Disclaimer: Grace is my character, but as for the rest, I don't own them.
I just have fun with them.
A/N: Well, Grace is back. The early chapters of this story will refer back to parts of John Doe and especially chapters 3 and 4 of The Night Visitor. I'm writing this one as I go, so I'm not sure how it all turns out in the end ... maybe part of that will depend on what you have to say!
As always, the story is spoiler free. Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------
A Thursday night in January 2021 ...
1 Metro Medical
The hospital cafeteria was deserted at 10 PM, except for one or two unseen dishwashers banging around in the depths of the kitchen and a lone cleaning woman wiping tables. Grace sat down with a cup of tea, wrapping her cold hands nervously around the paper cup. Any minute now "Blowhard Bill" Norris, the hospital administrator, would show up and then it would be time for the news conference. Though all she had to do was stand there looking serious and concerned, she had stage fright. Her face itched from the makeup they'd insisted she wear. She just wanted to get it over with.
Someone had left a newspaper face down on the seat of a nearby chair and to distract herself she picked it up. Flipping it over, she saw it was a tabloid. The cover featured a large photograph of an adorable toddler wearing only a cloth diaper. A huge pair of white feathered wings appeared to sprout from the baby's shoulders, and the banner headline asked, DO ANGELS WALK AMONG US? Grace smiled, wondering how the photographer had wrangled the kid into just the right position, like a little cherub about to take flight. It really was a very cute baby.
The cleaning woman, who had been making her way across the room, looked over Grace's shoulder and snorted. "You know, they've got one of those things upstairs," she told Grace, swiping at the table.
"What, a flying baby?" Grace asked, moving out of her way.
"A flying something," said the woman. She looked around the room, then bent closer to Grace and confided, "I haven't seen it myself, but John in Housekeeping told me. Went up there to the private suites to clean up some mess or other and saw it with his own eyes."
"Saw what?"
The woman lowered her voice a little more. "You know that young girl they've got up there? Well, her first night here, she was hanging around John, pestering him like crazy, asking a million questions about the elevators and the locks and all that. He kind of got suspicious, you know? Sounded like she was gonna steal something. So when he finished he made her go back into her room and stood there watching to be sure she went in -- that's the only reason he was watching, you understand, just to be sure -- "
"Of course," Grace assured her. "And?"
"Well." The woman looked around again. "She hung around by the door for a while but when she saw John wasn't going anywhere, she finally gave up. And then, " the woman paused dramatically, "and then -- she was wearing a hospital gown, you know --"
"Uh huh."
"Well. When she turned away the back of it fell open a bit, and John swears he saw wings."
Grace almost started laughing, but the woman was sincere and she didn't want to be rude. "Like -- these?" she asked, holding out the tabloid.
The woman studied the picture critically. "No, he said they were folded up under the gown, and they looked smooth. Not like angel wings at all," she added seriously.
"Did he see, um, anything else?"
"Nope. It was real quick, just looking through that little window in the door, you know. She turned the light out and he left. Didn't want anybody to think he was trying to peep or something."
"Of course not," said Grace with a straight face.
"Uh-oh, look who's coming." The woman nodded across the room. Blowhard Bill was striding directly towards them. Grace's heart sank. "Better get my underpaid ass back to work," the woman muttered, picking up her wet rag once again and turning away.
Grace tried to fold the tabloid shut but she wasn't quick enough. Norris saw it in her hand and frowned. "All set, Grace? Good. That's just the kind of trash we're going out there to fight," he continued, looking at the tabloid. "Ridiculous rumors. People will believe anything, won't they?"
They went to the news conference.
2 A bar in Sector Nine
Nobody looked up as Kara Bennett made her way across the dark, crowded room to a booth near the back, and nobody even glanced her way when she leaned down to kiss the woman who sat there. Kara, a reporter and sometime newscaster for Channel 3 (nights and weekends when the regular anchors wanted a day off) might be a local celebrity, but in this place she was just another dyke looking for a quiet place to have a beer with her girlfriend. Even in full makeup and suit jacket, the way she was now, she attracted practically no attention. Which was just the way she liked it, unless of course she was on the air.
"Hey babe." Kara slid into the booth, looking at her watch. "Bad news. I can't stay long. Last-minute assignment to a press conference tonight. Metro Medical." Expecting disappointment or at least exasperation, she was surprised when Julie laughed.
"Not as bad as my news." She pushed her half-empty mug towards Kara. "Looks like we're not going away this weekend. "
Kara paused, the mug halfway to her mouth. "What? Why not?"
Julie leaned forward, eyes shining. She was a small, plain woman who wore faded jeans and nondescript sweatshirts most of the time, but when she looked like this Kara couldn't resist her. "That vampire guy I've been trying to find? He called me this morning. He's willing to meet with me if I can make it tomorrow. That's tomorrow after sundown, of course. So ... " Julie shrugged. "I can't pass this up."
"So come right back Saturday morning. We'll leave as soon as you get home. I'll pack everything. And I'll drive. You can sleep."
"Awww, thanks, babe, but here's the complication. To make it out there tomorrow night I had to reschedule another appointment for Saturday."
"Steelhead or Grunge Boy?" Julie was a writer who specialized in freaks, to put it plainly. The weirder the better. Aside from these kooks who had convinced themselves they were vampires, she was also hanging around with Steelheads crusading against employment discrimination against Steelheads, and with a teenage boy singlehandedly trying to revive the grunge era by chaining himself to a tree outside the house where Kurt Cobain had taken his own life.
"Nope. Another reporter, actually. Guy named Logan Cale, wants to talk to me about Steelheads. If it works out we can trade tips, maybe help each other out. This could be a big lead for me. Prove that these guys aren't as innocent as they make themselves out to be when they're crying to the EEOC."
"Logan Cale, huh?" Kara made a face.
"You know him?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you like him? What am I getting into? Is he a jerk or something?"
"No." Kara played with the drops of condensation on the side of the beer mug. "He's okay. I just can't stand the way everyone else acts around him."
"What do you mean?"
"Well .. the guy's in a wheelchair. Not that he takes advantage of whatever his condition is, but geez, you should have seen the women falling all over him. Like it was the most romantic thing ever. Ugh." Kara shuddered. "Don't tell anyone I said that, okay? He's a decent journalist and I guess a lot of girls think he's cute, but he just bored me to tears."
Julie laughed. "I'd be a lot more offended if he interested you. Your secret's safe with me."
Kara sighed. She wanted to go away for the weekend very badly, especially because she was pretty sure she had a line on an anchor slot the following weekend, so rescheduling wouldn't do ... and then she had an idea. "Could I meet him for you?" she asked suddenly.
"Thought you couldn't stand to be around him. Besides, what do you know about Steelheads?"
"It'll work." Kara leaned forward. "Give me something for him -- notes, contact list, anything you want -- and I'll get whatever you need from him. Then you guys can meet next week. Please?" she added, seeing Julie waver. "Pleeeeease?" She took Julie's hand and put on her most pleading expression.
Julie smiled. "Promise me you'll play nice with him and maybe we'll have a deal."
"Anything you want, sugar, anything you want. Gotta run now." Kara kissed her again and hurried happily out of the bar.
3 Crash
Crash was packed and there was so much noise Logan couldn't hear anything Max was saying. He didn't care. There was always his place if they needed quiet. It was enough to sit there and watch her. Her moods had been unpredictable since her return, but tonight she seemed happier than she had for a long time and best of all was seeing her smile. There hadn't been enough of Max's smiles in his life lately and though he hated Crash he was prepared to sit there all night to get as many of them as she would give.
An outraged roar from the vicinity of the bar distracted him for a moment. Whatever they'd been watching on TV had suddenly been interrupted by a Channel 3 news flash. Out of professional habit Logan watched for a couple of seconds. He was about to look away when to his surprise he saw a familiar face.
"Hey!" Max's voice cut through the din. "What are you staring at?" She twisted in her seat to check out the TV and he saw her frown. "Hey, isn't that --"
Logan watched for a moment. "Yeah. It's Grace. That's weird."
"Why?"
"I never knew handling hospital publicity was part of her job. And, I wonder why they're having a press conference." He tried to hear but it was hopeless. He turned his attention back to Max, but now she was the one focusing elsewhere. From the concentration on her face he realized she had tuned her hearing in to the distant television and was listening to the news conference.
Logan sighed. Damn. If this took the joy out of Max's evening he would personally go up to the bar and rip the set from the wall. Then he realized that a look of alarm was spreading over her face.
"What is it?"
Max gestured at the television. "Those reporters are saying that Metro Medical has some kind of freak in a private suite! You don't think --"
"That they might have a transgenic in there? I don't know, Max."
Max frowned for a moment, then made up her mind. "Got her number? She must have some idea of what's going on."
"Not on me. It's probably at home. We can go look if you want. But," he added gently, "you're really the one --"
"Yeah." Sure enough, Max was looking grim again. "Well, might as well get it over with. She has an office in the hospital?"
"Ground floor, north side."
"I think I'm feeling the need for a little spiritual guidance before bedtime," Max said, standing up. Zipping her jacket, she glanced down at him for a moment. "Sorry to bail on you like this," she said softly. Their eyes met. Logan looked at her steadily, warmly. He didn't want to fight with her tonight about her family.
"Call me later?" he said, and was rewarded with one last smile.
"Sure," she said sweetly, and vanished into the crowd.
A/N: Well, Grace is back. The early chapters of this story will refer back to parts of John Doe and especially chapters 3 and 4 of The Night Visitor. I'm writing this one as I go, so I'm not sure how it all turns out in the end ... maybe part of that will depend on what you have to say!
As always, the story is spoiler free. Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------
A Thursday night in January 2021 ...
1 Metro Medical
The hospital cafeteria was deserted at 10 PM, except for one or two unseen dishwashers banging around in the depths of the kitchen and a lone cleaning woman wiping tables. Grace sat down with a cup of tea, wrapping her cold hands nervously around the paper cup. Any minute now "Blowhard Bill" Norris, the hospital administrator, would show up and then it would be time for the news conference. Though all she had to do was stand there looking serious and concerned, she had stage fright. Her face itched from the makeup they'd insisted she wear. She just wanted to get it over with.
Someone had left a newspaper face down on the seat of a nearby chair and to distract herself she picked it up. Flipping it over, she saw it was a tabloid. The cover featured a large photograph of an adorable toddler wearing only a cloth diaper. A huge pair of white feathered wings appeared to sprout from the baby's shoulders, and the banner headline asked, DO ANGELS WALK AMONG US? Grace smiled, wondering how the photographer had wrangled the kid into just the right position, like a little cherub about to take flight. It really was a very cute baby.
The cleaning woman, who had been making her way across the room, looked over Grace's shoulder and snorted. "You know, they've got one of those things upstairs," she told Grace, swiping at the table.
"What, a flying baby?" Grace asked, moving out of her way.
"A flying something," said the woman. She looked around the room, then bent closer to Grace and confided, "I haven't seen it myself, but John in Housekeeping told me. Went up there to the private suites to clean up some mess or other and saw it with his own eyes."
"Saw what?"
The woman lowered her voice a little more. "You know that young girl they've got up there? Well, her first night here, she was hanging around John, pestering him like crazy, asking a million questions about the elevators and the locks and all that. He kind of got suspicious, you know? Sounded like she was gonna steal something. So when he finished he made her go back into her room and stood there watching to be sure she went in -- that's the only reason he was watching, you understand, just to be sure -- "
"Of course," Grace assured her. "And?"
"Well." The woman looked around again. "She hung around by the door for a while but when she saw John wasn't going anywhere, she finally gave up. And then, " the woman paused dramatically, "and then -- she was wearing a hospital gown, you know --"
"Uh huh."
"Well. When she turned away the back of it fell open a bit, and John swears he saw wings."
Grace almost started laughing, but the woman was sincere and she didn't want to be rude. "Like -- these?" she asked, holding out the tabloid.
The woman studied the picture critically. "No, he said they were folded up under the gown, and they looked smooth. Not like angel wings at all," she added seriously.
"Did he see, um, anything else?"
"Nope. It was real quick, just looking through that little window in the door, you know. She turned the light out and he left. Didn't want anybody to think he was trying to peep or something."
"Of course not," said Grace with a straight face.
"Uh-oh, look who's coming." The woman nodded across the room. Blowhard Bill was striding directly towards them. Grace's heart sank. "Better get my underpaid ass back to work," the woman muttered, picking up her wet rag once again and turning away.
Grace tried to fold the tabloid shut but she wasn't quick enough. Norris saw it in her hand and frowned. "All set, Grace? Good. That's just the kind of trash we're going out there to fight," he continued, looking at the tabloid. "Ridiculous rumors. People will believe anything, won't they?"
They went to the news conference.
2 A bar in Sector Nine
Nobody looked up as Kara Bennett made her way across the dark, crowded room to a booth near the back, and nobody even glanced her way when she leaned down to kiss the woman who sat there. Kara, a reporter and sometime newscaster for Channel 3 (nights and weekends when the regular anchors wanted a day off) might be a local celebrity, but in this place she was just another dyke looking for a quiet place to have a beer with her girlfriend. Even in full makeup and suit jacket, the way she was now, she attracted practically no attention. Which was just the way she liked it, unless of course she was on the air.
"Hey babe." Kara slid into the booth, looking at her watch. "Bad news. I can't stay long. Last-minute assignment to a press conference tonight. Metro Medical." Expecting disappointment or at least exasperation, she was surprised when Julie laughed.
"Not as bad as my news." She pushed her half-empty mug towards Kara. "Looks like we're not going away this weekend. "
Kara paused, the mug halfway to her mouth. "What? Why not?"
Julie leaned forward, eyes shining. She was a small, plain woman who wore faded jeans and nondescript sweatshirts most of the time, but when she looked like this Kara couldn't resist her. "That vampire guy I've been trying to find? He called me this morning. He's willing to meet with me if I can make it tomorrow. That's tomorrow after sundown, of course. So ... " Julie shrugged. "I can't pass this up."
"So come right back Saturday morning. We'll leave as soon as you get home. I'll pack everything. And I'll drive. You can sleep."
"Awww, thanks, babe, but here's the complication. To make it out there tomorrow night I had to reschedule another appointment for Saturday."
"Steelhead or Grunge Boy?" Julie was a writer who specialized in freaks, to put it plainly. The weirder the better. Aside from these kooks who had convinced themselves they were vampires, she was also hanging around with Steelheads crusading against employment discrimination against Steelheads, and with a teenage boy singlehandedly trying to revive the grunge era by chaining himself to a tree outside the house where Kurt Cobain had taken his own life.
"Nope. Another reporter, actually. Guy named Logan Cale, wants to talk to me about Steelheads. If it works out we can trade tips, maybe help each other out. This could be a big lead for me. Prove that these guys aren't as innocent as they make themselves out to be when they're crying to the EEOC."
"Logan Cale, huh?" Kara made a face.
"You know him?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you like him? What am I getting into? Is he a jerk or something?"
"No." Kara played with the drops of condensation on the side of the beer mug. "He's okay. I just can't stand the way everyone else acts around him."
"What do you mean?"
"Well .. the guy's in a wheelchair. Not that he takes advantage of whatever his condition is, but geez, you should have seen the women falling all over him. Like it was the most romantic thing ever. Ugh." Kara shuddered. "Don't tell anyone I said that, okay? He's a decent journalist and I guess a lot of girls think he's cute, but he just bored me to tears."
Julie laughed. "I'd be a lot more offended if he interested you. Your secret's safe with me."
Kara sighed. She wanted to go away for the weekend very badly, especially because she was pretty sure she had a line on an anchor slot the following weekend, so rescheduling wouldn't do ... and then she had an idea. "Could I meet him for you?" she asked suddenly.
"Thought you couldn't stand to be around him. Besides, what do you know about Steelheads?"
"It'll work." Kara leaned forward. "Give me something for him -- notes, contact list, anything you want -- and I'll get whatever you need from him. Then you guys can meet next week. Please?" she added, seeing Julie waver. "Pleeeeease?" She took Julie's hand and put on her most pleading expression.
Julie smiled. "Promise me you'll play nice with him and maybe we'll have a deal."
"Anything you want, sugar, anything you want. Gotta run now." Kara kissed her again and hurried happily out of the bar.
3 Crash
Crash was packed and there was so much noise Logan couldn't hear anything Max was saying. He didn't care. There was always his place if they needed quiet. It was enough to sit there and watch her. Her moods had been unpredictable since her return, but tonight she seemed happier than she had for a long time and best of all was seeing her smile. There hadn't been enough of Max's smiles in his life lately and though he hated Crash he was prepared to sit there all night to get as many of them as she would give.
An outraged roar from the vicinity of the bar distracted him for a moment. Whatever they'd been watching on TV had suddenly been interrupted by a Channel 3 news flash. Out of professional habit Logan watched for a couple of seconds. He was about to look away when to his surprise he saw a familiar face.
"Hey!" Max's voice cut through the din. "What are you staring at?" She twisted in her seat to check out the TV and he saw her frown. "Hey, isn't that --"
Logan watched for a moment. "Yeah. It's Grace. That's weird."
"Why?"
"I never knew handling hospital publicity was part of her job. And, I wonder why they're having a press conference." He tried to hear but it was hopeless. He turned his attention back to Max, but now she was the one focusing elsewhere. From the concentration on her face he realized she had tuned her hearing in to the distant television and was listening to the news conference.
Logan sighed. Damn. If this took the joy out of Max's evening he would personally go up to the bar and rip the set from the wall. Then he realized that a look of alarm was spreading over her face.
"What is it?"
Max gestured at the television. "Those reporters are saying that Metro Medical has some kind of freak in a private suite! You don't think --"
"That they might have a transgenic in there? I don't know, Max."
Max frowned for a moment, then made up her mind. "Got her number? She must have some idea of what's going on."
"Not on me. It's probably at home. We can go look if you want. But," he added gently, "you're really the one --"
"Yeah." Sure enough, Max was looking grim again. "Well, might as well get it over with. She has an office in the hospital?"
"Ground floor, north side."
"I think I'm feeling the need for a little spiritual guidance before bedtime," Max said, standing up. Zipping her jacket, she glanced down at him for a moment. "Sorry to bail on you like this," she said softly. Their eyes met. Logan looked at her steadily, warmly. He didn't want to fight with her tonight about her family.
"Call me later?" he said, and was rewarded with one last smile.
"Sure," she said sweetly, and vanished into the crowd.