Three Bricks Shy-Alias, PG-13 (A touch of the occult and some humor)
Peregrine
Alias is owned by ABC, Touchstone and is the creation of JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.
Vaughn visits his crazy aunt Trish.
*****
Chapter One
Toss a coin in the air and there's a fifty-fifty chance that either heads or tails will come up. At least, that is what you're supposed to believe, right? Well, let me tell you, I have this antique silver coin that I got as a kid, and every time I flip it, it comes out tails. No lie. Weiss didn't believe me until he saw it for himself and went off whistling the Twilight Zone theme. He thinks…..no, he knows I'm insane. Hey, what can I say? It runs in the family.
The story of the coin is this: it's my anchor. Whenever I feel ready to fly off the handle and go ten rounds with anyone who messes with me, I grab that coin from my pocket and fiddle with it mindlessly. Flashing before my eyes and lulling me into a trance, it seems to center me. Strange, huh? Well, not so weird when you know its history. It dates back to the 1750s and allegedly belonged to the French Minister of Finance during the reign of Louis XV. Yeah, that's right. This all comes from my mother's sister Trish, who gave me the coin at my father's funeral. With her fringed shawl and perfume that overwhelmed the senses like a cloud of incense, she swirled around me and told me that the coin and I needed each other, that she saw it in a vision. Crazy Aunt Trish. Acid casualty. Pot head. Keeper of the family ghost. Channeler extraordinaire. Haight Ashbury graduate. Former groupie. Scary. Exotic. Exciting. Deranged. Her green eyes so like mine, markedly intelligent despite the conspiracy theories and alien abductions that polluted her life, she was impulsive and daring and more like me than I cared to admit. We diverged when it came to the supernatural. I was firmly grounded and she was off flying with the fringe elements that filled her life.
So back to the coin. Of course, I had to check her story, being the boy that I was. Curious to a fault, never accepting anything at face value. The local library gave me a clue that she might be telling the truth. There it was, staring me in the face. Jean Moreau de Séchelles. French Minister of Finance. My maternal grandmother had been a Moreau. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Now I am sitting in an empty conference room with the coin cradled in my palm, thinking about the DSR and Rambaldi's prophesy. It was crazy stuff. I couldn't…..no, I wouldn't believe it. Sydney was gentle and kind. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice whenever she spoke to me. There was no way I could believe this. When they'd dragged her into the van and shackled her to that chair and she'd stared at me with those wounded doe's eyes, I was overcome by emotion. What I felt in my heart…..the things I wanted to say and do…..powerless to help her at the one moment when she needed me most. All I wanted to do was set her free and rid her life of these psychic vultures.
******
Weiss appeared in the doorway with a shake of his head and slumped down in the chair next to me. "These stiffs need to get a life. You can't even take a crap in here without surveillance."
"Imagine the clearance you'd need for that job," I muttered derisively, watching him through the steeple created by my fingers.
Eric snorted, completely getting my joke. "Picture sitting in their weekly meeting with this Powerpoint slide comparing the crap rates of every spook on the Scooby squad."
"Sounds like a job for….."
"Stevie Haladki," Weiss finished with a grin.
"Any word?" I asked with my customary frown forming on my forehead.
"She's hanging in there," Weiss replied with a sigh.
"And they still think it's her?" Of course they did, but I had to ask it anyway.
Eric shrugged. "Until we give them reason to believe otherwise….yeah."
That gave me an idea. "I know someone….a psychic."
Weiss made a face. "Tell me you haven't been watching Crossing Over with John Edwards."
"I'm serious. This person….she's my Aunt Trish," I said it quickly, hoping he hadn't caught the family connection.
Eric never missed a trick. "Is this the Aunt Trish who hunts UFOs and stomps around in crop circles with her pagan friends?"
I cringed. "Well, yeah, sometimes she's been known to do that, but…"
"So you're thinking of calling on someone who channels spirits and is a close personal friend of Shirley MacLaine?" Weiss was in his element and I saw the glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
"All that and more," I replied wearily. "Look, Eric, we're out of options here and I…. I think maybe she can help."
The wheels in his mind were turning and could see the figurative smoke steaming out of his ears as he mulled over my idea. "What's her angle?"
Trish's angle was psychometry, the ability to touch objects and gain impressions about that object. She was deadly accurate and had helped the Washington Metro police on numerous occasions. Government agencies had also contracted out her services and I knew she had a fairly high security clearance. "Psychometry."
He nodded thoughtfully, totally getting my aunt's angle. Eric surprises me sometimes with his vast array of knowledge, which is one of the many reasons I keep him around. "So you want her to touch Page 47 and get some vibrations? Maybe figure out who the prophesy is really referring to?"
"Something like that." Weiss shook his head and I added, "You got a better idea?"
"No," he admitted, "But tell me this. How do you plan on separating that page from those ghouls?"
"Oh. Right. I didn't think of that."
"I understand." He patted my shoulder in commiseration, knowing how worried I was about Sydney. "Call your aunt, Vaughn."
"But you just said…."
"Call her. We'll find a way to get past Dr. Doom and Nurse Gloom."
*****
Peregrine
Alias is owned by ABC, Touchstone and is the creation of JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.
Vaughn visits his crazy aunt Trish.
*****
Chapter One
Toss a coin in the air and there's a fifty-fifty chance that either heads or tails will come up. At least, that is what you're supposed to believe, right? Well, let me tell you, I have this antique silver coin that I got as a kid, and every time I flip it, it comes out tails. No lie. Weiss didn't believe me until he saw it for himself and went off whistling the Twilight Zone theme. He thinks…..no, he knows I'm insane. Hey, what can I say? It runs in the family.
The story of the coin is this: it's my anchor. Whenever I feel ready to fly off the handle and go ten rounds with anyone who messes with me, I grab that coin from my pocket and fiddle with it mindlessly. Flashing before my eyes and lulling me into a trance, it seems to center me. Strange, huh? Well, not so weird when you know its history. It dates back to the 1750s and allegedly belonged to the French Minister of Finance during the reign of Louis XV. Yeah, that's right. This all comes from my mother's sister Trish, who gave me the coin at my father's funeral. With her fringed shawl and perfume that overwhelmed the senses like a cloud of incense, she swirled around me and told me that the coin and I needed each other, that she saw it in a vision. Crazy Aunt Trish. Acid casualty. Pot head. Keeper of the family ghost. Channeler extraordinaire. Haight Ashbury graduate. Former groupie. Scary. Exotic. Exciting. Deranged. Her green eyes so like mine, markedly intelligent despite the conspiracy theories and alien abductions that polluted her life, she was impulsive and daring and more like me than I cared to admit. We diverged when it came to the supernatural. I was firmly grounded and she was off flying with the fringe elements that filled her life.
So back to the coin. Of course, I had to check her story, being the boy that I was. Curious to a fault, never accepting anything at face value. The local library gave me a clue that she might be telling the truth. There it was, staring me in the face. Jean Moreau de Séchelles. French Minister of Finance. My maternal grandmother had been a Moreau. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Now I am sitting in an empty conference room with the coin cradled in my palm, thinking about the DSR and Rambaldi's prophesy. It was crazy stuff. I couldn't…..no, I wouldn't believe it. Sydney was gentle and kind. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice whenever she spoke to me. There was no way I could believe this. When they'd dragged her into the van and shackled her to that chair and she'd stared at me with those wounded doe's eyes, I was overcome by emotion. What I felt in my heart…..the things I wanted to say and do…..powerless to help her at the one moment when she needed me most. All I wanted to do was set her free and rid her life of these psychic vultures.
******
Weiss appeared in the doorway with a shake of his head and slumped down in the chair next to me. "These stiffs need to get a life. You can't even take a crap in here without surveillance."
"Imagine the clearance you'd need for that job," I muttered derisively, watching him through the steeple created by my fingers.
Eric snorted, completely getting my joke. "Picture sitting in their weekly meeting with this Powerpoint slide comparing the crap rates of every spook on the Scooby squad."
"Sounds like a job for….."
"Stevie Haladki," Weiss finished with a grin.
"Any word?" I asked with my customary frown forming on my forehead.
"She's hanging in there," Weiss replied with a sigh.
"And they still think it's her?" Of course they did, but I had to ask it anyway.
Eric shrugged. "Until we give them reason to believe otherwise….yeah."
That gave me an idea. "I know someone….a psychic."
Weiss made a face. "Tell me you haven't been watching Crossing Over with John Edwards."
"I'm serious. This person….she's my Aunt Trish," I said it quickly, hoping he hadn't caught the family connection.
Eric never missed a trick. "Is this the Aunt Trish who hunts UFOs and stomps around in crop circles with her pagan friends?"
I cringed. "Well, yeah, sometimes she's been known to do that, but…"
"So you're thinking of calling on someone who channels spirits and is a close personal friend of Shirley MacLaine?" Weiss was in his element and I saw the glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
"All that and more," I replied wearily. "Look, Eric, we're out of options here and I…. I think maybe she can help."
The wheels in his mind were turning and could see the figurative smoke steaming out of his ears as he mulled over my idea. "What's her angle?"
Trish's angle was psychometry, the ability to touch objects and gain impressions about that object. She was deadly accurate and had helped the Washington Metro police on numerous occasions. Government agencies had also contracted out her services and I knew she had a fairly high security clearance. "Psychometry."
He nodded thoughtfully, totally getting my aunt's angle. Eric surprises me sometimes with his vast array of knowledge, which is one of the many reasons I keep him around. "So you want her to touch Page 47 and get some vibrations? Maybe figure out who the prophesy is really referring to?"
"Something like that." Weiss shook his head and I added, "You got a better idea?"
"No," he admitted, "But tell me this. How do you plan on separating that page from those ghouls?"
"Oh. Right. I didn't think of that."
"I understand." He patted my shoulder in commiseration, knowing how worried I was about Sydney. "Call your aunt, Vaughn."
"But you just said…."
"Call her. We'll find a way to get past Dr. Doom and Nurse Gloom."
*****