A/n hey everyone here's the next chapter. You've been patient and now things get more exciting. Thank you all for your kind reviews, I hope this meets expectations.
Disclaimer: Yep... only the unrecognizable characters are mine
Decisions, decisions.
JJ, Hotch and Rossi hit the upstairs with a group from the SWAT team. The appearance of the second floor was a lot like the first floor of the castle. The upper hallway had the same color marble walls and floors. Mahogany tables lined the hallway that was the same size as the entryway, large enough to accommodate a small car. The tables were hand carved with symbols JJ didn't recognize. The brief thought that Reid would know, skipped through her mind as they made their way through the hallway. She made that thought leave her mind. They would find him and he would be just fine. He'd be even better now that he didn't have to worry about inheriting his mother's disease.
There were hand painted vases of flowers on the tables. Some of them held roses of varying colors, black, blood red, yellow and even pink. The other vases had carnations in matching colors with bits of baby's breath. All of the walls were hung with tapestries that looked very old and hand made in dark colors of burgundy, reds, blues and some yellows. There were similar types of rugs on the floors. Everything was polished to a mirror shine.
There were doors leading off the hallway at regular intervals. The group of law enforcement officials separated, and began to clear the rooms one by one. All of the rooms were as well kept as the rest of the castle. They were decorated in much the same manner as the hallways and the rooms on the first floor.
JJ met up with Hotch at the end of the hallway. "I don't see any indication that Reid has been up here." He told her.
"I didn't find anything either. If he's been here, it isn't in this area of the castle."
"Then we'll assume that he's downstairs somewhere."
"Have Morgan and Emily reported in yet."
"Just once, they were going to check out the library, but I haven't heard from them since then."
"That's been nearly twenty minutes ago. We need to find out where they are now."
"Don't panic JJ. I'm sure they're okay." Hotch tried to reassure her, but her face was pale and her eyes were huge in their sockets.
"JJ… Morgan and Emily can take care of themselves."
Hotch was about to reach for his mike to contact Morgan and Emily, when Rossi and another police officer approached them from a room on the other side of the hallway.
"We found his office." Rossi said.
They followed Rossi and the officer back to the room. It was completely different from the rest of the castle. There was a large desk made from pine and stained to reflect the natural beauty of the wood. In the center of the desk was a blotter and to one side a calendar turned to today's date. The other side of the desk had an old fashioned rotary dial phone and the rest of the desk was blank. There were no computers, and only old fashioned gaslight fixtures which were the same throughout the rest of the castle.
"We haven't gone through all of the cabinets, but there are several file folders pertaining to some of the doctors less successful experiments over here." Rossi gestured to a large, hand carved wooden chair in the corner of the room. It looked like picking it up would take about five men.
"Apparently the doctor was trying to duplicate his so-called success in Reid for years. Now I'm not an expert or a medical doctor. I've only just skimmed this file, but it looks like all of his experiments failed at some point in their development. Some of them were viable after birth, but died afterward from some disease or birth defect. There were only two that survived into adulthood, Reid, whom he calls number seventeen and another one, number ninety three. The last one he attempted was killed in Europe. I don't know the details; it's probably in the rest of these files." Rossi finished throwing the file down on the desk.
Hotch called down to Agent Kane, the head of the team sent up with them from the office in Salt Lake City. "I need you to get up here with a couple of your agents, and go through the files in the office we found up stairs.
"Roger… I'll be with you in a minute." The female voice said over the mike.
"We're at the end of the hall and on the left." Hotch told her "Ok… we need to find Morgan and Emily. There has to be something we're missing."
"Oh… you mean like this." Rossi said with a smile.
He gestured to the door and Hotch and JJ followed him back down the hallway to another room. It was a bedroom. He went to the fireplace and reached behind the marble mantle piece. The entire fireplace swung out, and to the amazement of Hotch and JJ, there was a passageway behind the wall.
"How did you find this?" JJ asked.
"Well I figured since this is an old European castle and we're dealing with someone that thinks of himself as Dr. Frankenstein incarnate, it was logical that there would be secret passages." Rossi said matter-of-factly.
Hotch keyed his mike and tried to get Morgan, but he didn't answer the unit chief. He tried Emily next and she didn't respond.
"I knew something was wrong." JJ was saying when an officer from downstairs entered the room.
"Agent Hotchner… We found something downstairs. There's some kind of secret passageway in the wall. It's down in the library. Agent Morgan and Agent Prentiss went down to check it out. We haven't heard from them in several minutes. " The officer was a large muscle bound black man that made Morgan look like a little kid. He was looking surprised to see another opening in a wall like the one he and his partner had found in the library.
"I told him to wait for me." Hotch said with some exasperation. His cold glower made the officer raise an eyebrow and look inquiringly at Rossi. The older agent ignored the officer.
"Rossi… I want you and JJ to check out the passageway here. I'm going to accompany this gentleman down to the library." Hotch said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morgan grunted and moved a little faster down the stairs, his gun in front of him. The steps ended on a large torch lit room. It was equipped like the lab of any self respecting mad scientist with large tables and beakers with Bunsen burners and yellowed pages of formulae and diagrams he couldn't read when he stepped up to the nearest table.
"Hey Emily… look at this?" He motioned to her.
"Yes… why don't you come closer?" A voice that wasn't Emily said to him from behind.
Morgan and Emily whirled around to meet voice, and saw a short man with black hair and glittering eyes holding a gun in one hand. Reid was next to the man and next to Reid stood a woman.
"What the hell…" Emily said in shock at seeing a perfect double of herself next to Reid.
"Put the gun down." Morgan ordered the man at the same time as Emily was speaking.
"I don't think so Agent Morgan. You and your lovely partner will be moving aside and letting us leave or…" He gestured to Reid who was looking as though he didn't recognize his team members or anything around him but the doctor and the doppelganger next to him.
"Number seventeen, why don't you show the FBI agents that we mean business." Dr. Black said with a cat that swallowed the mouse grin.
Reid stepped forward and raised a gun and pointed it at Morgan. The flames from the torches that lit the walls reflected of the silver of the barrel of the gun. Morgan ignored it and faced down his partner.
"Reid… It's Morgan… Why don't you put the gun down?" He said in a reasonable tone.
"I can't… I have to do what my master tells me." He said in a hopeless and incredibly sad voice.
"You don't have to do this Reid," Emily said, trying to ignore the woman that was hanging on Reid's free arm and smiling at her with blank, dark eyes.
"Yes… you're the enemy and I have to do as the master commands." His voice was calm, but his eyes were stuttering back and forth in his sockets, as if in a dream. There was misery in them that Emily had never seen before.
"No… you don't have to do anything you don't want to do." Morgan said, his brain trying to get his gun hand to remember this was Reid, and loosen its grip on the trigger.
"Number seventeen, kill the FBI agents, do it now!" Dr. Black insisted.
"Shut up!" Morgan snarled at the man, turning his gun on the doctor.
"Put your gun down Morgan," Reid ordered in that same quiet voice.
"Not in this lifetime or any other my man."
"Snap out of it Reid." Emily said in clipped off tones. Her hands held her gun on Dr. Black. "Don't listen to the psycho!"
"You shut up and get ready to die!" Dr. Black said, he was giggling again. Emily saw only madness in the black eyes.
"Listen to the doctor baby, and kill them." The false Emily encouraged Reid. "He doesn't need you." She said to the real Emily, disdain and contempt coating her voice.
"Shut up bitch!" Emily shot back, turning her gun on the fake.
"Please… put down the guns… I don't want to hurt you." Reid was saying and pain was lacing his voice. His eyes continued their rapid dance back and forth in his skull.
"You don't have to hurt us Reid. We love you." Emily said.
"No you don't," Reid said. You don't love me, you just use me."
"That's right number seventeen, they don't care about you." Dr. Black said, pointing at the agents with his gun. "Listen to the one I made for you. She speaks the truth."
"No… Don't listen to him!" Morgan said. "He isn't your father or anyone important. Your father gave his life for you. He left you because he loves you. You have to come back with us and read the letter he left for you."
Reid's hands were trembling and the gun was falling to his side. "Number seventeen! Kill the intruders! Do your duty for once in your miserable life and take your place at my side." Dr. Black demanded, slamming his fist down on the table nearest to where they were standing.
The gun in Reid's hand shifted back up to point at Emily. "Spencer… please doesn't listen to him. I love you. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you before now, but it's true. Believe me and put the gun down."
"Don't listen to her. Kill her now." Dr. Black shouted. He stepped closer to the table ignoring the gun that Morgan held on him.
"Spencer… Please listen to me. That woman next to you isn't real. She doesn't know you like we do. Please come back to us. I want to hear you tell us something useless that we don't need to know. You're important, we need you. I need you!" Tears were collecting in the corners of her eyes and falling over the lashes to her cheeks.
Dr. Black was laughing, and the false Emily was pouting and hanging on Reid's free arm like some crazy sorority girl.
"I have to do as my master says." Reid repeated.
"Hurry number seventeen, the others are coming. They'll imprison you again with their unrealistic expectations." Dr. Black argued.
Reid's mouth twitched, and his eyes moved back and forth between Emily and Morgan. "I'm sorry I have to…" His finger squeezed the trigger. Morgan hit the stone floor and Emily screamed. She dropped her gun and fell to her knees next to Morgan.
"What are you doing?" She screamed to Reid, who looked like he'd just come out of a dream.
"Emily… what's going on I don't…"
The doppelganger had been inching away from Reid and Dr. Black, and now she stood with her gun on Emily.
"Get up…" She said coldly, her glittering dark eyes narrowed in anger at Emily.
"Leave her alone!" Reid shouted.
The fake bent down and jerked Emily to her feet, hooking an arm around her neck and placing the gun next to Emily's temple.
Dr. Black was laughing with delight at this turn of events. "You see seventeen; ninety-four obeys me in everything I order her to do. Now kill the bitch and we'll get out of this place for good."
"No I'm not listening to you anymore." Reid said, bringing his gun up to point at the two women in front of him. "L-let her go and I won't k-kill you." His whole body was shaking, but his hand remained steady on the trigger of the gun.
"No… I'm going to kill her and then we'll be together forever.
Reid looked from the fake to the real Emily. Dr. Black was cackling and applauding his creation. He moved away from the group step by step to one end of the lab.
"Kill me Reid! I don't want to live if you prefer this bitch over me." Emily told him.
"No… I don't want to hurt any of you." Reid shouted back, the pain and despair at shooting Morgan was more than he could stand.
"Do it!" Emily screamed. The doppelganger was laughing with glee at this exchange.
His hand was shaking and he move the gun just a little to take in his target. He tried to remember what Hotch told him so long ago, but Emily's dark eyes pushed it all away. It was her eyes that showed him what he had to do next.
"I'm sorry," He said pulling the trigger. Two shots rang out in the huge lab and two bodies fell to the stone floor, and red blood began to flow like rain on glass.