Chapter 7

Vic watched Cole tapping away at his keyboard, feeling helpless to do anything to help the Cirronian. He watched, fascinated, as a bead of sweat rolled from Cole's forehead down his cheek. He had never seen the Cirronian sweat before, and it told him everything he needed to know about the situation. In spite of his controlled exterior, Cole was panicking and that was a definite first. At least he was no longer sluggish from the liquid nitrogen which was, Vic supposed, something.

"What are you doing?" Vic asked, leaning over Cole's shoulder.

"Trying to find Kaehto. What the hell do you think I'm doing?" the Cirronian snapped.

Vic recoiled, startled. That was another first from Cole.


Cole winced. "Hwa'an, Vic, I'm sorry…"

"Hwa'an?"

"She's like God," Cole explained absently. "I am sorry, Vic. I'm just very worried about Mel."

"You aren't the only one, my friend," Vic assured him, patting his shoulder. "There has to be something I can do to help?"

Cole nodded and pointed to the one computer in the room that actually resembled a normal human one. "Can you access police reports by internet?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Good. I need reports on all the initial abductions and on the discovery of each body."

"Done," Vic told him, logging on. "What are you looking at?" he asked, typing as he spoke.

"Abandoned and unused buildings in remote locations," Cole told him. "We know he was not keeping the victims in his own home, so he must have been keeping them somewhere. It would need to be in a remote location so that no one would hear the screams, but not too far away, either."

"That should narrow it down a little," Vic agreed. "Okay, printing those reports now. Can you read English okay or do you need me to--"

"I can read English, Vic," Cole assured him. "Mel taught me."

"Okay." He paused as his phone rang. "Hang on, Cole. Detective Vic Bruno," he answered.

Maria announced, "Vicky, got some information for you."

"On Mel?"

"No, on William Brandon. They found blood in the warehouse we confronted him in."

"Yeah, I shot him," Vic told her.

"No, they found two blood-types and the second was in a different location from Brandon's. They're relatively sure that the second set of samples belonged to Angie Horace."

"That's what? Victim two? Three?"

"Three," Maria confirmed. "There was a lot of blood there, too. No body yet, but the CSIs think she died in that warehouse, Vicky…"

"But no trace of Susan Blake?"

"None, and no blood evidence to indicate that she was ever there."

"Cole, he's got more than one place where he's killing these women," Vic told him. "Maria, you have that kidnapping report, yet?"

"Yeah, Vicky, I have it." She sighed. "A pair of joggers swear blind that Brandon was in the park that evening. They picked him out of a photo lineup this morning. He's looking good for Mel's abductor."

Vic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was not incredibly surprised, based on Cole's story, but Maria's words capped it. "Okay, Mar. Thanks."

"I'll bring the report to the Watchfire."

"Thanks, Mar. See you soon."

"How closely do you plan on involving her in this?" Cole asked quietly.

"I don't know, Cole. Maybe it's time to tell her…"

Cole shook his head. "Not without Mel's approval."

"Cole, Mel may--" He stopped as Cole rose and placed one hand firmly over his mouth.

"Vic, Mel is a fighter. We will find her. We have to…"

Vic nodded shakily as Cole returned to his seat. "I know, Cole. We'll find her. We will."

"Involving Detective Cruz too closely in this is a bad idea, Vic. Kaehto may still be interested in her."

The human Detective closed his eyes for a moment. "Mar is not the kind of woman who is going to let us keep her out of a case like this…"

Cole looked up at him and his expression said what the placid Cirronian could not. Unless Vic wanted to find himself in Cole's position, he would keep Maria uninvolved.

"Yeah, well…" Vic shifted uneasily. "This is too close to the whole alien thing anyway. She can still help sift through back reports and stuff… She's… supposed to be taking a few days off anyway…"

Cole nodded and rested his hand on Vic's shoulder. "Not involving her is the right thing. Now come on. We have work to do…"

***

"You should eat now," Kaehto told Mel gently, proffering a spoonful of cereal.

Mel hesitated.

Kaehto was definitely a man used to taking care of his captives. He had already given her a 'bath' with a package of baby-wipes, commenting when she protested that it was how the hospitals handled such things. Ever the considerate psychopath, he had even heated them slightly beforehand so they would not be too cold against her skin. And, to Mel's surprise, it had not been some excuse to cop a feel as she had initially supposed. Like he needed an excuse at this stage, but his detachment had surprised her all the same. Next he had offered her a glass of water, remarking that she looked dehydrated and asking if she felt okay. She had been too thirsty to refuse or consider that there might be anything in it and had drained the glass faster than she would have thought possible through a straw. A second glass had been consumed more slowly and then he had offered her coffee, not batting an eyelash when she declined. After that, he had lower the chain enough to allow her to almost but not quite sit on the cold floor. Most of her weight was still being supported by her arms, but it was a definitely improvement.

And now he wanted her to eat. Mel was a smart woman, knew that a human could go over a week without food. Which meant that if he was feeding her, he intended to keep her alive at least that long. Again Cole's words rang in her head: every day some new pain… She did not want to live that long, to end up like that poor girl, catatonic for the rest of her life because some bastard had spent better than a week torturing her. Death by starvation would be preferable.

But at the same time, she had learned last night that disobedience was painful itself. The deep three-inch burn across her cheek and jawbone attested to that.

She seized on that burn. "I can't. My face hurts too bad to chew."

Kaehto's eyes widened and he put down the cereal. "Oh, sweetness, why didn't you say so?" he asked, his features reflecting concern as he cradled her face in his hands.

Mel closed her eyes when she felt the healing warmth. Never mind the dozen or so burns on her chest or the deep, intricate lacerations on her arms that he had inflicted the night before. Kaehto was worried sick by the burn on her face. Mel would almost have preferred consistent sadism to this erratic concern. The night before, casually carving Cirronian love-poetry into her chest, shoulder, and arm, he had sliced too deep, spilling a dangerous amount of blood. Then he had immediately healed that cut with an apology, acting as if the others did not exist, had not been inflicted.

What worried her even more than his unpredictable behavior, though, was his seeming affection for her. He constantly used that term, sweetness, instead of her name. He made casual conversation with her, asked questions about her friends and family. And last night, when she had been in too much pain to do anything but sob, Kaehto had gathered her into his arms and held her close, rocking her and crooning a Cirronian lullaby until she managed to fall asleep.

But in spite of it all, he would not fail to punish her if she disobeyed him. He had made that clear by word and action. When he offered the cereal again, Mel accepted it, but shook her head after less than half a bowl. She was simply in too much pain to eat. If she had any more, her churning stomach would finally revolt.

"No, I'm full."

"You must eat, sweetness. You have to keep your strength up, after all…" He waggled another spoonful of cereal in front of her face.

"If you make me eat more, I will be sick," she told him firmly, unable to believe that she was a hostage, hanging from a chain, arguing with her captor, a deranged killer. Over fruit loops, no less. No wonder his last victim had gone insane.

"Your stomach hurts?"

"Yeah." She nodded faintly.


"Okay. You should have just said so," he told her gently. "I've got some antacids around here somewhere. We'll try again in a few hours, see if you aren't more up to eating."

Mel accepted the antacid pills along with a few more sips of water, hoping the pills were what he claimed they were, but honestly not sure she cared. All she wanted was five minutes to say goodbye to Cole. Tears sprung to her eyes at the thought of Cole, her gentle Cirronian. He would be so sad…

"Don't cry, sweetness," Kaehto murmured, tenderly wiping away her tears with a tissue. "It'll be over soon."

Mel's eyes snapped open and she stared at him. "Kaehto…" she began quietly.

"Hush, sweetness," he ordered gently, pulling the chain back up to its previous height, leaving her dangling again. "You'll just upset yourself."

"Let me go…"


"Soon," he promised. "Soon."

Mel nodded and closed her eyes again, immersing herself in the memory of teaching Cole how to dance rather than thinking about her current circumstances. Part of her wanted to stay there, securely inured in her own mind. Perhaps, somewhere, Cole was doing the same, or maybe just pouring alcohol down his throat until he no longer cared.

Melanie Irene Porter! a mental voice chastised her. You know full well that Cole is doing no such thing. After everything he's done for you, you owe it to him to hang on until he can find you…

Mel smiled involuntarily, aware that she had started mentally referring to herself as 'you' at some point in the last 24 hours.

Yes, you have. Now you just relax for a while and let me handle things.

Great, now she was turning into a multiple personality, too.

So which one of us gets to feel the pain? she asked herself.

I will. You relax.

Mel reached back to her college days, trying to remember an introductory psychology class that she had mostly slept through but still managed to get an A in. There was a name for what she was doing. What was it? Dissociation, that was it, mental separation from one's environment in response to severe trauma. Well, this definitely qualified as 'severe trauma', and she was not about to argue with some voice in her head that wanted to take her pain on itself.

Thanks.

Hang in there. He'll come.

I know…I'm just wondering if it'll be in time.

Be calm. He'll come. He'll come.

"Cold." Kaehto's voice tore her from her conversation with herself.

"Cold?" Mel repeated, shifting uneasily.

"Well, we've seen that electricity doesn't effect you as it might a Cirronian. So now we are going to find out what cold does to that pretty speckled hide of yours."

"And how are 'we' going to do that?" she asked, swallowing hard.

He held up a small cooler. "Dry ice."

"No!" Mel protested, shaking her head violently. "Come on, Kaehto. That stuff burns humans!"

"Shh," he soothed, extracting a pair of tongs from his bag and using it to pull a chunk of dry ice from the cooler.

Circling around behind her, he pressed it firmly into the small of her back. On some level, Mel was aware that it hurt, worse than the earlier cuts, definitely worse than the electrical burns. But if the pain was being felt, it was not by her. As Kaehto retrieved a fresh square of dry ice, she closed her eyes and sought out the solace of her memories of Cole. As Kaehto used cold to destroy the skin and muscle, Mel smiled faintly, remembering the first time she had made love to Cole.

***

"Her name was Auli. She was a little girl when Kaehto joined with her. She survived," Cole told Vic quietly, sipping his fourth cup of coffee in the last twenty minutes. Part of him badly longed for the harsh bite and euphoric after-effects of something far stronger. Only the knowledge that Mel needed him kept him from taking advantage of the fact that they were in a bar. "She was so young that she shouldn't have been able to. It was one in a million." He paused, sighing deeply. "It might have been better for her if she hadn't."

"So she's been completely catatonic for more than ten years?" Vic asked. "I mean… isn't that, like, brain dead or something?"

Cole shook his head faintly. "No. The EEG results are… not to be disputed. Her consciousness remains intact. She's just trapped in her own mind. It must have been… easier than dealing with the pain, retreating there like that, but she can't come back. It happens to Cirronians sometimes."

"So you just keep them alive in hospitals until they die naturally?"

Cole nodded faintly. "Auli was just a little girl when it happened. She can be expected to live another sixty years, easily. Maybe more." He took another sip of his coffee, grimacing and adding more sugar. "I used to visit her every few weeks. I used to hope that she would sit up or ask where she was or cry for her mother. I never thought that I would wish to hear a child cry… Where is Detective Cruz?" he demanded, his mood shifting from sadly reflective to annoyed.

As if in answer to the question, Maria Cruz entered the bar with an armload of paperwork. "Here. Sorry. I was on my way out when a call came in. They found Susan Blake's body." She dropped the reports on to the bar. "This is everything I could get my hands on before the Captain realized I was there and not home."

"It's a start. Thank you," Cole told her, grabbing the closest report and paging through it. "Where are the autopsies?" he asked, looking up.

"Here." Maria handed him a folder. "If you've eaten recently, you might want to hold off on the pictures."

"Mar," Vic protested, frowning.

"I'm dead serious. Some of those bodies have electrical and chemical burns like I've never seen before."

"I've seen them before," Cole provided, closing his eyes. He badly needed a drink. Or someone to hit. "Vic, he's…" Cole paused, recalling that Maria was present. "He's doing to them what he did to Auli, Vic. That's why you can't isolate a cause of death on half of them."

"How did you know that?" Maria demanded, gaping. He had taken one look at one picture.

"I've seen this before," Cole told her simply. "She won't survive this, Vic."

"But she's--"

"Almost certainly incapable of surviving it," Cole interrupted firmly.

"Mar, can Cole and I have five minutes alone?" Vic asked, grabbing the Cirronian by the arm and hauling him into the back room. "You said only children could die from these joinings," Vic hissed.

"Cirronian children, adult humans." He shook his head. "Her life-force is not adequately developed. If he tries to join with her, it will kill her."

"Why? How?"

"It's… a weak life-force and a strong one. The sudden influx of a substantially stronger life-force would be like possession by one of the fugitives. The weaker life-force is overwhelmed and destroyed. A body will not endure without a soul. Death is immediate."

Vic nodded, inhaling deeply. "So what the hell am I supposed to tell Maria?"

"That a sudden, massive electrical discharge can stop a human heart from beating," Cole told him, slipping from the room.

Vic shrugged and followed. It was something, and not entirely untrue from what he understood of Cirronian physiology. Certainly the burns bore it out. Sort of. Unless she dug too deeply.

"He'll use a different location to keep each victim," Cole was telling Maria as the two shuffled through reports. "I have a list of potential sites that we can match against any sites that you have found."

"One being the warehouse where we confronted him."

Cole nodded and crossed that location from his list.

"Of five victims, we've only found the sites where two of them were held," Maria told Cole, pointing to the other site on the list. "That's by the waterfront. Not a lot to work with there…"

"What about dumping sites?" Vic asked. "He wouldn't be dumping close to where he held them, would he?"

Cole considered. "He never did in the past. Here, it may be different. He's changed. Many things about him have changed."

"Hey, the tools may change, but the MO is the same," Vic told him.

"No…" Cole realized shaking his head. "Not entirely. There are new factors to consider."

"Like what?"

"One. One important one," Cole told him quietly.

"Human body?" Vic mouthed.

Cole nodded imperceptibly. "Detective Cruz, do you have the locations where the bodies were disposed of?"

"Yeah, the ones we've found… They're in here somewhere. Hang on." Maria nodded and began shuffling through the papers as Cole and Vic moved off.

"Human bodies?" Vic repeated in a whisper. "How would that change anything?"

"It's something I told Mel. Not something I had realized before. Touch," Cole whispered.

"Touch?" Vic repeated, frowning.

Cole glanced in Maria's direction before murmuring his answer. "Cirronians don't experience the sensation of touch. Human bodies do, very strongly. It is… overwhelming initially. You modify your behavior in accordance; you have to. You get used to it eventually, but it is always very intense and it does continue to impact behavior. It may not seem like much to you, but it explains a lot, I think."

"Touch is a very underrated sensation," Vic whispered. "Kaehto said that when he had Mar. He mentioned that she sleeps in silk, that it means that she likes the sense of touch."

Cole nodded faintly. "It would be a very desirable trait in a victim, a woman with a heightened sense of touch…"

"He's going for maximum impact. He wants these women to really feel it."

Cole nodded faintly. "I think so. There's more, though. He is… enjoying the murders in a new way." His expression reflected every bit of the disgust he felt at the thought. "Harming these women is no longer just emotional for him. There is sensation now…"

"He's getting off on it?" Vic demanded, his own disgust as obvious as Cole's.

"Most serial killers do," Maria pointed out gently, joining them. "There's a psychological thrill and a physical one. It is sexual for most of them…"


"Excuse me," Vic muttered, hurrying in the direction of the bathroom.

"Some homicide cop," she sighed, shaking her head. "Man should have been a social worker."

"You should go to him," Cole suggested gently.

"Yeah." Maria nodded and hurried after Vic.

Sighing deeply, Cole walked to the bar and picked up a bottle, regarding it thoughtfully for a moment. With a bitter laugh, he put it down and poured himself another cup of coffee.

"I'll find you," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I couldn't save Nallia, Mel, but I will save you. I promise you this. Hwa'an nor-O," he whispered. "Light the path of your son, hold your daughter in the protection of your warming embrace. Hwa'an nor-O… Mother, help me," he pled, wrapping his arms around himself and sobbing.

***

"Way to keep your head, Vicky," Maria muttered, walking up behind him where he stood in front of a sink, leaning heavily on it and rinsing out his mouth.

"Thank you so much for the support, Mar!" he snapped.

"That man is out there crying and praying, Vic Bruno… I think praying," she amended. "He needs you. Now, I know how you feel about Mel, but you need to take a step back from this or you're no good to her, either."

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. "If it were you, I'd be the one crying and praying, Mar. You know that."

"Yeah, I do. Come here, baby," she sighed, gathering him into her arms.

"I don't know if I can do this," he whispered, shaking his head. "Christ, Mar. He goes after you, then he goes after Mel… and Cole says if I let you get too close, he may go after you again!"

She sighed deeply. "We'll deal with it. We'll find a way to deal. And if you need to break down or vent or whatever, you feel free, but you do not go doing it in front of the victim's boyfriend. That's what I am here for, baby."

"I love you," Vic chuckled, shaking his head.

"Likewise. You okay? Ready to get back on the horse? We have a lot of paperwork to shift through, here."

Vic nodded and squared his shoulders. "Yeah. Let's go."