Terminus

A/N: I tried to warn people. But here it is. The third and final story in my SixSix/Dissonance trilogy. You don't have to have read the other 2 to read this, but I promise stuff in this will make a lot more sense if you do. This is going to be another big story, and it's going to take some time to get it all out, so just bear with me. As always, since I've been writing stuff in this particular universe of mine for something like 18 years (holy crap) I'm pretty well versed on my own mythology. So enjoy. And I'll update as often as I can.

1-

He stretched, touching nothing in the darkness but the smooth silk sheets. The girl he had brought to the room had satisfied him – for a time. In the end, he grew bored with her just as he grew bored of everything else. He had not played with this one, not the way he played with the others. It was nearly time to depart this town, and he wanted to save his energy for the big finale. His going away gift, so to speak. The thought brought a slow smile to his face.

That would come soon enough. The noose around his neck was not quite tight enough. Not yet. And while the girl tonight would have been a good distraction, he was not quite ready to put the final bow on his gift.

He turned on his side and propped himself up on an elbow, reaching for the cigarettes he kept on the nightstand. He squinted against the flash of light as the tip flared, momentarily burning away the darkness. Empty faces looked back at him, eyes seeing nothing. The girl had remarked on the darkness of the room, but had been completely unaware of the audience around them. Lucky for him, the smell was never a factor. And it was not as if they could announce their presence. They remained dead quiet.

He snorted at his own joke and blew out a stream of smoke. Motels were dangerous, but in a fun way. All it would take was one maid determined to get into the room no matter what the sign on the door said. It had happened before. Of course she had thought the room empty for the day, and had fully intended to rob him. Unfortunately for her, it just happened to be a day when he felt no urge to satisfy. That was, until she had opened the door. Instead of turning on the overhead light, the crafty maid had switched on a penlight in deference to the blackout curtains that kept the sunlight out of the room.

It only took a few seconds after the door closed behind her for the penlight to fall on the first of the bodies. Sitting in a chair in the corner, eyes wide and empty, mouth caught in a scream. Sometimes they could pass for peacefully sleeping, which irked him to no end. He manipulated them sometimes and tried to recreate the image that he wanted, but it always looked too staged. The special ones always died with agony and fear etched on their features. He made sure of it.

The maid had gasped in a horrified breath and he knew, in the instant, she would be one of the special ones. She was not his usual type – much older, shorter, and rounder. But the call of that particular trait...he could not resist. He had silently stepped behind her while her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing. She sucked in a breath, to scream he had no doubt, but he stopped that with an expert thrust of his double edged knife. Not a killing blow – there was no fun in that – but enough to sever her vocal chords and take the fight right out of her.

He marveled at the technique. He should have been a surgeon, given how precise he was when it came to his knife. The would-be scream turned into a surprised gurgle. The rest was a wet blur. She had forced him to finish his trip sooner than intended, because the one sure way to get caught was to shit where you eat, to be crude. He still had a good two to three weeks in that particular town, but once he'd finished with the maid he had packed his bags and headed for the hills. But not before arranging his trophies and opening up the curtains on the ground floor room. He had glanced in on his way to the car, smiling at the image framed in the glass. Like a department store display from hell. Humans were fragile. He had spent years proving it again and again.

He finished the cigarette and sat up, stretching his arms slowly overhead. The sensation around his neck was faint but there. He called it the noose as another of his personal jokes. It was more likely a combination of intuition and instinct that manifested as a psychosomatic tingling of the sensitive skin of his neck. Although instead of just raising the hairs on the back, the sensation formed a complete circle. The locals had been very slow this time around. His dark room was a testament to that. The day would come soon when he would let in the sun and walk away, letting his imagination fill in the afterward.

He would disappear. Move on to the next small town. Following his intuition. Doing his homework. There was always another small, isolated town with authorities who were just a hair above incompetent. Or no authority at all. In some places the nearest piece of meat with a badge could be a county or two away. He avoided big cities. The targets were more plentiful but so were the police, the nosy neighbors, and the people who would try to disrupt him.

No. Small towns were the ticket. He cast a wide net at first, finding targets from other nearby towns, slowly centering on his location. Leaving behind no clue. Watching local police spin their wheels had some entertainment value after all.

They were at that stage now. He had seen them – three local slices of bacon, driving themselves crazy as they worked around the clock seeking any answers they could find. It had reached the point where neighbors were whispering about neighbors in an endless game of rumors. Skeletons were being pulled forcefully out of closets. Houses were being systematically searched based on pure speculation. Not one of them thought to seek help from a higher authority. If the feds were to show up, it would definitely be game over. He was sure that by now, his exploits had to be on some kind of crime watch list, but he had yet to hear anything about it. He had seen newspaper articles and a few local stories about his exploits but for the carnage he presented, the coverage stayed low-key. Another perk? Perhaps. He was not going to question it too deeply.

He rose from the bed and walked into the bathroom. The shower and toilet were the only spaces not taken up by corpses and he kept it that way for convenience. That would change soon enough. He turned the water to hot and waited until the room was enveloped in steam before stepping under the spray. He knew from experience that the water was hot enough to blister skin, had in fact tested it out on target number two. The red skin and blisters had faded to pale white in death, but were still a testament to the power of a good water heater. He scrubbed, not affected by the heat. He felt very little when it came to pain. Pleasure on the other hand was another story.

He could have normal sexual relationships and the feeling would be overwhelming. Throw in some creative knife-work, blood, and a thrashing female and he could reach highs no human could ever experience. But he shrugged off damage, easily blocking out the rare cuts when the knife would slip, the pain of the overheated water of the shower, the sting of a bullet when one of his targets had surprised him by hiding the smallest, most ridiculous looking gun he had ever seen in the waistband of her jeans. That one had been fun. He still still the gun as a reminder that he had let his guard slip. He liked to look at it, to hold it in the palm of his hand. He could feel the girl when he held the gun. And though he did not usually take trophies, he knew the gun would be going with him when he left. It was useless as a weapon, the girl had been duped out of money. The gun probably would not have stopped a fly. But something about it connected him to the girl and brought back the sensations.

Although he had spent the better part of the evening in bed with a limber girl who did everything to him but make him breakfast, he was going to go out that night. He had some hunting to do. Along with the noose came another sensation; the feeling of a headache forming in the space between his eyes. It meant someone suitable would be near him. This close to the end, he could not afford to miss an opportunity. He started to whistle as he shut the shower off. Hunting always put him in a good mood.

Drew sat up in bed, heart thudding in his ears, mouth dry. He'd been having one hell of a nightmare. But it was already fading. Something about dead people. He kicked off his blanket and sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

This was the third night in a row, and it was the same thing every time. Weird, horrible dreams. And then waking up and not knowing where he was for a solid few minutes.

It wasn't just being in a different house. Although he supposed that might have something to do with it. Drew had lived in their old house since the day he was born. Switching had been interesting but not really a huge deal. Once Mark and Vi had decided to get married, and they'd merged their families, they had all seemed to click together.

Vi had not been willing to give up her house though. Mark and Drew were less attached to theirs. It had simply been a matter of remodeling to make room for their bigger family.

It had taken a few months to get it done, but Drew thought that was more than plenty of time to acclimate to his new home. Vi and Mark had redone the bedroom downstairs that had once belonged to Ray. They'd made it bigger, with a larger bathroom and walk-in closet. Vi's old bedroom had undergone installation of carpet and painting, and Josie had moved in. Drew had grumbled goodnaturedly about the arrangement that that Josie had gotten the attached bathroom.

So they had refitted the room that had once been Josie's. Mark had knocked out a wall and had taken up a bit of Glen's old room and the end of the hall to give Drew his own bathroom. By the time they were finished, upstairs had been completely renovated. Even Glen's room had been redone, although it was still just a guest room. Glen himself had moved into Mark's house. He still worked around the ranch, but wanted to give them space. Plus he was still adjusting to all of his found memories. He needed time.

Drew sat there until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. According to his clock, it was just past four in the morning. Too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. He knew he was up for the day. And a school day. Although when he got up to look out the window, he could see a healthy six inches of fresh snow had fallen while he'd been sleeping. Maybe he'd get a break and they'd call off school and he could take a nap later.

He looked back at the bed with real regret before heading for the door. Drew wanted to go downstairs and get a drink. He could come back up and kill some time playing a game or reading. It was how he usually finished off a night of bad dreams.

Drew got a bottle of water out of the fridge and took a healthy swig of it before sitting at the table and looking out the window again. It was still snowing a little bit. It looked very peaceful. He thought they all deserved a little peace after the past year they'd shared. He worried that his dreams meant it wasn't in the cards. Something was coming. Too bad he didn't know how or when.

"Hey." Even though Vi's voice was low, Drew still jumped when she spoke from the doorway behind him. "Something wrong?"

"Can't sleep. Did I wake you up?" He turned and watched as she yawned her way to the fridge.

"Nope. It's five-thirty. Alarm clock woke me up."

Drew raised an eyebrow at that. He'd been sitting at the table, staring out the window, for the better part of an hour. Maybe he'd been sleeping sitting up. That would be something new.

"You want some breakfast?" Vi asked, peering into the fridge. When he didn't answer, she turned and looked at him, a slight frown of concern on her face. "Are you all right? You aren't getting sick are you?"

Drew hesitated and shrugged. "I'm fine. Just didn't sleep so great." He stopped himself there. Because he liked Vi and understood that they were connected now, not just because she was married to his dad but because they were all bonded together somehow. He didn't understand it and didn't know who he could ask to find out how it had happened.

He wanted to tell her about the dreams but he couldn't remember them. Even now when he thought about it, all he came up with was someone was dead. That was it. He couldn't even conjure up why they were dead. Or how. And it wasn't someone he knew, because he was sure that would have haunted him when he was awake. Vi had proven to be way easier to talk to than his dad. Drew sometimes didn't know how to approach Mark about certain things because he was so hard to read. Vi had been impossible to read, but she tended to wear her emotions on her sleeve anyway.

This time he kept it to himself though. He didn't know if it was even worth talking about. Sometimes a dream was just a dream, and it didn't have to mean anything at all. Drew wished he could make himself believe that.

"You sure that's all it is?" Vi was still looking at him with obvious concern on her face. He figured he'd better convince her before his dad joined them. He'd proably crack under the pressure if both of them insisted on talking about why he was up so early.

"Yeah. Wasn't worth going back to bed after I got up." Drew gestured at the window. "Think they'll call school?"

Vi looked past him out the window. "Probably. At least you won't pass out and sleep through math class." She tousled his hair and went back to the fridge to start breakfast. Snow or not, Mark would be heading out to work. And Glen would probably be there soon to eat before he headed out to help around the ranch.

It was all so normal. And normal seemed to be all he needed to finally shrug off the last remnants of unease from the dream. It didn't take long for the smell of coffee and bacon to fill the kitchen. At some point Vi got an alert on her cellphone. School was canceled due to inclement weather.

"At least one of us gets to sleep in." Vi said, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. Indicating Josie. Drew smirked at that. Josie didn't seem to be bothered by much of anything. Like her mother, she tended to wear her emotions on her sleeve. When something bothered her, she didn't hesitate to say something. Drew unfortunately had not been brought up the same way. Although he had a feeling that enough time around Vi and Josie and that might change.

"Mornin'." Mark entered the kitchen. He was dressed, dark hair tied back from his face in a braid. He carried his heavy coat and gloves. "Gonna be doing a lot of road clearin' today." He set his coat aside and looked at Drew. "You're up early."

"So people keep telling me." Drew helped himself to the food Vi set out. He hadn't felt hungry until he smelled the bacon and eggs. "No school today."

"Good. You can come help me shovel sidewalks."

Drew would have laughed if his mouth hadn't been full of food. "You don't shovel sidewalks."

"I might today." Mark was a contractor. He supposed if someone wanted to pay his guys to shovel some sidewalks, then they spend the day shoveling. Work was work. There was no shortage of things to be done to keep things running smoothly around town.

There were lights from outside. Glen had finally arrived. Vi went to the kitchen door to let him in.

"It's slick out there." Glen observed, knocking snow off his boots. "Good morning." He accepted a much of coffee with a sigh as it warmed his hands. He hadn't been out in it for long, but it was long enough to get chilled.

"Means we'll be sticking close to the house." Vi observed, tightening her robe around her. "I'm going to take a shower. You be careful out there." She said that to Mark as she bent and kissed him in between bites of food before she left the room.

"What, no Josie?" Glen asked, helping himself to the food.

"Not unless you go wake her up." Drew said with a snicker. Glen poked him in the side making him flinch away.

"It's a little early for the smartassery." Glen said in a serious voice. But he was smiling.

"Never too early." Drew said with a grin. The dream was forgotten finally. So was the weird loss of time he'd experienced. Just sleeping awake. That was all. He figured he would eventually get over it completely.

Vi finished her shower and puzzled over finding Drew in the kitchen earlier. He'd been a thousand miles away, damn near in a trance. She had walked in and had looked at him for a solid two minutes before speaking. And he had looked back without really seeing her. It had shaken her but she managed to hide it.

She would have to mention it to Mark but how exacty would she mention it? She didn't even know what it was. Maybe it was what he had said; he was tired. She knew that he had bad dreams from time to time. Josie still did on occasion although not nearly as often as before. Funny thing was, when Drew had a nightmare she could actually feel it, like the air carried some kind of current. She had gotten that same feeling on summer afternoons when a storm was brewing nearby, the sense that something was on the verge of happening.

And just like with storms, it passed. Vi figured it was part of whatever power Drew was carrying. Mark had said the kids' power was still developing and had explained that his own hadn't really awakened until he was almost 18. She assumed they'd be stumbling over odd things for Josie and Drew for the next few years as they grew into what they were.

It didn't stop her from worrying to herself though. Not about what the kids could do. Vi couldn't stop that if she wanted to. Might as well invent a machine to control the weather. She worried about how the kids were going to handle things. They were both level-headed, mature for their age. But still – teenagers were teenagers. While Vi didn't think they were just a ball of hormones with a hair trigger, she did know that there were going to be some growing pains.

By the time she was dressed, Mark had left for the day. Glen had headed back to the ranch to help Ray and the others get started on their morning chores. Drew had gone back up to his room. Vi went upstairs and could faintly hear the sound of music from Drew's side of the hallway.

The whole house had a different vibe now that Mark and Drew lived there. Safer. Vi figured anybody would feel safe surrounded as she was by powerful people who could do amazing things like shoot fireballs from their fingertips.

According to Mark, Vi should be able to do it too althought to a much weaker extent. They had transferred powers when they had bonded. Vi wasn't sure exactly what Mark had gotten from her, but she had seen for herself what powers he had. And she had no interest in seeing if it actually worked. She had been serious about not wanting any undo help. And that extended to the power that Mark had shared. She had asked if her using the power would effect him, and the question had puzzled him. He didn't know. He didn't think so.

It wasn't good enough. Vi wasn't going to risk pulling something from him that she couldn't put back.

To Mark's credit, he didn't push it. She understood that part of him wanted to. The other part was content to let her be. They balanced. Mark's human side and demon side were more settled, more in tune now than they had ever been. Vi still caught herself thinking of it as two separate beings. It was just Mark. Different aspects of Mark, but still, just one man. One man she had bonded herself to with absolutely no regret or second guessing. The marriage had been more for the sake of paperwork. They were married in everythign but name. During Thanksgiving break they had taken the kids on an impromptu trip to Las Vegas where they had tied the knot. Mark wore a tux. Vi wore a sexy silver gown. Neither of them dressed up and the concierge at the hotel had insisted they make it special. They'd spent the weekend gambling and making love while the kids had been entertained by three concerts and more swimming pools and water parks than either of them had ever seen.

They had celebrated Christmas, and the New Year, and Valentine's day was just the week before. It was hard to believe they had known each other less than a year. They had fallen so perfectly in sync it was almost eerie.

She couldn't decide if that morning's encounter with Drew could be considered their first real bump in the road. Or even if she should worry about it. Which meant of course she was going to worry about it. And she would tell Mark, because she understood that even if Drew didn't know how to approach such a thing with his father, that Mark needed to know what was going on. She knew they were close, but due to their past, there were some things they still did not quite know how to approach with each other. Vi and Josie were working on changing that, albeit mostly through just being themselves. They had always been very open about things. They saw no reason to change now that Mark and Drew were living with them.