Title: Der Hexenhammer
Author: WriterKos
Rating: FR18
Parings: none
Characters: Everyone
Genres: Drama, Casefile
Warnings: Violence
Summary: Insanity is a disease which spreads like a virus and corrupts the soul of man. There is no cure for it but death or killing. Those who die find oblivion; those who do the killing, find only more insanity.
Chapter one: War room
Men are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of their own minds. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
The grey walls that surrounded the bullpen are silent witnesses of the struggles and battles fought by the warriors diligently working on their reports. Some were won; unfortunately, many were lost. Each loss cut deeply into their souls and despite their knowledge that they couldn't save everyone, they still felt that they should had done more.
Should have arrived before lives were lost.
Should have gone an extra mile.
Should have... Could have...
Each had a pile of reports before them. Paperwork was the bane of all government employees in the country. Everything you do, every action, every bullet spent must be explained, numbered and categorized.
Each warrior had their own demons and scars, but thanks to their experiences they were prepared to deal with the monsters that inhabit only our worst dreams.
Yet they were about to meet one even they were unprepared to face.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
"Looking good, Mama." Derek Morgan said to Penelope Garcia as soon as she entered the war room with her laptop open in her hands.
She smiled brightly as she sat down in her usual spot, looking at the good-looking profiler who she was used to sharing flirts back and forth.
"I always look good, Sugar." In a magenta dress with green hand-painted flowers, combined with purple doll pumps and matching purple makeup, the blonde technical analyst was a vision of spring in the usual dour and gray corridors of Quantico. Matching her clothing, she was wearing earrings and a necklace made of tiny painted coconuts, in all colors of the rainbow.
SSA Rossi, Prentiss, Jureau and Reid just watched the banter, aware that they could derail to other food centered comments in seconds.
"Let's start." Hotch as soon as he entered the room, breaking the good mood in the air. He nodded to Garcia who immediately became serious and clicked the keyboard of her Vaio bringing some pictures to the plasma.
"During the last four weeks three women were found murdered in three different states of the East Coast." Hotch started the debriefing. "Lucy Millport, aged 32, was found drowned in a river in rural Western Virginia; She was wearing a straight-jacket and there were bags of rocks tied to her.
Georgina Danes, aged 26, was drugged and died asphyxiated in the fumes of her burning home in Greenville, North Carolina. Both had traces of GHB in their systems. Thanks to the toxicology report the M.E. estimates that Ms. Danes must have been drugged at least two hours before dying of asphyxiation in her own home. She was then burnt but the firefighters arrived before all evidence of the crime became completely obliterated by the flames."
"What about the third victim?" Rossi asked, fingering the open file before him.
"Petty Officer Jordana Collins. She was found murdered in her garden shed in Washington DC yesterday." Garcia put another picture, which received surprised looks from the agents in the room, on the plasma.
Derek shakes his head at the report and looks incredulously at Hotch. "You're kidding, right? Is this some kind of joke?"
Reid started playing with his pen, staring at the last picture in the screen. "This is quite uncommon. Beheading is a very rare and very difficult method for killing someone, especially because it requires an extreme accuracy to hit the neck with the correct strength and angle in order to successfully separate the head from the body. You also need the right tool."
"In this case, an eighteen century katana PFC Collins had in her living room as decoration. Extremely sharp. Extremely deadly." Rossi commented, showing the picture of the empty display hanging from the Petty Officer's wall.
"Three different victims. Three different cities. Three different M.O.s What could possibly connect them all?" Prentiss asked.
"The palms of their hands were branded with a hot poker. The burn spelled the word Hexe." JJ said gesturing to Garcia, who put the three marks on the screen side-by-side with the pictures of the dead victims. She looked around and waited for the expected reaction of her colleagues.
"I don't follow." Morgan said.
"Hexe means witch in German." Reid translated, looking at the pictures in the screen. "Any chance our victims had any connection to the occult?"
"None that the police could find. They were upstanding citizens, paying their bills, all had regular jobs. They lived in different cities, attended different churches. The only connection between them is that they are dead and someone left that message burnt in their hands." JJ said, seeing the puzzled looks on her colleagues' faces.
"So, DC here we come." Rossi said in a sarcastic tone, prompting everyone to stand up.
However, JJ cringed and lifted her hand asking for their attention, "Guys."
All agents stopped and looked at the Media Liaison, "Due to jurisdiction peculiarities, the last murder was initially forwarded to NCIS as they have priority to deal with Navy related crimes. So we will be working with the primary investigators on the scene: the Major Case Response Team from NCIS."
"That's not a problem for us, we've shared jurisdiction before." Morgan shrugged, not bothered with the possibility of playing nice with some locals.
"It might be a problem for them." Hotch said, seeing all his agents turn to him. He continued, "Their team leader is remarkably known for his ...uhm… inability of playing nice with other agencies and he doesn't hold the FBI in high regard. Be respectful but don't expect a welcoming committee waiting for you."
He stared down each of his agents, trying to get the message into their heads. Once he had nods from each one he gestured to the door, "Let's go, they are expecting us."