A Death Relived

Liliana walked down the stairs, mind still a little overcome by the way she had just missed meeting a young man with her brother's face, only to see him die. What sort of man had he been? Why had he been murdered? She had attended many lowan pride events since she had become the lowan king's champion. If the Jason look-alike had been a part of the Portland pride, surely she would have seen him.

The pride extended to all of Oregon officially. Unofficially, the local pride leaders of each city ruled their prides and swore fealty to Daniel if they chose. Daniel directly controlled only the Portland pride. For the rest, it was more a matter of favors given, promised, and earned. Give and take, honor and oaths.

Leo, the previous lowan king had not been a man of his word. He had broken promises. A lowan king's word was the source and the strength of his power. Consequently, Daniel had a huge job, re-consolidating the power of his kingdom. He had to win over the other pride-kings, convince them that he would keep his promises. So far, he had done an excellent job. His unusual method of gaining the throne and his unusual champion had raised some eyebrows, but there had only been two challenges to his right to be king of Oregon.

Liliana had fought both challengers. One had been an honorable lowan who feared that Daniel was too much influenced by the previous king's ways, and perhaps, too much in thrall to the local prince. Liliana had defeated the challenger, but returned him to his pride still breathing and able, after some healing, to continue to fight any challenges to his rule. He was a good king. Daniel would win him over, in time.

The second man had been more of Leo Taymor's ilk. He never should have been a lowan king. Liliana had not killed him since it had not been necessary, but a pride-king with only one arm would not rule for long.

Nick asked her to come with them as he and Hank took another look at the murder scene. Her eyes might see what their eyes had missed.

Liliana reluctantly agreed. There were too many people in the crime scene. She preferred her vantage point from the top of the building. She had been alone there. But standing in the place where her brother's look-alike had died would add more clarity to the vision. She knew that was true. She just didn't want to go there.

Hank and Nick flanked her protectively as she hunched in on herself.

Officer Wu greeted her. "Oh, hi, it's you."

Liliana smiled, even while she stared at her shoes and tried to pretend there was no one around but her detectives and the nice sergeant. "I am Liliana, Officer Wu," she told him.

Nick ducked his head. "Sorry, I forgot I never really introduced you two." He gestured to her. "This is Liliana Solifilia. She's a local psychic, very well-respected in the community."

"A psychic, huh?" Wu said. "What am I thinking?"

Liliana looked at him with her third eyes for a moment. "That bringing in a psychic on a simple open and shut case seems like an odd move for Nick and Hank to make. Some detectives. You understand now why Nick didn't introduce us before, since a detective consulting a psychic can be bad for his image. And also, that I have very nice boobs, small and high, just the way you like them."

Nick coughed hard, hand over his mouth.

Hank laughed out loud.

Wu just looked like she'd smacked him between the eyes. The expression reminded her of the expression Hank had shown when she told him the exact word for word contents of his mind. People did not expect that, especially if what they were thinking was socially inappropriate to say out loud.

Liliana thought about it. "I should not have said that last part out loud?" She kept forgetting the social rule about not talking about sexual thoughts in most situations. How did people who couldn't see into the minds of others ever figure out that someone was sexually interested in them if no one was allowed to say so?

Wu just shook his head in amazement. She had thoroughly convinced him that her gift was genuine. "I don't suppose you could tell me what the lottery numbers will be tomorrow?"

Odd. No one had ever asked her that before. It seemed like a very logical request for anyone who had money concerns. And who didn't have money concerns? Liliana opened her fourth eyes and started searching.

Nick held up a hand. "I didn't bring Lilly for her psychic abilities. She's a relative of the victim and murder scenes aren't anything new to her. She would like to help. She witnessed the crime in her own way. It's not anything we can use in court, but she might be able to give us some insight, spot something we might have missed."

Wu's face showed concern for Liliana, hunched in on herself. "This is pretty gruesome, ma'am. Are you sure you're up for this? Especially if the vic was family."

Nick put a comforting arm around Liliana.

Liliana shook her head in denial. "My sight means that I have seen far more murders than I would like to discuss, Officer Wu. I have seen Jason's death many times already. It isn't that." Liliana's voice went soft with embarrassment. She leaned close to Officer Wu. "I'm just not very good with crowds."

"Is that so?" Wu looked around at the dozens of civilians barely held back by the tape, the coroners waiting to take the body, the crime scene photographers and fingerprint experts and other forensics people milling around, even after they were done with what they needed to do. "Yo! Everybody who doesn't have a reason to be here, get the hell out! This is a crime scene not a cocktail party." He poked a couple of uniformed officers and had them encourage as many people out of the alley as he could.

Nick squeezed Liliana's shoulders. "Will that help?" he asked her.

Liliana smiled at her toes and nodded. "I really like Officer Wu."

"He hasn't tortured you with bad jokes yet," Hank said. He held the crime scene tape up for her and Nick to duck under.

With the alley all but empty, the air felt far less heavy. She straightened up enough that Nick let her out from under his arm.

"Thank you, Officer Wu," Liliana leaned in close to him as he chased the last reluctant stragglers away. As she almost expected these days, she saw an ugly bloody death in Wu's near future. "When the man who works for the Park gets hit, and the driver runs into a building. Don't go in after him. Wait for Nick and Hank."

Wu nodded. "Will do. Thanks for the heads' up. Hey, can you give me any advice as far as dating?"

Liliana saw what he was thinking and grinned. "I am already in a relationship, but I am flattered." Liliana gave him her card. "Come to my business, and I will see if I can help you find what you are looking for."

"Thanks!" He pocketed the card.

She could see that he actually intended to come see her as a customer, and that he would avoid his death because he would remember her warning and heed it. She had gained a new customer, but he also seemed like a friend. It made her wonder if he should call her Lilly or Anna. Customers called her Anna. Phoebe was her only customer who she also considered a friend, and she now called her Lilly. Technically Marilyn had started as a customer, but she was family. Family called her Liliana.

And Sean called her Liliana. He was special, a category all his own.

Liliana's life used to be very simple. She didn't have any friends and had not seen her family in decades. Nor had she had a lover in years. Everyone called her Anna. No one mattered enough for her to want them to call her by the more treasured name. She wondered how she had ever thought that was the right way to live.

"Call me Lilly," she told Wu, and added one more to her mental count of friends.

Wu left a couple of other officers in charge of keeping everyone back and followed her and the two detectives to see what she would do and say.

The crime scene was already familiar to her. She had been staring at it for hours, long before the police came.

Nick said, "Tell us exactly what happened."

Liliana nodded understanding of what he wanted. "Jason's hands were tied when he was brought here in the trunk of a car. The killer held a gun to his back and forced him to walk into the alley."

"From where?"

"The car." Liliana pointed to the other end of the alley. "It parked there. It was dark gray, with four doors. I do not know much about cars, so I do not know what kind it was."

"Did you see the license plate?" Nick asked.

Liliana looked back. The man with Jason's face, who she couldn't help but continue to think of as Jason, had been her anchor. He was the focus of her fourth eyes. He was family. He was important. The man who killed him was important.

Liliana had spent decades training her fourth eyes to filter out things that were not important. It was the only way that she could cut down the overwhelming everything of all that was and had been and could be into something her mind could absorb without going mad. The car was not important. It was just a car.

The spinnesehen stubbornly insisted to the part of her mind that guided her fourth eyes that the car WAS important. She needed to see the license plate so that Nick and Hank could find the killer.

Slowly, the license plate clarified from a fuzzy rectangle of white. She spoke the numbers and letters to Hank and Nick as they came into focus in her mind.

Nick wrote them down in his little notebook. Wu looked impressed and also wrote them down. Hank just shook his head in amazement.

Nick told Wu. "Can you have that plate run?"

Wu nodded. "I'm on it." He pulled out his phone and walked away so that his conversation wouldn't disturb them.

"Okay, Lilly," Nick said gently. "His hands were tied. In front of him or behind?"

"Behind his back. Jason moved with difficulty, as if he was hurt." Liliana saw flashes of a fight between the man in the balaclava and the man with her brother's face. "Jason fought him, fiercely. The other man won. He fought like a ring champion, but he seemed to intentionally disable rather than kill. Then he brought Jason here to kill him."

"Where were they before?" Hank asked. "Where did they fight?"

"I'm not sure. Somewhere far from here," Liliana said. "The only strong image I saw was here. Death tends to be … overwhelming. When someone's death is near, it's the first thing I see when I look into their future. It blocks out everything else unless I spend quiet meditative time, searching. Then, sometimes I can see events other than death. I will try to search tomorrow, when I am more calm."

"Okay, Lilly," Nick said. "What else did you see here? What kind of gun did the man have?"

"I don't know much about guns," Liliana said. "It was kind of like yours, I guess. An automatic, not a revolver."

"Okay, what else?"

"The man walked Jason to right here and stopped. He said, 'This'll do. The Grimm can't help but find you here. Turn around.'"

Nick's jaw muscles jumped as he was mentioned by the killer.

Hank's eyebrows went up.

Liliana sank into the vision, her voice imitating the voices of the two men.

"I don't understand what you think you'll gain by doing this," the man who looked like Jason said. "Why would a Grimm care about me, anyway?"

"This one will. A prince runs this town. But the Grimm hasn't sworn allegiance to him. The lowan king licks the prince's boots, and the prince's trained attack bitch takes out anyone who dares to challenge. The king of lions should rule, not bow to some human prince."

Jason said, "What the heck, man? You're preaching to the choir. I'm on your side. How is killing me supposed to change things?"

The man chuckled. "You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

The man shrugged. "It doesn't matter. They'll figure it out." He woged suddenly and lunged for Jason's throat. Blood sprayed and gushed.

Liliana wept as she once again, vividly, saw her brother die, his eyes wide, his mouth gasping for breath. She knelt beside the body.

Nick started to hold her, but she held up a hand to push him away. "Jason fell here, face down." She pointed. A wide pool of blood shimmered in the streetlights in the place she pointed to, a few feet from the body. "He cut the bonds on Jason's wrists and threw them over there."

Hank knelt down where she pointed, put on blue plastic gloves, and gingerly lifted a couple of zip ties. He bagged them in a Ziploc from his pocket.

"He turned Jason over." Liliana swallowed bile. She looked down at the body covered in a sheet, but saw Jason's blue eyes looking up at her in horror as the light slid away from them. "He was still alive, barely. Still conscious."

"The killer pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket that had a blood stain on it. He pushed it into Jason's hand. Jason grabbed onto it. He woged, just for a moment, and slashed at his killer weakly. Jason cut the man's hand with his claws through the glove, just a little."

Nick nodded. "We'll have forensics check again for DNA evidence under the victim's nails, make sure they didn't miss it."

"The killer jerked his hand away. 'Stupid, worthless, half breed. Die already.'" Liliana swallowed, her mouth tasting bitter from the ugly words. "He took the glasses and watch and set them on the ground next to Jason." She stood up, following the killer away from Jason's body. "He threw something in this trash can before he got back in his car and drove away. It looked like a wallet. There was plastic over the seat and floor in the car when he got in."

Nick lifted the lid of the trash can she indicated, his own gloves in place. With two fingers he lifted out a wallet. The ID had a picture of her brother. It said, Jason Simonson IV. Nick held it up and showed her. It explained why her mind kept stubbornly calling the young stranger by her brother's name.

Liliana nodded, mutely. This man had been her brother's great grandson. And his name had been Jason, just as her brother's was. The tears flowed in rivers, blinding her third eyes. She closed all of her eyes, and just wept.

There was no more useful information that she could give them. It was okay for her to cry now.

Hank was the one who put a gentle arm around her shoulder this time. It startled Liliana a little. She normally didn't let people touch her unless she knew them well. But Hank called her Lilly now.

Liliana buried her face against his shirt and sobbed. The dead man had been family, with her brother's name and her brother's face, and the only thing she had known about him was how he died. And that it was her fault. She had hidden from the world and lost her family. Now, they were being killed just because they had ties to her, and they didn't even know it. "My fault," she sobbed.

Nick put the wallet in another plastic bag while Hank patted her back.

"It wasn't your fault, Lilly. It was mine," Nick said softly.

Liliana got herself under control after a few seconds and pushed away from Hank's gentle embrace. She could have a proper cry at home when the work was done. She shook her head. "He was killed because I am the lowan king's champion. I encouraged Daniel to ally with the prince. And he is related to me. This Jason didn't even know me, but the man killed him because he was my family."

"He killed him so the Grimm would find him here," Nick said. "This was some kind of message to me."

Liliana nodded. "He probably wanted you to blame Daniel and go after him. He probably intended to set you against me."

"The prince's attack bitch is you?" Hank asked. "Who is the prince? Why would anyone think you worked for him?"

Liliana sighed. "I am not allowed to say, Hank. I am sorry. I have told you all that I can. I'll go now. You two have work to do."

She walked toward the yellow tape where Wu and his men held the people back. The line of people was like a brick wall. She didn't know if she could make her feet walk through.

Nick came up beside her. "Lilly, I'll drive you home."

"Find the man who killed Jason," she told him through clenched teeth. "I will find my own way home."

Nick dug in his heels. "Hank is taking the evidence back to the station. I'm taking you home." Nick put his arm around her and guided her forward. "No arguments."

Liliana probably would have argued anyway, any other time. This time, she just sighed and huddled under his arm. "Okay."

Most of the trip to her house was spent in silence. Nick only asked her a question as he pulled up in front of her house. "Are you working for the prince?"

"No. I do not work for him," she told Nick.

"Do you know why the killer might believe that?"

"Because I told Daniel that the prince was an honorable man, and encouraged him to work with him as an ally."

Nick thought about that. "Is he? An honorable man?" Nick knew that Liliana was honor bound not to reveal the prince's identity, but he also knew that she would tell him as much of the truth as she felt she could.

"I will tell you what I told Daniel." Liliana looked up into Nick's eyes for a moment. "The prince is a very strong-willed, logical and ruthless man. He does what he believes is best for his city. He sees Portland as his, and keeps other powerful forces from interfering as much as he can. Every ally he gains makes his ability to defend his city from outside interference stronger."

"Can I trust him, Lilly?"

"He understands honor and responsibility. He fights for order and stability and justice, although his definition of justice and yours may not be the same. You can trust him to keep his word scrupulously once given, to be who he is, and to do what he believes he should do. You cannot trust that what he believes is right will always be the same as what you believe is right. You are very different kinds of men, and will not see eye to eye on many things."

Nick nodded, accepting the answer and digesting it. "He saved Juliette, didn't he?"

"Yes." Liliana knew that was all she should say, but she couldn't help but add something in defense of her prince. "It cost him, Nick. And I do not mean money. Saving Juliette was not easy, nor was it free. He is still paying the price."

"Then why did he do it?"

"Because he was the only one who could."

Liliana got out of the car and waited for Nick to drive away before she called a cab.

She couldn't rest yet. There was one more place she had to go.