Worse Things Than Guns
A Criminal Minds / The Laundry Files / Cthulhu Mythos Crossover and/or Fusion
AN: I don't own Criminal Minds, the works of a specific Mr. Lovecraft or the works of Charles Stross. But they are all damned good.
This comes at the end of and after 'Lauren'. An AU... maybe the BAU is just Reid's hobby.
"Magic is applied mathematics. The many-angled ones live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set. Demonology is right after debugging in the dictionary."
Bob Howard in PIMPF, written by Charles Stross.
I
Dr. Spencer Reid, the image of grief; she felt his tears soaking through her coat as she wrapped her arms around him.
That made what he whispered in her ear between sobs all the more shocking.
The whisper was cold and harsh, "JJ, if you're going to lie, try not to do it to a guy with an IQ of 187."
She tensed, ready to jump away.
"Uh uh, JJ. Keep up the act, you are doing so very well." The voice paused, it changed to the young boy genius wailing something about never saying goodbye then continued as before, colder if possible. "Tell Emily she should have listened to me, but she'll be safe soon. Ian Doyle and his friends won't be a problem for much longer; he'll learn not to fuck with a friend of the Black Chamber."
She was shocked on many levels... the language, the cold nature of the statement... the casual implication of death.
He spoke again.
"I'm going to leave now, don't follow me JJ."
He became silent, wiped his eyes and trudged off. Her emotions now were not faked, tears fell as she watched him leave.
II
Later JJ found herself in the room of one Ann Spencer, a new name for a new beginning.
"What's bothering you?"
She held herself, shivering at the memory. "It's Spence, he came up to me bawling his eyes out, I held him and all of a sudden he's whispering to me. Ann, it was like a voice from the grave." She was 'Ann', if only to get used to hearing it.
"Reid? Dr. Spencer Reid? Skinny, crazy smart guy who does magic tricks? He used a tone that scared you?" Emily was almost laughing, but JJ caught the act, if barely.
"It wasn't just the tone Ann, I'm serious, you know what I'm talking about. I know you do. That wasn't the Spence I went on a date with once." It was those haunted blue eyes that did the trick for 'Ann'.
The smile that had accompanied the fake laugh was long gone, "What did he say to you JJ?"
The blonde took a deep breath, struggling as she reviewed the memory. "He knows you aren't dead somehow, that you should have listened to him. He said you would be safe soon, basically that he was going after Doyle. The last thing he said was the most disturbing though, not like him at all." She fought with the memory, like it was holding her tongue. "He said specifically, 'He'll learn not to fuck with a friend of the Black Chamber'."
By now JJ was looking down at the floor, willing the voice she had heard say those words from her mind. When she looked up, concerned 'Ann' hadn't responded she realized that her friend was totally still, her eyes wide and fixed on something that wasn't there. Her heart monitor, though silent, showed her heart was racing.
"Ann?" JJ looked at her friend intently. Getting no response she spoke again, "Ann, come on, what's up?"
She spoke as if it were a dream, "I don't think I'll need to be Ann very long JJ, I want my travel plans delayed one week. He shouldn't need that much..."
The raven haired woman trailed off. Obviously reviewing the situation with new, JJ almost would say terrified, eyes.
"Ann? You look terrified, worse than with Doyle..." she had to again fight her tongue to say those two words, "what is the Black Chamber?"
The silence was thick, JJ moved towards the woman on the bed, her mouth opening to speak when a raised hand halted her.
The voice was soft, so unlike Emily as to really be a different person, "A while back, just before this whole Doyle shitstorm began, he asked me to dinner at his place, confessed he cares about me, much more than a friend should. Then he said we could never be together, but he had to hold me. All that night... so gentle with me..." she paused with a broad smile on her lips, the expression quickly dropped back to a hard mask "After Doyle showed up he figured things out and wanted to help, I pushed him away."
The blonde was shocked and let her filter slip, "Why couldn't you be together? Your jobs? What does this have to do with what he told me?"
"Not the FBI, the BAU... his other job. Did you know he has two other doctorates? He couldn't tell me what they are in. He got them at Miskatonic."
"Arkham." Not a question, a statement.
Everyone knew things you weren't encouraged to ask about happened there.
Ann nodded, "Yeah, there. He also mentioned something about Antarctica that was bad enough it made him go pale."
"What other job though? What is the... Black Chamber? What do they do?"
"Beyond black department, supposedly shut down over a century ago. From what he told me it's all mathematics and computers, magic is simply science that is kept from the general public."
"Magic? What do you mean?"
"He said something about magic being applied mathematics, miles over my head. But what I did understand scared me JJ. Spencer made me a believer, he summoned something from another dimension with nothing more than his iPhone, a scribed diagram and a drop of his own blood right on his coffee table. You don't fake that JJ, you don't forget it either."
There was an extended silence as emotions were brought under a modicum of control.
"So what do we do Em... Ann?"
The response was firm and brooked no argument. "We do nothing JJ. He told me he could handle anything that scared me, I should have listened... I don't think we should get in his way, I think very bad things happen to people who do that."
"O-ok, I have to go home to Henry and Will, I'll see you tomorrow."
They said their goodbyes, the blonde made for the door, composing herself for those not in the know.
"And JJ?"
She stopped short, turning back to a grim face.
"Don't be there when they find what's going to be left of Doyle."
JJ simply nodded and turned away, slowly walking down the hall. Her mind was begging her to run.
AN: Just something that slipped into my head. Why would a government let a mind like Dr. Reid's be utilized so poorly? They wouldn't. I have ideas to continue with this if there is interest. Lemme know what you think of all this.