Blood Red Moon

Chapter 10

They made good time back to the club, little over half an hour. It was still sunny and warm and there were no cars outside the building. Jane didn't seem to notice, as he stood and stared at the outside of the building for a long time, hands on hips, frowning. He seemed to be looking for something, as his gaze continually swept up to the second and third stories, and suddenly, he turned and strode off toward the end of the block, where the club joined the abandoned distillery on the corner.

"Lisbon, come here!"

With a sigh, she followed, knowing that whatever he was thinking, it couldn't possibly be good or easy or legal.

"Look," he said, and gestured to a small 2x3 window about 7 feet above the pavement in the brick. The glass was broken and almost gone. He grinned at her.

"Is it Breaking and Entering if it's already broken?"

"Jane…"

And before she could say anything else, he had both hands up on the sill, brushing the glass onto the sidewalk and springing up into the window like a cat. Yes, she thought, that was a good image. Jane was like a cat, so often found dozing in the sun, that you forgot he still had claws and knew how to hunt.

He swiveled in the window, reached down a hand for her. "Come on."

"We shouldn't be doing this," she groaned, but took his hand nonetheless, and needed very little help in scaling the brick and squeezing through the small window. She landed beside him in a crouch on the floor of the distillery, and when she stood to take a look around, she was amazed.

"Wow," she muttered.

It was a huge dark warehouse, with many high windows allowing beams of sunlight to slice through the haze and dust and bounce off several large copper vats. Beams and metal pipes crisscrossed the ceiling space, and hundred-year-old kegs lay scattered around the floor, in various states of disrepair. There were also papers, cardboard, broken bottles and splinters of wood littering the ancient plank flooring. The whole place smelled rancid, and she couldn't tell if it was from the likelihood of very old malt on the premises, or if this was a hangout for street people from time to time.

It was very likely a combination of both.

"Fascinating," he said. "This has got to be over a hundred years old. Probably brewed local beers and ales since before the quake. Beautiful."

"What are we doing here?" .

"I wanted to get a look at the second floor of the Goth museum, but the Bukovys are still at the Station and that is a very old lock on their front door. Devilish tricky to pick. And it's apparent that all three of these places used to be part of the distillery, yeh, so it's possible, likely in fact, that they share a common third floor."

"Oh," she said. He made it sound so simple. "And how do we get to the possible, likely in fact, common third floor?"

He grinned and pointed to the far wall, where an open metal staircase led up to a catwalk above the vats, and to a door.

"Of course," she said, and followed him over to it, finding herself getting excited in the process. Everything with Jane was an adventure. She was beginning to feel like Nancy Drew.

He paused at the foot of the stair, one hand on the rail, and turned round, frowning.

"Now what?"

He frowned some more, made a face.

"What?"

"Oh dear…"

"What?! Jane!"

He made funny motions with his fingers in the air. "I just had a really bad thought."

"Okay?"

He looked at the largest copper vat back in the middle of the warehouse. "What did Mrs. Minor say about the cards?"

Her own face fell.

"Oh, no. You don't think…?"

"It fits."

"Oh no…" she groaned.

"Go check."

"Me go check? Why don't you go check? It's your really bad thought."

"You cop. Me consultant." And he made back and forth gestures with his hands. "Cop. Consultant. Cop. Consultant."

She snorted, spun on her heel and marched toward the largest of the vats. It was perched on metal struts about six feet off the floor, and its sides were at least that high. It looked to be 12-15 feet in diameter, and was accessible via a rickety metal ladder, bolted not-so-securely in place. As she began to climb, Jane circled the struts below, stooping in one place to swipe his fingers along the old planked floor.

"Rust," he called up to her. "Those hinges have been opened and recently."

"Great," she muttered, her voice echoing in the hazily-lit room. She paused at the top rung, reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of scrunched up latex gloves.

"Impressive." Jane grinned from below. "Boyscouts and the CBI. Always prepared."

She grinned too, snapped them on her delicate hands, and took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes…"

She tried to get a firm grip on the wide copper lip of the vat. It was very heavy, and she had to wiggle back and forth to even get some movement. "I don't know about this, Jane. It's on here pretty good."

"Keep trying."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled. Still, she did keep trying, wiggling and sliding and prying until there was a suck of air and it began to move upwards. A lone fly buzzed out, as the stench hit her like a brick wall and she dropped it with a loud clang.

"Oh, Jane…" she groaned, twisting on the ladder to get some fresher air.

"Sorry. I do so hate always being right."

"No, you don't."

"How many are in there?"

"I don't know. Hang on…"

She took a very deep breath this time and pried the lid upwards once again, this time high enough so that she could lean her head over the side and peer in. Beams of sunlight snuck inside, illuminating the pile of bodies, entirely covered in dark red. The inside of the vat had red streaking down its inner walls, giving the impression that not everyone had been completely dead when dumped in here, and she felt her stomach lurch at the thought.

She let the lid go and released her breath, gasping to rid the odor from her nostrils. The smell of death lingered like musk – you could never get rid of it so easily. Sometimes it took days.

"Looks like four or five in there."

"Hm," Jane rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. "Bukovy's secret stash."

She slid down the ladder and leaned against it for support, breathing deeply. "That's hideous. Absolutely hideous."

Jane cocked his head, studying her.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, I just never knew these things bothered you. You never let on. Nothing we've ever seen has seemed to disturb you."

"It's the job," she said, releasing a cleansing breath and straightening up. "You learn how to compartmentalize, I guess. Shut it away until the job is done, then deal with the emotions later."

"But it does disturb you."

She snorted. "Yeah. It does."

"Hm," he said again. "Good."

"I better call it in –" Just as the words escaped her mouth, her cell phone rang. She grabbed it from her jacket pocket.

"Cho?"

Her eyes grew wide. "No way! Damn it! Damn it!" She stomped her foot, and placed a hand on her hip. "Cho, you need to send a couple of cars to the club. We have more bodies in the distillery here. Right." She folded the phone and glanced at Jane.

"Are you sure those planets haven't aligned themselves up yet, Mr. Psychic-Pants?"

He grinned. "Why?"

"Jeffrey Bukovy has just escaped from custody and sent two more cops to the hospital. They think he's on his way here."

"Oh, that's troublesome." He swung back to look at the staircase to the third floor. "We'd better get there, then, yeh? Before he makes mincemeat out of my mice." He looked at her with a worried expression.

"You go first."

She rolled her eyes, pulled out her Glock and dashed for the stairs.

_______________________________________________

They could hear the voices arguing long before they made it to the door that opened down to the 2nd floor. It was inside a shared landing, one that led one way to distillery offices, and the other to the nightclub, and the door itself had an odd, freezer-style pull-down handle. The voices belonged to two women, but, taking no chances, Lisbon held her weapon ready as she gripped the handle, pulled it down, and pushed her way into the lounge.

Helen Cava, aka Kiara Arabia, and Emily Johnson, aka Danae Harkness, spun around at the sight of Lisbon and Jane stepping through the wall of the nightclub. It had been painted to look like a gothic archway, and was almost impossible to see the outline of the door against the old plaster. It was next to the spiral stair that led down to the club proper, and there had obviously been architectural reconstruction at some point to hide the door, and Jane wondered abstractedly if Bukovy knew about this too.

"Oh please stop her!" cried Arabia, flinging a hand out toward her assistant. "She wants to kill me!"

Danae Harkness turned, the blade of a long knife catching the sunlight, shining in her hand.

Lisbon swung her weapon up in one smooth arc. "Don't move, Ms. Johnson."

"No," she moaned. "That's not true. I don't want to kill her..."

"It's alright, Emily. I know," agreed Jane, and he moved toward her slowly, smiling and nodding in his most reassuring manner. "You don't want to kill Kiara. You want to kill yourself. The gift of blood is a powerful thing, isn't it? It's a beautiful thing, the best, most precious gift anyone can offer…"

Harkness stared at him, her eyes distraught and brimming with tears. She nodded.

Lisbon firmed her grip on her Glock, just in case.

"In fact," soothed Jane. "You already gave her a gift, didn't you? Natasha Minor, or should I say, Natalia Goldheart. She was threatening Kiara's rule, usurping her authority, gaining support, wasn't she? So you killed her, spilled her blood as a love gift for your boss…"

He threw a glance at Arabia. Her eyes were as dark as storm clouds.

"But she didn't see, did she? She didn't accept that you could love her more than any man, that your love transcended time and gender and rules, the status quo. She kept right on with the others, even after your sacrifice of love…"

Harkness let out a sob, but raised the knife. It was shaking.

"She gets what she wants," Harkness moaned, plaintive at first, then growing harder. "And she wanted Natalia dead."

"That's not true! I never said –"

"Oh no, you never needed to say. But you wanted, and I always give you what you want. Don't you see why I do it? How can you not see what I do for you? What I would do?"

"You complete her," added Jane helpfully.

"Yes, I complete her. And still she doesn't see." The blonde turned to Jane, knife glinting in the sunlight. "But you understand, don't you? You said I should complete the transaction. Give her the ultimate gift, my own blood. You said it would be beautiful. You said you would be my witness."

"Ah yes, well, about that," he stole a glance at Lisbon, who was glowering at him. He turned back to Harkness. "That was really just to get you down here, so you would co-operate, confront Kiara and confess. Sorry, I was just playing you."

Her bottom lip trembled. "What?"

"Well, it was a little mercenary of me, I admit…"

Arabia's eyes flashed. "And what about me? You said that monster had escaped from custody and was on his way here. Was that a lie too?"

He grimaced. "Well, technically, yes, that was a lie too. But it's true now, isn't it Lisbon? Tell them it's true."

She smirked.

"Lisbon, tell them."

"You horrible liar," seethed Kiara Arabia.

"Actually, I'm a very good liar," said Jane. "But unfortunately, this one is true. Lisbon, please."

Harkness looked from Jane to Arabia and back again, utterly confounded, a wire pulled taut, threatening to snap.

"Kill him for me, Danae," purred Arabia, a smile spreading across her lips. "That is a gift I would accept from you, my sweet. Kill the man who lied to us both."

"Oh no," said Jane dismissively. "Not a good idea. My friend has a gun. She loves to shoot."

Harkness stared at him, transfixed.

"Right, Lisbon?" Jane frowned. "Lisbon?"

Lisbon grinned, her Glock still trained on Harkness. "Come on, Jane. There's no art in charging in like a bull in a china shop, is there? Where's the style in that?"

"It's not funny when you say it. Aren't you going to do something? She's got a knife."

Harkness raised the blade, still shaking, but there was a darkening in the icy blue eyes.

Lisbon sighed. Something inside her always loved to see Jane get a taste of his own medicine. It was part of the game they played. Still, a knife was a knife. "Put it down, Ms. Johnson."

Danae Harkness took a step toward the consultant, the point of the knife just feet away. He took a step backward, toward the nightclub owner.

"Lisbon?"

"Put down the knife, Ms. Johnson!" she ordered, more forcefully. "Don't make me do this."

"Do it," hissed Arabia, chocolate eyes flashing.

Another step. Another step back.

"Lisbon, anytime now…"

"Drop it! Now!"

A shadow passed across the mid-afternoon sun and suddenly, the high mullioned windows crashed inwards, sending shards of blackened glass raining down on the ebony floor, couches, lounge chairs and people inside After Dark. A dark shape hit the floor with a thud, and rose slowly, dangerously, to his feet.

"Oh dear," said Patrick Jane, suddenly caught between a rock and a hard place.

Morkaleb Spider was in the building.

End of Chapter 10