as long as you do not react in any way that draws attention to yourself, no one will notice what you are doing." "Okay then," Gregor said. "What is it?" Singh reached in his pocket and handed over his phone. He dug in there again and retrieved a set of ear buds and connected them to the speaker. "The other night, my partner and I encountered one of your special cases under...unusual circumstances... and in that encounter something very disturbing happened. I need to ask you if you have encountered anything similar in the course of your own investigations and to warn you about this if you haven't." "That's sounding pretty serious," Gregor said. "Are you sure it was a special case?" "Beyond any doubt," Singh said firmly. Singh handed him the ear buds and gestured to him to move to the seat next to his. That way he would have his back to the wall and no one else would be able to see the screen while he watched the film that Singh had made with his night vision camera. "Just watch doctor," he said. "Do not react and don't say anything about what you see until after it is finished and we are away from here." Singh started the playback and watched Gregor as he focused on the images displayed on the tiny screen. He flinched in a couple of places and when he saw Pantra enter the frame his eyes darted over at Singh and quickly darted back. Whatever his reaction might have been in other circumstances, in these he kept quiet and didn't say anything until after Singh stopped the film at the end and took back his headphones. "Whoa," he said. "That's...unbelievable. What now?" "Now doctor we finish our coffee and then we leave here and take a leisurely stroll through Millennial Park where we can discuss this further without risk of others overhearing more than they should." Singh put his phone away and took another drink of his coffee without speaking any more until they both were done. They dropped their cups off in the bin that was located on the table midway between the counter and the outer door and then walked across the street. Millennial Park had been dedicated as part of the early wave of urban renewal in this area. It only dated from the summer of 2000 and ran the length of the river opposite the buildings that lined East River Street making it one of the newer additions to the landscape of Stafford. At this time of day there were few visitors though, making it a safe location for the two of them to have a quiet discussion without the risk that others would overhear them. They walked away from the plaza toward one of the walking paths that radiated out from it. It was even emptier there; the early morning joggers had already moved on to other things and lunch was far enough away still that those who came here for that purpose hadn't arrived yet. There were a few isolated individuals but they were more focused on their own concerns and paid the two men little mind as they slowly walked on the river side of the park. It was a windy day and Gregor's tied back frizzy red hair moved with the air currents as they walked with the wind. Singh planned it that way so that their words would not be carried behind them where others could hear and if someone was walking toward them they would just speak of other matters. "Was that a coffin I saw?" he asked Singh. "It was. My own investigation on a related matter led me to the necessity of examining both of the graves in question," Singh said quietly. "And it really did that? It really was alive and tried to come after you? After that..," Gregor hesitated in saying the word and looked to Singh. "Pixie," Singh said. "The word you are grasping for is pixie. That was my partner you saw on the film." "And she really could do that? I mean burn it like that?" he asked. "Dr. Gregor, her being able to do that was me grasping at straws in a moment of crisis. At the time I was not entirely certain that she would be able to do so or just how effective it might be. But as we both saw, it is well within her capacity." "So where are we going now?" he asked. "Somewhere where we can speak in certain privacy," he said and stepped onto the stone lined path that led up onto the road and headed for a car parked in one of the spots that lined the East River Street on both sides. They arrived at the car that he had drawn from the FRT motor pool and Singh gestured for Gregor to get into the passenger seat. They closed the doors and Singh rolled down the window and extended his hand up and laid it on the roof before bringing it back in and cranking the engine. When Singh didn't put the car into gear and merely waited Gregor asked why. Singh turned his head slightly and told him that they were waiting for someone. They didn't wait long; before more than a couple of minutes had passed they heard the thrum of Pantra's wings and felt the rush of her passage as she slipped into the open window. She landed unseen and once she was in her place on the dashboard she dropped her shimmer, seeming to appear from nothing to Gregor. "Oh shit!" Gregor said lurching back into the seat as she appeared before them. "She can do that too!!" he said taken aback. "Of course I can," she said to him and then turned to Singh. "All clear Armin," she said. "I didn't see anyone watching you. This him?" she asked. "Yes, Pantra," he said. "Allow me to introduce you to Doctor Gregor, Doctor Gregor...Special Detective Pantra, my partner and current ball and chain." "You say the sweetest things Armin. Since he's sitting here and you gave me the come on in wave I take it that you busted his cherry then," she said letting her number two evil smile spread across her face. Singh exhaled heavily and half rolled his eyes. "Yes Pantra, as you so vulgarly put it, his innocence concerning you is well and truly shattered." "Good," she said. "Cause if I had to keep my shimmer up for this entire ride after last night, I'd make sure that I barfed on you this time." Singh started the engine and put the car into gear, he glanced behind them and seeing nothing approaching he slowly guided the car onto the street. "My dear, you keep threatening that and yet you rarely follow through. Why is that? He asked putting the car into gear and guided it slowly into the street. "Honestly Armin, I've been holding out for something mind blowingly awful to be on board before I let her rip. Anything less just isn't worth the buildup." "You two aren't married are you?" Gregor asked, his eyes darting between them. "Cause you sure as hell sound like it." Pantra started laughing at him and when she finished her chuckle she hit him with her number three evil smile. She liked it when someone rolled with it like this guy was trying to do. She could tell she was going to have some fun with this one. Singh merely shook his head no and continued to drive. ------------------------------ Alagosta Gardens Quarantine Zone, Stafford: Day 71, 1100 hours As they approached the checkpoint leading into the Grove containment area, Dr. Gregor asked him if they needed to go into there. From the tone of his voice Singh could tell that he was one of the people who had been stopped from passing though by the quarantine and was not enthused about going in there based on what it was that he had heard to explain the reason for it being established. Singh slowed and stopped beside the two men who stepped away from the barrier and walked on either side of the car. He rolled down the window and handed over his ID card. "Contact area command and control. Please inform Agent Fitzhugh that I will be going to the Gatehouse and then proceeding to the ACC afterward. This man is cleared to enter on my authority. Quebec-One-Four-Sierra." The guard handed him his card back and motioned for the barrier to be raised. Singh rolled up his window and drove through slowly. "What was that about?" Gregor asked. Singh slowly accelerated to twenty MPH and began passing into the empty neighborhood beyond the checkpoint. "I told them that I was not under duress," Singh said to him as he drove through the nearly empty streets and once past a moving crew that was taking up a large part of the road then started driving a little faster. "And if you were under duress?" he asked. "Then I would give other codes or no code at all, depending on the circumstances of the duress," he answered. "What would happen if you didn't give any code at all?" Gregor asked. "You would have been instantly rendered unconscious Doctor and I would have been taken into custody with you," Singh answered. Gregor gaped at him trying to decide if the squat man driving the car was being serious with him. The thought that he wasn't was quickly banished as he decided that he was telling him the unvarnished truth. "You're a little more than just another detective aren't you?" Gregor said wondering just what it was that he had gotten involved in. "Something like that," Singh said as the second checkpoint loomed ahead of them. As they approached Magnolia circle, Singh ignored Gregor gaping at the activity around them. The anti-fae wall was in the midst of being dismantled at the far end of the street. Across from the Gatehouse he could see another work crew fitting jacks into the foundation where a home was being prepared to be moved to a new site. The bustle of activity continued as they slowed and passed around them without any of the workmen taking more than a passing glance at Singh and his passenger. Singh pulled the car into the driveway and stopped it next to the gatehouse. He turned off the engine and exited with Gregor following close behind. Gregor followed them inside and Singh motioned for him to go into the living room. When he entered after him he saw that Dr. Gregor was standing still staring at the far end of the room. Pantra zipped toward him and perched on his shoulder and leaned toward his ear. "Just between you and me Armin, I think Dr. Gregor's in love." The object of Gregor's focus was Sakura who was seated on the couch with her legs drawn up in front of her and as usual the tiny redhead was moving around without a trace of clothing gracing her frame. "Sakura," he said, "I realize that you are quite comfortable as you are, but unless you have finally managed to create an appropriate glamour, then I suggest that you locate suitable raiment for the duration of Dr. Gregor's stay. Remaining as you are will be entirely too distracting otherwise." Sakura stuck her tongue out at Singh and with a muttered epitaph of spoilsport that was clearly meant to be heard; she left the room for one of the upstairs bedrooms. "Does she always do that?" Gregor asked watching her go. "More than you could possibly know," Singh said and gestured for him to sit down. "Sakura is ruled more completely by her nature than her sisters are and that rule expresses itself in behavior such as this. Her sisters, unlike her have other experiences to guide them but she has only what she has within herself and that is little enough." "What do you mean her nature?" Gregor asked. "Sakura is a dryad, Doctor Gregor. Like my partner Pantra here she is a fae. Unlike my partner she is only a few weeks old and is new to all experiences. As such she more easily inclines to the extreme." Singh turned from looking in the direction of Sakura's departure and focused on his guest instead. He gestured to the sofa that the dryad had vacated and indicated that Gregor should be seated. The two of them settled in across from the blue flames of the hearth. That Gregor didn't see them didn't matter to Singh, he would have been surprised if he had. "Doctor Gregor, what I am about to tell you is a secret that by virtue of even hearing you are afterwards charged with the keeping of it. Under ordinary circumstances I would not choose to share this secret with you at all. But, whether you are aware of it or not, you have already been drawn deeply into its coils and we will need your cooperation to extract us all from them." If Sakura had encouraged Gregor to take this less seriously the tone of what Singh was saying to him demolished that idea. "The special cases that you first identified are connected to the events that have been changing the nature of Stafford recently and if I had not witnessed what I saw last night I would, as I said before, not be sharing them with you. But I did witness those events and because of your position and the danger it could place you into, I could not give you adequate warning without drawing you further into what it is I am warning you about." Gregor glanced upstairs where they could hear Sakura stomping around in protest of having to put clothing on. "Is she involved in this?" he asked. "Only in a peripheral way, Dr. Gregor," he said, "She, like my partner Pantra, as I said is fae. This home that we are in now is part of the center of a new fae enclave that will be part of Stafford from now on. And your special cases, although I do not know in which way they might be so, are connected to the fae as well." Singh held up his hand as if to ward off Gregor's questions. "I am afraid that your questions on the nature of the fae and their place here will have to wait for another time doctor, for now we must confine our conversation to more pressing matters." Gregor nodded. "I can see that, but I'm going to want answers later on." "And you will have them. Now on to more pressing matters. What is your professional opinion regarding the contents of the video that I shared with you?" "That depends. How long was that body in that coffin before you opened it?" Gregor asked. That was a good sign to Singh. Gregor had questions as anyone would, he even more so since his profession dealt with questions frequently every day, but he had sense enough to focus on the important questions first. "At least three weeks," Singh said. "Have you witnessed anything similar in the special cases that you've examined?" "Nothing that advanced. Nothing like that at all really. From what I heard in the audio it sounded like you said there was no sign of decay, no odor even." "That is true," he said. "That discrepancy is part of what warned us both that these were not ordinary circumstances. And the fact that both bodies showed evidence of healing from the apparent cause of death is particularly worrisome. That is what prompted this meeting with you today." "That's the part I don't understand," he said, "Whenever one of those cross my path that is something I don't see. They always decay. I do my autopsy, I take samples and I hold them back as long as I can in case someone finally comes to see them, but by the time they go to Bryar's for disposal it's pretty obvious they're decaying." "And what happens to them at Bryar's?" he asked. "Like I told the other two detectives, they're on a community ticket. That means they get cremated and the ashes are stored in the event a family member claims them." Singh's shoulders relaxed visibly and he exhaled in relief. Part of that was what he was hearing, the rest was the feeling that they had perhaps avoided something much worse that they had until now been completely unaware of. "Dr. Gregor you have no idea of the scale of the relief your words have given me. After last night one of the thoughts that plagued me and kept me looking for answers was the number of special cases that you identified thus far, and more to the point the fact that you yourself said you have no idea of just how many have actually passed through the doors before they came to your attention." Gregor shuddered. "You're thinking that there might be others like that." "I was indeed thinking exactly that Dr. Gregor," Singh said "But you are certain that the established practice is to dispose of them in this fashion?" he asked. "Yeah," he said, "That's what got me so many write ups, violating the procedure in these cases." "I know you said that they all decay, at least in the case of the ones that you encountered. You also said that you take samples. What sort of samples would those be?" "I take hair and blood samples after I photograph them. That way we can do a DNA comparison later. After that I move on to tissue samples; liver, lung, heart, kidney and brain are the major ones, but I sample each system. That way if there is a pathological reason for the death it can be compared later. I still haven't located any of them that have died due to that cause yet." "What about the ones that arrived at the morgue. Could you tell me if you know if time of death was ever assigned for any of these special cases?" "That's the easy part, or at least I thought it was until just now," he said. "How do you mean?" "It's actually something that's been bothering me, but until right now I haven't been able to say what it was," he said. "All of the special cases are fresh, time of death sometime in the last twenty-four hours of them being found and that's always been odd to me. Because usually when you stumble across something like this it's almost never that early. It's not like they go out onto a bench and sit down and just die where anybody can find them, even if it might look like that." "No, usually, when something like this happens people don't find them. Sometimes for a long time, even if your nose tells you otherwise when you walk past it. People tend to ignore it if it's in an alley, especially small narrow ones like where most of these ones turn up. People smell something dead there and they explain it away as a big dog or something else and they walk away; they just don't want to know for sure. But not these ones. I have never encountered a special case that has been there for long enough to show very much decay." "The two bodies that you showed me, you said they had been found a week apart," Singh asked. "Yeah, that's right," Gregor said. "Almost exactly a week apart." "And how were they found?" Singh asked. "Who reported them?" "One was easy to find, her hand was lying out in the sidewalk, it was right there, right out in the open. I was on both pickups so I can say that for certain. Nobody could ignore that one, not with it being out there like that," he said. "And the other?" he asked. "That one was found in the back of another alley. That part of the alley widened out into doors that went into the surrounding buildings. It was almost like a little square. Almost a perfect area for a homeless person to pick really. Shelter on all four sides, out of sight, there was even an overhang covering part of the space underneath." "And how was it found then if it was in such a seldom traveled area?" he asked." "911 call," he said. "Some kid reported it, didn't hang around for anyone to find out who they were. Probably ran back there while playing and ended up finding more than he bargained for." "And they were certain that it was a child that called in the discovery?" "That's what they said," he answered, "I don't really know, I didn't hear the call personally." Singh scribbled on a note pad. If there were other 911 calls that were connected to these cases then they needed to be reviewed. "Is there any chance that these two special cases might have expired in their separate locations at the same time and one was simply found earlier than the other?" "Before this conversation detective Singh, I would have said no. But I don't think I can say that now, you've given me too much to reconsider and I don't like what I'm thinking." "In that respect, Dr. Gregor, we share the same misgivings," he said. "The one with the fatal abdominal wound was she found first or last?" "That was the one that was found a week later than the other one," he said. "Dr. Gregor, I want you to think carefully about what I'm going to ask you," Singh said slowly to him so that the severity of his meaning was underscored by the tone. Gregor nodded, he knew that whatever Singh was going to say next would not be anything idle. "If both of these special cases did indeed expire at the same time and the one with the visible wound did remain undiscovered for an additional week. When you examined that one did you see any evidence during your examination that it was healing?" "I thought I did, but at the time I wrote it off as me making a mistake interpreting what it was I was seeing. In the case of a wound like that, if they had gotten to a hospital, to a trauma team there might have been a slim chance of recovery. But just lying in an alley like that..." Dr. Gregor stopped talking and Singh rather than interrupt him remained silent. He could recognize that Gregor was fitting something into place mentally and if he disturbed him he might lose it. Gregor raised his eyes back up and looked at Singh. "There wasn't enough blood in the alley. There was a lot of blood there, but there wasn't nearly as much as there should have been." "Are you certain of this?" Singh asked. "Yes, I am," he said. "If she had been shot in that alley there would have been spatter on one of the walls and the pavement would have been thick with it when she bled out and it pooled around her. It should have been everywhere. If she had been shot by the street there would have been evidence of it at the mouth of the alley and a blood trail leading back there. But when we picked her up, it was pooled just underneath her. If we had arrived a few minutes after she was shot, I might have believed that amount of blood was it, but that wasn't what we did. That alley should have looked like a slaughterhouse floor and it didn't. And one more thing, it looked a lot older than twenty-four hours, but it was a hot day so I put it down to the blood drying quickly." "And you're certain of this?" Singh said. "Yes, I did the pickup when the call came in, but I can't have been the only one to have seen it. Something like that would be noticed and it should be in the blood analysis in the homicide report." Singh scribbled another note. If there was a homicide report filed it needed to be looked over and if one was not filed that was revealing by its omission. "And was there any evidence that insects had begun to infest the body, or any of them for that matter?" he asked. Singh wasn't a forensics expert, but he knew that insects were useful in determining that information. "That's another weird thing about these. Ants, flies all sorts of insects that are drawn to recent deaths, they just zoom in like a magnet on a body the moment it stops twitching, but they were just not present with these ones. It's like they just avoid them. Every time I have been part of the pickup for one of these that has always been a consistent factor. It's part of why time of death usually is estimated within a few hours. Any longer and the bugs start to find them and we haven't seen that with the special cases at all." Singh didn't say anything for a moment. He did not like what he was hearing in this regard and mainly it was because of the additional unknown factors that it was introducing into how he had to try to fit what he understood to accommodate this additional information. The special cases were proving to be much more meaningful than he thought they might be when Brighton and Travers first drew his attention to them. "Dr. Gregor what is your medical evaluation of this injury and how did you recover the bullet? Shouldn't it have passed through the soft tissue and not remained in the body?" Gregor thought for a moment before he answered. Singh waited on him to collect his thoughts. He was asking him to recall details about only one of the many different bodies that he had encountered and he had to collect his thoughts properly before answering. Singh appreciated a methodical man and waited patiently until he was ready to continue. "As I told you when we examined it in the morgue, the bullet entered her liver transecting the hepatic portal vein before passing through it and lodging in one of her thoracic vertebrae. Even if she had been taken to a surgical unit immediately she would have needed an immediate liver resection to have a chance at survival. The bullet didn't tumble as it passed through, so I'd say it was fired at close range, but it caused massive damage. Add to that she was looking at certain peritonitis after she got out of surgery taking hold almost immediately. And if she survived all that she probably wouldn't have walked again for a very long time if ever. Just lying in an alley like that she had zero chance of survival." "Dr. Gregor what I have to tell you will have a great deal of bearing on this particular special case. Specifically that the time that this special case's injury was inflicted is known down to the second." "You're positive about that?" Gregor asked. "If you know that then we may have a key as to how long more than just that one remained undiscovered." "I witnessed the injury being inflicted on the recording of an officer related shooting. I know the time and I know the place. So in this instance we can tell precisely how long this particular special case lay in that alley and estimate how long it took to move her there from the location of the injury." Dr. Gregor asked Singh what that was and when he heard the answers he had a look of extreme consternation graven in his face. "That's much too long," he said. The timeline you're giving me ignores what happens when a body starts to decompose completely. I knew there was something to that in all of these cases but I had no idea that it could be that extreme. I need to look at that one again. I need to look at the data I got with a fine tooth comb because knowing this about it changes the entire way that I need to examine all of these cases from here on out." "Dr. Gregor I will need to ask you again after you review this data to look carefully for any indication that the wounds in question are healing. That knowledge will be vital information that we will need to know." "I have to get back in the computer in my office. I ran more extensive tests on this one because it was one of the few that came in with an injury. I don't see that very often so it's likely that I did overlook something because of being distracted by the novelty of it. But then again maybe I don't have to do that. That's not the only copy." Dr. Gregor paused a moment and then looked at the computer in the corner of the room. "Detective Singh do you have a copy of my report on that Jane Doe? I mean with you right now?" "No doctor, but I can retrieve it. You will have to wait here however while I do so," Singh said. "Don't worry about him," Pantra chirped from her seat on the table between them. "I'll watch out for him while you're gone." "That would probably be a good idea, Pantra," Singh said rising from his seat, "We would not want the good doctor to have to face the full attention of dear Sakura in my absence." "Why are you such a party pooper Singh?" Sakura asked swinging her head into the room from where she had obviously been listening in from the hallway. "Because I wish for him to have a functioning brain when I return Sakura," Singh said heading for the door. "And not be overwhelmed by your attentions to the point of idiocy." "Give it up Kura," Pantra said rising to hover between her and Dr. Gregor, "This one just found out what's what. He's really not ready for you." Sakura pouted and flounced away from the door and headed off to find something else to occupy herself with. Pantra lowered herself onto the table. "Dryad's" she said with a slow shake of her head. "Get 'em around a man and they just go straight from zero to tart right away," she looked over to Dr. Gregor. "So what should we talk about in the meantime?" she asked him batting her eyes and letting evil smile number two creep back across her face. "Behave Pantra," Singh called from the hallway. "Sakura is not the only unrepentant flirt under this roof." "Kura's right," she called after him. "You are a party pooper." ------------------------------------ Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 1946 hours "The copy of the medical report that doctor Gregor requested was in the possession of Agent Fitzhugh at that time. I had handed them over to her so that she could prepare a complete briefing for the investigation that she was forming. With Dr. Gregor at the gatehouse it was only a matter of minutes for her to direct that they be delivered there. When I returned with the documents, Dr. Gregor wasted little time in locating the portion of his autopsy report that he had in mind." "What did he find?" Darcy asked. She felt like she was on more familiar territory with this part of the discussion. She was starting to feel like a detective again and not just a victim. It felt good like she was regaining some measure of control. "That what he had noticed and then disregarded was indeed the case. The film that he had taken showed that while it was less advanced than those we had encountered in Greenlawn, there had indeed been evidence that the wound was beginning to slowly heal. At least it was up until the point of autopsy being conducted." "So when he conducted his autopsies..." "He interrupted the process in some way. Perhaps by removing vital organs for examination and taking samples of critical areas such as the cerebral cortex he arrested whatever healing process was underway." "And with the organs removed and dissected..." "Any integrity that the corpse had was ended and decomposition truly began," Singh finished. "The two special cases that Pantra and I exhumed had not been given such attention. I checked discretely and confirmed that neither of them had been embalmed either. Whoever it was that made that decision it seemed, wished to have as few eyes as possible who could medically contradict what the eye saw or to look at them closely. And it appears that they were relying on the idea that neither casket would ever be opened again rather than maneuvering circumstances so that they would be cremated as the others were. "I'm surprised," Darcy said. "It sounds so far like this would have been something that they would have tried even harder with. Even exhuming them later to make sure they were cremated." "I had a similar thought. Either that was intended as a solution or it was rejected after too much time had passed. A further inquiry determined that the special case that went unnoticed, the clerk that was killed in the store as well, was also cremated as were the other two that came to Dr. Gregor's attention. Of all of the special cases that we had managed to identify, cremation seems to be the preferred method of disposal." "So what happened next?" Darcy asked. "You bring the doctor in but that's not telling me how you found either Mitch or me." "Darcy, finding you was not the work of just Pantra and me, it was a coordinated effort conducted in utter secrecy and at this point it had just begun." ------------------------------------------ Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day 71, 1355 hours The room that Fitzhugh had set up for them to use was located on the edge of the soccer field. It was constructed of cinderblock and had small rectangular windows set high in the wall that let in light but little else. Before being selected for use by Fitzhugh it had served as storage space for grounds keeping equipment and the room still smelled faintly of dust and old grass clipping seasoned with gasoline and lubricants. There was a large rolling door on one end that was used to move the equipment in and out when it was needed and store it when it was not. The side door faced toward the building that was currently occupied by operations. Fitzhugh had arranged for one of the large tents that had been set up by the detachment to be erected so that it covered the service door. The agents tasked with security were billeted in there so that, if any were to enter the building in that fashion they would first have to pass through the detachment. The door was guarded constantly and as yet there were only five names on the list of those authorized to enter. Gregor's name would be the sixth. The far wall of the room now had three white boards mounted on it and a round table with folding chairs faced the boards. A small flat screen display had been installed so that it swung down and the technical staff was busy wiring the connections with the operations center. Singh and Pantra escorted Gregor into the building where they found M'Tehr, Agent Fitzhugh and another agent that Singh had not met waiting for them. "Before we begin," Singh said to them, "I think it best that we view some of the evidence that we have thus far. The two films that you are about to see will be a critical component of this investigation and all of you need to be aware of this information before we begin." Pantra turned off the lights and the group watched in silence as Singh played first the security tape from the robbery and then the film that Singh and Pantra had taken during their exhumation the night before. After the films were finished Pantra turned the lights on. "Agent Fitzhugh, now that all here are aware of the reason for doing so, what it the status of the exhumation of these two graves?" Fitzhugh looked up from the binder she was looking through. "The graves have been exhumed and the bodies within are being transported to a secure site for further examination." "Dr. Gregor," Singh said seeing the man look to him, "you will be taken to examine the bodies after we are finished here. You are aware of the damage that was inflicted last night, and we will need a full medical evaluation of whether that was sufficient enough to end the reanimation and your recommendations if it was not." "Now to the main purpose of this gathering," Singh said indicating the three white boards behind him. "There are three areas of interest that we need to focus on, fortunately before detectives Brighton and Travers were removed from the board they managed to uncover quite a bit of information that will help us. Specifically that this man," Singh pointed to a photo mounted on the centre board, "Lucius Fetterman may be involved, although to what extent that involvement may be we do not know." "Fetterman operates an escort service that Travers investigated and his efforts established a firm connection between it and these special cases. What we need to find out now is just how they connect with each other. And to do that we will need to know the details of his operation better than he does." "I think we should begin by following anyone who is associated with him and keep them under constant surveillance afterward," Pantra said. "That would be too visible," Fitzhugh said, "even being as careful as we can it won't take long until one of the suspects that the agents are tailing is noticed. With that many people in play it can't help but be noticed." "I have an idea how we can get around that possibility," Pantra said, "But it will take the cooperation of the Grove to work properly." "Whatever is required of the Grove the Grove will do, Arath' Mahar wishes that Friend Singh be given the fullest of cooperation in this matter," M'Tehr said immediately. "Good, then Pantra and M'Tehr, you will begin organizing the surveillance effort. Doctor Gregor?" "What am I going to be doing after I complete my examination of these two bodies?" Gregor asked. "You will be continuing to examine the special cases, only now you will be doing so under FRT authority. After this meeting, the FRT will request that you be placed on detached service with the FRT. An FRT transport team will take over transportation duties from the company that currently provides such services. Every special case will be diverted to an examination facility that we will set up. You doctor will be in charge of that facility. Your task will be to examine, identify and neutralize every single one that passes through your doors." "Understood," Gregor said leaning back with a slow satisfied look. After being dismissed and ignored having this level of attention being paid to what he had uncovered was immensely satisfying to him. "This is the last area of our investigations focus," Singh said pointing to the clear photo that Brighton had retrieved from the door camera where it was mounted on the last board. "This is our unknown subject. He has been identified by various observers as either a dark man or the shadowy man. He has this appellation because he only appears covered in shadows to hide his appearance. He has a degree of magical capability but it is unknown to what extent his full abilities reach. He is to be considered highly dangerous. He is also connected in some central fashion to the other more immediate focus of our efforts." "This man," Singh said thumping his forefinger on the silhouette representing him "is who we need to find. He is responsible for the attack on Arath' Mahar Selicia of Phar' Naqua, he is certainly involved in what happened to detectives Brighton and Travers and he is connected with the special cases in the coroner's office as well as this operation that Mr. Fetterman conducts." "Agent Fitzhugh," Singh said. "Yes sir?" she answered looking up from her notes. "You will be in charge of operations support and security for this investigation. As well as holding overall command during my absence. I will be less involved in the next few weeks due to other...demands." "Understood," she answered. "If everyone understands their role then we should begin," he said and turned the meeting over to Fitzhugh. He needed to sit down, the first sensations of his withdrawal were already being felt and it was only going to get worse for him. --------------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 2033 hours "Dr. Gregor's suspension was lifted by the end of the week, but it made little difference by that point. He was already installed in a nearby facility that the FRT had established before the papers approving him being seconded to us were signed by the chief medical examiner. At the same time the company that was contracted to provided transportation from the morgue to Bryar's mortuary spoken to and an arrangement was reached. From that time on all Jane Doe's who were to be disposed of on a community ticket were picked up by a company van, but the driver's were our operatives." "This was an initial move you understand. Our interest at this point was that all special cases that came through the morgue were not allowed to pass without our knowing they were there. Later this became less of a concern but that is something we learned as the investigation progressed." "Whenever a special case was identified, whether it was by our monitoring of medical examiner communications, reports on the police band or calls from the morgue itself for pickup; it was quietly diverted to our facility for a full examination, evaluation and disposal. Disposal was, I have to say our higher priority. Examination and identification were important. Evaluation equally so, but disposal was the highest priority since by their nature their appearance did not accurately reflect their actual time of death." "We had no yardstick available to measure how much time we had before one of these special cases might be able to repair whatever damage had been inflicted and begin moving with purpose again. Doctor Gregor was tireless in his labors. He performed a detailed search on each and every special case as soon as it arrived searching for anything that might indicate if there was evidence that any kind of restoration was occurring." "So how did you find me then? This is interesting but how does it tie in to you finding me?" Darcy asked. "I'm coming to that," Singh said. "When the both of you were apparently killed, uncovering the circumstances of why and how this scene was created was our only lead that might lead to a true answer. Even though what we found in the cemetery was valuable in other ways it still didn't answer why it had been created in the first place. All it did was confirm what I already knew; namely that you both were still alive. The most value turned out to be that doing so cast further illumination on the nature of Dr. Gregor's special cases and highlighted the importance of the information that Travers was investigating." "While a close examination of these events did not help us to find you or Travers immediately, it was not a completely fruitless effort either. The investigation of the ones that we identified as being present in the store did tell us two other things. That, first of all, you and detective Travers were both still alive; something I already knew but could not share the others yet. And that each of the ones that we had found all had a confirmed connection with Lucius Fetterman." "The clerk's identity was the easiest for us to confirm. Her connection was right out in the open as part of explaining why she was even there at all. Linking her to him was no effort at all. Once Dr. Gregor gathered information on the ones who had portrayed the robbers, we were able to match their prints to two more prostitutes that were known to belong to Fetterman as well. Both of them no longer resembled the photographs the department had on file and more importantly the whereabouts of both of them were no longer known." "When we began I expected that the method that detective Travers used before to connect these individuals might no longer be valid. But too my surprise it was still effective in matching them. I can only assume that he did not inform anyone other than me and you of just what he had done to make the connection possible." Darcy closed her eyes as if in pain for a moment. Singh stopped talking and watched her closely. If she was about to lose her connection then they would have to act fast to prevent Fleur from learning what it was that she was really doing here. It only lasted for a moment. After regaining her equilibrium Darcy asked him to continue. He asked her if she was certain but she insisted that she was. "The only remaining variable was to obtain the identity of those that supposedly were identified as you and detective Travers. After we obtained those prints we found that they matched not only girls that he was known to control, but also they matched two older missing persons investigations as well. While what the connection between them was not precisely clear at the time there was a connection there and that connection made it clear that all roads were leading to Fetterman. With that strong of a connection he became the primary focus of our investigation." Darcy asked him to wait a moment before continuing. She had remembered something while Singh was speaking and she explained that was what had caused her to behave the way she had a moment before. Singh told her to take her time and not to strain herself, but she waved him off. What she had recalled would not take long to relate. "You're right about Mitch not telling anyone how he had made the connections. Mitch didn't tell Clayton exactly how he had managed to match them. She asked several times, but he put her off. He said he wanted to do further verification before he laid everything out. She didn't like it, but she didn't push too hard over it. He told her that he wanted to have it airtight before all of us took it outside of the room. She told him to nail it down and then come to her immediately with everything that he had," she said. "I suspected that was what may have happened when we were able to use similar methods to continue to identify others and trace who they were to who they had become" Singh said. "Detective Travers instinct to keep the method of how he had uncovered this information paid greater dividends than he might have suspected at the time." "Mitch never did like to lay his cards out all at once," she said wistfully. "Indeed he did not, and because of his caution he gave us an effective tool that we have found of great utility," Singh said and then continued. "With Fetterman as our focus we shifted our efforts to uncovering as much as we could about his organization. As you know better than anyone Fetterman is by no means hidden. He keeps a low profile, but he does not appear secretive. While I was recovering Pantra began with the easiest part of his organization to identify; the lambs themselves." "Agent Fitzhugh arranged a tap into the Stafford P.D. database for this part of our operation. Each time a lamb was processed into the system we tracked her from the time she was delivered to the station, to the time Fetterman or one who worked for him arrived to retrieve her and then afterward when he returned her to the streets to resume her work we assigned a minder for each one. Thereafter anytime a lamb moved out of Fetterman's property her minder followed close behind." "This was the crux of the approach that Pantra had developed to track this part of his operation. To completely understand every aspect of his operation; what he did how he did it and more importantly how he concealed it we needed to start at the beginning. To do that we needed to account for everyone that he came into contact with. Enforcers, clients and most importantly lambs." "The identity of the lambs was the easiest step of all. When we began there were seven in total that had drawn department attention. These seven were in the system under their current identity. With that as a starting point we quietly matched all of them to missing person's investigations that had gone cold months ago. It was important that we not let anyone in the department become aware of our interest in these cold cases so to keep them unnoticed by official eyes, the cold cases were removed and transferred to FRT control quietly. Once we did this we were able to keep our interest hidden and thus, unnoticed by official eyes." Darcy looked thoughtful as she listened. Ever since she had regained her mind, during the times that she spent sitting here, listening to Singh lay out the details of what had happened after she and Mitch were captured and twisted into this form, over and over she thought about what they could have done to avoid it happening. The problem with that line of thought was that she couldn't think of anything and when she mentioned it to Singh he was very clear with her that there was nothing that she should assume guilt for. "It was no coincidence that you and detective Travers were both immediately disposed of for bringing similar attention to this connection. Once we began to uncover the scope of what was happening we began to look into the possibility that you were only the latest investigators to fall prey to Fetterman's net. We took greater care to keep our inquiries secret." "I need to know something Singh," Darcy asked him. "I need to know that if you had the chance to do it again, would you have sent Mitch and me after the shadowy man the way you did." "If I had known even a little more then I knew them I think that I probably would have. Detective Brighton. It's easier now to second guess, but even if I had known that Fetterman was more deeply involved than I thought he was I still would have done the same." "Don't call me detective Brighton," Darcy said. "I'm not a detective anymore. I'm not sure what I am, but I'm not a detective." "Darcy, you may be a victim, but you are still a detective," Singh said to her and even though it was something that she felt that was overly generous she was thankful at the same time. It still didn't change that deep down she didn't know what it was that she was now. Fleur was the high priced call girl when she was in charge. The detective that she had been was buried fourteen months ago; that left Darcy adrift and alone trying to figure out what it was that determined who and what she was now and what she would become at the end of this journey. "The lambs however, were not the only ones in play. They were only the most noticeable ones. The ones that Stafford was officially aware of. After plucking the low hanging fruit, the more difficult task of tracking and identifying the ones that Fetterman controlled who were as yet, unnoticed by official eyes began. If we wanted to have any success with this we needed to not only to locate and identify them; we needed to continue to monitor them afterwards. All of them, Fetterman himself as well as the lambs." "That is where Pantra's efforts came into play," he said. -------------------------------------- Little Brooklyn, Stafford: Day 102, 0500 hours Pantra led her flight from the Grove across the river and turned southwest. It was no longer the deep part of the night, but it had not yet turned to dawn yet either. For the moment the blackness of night reigned supreme over the slowly waking city of Stafford that was unrolling beneath them at a steady pace. They had picked a moonless night to make their initial approach both for its lack of visibility and because doing it in that fashion had given them more time to train the tracking teams while they gathered ever more information. For this initial effort they had tasked every available tracker. Pantra was leading the flight because she had the most familiarity with the area. The others she had recruited were much better about knowing where things were now but they didn't have the bone deep understanding of the area that Pantra had. Understanding that came from living and working in Stafford for decades. She reached up and keyed her headset. "We're approaching the target in three minutes," she announced. "Remember that once we have it in sight we're going to land and keep it under observation until we have identified and set a tracking watch on each target. It's going to be a long day ladies so make yourselves comfortable when we're down. Remember this is a covert op; do not drop your shimmer for any reason. Acknowledge." As the wind whistled over her and she relished the cool kiss of the early summer morning as she listened as each of her team acknowledged her instructions and signed off. The flat open space of the brownstone roof they had selected as their observation platform loomed up out of the shadows. From this height, the streetlights glare illuminated the street below and the shadows of the roof were nothing more than a darker mass overlooking a river of light. There was something comforting to her about what she as doing. It had been a long time since she had been part of a flight. One of the difficulties of choosing the path that she had taken as a special detective was that she was voluntarily cutting herself off from her hive by doing so. Isolation was intolerable for dryads, for pixies it was only just bearable. Make all the connections that you can was the advice of another like her who had chosen to be a special detective. Lean on them, they may not be who you are used to but you'll never make it without doing that. Kattra, the pixie who had inspired her to also become a special detective, had been one since there had been special detectives and if that was what she had relied on then it was good enough advice for Pantra. She looked to her left and her right seeing the fluttering wings of her flight cease and become still as they landed. She checked her watch and cocked an eye toward the horizon. Sunrise was supposed to be at 0612, they had less than an hour before they would have to mask that they were even here. The sound of beating wings ceased and the thin voices of the others started to well up. "Shh," she hissed at them and the sound died away. "We have just under an hour before daybreak," she said into her headset, as she launched into the review of the mission briefing. "This is how this is going to work. No more than ten who can be seen will be stationed in the lookout positions. There are two main exits from the target building as well as two fire escapes on both sides in the alleys. I want lookouts posted to keep all of them under observation the entire time we're here. Teams of three for the main entrances and teams of two for the fire escapes." "Trackers, you've already been broken into your teams, if anything happens and this goes south, our last stop on the water tower is the rally point. That's where you go to first after scattering. This should not be necessary, but keep it in mind. As soon as dawn breaks no one moves without either a glamour or a shimmer. No exceptions, got it?" "Use your glamour for mid to high level observation and shimmer for close monitoring. Do not lose your targets." "Those already assigned to lambs you know what to do. You don't wait for instructions, if there is anything you need to know you'll be contacted. The key is gathering every scrap of information you can about your targets, if they break wind we need to know about it." "Unassigned teams, you are here for attachment to any target that is not identified. You have the most crucial job today. Get close to your target, we need names and we need contacts. Don't be seen, don't get caught. You'll be working in teams of two today, one of you will be the tail and the other will be skipping ahead while keeping the target in sight. If you think you might be spotted break off and have your partner reacquire the target while you skip laterally. If you have to do that then you leapfrog ahead and become the lead. Keep in contact with each other. Don't lose sight of your target." "Remember it's going to be boring for a while, so you should get used to it now. The girls don't start to leave until later, but some may be coming in soon from overnight stays. Documentation team we need photos for the board, I don't like seeing blank space so let's correct that today." "Tracking teams most of you will be here at the main entrance, but some of you will be posted at the rear and on the sides. Unless someone leaves from your entrance then you stay put. We will rotate you out as soon as we need you. Rear, left right; that's the order we'll call for you in. Now we don't know how many targets we have today so if we have underestimated, then I'll make the call at that time." "This is going to be a long one today so pace yourselves. Is that clear?" she said finishing her briefing. The rest of the flight keyed their headsets; each click told her that they understood. Her mind tracked the clicks and matched it to the running tally until it added up. She checked her watch again. Daybreak in just under forty-five minutes. "I'm going to place your sections now, once I put you in position then act like a stone until you need to move. Remember everything that we practiced, this is the real thing now. No prizes for runner up. Section two...follow me." Pantra leaped off the building and into freefall for a moment before she unfurled her wings and felt them bite into the wind and carry her into the air current. She made a beeline for the position she had marked out during her earlier scouting runs. The rear entrance to the brownstone opened up onto an alley that ran behind all of the buildings in this row. The alley was narrow, barely large enough to fit a car in but it ran the length of the street and it had the virtue of allowing whoever was in the brownstone to leave the building without being seen from the front. She looped under a hanging cable line and made a beeline to the corner position that she had scouted before. It was one of the decorative ledges that protruded from the smooth brick about mid-level. It jutted out almost a foot as it ran the circumference of the building. From the corner it would offer an unobstructed line of sight looking directly at the back exit. She landed and waved section two in. There were thirteen of them. Three to observe and take photos and the ten who would make up the five tracking teams. They settled into place and waited. "Remember, if there is no rose then document who they are as best you can. Roses are the priority. Keep in contact, this channel is secure, so no excuses," Pantra met each of them in the eyes to make certain they understood the stakes. What she saw told her that they did. "You're ready for this," she said to them, "Good luck," and flew away to pick up the next section, behind her the team flickered and was replaced by the image of a flock of pigeons. ------------------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 2045 hours "With Pantra and her team having them under constant surveillance, the board under Fetterman's photo began to fill in rapidly. The largest batch of identifications was on the first day of their surveillance. That is why she took the full team with her. We had no idea of just how large his operation was. But once we had identified them that was only the first step. The next phase was more dangerous." "In what way?" Darcy asked looking over at Pantra who had given up playing with Andromeda and was now perched nearby. "The next phase was to obtain the fingerprints of each girl without their knowledge. The tracking teams had to watch them closely and choose their moment carefully. It took time but eventually we had assembled a set of prints that matched each face and with that done we could begin the painstaking process of matching them to who the database said that they were." "What about Fetterman?" she asked, "Or his muscle? Walnut and Gentlemen John both have more contact with the girls than anyone outside of Daddy." Singh looked at her a flash of alarm crossing his face. "I mean Fetterman," she said hastily. "I don't know why I called him Daddy just now." "How do you feel at the moment Darcy?" Singh asked watching her intently. "I feel fine I guess," she said. "No unusual feeling of pressure? No dizziness?" "No nothing like that," she said. Singh relaxed. "Darcy if you feel anything that strikes you as unusual you have to tell us at once. You have greater control right now, but you are still being imposed over another mind and that mind may be unaware of us at the moment, but that does not mean that it is either helpless or cooperative. You can access that mind to a degree but you should do it passively as much as possible. It is still possible for you to wake Fleur while you are wearing your crystal and that is something that we do not wish to do under any circumstances." "How do I access her mind passively?" she asked. "How do I even know if I am being passive or not?" "I think that you did it just a moment ago. To Fleur, Fetterman is Daddy. That is how she thinks of him and that is what he is...to her. When you called him by that word do you know why it was that you said it?" "I didn't think about it, I just said it," Darcy said. "That is passive access," Singh said to her. "You were not trying to deliberately access her thoughts or memories; it was something that just came to you unbidden. As long as you mine what she knows in that fashion then I think that you are safe." "As for mister Fetterman he and his henchmen Mr. Finney and Mr. Salvatore they had dedicated teams of their own who were tasked with trailing them." "Did they ever suspect?" Darcy asked. "I don't think that Fleur does but did they ever suspect that they were being traced?" "We think so," Singh answered carefully. "But we cannot be certain, so we proceed with the mindset that our targets are aware that they are under observation. So far they have not indicated that they are, but that could change. "And what have you found out?" she asked. "That he has far more girls working for him than even we suspected that he might when we began; it took us weeks of surveillance work for us to identify and confirm them all." "How many are there?" Darcy asked. "How many others are there besides me?" Singh looked at her before answering. He wasn't sure why it was that she insisted that he tell her how many they had uncovered. He thought about what it could mean. Was it possible that Fleur was waking up beneath the shell of the guardian stone? Was this her trying in her own way to gather what information she could so that she could pass it on to Fetterman later? He looked at her again and thought about how she had said what she had said. The tone indicated to him that she was worried, but was it worry for herself and the other girls who were thralls to Fetterman or was it worry for Daddy? It was a chance either way and he decided to push on. They had agreed when they decided to take this chance that it was worth the risk and if Fleur was trying in her own way to probe them for what they knew it was already too late. Even if it really was Fleur listening to him now and not Darcy there was no chance that she was going to have access to Fetterman again. That decision was already made before she had even come here. He glanced at the clock on the mantle hanging over the ice and indigo flames. There was time remaining but not as much as he would like. He needed to wrap this up soon and then when he began to tell her what all of this really meant, then they would find out for certain if this was Darcy they were talking with or Fleur. "Over the course of the investigation we have documented between thirty- six and fifty girls who work for him at any given time. Until recently that number varied. But as we became more precise in accounting for them and as we began to fit the puzzle together in a way that explained its purpose, the reason for why there was no constant number started to become clearer." "Is there any danger in you telling me this?" Darcy interrupted. "I mean you're sitting here and you're telling me every step of what you have done and I have to wonder if when I go back to him, is there any chance that he can find out that you know any of this?" she asked. Interesting he thought to himself, it's almost like she is aware of my thought a moment ago. That couldn't be the case though no one in the room who was aware of that was going to happen had an unshielded mind and he had not felt any of the indicators that his thoughts were being probed, but he couldn't be certain of that could he? This was a time that was in flux and with the increase in ambient magic around him how would he know if a new way of seeking what was in another's thoughts hadn't been discovered? Darcy had a strong natural mind shield, like all of Fetterman's girls. There was no way for him to slip in undetected and see for himself if it was Darcy that was asking or Fleur. He was inclined to think that it was Darcy though. That concern that he heard in her question sounded very much like one that Brighton would have voiced and he would have to proceed on that assumption regardless. They had to know and they had to know soon. "Darcy that is not the concern you might think it to be. What I tell you, what you learn becomes part of your memory, not Fleur's. When the crystal is removed from your person what you learned travels with it. Fleur cannot tell him anything you hear because it is not there in her memory with her and she has no awareness that this conversation is even taking place," Singh said. "Alright," she said visibly relaxing a bit. "So how many are there now?" "The number of girls that Fetterman has working for him has decreased substantially over the last few months. We do not think that means that he is aware of us in any specific way, but we do think that he is preparing to leave Stafford." "Why? Why would he want to leave Stafford now?" she asked. "If he doesn't know that you are tracking him and after all the effort he has put into setting things up here, why would he walk away?" "That is information that we have been unable to determine. I have a suspicion of what it might be, but it is only a theory without sufficient proof for now. We do know that he is presently controlling only twenty-two girls and of those twenty-two, fourteen of them are lambs. The number of special cases has also risen in the last few months as well and the only explanation that fits is that he is disposing of most of his girls and preparing to leave." "You mean killing them. You mean killing me!" Darcy replied to him alarmed. "Yes that is exactly what I am saying. As for how he intends to do so that is something I'll tell you about in a moment. But you have to know also that it is something that we are not going to allow" Singh said reassuringly, "We have a plan. It's better that you hear about it in full and not as something just dropped into the conversation without explanation." "What will you do if he leaves then?" she asked. "What happens if he does, do you follow him?" "Our first concern is that we ensure that does not happen. If he disappears I don't think that we will be able to find him before he reemerges someplace far from here. Someplace where there is no reason for another to pay attention to him for a very long time." "Then why don't you just arrest him right now?" she said. "From what you have told me so far it sounds like you have everything boxed up nice and neat already. You know his every movement, every person he has working for him. You have a timeline for his every action since you commenced surveillance. You've got a solid connection from missing persons to him and a connection to the special cases as well. Why haven't you put him away yet?" "Because Darcy, we were still looking for you. Locating you and finding a way to free you from him is more important to us than just detailing his operations and then bringing him down. Your rescue and finding a means of restoring you is a higher priority. But there is another reason as well. One that we did not fully appreciate until it became clear to us. There is no way to arrest a ghost," Singh said ------------------------------- The look on Darcy's face when Singh told her made him think of a balloon with a slow leak. It was collapsing into itself. Until this point, despite all that she had known before when she was Jim Brighton and all she had learned since they slipped the guardian crystal around her neck and salvaged her mind from its depths, she still was unable to consider that Fetterman might be anything other than a living man. All of her experiences as part of a wider world were opening up to her. Learning of the fae, meeting and interacting with them, uncovering what he and Mitch had before they were taken; all of those things were linked to the idea that there was a living person who was at the centre of it all. A powerful person, but one that was alive and therefore vulnerable to the forces that could hold him to account for his actions. The knowledge that what she thought she knew was incorrect had shocked her deeply and now that he had done this to her it was Singh's burden to carry her through it. "A ghost? Are you seriously telling me Fetterman is dead? Because I can't see how that is possible. That makes no sense at all. Fleur remembers him touching her, people see him, and he interacts with people at the department at all hours of the day when he picks up the lambs. How can he be dead? How can he be a ghost?" she asked. "He is more than a ghost Darcy," Singh said choosing his next words carefully. "He is the dark man that Arath' Mahar Selicia met and fought. He is the shadowy man that we have been tracking and tracing from the people who disappeared to the special cases that Dr. Gregor first encountered. He is Walnut and he is Gentleman John. He is all of them and he is none of them. Each part that we see is only a mask that serves his purpose. But in the beginning he was just Lucius Fetterman and Lucius Fetterman is dead." Her eyes were hollow and her jaw hung lose her shoulders slumped and he could see the numbness of realization spreading across her face and sinking into every fiber of her being. The thought was too large to take in all at once and too much to accept as true and it had to be accepted because that part of her that was Brighton; whether it was the Jim that he was or the Darcy that she became knew deep down that Singh was telling her the truth. Singh watched her carefully, time was running out, but giving her the space to accept what he was telling her was important as well. He watched the guardian crystal for any sign of a tell-tale flicker; the first hint that she might be losing control to Fleur and he saw that the light was shining as steadily as it was before she knew the truth about Fetterman. He reached over and took her hand in his own. She was numb and she needed to feel, to know that she wasn't really alone and the world hadn't dissolved into madness after all. "He is not a ghost in that sense of the word Darcy, he is Borok' phai. He is one of the eaters of souls. But he is unlike any others of his kind. Borok' phai are aethereal parasites and he is, in his most basic foundation, one of them; but he is also more and that makes him more dangerous. He hunts and sustains his own existence by feasting on the life essence of others. He drains them of that life to maintain his own and he does this, not in the aether, but in the physical world." "That's not a ghost, you're talking about a vampire, or something so close to it that it doesn't make any difference," Darcy said her face turning to meet his. She had regained a measure of control over herself and no longer looked as if she had opened her eyes and beheld a vast nothing stretching to infinity. "That is indeed what we are facing Darcy. But when the connection was made it made no sense to us. The Borok' phai do not behave as he does. They are nuisances of the aether. They react, they do not plan, they do not plot and they are easily kept at bay by even the most basic ward and they never leave the aether. Fetterman though is something else, something more. He manifests in the material world, he interacts with it and he has gone to great lengths to carefully arrange what he has done here to serve his purposes and conceal his presence. Borok' phai do not do this. They are simple almost mindless creatures who act on instinct without higher purpose." "He still sounds like a vampire," she said dully. "What he is may well be the origin of the stories about that kind of creature," Singh said. "He does not subsist on blood, but he does require the lives of others to maintain his own." Darcy was looking better, the colour was returning to her cheeks. The initial shock of Singh's revelation had passed her like a tidal wave parting around a tall building as it raced in from the shore. It may have rocked her on her foundations, but the wave was passing her now and moving inland. It remained to be seen though if, like a building so struck she could remain on them or if she would topple into the murk swirling below her. "So what is he? You wouldn't have mentioned this if you didn't have some idea to back it up. You don't jump to conclusions Singh," Darcy demanded. "I think that at one time, a very long time ago he was not so different from Cecil Barnes. I think that he was someone who found his own way into the aether and became trapped there. He became trapped there and turned to imitating the Borok' phai as a means of staving off his own death." "Why would you think that? What could have you have learned that would suggest to you that might the explanation for what you are telling me?" she asked. "When I finally recovered from my stone addiction I was still weak. I may have been purged of the need to depend on my element but it still took me a long time to reach a level where I was fit to do more than listen to what the others were doing in the investigation that I had set in motion. At first it was all I could handle to return to overseeing the effort and suggesting possible connections. Mere speculation at first but it helped us to narrow the field and to begin drawing closer to the truth." "When I was able to make a true contribution finally it was only in a research capacity, I didn't have the strength at the time to do more, but it was useful; I was useful. By this time several weeks had passed. Pantra had recruited and trained her surveillance team, M'Tehr had arranged and completed the Grove's contributions to our efforts and Gregor had continued to document and dispose of special cases as rapidly as they were located. Fitzhugh was keeping her steady hand on both the final steps in the council's negotiations and keeping the investigation in hand and on track." "With little to do that could occupy my time while not interfering in the other's efforts I reasoned that the best use of my efforts was to look again with fresh eyes at the information that you and Travers had uncovered about the number of missing persons in the city and their location." "The rose marker. The one that was superimposed over the city map," she said. "Yes, the rose marker," he answered, "As you had noted when you first saw it, there were far too many reported and that was a result of Travers's suggestion to you to eliminate search parameters. With that as my starting point I ran the same search and with great relief I found that the data that both searches drew upon remained unaltered. Either it was too difficult to erase or it was unknown and not reckoned to be of any importance." "The initial data was almost impossible to make any sense of. The only saving grace was that this was only a representation of men in the known age range that I was trying to sift through and not the entire population of the missing person's record. With so many present I first isolated them by eliminating any that did not fit the profile of the victims. That did reduce the size of the data that needed to be evaluated, but other than making the partial pattern that Travers matched with his known locations of where the Jane Doe's were found it told me very little." "I next sifted the data according to the year they occurred in. When they were separated chronologically the locations were scattered and showed no connection and still made little sense, but I had managed to create once again what you had stumbled across; a complete year by year record documenting and tracking the progression of these victims." "As Travers mentioned when we first spoke of this in my office fourteen months ago, the record goes back for many years, spanning decades of disappearances. As I examined what the data was showing me it struck me that it may not have been something that he planned. It may have been something that he noticed just as we did in the beginning. Once I separated all of them and grouped them according to year it was plain to see that in the very earliest reports there was no real connection that would indicate purpose. I suspect that the intention to have them show themselves in this fashion if they were ever gathered together in one image came much later. As we learned more about Fetterman and his past other bits and pieces of evidence slipped into place." "According to what we have been able to discover Fetterman did not start using the rose until years after he began to hunt. I think that his use of the rose at all was an accident. Perhaps he did as we did and looked at a map to see if those he had taken formed a pattern of some kind. If he was looking at ways to prevent discovery he could very well have done so and if he did he probably noticed as I did, that before he deliberately began to create that design it had occurred almost by accident. More of a suggestion in the earliest records than an actual image." "There is no knowing just how the idea to cultivate this image came to him. Perhaps he had grown more confident at this point that he could not be discovered or even contained if he was. Regardless of how it originated, a deliberate decision to mark the city in such a fashion was made by him. An expression of arrogance on his part as if he was daring anyone to find him and as best as we can determine, until you and detective Travers recognized it for what it was, no one did." "It's easy to see why no one may have made the connection before. Who would think to include a map of locations of Jane Doe's to complete the image as Travers did, but more importantly it was more unlikely that anyone who did try to pick some sense out of what they saw would look at the whole record. So year after year, detectives would pull up the locations of this year's missing and maybe add in the previous year's missing, but none looked at the whole and that was where part of the key was hidden. So I gathered them and lifted each section from the one that came before it. I removed each year of all of those who went missing in that time. I peeled back the numbers year by year until I arrived at a date that indicated that here was when the number of missing persons in Stafford deviated from other similarly sized cities. And then I went looking for unexplained deaths." "Why?" she asked. "What could possibly have prompted you to do something that was apparently unconnected like that?" "As I looked back into the earliest years of this I remembered what Travers said that last night. That we didn't have a missing person's problem, that what we were looking at was the work of a serial killer. So as I looked back to the very beginning, it occurred to me that whoever our unsub was perhaps he had not started with adding to the missing persons list, but had been less careful when he started and had left a trail that he later learned to disguise as missing persons." "Once I expanded my search beyond what was contained in the missing person's record I finally pinpointed 1973 as the year that Stafford's missing persons count began to rise above what it had been normal before. It was very small rise at first, almost an imperceptible one, easily explained as a fluctuation in the numbers but it didn't trend downward after that. It steadily rose until it reached its present number. Once I isolated that as the beginning of what we now see today I could expand and start looking further afield." "The problem was that there was no indication of an increase in homicides in 1972 or in 1971 or in 1970. In fact each year that I looked at did not suggest anything out of the ordinary at all as far as unnatural deaths. I was at an impasse and decided to shelve the whole approach, but I did have another resource at my disposal. One that had experience not only with what was occurring in the law enforcement community but also in the mystical as well. I had Pantra." "Pantra has served in Stafford as a special detective since the turn of the twentieth century. She was busy at this time training her team, but when I managed to speak with her about my theory she was unable to recall anything that might fit in and make a connection. In this her experience was working against her. Without reference she could not point me in any real direction. To the best of her knowledge there were no unexplained violent deaths that might have served as a cover for murder, but when she thought about it there was something she suggested that I look into." "What was that?" Darcy asked, her voice was quiet not taking it all in and allowing what he was telling her to gestate in her mind. "An incident that she and her partner experienced in 1971. One that was related to what happened before 1973; a rise in unexplained deaths. I had overlooked them because they had not shown up in my research. Why would I include them? They were ruled as death from natural causes. Each one of them had only a single common factor between them on the surface. Each of them was the result of a stroke." "I don't see how a rash of elderly men and women suddenly dying of a stroke would even register as unexplained," Darcy said to Singh. "That is because those that died before the deaths ceased in 1973 were not elderly and very few of them were men," Singh said. "Once I looked there another pattern began to emerge. One that mirrored the pattern that began in 1973." "The one that was tentatively identified as the first victim was a young man who was discovered in his apartment nearly two weeks after he had died there in the late fall of 1969. From the investigation report that I unearthed from the archives they determined that he had suffered a massive stroke. Although from what they could identify with the medical equipment of the time it appeared to them that he was in few if any of the risk categories. The toxicology report read that just prior to his death he was under the influence of black lotus and the physical evidence gathered at the scene confirmed the coroner's report." "The deaths began in earnest little more than three weeks later. In all of the victim's, the cause of death was ruled as a stroke. On the surface there didn't seem to be much to suggest that this was anything more than just a fluke upsurge in the statistics, but taken together some things did stand out." The victims were represented by both men and women, with women representing the majority. They ranged in age from the youngest at fifteen years old to the oldest at forty-two years old. They were scattered all over the various parts of Stafford and they included members of all social classes and income ranges." "This is starting to sound vaguely familiar," Darcy said. "The majority of the deaths were more heavily concentrated between the age ranges of seventeen to twenty-six. There didn't seem to be any specific pattern that could be picked out to connect them. But what I had was entirely too similar to the statistics of the other end of the record of missing persons that I felt that I had to keep digging. I eventually found two bits of data that seemed innocuous on the surface." "One of the things that each death had in common was that all of them expired in their sleep. Or at least it appeared that was the case. It wasn't until I stumbled across a coroner's note that the woman that he was examining had traces of black lotus in her blood stream that I made the other connection. I looked at each of them again and I discovered that all of them were dabbling in black lotus to a lesser or greater degree." "There was a massive wave of experimentation with various drugs as a result of the counterculture movement during those years as you will recall and one of those drugs was black lotus. Looking at that piece of evidence, part of the picture became clearer to me. The majority of those found had been younger and predominantly female. Even today if you look at the numbers of those who have gotten involved in black lotus since it was decriminalized the statistics are remarkably similar." "An why would that be important?" Darcy asked. The idea that women making up the majority of those who used lotus to explore the aether didn't seem to shed any light on things as far as she could see. "Although we have no records that date back to that time, what we do have indicates that before the Withering, the number of female adepts was far more than those who were male. Looking at what I had seen here it occurred to me that with magic as weak as it was at that time that these deaths might have been the result of Borok' phai, but I had to be certain." "I began to trace them forward looking at them again with this new information in mind and when I did I found that from 1969 until late 1973 there was a death in Stafford from stroke averaging every one to two weeks and in the last part of 1973 that had increased to nearly one or two every week until they abruptly ceased and dropped back to pre- 1969 levels." "But starting in early 1974 you could already see an increase in missing person's reports being filed. There seemed to be no connection between the two data sets. For those nearly four years prior to that year there were roughly one hundred fatalities per year that could be considered to be unusual in nature and together they formed an outlier in the public health records. I was confused and I thought I was at an impasse again. I knew there was something important here but I could not see what it could be. Since Pantra had helped me make the connection before I asked her to look it over with me that she might see something that I had missed. ----------------------------------------------- Area Command and Control, Stafford: Day 122, 1015 hours The upper glass that made up the transom that stretched over Singh's office door had been modified so that Pantra could more easily enter and exit without the need for the main door to be opened for her. Singh glanced upward as his ears detected the creaking of the hinges that marked her pushing it down so that she could slip inside. He watched as she flared as she approached his desk and then landed lightly on the empty wood next to the stack of papers that Singh had placed there. "What do you need me to see me about Armin?" she chirped at him. "I'm kind of busy with tracking lambs." "I know you are Pantra," he said his voice still holding on to the ghosts of the aftermath of cleansing himself of his dependence on earth." Pantra looked at him and furrowed her brow. "Are you sure that you're up for this?" she asked, "I know you said you could do some good this way but I don't think you're out of the woods on this yet." "I'm fine Pantra," he said to her. "At this point it will do me more good to be a little active in this way, much more than just laying still. How much time can you spare for me?" Pantra checked her watch again. She wasn't someone to hold on to a large amount of personal possessions, having a long lifespan and a tendency to collect things was not a good combination. Most of what she had fit into the small box that she kept under her futon and when she did choose to keep something it was usually meant to last a very long time. The watch she was wearing was a case in point. She had first obtained it sometime around 1922. It was a precision work that had lasted her for almost a century. Part of the reason that it had lasted her for so long was that she only wore it when it was needed and since she had organized the surveillance of Fetterman's organization she had taken it out of her box and worn it ever since. Singh had to admire it and the craftsmanship that went into it. Bruno Hillmann, the German watchmaker who made it had done so as part of a challenge. To see if he could make a timepiece small enough to fit on the wrist of a pixie and at the same time still be constructed to the same high standards that he had established with his conventional line of wristwatches. The one that Pantra was wearing was one of the last few production models that he had completed before his death and it was just as accurate now as it was the day that Hillmann had set the final piece into position and closed the case. You couldn't see it clearly without a jeweller's loupe and when you did look at it that way you couldn't help but marvel at the challenge that must have animated him to produce such an exquisitely proportioned timepiece. "I just left the tracking group. They called in about an hour ago to let me know that they might have identified a pair of new girls. They're tracing them now. So unless something comes up that is grab your stuff and run level bad, I think I can spare you a little bit of time." Singh laid out his dilemma and shifted the graphs that he had connected together and started walking her through his line of reasoning. Pantra listened intently making thoughtful noises from time to time as he emphasised different points. When he had gone through all he had he turned to her to hear her verdict. "You're on to something there Armin. I remember these now; don't know why I didn't before. Mark thought there was something off about them as well," she said. "Mark?" he asked not recognizing the name. "Mark Finch", she said, "My partner when this was going on. Earth weaver like you. He's been retired for years, he might still remember the details if you can pry him away from his damned puzzles." "Puzzles?" Singh asked. "Yeah, jigsaw puzzles. He was always hot for them when we were partnered, but when he retired in 82' he went overboard. Last time I visited him he had just started a ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. He asked me if I felt like giving him a hand. I told him I'd rather have my crotch waxed with dynamite, but because it was him I'd stay for a bit. Haven't been able to get back to visit him since we started this whole thing." "Do you feel willing to come there with me while I ask him about it.?" Singh asked. "Armin for that, I'll make time," she said to him as he reached for his cane and started making his way out of the office. -------------------------------------- Meridian Oaks retirement home, Stafford: Day 122, 1134 hours "I don't care how good of a facility it is," Pantra said to Singh in their practiced whisper, "every single one of them smells like piss and desperation. No matter how good of a job they do it's always there, like the walls bleed it or something." She looked around under the cover of her shimmer as she perched on Singh's shoulder. "At least this one is a nice one though. Bet Mark's family pays a pretty penny to keep him here." "How old is detective Finch?" Singh whispered. "Eighty-four next October," Pantra whispered back. "He had to take early retirement after his heart attack in 82'. He moved here about ten years ago after his wife Clarice died. She was a sweet lady. I miss her almost as much as Mark does." Singh looked around at the retirement home as they walked through the place. It was pretty nice as far as he could tell. The walls were brightly painted in pastels with forgettable pictures hung at regular intervals. There were at least three dogs there and two cats. The big golden retriever was getting attention when they came in from a male patient who was confined to a wheelchair and in one of the common areas a big tabby sat on the couch between two women who were watching a game show that was playing on the television. The tabby had positioned himself so that he was getting petted by both women when they felt like reaching over and doing so. Singh had seen much worse, but Pantra was still right. There was a hint of desperation in the atmosphere and despite the efforts of the staff there was the faint odor of urine. He walked through the facility. Finch was living in the bungalow wing. There wasn't actually a bungalow there. Someone whose job it was to set the tone for each facility thought that by calling it that it would for some reason be soothing to those who ended up living here. Singh had long ago stopped needing to look at Pantra when she was covered by her shimmer so he would cut his eyes in her direction when he needed to look at her without anyone noticing. It wasn't often that he really thought about how long she had been at her job. Pixies, like many other fae appeared ageless and it was rare for them to change on the outside. So it was easy for him to sometimes forget that she had been doing this for almost a hundred years already. It was knowledge that he knew consciously, but at the same time he never really thought about it with any depth. But there were times that something happened and it brought him up short and he was forced to face that reality and when that happened it was almost like his mind stuttered trying to comprehend that idea. Times like now. He knew that she had worked closely with other partners before him; they were a line of special detectives that stretched back to long before he was even born. But coming face to face with one was a rare thing. Her previous partner wasn't that old really so it was easy for him to put it out of his mind. But sometimes, like now, he came face to face with the idea of just how much more of her there was then there would ever be of him. A long time ago this man was walking with Pantra perched on his shoulder and in their time together this partner had written a chapter in the book of her life. Sometimes, like now, she took that book out and she shared it with him. But even as she shared it with him he was forced to think about the fact that his chapter with her was still being written. It was still being written and eventually it too would end. Mark Finch lived in a large room by himself that faced the open pastoral space surrounded and bordered by the resident's rooms. His room looked out on the park-like exercise area through big floor to ceiling windows. The room was spacious enough, or it would be if he hadn't also wedged a large table into it that took up the entire area directly facing those windows. Singh rapped on the door frame of the open door and stepped inside. Finch turned around at the sound and looked him over coolly. "Do I know you son?" he asked even as his eyes roved over Singh and decided that no he did not. Even sitting down Finch was a tall man. He had a long lantern jaw and whatever hair he had possessed had long ago left seeking a warmer climate. There was still a white fringe of it clinging to the area around his ears and the back of his head like a thin white horseshoe but that was it. He was thin as well, thin in the way only someone of his age can get. Most of the people who reached this age were like that. Either you blew up like someone hooked an air compressor to you from not being able to move and whatever complications plagued you because of your health, or you were like Finch; thin like someone was draining you until all that was left was tough whipcord and bone. "FUCK! Kill that zombie, boy!" Singh heard someone in a nearby room shout. Singh turned his head toward the sound wondering what to make of it. "Don't pay him no mind," he said. "That's Jack Spencer. His grandson got him into console gaming last year to help keep his hands limber. The two of them are in there now having a high old time is all. They do it every week. He should watch his mouth though. You'd think a retired preacher would know better, but it isn't always so now is it?" "No, I guess that it isn't," Singh replied turning his attention back to Finch. "So back to where we were before Jack changed the subject. Do I know you son?" he asked. "Nope, but you definitely know me," Pantra answered in a mischievous tone and dropping her shimmer before leaping off of Singh's shoulder to land on the man's puzzle piece covered table." "Pantra! Sweetie!" Finch exclaimed in a delighted tone. "Well this is just so unexpected. Welcome of course, but still unexpected. I have been hoping you'd come." He looked over at Singh. "If you would close that door friend I would really appreciate it." Singh reached over and gripped the door end and passed it behind him. He heard it close and the door latch click. Singh found the lock and latched it before he turned around and faced Finch again. Finch looked from Pantra to Singh and back again. "Well this is certainly an occasion. You would be Armin Singh, Pantra's current partner then, I take it?" Singh extended his hand and Finch took it firmly in his. His skin was thin as well, but beneath the surface of it he could feel the lingering strength of the man even if most of it had ebbed away. "Yes, detective Finch, I am indeed Armin Singh," he said. "Mark, just call me Mark," he answered. "So what can I do for you Armin? I don't think Pantra here brought you to visit just so you could help me find the north end of a southbound chipmunk." "I'm not sure I understand," Singh said. "My puzzle," Finch said holding up a piece for them both to see. Been trying to track it down for the last hour or so. Singh looked it over from where he was standing and recognized the twin stripes passing against the brown fur that marked a chipmunk. Finch turned toward Pantra. "How about you, sweetie? Feel like helping me troll for some chipmunk tail?" "Mark I can honestly say I would rather be saut?ed in garlic and served with butter." Finch chuckled and looked over at Singh. "You know son, for some reason, I don't know why mind you, I suddenly have a hankering for some shrimp scampi," He turned back to Pantra. "What do you say shrimp?" he asked. "I say I'll look, but only because it's you," Pantra started shuffling the loose pieces around. "But don't think this means I'm sticking around for the rest of this mess though," she added. "Wouldn't dream of it sweetie," Finch said. "How about you big man? Feel like helping an old man chase a chipmunk?" Singh took off his jacket and laid it on the back of one of the wooden chairs. He took a seat and started sifting though pieces as well. "So what is this picture of?" he asked unable to make much out other than it was a woodland scene of some sort from what he could tell of the border. "Box is over there, have a gander if you feel like it," he said with a spreading smile. "Don't do it Armin," Pantra said looking up at him. But Singh had already reached for the box and turned it over. Not that it helped any, the cover scene was blacked out and there was no hint of what the picture was supposed to be. "I was going to tell you it's a waste of time looking Armin," Pantra said, "Mark always blacks out the picture when he starts a new puzzle." Singh looked over at Finch merrily. "Of course I do," he said to both of them, "a good puzzle is like a good case. If you could see the whole picture right away it takes away the challenge." Singh reached out for a piece that he thought might be what the old man was looking for. "Is this part of what you're looking for?" he asked. Finch took it and looked it over carefully and then put it down. "Naw, that's a chipmunk all right, but it looks more like he's parked on his keister. The one I'm looking for is sticking it up in the air." Finch looked over at Pantra still pawing through the different puzzle pieces. "Did she ever tell you why she hates fairies so much Armin?" he asked in a conspirator's tone. Pantra abruptly dropped the piece she had picked up and glared at Finch. "Don't you fucking dare Mark," she squalled at him. Finch smiled happily back at her. "Hush potty mouth, I'll tell him if I feel like it," he said and turned back to Singh. "It's not even anything they really did you know. She actually gets along with them fairly well; it's just she hates being confused with them." "I'm warning you Mark," Pantra growled. "Well way back when, just before she joined the force she went out in the big wide world once she was just old enough to leave her hive. I think she was about thirty or forty then. Anyway she was raring to go to see what was out there. Not surprising since our girl here always has had curious bent and a bit of a wandering foot from time to time." "You're digging yourself in deeper with every word Mark," Pantra warned him. "Stop it." "Anyway this was just after those kids in Cottingley and the fairies they were friends with decided to take all those pictures in 1917. Well somehow or another they ended up being splashed all over the newssheets. They really should have expected it if you ask me, it wasn't like film was that cheap back then. If you took a picture then of course it was going to get developed and once it was developed of course someone is going to take a look at it and once they look at it..." "They share it," Singh finished. "Anyway those pictures hit the papers and fairy fever starts going around. Everywhere people look they see fairies. Most to the time it was just people having too much imagination and seeing what they wanted to see, like now with other things. But enough people saw the real thing to stir up trouble. The problem was most of those people couldn't tell the difference between a fairy and a pixie if their life depended on it." "Mark, your life just might depend on you not finishing this story," Pantra said still glaring. The problem was that Singh knew that glare; she was only mildly annoyed so the threat at the moment was still mostly theoretical. "Anyway here comes our Pantra out in the big wide world for the first time and who does she run into but..." Pantra leaped from the table and hovered in front of Finch's face wings buzzing as she did. "I am warning you Mark. If you say another word you're not going to like what I'm going to do." "I'm eighty-three years old Pantra, there's not a whole hell of a lot you can do to me," Finch said. Pantra's glare shifted into one of her favourite evil expressions. "You're right Mark, you're right. There's not much I can do to you for telling him this story," she pivoted and faced Singh, "But I promise you in Clarice's name that I will make him pay for listening to it." "Now why do you have to pull out the big guns and drag Clarice into this Pantra? That's just playing dirty if you ask me," he said. "I mean it," she said. Finch looked over at Singh and winked. "You come by another time then son. I'll finish it up then." "Mark I swear to you if you dare finish that story behind my back I will cross circuit your balls," she said flatly. Finch started laughing. For a moment Singh thought that they might have to call the nurse but after a short time his laughter turned into wheezing and then subsided to chuckling. He reached up on hand and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I'd like to see you try it sweetie," he said. "Those two haven't worked worth a damn for years as it is, maybe you actually do that you might jump start them and I could take 'em out for a spin again for old times' sake." "I don't think I will," she said, "you'd probably have another heart attack and then they might hold me liable for making you think you could wave that rusty old thing around again." "I'll guess we'll call this one a draw then," Finch said. "Peace?" "Alright, peace," Pantra said to him. "So why are the two of you out my way for real?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't to drop by to help me chase down a chipmunk's ass." "I'd like to ask you about the strokes," Singh said. "What stroke? I've never had a stroke. Who is it saying I've had a stroke?" Finch said. Singh looked alarmed for a moment. Maybe he wasn't as together as he appeared. Finch laughed again. "Just joshing you son," he said. "At my age you have to get your fun where you can. And the look on your face. I could tell you were thinking oh damn he just went all pudding head on me." "Looks like you finally found yourself a genuine straight man sweetie," he said to Pantra. "He's not really that stiff is he?" "No he's not," Pantra said, "He just does a good impression of it. Charles now, Charles was a real stiff one. I swear you could have ironed a shirt on that man. Twenty years and I never saw him loosen up once. It was like he was born with a stick rammed up his backside." "So you want to know about the strokes?" he said to Singh. "Why do you want to know about that old case?" "Because there is another case we are working on. One that seems to lead back and connect with it in some way, but I can't see what it might be. Pantra suggested that we talk with you. She thinks that maybe you might remember something about it that can make that connection." "Could be," Finch said, "There was certainly enough out of the ordinary about it that I opened that investigation, never could close it though. All right Armin, get comfortable, this will probably take a little while." Mark Finch put the puzzle piece down in front of him and let his eyes drift downward for a moment. He didn't say anything for a few long minutes and Singh was beginning to wonder if he hadn't drifted off in a daze, but when he started speaking it became apparant that he was just marshalling the details before he spoke. "The deaths started in August of 1969. The first one was a soldier who had just been discharged. Poor bastard had just come off of a thirteen month tour in Vietnam. He got there about a month before Tet; anyway he managed to make it through that and then the rest of his tour. He came home and started looking for answers in drugs. He wasn't interested in the ordinary stuff though. Something he saw over there told him that he might find whatever he was looking for in lotus. We found this out afterward though you see." About six months after he got back he turns up dead in his place. Problem was that no one noticed until the smell starts drifting out into the hallway. Place he was living at was a cheap one bedroom place with a living room, a shitter and a counter you could stick a toaster and a hot plate on. It was a hot summer and he had the windows up. It wasn't pretty when they opened that door. Poor bastard was only twenty years old." Anyway coroner ruled it natural causes, the family buried him and that should have been the end of it. But about three weeks later there was another stroke and another and then they just kept happening. At the time no one thought it out of the ordinary. Strokes happen and you don't have to be my age to have one decide to take you for a ride. The thing is that, if they had suspected that there was something going on not anyone really was getting worked up about it." Finch leaned back in the stiff wooden chair and fixed Singh's eye with his rheumy gaze. "Mainly because those who were falling prey to it weren't on the sweet side of law enforcement at the time. A couple people in the department suggested that they might have been getting hold of some bad stuff, but you and I know that's not the case. You fall asleep from lotus long before it does anything serious to you. If it wasn't for how well it connects you to the aether no one would probably care if people used it." "Problem was that the strokes didn't stop and they started increasing. Captain Bohdan Shevchenko was the one who brought us in around the summer of 1971. Old Bohdan, he could smell something off with the whole thing. He didn't think that it was murder, but there were entirely too many of these for comfort for his taste. He knew something was up with these strokes, he just didn't know what it could be." "It wasn't like he was gung ho or anything. He was about a year away from retirement and I think it offended him that there was something like this going on and he couldn't put the pieces together. I think old Bohdan never really left the old country. His family got out of Ukraine a half a step ahead of the NKVD. I never knew a man hated Russians as much as he did. He heard a Russian accent and you could see his teeth start grinding together and god help the poor sod if he was hearing it live. Old Bohdan heard that and you could tell that in his mind he was hearing that thick moustached bastard that chased his family out of where ever it was in the Ukraine they came from. Didn't matter to him that the poor feller that lit his fuse probably was here for the same reason that he was, didn't matter to him at all. That man knew how to hate." "Anyway Bohdan got it in his mind that if there wasn't a natural reason and there wasn't a physical reason then maybe there was a mystic reason and that's when he decided to call me and Pantra here in on it." "The first case we got a good look at was a twenty-two year old woman, Edie Platt. She was a college student. Pretty typical in my opinion, nothing really out of the ordinary about her if you want my take on it. But like so many like her she got interested in a lot of different things that she never learned at home and I'm not talking about what she was there to study. She ended up being one of the founding members of the Wicca coven that started around that time. The thing was that she was smart enough to know that she probably could find that connection that she was looking for if she used lotus and that is how we crossed paths." "The first thing that we noticed is that when we got a good look at her that there were what appeared to be signs of a struggle. The funny thing about it was that if we were reading the scene right she was struggling with herself. There wasn't a trace to be found of any other person in the place." "The coroner wrote it off, like he wrote the other ones off as her going into convulsions, but unlike the others. This one I did get a look at. First time I laid eyes on her in the aether I knew this wasn't natural. No way it could be. Every single drop of life in Edie Platt had been drained. That is what prompted me, more than anything, to take a look at the one that had died just before her. When I looked at that one and I found the same thing, I knew old Bohdan was right that there was something here, but like him I hadn't the faintest idea what it could be." "The one common thing in all of the ones so far was that they all had a taste of lotus. So the first thing Pantra and I did was start running down the people in the black market who could put lotus in your hands. There weren't that many of them that carried it regular like. It didn't move like horse or coke or weed did. A lot of the time if dealers got hold of some lotus it would take a little effort to unload it. A lot of them didn't think it was worth the risk to get caught holding something they couldn't move as easily and got them the same charges for their trouble." "Eventually we narrowed it down to two or three who seemed like they were the ones you could get it from when you wanted it. They were pretty jittery about talking to us. It took them a while to trust us enough to talk without rabbiting. We cornered one of them and Pantra got it through to him that we weren't interested in busting him for his stash. He must have been using when we lay hands on him because he saw Pantra and it was like his feet suddenly were nailed to the street." "He agreed to let us know when he sold some lotus next time he did. We had to promise him that we weren't going to bust him for this or his customer and it was no skin off of my ear. I wasn't in narcotics and I didn't want the paperwork. I did pass the word around to ignore him for a little while, just until I could do this trace. Narcotics didn't like it for beans, but Old Bohdan leaned on them hard and they found someone else to scoop up until I was done with this guy." "We didn't hear from him for nearly a month. I don't think he was stringing me either. We kept tabs on him and it didn't look like he was ditching the deal we made. In that time while we were waiting to hear from him those funny strokes climbed up to twice a week. None of them were my guy's customers and Pantra and I couldn't get the others to slow down long enough to listen like we did with the other pusher." "At first we thought it was going to be a waste of effort. The woman he sold it to, Sally Hughes had a boyfriend and it looked like they were planning to use it together. If that was the case then I already knew that we probably wouldn't see anything. If you weren't alone whatever this was wouldn't touch you. But Sally's boyfriend wasn't interested in lotus. He bought weed. We talked to him later and he admitted that he thought the stuff stank too much and as far as he was concerned the high wasn't worth it." "We set up in the empty apartment across the street and kept her under observation. When the boyfriend went out just after dinner without her and didn't come back right away we figured that he was clearing out so that he didn't have to smell the lotus she was planning to use. She confirmed it when right after he left she started opening up all the windows. We didn't have any cameras then like you have now. We did have cameras but they were too bulky for us to set up without them being noticed. So Pantra and I made due with set of Zeiss 10x42 binoculars my dad picked up from a panzergrenadier captain in North Africa." ------------------------------------------- Burton Park Apartments, Stafford: September 27th, 1971, 1942 hours Someone was playing Rod Stewart's 'Maggie May' in the apartment next door. Whether it was on the radio or they had bought the single and had it rolling out of the speakers on their record player didn't matter to Mark Finch, he hadn't heard the song enough to be sick of it yet and he was more interested in what was going on across the street in Sally Hughes's place. "Mark I keep telling you if you don't pull those binoculars back a bit someone is going to think you're a peeper and call the cops on us," Pantra scolded him. "They're back far enough Pantra," Mark shot back, "You just keep an eye out in case the boyfriend comes back." Mark turned back and adjusted the focus on the binoculars. He had them mounted on a tripod for extra stability and contrary to what Pantra thought they were back far enough in his opinion. From what he could tell it looked like it looked like Sally was going to finish watching 'All in the Family' before she settled down to the main event. Mark didn't mind, he liked that show and even without the sound off he could pick up enough of what was going on to keep pace with what she was doing without getting distracted. He was surprised the boyfriend wasn't keeping her company until it was over. Either he didn't like the show or he was going over to a friend's house to watch the Jets vs. Cardinals game on Monday night football and smoke the weed he'd picked up when Sally had gotten her lotus. When the credits started to roll she stood up and walked across the living room and switched off the black and white TV. They had it sitting on a cheap aluminium stand with small castors on the corners so they could roll it where they wanted to. She walked into the bedroom and she didn't stay there long enough to do more than open the windows and get a big pillow. "I think we have a show time Pantra," he said to her out of the side of his mouth. "She looks like she's getting comfortable. He watched her pull out the small grill from the walk in kitchen and set it in the centre of the living room. She lit it and spent the next few minutes starting the fire. It looked like she was using a little bit of charcoal for the fire but from what he could tell she wasn't using much. That explained all the open windows. Usually lotus users wanted to concentrate the smoke, but if she was using charcoal then she was more worried about carbon monoxide build-up. She finished setting things up and they watched her watch the flames burn down until the fire was reduced to a small glowing coal that gave off heat but little smoke. She pulled a small baggie out of the pocket of her long sleeveless caftan and as he watched she scooped out a small amount and put it into a pie plate and then put the pie plate over the coal. While the coal was dying down she had turned off the lights, lit candles and cleared out a space downwind of the smoke for her pillow. Once she set the lotus to heating she turned around and clicked off the lights. There was enough light from the streetlights for him to see her settle in a lotus position and he watched her start breathing deeply as the golden fumes spiralled and gathered around her. "I think that's your cue Pantra," he said to her and watched as she kicked off and flitted across the street to take up position just outside of the open window. She was positioned where she could see in but with her shimmer up covering her no one was likely to see her. She was off to one side while she was looking in. If Sally did manage to make it all the way into the aether there was a chance that she might see her, but to do that she would have to move almost outside to make it happen. Nothing happened as he watched her slip into her trance for the first half hour. From the amount that he estimate that she put on the pie tin he figured that she probably had enough there to keep her under for about four hours. From what he could tell watching her she seemed fairly disciplined. She still was maintaining her mediation stance where another might have slumped over. She'd clearly had some training in eastern meditation before this. The first hint that anything was wrong was Pantra streaking back from her hiding position. "You need to get moving Mark," she gasped breathless from the flight. "Something is in there in the room with her and it doesn't look like it's friendly." Pantra streaked back across the street and ducked into the room. Mike turned and bounded across the room, flinging the door open and he was pounding down the hallway leaving it swinging behind him. They were both on the third floor and the stairs were at the end of the hall. He took them three at a time as he jumped and let gravity do as much of the work for him as he could. He burst out of the front doors and nearly knocked over couple who were loitering at the foot of the steps leading down to the sidewalk. "What's your problem man?" the man called after him in a drawling tone. Mark ignored him and dashed across the street. There were cars coming but none of them were close enough to reach him before he would be out of the way. The doors stood open in the other apartment across the street. It was still warm from summer and most places here left the apartment doors open where they led into the building to let the cool night air have a chance to flush the day's heat out. He slid past the landing for the stairs and caught the banister with one hand as his legs pumped, driving him up the stairs two at a time. By the time he was on the third floor he was starting to puff a bit. He could hear the sounds coming from behind the door. He beat on the wood. "Pantra trip the lock," he shouted through the wood. "I'm trying," he heard her say dimly. A long moment with the thumping sound of a struggle growing louder behind the door and he heard the click of a lock being turned. He twisted the doorknob and hoped Pantra was out of the radius the door would swing in. "Stafford P.D," he cried as he tumbled through the door his revolver drawn and looking in vain for a target. Sally Hughes was on the ground rolling around, her feet wildly kicking. Her hands were locked around her own throat as if she was trying to pry someone's fingers away from it. Her breath was coming in shuddering sputtering gasps and her eyes were sightless and wild with terror. Some of the other residents of the floor, attracted by the noise had come out to see what the commotion was. He waved them back and called for Pantra. "Do you see what it is?" he asked. "It's big," she called back, "it's on top of her, but I can't see what it is." Mark took a step into the room. Pantra said it was on top of her. He swung the barrel of his revolver through the space above her hard, hoping that even though he couldn't see it that maybe he could make enough contact with it to pistol whip it. It was a thin hope but if he could he might be able to make it back away long enough for Pantra to see something else that might be more effective. "It didn't do anything," Pantra shouted to him. "You have to hit it in the aether otherwise it just passes through." There wasn't anything that he had on him that could reach whatever it was in the aether. Sally Hughes was choking now and starting to turn a bluish shade. Whatever it was that was attacking her, it didn't like Mark trying to interfere and it was taking it out on Sally. Mark saw something in the corner. "Pantra!" he called. "I need you to guide me!" He bounded over to the shelf against the wall. In a jar someone, Sally probably, had placed some brightly painted stones so that they filled the glass in a layered pattern. Mark spun the lid and when it came free he dropped it. His eyes glowed faintly as he summoned as much of his connection with the earth as he could and hoped it would be enough. A full dozen of the stones managed to rise out of the glass and hovered there just in front of his eyes. "Where is he?" he yelled. "He's straddling her," Pantra shouted back. "I don't know why but it looks like he's kissing her." Mark concentrated; fat drops of sweat sprang from his brow and rolled down his face. He hoped this worked, if it didn't then he didn't have anything else that he could think of that would touch whatever it was that was attacking Sally Hughes. Mark imagined his mind as the barrel of an enormous pistol with his eyes as the sight. Each of the floating stones a bullet waiting for him to send speeding at the target. Pantra said it was kissing her so centre mass would be just about...there. "Bang," he said to himself and the stone streaked toward the empty air just above Sally's writhing body. "You hit it!" Pantra shouted. "Did I hurt it?" Mark shouted back. "I think you did, but it's still on top of her." Sally Hughes was still now; she wasn't kicking or moving any more but it looked like she was still breathing. Mark focused. "Bang...bang...bang," he mouthed as the three stones sped to the target. In the physical world they parted the empty air harmlessly above Sally Hughes, in the aether, like called to like and the stones there followed just behind them drawn by what they were part of and impacted what was attacking her. "He's off of her!" Pantra yelled triumphantly. He's standing over her looking at you." Mark guessed as best he could and sent four more stones in that direction. Pantra called out his location after every strike but he was running out of stones and even if the thing in the aether was no longer attacking her, Sally Hughes was running out of time. When the last stone was sent speeding on its way Mark hoped it would be enough, but it wasn't. Pantra said to him that it was standing there in the doorway looking at him. He knows I'm out of stones. Mark thought to himself, he doesn't know what to do, I don't think anyone has ever struck him in the aether before. His breath was coming in gasps and his shirt was sodden with sweat from the effort. Mark's face contorted and he reached out and seized a half a dozen stones and let them circle in front of him like cylinder revolving. "I know you're there," he said hoarsely to the empty air. "I know you can hear me. I don't know if you can understand my words but if you come near this woman again. I will sink every stone in that jar into you until one of us is dead." Mark spun the stones faster. A vein on his temple was throbbing with the effort and there was a thin stream of blood starting to trickle from his left nostril. "He's gone!" Pantra shouted. "He turned out the door and just faded away!" Mark let the stones drop to scatter on the floor and then slumped to his knees. "That's good," he said gasping, I don't think I could have kept juggling those stones much longer." --------------------------------- Meridian Oaks retirement home, Stafford: Day 122, 1247 hours "Sally Hughes died in the emergency room about an hour later," Finch said. "When I looked at her after the coroner was finished with her, despite the evidence of her being assaulted, he declared that cause of death was a stroke. In his report he suggested that her injuries were from her boyfriend beating her and ruled them unconnected with the stroke. I didn't say anything, what could I say? I couldn't tell them what had happened. As far as they were concerned we were alone in the room, just me and Sally. I saw there was nothing that I could have done other than what I did and it wasn't enough." "Whatever it was had attacked her drained her too much. Yes I'd pushed whatever it was off of her. Yes I'd maybe hurt it enough to make it back off, but the damage was already done. It didn't leave enough in her to keep her alive for very long and when what she had drained away she had a stroke. Pantra and I told Captain Shevchenko what we had seen the night that Sally Hughes was killed. I don't think I've ever seen a man less pleased to be right than he was or a man more frustrated over not being able to do anything about it. When he started swearing in Russian I knew he was about a step and a half beyond furious. The only time he bothered to use Russian was when he was that mad." "The problem was that I didn't see anything that we could do about it. It had nearly pushed me beyond what I could manage doing what little that I could do. If there was any way we were going to be effective against whatever that was, it would have to have to be done in the aether and that meant we needed someone who could go there and go toe to toe with whatever it was that was waiting there." "So what did you do?" Singh asked quietly, intent on what Finch was telling him. "After I recovered from the strain of fighting that thing off of me, Pantra and I travelled to Morleth' Phar. The prime dryad couldn't do very much for us. Without a way to anchor themselves in Stafford the best they could do was send a few at a time down to Stafford and have them hunt through the aether and hope they could catch whatever it was. We played cat and mouse with whatever that thing was until the strokes stopped in late 1973. We never crossed paths again and I didn't hear about anything similar happening in other parts of the country. I put out a BOLO on it after the deaths stopped, but nothing ever came of it." "At the time I thought it might have moved on, maybe even to another country so I let the fae section in Interpol know about it as well and I waited. I went back afterward to the different places where the victims had turned up trying to get a handle on what it was about these people who had attracted whatever it was that I tangled with in 1971, but there was nothing special about the places that told me anything. The only place that wasn't the same, the only one that I couldn't really examine was the one we suspected as the first victim. That place was completely gutted to the frame and rebuilt by the owner. They had to do it I suppose; there was no way they were going to get the stench of Fetterman's rotting body out of the floors and walls." "What was his name?" Singh said focusing intently on Finch." "Whose name?" Finch asked. "The name of the first person who died. The one they had to rebuild his apartment to get rid of the smell of decomposition," Singh said trying to control his breathing and remain calm. "Oh, the ex-soldier in 69'? That was Fetterman, Lucius Fetterman. I thought I said his name earlier when I started this story." "Might have slipped your mind," Singh said. "Can I ask you a question Mark?" "Depends on what kind of answer you want," he said. "Your best guess," Singh said. "What do you think it was that you ran across in that apartment in 1971?" "I don't have to guess about that," Finch said. "I've been trying to figure it out since before those strokes stopped in late 73'. What I really think it was, was a Borok' Phai. I think one of them started feeding on those poor sorry sons of bitches who were wandering around in the aether without a clue. I think it somehow absorbed enough of them that it managed to take an almost human shape in the aether. Maybe it got enough of who they were along with their lives to boost its intelligence higher than the others of its kind. Either way when we went after it I think we might have scared it away. Ever since then I've kept my ears open for anything that might be that thing come back, but I haven't heard a peep. Hell maybe it died. If it did, all I have to say about it is that its a good damned riddance to it." Mark looked down at his watch. "That went a little longer than I thought it might. They're still serving lunch until 1330, if you want to grab some grub with me. Not the greatest food I've ever had, but it'll do." "I don't think we can Mark," Pantra said and Singh could tell that she was not just making an excuse; she genuinely would have preferred to stay if they could. "We're tied up in an operation right now and we had to beg and borrow the time to come see you from something else that's going to be screaming over it when we get back." "It's that thing in Olympia isn't it? I thought that smelled like an FRT operation when the news first broke. That story about the toxic dump in between the houses was almost exactly what you would choose if you needed to get most people to want to leave in a hurry without a fuss." "Thing is they actually did do some dumping there in the thirties. I talked to an old timer who told me that they stopped doing that later. It was cheaper to just send it right into the river. So what is it anyway? What's really over in Olympia?" Before Singh could say anything Pantra blurted out. "It's a Grove, Mark." Finch's eyes widened and he leaned back against his chair. "Well I will be dipped in shit. An actual Grove? In Stafford? Who'd have ever thunk it?" he said, awe at the thought radiating in his tone. Pantra looked over at Singh. "Don't worry Armin. Mike's clearance is still active. He may be young and inexperienced, but he can keep his mouth shut." "Now who's telling tales out of school sweetie?" Mike answered and then looked over at Singh. "So what was it? A revenant?" he asked. "It's an Arath' Mahar," Singh said quietly. "Christ on a crutch. That's heap big mojo there. I'm glad it's your baby and not mine. I don't think I would have wanted that hanging over my head. You're a better man than I, Gunga Din." Singh started to get up but Finch waved him down. "Pantra can you do me a favour?" he asked. "Probably, what do you have in mind?" she asked. Finch reached over to the edge of the table and nudged the call button. "That damn thing is broke, either that or the nurse at the station is tied up and forgot to come here to get my lunch order. I was wondering if you could slip in there and stick a post-it on her station for me." "Sure," Pantra said. "It'll take a couple of minutes though. We have time Armin?" Singh nodded that they did and while Finch quickly scribbled the note Singh unlocked and cracked the door enough for Pantra to slip out. "When she was gone, Finch reached under the table and held up the disconnected cord to his call button."I pulled it out while you two were messing with the door," he said. "It'll take her about ten minutes or so to get there and time it right enough so that no one sees her drop off the note. That gives us a little time." He looked at Singh for a moment before saying it. "So how long have you loved her Armin?" he asked. "Don't bother to say you don't. It's clear for anyone to see if they know what they're looking for." "It doesn't matter," Singh said not bothering to deny what the older man said. "How could you tell?" "Because I've loved her since 1962, and I see in your face what I see when I look in the mirror every day. She's easy to love, but she's not for us." "I know that," Singh says, "But I can't help doing it all the same." "I understand that too," Finch said to him, "The things we share with each other, things that no one else can share, could even understand. They're too big. They swallow everything. If you can't love someone after passing through that with them, then you don't have any love in you." "When I met Clarice, I knew I loved Pantra. Clarice knew it too. She also knew it was pure and because it was pure it never made her feel threatened. She told me once that sitting between the love that Pantra and I shared was like curling up between two fires and never feeling cold again. I don't know what it was that I did that was good enough for God to send a woman like Clarice to me, but I thank him for it every day. And I thank him for Pantra as well." "When Clarice passed away ten years ago, I couldn't have made it this long without her if I hadn't had Pantra still with me. She's been my friend, my love and like my daughter now for almost fifty-five years. I've spent more of my life with her than without her, but I'm only a part of her life and she's all I have left of mine. I think you understand that better than most ever will Armin." Singh nodded sombrely in agreement. "So I hope you understand when I tell you this. Let her go Armin. You can love her and she'll love you back, but it can't be any more than what it is now. She knows that. I see her fly in her looking the same as the day I first met her and I see you looking at her the way I did when I was in your shoes and I know if you can't let it sink down into your soul that this is it, then it's going to tear you apart. We all love her, every one that's ever been part of her the way we are, but we're not for her to love like that." "What if I can't stop?" Singh said to him and speaking the words he didn't need to explain them to someone like Mark Finch. "You'll stop because you have to," Mark said to him. "And if you're lucky, if God is kind to you, he'll send you someone like my Clarice and if he does, hold on to her, because she'll be the balance that you'll need to keep your head above the water. Clarice said she was the one between the fires but she was wrong in the end. I was the one between the fires not her." "She'll love you Armin, but that's all she ever can do. She can't be with you because she goes on and no matter what we want we just can't. Don't make her try. It'll just burn you and when it does it will take her with you." "I don't think I can," Singh said, "but I suppose I'll have to try." "That'll have to be good enough then," Finch said to him. The door creaked and shifted slightly and a moment later Pantra dropped her shimmer and landed on the table. "She sees the note Mark; I gave her a good flick on the ear to make sure of it. She's coming this way now so we probably should get going." "Don't stay away so long next time sweetie," he said to her, "You coming here is the highlight of my day." "Don't I know it," she said with an impish grin as she dropped her concealment and vanished into her shimmer. "You come back here again son," he said to Singh. "It's not often that folks like us can speak openly about some things. It's a good thing to have an ear that you don't have to hide things from. Doors open if you want to walk through it." "I'll remember that," Singh said reaching for his cane. "Mind if I give you some advice about this whole thing before you go?" Finch asked. Singh nodded and paused to listen. "I don't know if what you're looking at and what I ran into is the same thing, but don't fixate on the idea. Don't let it put blinders on you, thinking you know what's what. Look at the small things and remember it's the small parts that you have to focus on when you are fitting it together Armin, you get those small things to fit together right and the big picture takes care of itself." ---------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 2117 "Thanks to what Detective Finch related to us I was certain that there was a connection between the Borok' Phai that he had encountered in that apartment in 1971 and the rise in the missing persons and when he told me that Lucius Fetterman was the name of the first victim I was starting to grasp the outlines of what that connection was." "When he related to me that his investigation determined that each of the victims had been drained of their life energy I thought of the special cases. They too were also drained of life energy. Doctor Gregor did not know to look for that when he did his investigations, but once I became involved I did." "Although the special cases did not seem to be the same as the wave of stroke victims in the early seventies they were the result of the same assault. It was just that in the case of the stroke victims, losing all of their life energy in the way that it was extracted, resulted in a death that manifested itself to the medical eye as stroke. But its complete absence before death occurred was a clue by itself. To someone who knew to look for a mystic connection it was a very clear indicator that something was different about these deaths. The removal of the life energy within them clearly preceding their deaths marked them as deliberate assaults to an eye that knew to look for things of that nature." "In a normal death from stroke, even if the life energy has departed there are still residual amounts that gradually fade and vanish. This is to be expected since, for a brief time, life does still continue on a cellular level even as the whole that those cells are part of has died. This activity is short lived but it is there and as long as it is, that reserve of life energy is not completely emptied. It gradually ceases and then drains away but it is not emptied all at once. With these stroke victims it was." "I think that Finch was closer than he thought to catching who he was searching for. I think that when he fought him and then led the efforts to search in the aether that his efforts alarmed this Borok' phai and he responded by changing his methods of feeding. When Finch told me that the first stroke victim was Lucius Fetterman I knew that it couldn't be just a coincidence." "So if he is dead how do we know this is the same Fetterman?" she asked, "It's not a common name but it could be coincidence." "Finch told me he thought that this may be a Borok' phai that had absorbed something more from his victims than just their lives. He suspected that this creature had reached some kind of tipping point when so many began appearing unaware and unprotected seeking truth in the aether. With an increased food supply of those with not only an affinity for magic, but higher brain functions as well, Finch suspected that this was a mutation of sorts." "As my investigation progressed though I began to doubt that possibility. Even if a Borok' phai had somehow evolved into a more dangerous version of this beast it still did not explain why it switched its methods from directly assaulting and killing its victims to concealing that it was doing so. That indicates not only intelligence but also understanding of its surroundings." "Once it became aware that it was detected and that it was being hunted it moved to conceal its existence again by cutting off the trail that was leading to it. I do not think even an evolved Borok' phai could have adapted so swiftly in so short a time even with borrowing from his victims. I came to suspect that it was not a Borok' phai who had evolved but a human that had adopted the characteristics of a Borok' phai instead." "My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when I looked deeper into the background of Lucius Fetterman. He first appeared on the streets of Stafford in the late 1970's. At that time he was a small time street corner pimp and he passed unnoticed amongst his peers. It wasn't until the early 1980's that Stafford police began noticing and arresting streetwalkers who were later linked to a new pimp; even then he was a reclusive fellow and it seems that he was almost fanatic about keeping in the background and remaining unseen and unnoticed." "The slow rise in missing persons began unnoticed in 1974, the same time that Fetterman's girls first made their appearance, but since the missing persons were male and these new prostitutes of Fetterman's were obviously anything but male, there was never a connection made between the two." "Fetterman marked himself from the beginning as someone who behaved himself and kept a low profile, just as he does now. Unlike now though, in the late 70s and early 80's he was paid the same amount of attention to by vice as the other pimps that operated in the city were. Today there is a sort of d?tente officially between Fetterman's operation and the Stafford police department. But that did not come about right away." "Fetterman it seems was unhappy with even the amount of attention that he received from the vice department of the Stafford P.D. and in the early 90's he did something about it. He abruptly dropped off of the radar of Stafford Vice and he did it by moving his operations from the street level and random contact to how he operates now. He insulates himself by having his girls meet via pre-arranged appointment. Each of the girls couching the assignation in such a way as to leave just enough gray area in the encounter. The girls in such scenarios can claim that they are acting on their own and while selling sex is against the law, giving it away is not." "The payments are filtered and this further insulates him with various layers that keep what the girls do, what the John's do, and where the money comes and what it is for far away from him. Vice wasn't fooled but proving the case becomes that much harder it becomes more troublesome for them to pursue him than it is to snatch the more obvious examples off of the street. With his girls not in sight and hearing no other complaints, he became almost not worth vice's effort since there were other more serious claims for their attention." "The only thing that upset this arrangement was an incident that was directly connected to one of Fetterman's girls. That incident put him firmly back on the radar of Stafford P.D., but it wasn't vice that was paying him attention, but homicide. In 2003, for no apparent reason, one of his girls, after pleasuring her client turned on him and savaged him. She escaped after she killed the man and then seemingly without a reason for doing so, she began to hunt for and kill other men." "Each of the men it seems were clients of hers, through Fetterman. Without knowing why this woman had decided to turn on and kill each man on her client list. Fetterman contacted the department and offered his full cooperation before they even visited him. He provided a full accounting of who she had contact with and he seemed almost eager to not protect her. Homicide chose to stop her body count by first by taking those still living into protective custody." "Then they leaked the information that one of the men had slipped free and was hiding from the police as well. It was a trap meant to bait the woman into seeking him and draw her out. They succeeded in luring her out, but they were unable to take her into custody. One of the officers involved in the trap sprang it early and killed her. With the suspect dead and no means to question her the department turned back to Fetterman again for explanations. Fetterman managed to satisfy their questions, but the cost was that he went dark again." "Two years later Fetterman reappeared and resumed his former arrangements with no interference from the department. That is also when his girls began to appear identified by the winding rose tattoo that now marks all those he claims. Sometime within those two years Fetterman appears to have made some sort of peace with the department and ever since he has operated quietly with only his lambs having a record of any type." "I think that what happened to Fetterman was what started to happen to Barnes. He entered the aether and while he was there the Borok' phai found him unguarded and they started to attack his lifeline. The ambient magical energy was still very low then and it is unlikely that he may have been able to successfully raise a protective ward such as Barnes did." "Even if he could have done so there was another problem that Barnes did not have. Fetterman did not have access to the same levels of information that Barnes was able to gather. Even if Fetterman were able to summon enough power to shield himself from the Borok' phai he had little opportunity to find out what he needed to know to do so before he died." "I think that Fetterman's life line was severed and without it he could not find his way back to his body. With no connection to the spirit, the body died of a stroke in his absence. I think that the man that Fetterman was before this, must have been very capable, but cut off and severed body and soul he started to expire while lost in the aether. He was not a man to go quietly I think, he had just returned from a gruelling experience and he would not hesitate to seize any opportunity for survival." "Perhaps, at first he reached out to others like him. Trying to enlist their help to find his way back before fading away, but at some point that changed and he seized on imitating those that had destroyed his connection with himself. It may have been something he chose as a last resort but he shifted to preying on whomever he could find there, taking their lives to sustain his own." "He accessed them through their fleeting contact with the aether that they had when they were dreaming while under the influence of black lotus. This was the part that it took us time to understand. Because he was taking all of their life all at once, their physical form remained unchanged and the victim appeared to have suffered a nocturnal stroke." "When Finch's associates began to appear in the aether looking for him Fetterman began looking for another way to feed. He wasn't desperate now like he was before so he had time to see if there was indeed another way to preserve his existence that drew less attention to himself." "I think that the method he later adopted was also an accidental discovery. I think that he was experimenting with draining only a specific portion of his victim's life force. He may have thought that if he did that then since there would be no more deaths, that Finch's associates would think he moved on or that they might have been mistaken and cease to look for him. I don't think he expected that when he concentrated on draining only the animus from a victim that it would have the result that it did. I think that at first he was taking it bit by bit, like a vampire bat from livestock, rather than all at once and as he did so, without knowing it would happen, he spurred the matching physical changes in his victims when their animus was first drained and then finally depleted entirely." "But once he had realized what he had done and made the connection to its potential he didn't hesitate to make full use of it. And this next part I am afraid, Darcy very much concerns you." "Okay. Tell me. I think I'm following you so far," she said to him. Her hands were trembling slightly as she answered and Singh hoped that she was strong enough to bear what he had to tell her next. He watched Jacen move closer to her, if she was unable to bear his words then he needed to get the crystal off of her and distract La Fleur as quickly as possible. "Somehow Fetterman realized that once one of his victims were completely drained of animus their form did more than just change to match the only life energy remaining within them. Since anima was all that sustained them now, his victims form in the material world shifted to match the function that the anima embodied in them; they became the female remnants of who they had been before, because that was all that remained to guide who they were." "At the same time having that part of them ripped away from them left a gaping loss in its place. A loss in his victims turned to hunger. Hunger that spurred them to try to replace on their own, by taking it away from those who possessed it still. How this first happened I do not know and how Fetterman became aware that they were doing this I do not know either; but become aware of it he did." "It may have been yet another accident. He may have visited one that he had not finished feeding on and found that part of the animus within her had been replaced and when he took it for himself he was able to taste it and see that it was not something that belonged to his victim but to hers. That may have been as little as was needed for him to adopt this change in his feeding habits." "However it happened, that is when the panderer Lucius Fetterman suddenly appeared in Stafford and each of his girls from that day to now have served the same function for him. The same function you serve for him when you are Fleur. You, Darcy and all of his other girls are his harvesters. All of you visit your clients, clients that he arranges for you to meet with. You are pleasing to the eye, you do what they desire without question or complaint and you never attempt to steal from them except that you do; you all do." "Every time you are with a client as you satisfy their desires you slake your own. You consume part of their animus and hold it inside of yourself. You keep it safe until Fetterman visits you. Each time you come in contact with him, if anyone were to see they would see nothing more than a whore turning over the days take to her pimp. They would see him reward his girl with a kiss before sending her off again and they would completely miss the fact that the money you hand over is nothing more than a distraction. A cover for when he collects what he truly values; the animus that you have harvested for him." Darcy was shaking now, her eyes had widened fearfully and Singh knew that he had to finish soon and give her space to find her footing before she fell into the abyss and he lost her. "This is not speculation I am afraid. When Fleur is with Jacen she does what I have just told you, he has confirmed this to us. But even as you gather more to replace what you have had stolen from you it is still never enough. There is a hunger growing inside of you and each time you try to quench it, all you do is cause it to grow. Eventually it grows beyond control and that is when Fetterman moves to stop it from growing any further." Singh stopped speaking for a moment and fixed Darcy with a steady gaze. "I want you to do something for me Darcy," he said to her. Darcy didn't answer; she waited instead for him to say what it was that he wanted her to do. "I want you to look a Jacen now. But I don't want you to dwell on what he looks like. I want you to let your sight rest and rove over what it is that he is. When you see it we will know." Darcy didn't know what to make of what Singh was telling her to do but she was willing to try. She let her eyes rest on Jacen and made a conscious effort not to think of anything except the image of the satyr that was the focus of her attention. The minutes crawled by. Her watching him and the rest of them watching her. Singh began to wonder if this had been a good idea when she suddenly stiffened and a faint growl issued from her throat. It wasn't very audible. It was more a hint of what was coming to the fore rather than what was here already. The moment it happened he stood up and broke her line of sight from where she was sitting and where Jacen was sitting on the other side of the room. "Darcy," he said to her, not wanting to reach out and touch her just yet. "Darcy come back to us," he insisted. Darcy blinked several times and a deep shudder went through her frame. She looked up at Singh towering over her. "What happened?" she asked, "Why did I do that?" "What did you see?" Singh asked her, not bothering to answer her questions yet. "Get control of yourself if you can and tell us what it was that you saw when you concentrated on Jacen." "Nothing at first," she said slowly. "And then it was there. It was so bright I couldn't take my eyes off of it and the more I looked at it the more I wanted it. The more I needed it," her eyes followed Singh as he withdrew a few paces and sat down in his seat again. Now that she was no longer focused on what she had seen in Jacen it was safe for him to move. "What you saw was the embodiment of the animus that is in every living being. In Jacen that embodiment is higher than it would be for someone like me since he is mostly animus as dryads are mostly anima. How did you feel when you saw so much concentrated animus in front of you?" he asked. "I felt so hungry," she said not believing the words that were leaving her lips. "I didn't see a male, I saw something that was there for me to consume and I wanted to devour it. I still want to. I feel it right now Singh. What is making me feel like that?" "That is the hunger that is waiting inside of you. When I asked you to look on Jacen for a brief moment you connected with what is inside of you and you felt the way that Fleur is beginning to feel when she is in control." "What is it doing to me?" she asked, "What does the hunger you are talking about mean for me? If I'm still changing then how long can I last? How can I stop it?" "Harvesters do not last long Darcy. Very few of them last more than a year and a half to two years. The hunger drives you to seek what you desire and what he needs; you and those like you do the work of gathering this for him, but there is one other thing that you are also doing. As you gather for him the animus of those you are with, you make them targets for Fetterman as well." "As you strip away this part of them layer by layer. As you weaken that part of them that makes them who they are. They eventually reach a point that they can no longer maintain a stable level of animus. And once their natural level of animus begins to fall below what it can ever restore; that is when Fetterman visits them and finishes what his girls begin. Each meal you make of your clients brings them step by step closer to joining you as a fellow harvester for Fetterman and Fetterman always needs new harvesters. He needs them because of what happens with the old ones." "What happens to them? What is going to happen to me? I need you to just tell me," she asked her voice trembling and her lips white with the stress of holding them tight together. "The aether does not like disorder," he said slowly. "Disorder makes it respond and how it responds is to try to shift the disorder into familiar patterns. To bring the order it understands from the chaos. That is what happened with Arath' Mahar Selicia and that is what is happening to you." "What Fetterman did to her marked her in the same way that it has marked you, but he didn't expect her to get away from him. Because he didn't expect that she was able to resist him, even drive him away; it interrupted his intentions for her. The pattern in the aether that she had begun to drop into was channelled toward another destination. How she managed to do what she did in that moment gave the aether the means to shift her course from the one he intended for her, to one she took by accident in her own desperation." "The aether took what she did there and decided that she should be a dryad. Her actions as I told you and detective Travers before, matched her form to the function based on what it was she was doing. Moment by moment, that is what it is doing to you and every other victim that Fetterman has claimed." "What is it doing? What is it making me into?" she asked. "Your life force, except for the tiny seed that is truly you, is composed entirely of anima Darcy and in the aether that identifies you as female, there is nothing in you to contradict that anymore. What your memories and origin are no longer matters. Your activities are those of one who drains the animus of the men that you encounter. Men that come to you drawn by your sexuality. That lure of being with you that serves as your bait. You take them in this fashion and consume them to feed your own hunger." "It does not matter that what you have taken from them is taken in turn from you. The hunger inside you grows with each contact. It cannot help but do that, since what you have consumed is only there a short time and that is not enough to satisfy that hunger. What Fetterman takes from you only slows what you are becoming. The aether recognizes the form you conform to and it only has one function for what it recognizes. Only one role that fits the actions that you are taking; that of a succubae. An eater of animus. That is what you will become unless we can stop it." "How can you say you can stop it?" she shouted at him. "What can you possibly do to stop it short of just killing me?" Darcy froze and looked at Singh in horror. "That's what happened to Mitch isn't it? You got to him too late and you had to kill him didn't you?" "Detective Travers was already dead when we found her. We found her as one of Doctor Gregor's special cases. What we found we killed, but only in the sense that we did what was necessary to keep her from returning in the way what was in his grave was trying to return as. There was never any chance of preventing it for her; but there is a chance for you still. That is why we had to find you now, before you go over the brink and are lost in it." Singh leaned forward and took her trembling hands in his own. "Look at me Darcy," he said. "There was no chance to save Travers, if there were any way we could have she would be here with you now, but there is a slim chance left to save you and perhaps some of the other lambs as well; but we need you to make it possible." "Without your help Fetterman will leave Stafford. He will leave all of you behind in alleys and he will disappear. He will go to another place, far from here and when he feels safe, he will start to do there what he has done here. And in that place wherever it is, there will be lambs and missing men and special cases in the morgue and they will remain unnoticed until someone makes the same connections that we have here. But I don't think that needs to happen. I think that you are strong enough still so that won't happen. And that strength is the one chance you have. The only chance we have." Singh turned her arm over to show the winding rose marking on her inner arm. "This is one of the keys Darcy. Fetterman uses this to serve his purpose, but we can use it as well against him." "What can that do? It's a tattoo; it's just a brand that says he owns me," She asked her voice shaking as she raised her other hand to wipe away tears of fear. "Darcy," Singh said running his fingers over the marking, "This was never a tattoo. It's a radiation badge. It's how Fetterman knows when you are close to tipping over and becoming full succubae. It's his warning system that lets him know that he needs to destroy you before you can break free and are able to destroy him. This is not a brand that says he owns you; it's a ticking clock counting down to his own demise. And every time he sees it he knows that if the counter ever hits zero that it will be too late for him. That is a weapon that we can use against him." "How can it be a weapon? How can me becoming a monster help save me?" she demanded. "It may not look like it but there is a way. A monster is sometimes needed to fight a monster, but you have to first know where the monsters are and when. And that has everything to do with Dr. Gregor's special cases," he said. "It has to do with the surveillance we placed on every girl Fetterman has and what they found out while we tracked their every move." "How could that help at all?" she said. "All that tells you is when you need to kill me." "It helps much more than you think," he said. "Once we identified someone as belonging to Fetterman as I said, they were kept under constant surveillance. We tracked them to clients, we tracked them to where he kept them while they were not on assignment and we watched whenever Fetterman himself came in contact with them. And we tracked them when they became dangerous to him. Because we did that he gave us a hint about what it meant when a new special case appeared. He showed us what he was afraid of." "Why would he ever be afraid of a lamb? Why would he be afraid of me?" "The lambs were the low hanging fruit; they were easy to find. It almost seemed that he put them out so that they could be found, or at least it seemed so to us," Singh said. "We didn't realize at the time that was exactly what he was doing. He wanted them tracked for his own reasons. We just didn't know what those reasons were." "You keep saying us?" Darcy asked. "When you say us who is it that you are talking about? Who did you have tracking them?" "Friends," Singh said. "The team that Pantra assembled for this task." Pantra let out a shrill whistle that caused Darcy to turn and face her when she did it. Behind her, in response to the summons a dozen others of her kind flew into the room with a thrum of beating wings and hovered there just behind her. "Every Grove is not just the dryads and the satyr's that reside there; it is also the other fae that call it home. Pantra arranged for a new hive of pixies to join Phar' Naqua. To bring it into greater balance and to lend us some much needed assistance in that respect. Her team, the pixies that did the actual tracking was vital to coming as far as we have and it was through them that we were able to first start identifying the ones that were not entered into the system at all. The ones that, whoever had an interest in making certain Fetterman operated with as little interference at all, were just ignored and turned loose without even being entered into the system The ones like you before you became a lamb." "Pantra's fellow pixies were ideal for maintaining the level of surveillance that we required and since they are not part of the Stafford police their presence passed unnoticed by anyone in the department," Singh answered. "The Grove with their ability to link into a widespread connective link provided the ones who relocated here with a secure means of communication." "Their small size, their ability to move swiftly and remain unseen made them ideal for a task of this nature. It was through them that we were able to identify the girls that made up his stable. And once we identified them all we started to track them every moment of every day. And because of that attention, when he made a lamb into a special case, we were watching the entire time." "Why did you have to follow a lamb to figure that out? Why didn't you just follow Fetterman? He's the one that calls the shots, so why not focus on him?" Darcy asked "Fetterman was under as complete an observation as we could manage, but even so there were times that he seemed to slip away and we would reacquire him later somewhere else without any idea how he managed to get away from his tail. It was maddening until we realized that every time it was because he slipped back into the aether and when he vanished it was for a reason. The reason was just not so easily apparent." "And what was the reason?" Darcy demanded. "A lamb was becoming a lioness. A shadow eating lioness," Singh said. "And we almost missed it." ----------------------------------- Fourth Precinct, Stafford: Day 168, 1622 hours Jella was bored. The lamb that she was following had been picked up over three hours before and had been cooling her heels in lockup since she had been brought in and booked. At first it had been interesting doing this. When sister Pantra had asked the hive for help with this problem she had been one of the first ones to jump at the chance for something different to do. Something that promised a little excitement to go with the heaping helping of possible danger that doing this gave her. Excitement, danger; how could she resist? And it had been exciting at first. Flitting overhead without being seen by anyone was always a blast as far as she was concerned. The game of tag that she played with her target was just the challenge she was looking for and keeping an eye on her when she met with her johns was its own brand of titillating in its own way; but over and over each day it started to fall into a quality of sameness and she started to wonder just what it was that she was really doing. Her shimmer allowed her to keep within eyesight of her target without being seen. The girl she was tracking was a strawberry blonde who went by the professional name of Heather Amaden. Jella had laughed herself incapable of moving when she first was given the name of her target and it had taken her a good twenty minutes to work it out of her system afterward. Amaden was Scots Gaelic and when you put it into English it meant Heather the Fool and boy did she live up to her name when she was working. The men who wanted her attentions wanted a beautiful face and a lovely body; but they didn't want a brain anywhere closer to her than was needed to keep her heart beating and let her respond when they told her what to do. From Jella's standpoint that told her nothing good about them. They might think they were being dominant, but all she saw was a man that was so weak mentally that he needed the flesh and blood equivalent to a blow up doll to satisfy his desires. She figured there was some major compensation going on with these guys and wondered if there was a way to work what incidental information she was gathering about them while she was doing this into her next psychology paper. Heather had been getting pulled in more often the last two weeks. And what was more interesting was how her clients had changed as well. Before she had been identified as a lamb she had been strictly on the high end of the operation. That had ended not long ago. Now Heather was no longer meeting with her John's in the circumspect manner that most of his girls used; she was meeting them openly and she was getting picked up when she did so. The class of John had changed as well. The ones she had met before were high rollers who paid a thousand or more for the night, but these latest ones didn't look like they had ever seen that amound of money in their lives. When Jella had first been assigned as part of her tracking team two months ago she had been routinely ignored when she was picked up, but that changed about a week later. For some reason that none of them could figure out she seemed to have broken the horizon on Stafford vice's radar and now that she had they started hauling her in regularly. At first it was once every other week or so, then once a week; now it was almost daily and the thing Jella couldn't figure out was that she had done nothing to warrant the extra attention she received. The clients that she got busted with weren't even her regulars; they were one offs that came through the same system as her regulars. It wasn't like she was just walking out on the street trolling. The outer door to lock up buzzed and a female officer entered lockup and walked down to the cell that Heather was in. She stopped in front of it, reached for her key and started to turn the lock. "Get your ass in gear Heather," she said, "Your ride is here." Unlike the other working girls in the can with her, Heather never sassed the guards back and this time was no different. All she did was stand up from the steel bench that was bolted to the concrete floor and walk over to the door and wait quietly for the door to open. She stepped out and waited patiently for the officer to close the door again and then walked in front of her out of the holding area. Jella easily dipped down and passed through before it closed again and she hung back far enough that no one would hear the sound of her wings. When Heather stopped at the out processing window Jella zipped past and perched on top of an exit sign so she could continue to watch silently. Jella had the routine pretty much down by now. The officer behind the window verified that it was Heather being cut loose and then she fished out of the bin the big envelope containing her personal effects that had been taken from her when she was booked. Heather checked them off and signed the paperwork acknowledging that her property had been returned to her and then she was escorted out of the room and taken to the next room to be released. Routine ceased to be anything of the sort when she saw who was picking Heather up. She keyed her headset and whispered urgently into it. "Gatehouse control, this is Jella." "Go Jella," came the response from Control over her earphones. "Control, I'm looking at Shadow and he doesn't have one," Jella reported. "Verify that. Do you see Kestrel anywhere?" Control demanded. "No, Shadow is single," she said. "Jella, keep eyes on your peanut and report on Shadow for now. We're checking with Kestrel and a replacement shadow is being sent to meet you," Control said immediately. "Understood Control," Jella whispered and broke the connection. There was something very wrong with this. Kestrel was damned good at following a target and remaining unseen while she was doing it. She routinely played catch me if you can with hawks and she always won; that's how she had gotten her name and more importantly it was why she was one of the ones trailing the target they had given the code name Shadow to and not Jella. She watched the two of them head to the exit and just as they reached the door Jella kicked off of the sign and followed them out. She was getting good at timing her exits. What she was going for most times was to pass out of the door a hair or two before it closed; that way she didn't get too close and they didn't get out of sight and weren't likely to hear her wings. She thought that she might not make it this time and would have to catch it on the backswing but she managed to slip out. She scanned quickly right to left and saw the two of them moving down the street on foot and she climbed for altitude. She kicked against the air currents and within a pair of heartbeats was directly overhead and almost impossible to see even without a shimmer to cover her. "Jella do you still have eyes on your peanut and Shadow?" Control asked. "Yes," Jella confirmed. "Watch Shadow closely, Kestrel said he just disappeared," Control said. "She's going to be impossible now. She won't be able to live it down," Jella quipped as she dodged a low flying pigeon. "You better believe it, she's already mad enough to chew nails and spit tacks," Control answered. "I'm on them both Control, Jella out," she said and started swooping after the two of them. While Control was talking with her the pair of them had stopped in front of a dry cleaner for a few minutes. Jella wished she could get close enough to hear what they were saying but if she did that there was no place to land and no way to cover up the sound of her wings as she hovered. She'd have to stick with what she saw and hope that gatehouse had some other way to make up for it. She looped over a power line and banked left around the corner the two of them had turned less than half a second ahead of her. "Holy shit!" she blurted and keyed her mike. "Gatehouse control, shadow is gone, he stepped around the corner and he is just gone," Jella blurted into the mike. "Are you sure he didn't spot you?" Control asked her. "Control, I'm ninety meters up. I couldn't even spot me from the ground and I was literally half a second behind them. I don't know how he did it, but he's gone," she said. "Do you still have eyes on your peanut?" Control asked. "Yes, I see my peanut," she affirmed. "Stay with your peanut then and watch out for Shadow to return. Gatehouse control out." Jella grumbled to herself. What the hell did they think she was going to do, take a damned vacation? She arrowed in closer and started flitting from post to pole closer to the ground. That way she could have a chance to listen in just in case Heather said anything without the noise of her wings to give her away. Heather passed underneath her, Jella couldn't tell what it was she was saying but she was talking with someone. She wasn't speaking very loudly, but she was definitely one half of a conversation. Jella looked at her trying to see if there was a Bluetooth in her ear and she was just on the phone, but she couldn't see anything like that. She was just talking in a low voice that you could barely hear. "Gatehouse control, this is Jella. Something weird is going on with my peanut." "Define weird, Jella?" they asked. "She's having a conversation. She's not on the phone and there's nobody there. I don't know what she's doing," Jella reported to them. "Try to get as close to her as you can. See if you can hear whatever it is that she is saying, but whatever you do, don't lose her," Control said in her ear. "Understood Control," she said and flitted ahead to a crossing light only a few feet over where she would pass underneath. Heather never did this when she was released. Usually she would have flagged a cab by now and headed back to Little Brooklyn, but this time she stayed on foot the entire time and that muttering sound that she was making was completely out of character as well. She was talking with someone but Jella couldn't figure out who and Heather was speaking too low for Jella to make out what it was that she was saying. Jella played leapfrog with her as Heather kept walking toward the center of town. She'd already walked blocks more than Jella had seen her walk in the entire time she'd been part of the team tracking her. She crossed the road by the Tire King on fourth and Main and started going east toward a set of six story apartment buildings. There was a lot of boarded up first floor businesses in this part of town and Jella definitely didn't like the look of what she was seeing. Until recently Heather was a high class escort. She kept a low profile and even with the drop in client quality she had demonstrated recently she didn't belong here in this neighborhood that was only a hop, skip and a jump from the train yard. This was the part of town you went to for a three dollar blowjob from a wrung out crackhead. Her being here was a picture really didn't fit together at all. Jella pulled up and watched as Heather stepped over a heap of garbage that spilled from an overturned trash can and daintily walked into the alley between the apartments and an abandoned furniture store. She kicked into the slipstream and glided above her until she stopped walking behind a dumpster and started getting undressed. Jella dropped down on the overhanging ledge that was part of the furniture store's roof and looked down into the dark alleyway below. Heather was now down to her underwear and as she watched she stepped out of those and put them in the plastic shopping bag that was on the dumpster that blocked anyone from seeing her from the street. "What the hell are you doing Heather?" she whispered to herself. When Heather finished taking every last thing she had on her body off she tied it together in the bag and threw it in the open dumpster. She walked naked away from it until she had gone halfway down the alleyway and then she leaned over to pick up another bag and started pulling clothing out of it. Was she running? Jella asked herself. Was that what she was doing? It would explain her tossing what she was wearing and what she had on her, but if she was running why didn't she keep the money? She'd need that. A breeze swirled down the alleyway and the rank stink of it made Jella wrinkle her nose in disgust, but what surprised her was that part of the smell was coming from the reeking rags that Heather was pulling over her body to cover herself. How can she stand it? Jella asked herself. There had to be a better way for her to disappear than wearing something a Billy goat would turn its nose up at. Jella froze. Shadow was back and this time she had her eyes on the scene the whole time. There was no way he could have approached Heather without her seeing him but somehow he had. He came from out of the aether she thought, that's the only way that he could have done what I just saw him do. She thought. This was a lot more important than she had expected it to be. Shadow had been ditching them without apparently being aware he was being followed almost as soon as tracking him began. How could he have a connection to the aether? Jella asked herself. From what they knew of him, he was just an ordinary man who ran the Obsidian Rose. He had never shown any hint that he could do something like this before, or had he? Jella thought back and realized that all of the times that he had slipped from his shadow were explained if he could do this. They were tracking a man, but if he was more than that then it wasn't any surprise when he did something that they weren't prepared for. Control was going to want to know every detail of what she was seeing. She watched them intently. She didn't even dare to key her mike. After she was finished observing him, when Heather and he parted ways, then she could give them a report, but right now it was more important to observe and remember everything that she saw. He reached for Heather and pulled her closer to him. As he did so she tilted her face up to his without any sign of resistance and gave him a slow dreamy smile. He leaned in and their lips met. He wasn't kissing her though, it may have looked like it but that wasn't what it was. As Jella watched she was horrified to see that he was draining her. Their lips were barely touching but there was something that was connecting the two of them; the more that shadow took the more solid he seemed to become and the more frail she became in turn. It couldn't have lasted more than a minute, but Jella thought that it took forever. Heather was falling in on herself; her body was almost deflating right in front of her, collapsing into a caricature. The more he took, the less of her was there to take until it ended and he released her to fall with a faint thump to the nasty pavement of the alleyway. Shadow didn't spare Heather a second glance; he turned away from her and walked down the way she had come in. As he passed at the dumpster that blocked part of the alley, he reached in and fished out the shopping bag she'd dropped in and in moments he was gone around the corner. Jella dropped down from the roof overhang and hovered over what was left of Heather; there was almost no resemblance now between the woman who had entered the alley and the ancient derelict that lay on the pavement in stinking clothes now. She was still breathing, but it was faint and strained. Each hitching breath coming slower than the last, her eyes were losing their shine and becoming nothing more than a pair of dull marbles already looking at Jella with a fixed, staring, half lidded appearance. While Jella watched the winding rose marking on her right arm faded out of sight and she wheezed one last time and was still. Jella panicked. She turned and flew as high as she could to get away from her. She almost clipped a cruising hawk before she got control of herself and looked back down into the shadow of the alleyway in the distance. Things had just gotten entirely too real and she had no idea just what it was that she had just seen. "Gatehouse...Shadow just killed my peanut," she said forcing the words over her very dry tongue. -------------------------------- Gatehouse of the Grove, Phar' Naqua: Day 444, 2205 "That was the first time that we witnessed how Fetterman disposed of a lamb that was on the verge of becoming a danger to him; it was not the last. With no way to stop him and not knowing where you were we did the only thing that we could do. We maintained eyes on all of his girls, we followed him when we could and whenever we located a new girl we tracked her as well. We gathered every scrap of information about what he was doing and tried to understand what it was that we were seeing and through all of this we looked for you." "When does it happen?" she asked. "When does he come and do...that to them? When is he coming for me?" "We don't know, only that it will be very soon," Singh answered, "That is why it is vital to tell you all of this. You have to know everything we do before we move against Fetterman." "Damn it Singh they're pulling me in almost every day now. I don't have to remember it happening when I see it in your eyes. How long do I have?" she demanded from him. Singh reached for the winding rose on her arm and pointed to the bloom that was spreading out halfway up her inner arm. "You have three petals left Darcy. When the color in the last one is almost full, he will take you to an alley somewhere and once he does he will give you a final kiss," Singh said looking directly in her eyes as he spoke. Darcy jerked her arm away from his hand as if it were a hot iron. "Then don't send me back!" she said. "Get me the hell out of Stafford and put me somewhere where I don't ever see a man again the rest of my life." "That won't stop it from happening Darcy and it won't stop him from finding you," Singh said. "How do you know? Have you even tried?" she demanded. "All you're done is just watch it happen. Why can't I just run?" "You're too far along; change is inevitable at this stage. The only question is how long it will take without you taking another victim for yourself," Singh said to her. "And when that happens there will be no way to find you, you'll slip into the aether and you will be a scourge upon the earth until someone hunts you down and destroys you. You couldn't live with that and you couldn't stop yourself. Eventually you would let all that is left of you die and then there would be nothing left but the monster," Singh told her in words that fell like a descending axe. "And he would find you, the rose is not just his radiation meter and a signal to police that you are to be arrested often, it's how he finds you. He'll slip into the aether and he will track you down and nothing you can do will keep him from finding you. And if he does he will drain you on the spot, far away from us and we will not be able to stop him. He is a creature of the aether now and when we finally figured out that was how he was disappearing, a great deal that we didn't understand suddenly made sense." "What sense could you get from any of that?" What sense? Nonsense that's what you got from it!" she growled. "Nonsense that's going to get me killed or worse." "Darcy we cannot keep him from you. He isn't really here. He's not really in the material world at all. Most of the time when you see him here that is just his image, which is why he couldn't see Selicia when he came for her. He doesn't have eyes here, he watches from the aether. He has to; he has no physical body anymore. The only reason that he found Selicia when he came for her was that when she was running, the rose he marked her with was exposed and he could focus his attention on it and see where she was going. When he needs to do something here he makes himself just solid enough to do what he needs. But doing that is difficult for him and he always retreats back into the aether leaving just enough of an image for people to see what he wants them to see." "And that still does nothing for me," she said. "I can't go into the aether and he can still touch me. How does any of that keep me from being killed by him or becoming a monster?" Singh stood up and walked over to the fire in the hearth. He looked down into the shifting blue flame and for a moment he said nothing. He just stood there with his hands clasped behind him and his head down as if he were grieving, for all Darcy knew that was exactly what he was doing, but the question was what he was grieving for. Was it for her or for what he might have to do? As she watched him she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. Singh's head lifted slightly and she could see him looking back at her over his shoulder as he spoke. He spoke in a low tone but it was clear enough for her to understand what he was telling her. "There is a small window that you have and it's coming soon. That is when we will have but a single chance to strike at him and to save you. It's the only chance that we can see to do both and to not lose it we must be extremely careful." "It sounds like you're already being too careful, you're being so careful that you might miss this chance you keep talking about because you're being careful. What do you have to be careful about that I don't have to be as well?" she said to him angrily. "The next phase, the final phase that we have already begun, needs to involve the Stafford police department. From the moment that happens, the danger that our intentions are going to be exposed rises with each minute. Before now we have concealed what we have uncovered by keeping knowledge of it confined to the Grove and a small number of FRT, but now we must go beyond that," Singh said. "That doesn't make much sense to me," Darcy said. "Stafford P.D. may tolerate Fetterman, but that's all they do. I'm sure there are plenty in vice who would be happy to see him go down, even if they don't know what he is." "If Stafford P.D. knows what we are doing then Belinda Clayton will know what we are doing and we have to ensure that Lt. Clayton doesn't have the slightest inkling of what we are doing or why. We can't allow her to even have the barest hint that things are in any way unusual." "And why can't Clayton know? What does she even have to do with any of this? What makes her any part of why you are putting me at risk?" Darcy demanded. "The moment that Lt. Clayton knows anything then that means that Fetterman knows everything as well. She is as much his creature as Fleur is," Singh said turning away from the fire to face her. "And she is so much more. She is his eyes and his ears and his hands. Whatever he needs to have happen in the Stafford police department if it's in her power she makes it happen for him. Because that's what clever girls do. That's what clever girls are for."