Mercy is for the Just
by
All Previous Disclaimers
Apply
Part Five
Streets of the 4th
Ward
Warehouse District
Pier 14
“What’s that?” said JJ
interestedly.
“Karaoke bars,” mumbled
the brunette agent while she fumbled with her phone.
“Call Lockley,” she added.
JJ nodded and dug out
her
phone while Emily put in a call to Garcia.
In less than ten minutes, they had a whole new list of
places to
check.
“I feel like such an
idiot,” said Emily as they
navigated
through traffic. “Sticking
to clubs that only had drag
acts was probably a good idea back when Coleman’s face wasn’t all over
the
media. Even though
she’s been exposed,
she still needs to fulfill the urge to kill.
Whatever fantasy she’s built up around being a drag
performer isn’t
going to matter, so long as she can find a victim.
She’ll go wherever she can to fill that need, even if it
means
vacating her comfort zone.”
“All right, let’s start
with this one,” said JJ as she punched in an address into the SUV’s GPS
system.
%%%
The sign outside had
once
proclaimed the establishment to be “Joe’s Place” but time and vandalism
had
reduced it to the oddly entitled, “J’s Pace”.
Stepping through the doors was like pushing through a
window of time
back to when bars were thick with the smoke of cigarettes, pipes, and
cigars,
only now the vapor so densely hazing the building wasn’t carcinogenic. It was, however, cold. The glitter of disco balls
competed with the
flash of multicolored strobe lights, laser effects, and the thrumming
beat of
retro music.
A Plexiglas bar ran in a
semi-circle around the room and was echoed by a half-circular stage
that sat
opposite. Brilliantly
glimmering LEDs
outlined several large speakers while on the stage, a group of three
tonally
challenged men attempted to drunkenly shout their way through, “I’m
Your
Boogieman”.
Making their way to the
bar, Kate and Elizabeth dodged skimpily dressed dancers, gyrating
couples, and
the odd business-suited escapee from a cube farm.
The bartender was a young woman with more piercings than
Elizabeth had tattoos. She
smiled at
the women’s approach.
“Getchoo sometin’?” Above the noise, the
bartender’s query sort
of ran together and came out half-drawled, half-shouted.
As she had done many
times
that night, Kate pulled out the police sketch of Michelle Coleman and
placed it
on the bar. “Have
you seen this woman?”
Picking up the flyer,
the
bartender squinted at it for a long moment.
As she set it back down, Kate prepared to hear yet another
one of the
multitudinous ways of saying, “No,” when the young woman surprised her
and
said, “Sure. She
was up on stage about
ten minutes ago. Sang
some boring shit
and then headed for the powder room.”
At the words, Elizabeth
was off like a shot, while Kate said, “Thank you.”
The bartender shrugged. “Sure, sure. Look, if’n your friend
don’t nab her in the ladies’, just stick
around. Red’s been
hollarin’ at us all
night, and I don’t expect she’ll be leavin’ anytime soon.”
Laying a couple of worn
twenties on the bar, Kate pulled out her cell and headed for the front
entrance. Speed
dialing JJ’s number,
she said, “We have a lead.”
%%%
The bathroom was empty,
but Elizabeth wasn’t too concerned.
Now
that she had some hope of finding her prey nearby, she was able to use
the
symbiote. Slowly,
she extended her
senses, reeling a little at the overload of emotions that emanated from
the
crowd of dancers.
On stage, the drunks
finished their performance by falling into a tangle of arms and legs
that took
three bouncers five minutes to separate.
Once they had been escorted outside, the stage went dark
to give the
next act time to prepare.
Like a hummingbird
flitting from flower to flower, Elizabeth’s empathic senses touched
briefly
upon the crowd, seeking the one darkly stained blossom that would
resolve into
the killer. It was
an arduous process
and took far longer than the vampath would have liked.
The stage came alive in
a
blaze of light as a woman stepped through the curtains and began to
croon
softly. When
Elizabeth glanced over,
she realized she wouldn’t need to look any further.
Michelle Coleman was on stage, singing Faith Hill’s,
“Breathe”.
“Gotcha,” whispered the
vampath as she started to make her way toward the stage.
%%%
Luck had it that Emily
and
JJ were less than five minutes away from Joe’s Place, so they were able
to
arrive quickly and meet Kate outside the bar.
Pulling on her Kevlar vest, Emily said, “I’ve called the
others. Our job
right now is to keep a low profile
and prevent Coleman from leaving or harming anyone.”
Kate nodded.
“Understood. Doc’s
inside keeping an eye out for her.”
Her phone chirped, and within seconds of
answering it, Kate was smiling.
“Coleman’s on stage.
Should be
easy enough to get her.”
They were fateful words
that the investigator would come to regret.
Everything went as
smoothly as possible. Using
their IDs
at the door, Emily and JJ were able to get the bouncers to start
escorting
customers out of the bar while they went inside and took up positions
near the
exits. Kate and
Elizabeth staked out
the other potential points of egress and waited for Coleman to finish
her song.
However, they didn’t
count
on the suspect’s powers of observation and heightened mental state. Within moments of their
arrival, Coleman
spotted JJ, and possibly recognizing her from the press conferences,
the
suspect shouted, “Fire!” into the microphone and ducked through the
curtains.
Panic quickly ensued as
drunken dancers staggered, ran, shoved, and pushed their way toward any
exit
they could find. Emily
and JJ were
stuck trying to calm the crowd while Kate and Elizabeth fought to make
their
way to the stage. The
vampath arrived
first.
Behind the curtains,
Elizabeth discovered that the backstage area was little more than a
short hall
that led to a storage alcove and another exit.
The door was still slowly swinging shut, allowing the
draft to pull in
the stench of rotting garbage and a faint trace of perfume. She followed, but the
alley was empty.
The vampath extended her
senses and was rewarded with a blast of fear, frustration, and anger
that was
moving steadily away from her. Cursing
softly, she pulled out her phone, dialed Kate and growled, “She’s out. I’m following. Will update with position
ASAP.”
After her partner’s acknowledgment, she stuffed the phone
into her
pocket, leapt for the roof, and began running toward the shimmering
ball of
emotion ahead of her.
%%%
Kate made her way over
to
Emily and shouted, “Coleman got away!
Elizabeth’s following her, but we need to go, now!”
Emily nodded and,
catching
JJ’s attention, indicated that they were heading toward the exit. Minutes later, they met
outside. Kate’s
phone chirped and she answered it,
spoke briefly with Elizabeth and then said, “The warehouse district. Doc said she spotted
Coleman heading toward
the docks.”
“Right,” said JJ as she
put in a call to the rest of the team.
“I’m going after
Elizabeth,” said Kate. “Just
follow me,
okay?”
“We’re right behind
you,”
said Emily.
%%%
They say luck is a
fickle
mistress, but this night, she was passing out her favors like a drunken
mall
Santa with a sack full of candy canes.
Tommy Reynolds had awakened, fed, and made his way over to
one of his
favorite places to chill, a local disco spot with a wacky name and a
kick ass
sound system. Had
he been less lucky,
he might have arrived too late and missed the flash of scarlet and
glitter as a
woman in heels and an evening gown raced by his van.
Instead, he was looking
right at her when she came around the corner and dodged his vehicle by
only the
slimmest of margins. Tommy
watched in
silence as the woman then spotted a parked motorcycle not more than
twenty feet
away. If asked, he
would have said that
the look that came over her face at that point would have been best
defined as
relief.
Bemused, the vampire
could
only chuckle when the woman kicked off her shoes, jogged over to the
bike and,
with a speed and skill obviously born of long practice, proceeded to
hotwire
the vehicle. It was
only when she
looked back to see if anyone was coming that he recognized her.
“Holy shit, it’s the
bitch
that tried to kill me!” he said excitedly as she took off toward Lake
Michigan. Gunning
his engine, the young
vampire followed.
%%%
“Jareau.
Yeah, we’re still following Lockley.
I don’t know, the suspect’s in the
wind. We’re on –“ JJ waited for a passing
street sign to flash
by before she said, “Forty-seventh, heading toward the lake.” Through the phone, she
heard the sound of
sirens. “Yes Sir, I
understand,
Sir.” She ended the
call and said,
“We’ve got authorization to use any means necessary.”
Emily nodded tightly
while
a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach.
Something told her that whatever the outcome, this night
would not end
quietly.
%%%
“Come on, come on, Doc,
where are you?” Kate
briefly took her
eyes from the road to search the rooftops in hopes of spotting her
lover, but
saw only shadows and streetlamps.
“She’s out there,
Boss. Don’t worry
about Doc, she can
handle herself,” said Dersk.
Kate had the half demon
on
the line, feeding her location information garnered from the GPS chip
in
Elizabeth’s phone.
Coming to a stoplight,
Kate blew out a frustrated breath and said, “I know, but I wish that I
had my
bike. This damn car
can’t go into a lot
of places.”
Ahead, she saw the first
few buildings that demarcated the warehouse district.
Reminded of their work at the vamp nest the previous
evening,
Kate said, “Gotta go, need to pass something on to Prentiss and Jareau.”
“Okay, it looks like
Elizabeth is sticking to a lakeward direction.
Call me when you can.
And
Boss? Be careful. I might grumble and bitch,
but I really do like
working for you.”
Smiling fondly, Kate
said,
“Love you too, Snake Boy.”
%%%
Elizabeth Blaine was not
unfamiliar with taking the “rooftop highway” as she liked to call it,
but she
was also not fond of long journeys across the peaks and valleys of
Chicago’s
skyline. One
misstep and she could
easily become a greasy stain on the street below, and that would really
put a
kink in her day. Fortunately
for her,
most trips were short and had a known destination.
Only rarely did she have
to endure a longer, more uncertain trek over apartment and house,
office
building and strip mall. When
Michelle
Coleman had stolen the bike, Elizabeth recognized that keeping up with
the
woman would be tough, but as long as she could stay on the rooftops,
she’d be
able to keep track of her with the binoculars she kept in her jacket
pocket.
Perched at the edge of a
twelve-story office building, Elizabeth peered down at the suspect and
gauged
her whereabouts in relation to the pursuers.
Coleman’s rather erratic
route appeared to have no true destination other than Lake Michigan in
mind. The vampath
speculated that the
suspect might have a boat or some other conveyance stowed on one of the
docks,
so she put in a call to Dersk and told him to pass the info along to
the FBI,
as well.
Pocketing the
binoculars,
she abandoned the perch and headed for the next building.
%%%
“Well doesn’t this just
beat all?” Elizabeth muttered as she jumped from the edge of a building
onto
the top of a shipping container.
Coleman’s path had taken her right into the very same area
where they
had recently cleaned out a nest of vampires.
Shrugging, she said, “At least I know where I am.”
Close by, she heard the
growling purr of a motorcycle, and an idea began to form. “Oh Dick, you are so not
going to love me
after this,” she muttered. I
should have put on my armor…
Moving from the cargo
container to the top of an abandoned guard shack, Elizabeth got herself
into
position. When the
bike came into view,
the vampath leaped from the top of the single-story building. With a yell of triumph,
she crashed into
Coleman and forced the bike to skew sideways.
Motorcycle, suspect, and attacker tumbled across the
pavement in a
twisted, shrieking mass of metal and flesh.
The impact knocked
Elizabeth for a loop. As
she fought off
unconsciousness, she watched in disbelief as Coleman managed to drag
herself
free of the wreckage. Battered
and bleeding
from dozens of scrapes and gashes, the suspect shot her attacker a look
of pure
hatred and then started to limp off toward the darkened rows of cargo
containers.
“Ow,” muttered Elizabeth
as she dragged herself upright. Slowly,
she began to jog after the rapidly disappearing form of Michelle
Coleman, even
as the sound of sirens and revving car engines could be heard
approaching from
the distance.
%%%
As soon as the derelict
fence that surrounded his former home came into view, Tommy abandoned
the van
and took to the more familiar territory of the rooftops of cargo
containers and
warehouses that lined the docks. From
no more than fifty feet away, he watched as a stranger took down the
redhead on
the bike. At that
point, he nearly
acted, but something held him back.
Perhaps it was the half
memory of a rumor he’d heard of a woman who had all the powers of a
vampire but
none of the pesky drawbacks, or maybe it was just that he didn’t want
to share
his kill – Tommy couldn’t quite say – but there was definitely
something he did
not like about the stranger.
When his prey staggered
free of the bike wreckage, he followed silently, waiting for the moment
when he
could act.
%%%
“Where is she?” said Emily
softly as Kate spoke hurriedly into her phone.
“Near – maybe two or
three
rows over,” said Kate as she closed her cell.
“Come on, Coleman’s not too far ahead of her.”
Drawing their weapons,
the
three women ran until they caught up to Elizabeth, who was limping
slightly. The
vampath pointed into the
shadowy distance beyond them.
“In there,” said
Elizabeth. Wincing
slightly, she added,
“She wasn’t moving too quickly.”
Emily took one look at
the
redhead and said, “You’re hurt. Why
don’t you and Kate stay here? JJ
and I
have this.” With a
lopsided grin, she
added, “It’s our jurisdiction anyway.”
Raising one blonde
eyebrow, Kate said, “I didn’t realize that PIs needed to argue
jurisdiction
with Feds these days.”
“Guys, while this is as
interesting as all get out, I’d rather be kicking some murdering bitch
butt,”
growled Elizabeth. “So
if you’ll kindly
move out of my way, I’m going to do just that.”
Pushing past Emily and Kate, Elizabeth started to run
after the
now vanished figure of Michelle Coleman.
“Elizabeth!” hissed
Kate,
but the vampath ignored her.
Just ahead, Elizabeth
could make out the glittering sparkle of Coleman’s dress. “Michelle Coleman!” she
yelled.
The figure stopped,
turned, and glanced back at Elizabeth.
Pale gray eyes met the vampath’s unblinkingly.
Softly, the suspect
said,
“They’re
all evil, you know. Wanting,
taking,
needing, digging, grasping, and eating at your very soul with their
sexual
ways. I had to do
it, you understand,
don’t you? That I
had to do it? I had
to get clean.” Thin,
mascara tainted streams of tears trickled
down her cheeks as she raised her hands up pleadingly.
“You understand,” she whispered.
Slowly, Elizabeth
approached. “I
understand,” she replied
softly. “But it’s
over now.”
The words seemed to
deflate the suspect. Letting
her arms
fall to her side, Coleman said, “All right.”
“Well, it might be over
for you, Babycakes, but to me it’s just getting started!” Tommy Reynolds had
practiced his grand
entrances in front of his cohorts many times, and when he finally got
to use
one, he didn’t waste the opportunity.
With a perfectly timed leap, he jumped from the top of the
cargo
container and landed just behind Michelle Coleman.
Before Elizabeth could act, the vampire grabbed the
suspect and,
baring his fangs, bit deeply into her throat.
“No!”
Elizabeth reached for the stake hidden
inside her coat and charged. Injured
in
the tumble from the bike, the vampath’s balance was off, and her
movements were
too easily telegraphed.
Tommy dodged, kicked
out,
and sent Elizabeth flying headlong into the solid metal side of a
container. Again,
luck kissed the young
vamp’s hand. Elizabeth
landed wrong and
was stunned. With a
grin of triumph,
Tommy turned back to the dying woman in his arms and said, “Drink of my
blood
and you will live forever.”
“For-ever,” whispered
the
dying woman.
“Yes, forever.
We will be together, you and I.
And we will reap a bloody harvest from the
lands of mortal men.” Tommy
had no idea
what it meant, but it had sounded good on a movie, so it must be the
perfect
thing for a super evil bad guy to say.
Taking out a knife, he clumsily opened a vein in his wrist
and thrust it
up against Coleman’s mouth. “Drink,”
he
crooned, and then moaned when she latched on and began to suckle.
Three sets of flashlight
beams suddenly landed on his chest.
“Stop!
FBI!
Step away and put your hands up,” said Emily
authoritatively.
Tommy looked from one
woman to the other, and then laughed.
“Sure thing, Ladies.
She’s not
my problem anymore.” Shaking
the
now-sated woman from him, he moved backward until he stumbled into
Elizabeth’s
legs.
The vampath grunted at
the
impact, and then clumsily grabbed for Tommy.
Hissing, the vampire reacted with the speed inherent to
his kind and
tossed her away from him, and then leaped for the top of the cargo
containers. Groaning,
Elizabeth stood
to follow.
“Doc, let him go!”
yelled
Kate. Elizabeth
shot her a glare, but
nodded as the distant sound of approaching sirens could be heard. She turned to Emily and JJ. “Look, I know you don’t
want to hear this
right now, and I know your boss is coming, but I’m positive that this
case is
no longer in your jurisdiction.”
The two FBI agents
looked
mildly shocked. “What
do you mean?”
said JJ as Emily started to approach the suspect.
“Trust me when I say
that you
really, really, don’t want to know,” said Kate.
“That’s not good
enough,”
said Emily. She was
not more than three
feet away from Coleman when Elizabeth stepped in front of her.
“I can’t let you get any
closer, Agent Prentiss,” said Elizabeth softly.
The brunette agent
raised
her gun and took aim. “Move
out of the
way, Miss Blaine,” she said. “I
don’t
want to have to shoot you.”
Behind her, Emily heard
JJ
say, “Kate Lockley, you’re under arrest for obstruction of justice. You have the right to
remain silent –“
Holy God on a stick,
could this
go any more wrong? The FBI
agent tried to pin down just when things took a right turn into
Craptasticland,
but could only focus on the obdurate figure of the crazy redhead in
front of
her.
She, JJ, and Kate had
run
after Elizabeth only to come around a blind corner and spot the
weirdest sight
she’d seen this side of a horror film.
In her line of work, Emily had seen a lot of depravity,
but watching
Michelle Coleman suck the blood from the wrist of a pimple-faced
teenager while
Elizabeth lay only feet away, unmoving, had to rank up there with the
worst of
them.
“Emily,” said Elizabeth
softly, her voice almost hypnotic in its lulling smoothness. “This isn’t your case
anymore. Take JJ
and get the heck out of here before
you regret it.”
“Was that a threat,
Blaine? Because I’m
thinking that right
now, I’m the one with the gun and you’re the one who’s bleeding.”
Kate said, “You don’t
know
what you’re dealing with.” She
tried to
raise her weapon, but JJ shook her head warningly.
“Then tell us,” said JJ,
even as she pulled out her cuffs.
“You wouldn’t believe
it.” Kate let out a
wry laugh and
reluctantly surrendered her sidearm.
“Hell, I still don’t want to believe it, and I’ve lived
with the knowledge
every day for seven years.”
Elizabeth locked her
gaze
with Emily’s. “Please,
Emily. This is more
dangerous than you could
possibly know.”
Peering over Elizabeth’s
shoulder, Emily took in the slumped form of the suspect and said, “She
doesn’t
look like she could hurt a fly right now, Elizabeth.
Now move out of my way.”
“Looks, as they say,
Agent
Prentiss, can be delightfully deceiving.”
The voice that came from behind Elizabeth was low,
throaty, and filled
with a sensual promise that made the hairs on Emily’s arms prickle to
full
alertness.
Elizabeth spun around,
and
the stake she had palmed earlier dropped down into her hand.
“Oh, look, it’s the hero
of the hour, come to slay my day away.
I don’t think so hero – you see, I’m just a newborn babe
in the woods,
and I’m very, very hungry.” The
vampire
licked her lips and then, smiled as her face metamorphosed, exposing
the heavy
brow ridges and long fangs endemic to her kind.
“What the hell?”
whispered
Emily softly.
“I told you so,”
retorted
Elizabeth. “Now
will you take JJ and get out of here?”
“I’m not running away
from
some freak in stage makeup,” retorted the brunette agent.
The vampire hissed and
leaped toward Emily, but Elizabeth blocked her.
“Oh no you don’t, you
fang-faced bitch. You’re
gonna have to
get through me first.”
“With pleasure!”
They struggled; each
trying to assert dominance while Emily attempted to get a bead on
Coleman. She fired,
twice, but the bullets appeared
to have no effect on the suspect.
Turning to look back at
Kate, Emily yelled, “Is this some kind of new drug?”
Kate said, “No, it’s a
vampire. Welcome to
my world, Agent
Prentiss. Can I
have my gun back now?”
“You’re full of shit,
Lockley. JJ, don’t
let her interfere.”
JJ was about to cuff
Kate
when Michelle broke free of Elizabeth’s grasp and, just like the young
man,
leaped to the top of the cargo containers with seemingly little effort.
“Emily!”
The brunette agent
turned
in time to watch as Elizabeth followed in the vampire’s wake.
“Holy shit,” she
whispered. Then,
“Fuck!” as she
realized that her suspect was, once again, in the wind.
%%%
Stunned from all that
had
taken place, JJ was even further surprised when Kate snatched back her
sidearm
and took off running after Elizabeth.
“JJ, stay –“ Emily began
to shout.
“Not on your life,” said
the blonde agent. “I
won’t be separated
from my partner again.”
The harsh edge to JJ’s
voice cut through the heavy shroud of adrenalin that raced through
Emily’s
blood stream. Jumbled
in with all the thoughts
whirling in her mind, one word emerged:
Georgia. Instantly
contrite, Emily said, “Sorry. Come
on.
Hotch and the team can catch up to us later.”
Her eyes shaded with
remembered horrors, JJ said, “I’m right behind you.”
%%%
The chase took them
through five sections of containers before they caught sight of
Elizabeth and
Michelle. Trading
blows, the two women
seemed evenly matched. Both
were
bleeding from numerous cuts, though Coleman seemed far less fatigued
than
Elizabeth. Kate
tried to get a clear
shot, but after two misses, she decided that it wasn’t worth the chance
of
striking her lover.
At her left, Emily was
following the battle with her gun, but was just as unsuccessful at
finding a
shot. JJ fired
three times, each shot a
perfect hit: thigh, shoulder, and head.
Michelle jerked with every impact, but easily shook off
the attack and
continued the fight with Elizabeth.
“I should call Hotch and
tell him Coleman’s on some kind of pain-deadening drug,” muttered
Emily, still
unable to accept the truth before her eyes.
“It won’t do you any
good,
Agent Prentiss. That
woman is not on
any drug; she’s a vampire. An
undead
creature of darkness – basically, the soul is gone and a demon has
taken up
residence in her body,” said Kate.
“Bullets won’t kill her.
Staking, beheading, fire, and holy water are your only
choices.”
“You fired at her,”
grumbled the brunette agent. It
came
out so plaintively, that JJ shot her a fondly sympathetic smile.
“I load a special kind
of
round. They’re a
mixture of wood,
blessed silver, and holy water. Good
for all kinds of nasty things that go bump in the night.”
“You’re quite the
whacko,
Lockley. I think I
know why you’re not
on the force anymore.” A
look of true
anguish washed over Kate’s face at Emily’s words.
It was so poignant that the agent almost apologized.
“Em, why don’t we assume
that Kate’s right, for the moment?
Whether Coleman’s on drugs or something else –“ JJ very carefully did not
name that
something else. “We
still need to apprehend
her.”
Emily bit her lip and
shook her head. “You’re
right. Okay, we’ll
do it your way, Kate. How
do you catch a vampire?” If
Emily felt more than just a little silly
asking the question, she tried not to let it show.
After all, if they did capture Coleman, the suspect would
become
someone else’s problem, and she and JJ could get on the jet, write a
couple of
long, boring reports, and go home.
Shrugging, Kate said, “I
don’t know. I’ve
never tried to catch
one before. Usually,
I just kill them.”
%%%
Michelle was tiring. Even the seemingly
unlimited strength of the
vampire was flagging in the face of repeated attacks as well as the
presence of
several bullet holes. Delivering
one
last, solid punch to Elizabeth’s jaw, Michelle danced away from the
falling
vampath and ran toward the lake.
The sound of a car
engine
pulled her up only feet from where she’d dropped the vampath. A van appeared from the
shadow of a building
and as she came near, the driver’s door opened and Tommy Reynolds
jumped out,
catching her as she staggered to her knees.
“I got you, baby,” he
crooned as he opened the sliding side door.
“Put
her down.”
Tommy looked up to see
the
rather tense figure of Kate Lockley not more than five yards away from
him. Behind her,
the two FBI agents
stood with weapons drawn, twin expressions of resolution on their faces.
Eyeing the gun in Kate’s
hand, Tommy said, “Lady, if you think your little toy pistol scares me,
you
really need your head examined.”
“Do I have crazy hair or
something? What is
it with everyone
assuming that I’m insane today?” groused the investigator. “I am perfectly sane,” she
said, emphasizing
her words with shots from her weapon.
The first was slightly
off, and struck the vampire in the elbow.
It was enough to make him release Michelle, though, and
she didn’t waste
any time hanging around. Tearing
free
from Tommy’s feeble grasp, she took another bullet in the thigh as she
continued her journey toward the lake.
The third shot was a little high, smashing into Tommy’s
cheek and
shredding his emerging vampiric features into a mass of bone and tissue. Screaming as the holy
water within the
bullets burned through his body, Tommy barely noticed as the fourth and
final
shot as it took him in the heart.
There was a moment of
absolute stillness, and then the vampire seemed to turn in on himself. Emily and JJ watched with
open mouths as the
young man’s whole body went perfectly rigid and then crumbled to dust,
all in
the space of a breath.
Blowing on the tip of
her
sidearm, Kate said, “That, my fine, fibbie friends, was a vampire.” Ignoring the two stunned
agents in favor of
her downed lover, Kate went to Elizabeth’s side and checked for a pulse.
The rumbling idle of the
van ceased when JJ shut off the ignition.
Still gape-mouthed, Emily watched as Kate gently attended
to her
partner, more than a little surprised when Elizabeth came to at the
soft touch
of the blonde investigator.
Seeming no worse for
wear,
though covered in blood and bruises, Elizabeth stood and said, “She’s
not too
far away. Come one,
I’ll lead you to
her.”
“How can you tell?” said
JJ.
“I can sense her. It’s a long story, which
I’ll be more than
happy to relate at some future date when my ribs aren’t cracked, my
wrist isn’t
broken and my head isn’t reeling from a major concussion.” Limping steadily,
Elizabeth resolutely set
off in the direction that Coleman had taken earlier.
Quickly, Kate moved to
one
side of her partner and said, “Lean on me, love.”
Grateful, Elizabeth
draped
an arm around Kate’s shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll take the other
side,” said Emily softly.
“Are you sure?” said
Kate. “If you stay
here, you can tell
your boss that you lost her.”
“No.
I can’t do that. You
guys were right; I really didn’t want to know about this. But now that I do, I can’t
let Coleman
escape. Vampire or
not, she’s still a
serial killer, and she needs to be stopped.”
JJ nodded in
agreement. “We
don’t have any magic
bullets, but an extra pair of eyes and ears can’t hurt.”
Chuckling, Elizabeth
said,
“Dick, give them your stakes. You’re
a
better shot than you are a hand-to-hand fighter.”
The investigator
nodded. “Right.” She reached into her
jacket and pulled out a
bundle that at first appeared to be a set of nunchaku but was quickly
revealed
to be a pair of stakes. Handing
one to
Emily and the other to JJ, she said, “Go for the heart.
It has to be a firm, solid thrust.
Don’t hesitate and whatever you do, don’t
look into her eyes.”
Emily blinked.
“You mean that hokum about vampires and mind
control is true?”
“No, but if you listen
to
anything I tell you tonight, then you should remember this: that thing
is not a
person. It is a
demon. It has no
soul and no compunctions about
killing you, or JJ. It
will rip out
your throat and drain you of your blood in seconds.
But vampires don’t like to fight for their food. They like easy prey and
know that humans are
by nature compassionate. It
will use
whatever tricks it can to get your guard down so that it can strike. Don’t give it the chance.”
They talked while
continuing to follow Elizabeth as she led them inexorably onward. Coming to the entrance to
a pier, the
vampath suddenly pulled away from Kate.
“She’s up there,” she
said, pointing to a barely visible figure at the end of the jetty. Narrowing her eyes in
concentration, the
vampath let out a sharp gasp of disbelief.
“She’s got a hostage!”
They ran toward the pair
at the end of the dock, stopping a few yards away as Coleman spun
around, and
revealed that Elizabeth was right.
One
arm was wrapped tightly around the throat of a uniformed security guard. “Stay back!” the vampire
shouted. “He’s mine.
I’m hungry, and he’s all mine.
You can’t have him! He
belongs
to me.” She began
petting the visibly
frightened man’s head. “Mine,
mine,
mine. They’re all
mine. Tasty, silly
men who wanted, wanted so much,
and I wanted, wanted so much and I couldn’t have because it was so, so
wrong,
but now it’s so, so right.” Swaying
as
she crooned, the vampire lavished kisses and caresses on the terrified
guard.
There was no way Kate
could get off a shot without hitting the guard, and she was not a
believer in
the maxim of, “When all else fails, shoot the hostage”.
“Kate, you know I love
you, right?” said Elizabeth softly.
A thousand different
answers crowded on Kate’s tongue, but the one she chose to say was,
“Without a
doubt. I love you,
too,
Elizabeth.” Her
voice broke a little,
and she struggled to control it. “Go
get her, Doc. I’m
tired, and I want to
go home.”
Flashing a brief,
brilliant
grin, Elizabeth said, “You got it, Dick.”
Turning to Emily and JJ, the vampath said, “Please don’t
shoot me,
digging bullets out of my ass hurts like a bitch.”
Then she took three running steps and leaped for the
vampire.
As she connected, she
used
every ounce of strength to yank Coleman’s arm away from the hostage and
then
allowed their momentum to carry them both over the side of the dock and
into
the frigid waters of Lake Michigan.
%%%
As soon as the hostage
was
free, JJ and Emily ran to catch him even as Kate raced to the edge of
the
dock. Shining her
flashlight onto the
lake, she searched for any sign of her lover and the vampire and was
rewarded
by the churning splash of the combatants as they battled for dominance
under
the water.
“Fucking meth heads,”
the
security guard said. “I
hope that other
agent drowns the whacked out bitch.
I’ve been robbed before, but it ain’t never been like
tonight.” He rubbed
his throat and coughed
softly. “I thought
she was going to
tear my fucking head off.”
“You’re safe now, sir,”
said JJ reassuringly. “Why
don’t you
tell me what happened?” As
the guard
began to relate his abduction, the rest of the BAU arrived.
Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi
were the first to make it to the pier, with Reid close behind. All had their weapons drawn,
and it took
several minutes of rapid-fire questions before Emily was able to get
them to
understand that the suspect was in the water with Elizabeth.
“Doc?” called Kate
softly
while the agents discussed what to do next.
There was no answer for a very, very long time. For several minutes, Kate
called out for
Elizabeth and got no response. Then,
just as she was about to give in to the nagging sense of dread that was
teasing
at the back of her throat, she heard the sound of someone surfacing. “Elizabeth?” she cried,
shining the beam of
her flashlight over the water.
Inhaling great, gulping
gasps of air, the vampath fought to keep afloat.
Kate looked around for a life ring or some rope but came
up
empty. “Hey guys,”
she called out
loudly. “I’m going
in, Elizabeth needs
help.” Without
waiting for response,
she dropped her weapon and flashlight on the pier and dove into the
lake.
%%%
It was all over.
Michelle Coleman was dead; her dust was now
one with the silt at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
Kate and Elizabeth, both wrapped in several blankets while
EMTs
hovered around them peering into every available orifice, were safe. The guard was on his way
to the hospital for
a thorough examination, and JJ and Emily were completely unhurt.
JJ brought her right
hand
up to massage her temple. For
the
moment, Agent Hotchner had accepted their story that Coleman and Blaine
had
both gone into the lake at the same time.
There was a dive team out there now, looking for the body. Only four of the people
present knew that
the search would be futile.
The notion sat like a
leaden weight in JJ’s stomach. For
a
long, long time the press liaison had fought to forget certain
childhood
memories. Visions
of a forest filled
with monsters that were real had haunted her for years and to have the
truth of
those dreams thrust upon her so solidly and suddenly had left her more
than a
little unsettled.
In some ways, she had
taken the existence of vampires a little easier than Emily, but unlike
the
older agent, who would eventually come to accept the change in her
worldview,
JJ wanted nothing more than to go back to the moment in time when she
had been
given a chance not to know. Sometimes
increasing one’s knowledge is not a good thing.
If life were like the Matrix, she’d have
taken the blue pill and been happy of it.
Instead, JJ was forced
to
examine all that she held to be truth, and at that moment, the only
truth she
wanted to hold on to was the fact that she was exhausted and needed to
crawl
into a bed, preferably one where Emily was a part of the cushiony
foundation
upon which she could lay her head.
In
between delivering a shortened, highly edited version of the night’s
events and
checking on the condition of their new friends, JJ had watched as an
array of
searchers gathered to comb the waters of Lake Michigan for any sign of
Michelle
Coleman’s body.
Nothing would ever be
found, of course, but neither JJ nor Emily could, or would, say
anything to the
contrary. Not if we don’t want a
first class ticket all the way to the land of the nutty and home of the
continually unemployed, at least. God,
I need coffee, something decadently sweet, and Emily’s mouth on mine,
right
now.
The blonde agent was glad of the chill in the air that
effectively
disguised the pink shading of her cheeks when she thought about how
good it
would be to grab Emily and kiss her until it became impossible to
breathe.
There was a card in her
pocket containing the phone number and address for Kate’s private
investigations
agency, and it had come with a softly whispered, “If you and Emily want
to know more, come and see us tomorrow.
We can have breakfast and discuss your new reality.”
The words scared the
young
agent far more than she was willing to admit, and for once, she
considered not
following up with the civilians involved in the case.
Just this one time, maybe she could let that job fall to
another
member of their team. Someone
who didn’t
have the weight of unwanted knowledge shredding its way through their
gut.
%%%
Sitting in the back of
the
ambulance, wrapped in blankets, and leaning against each other like a
pair of
half drowned rats, Kate and Elizabeth stared out at the chaos that had
erupted
on the docks.
They had given their
statements and were now waiting to be pronounced healthy enough to
leave. The symbiote
was working overtime, having
healed both women of the injuries they had received, and now they were
exhausted and hungry.
Elizabeth sighed softly
and laid her head on Kate’s shoulder.
“You know,” she said quietly.
“I
love killing vampires. I
love the
chase, the fight, even the feel of the stake as it slides through flesh
and
bone and into their cold, dead hearts.”
“It’s good to love your
job,” Kate replied absently as she wrapped her arm around Elizabeth’s
waist.
“Yeah.”
The vampath sighed again and said, “But I
didn’t want to kill her, Dick. She
was
so fucked up and never had a chance.
In
the water, just before I staked her, she begged for mercy, and for a
brief
moment, I almost let her go.”
Elizabeth’s voice was soft and reed thin, as if the words
were barely
breaking free of her tongue. Then,
louder, and more strident, came, “But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.”
Kate nodded.
“I know, love, but mercy is for the just,
and demons don’t qualify.”
In a hoarse whisper,
Elizabeth said, “It sucks.”
Pressing a kiss onto the
crown of the vampath’s wet hair, Kate could only squeeze her lover
tight in
answer.
%%%
Out of the corner of her
eye, Emily kept watch over JJ. As
the
night wore on, the younger agent seemed to wilt under the pressure of
the
massive, whale-sized secret they were being forced to carry. The rest of the team
appeared to sense that
one of their own was flagging, because without discussing it, Morgan,
Reid,
Hotch and Rossi all did their best to intercede on the blonde agent’s
behalf
when it came to dealing with the multitude of questions that Captain
MacPherson
and his men seemed to have.
If the truth were to be
told, Emily would admit to feeling less than stellar herself. The events of the night
were fading into the
back of her mind and becoming cloaked in the dense fabric of shadows
and
maybes. All that
remained was a nagging
sense that she had somehow been right about Elizabeth.
There was something very, very inhuman about
the woman, and after having the truth about vampires so graphically
proven to
her, Emily found herself curious to know if there was something equally
mystical about the enigmatic redhead.
The breakfast invite
seemed like the perfect opportunity for discovery, but she wanted to
talk to JJ
first because, in all honesty, it wouldn’t be worth having the
knowledge if
there was no one with whom she could rationally discuss it. Telling anyone else at the
Bureau, even
Garcia, was out of the question. There’s
always that guy from Arizona. She snorted, thinking about the
strange guy that
Garcia had sworn she would adore.
Something
tells me that he’d believe me. It’s too bad I don’t have any
need
whatsoever to spend any quality time with him.
Emily
looked at JJ again and was smitten
with the desire to wander up to the younger agent and pull her into a
never-ending embrace.
“Hey Prentiss, you guys
should think about heading back to your hotel,” said Morgan as he came
up
beside Emily. “JJ
looks beyond
exhausted, and you’re not doing much better.”
Emily shrugged
wearily. “It’s been
a long couple of
days, Morgan. I’m
just glad it’s almost
over.”
The darkly handsome
agent
chuckled ruefully. “I
hear you. All that
work for nothing sure makes you
wonder sometimes.”
“It wasn’t exactly
nothing; it’s just that Coleman’s body is probably halfway to Canada by
now.” The lie was
bitter and left Emily
feeling more than a little ashamed.
I
should have done something. I should
have been able to stop this from happening.
Mistaking the bitterness
in the other agent’s voice, Morgan said, “Hey, there was nothing you
could do,
Emily. Some days we
get our man, and
some days we don’t.” He
put a hand on
her shoulder and said, “Why don’t you take JJ and get out of here? We got you covered.”
Emily glanced over at
JJ,
and then took in all the activity around her.
Cops and crime scene techs, divers, and reporters swarmed
the area. She and
JJ had given their reports, and
there wasn’t much else for them to do, except search for nonexistent
evidence. With a
sigh, Emily nodded and
gave Morgan a tight smile. “Thanks,
Derek. I think I’ll
do that.”
The Reliant Hotel –
Room 321
As the streets of
Chicago
flashed by, JJ concentrated on the warm pressure of Emily’s grip and
clung to
that sensation like she would a rock in a maelstrom.
By the time they had reached the hotel, she had gained
enough
strength from Emily’s solid presence that she turned to the brunette
agent and
said, “Your room or mine?”
Charmed by the soft,
knowing tone to JJ’s voice, Emily said, “It doesn’t matter, as long as
I’m with
you.”
“I’ll need to get a few
things from my room. Are
you
hungry? Do you want
to grab something
from the diner?”
Emily smiled.
“I could eat. Lunch
was a long time ago.
I’ll tell you what, here’s my room key.
I’ll go grab us something edible while you get your things. Then we can lounge around,
eating bonbons
and watching television.”
Laughing, JJ said, “More
like pass out after stuffing our faces with grease and junk, but okay,
sounds
like a plan to me.”
%%%
Emily made good on her
word, and soon, she and JJ were comfortably ensconced in the bed,
dressed for
sleep, and sharing a box of chocolate covered ice cream bites. The remains of their
dinner – a couple of
chicken sandwiches from a nearby Wendy’s, some fries, and sodas were
spread on
the table, awaiting the morning for removal.
The television was on,
turned to an old black and white movie that featured aliens,
spaceships, and
terrified people running to and fro, screaming in abject, but perfectly
gorgeous, fear. JJ
reached into the box
and pulled out one of the treats and said, “You know you didn’t have to
do
this.”
Emily chuckled.
“I wanted to. We
deserve a little something extra after today.”
Turning her head to
stretch her neck, JJ said, “I hardly know what to think or believe. It’s tough to doubt what
we saw, but at the
same time, I want to forget it.
Aren’t the things we see
everyday horrifying enough without having to consider the possibility
of real
monsters?”
Pensively, Emily
retrieved
the last bonbon and then tossed the empty carton into a nearby garbage
can. As she chewed,
she watched the
action on the television for a moment and then said, “I don’t know, JJ. It kind of makes me feel
better to know that
man’s evil can be surpassed. That
maybe, if there are such things as vampires, there are also angels, and
that
gives me hope.”
The blonde agent reached
a
hand back and started to rub at the base of her neck.
With a sigh, she said, “Well, do you want to have
breakfast with
Kate and Elizabeth?”
Emily got to her knees
and
slid behind JJ. Pushing
the blonde’s
hand out of the way, she began to massage her neck and shoulders. JJ’s head fell forward and
she let out a soft
groan of pleasure.
“You can stop that in
about a hundred years.”
Laughing, Emily bent her
head down and pressed feather-light kisses along the exposed length of
JJ’s
shoulder. “I do,
but only if you’ll be
there, too. I don’t
want to go home and
not be able to talk to you about it.”
Tipping her head up to
capture Emily’s mouth in a brief, heated kiss, JJ said, “I’ll go with
you. I want us to
be able to talk about anything
and everything, always.”
Slowly, Emily slid her
fingers away from JJ’s shoulders, skimming them down her chest where
she
stopped to briefly cup the blonde’s breasts before wrapping her arms
around her
waist in a gentle, cradling embrace, and then said, “I wish we were
already
home.”
Left breathless and
wanting by the ghosting touch, JJ whispered, “I do too.
I want so much for you to touch me.”
She covered Emily’s hands and pulled them
upward, pushing back against the brunette as she did so. The day had been filled
with so much
insanity that right now, this little bit of perfect reality was all
that JJ
craved.
“God, JJ,” Emily
whispered
brokenly. “We
shouldn’t-“
JJ kissed her, hard. Twisting in Emily’s arms,
JJ straddled the
brunette agent and said, “I know there’s so much we can’t do right now,
but I
want-“ JJ’s voice broke as the effort of speaking became overwhelmed by
the
need to act. Her
mouth was a plea,
teasing kisses and promises from Emily’s lips and body.
Running headfirst into
the
wildfire of JJ’s desire, Emily pulled the blonde agent against her and
let the
fog of their need surround and carry them as far as it would go.
Later, tousled and tired
by their actions, JJ lay with her head resting against Emily’s
shoulder, her
hand dappling teasing patterns on a patch of exposed skin on the
brunette’s
stomach. With eyes
half-closed, she
watched as sleep stole over Emily’s face, relaxing away the lines of
stress and
leaving behind a visage so peaceful that JJ wished she could imprint
the image
on her heart, just to have it with her forever.
They had not made
love. After only a
few minutes,
exhaustion, location, and the relative rawness of a relationship
molding itself
into a shared path had conspired to gentle the urgency of their passion. JJ let her eyes close. Now that she’d had a clear
view of the
destination, she was more than happy to let life carry her along for a
little
while.
Making love to Emily
could
wait. It was only a
matter of time
until her body followed the same path as her heart.
At one point, Emily
said,
“There’s a group of teenaged girls dedicated to killing vampires? Like, Little Miss Van
Helsings?”
Elizabeth chuckled. “I suspect if either Buffy
or Faith heard
you call them that, they’d kick your ass, Agent Prentiss. They’re more like Xena
with a stake, only
with far better fashion sense and less with the lesbian subtext.”
Resuming the story, Kate
went on to describe how she had left Los Angeles and come to Chicago to
escape
the horrors of the nonhuman world.
“It
didn’t work,” she said ruefully. “Once
you’ve seen behind the veil of the shadows, it’s very difficult not to
act.” She held each
of their gazes; JJ
looked away.
“It’s quite possible
that
you can go back to your lives. The
type
of things you deal with leave you little time to look beyond the scope
of the
immediate case. You
might never
encounter something from our world,” said Elizabeth softly.
“That would be perfectly
fine by me,” JJ said fervently. “I
spend enough time looking at the results of human evil; to consider
anything
worse disturbs me more than I want to admit.”
But as she thought about it, an idea began to form. If she approached what
Kate and Elizabeth
were telling her as pure information, perhaps she could use it. And the day I stop learning is
the
day they kick dirt over my coffin.
Kate nodded.
“I understand. When
I worked Homicide in LA, all I wanted to do was solve the
crimes and put the bad guys in prison.
In the nonhuman world, there are no courts of law, no
prisons, and
certainly no cops. The
only justice is
what you can carve with your own hands.”
“How do you do it? How do you fight the
supernatural?” said
Emily. “Elizabeth,
I saw you take blows
that would have killed a man twice your size, and Kate, you knew
exactly how
she planned to take out Coleman and yet, you did nothing to stop her. Why not?
The waters of Lake Michigan are cold enough to kill.”
The redhead exchanged an
enigmatic glance with her partner.
She
then shrugged and said, “It’s easier if I show you, but first, I want
you to
give your weapons to Kate.”
Warily, Emily and JJ
looked first at Elizabeth then at Kate.
The investigator smiled warmly.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“It’s just a precaution.
Please,
I promise you won’t be hurt.”
One of the first lessons
a
cadet in the FBI learned was not to lose control of their weapon, and
Emily had
always striven to heed that wisdom.
Yet
in this case, her curiosity merged with her growing admiration and
trust for
the two women who sat across from her.
Still, there was a small, cautionary voice within her that
urged
restraint.
JJ felt no such
compunction. Having
made the decision
to hear what Kate had to say, she wanted to know everything, if only to
use the
information as a guide against those cases where the crimes were so
horrific,
that it would be a relief to realize that the mind behind them was,
truly
alien. Wordlessly,
she unclipped her
holster and handed the sidearm to Kate.
The investigator
inclined
her head and set the weapon on a nearby shelf.
“Agent Prentiss?”
Still a little
reluctant,
Emily followed suit. Once
her sidearm
had joined JJ’s, Emily crossed her arms and said, “All right, show us.”
Elizabeth smiled.
Feeling the color drain
from her face, Emily stared at the redhead while JJ gasped softly.
“I thought you said
sunlight was deadly to vampires,” said Emily after a long, long moment
of
silence. Her voice
was tight and every
line of her body told the tale of how much she regretted surrendering
her
weapon.
“Was this all an
elaborate
setup? Some kind of
playacting designed
to put us at ease so that you could help Coleman escape?” JJ’s voice was so flat
that Emily shot her a
glance to make sure the press liaison was okay.
“You should probably know that Agent Hotchner knows where
we
are.”
“I’m not a vampire,”
said
Elizabeth softly. “But
I was,
once. I’m a vampath
now. This is not a
trick; Michelle Coleman really
is dead.”
Emily frowned.
“How do you go from being a vampire to not
being one? Is there
a cure? I seem to
recall something about demonic
possession. And
what is a
vampath?” The sight
of Elizabeth
Blaine’s incredibly realistic looking fangs barely mitigated the
utterly
ridiculous nature of the conversation.
“Are you sure this isn’t a hoax?
It wouldn’t take much to get a cosmetic dentist to make
implants like
that.”
The vampath sighed. Looking at Kate, she said,
“I tried it the
easy way, honey. I’m
sorry.” Before
anyone else could act, Elizabeth produced
a knife and slashed her palm open to the bone.
“Oh my God!” cried JJ.
“Holy shit!” said Emily,
and then she leaped up and grabbed a wad of napkins from the counter.
Meanwhile, Kate sat
calmly, watching as Elizabeth wiped her knife clean and then took the
blade
from her lover.
“You’ve really got to
find
a less violent way of doing your show and tell, Doc,” said Kate.
Shrugging, Elizabeth
said,
“My way gets the job done, Dick.”
She
accepted the napkins from Emily and then said, “Watch.”
Holding out the injured hand, she wiped away
the blood and revealed that the wound was already closing.
Fascinated, JJ and Emily
leaned in to examine the vampath’s hand.
“How is that possible?”
said Emily. The cut
had already stopped
bleeding and the edges of the wound were knitting together.
Elizabeth pressed the
napkins into her hand and said, “Eight years ago, a body came into the
morgue
at which I worked. It
was a
vampire. To make a
very long story
short, I was bitten and eventually turned by him.
You must have known that I was in Romania for a while. What your files will not
tell you is that
during that time, I was a vampire.”
She
closed her eyes briefly in remembered pain.
“I died there. Luke
tried to
save me, but in the end, all he could do was free me from the curse of
vampirism.”
“But you’re here now,”
said JJ. “And
forgive me for saying,
but you don’t seem very cursed to me.”
“You’re right.
I’m not cursed. Not
anymore. When I was
dead, something – an alien entity, a benevolent demon, an extra planar
life form
– whatever you choose to name it, came to me and offered me a deal: life for life. It gave me back my life,
but now I am responsible for maintaining
its life. It’s a
symbiotic life form
known as the Tos ki’Dren, and it is the reason why I heal as well as I
do, and
also why I could sense Michelle Coleman’s presence.
The symbiote has made me into an empath – I can feel and
manipulate the emotions of others.”
“I don’t think I want a
demonstration of that ability,” said Emily dryly.
“Any more surprises?
Are
you a werewolf, Kate?”
The investigator
chuckled. “No, but
they do exist.”
“Of course they do,
because what would a world with vampires in it be without werewolves to
complete the circle of horror?”
Resigned now to believing, if not completely accepting,
the word of the
private investigators, Emily turned her attention to a more important
issue. “So, just
how does one go about
defending oneself against vampires, demons, and other things that go
bump in
the night?”
“It’s like I said
yesterday: holy water, wooden stakes, beheading, and fire. You’ll find that many of
the methods
described in folklore actually hold quite true in the reality. Some things – the garlic
necklace comes to
mind – are pure invention on the part of popular culture, but others –
such as
a vampire not having a reflection – are quite true.”
Kate stood and retrieved her jacket.
“Aside from loading a special bullet, this is my standard
‘monster slaying kit’.” From
the inside
pockets she withdrew two wooden stakes, a vial of holy water, a silver
dagger,
and a jar of a white, crystalline substance.
“What’s this?” said JJ
as
she picked up the jar and gave it a shake.
“Salt.
Some of the creatures from the nether planes
can be destroyed by it.” Kate
set her
gun on the table. Pointing
at the
attached flashlight, she said, “I also have a UV filter for this. It’s not much, but if you
point it right
into the eyes of a vampire, it can permanently blind them.”
“Oh, and the holy symbol
myth is true, as well. Vampires
cannot
abide the touch of the cross, or any other talisman of faith. It burns them,” said
Elizabeth.
Unconsciously, Emily’s
hand rose to touch the tiny gold crucifix she wore next to her heart. “Does size matter?”
Kate smirked.
“Generally no, but in this case – the bigger
the cross, the bigger the burn, the faster a vampire will try to get
away from
it.”
JJ’s phone rang.
While she answered it, Emily said, “Why do
you do it? Why do
you risk your life –
your soul, if my understanding is correct – for so little reward?”
Kate smiled sadly and
said, “Let me ask you something, Emily.
Why are you an FBI agent?
Specifically, why are you with the BAU, rather than
sitting at a cushy
desk job in the Foreign Service somewhere?
I know you have the connections for it.
It doesn’t take very much time on Google to learn a little
something
about the Prentiss family.”
“Because I’m good at
what
I do; better than others who are more suited for cushy desk jobs,”
replied the
brunette agent.
“Why should my answer be
any different? No,
I don’t make any
money at this, but there are other forms of payment.
I sleep very well at night knowing I’ve done what I can to
stem
the tide of evil that is slowly trying to drown the world.”
Emily turned her
attention
to Elizabeth, who shrugged and said, “I’ve a lot to atone for; my soul
is heavy
with the knowledge of my crimes as a vampire.
It’ll take a lifetime and more before I feel as though
I’ve made up for
the consequences of my stupidity.”
There was a look of such regret and horror on the
vampath’s face that
Emily felt the remains of her distrust vanish.
Whatever Elizabeth was, she was not a threat to society. Her focus was firmly fixed
on removing the
same element as the FBI agent, and Emily was glad to have the vampath
on her
team.
“Part of that long
story?”
said Emily sympathetically.
“Yeah.
Maybe one day I’ll write a book.”
JJ pocketed her
phone. “That was
Hotch. He was
letting us know that we’re wheels up
in thirty.” Ostensibly,
JJ and Emily
were getting a follow up report from Kate and Elizabeth about the prior
evening’s events. However,
the two
private investigators had negated the need for the agents to spend time
pouring
over questions by presenting them with neatly typed reports detailing
their
versions of the night’s activities, all references to the supernatural
conveniently
withheld for obvious reasons.
Standing, Emily said,
“I’d
like for us to keep in touch. I
don’t
know how much I want to be involved with this world of yours,
Elizabeth, but
God knows that I’m not going to stick my head in the sand just because
I’d prefer
not to deal with it.” She
pulled out a
card and scrawled something on the back.
“Home phone and email,” she said as she handed it to
Elizabeth.
The vampath nodded and
produced a similar card, solemnly offering it to the agent. “Call anytime, Agent
Prentiss.”
JJ gave one of her cards
to Kate. “I may
call you if something
that seems like it’s more in your jurisdiction crosses my desk.”
Chuckling, Kate said,
“And
I’ll call you if I run into something the BAU should hear about.”
There was a round of
handshakes as the agents retrieved their weapons and then excused
themselves.
“You think they’ll
call?”
said Elizabeth as she helped her lover to clear away the remains of
breakfast.
Kate shrugged.
“If they run into something like what
Coleman became, probably. Otherwise,
I
won’t hold my breath.”
Glancing down at Emily’s
card, Elizabeth pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“I might have to borrow the computer later, Dick.”
The investigator
wandered
up and wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s waist, pressing her chin
into the
vampath’s shoulder. “Looking
to be
recruited by the FBI, Doc?”
Elizabeth turned her
head
to press a kiss into Kate’s temple.
“Nope, I just can’t help but think that it would be nice
to have some
friends with a little clout in the secular world.”
“Mmm,” muttered Kate as
she tipped her head up to nibble a line of kisses across Elizabeth’s
jaw. “I like the
way you think, Doc.”
Abandoning the business
cards, the vampath turned until she could pull Kate against her. “I like this train of
thought better, Dick,”
she murmured as she began kissing her lover.
“I agree,” said Kate as
she fell into the languorous kisses being lavished upon her by the
vampath. “I
heartily agree.”
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
from “since feeling is first” by
ee
cummings
Apartment of
Penelope
Garcia - Washington, DC
Confetti
exploded in a
bright, glittering hail of paper fragments as Emily and JJ walked into
the
apartment.
“Happy third week
anniversary!” crowed Garcia cheerfully.
Beside her, holding the bag of confetti was Derek Morgan. As soon as the two women
crossed the
threshold, he dug out another massive handful and flung it at them.
“Morgan!” Emily grumbled
as she brushed the flecks of foiled paper from her dark ruby silk shirt. “Don’t think I won’t get
my revenge.”
“Prentiss, you’re gonna
have to get up pretty early in the morning if you’re gonna attempt to
bite my
style.”
Shaking out her top, JJ
said, “But I make the assignments, Derek.
Are you that interested in doing the In-Services for all
the departments
in say, Juno, Alaska?”
“Ooh, JJ, you do not
play
fair,” said Morgan as the three of them made their way over to the
sitting
area. Large bowls
of snacks decorated
the coffee table and the guests knew, from long experience, that there
was
plenty to drink in the refrigerator.
From the kitchen, they heard the sound of clinking glass
and knew that
Penelope was about to present them with the first of the evening’s
libations.
Taking one end of the
couch, JJ sat and then pulled Emily down to nestle between her legs,
brushing a
few stray pieces of confetti from the agent’s hair as she did. “When it comes to Emily,
you bet your ass I
don’t,” said JJ, which earned her a pleased grin from the woman in
question.
Seated in a chair at the
other end of the couch, Morgan smirked.
“Oh, so she’s got you whipped already.”
He was not expecting the clout to the back of the head
that Garcia delivered
with more than a little force. “Ow,
hey
Baby Girl, don’t go scrambling my brains before I’ve even had one
drink.”
“Behave, my big hunk of
chocolate dream surprise, or else this Baby Girl won’t share.” She dangled a bottle of
Guinness Extra Stout
in front of his face and gave it a gentle shake.
“Gimme,” he said,
half-petulantly, half-pleadingly.
Pulling it back against
her chest, she said, “What’s the magic word?”
In one smooth motion,
Morgan stood and pressed himself into Penelope’s personal space. Tipping his head down as
if he were going to
kiss her, he said, “Pretty please with a chocolate covered maraschino
cherry on
top?” As he spoke,
he wrapped his hand
around the bottle and gently eased it from Garcia’s unresisting grip,
and then
kissed the tip of her nose.
“Oh no you don’t,” said
Penelope as Derek started to sit.
Wrapping one arm around his neck, she pulled him down and
planted a
long, wet kiss on his lips. “Now
that’s
the way to say ‘please’,” she said as she wandered back into the
kitchen.
Emily had her mouth
covered with one hand, mischief dancing merrily in her eyes as Morgan
turned
six shades of purple.
“If you ask me, I
believe
the only person in this room that’s whipped is the one with the
‘luscious pink’
lips,” said JJ coyly.
“Maybe so, but I’m the
one
with the beer, so all’s good in this boy’s world,” retorted Morgan as
he
settled back in the chair.
From the kitchen,
Penelope
called out, “So ladies, which one of you is the party pooper tonight?”
“Actually,” said Emily
as
she gingerly leaned back against JJ.
“We took a cab.” After
three
weeks, it was still difficult for the brunette to get used to being
affectionate with JJ in public. They’d
gone out for lunch a few times, dinner twice, and once, they’d taken a
trip to
DC and spent the day wandering around the various museums and
historical
monuments. In all
that time, they
rarely did so much as hold hands for fear of being seen by someone they
knew.
It wasn’t that they were
afraid of being Outed, or even that they were ashamed of their
feelings, it was
that what they shared was so new, so deliciously undefined that they
hadn’t
even gotten to the phase of thinking of each other as “girlfriends”. And if I were being completely
honest, I’d rather think of JJ as my lover.
Emily knew that the moment of their complete
transition from friends to lovers was drawing near, for in those hours
they
spent encapsulated in the safety of each other’s arms while sharing a
glass of
rich merlot at Emily’s apartment, or wrapped in a thick layer of
blankets while
watching the snow fall from the back porch of JJ’s house, the brunette
agent
had felt whole new vistas of emotion unfold before her.
I am, without any doubt,
completely ass over teakettle for
this woman, Emily thought as
she tipped her
head up to look at JJ and smile over some of the blonde’s comments.
“We know better than to
come to one of your movie nights expecting to leave sober,” said JJ as
she
curved one arm around Emily.
“Oh my God, where’s my
camera?” Garcia
handed Morgan the two
bottles of beer she was holding and hurried over to where her purse was
slung
from a hook on the back of the door.
“Don’t move, my lovelies,” she admonished a bemused Emily
and JJ. “Don’t move
a muscle.”
Lounging against JJ,
Emily
said, “If I see these pictures in the department newsletter, Garcia, I
know
exactly who to blame – and where to bury the body.”
“Oh honey, this isn’t
for
public consumption, this is for my family album,” said Penelope as she
snapped
a series of photos including the two women and then, after encouraging
Morgan
to move over, all three of her guests.
Emily grinned
wickedly. “Ah,
well, in that case, you
won’t mind if I do this!” said the brunette, who then proceeded to
twist her
face up into the goofiest expressions she could.
Morgan and JJ, seeing
what
their cohort was up to, joined in the fun, making crazier and crazier
faces
while Garcia attempted to take pictures without laughing herself sick.
Eventually, they tired
of
the silliness. Morgan
stood and took the
camera from Garcia. “All
right Baby
Girl, get your butt over there and sit down.
It’s my turn to play cheese master.”
The technical analyst pouted slightly, but gamely made her
way to the
couch where she was dragged into a squishy three-way hug with Emily and
JJ.
Many photos, several
beers, and a lot of snacks and movies later, Morgan and Garcia escorted
the two
slightly inebriated women down to a waiting cab.
On the front steps to the complex, Garcia paused and gave
her friends
gigantic hugs.
“I’m so glad you took a
chance,” she whispered into their ears.
“It sucked being the only secret couple at work.”
As Garcia released them,
Emily said, “Next week, dinner at my place.
I’ll cook.”
“Score!” said Penelope
with a wide grin. Even
Derek looked
more than pleased with the situation.
“Hey, maybe we could all
go take a drive or something beforehand,” he said.
“If it’s not cold enough to freeze the mole off a witch’s
nose,
that is.”
JJ laughed.
“We could take advantage of the cold and
plan a little ski trip somewhere.”
“Ooo, now there’s an
idea,” said Garcia. “I’ll
Google it and
get back to you.”
Nodding, Emily said,
“We’ve all got vacation time coming.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to use it.”
Morgan frowned.
“Hey, wait a minute.
JJ, I thought you were supposed to take your
vacations opposite of us? Sort
of the
Bureau’s way of making sure we have plenty to do while you’re gone, or
something.”
“Usually, yeah, that’s
how
it’s supposed to work, but Hotch mentioned the other day that he was
thinking
about bringing in another liaison to help with the backlog. I should think that a
junior agent would be
capable enough to handle the caseload for a few days.”
The cabbie honked his
horn
and shot the group an impatient look.
“I guess that’s our cue
to
quit lollygagging about and get a move on,” said the blonde agent. “Let us know what you
find, Garcia. I’d
love to go play in the snow for a few
days.”
Another round of hugs
was
given, and then Emily and JJ hurried over to the cab and got in before
the
annoyed driver took off.
Home of
Jennifer Jareau
– Quantico, VIRGINIA
“Keep the change,” said
the brunette agent. “And
have a good
night.”
Surprised, the cabbie
accepted the money with a grin and slowly pulled away.
Moments later, Emily
came
up behind JJ and waited while the blonde paused to dig out her keys. Stuffing her hands into
her pockets, the
brunette agent scuffed her foot on the concrete of the porch and said,
“I guess
I should get home before it gets really nasty out here.”
JJ pushed her door open,
reached in, and clicked on the light.
Stepping up into the foyer, she said, “I’d rather you
stayed,
Emily.” She reached
out, put a hand on the
other woman’s arm and gave a light tug.
“I haven’t woken up next to you since Chicago, and even if
nothing else
happens, I need to feel your arms around me, see your eyes when they
open first
thing in the morning, and taste the warmth of your kisses over coffee
and
breakfast.”
A faint, bell-like
tingling that had started as soon as JJ spoke suddenly burst into a
full chorus
of words that, without so much as a by your leave from Emily, spilled
out into
the space between them. “Oh
Jennifer,
do you know how much I love you?”
Emily
felt herself drawn closer and, haltingly, she gave in to the inexorable
pull
that had always linked her to the beautiful, brilliant woman smiling at
her
with such innocent joy.
As the door closed
behind
them, JJ whispered, “If it’s half as much as I love you, then I guess
I’m a
very lucky woman.”
%%%
Moonlight was the sound
of
blonde hair as it fell from JJ’s shoulders onto the pale skin of
Emily’s naked
chest. Starshine
glitter came from the
kisses that started slow and ended hot.
If hands were the instruments of affection, then Emily
felt as though
her body were being slowly shaped into the living display of JJ’s ardor.
Wet was the flavor of a
tongue bent on painting every inch of Emily until she was begging for
the release
of JJ’s mouth on hers, their kisses stealing breath and melting bone. Soft, so soft, was the
plea of JJ’s warm,
unhurried fingers when they paused, ever so delicately, at the apex of
Emily’s
thighs.
Looking up, meeting the
shadow-silvered blue of JJ’s eyes, Emily reached down, covered her
lover’s hand
and whispered, “Touch me, Jennifer.
I
need to feel you inside.”
Release was the crashing
finale of Dvorak’s New World Symphony echoing through Emily’s body, a
hushed
and total surrender to the woman who held her so gently.
%%%
Under
the brush of Emily’s touch, JJ was all shades.
Black, white, and gray, with the full
palette of color exploding in between like vibrant motes of dust
scattered on a
sunlit window.
The
press of kisses against her collarbone reminded JJ that
life was a flowing river of emotion.
Honed to whisper-fine sharpness, her senses gleamed with
every caress,
every trail of fingers against skin so taut, it hummed.
Emily’s mouth was like rain, dappling her
throat, chest, and breasts with a shower of nips and a storm of kisses
that
built into a raging flood of desire.
Thunder
crack strong, the sensation of that beloved mouth
tracing an erotic landscape of need against JJ’s most intimate self was
the
trigger that released her voice. Thick
with passion, softly whispered cries of, “Emily, oh, Emily,” brought
the bright
flash of teeth, a hum of laughter, and an unhurried stroke of fingers
against
JJ’s hip.
When
sight returned, JJ found herself looking up her lover’s
darkened amber eyes while threads of moisture streamed from her own. With the colors of her
emotions boiling
around her, JJ reached up to thread her fingers through Emily’s
sweat-slicked
hair.
“You
are the best kind of wonderful, Emily Prentiss.
I could grow quite addicted to that,” she
said throatily.
Emily
ducked her head to capture JJ’s lips in a brief,
teasing kiss. “Then
I guess it’s a good
thing that I’m not on the Controlled Substances Act, hmm?”
Laughing
in between kisses, JJ said, “For that, I am truly
grateful. I would
hate to be arrested
while trying to score my daily fix of Emily.”
With
a low chuckle, Emily said, “Well, we wouldn’t want
that, now would we?” Retracing
newly
worn paths of desire, the brunette scattered a trail of kisses from
JJ’s throat
to her hip and then laved the protruding bone with a series of soft
nips until
the blonde was forced to grab hold of Emily’s head and drag her up for
a long,
open mouthed kiss.
“I
love you, Emily Prentiss,” she said as she traced the
line of her lover’s jaw with one finger.
Capturing
the wandering digit between her teeth, Emily
replied, “I love you too, Jennifer Jareau.”
JJ
smiled. “Now that we got that out of our way, why don’t
you go back to what you were doing?”
“Promise
not to interrupt?”
“Never,
but I do promise to enjoy the heck out of it.”
“Oo,
promises, promises,” murmured Emily as she nibbled the
skin at the base of JJ’s throat.
On
a hitched breath, JJ whispered, “Emily?
Shut up and make love to me.”
Office of
Lockley and
Associates – Chicago, ILLINOIS
It
was after
midnight. The
graying shadows of sunset
had long since been replaced by the sable silk of night. Outside, snow fell in
spiraling flurries,
patching the darkened streets in splotches of rapidly brightening white. Illuminated only by the
single lamp on her
desk, Kate hunched over her computer and slowly pecked her way through
typing
up a report.
Business was good. Dersk and Elizabeth were
out, tracking down
a stolen talisman while she recovered from the nasty cold she’d
developed just
days after her ill-thought dive into Lake Michigan.
Sneezing once, Kate reached for the cup of tea that her
lover had
thought to leave for her and drank, wincing at the chill, bitter taste
of the
brew.
Cocoa would have been
preferred, but the milk content would have only exacerbated the cough
she tried
hard to ignore. The
bells above her
door jangled, and Kate looked up, surprised by the two heavily bundled
figures
that stood on the threshold.
A shiny gleam of reddish
blonde hair gave her a clue as to the identity of her visitors, but
when hats
and gloves were whisked away, she smiled at the sight of her errant,
erstwhile
business associates.
Willow Rosenberg grinned
cheekily and said, “Honey, we’re home.”
“Hey, yeah, did we miss
anything?”
said Kennedy as she tossed her gloves into a chair and wandered over to
the
coffee pot.
In response, Kate
laughed
hoarsely.
“Ooo, I think we did,”
said Willow as she accepted a cup of hot coffee from her lover. Sitting in one of the
empty chairs, she
looked over at the investigator and said, “Tell us a story, Auntie
Kate,
please?”
Kate sighed, took
another
drink of tea and then said, “Well, it all started with a headline in
the
paper…”
fin
March 13, 2008