Here's the third story arc for "Lady Hawk". It follows straight from "Out of the Past" and episode 3 (except for the hallway scene.)
WB and SP own all Moonlight characters and story-lines. No copywrite infringement intended. Author reserves the rights to "Lady Hawk" and all original characters, stories, and work below.
LH: Measure of a Monster
What do you do when the one thing you need to survive is the one thing that would make life unbearable?
"Mark?" Andy steps gingerly through the front door and is immediately greeted with a whippet planting his front paws into her pancreas. "Hey there buddy, where's your daddy?" Metallic squeaking accompanying the thudding of wriggling bodies and wagging tails in the two crates under the window to her right answers her question. "Hi girlies. Guess he had to go into work today." She lets the two girls out of their boxes and doles out scritches to all three dogs. A tempest of white and brown swirls around her knees as two whippets and a Jack Russell compete for sole access to a hand. "You guys are silly. I wasn't gone that long. C'mon, go outside." She opens the sliding glass door and gestures the dogs out. She shuts the door and rests her forehead against the cool glass. A slight headache still furrows her brow, but compared to the last eighteen hours, it is negligible and completely ignorable. She takes a breath and pushes herself away from the door and turns to face her empty living room.
Normal surrounds her like a welcome cocoon, but a sick feeling in her gut belies the comfort. In less than an hour, assuming Mark followed his usual pattern when working weekends, she would have to explain her absence of a day and a half to her husband. An absence with only one cell phone call, from a number he wouldn't have recognized. An absence where she left her car, her wallet, her phone, and her husband without a good bye or an excuse before he woke on a Saturday morning. May God damn this whole fucking insane life to the depths of Dante's inferno! She sniffs, rubbing her nose. And if it was God that did this to me, then he can go too. A clicking interrupts her silent cursing and she turns to see the Jack Russell pawing the glass of the slider as a request to come back in. She sighs and opens the door mechanically. The dogs quickly calm as her mood dampens their enthusiasm and they hop up to sulk on the sofa. The trio of pouting dog faces does nothing to change Andy's temper and she goes to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, hoping a dose of caffeine would spark a believable excuse in her so far uninspired mind.
Mick felt sick. Literally nauseous. He turns from his door with a grimace as soon as he hears the hiss of the elevator's gears take Josef down towards the garage below his building. He stalks into the kitchen and dumps the doctored single-malt down the sink. Carrying Coraline. Right. He rinses the glass with the industrial sprayer and sets it in the drainer. He goes to his bookshelf and runs his index finger along the spines of the books without seeing them. I killed her. My wife. Who killed me on our wedding day. What's there to carry? He smiles and pulls out the slim book under his hand. He turns and sinks down into the smooth embrace of the couch, putting his feet up on the cushions with complete disregard to the fine leather. He looks down as he runs his thumb across the cover of "The Master and Margarita." The slightly twisted perspective fit his mood perfectly. "…who are you, then?' 'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.'" His lips curve into a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Exactly."
He opens the book and begins to read, allowing the familiar yet bizarre story flow over his consciousness. His phone startles him just as Berlioz loses his head. Mick blinks and shakes off the unpleasant image of the editor's head bouncing down the sidewalk. He reaches for his phone buzzing on the sofa table and eyes the caller ID. He frowns at the number and thumbs the answer icon and puts the phone to his ear.
"St. John?" The brisk female voice snaps without waiting for him to acknowledge her.
"Apparently." Mick leans back against the arm of the couch.
"Ever the comedian. I need your services." She pauses.
"All right." He closes his book and sets it on the table.
"Meet me at the corner of San Fernando and Loosmore in twenty minutes." The phone cuts off and Mick sighs.
He looks at the book on the sofa table, "I guess the conversation with the vodka drinking cat will just have to wait." He stands and slides his phone into his pocket, pulls a short leather jacket off it's hanger in the front closet and grabs his keys as he strides towards the door.
As he pulls his door shut behind him, he straightens his shoulders and takes a deep, completely unnecessary breath. He summons the veneer of casual professionalism that Josef had managed to crack a little during their conversation earlier that evening. Four people died because of one unfortunate moment. So chalk another four lost lives to the ledger. It will be an interesting day when the bill comes due.
Goethe, Faust.