Death in Miami
Disclaimer: This story is not intended to represent Supernatural or CSI Miami, it's just for kicks.
Chapter 1
Chicago, 1 week ago….
The restaurant was empty, save for two people. A tall man in his mid 40s, resembling Ichibad Crane, and a short girl in a yellow shirt and blue shorts in her early 30s, and between them a piping hot pizza. Giving her a serious look the guy says, "I need you to do me a favor, I need you to go to Miami and check on my son. Can you do this for me?"
Swallowing a huge lump of pizza, she looks at him in shock and says, "You have a son? Since when?"
He says, "I never told you because it never came up, but I had to leave him when he was a year and a half old…"
He proceeded to tell her the story, and afterward he says, "Will you do me this favor?"
She looks at him and says, "yea, I'll do you this favor, you've done me favors in the past. Where is he?"
"He's in Miami. He doesn't remember who I am. He has no clue who he is, exactly"
The girl gave him a sideways look and said, "What do you mean, exactly?"
"He doesn't know that I'm the Grim Reaper," he says.
Miami, present day….
Horatio looks up at the sky, as he's sitting in traffic. He notices gathering storm clouds swirling ominously. He then looks back at the road as he's driving and thinks, this is gonna be one heck of a day.
Entering the headquarters, he sees Calleigh walking down the hall holding a file. She seems in a rush, bracing a cup of coffee in her hand, barely noticing where she is going. Suddenly, she bumps into Horatio, a few drops of coffee splattering on his wrist, she says, "Horatio, I'm sorry I didn't even see you!"
He pulls out a napkin from his pocket, brushes it off and says, "It's alright. You seem occupied, what's going on?"
She looks up at him and says, "I was just about to call you, we have an unusual situation here."
Shift to the crime scene….
A young man lies in an alley dressed in a military uniform. Crime scene tape sections of the area and passers by stroll on. The medical examiner, Dr. Woods, is leaning over the body. Horatio walks up to the dark skinned woman and asks, "What have you got for me, Alexx?"
She says, "It's an unusual case, Horatio. Well, he's clearly dead, but I can't find one thing wrong with him from the cursory exam. Maybe I'll find out more when I perform the autopsy. I did find a tattoo. A military tattoo; it looks like it could be a Navy symbol."
Horatio looks at her and says, "What would a navy sailor be doing in a alley this far away from the port?"
A peal of thunder echoes like a cannon shot across the sky, and icy fingers of foreboding crawl up Horatio's spine as the wind starts to pick up….
Chapter 2
Back at the lab, Horatio, Calleigh, Alexx, and Ryan Wolfe are standing over the body in the autopsy room, as Alexx finishes sewing him up.
Alexx looks at Horatio and says, "There is physically nothing wrong with this man, but I also found an unusual tattoo. It's in Hebrew. Horatio this is something I think you should handle".
Calleigh says, "I tested his gun, and it hasn't been fired in over three weeks. But what's unusual is, there is sea salt rust in the barrel."
"Wait, the results from the test are in. I did an analysis of the dirt under his fingernails at the crime scene, and I found something unusual. It's a chemical composition I've never encountered before," Ryan adds.
Horatio comments, "If there's physically nothing wrong with this man, then what killed him?"
Alex looks at him and says, "I have no idea Horatio."
Later, Horatio is back at home watching the news story on the crime scene and he notices a young girl looking at him at the scene. The camera pans back to the body, then back, and she's gone.
The same young girl is standing outside the window looking at him and thinking, could this really be his son?
Chapter 3
Dream sequence…
"You leave my baby alone! He's innocent, and he's your nephew!" said Horatio's mother as three men advance toward them.
"Well, that may be true," said the old man in the wheelchair, "but we have no choice."
"It will be quick," said the other man with the bald head.
"And relatively painless," said the man in the tan coat.
"You will leave them be," said another man.
The man walked next to Horatio's mother, looked at the other men and said, "I will go with you if you leave them alone, but I will be back for my son some day."
"That's fine with us, but it's time to go now. It's starting."
Chapter 4
Horatio woke with a start. A wave of sweat had broken out over his body, and he was shaking slightly, but then calmed down when he realized it had just been a nightmare. Putting his gun back in its holster, under the side of the nightstand, he paused a minute to think what had brought on such a nightmare. He almost never dreamed about anything, let alone his mother, and maybe his father…?
Chapter 5
When Horatio got into his office he looked out his window and saw the wind bending the palm trees and the fat raindrops splattering on the glass. He could hear the wind moaning through the trees and shrubs on the MPD's lawn.
Three hours later, the CSIs found themselves at another crime scene. This time a young woman dressed in a salmon pink t-shirt lay on the beach; a look of fear in her frozen eyes. There was a strange word partially written in the sand next to her…
Chapter 6
The next morning, in the autopsy room, Horatio was listening as Alexx told him the girl died with the same unknown cause as the sailor, but that she had found that they both had had adrenaline in their system, but that only one of them had run.
"The girl saw it coming. Whatever killed her was obviously terrifying to her," Alexx said.
Horatio turns to go and then notices something on the shoulder of the sailor.
"What is that written on his shoulder," Horatio asked.
Alexx walked over, moved the sheet down and said, "It's a tattoo that says 'malakalmaut will die'. That's an unusual word, I don't think I've ever seen or heard it before".
Horatio looks at the body and says, "I don't know, but I know where I can look it up."
Chapter 7
With the rain coming down in sheets and buckets, and thunder booming like cannon-shot, Horatio drove to the city library with troubled thoughts.
He finally found an old Hebrew text on mythology in the oldest archives on the bottom floor. While flipping through the book, Horatio came upon an old painting of Ozryel; the angel of death. As he glanced at the caption below, the word, 'malakalmaut' jumped out at him. Interesting, he thought to himself, why would a Navy man have that name and the words 'shall die' have that tattooed on his shoulder? And does it have anything to do with how the victim died?
Chapter 8
Back at the headquarters, Ryan Wolfe is heading quickly down the hallway toward Horatio's office, but runs into Calleigh first.
"You seem to be in a hurry, Ryan, you look like you've found something interesting," exclaimed Calleigh.
"Yeah, I did. Where's H? I think this is kinda important."
"I'm not sure, last I saw him he was down in Alexx's autopsy room. Why?"
"The substance under the Navy sailor's finger nails…was identified as skin cells, they were dead skin cells, but I'm still waiting for final results."
"What on earth would dead skin cells be doing on a Navy sailor?" asked Calleigh.
Chapter 9
Delco is on the computer, looking at the girl's crime scene photos, and finds a half-written word in the sand that reads ' 'avaroc'. He pauses a minute, looks at it and thinks, why would she write 'death', in Greek, in the sand?
Meanwhile, Alexx is performing an autopsy on that same girl, and finds a tattoo that reads, 'Psalm 23' on her ankle. Alexx looks at it and thinks, why do you fear the reaper so much?
Chapter 10
Calleigh and Horatio wait in the visiting area of the Sunnyside Retirement Home in Palm Springs. They await their interview with Preacher Roy, a former traveling preacher, also the father of the two victims. When Preacher Roy walks in with two attendants, they notice right away that the man is blind.
"I hear you've come to ask me a few questions," says Preacher Roy, "about the two bodies that were found earlier this week."
"Yes, we have," said Calleigh, "how did you hear about that?"
"Well, I may not be able to see, miss, but I do listen to the news and they were my children," said the Preacher.
Horatio inquires, "Are you aware that your children have tattoos? And if so, do you know what they say?"
"I do know about those tattoos. I didn't like it, but their mother insisted," he said, with a touch of melancholy.
"Do you know what they mean?" Horatio asks, unaware at this point of what the girl's tattoo means.
Roy says, "The tattoo on my son said 'malakalmaut shall die' and that word was Hebrew and it means 'the angel of death'. The tattoo on my daughter's ankle reads "Psalm 23".
"Why would the kids of a preacher have that tattooed on their bodies?" Calleigh asked gently.
Roy turned toward the sound of her voice and said, "Like I said, their mother insisted, and toward the end, it seemed she was getting more and more obsessed with reapers, and keeping them at bay."
Horatio looked at him and said evenly, "And what do you mean by 'toward the end'?"
With a deep sigh, he turns toward Horatio's voice and says, "One day my wife was perfectly healthy, the next day she was dead of heart attack, asthma, and electrical shock."
Horatio says, "I'm sorry for your loss, but thank you for your time."
As Calleigh and Horatio drove back to Miami, the thunder rumbled louder, lightning arched through the sky in wicked curves, as they rode the whole way in silence.
Chapter 11
Horatio and Calleigh arrive back at headquarters, exhausted. They notice a prison detailed truck parked out front, but they don't pause to look, they go in. They notice two guards and a shackled prisoner at the registration desk. They watch as they walk into the interrogation room.
Horatio approaches the registration office and asks, "Who was that prisoner?"
The receptionist replies, "I don't know, an order just came in for his interrogation this morning, while you were out."
Unbeknownst to Horatio and Calleigh, the same young girl that had been present at both crime scenes was standing right behind them. Suddenly, there's a ruckus in the interrogation room. Everybody but the young girl looks toward the room and the prisoner comes bursting out un-shackled with one of the guard's gun. With a panicked look on his face, the prisoner charges straight toward Horatio and Calleigh.
"Drop your weapon!" shouts Horatio, as he pulls his gun out. Calleigh pulls hers, and moves to the side.
The prisoner stops and looks and Calleigh, then Horatio, and says, "Death is behind you. You shouldn't be worried about me," and then shoots at Horatio.
"No!" shouts Calleigh, as she shoots the prisoner. He drops with a bullet to his thigh.
Horatio closes his eyes and prepares for the worst, but instead feels a shove, when he realizes he wasn't the one who's been shot. He opens his eyes and he and Calleigh look up and behind them to see the young girl that was behind them with a bullet wound in the side of her head.
"Aw crap! This is the third time in three weeks that I've been shot", the girl exclaims, perturbed.
Horatio and Calleigh look at her in utter shock and disbelief. The girl appears to not even be concerned with her wound.
Chapter 12
Horatio races over to the young girl and shouts, "Call an ambulance! This girl's been shot!"
"That's okay," the girl says, "I'm fine. The bullet barely grazed me." She looks to Horatio. "Hello, Horatio. I believe we need to talk."
Calleigh comes over and says, "Come on we have to get her to the hospital," then stops to notice there is hardly a wound anymore. "How are you still alive? That bullet shot you through and through, you should be dead, your brains splattered all over the floor!"
"Well, that's why we need to talk," she says to them. "There's a bit of an explanation for all of this. But you wouldn't believe it in a million years."
The wind burst through the doors, sounding like an angry yell, as Ryan Wolfe and Delco come charging through the doors with a look of worry on their faces.
"H! We heard the gunshot, is everybody O.K.?" they asked.
"More or less," said Horatio. "This young lady and I were about to go into the interrogation room to discuss what just happened. She is a witness to the incident."
"Well, so long as everybody's okay," said Ryan.
Horatio and the girl walk into the interrogation room. Calleigh looks to the two boys and says, "I don't want you two leaving H in the interrogation room alone with her. I don't trust her."
Chapter 13
In the interrogation room, Horatio looked at the girl and said,"How did you do that, I saw the wound..."
"All people have talents detective, mine are just outside the box" the girl said.
"Who are you?" said Horatio.
"I can't tell you my real name, for now," the girl said.
"I have all the time in the world," said Horatio, looking at her without his sunglasses on.
Horatio looks at the girl, then they both look at Ryan who comes through the door with a red folder and says, "H, the results of the first victim's DNA test came back. It's dead human DNA."
"Dead? Are you certain?" exclaimed Horatio.
"Yes, but it's not his. And this is the weird part: it's female DNA," said Ryan.
"Female? Hmm...that's odd" said Horatio.
"According to the findings, the girls been dead for six months..."
Thunder boomed as if a voice was yelling over a large distance. They both looked at the girl with unreadable expressions.
Chapter 14
"If you don't mind,"said Horatio to the girl, "I would like to assign a protection detail to you, just until that prisoner is behind bars."
"If that's what you think is best,"she said wearily.
Suddenly, Horatio's cell phone rang.
"Hello? Ah huh. I see. Tell him I will be there at 9:00am." Horatio put down the phone and looked at the girl. "How do you feel about churches?" he said with a small smile, and his sunglasses on.
Chapter 15
The next day, as winds whipped the rain into a thick sheet of near blindness, Horatio navigated the CSI's SUV down a road with as many churches as one could cram into a small street.
"Horatio, how are we going to see the church? I can barely see the headlights," said Ryan with a slight nervous tremor in his voice.
Horatio said,"I know this neighborhood well. Besides, the church should look like an old mid-evil style gothic church."
Soon, Horatio, Ryan and the girl were in the main body of the church walking toward a young 26 year old priest.
Chapter 16
"Father Thomas," Horatio called out as loud as he dared in a church.
Ryan and the girl looked at the pictures in the stained glass windows that on sunny days shined like rainbows. The girl looked four windows down, then stopped short, then had to suppress a snarl because the picture on the window was the angel's version of the devil's trap.
"I am Father Thomas, yes, and you must be Lieutenant Caine and partner," said the Priest.
"Yes we are,"Horatio said, "thanks for meeting us so early."
"No problem. I am so sorry that my brother almost killed you and the young girl over there."
Horatio looked to see his witness sitting in a pew looking pale and miserable. "Yes, about that...just before he tried to shoot us he said, 'Death is behind you, don't worry about me'...what did he mean?"
"Oh dear. Well, about 6 months ago he got hit by a car running from the store he had just robbed. Ever since, he claims that he can see Death, and the Angel of Death."
"I see," said Horatio. Then he noticed a book of Latin rituals in the Priest's hand.
"What an odd book for a priest to have," Horatio commented, "What is it?"
"It's a book that deals with Latin ritual languages that my brother wanted to read, he seemed rather preoccupied with a particular part, " Father Thomas said.
Ryan said, "What kind of symbol is that in the window? It doesn't look very Holy, if you don't mind my asking."
"Oh, I don't mind. It's supposed to be a symbol to trap an angel and weaken him or her and their powers while you talk to them. According to legend, of course."
Meanwhile, Calleigh and Delco were looking at the security footage from the day before, and gasped in shock as they watched as the bullet went clean through the girl's scull on the side.
"She should be dead, "said Delco.
"Yes, but she's not. And wait-look at the bullet-it hits the wall," Calleigh said. "Guess it still has blood on it, we have to get it before it gets too late."
Back at the church H, Ryan, and the girl were leaving when Father Thomas came up and said, "One more thing...my brother said that the angel of death must die so that others could live."
As he said this, Ryan looked back to see the girl behind the car now back to normal color and looking at the ground. For just a second, he thought he saw a pair of wings ten times bigger than a bald eagle's wings and as black as midnight on a moonless night being drawn back into her body.
Chapter 17
Calleigh and Delco were examining the bullet that hit the wall after hitting the girl, and now were just putting her DNA data into the computer.
"So, what do we do if the girl's DNA comes up as a match for anything we have currently?" asked Delco.
Calleigh looked at him and said, "I don't know. She's with Horatio, so we'll have to have him bring her back here to confront her about it."
The phone rang and Delco picked it up.
"CSI Delco speaking," he said. "What! When? Call Horatio Caine immediately!" Delco slammed the phone down and ran toward the door.
"Eric, what's wrong? Tell me!" said Calleigh.
"The prisoner escaped en route to the county jail, stole a car, and is apparently heading toward the Florida Keys."
"Why? What could possibly be there?" said Calleigh.
"An island with a bloody history," said Eric.
Chapter 18
Meanwhile Horatio, Ryan and the girl were sitting in traffic when the girl looked behind her and saw a large black SUV pull up and noticed men with oozies and pistols preparing to fire them at their car. Letting a low snarl escape, the girl opened the door, then closed it. Then, unfolded her wings, and jumped up in the air to gain altitude, then dove straight down toward the black SUV. Because of the rain and thunder, Horatio and Ryan didn't see the windows rolled down and the guns come out until the men were just seconds from firing.
"Ryan, look out!" shouted Horatio, as they dove to the floor and pulled out their pistols. Bullets were flying everywhere and other people were driving off in a scattered frenzy to avoid becoming road kill. As a result, the only cars left on the highway were Horatio's and the black SUV. Bullets scattered all over the top, middle, and the tires of the SUV putting so many holes in it, it looked like Swiss cheese on wheels. As the perpetrators stopped to reload, lightening flashed and thunder boomed like a canon shot. All of a sudden, there was screaming coming from the black SUV. More bullets were fired, but not at Horatio.
Horatio looked up to see an ax slice through the black SUV windshield into the passenger in the front seat. For a few seconds there was silence, then thunder boomed and the girl landed on the car, wings extended, ripping the ax right out of the delinquent. Bullets fired again, screams ripped through the air as she leapt from the front of the car onto the roof, slamming her ax through the top. Bullets ripped through the roof of the car as she dropped from the top to the back and slammed her ax once again into the already wrecked SUV creating a gaping hole through which she then disappeared. Bullets fired yet again, and screams came from every direction of the car. Horatio ducked his head down to avoid getting hit by a stray bullet.
"What the heck is going on out there H? It sounds like World War III!" screamed Ryan.
Horatio looked at him with slightly frantic contemplation and said, "Something's going on out there, but I'm not sure what it-"
Just as he's trying to finish his sentence, there is a heavy thunk on the hood of Horatio's SUV, followed by a loud scream.
Horatio and Ryan look up to see their witness holding the driver of the black SUV by the throat, on his back, on the hood of their SUV. They noticed a quickly closing stab wound on her stomach.
"Who sent you to attack us?" she exclaimed.
"I don't know," whimpered the young punk.
"She held up the ax," she said, "this is the leg bone of the last guy that didn't tell the truth to me."
"Alright, it was a crazy inmate that wired the money to the Armed Shores bank account," said the kid. "Please don't kill me! It was just a job!"
"That all depends on your next answer..."she hissed. "What was his name?"
"I don't know, but he said his brother was a priest!"
Chapter 19
Calleigh and Delco arrived on the island and found it empty of human life except for a large cabin and a very strange potted plant.
"What is that?" asked Calleigh.
"It's a corpse flower. It is extremely rare, and has only bloomed 28 times in the United States." said Delco.
"Is it native?" asked Calleigh.
"I don't know, but I don't think it should be here," said Delco.
"Neither should you two, but it does alter my plans a bit..." they whirled around to see a semi-automatic pistol aimed right at them by a woman with dirty blonde hair, light brown eyes and white skin, with the prisoner next to her.
"Who are you?" said Delco, to the woman.
"I am a mother who lost a beautiful 23 year old girl who was my daughter-all because Death was set free!" she yelled, in a rage.
Chapter 20
After the police and ambulance came and took the gang members to the morgue and the one left alive to the county lock-up, Horatio, Ryan, and the girl were driving away in a borrowed Sherrif's car.
Ryan said, "How did you do that? That carnage? And how did you survive all those bullets, and that knife wound? It should have had you choking on your own lungs!"
"And how did you leave the car without anyone seeing you," said Horatio, "and the wings, what about them?"
She looked at both of them and said, "Let me make a phone call, then I'll tell you everything."
Twenty minutes later, she, Horatio and Ryan sat in the back corner of a KFC, the CSIs facing her and she facing them, her back to the wall.
"I'll be right back," she said.
"O.K., but no funny stuff," said Ryan.
"We will be watching,"said Horatio.
Chapter 21
"We got two of them, let's just go ahead and start this thing. If we wait any longer, he will be here, then we're both gonna be up the river without a paddle," said the escaped criminal.
"No, we have to have Azreal and Death here. Then, we can trade their lives for my baby girl's and your brother's," said the woman.
Chapter 22
"Hello? It's me. Look, there's been an incident and they saw the wings. And the ax. No, just the wings, and a slight loss of skin color. Almost stepped in front of a window with an angel trap on it. Yes, good thing it was storming so heavily. The Lieutenant and his partner want to know. Should I tell them or not? Okay. Thanks. Bye."
She walked back to the booth, sat down and said, "What do you know of the four horsemen?"
"The four horsemen of the apocalypse?" said Ryan.
"Why do you ask,"said Horatio.
"Death, war, pestilence, and famine are real people," she said. "And Death asked me to come here a week ago to keep an eye on his son."
"His son?" they both said in unison.
"Yes," she said.
"Who is it?" asked Ryan.
"And what is your name?" asked Horatio, a bit irritably.
She looked at the boys evenly and said, "My name is Ozryel, and you, Horatio, are Death's son."
Chapter 23
Inside the cabin on the island, Ryan and Delco were tied to chairs and watching the prisoner draw a strange symbol on the floor and watched the woman giving directions from an odd book.
"What are you two up to? Kidnapping is a federal crime, and kidnapping officers is just gonna get the Feds on you faster," said Ryan.
The prisoner turned to him and said, "Shut up, you. You have no idea what it's like to watch a relative dying when he is so young and has so much to give."
Calleigh looked at the woman and said,"Whatever you're planning on doing is not gonna get your daughter back, it's just going to put you in a deeper, more miserable hole than you are in now."
The woman looked at Calleigh and said,"My daughter was a gifted singer. She sang in our church's choir and she would have gone on to do great things had not Dean Winchester and his interfering brother not freed Death that that poor misguided soul used to kill the immoral and give life to the moral and righteous."
Calleigh and Delco looked at each other with the exact same expression. These people are completely insane.
Chapter 24
"Death's son?" said Horatio. "I'm a man of science; I don't believe that Death is a real person."
Ozryel looks to him and says, "Well, you've noticed the storm gathering outside, how it's becoming more violent? Almost angry?"
"Yes we have," said Horatio.
"And you did see me with my wings, did you not?"
"Yes, we did. But that doesn't explain why you think I'm Death's son."
"Well, I don't think I know. Death told me himself, and he is a lot of things, but a liar he is not. Besides, you just about act like him, most of the time-" she said.
Ryan interrupted saying,"How did you get out of our car without being seen by us or anyone else? Even though the rain was heavy, people still should have been able to see you, and your wings."
She looked to Ryan and said,"Well, you know those old legends about vampires not being seen by their victims until the last possible moment...? Or how fog seems to spring up to suddenly shroud them when they are being chased?"
"Yes,"said Ryan,"but what does that have to do with you?"
"Who do you think started that? It was the people who had found out the Angel of Death was in the midst and was trying to chase him out of town. He would use his ability to sort of...cloak himself. Like those characters on Star Trek with those ships."
"He?" Horatio asked, skeptically. "Are you not a girl?"
"I am. But the Angel of Death isn't. You see, I'm the third you could say...vessel, for this Angel. Death has been around since Cane killed Able, everybody knows that. But people didn't start thinking of Death as a person, until the 1400s. By then, he realized he could no longer travel the world and do his job by himself. So, he asked a few souls that had left the earthly vessel, if you will, to become reapers. Their job would be to bring other souls, once they died, to their resting place. But realizing that he could not be everywhere at once and training all of them, he asked an angel to become his second in command, and help train the reapers. He would be like their manager. However, being an angel, he had no social graces among humans, so he had to have a willing vessel who was going to die anyway be willing to have the angel housed in his body. He would stay with the angel to make sure he blended in."
"Ya right. Are you telling me you're 610 years old? I don't think so..."Ryan said with a smirk.
Ozryal looked at him, slightly perturbed, and said,"I, am not 610 years old. I was thirty when I died, so I suppose technically speaking I still am 30. As for the Angel of Death, when this whole thing started it was 1410, so he's only been on earth for 600 years. He himself is at least 4,000 years old."
"What do you mean you're dead? You are sitting right here talking with us eating a chicken leg. Dead people do not do that," said Horatio.
She looked at Horatio and sighed. "You're right, but when I said I died I meant, yes I did die but only for 3 minutes. That was long enough to be chosen to house the Angel of Death. Now, that was 6 months ago."
Ryan looked at her and said, "That still doesn't explain how the angel of death could have been on earth for all this time, if you've been his only vessel."
"I never said I was the only vessel. You see, the Angel of Death being an angel, can't really be held in a human body for that long. The body can only be a vessel for 310 years. It never ages, and so long as the angel is in that vessel, shy of the one thing that can kill and angel, nothing can really kill that person-as far as I know."
"So you're telling me that you have a 4,000 year old angel who's been painted in history books, keeping you alive more or less," Horatio said.
"Ah, you've been doing your research," said Ozryel with a grin.
Then, Horatio's phone rang. He picked it up. "Horatio Caine," he said. "What? When did that happen? Was anyone hurt? Alright, good. We're on our way." He closed the phone with a grim look on his face, turns to Ozryel and says, "the prisoner escaped, stole a car, and is apparently headed toward the Florida Keys. Two of my CSIs are on his trail, I'm afraid you'll have to come with us, he's still a dangerous man."
Ozryel looked at him with an equally grim expression and said,"You have no idea how dangerous he really is."
Chapter 25
On the radio...
"This just in: the weather has gotten more violent. Multiple warnings are in effect for Miami Dade county, as well as surrounding areas. People are encouraged to take shelter, there is a strong possibility of tornadoes, high wind, and tsunami. If you are low laying areas, leave now."
Thunder boomed, lightning flashed. The ocean waves were growing steadily bigger and stronger as time passed, almost ready to crash onto the highway and smash the bridge to bits like an angry toddler with a LEGGO set.
Horatio, Ryan, and Ozryel drove as fast as they could down Highway 1, toward the Keys.
Ryan said, "H, the Florida Keys are massive, where are we going to go? We have no idea where this guy is headed, or even if he's headed for a particular island."
Horatio said, "I don't know, but we are going to have to head in this direction and hope we get to Calleigh and Eric before he does."
Ozryel closed her eyes and sighed. She thought to herself, this is not going to end well. She opens her eyes and says to Horatio, "I know what island he is going to. It's an island with a history of mistreatment of natives and at least one ritual sacrifice."
"How do you know?" asked Ryan with a skeptical look on his face, his eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror.
"I know this because I was with two friends on that island a couple of months ago when all sorts of...things...happened. We were barely strong enough to stop it."
Horatio glanced to the rearview mirror looking at her. He almost believed her when she talked about that island, he almost believed that she had been there and that things had happened. Either that...or she was one hell of an actress. Although, that didn't explain the wings, or the ax. He would have to keep a closer eye on her.
Chapter 26
Meanwhile, back on the island, the weather was getting worse. Sand was whipping around in cyclone-like funnels and shattering against the cabin making it rattle. Waves were pounding the island like an angry mob trying to get to a prisoner about to be executed.
Calleigh and Eric are beginning to wonder just what the heck is going on, and why no one has come for them yet. Still tied to their chairs, they watched as the prisoner drew another symbol on the floor just like the first one.
Speaking to the prisoner, Calleigh said, "Your brother is the priest, isn't he?"
He looked up at her and said, "Yes he is, he is a good man, and I'm not about to let him die."
"He sounded pretty healthy to me when he called on the phone the other day, to have an appointment with my boss," Calleigh said.
"He sounds healthy, but he's not. He's got a terminal disease. It's slow, but progressive. Tell me what your boss knows, then, if they spoke."
"I don't know, I wasn't with him, but I would assume it was about you,"Calleigh said.
"Why do you keep drawing all these symbols on the floor? What do you hope to accomplish?"Delco asks.
The prisoner looked up at him and said, "You'll find out, one way or another." He said this with a wicked grin on his face.
Annoyed, the woman pulled the prisoner aside and whispered, "Don't tell them anything more. We don't want them interfering. Besides, don't you think that they're just asking too many questions? They're trying to figure stuff out for their boss...and you know who their boss is, don't you?"
Chapter 27
Horatio and company are on Highway 1, hail hitting the windshield, rain pouring down, and the wind howling like a pack of angry hellhounds.
"We're almost to the island,"said Ryan. "What if Calleigh and Delco are already there, we won't be able to see them in this treacherous storm."
"Don't worry, I know where to go. There's only one cabin on that island and it's been there for at least 100 years, and it was built on the sight a native ritual, designed to get the Spanish off their land," Ozryel said.
Horatio said, "It didn't work, did it?"
"No, it didn't. In fact, it laid the groundwork for that big mess that my friends and I had to try and help clean up."
"And what big mess is this that you keep referring to...those things that happened?" Ryan asked.
"Yes,"said Ozryel, "It would best if you didn't know. Besides, I don't need amateurs wandering around in mine fields without armor." At this point, Ozryel is thinking to herself, He's asking me too many questions. Something's up. I don't like the direction these questions are going.
Chapter 28
Finally, arriving on the island, the three of them get out of the car and walk up onto the whipping sand.
"That way,"said Ozryel pointing toward the cabin, "but watch yourself, these people are far more dangerous than your average criminal."
Horatio looked at Ozryel and said, "What do you know about these people?"
"Now is not the time for a conversation, keep your eyes open, and you're wits about you. You'll find out soon enough," she said.
Horatio gives her a skeptical look, turns to tell Ryan to go around the back of the cabin, but finds he is already gone.
Chapter 29
As Horatio and Ozryel approach the cabin, she opens her wings, and Horatio watches, getting his first up-close glance as the wings come out and unfold. He realizes the wings are real, and she just may be telling the truth.
"Go to the front of the cabin, knock in the door, have your gun ready, and be ready to shoot to kill if necessary," Ozryel said. He saw a different look in her eyes. The look almost of a trained assassin. A professional killer.
He watched as she jumped into the wind and flew up into the air to gain altitude. He realized she was going to do the very same thing that she had done to the men in the black SUV. Horatio grabbed his gun and ran to the front door. He realized he had to get the situation under his control best he could, before it went under her control.
Chapter 30
The woman and the prisoner were in the left hand corner of the cabin getting another chair and more rope.
Delco asks, "What do you need the third chair for?"
Calleigh says, "And what are all those symbols on it?"
The woman turned to Calleigh and says, "This is a binding chair. Your boss is coming, and we don't need him trying to save his father."
"His father?" Calleigh asked confused, "What-"
Before she could finish, Horatio bursts through the door, "Hands up! Nobody move!"
The woman and the prisoner looked at Horatio. The prisoner was nervous, he had remembered the girl he shot was with Horatio.
The woman was calm, "Come on in detective. We were expecting you, but not so soon."
Horatio stood between Calleigh and Delco and the prisoner and the woman. "What are you doing here, and why did you kidnap my CSIs?"
"I didn't kidnap them, they arrived on their own. But I decided to use them as bait, and it worked!" the woman exclaimed.
"I should have known" Horatio said.
"Not bait for you", she said, "but I can't have you interfering. And anyway, you're the bait for somebody else. Can't have you getting away..."
That's when Horatio hears the cocking of a 9mm, and turns to face behind him, and sees Ryan, pointing the gun at him.
Ryan looks at him with a sad look in his eyes and said, "H, I'm sorry. But I have no choice."