Verity (part 4)

Blair surveyed his office with a frown. "I know it's here somewhere," he muttered. "One of my expeditions... I remember writing it down. Somewhere tropical, like that narrows it down at all." He looked at the row of binders and notebooks on the shelf in front of him. Somewhere, somewhere in there was a reference to something like Jim's dream. He was sure of it. He had to find out what it meant. It was obviously important. And the way Jim's senses were playing up, it had gone from important to urgent.

Blair shut his eyes, trying to recall the circumstances where he'd heard or written down that piece of information. Sunlight, dappled leaf-shadows, humidity... gentle swaying....

"Kombai Tree people," he muttered. He looked at one section of the bookcase, and sighed. "Start with the first one, I guess."

Half an hour later, he found something, though it wasn't what he'd been looking for.

"Oh my God, they're the same!" he exclaimed softly. "Why on earth didn't I see this before? Jung would be dancing a jig if he knew."

The section that had caught his eye read:

The Laleo are faster and stronger than any human being. No wonder my klutz-o-rama convinced them I wasn't one. The Laleo are apparently incapable of clumsiness. They look like white men because they were created in the image of the evil sorcerer who made them as his servants. But they rebelled and killed the sorcerer, and took his power to themselves. They have no souls, and in this world they have no bodies, but take over the bodies of human beings.

"The Men Without Faces," Blair murmured. A chill went down his spine, and he shivered. It's just a fairy tale, Blair, no need to get spooked. But another voice countered, Oh yeah? Whatever happened to gotta-find-the-significant-meaning, huh? It means something.

Blair read farther.

Korao sacrificed my watch today. After much discussion, the elders deemed it to be a sorcerous instrument, and therefore likely to attract Laleo. "You do not need an instrument to tell you the time, young one. That is to turn your back on the Sun, who gives us life." They let me keep my ballpoint pens, though. "This thing is a tool of the hands, a tool of the eye, and of the mind. It is a knife for carving words. You do not become lazy when you use it." It's a good thing I didn't bring a radio. The surprising thing is that they didn't condemn me as a sorcerer for having the watch. More like an ignorant child that needs teaching. Well, I am here to learn.

And then Blair found what he was looking for, in the middle of an epic Hero's Journey folk-tale of the Kombai.

And Tema came to the land of the Laleo. It was a land of black clouds that hid the sun, an eternal storm that never blessed the ground with rain, just thunder and lightning. He hid from the Laleo, who strode about on their long legs like giant spiders. He found the place where the captives were kept, surrounded by noisome waters, and wreathed with lightning. But Tema was brave and foolish, and he swam the waters and braved the lightning, and climbed the tower, until he came to the first captive, a woman. He knew her face; her name was Kelai. She lay inside the magical bed, like a seed inside a gourd, with black cords around her, draining the life out of her. Tema tried to wake Kelai, but the sleep she was in was an enchanted sleep, and nothing he did could rouse her.

"Eureka!" Blair cried. "The land of the Laleo." And then he stopped, chilled with realization. But if the Laleo are the Men Without Faces, then Jim and I have been dreaming about exactly the same thing.

And then his eye fell on the next page.

Korao said an odd thing to me then. "It is good that you write down the words. Some day, years from now, you will need to know these things, because you have forgotten, and they will be there, waiting for you, to give you what you need, when the Laleo come near to you, or when you go to them."

"You mean when I die," I said, figuring he meant the afterlife. The land of the Laleo sometimes figured as a kind of Kombai Purgatory.

He stared right through me. "No. Though you will pass through death first."

"Holy shit!" Blair scrambled to his feet, staring at his journal as if it were a live snake. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he shivered as if it were winter. It's just a coincidence, Blair. Korao couldn't know you were going to end up face-first in a fountain. But the other niggling voice said, Yeah, right. Korao was the village wise man, you oughta know what kinda things they see. Are you being as thick as Jim, here? There are no coincidences. "There are no coincidences," he repeated in a shaky voice.

###

When Blair arrived in the bullpen, Jim's desk was empty.

"Where's Jim?" Blair asked the bullpen in general.

Brown jerked his head toward Simon's office. The blinds were closed. "The Feds arrived," Henri explained.

"Damn!" Blair slumped down at Jim's desk. "Not that we were getting anywhere."

At that moment, the door to Simon's office opened. A brown-haired man in a grey suit came out, turning his head back into the office to say "I trust you will keep us informed of any developments." His words were spaced out, and sharply defined, rolling like marbles off his tongue.

Blair had a sudden urge to pretend he had dropped something under the desk. He didn't want to have to explain himself to these Feds, he knew they would take one look at his long hair and -- And he was just jumping at shadows, spooked by nothing. He did it anyway, palming his pen in case he actually had to explain to someone why he was bending over in his seat, hiding behind Jim's desk.

Blair heard a chuckle above him. "Hiding from the Feds, Chief? I thought that was my trick. It's okay, they're gone."

Blair sat up, blushing. Jim stood in front of the desk.

"I don't blame you, though, these guys give me the creeps," Jim added, coming around and sitting next to Blair. "They think the Morpheus gang may be involved in this. Didn't give any reasons, just made a pronouncement from on high."

"The Morpheus gang?"

"Hi-tech criminals," Jim said. "If they're terrorists, nobody seems to know what their political agenda is. They just like killing people -- and cracking computers. A couple of months ago the Feds managed to capture Morpheus himself, and his followers did a full frontal assault on the facility he was in -- just walked in and started shooting, blew up the ground floor and escaped in a helicopter."

Blair's eyes widened. "What makes them think these guys have anything to do with Alex Barnes escaping?"

"Recruitment."

"You gotta be joking."

"She, quote, 'fits the profile,' unquote," Jim said. "Which is a whole lot of bull. I've seen the files. Morpheus's people are almost exclusively computer hackers. He must have one hell of a training program. No, the Feds are laying it on thick; they've got some other reason to be interested in this."

"Do you think they know she's a sentinel?" Blair said softly.

"I don't know, Chief." Jim shut his eyes and rubbed his temples.

"Headache? Senses playing up?" Blair asked softly.

Jim started to nod, then winced. "Yeah. I keep flashing on that dream."

"That's what I've got to talk to you about," Blair said. "I found the reference I was looking for." He took his journal out of his backpack, opened it up at the relevant page, and put it in front of Jim. "Read that."

Jim started reading. He looked at Blair. "It's a folk tale. What's that got to do with --"

"Just keep reading, Jim."

Jim kept reading. Finally he looked up at Blair and raised an eyebrow. "So my dream resembles part of a tribal folk-tale. How does that help? What does it mean?"

Blair opened his mouth and hesitated. He had been so freaked by the coincidences he hadn't actually thought about the meaning of the symbolism of it all. "It means --" he began.

Jim's phone rang.

Saved by the bell, Blair thought.

"What?!" Jim said to the person on the other end.

Bad news, Blair thought. And as he watched Jim's frowning face, the meaning of the dream, of both their dreams, crystalized with irrational certainty in Blair's mind. The Laleo are coming. The Laleo are coming for Jim. He shivered. Then his rational mind revolted. But who are the Laleo anyway? Evil spirits? Or something else? How can I protect Jim when I don't know what I'm fighting? And then followed the foreboding thought, But isn't that just the point? The Laleo operate by disguise.

Jim put the phone down. "C'mon Chief." He stood up and made little pushing motions at Blair.

"What? Where are we going?"

"To the morgue. To identify a body."

"Whose?" Blair asked hesitantly.

"They think it's Alex Barnes."

Oh shit! Blair thought, all thoughts of Laleo and evil spirits driven from his mind. Why do I have a feeling this isn't going to be straightforward?

###

"Yes, it's her," Jim said.

Blair nodded in agreement, and turned away. Despite what she'd done to him, it seemed too much to see that beautiful face washed out by death, as if her corpse were just an effigy made of lumpy dough, wax and straw.

"How did she die?" Blair asked Dan Wolf, the coroner.

At the same time, Jim said, "Where was she found? The waterfront?"

Dan looked at Jim in surprise. "No, she was found in Cascade National Forest. She's been dead for at least a day, possibly more. Preliminary examination would indicate that she died of exposure."

Jim stared at the blank, dead eyes of the corpse, nostrils flaring. He shook his head. "I think you'll be surprised," he said softly. He looked at Blair. "We're done here, Chief." Blair gave him a studied look, and shrugged slightly. As they were leaving, Jim added to Dan, "I expect you'll be getting a visit very soon from two Federal Agents, Smith and Harman."

When they were outside the building, Blair pounced. "What was it? What did you notice?"

"She drowned," Jim said.

"How do you know?"

"There was a smell: chemicals, sewage."

"Are you sure it wasn't just the smell of the morgue?"

Jim creased his brow. "It was different."

"Salty? Fishy? You mentioned the waterfront," Blair prompted.

Jim paused, considering. "No, it wasn't like that, now that you mention it." He took a slow breath, staring at nothing, trying to remember. "It was..."

It wasn't until Jim hadn't moved or blinked for more than a minute that Blair realized he'd gone into a zone. Again. He swore, then set about trying to bring Jim back to the here and now. Fortunately, it didn't take long before Jim blinked at him and knew where he was.

"Dammit!" Jim said. "Why is this happening?" Blair could see anger and not a little fear in Jim's eyes.

"I don't know -- yet."

"Great help that is." Jim stalked back to the truck. Chastened, Blair quietly got in the passenger side.

Jim put his head in his hands, making no move to start the truck. "I'm sorry, Sandburg, I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"It's just that you're scared," Blair said, voicing what Jim didn't dare to. "Tell me what's happening. I can't help you if you won't tell me. What did you zone on?"

"The same thing. It's always the same thing. The dream. It's like her. It's just like her."

"Insanity isn't contagious, you know, Jim."

"Isn't it? You can't say I'm picking up on her, because she's been dead since yesterday!"

"Then I'm crazy too," Blair said, "because we've both been dreaming about the same thing."

Jim's head snapped around. "What? When did this happen? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did," Blair answered. "I didn't say we were having the same dream, I said we were dreaming about the same thing. I just realized this morning that both our dreams, in their different ways, were referring to the same thing. The Men Without Faces are the Laleo. And they're after you."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Evil spirits are coming after me? What's next, Dracula?"

"You don't have to take it literally, man. Symbolically, it's a hidden enemy, well-versed in deception, a friendly face hiding a treacherous mask, protected by the cloak of authority."

"The Feds," Jim said. "Is that why they're so interested in Alex? They're after sentinels?"

"Well, it might explain why you were having the same dreams; you were getting the same warnings, but she couldn't interpret them because she was insane already." He looked at Jim earnestly. "You are not going to suddenly want to take a knife to my throat to give me enlightenment."

Jim smiled wryly, and ruffled Blair's hair. "Thanks, Chief -- I think." He turned serious again. "But what's so threatening about this? Why is it a sentinel thing? It's not like every threat that's come along has given me dreams, or I'd have been having nightmares about Brackett long before he turned up. This is more like what happened with Alex, not just dreams. Why?" And the unspoken added question: Why is it affecting my senses?

"Because this is something worse," Blair said slowly. "Something deeper. It may not be the Feds at all."

"I'm sure they're connected to it, though." Jim started the truck. "The safest thing to do may be to just stay out of their way."

"That may not be possible, Jim," Blair said. "They are Feds, after all."

"If they're legit."

Blair looked at him. "I'd have thought, after what happened with Oliver, that you and Simon would have had them checked out. Didn't you?"

"Yeah, we did, and they passed." Jim's mouth quirked in a smile. "Pissed them off, too."

"So they are legit."

"On paper. Remember what you said about deception and disguise?"

"So you do take this seriously?"

"There's only one thing I'm certain of at the moment," Jim said. "Something is wrong. Something is very wrong."

"You've got that right," Blair said fervently.

They stopped at a red light, and Jim turned to look at Blair. "Just promise me one thing, Blair," he said. "If I go missing, then get the hell out of Dodge."

"Jim!" Blair protested. "I can't do that. I can't desert you like that. You'll need help, someone to rescue you. Now I know that's not really my profession, but --"

Jim shook his head. "You rescue me every day, Chief."

Blair lit up. "I do?" He paused, frowning. "Don't think that flattery will make me agree."

"It isn't flattery, Sandburg. It's necessity," Jim said. "If I go missing for more than twenty-four hours, then it's something big, and I can't trust Simon to look after you. Not if it's the Feds, not if it's something worse. I need you to be somewhere that nobody knows about, not even me. That way they can't get you. That way they can't use you against me. That way there's someone I can trust, who isn't compromised, whose hands aren't tied, someone who might have a hope of rescuing me. Do you get it now?"

Blair's eyes widened. "I get it."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise. If you go missing, if it's more than a day, I'll leave."

"Good."

###