Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Blood Ties. All belong to various other parties.

Summary: Sometimes, it's who you least expect. Often times, though, it's your very first guess.

Prosperity

Prologue

Toronto didn't sleep, but that didn't mean that there weren't lulls in the city life. Sometimes even the busiest city street calmed, though it often took a heavy snowstorm in the middle of the week to accomplish such a feat. One such snowstorm was currently dumping on the city, leaving cars that were trying to get home to crawl, snails-pace, through the ever building white stuff as it covered the road, and pedestrians trying to catch that last night bus dashing through the blizzard as they tried not to get too, too wet.

Coreen had found herself as one such person as she ran down the street to a sheltered streetcar stop, her cloak flapping around her shoulders even as she struggled to keep it closed enough to be some protection against the elements. She shouldn't have stayed out so long, especially once she had seen that the clouds had begun to let go of the storm that had been brewing in them all day, but it wasn't often that she had a chance to sit around and just read without having to do research of some sort or other for Vicki.

Not that she actually minded doing research for Vicki, but she liked having the opportunity to do her own reading too. However, she had to remember to listen to the weather forecast the next time it predicted that they were going to have a snowstorm. At least she'd have warning, if it happened to be correct as it had been tonight.

Tapping one booted foot in an aggravated motion as she waited for the streetcar to show, Coreen peered around the edge of the shelter, cringing and squinting against the hard edge of the wind as it buffeted her face. No streetcar. Grumbling, she crept from the protection of the glass shelter to the edge of the road where the streetcar schedule was posted and scanned it.

"Frequent service. Right," she grumbled, and then looked down the street toward the closed subway station, irked that she was stuck out between service hours. She hurried back to the shelter and rubbed her hands together, breathing on them to give them a brief sensation of warmth before the wind cut across them again and swept the heat away, leaving her once again with cold fingers.

"Come on…" she muttered, glaring at the laptop advertisement that took up a full wall of the shelter - and, inconveniently, the wall that she needed to look through in order to see if the streetcar was on its way. She peered out again, watching as a car sped past - driving far too quickly for the weather - and then, in the distance, saw the murky shape of a public transit vehicle coming through the snow.

"Yes!" she cheered, and began digging through her purse, trying to locate her wallet and the tokens that were hiding inside of it. Fetching her wallet, she zipped it open and fished a token out of it, holding the small coin triumphantly upward when she'd managed to drag it with one finger from the fabric confines that had held it prisoner.

Certain that the streetcar should have just about pulled up to her stop by now, Coreen stepped out to the curb, braving the snow so that she could ensure that the driver would see her in this mess. When she looked, though, there was no streetcar. She could make out the next set of lights, in the direction that the vehicle should have been coming from - the green of the traffic light was shining brightly through the dimness of the snow - but there was no big bulky form of the streetcar. That was odd.

A screeching noise suddenly cut through the night and Coreen jumped, reaching for her cell phone, intending to dial 911, even before she figured out what was going on. Her head darted around, eyes swivelling in their sockets as she tried to find the source of the noise. Logically, she knew that it could have been just about anything, from the squealing of brakes as they slid across an icy patch of road, to the wind knocking over a garbage can, but instinct - and reading far too much about the occult tonight for her to be completely comfortable in the dark - told her otherwise.

"Put it away," a voice hissed in her ear. Coreen tried to spin to see who had spoken, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she did so and found that she couldn't move. Her hand clenched more tightly around her cell phone - she had no intention of dropping it as per the request of some stranger, when suddenly, she felt something wash over her. She couldn't think straight. It was as though there were a presence in her mind, commanding her, controlling her. She was light. She would do whatever the presence wanted. Anything.

"I said, put it away," the voice said again. Coreen nodded slowly and slipped the cell phone back into her purse. She was being foolish. This person didn't want to hurt her, so why had she had her cell phone out with the intent to call in an emergency? What had the emergency been, anyway?

"Now, come with me," the voice said. Coreen's eyes locked onto the figure, and she was sure that she could see it clearly, but her brain wasn't registering what it was that she was seeing. A man? A woman? She couldn't even tell that - shouldn't the voice have given it away? But wait. Had she actually heard the voice?

Coreen followed the figure as it made its way out of the bus shelter and across the road, then started down a side street. She didn't register that they were going in the opposite direction from where she needed to go - she barely even registered that she was going anywhere. She couldn't feel the cold anymore, that was good. The figure approached a car and there was a brief sound as the alarm was disabled and the car doors unlocked at the click of a button.

"In," the voice ordered. Coreen didn't need the command - she had felt what the person wanted her to do before they had spoken, and she slowly climbed into the open passenger side door. The door closed beside her and Coreen automatically reached out and clicked on her seatbelt.

As the driver got into the car and started the engine, sitting just long enough to allow it to heat up a bit before they drove off, the delayed streetcar sped through down the main street behind them.

Chapter One Preview

"What do you want, Mike?" she asked.

"Do you have time to come down and look at something?" he replied.

"Nope. Got a client coming in half an hour. I need to be here, seeing as Coreen isn't." Mike made a frustrated noise on the other end, and she swore that she heard him hit something. Curiosity was beginning to get the better of her now - what could be so urgent that he wanted her opinion without her having come to him with some wonky case to begin with?

"I really need you to look at this, Vicki. You and Fitzroy, though I suppose I have to wait until sundown for that." There was a sarcastic tone to his voice as he spoke and Vicki rolled her eyes again.

"If you don't need me unless Henry's there, then why do I need to come down now?" she asked blandly.