CHAPTER NINE

Everyone could tell there was something off about me for the rest of the day.

I am not a good liar.

Emily and Gideon knew I was hooked on Dilaudid when I'd never said anything. Morgan could tell when I was having nightmares and when I wasn't sleeping at night. I am apparently very transparent.

But it was JJ who said something first. When I stepped off the elevator, she was on her cell phone in the hallway. "How's he doing?...Did you give him the meds?...Yeah, I'm off in a few hours. I'll see you then. I love you." She must have been talking to Will. I tried to slide past her, but her eyes met mine and she held up a finger. Stuck, I rocked on my heels while I waited for her.

"How's my godson?" I asked as she hung up and slipped the phone into her pocket.

She raised an eyebrow. "Getting over an ear infection."

"Ouch."

"He's stubborn like his daddy," JJ sighed. "He won't hold still for the ear drops." She looked at me. "Are you okay? Who was your friend from earlier?"

"Oh, her, um, her name is Aura," I said, but didn't offer anymore information.

JJ raised an eyebrow. "She seems nice," she replied after it became evident I wasn't volunteering anything else. "So, Hotch has a few questions about your profile. He wanted you to stop by his office."

"Sure, okay. I'll talk to you later."

"Spence..."

JJ and I have a special relationship since we're the youngest on the team. And I'm Henry's godfather. And then there was that whole thing with Tobias Hinkel…and that Redskins game…She can read me like a book, like no one else (except maybe Morgan) can. Instantly, she knew I was hiding something. She studied me for a moment. "Nothing," she said finally. "You should come over for dinner some night. Henry would love to see you. And Will's been wanting to try out his Star Wars Trivial Pursuit with someone who will actually play it."

I nodded. I wanted to see Henry too. "Yeah, just pick a night," I replied sincerely. "I'll be there."

It looked like JJ wanted to say more, but instead, she said, "Well, you probably don't want to keep Hotch waiting anymore."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, wouldn't want that." I waved to JJ, turned, and just about knocked myself out when I realized there was a wall behind me. Smooth, Reid.

I booked it to Hotch's office. I'd had him upset with me once before, in Texas, and I sure didn't want it to be something I had to live again. I knocked on his door and stuck my head in. He was on the phone, but he waved me in. I stopped just inside the door and waited for him to get off the call.

He hung up. "Sit down, Reid," he said. I tried analyzing his voice, but it was very even. I couldn't tell where he was going to go with this. "You want to tell me about your behavior this afternoon?" he said, in a tone that suggested I'd better have a good story.

I could have made up some creative story-she was an old friend, a classmate, a long-lost relative that didn't get out into the sun much. Her words echoed in my head- "We'd both disappear". Instead I said, "I've been using her as a source." I could use that.

"On this case?" Hotch asked.

I nodded. "That night in the subway, someone attacked me. They went through my stuff. She brought me back to my house. I think she knows who attacked me. I think she's connected to this case. But I don't know how." That was the truth, and I hadn't given anything away. "She says she has information for me."

"What kind of information?" That was Hotch, the old prosecutor taking over.

Crap. "I don't really know, we didn't get to talk much this afternoon," I admitted. "Look, I know I'm the junior G-Man on the team, I know that I have a tendency to get into a lot of trouble, but I trust her." And I did, though her behavior made her far more likely to be our UNSUB than it made her any sort of help to us. "I want to know what she knows. If it will bring those kids home alive instead of in a coroner's van, then I think you should let me pursue this."

Oh God. Did I really just give Hotch an order? I should go start clearing out my desk. Maybe if I did it fast, Morgan wouldn't ask questions.

"It's your call," Hotch said finally.

Not the answer I'd expected. "Seriously?" I asked.

"Find out what she knows," Hotch replied. "We need all the tips we can get right now."

There was a knock on the door. Emily stood outside. "JJ just got a call from Metro," she said. "There's a little boy missing from Falls Church."

It was 2:30 in the afternoon. I locked eyes with Hotch. This one had happened in broad daylight. "I'll meet you and Rossi at the car," he told Emily. "Reid-"

"Yeah, yeah I got it," I turned and ducked under Emily's arm and headed outside. If ever there was a time to talk to my new…source…now was the time to do it. I flipped open my phone and made a phone call. "Is this Aura…yeah this is, oh, okay…we need to meet."

I stood in the middle of Potomac Park in the dark. I checked my watch-it was ten after eleven. Aura had insisted we meet here, and after the sun went down. I leaned my back against a tree-no way was I getting accosted from behind again. I was wearing my gun.

The little boy from Falls Church's name was Keenan Franz. He'd been playing in his parent's backyard. One minute, the six year old was throwing sand in an old tire, the next, his father had gone in to answer the phone, and when he came back out with it not ten seconds later, Keenan was gone.

A boy. Broad daylight. Not like Laurie, or Abby. Or Kaylie.

Rossi wouldn't let me live this down. I'd said our UNSUB operated at night because of photosensitivity. Yet there was this…But it had to be that. There wasn't any other explanation.

You just told us our UNSUB is Count Dracula.

No I didn't, Rossi, because vampires-in the literal sense-don't exist!

There was a crack behind me, and I whipped around, my gun forward.

Aura stepped from the trees, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a Georgetown sweatshirt. "Don't shoot," she said, then frowned. "God I can't believe I just said that."

"You and I need to talk. Right now," I said.

I started pacing the park. I'd agreed to meet him in the middle of the night. I had had dinner on the run, a stray cat with no collar. I had cat fur on my jeans. I wondered why I cared what Spencer Reid thought I looked like right now. I'd been very, very careful not to be followed. "You spend your days hunting predators," I began. Little did he know he was in the presence of one of nature's best. I stopped and turned to him, crossing my arms over my stomach. "The darkest members of society." I studied him. He was staring at me intently. I'd never seen someone so focused, so…attentive. "Well…what if I told you that…that real evil exists?"

I never got the chance. I heard a low growl, and then I felt the air move. I threw Spencer to the side as Brody knocked me on my ass. He snarled.

Apparently I hadn't done a very good job covering my tracks.

I smelled hard liquor on his breath. I landed on my back, hard. It would have knocked the wind out of me, had I had any. As it was, it stung a little bit.

"Traitor," he hissed at me. One hand gripped my throat and started to squeeze. From my back, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't get any leverage to throw him off. The one thing I did know was that Spencer and I would die slowly. Brody loves his job.

I heard a loud POP, and Brody let out an animalistic howl. His fangs appeared, and his eyes clouded into the icy blue that made him so terrifying. His head whipped around, his hand still on my throat.

I saw Reid behind him, arms outstretched, his service pistol smoking. Both hands had a white-knuckled grip on the gun. But his eyes…they went from confusion to surprise…to terror as he realized that Brody wasn't dying.

I had no idea what had just happened. One minute, Aura was talking to me, the next, there was a guy flying through the air. Aura was on her back and he was choking the life out of her. Instinctively I knew that he would kill her and then me if I didn't act. So I pulled my gun. And I fired. Hotch would've been impressed. It was a kill shot, into the left atrium of the heart, through the rib cage. Maybe I should have shot to maim, but I just had a feeling that if I didn't get him first, he'd get the both of us.

But he didn't drop. He didn't…he didn't die. He should have fallen to the grass. Instead, he turned around, never losing his grip on Aura. He had unnaturally long canine eye teeth. And his eyes…where those contacts that made them so ice-white?

No, I realized. Those were his eyes. But there was no soul in those eyes. Why isn't he dead?

I heard him growl. "Aura hasn't told you yet?" he hissed at me in an Irish accent. "That little pea shooter of yours won't do any good, boyo." He picked Aura's head up by the neck and slammed it into the ground. Aura lay still.

He got off of her, slowly. He took a few steps toward me. "I'm going to enjoy finding out what you know," he told me.

"What I know? What I know about….about what?" I demanded. I didn't have a freakin' clue what he was talking about.

He got right in front of me, deliberately pushing his chest into the end of my gun. His breath smelled like Jack Daniels and…death. Like a body at a crime scene.

One hand grabbed my hair and yanked. The other ripped my gun from my hands. I couldn't help it, I cried out. It felt like he was crushing the bones in my wrist!

I heard a snap. Brody's head twisted sharply to the side. His eyes rolled backwards into his head. He sank slowly to the ground, the vise grip on my wrist loosening. His fingers fell from my hair. I landed on my butt, not realizing I had even left the ground. I looked up.

Aura stood above me. Her eyes were the same feral blue color as our attacker. Her hands were outstretched, her fingers curled in the shape of our attacker's neck.

I scrambled back a few feet.

She stepped forward, and her eyes returned to the gray I found so interesting. "Are you okay?" she asked me. She looked concerned for my health...and part of her looked...sad?

I couldn't speak. My mind wasn't wrapping around what had just happened. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe I had another concussion.

"Spencer!" she barked. "Are. You. Okay?"

I think I nodded, because she stopped asking. "W-what the hell was that?" I stammered.

She sighed, looking around. "You need to go. You need to go right now. Go back to your apartment."

"But-" There was a dead guy in front of me.

"That broken neck won't keep him down long, Spencer," Aura said sharply, getting my attention again. "I'll take care of him. You go back to your apartment. Lock the door. I will be there soon. And I'll explain everything, I swear! But you have to go!"

The tone in her voice was fear. Her being scared made me scared. Going against everything they'd taught me at the Academy, against everything Hotch and Rossi and Gideon had taught me…I left a killer alone in the park with a dead man, and took off running for my car.