The instant change in Lucas' surrounding caused a thousand pieces to snap into place at once. "The Guardians?!" he exclaimed. "The Guardians are real?!"
"They are," Henry replied with a smile.
Lucas turned around in a slow circle, gawking at the sparse contradictions of the warehouse that now surrounded him. "Richard Castle is a Guardian..."
"He is," Jo agreed, nodding.
"And we're working with them, now? The Guardians are that team you mentioned back at your house?"
Henry nodded. "Is that a problem?"
Lucas shook his head as if trying to get the question out of his ears before it had a chance to sink in. "Problem?! God, no. I don't have a problem working with a bunch of superheroes. Hell, no!"
Jo and Henry shared a moment of unspoken communication. If he only knew, thought Jo.
For someone who had his entire life turned upside down in the blink of an eye, Lucas was adapting to his new reality with surprising speed. "So where's Michel? And the victims?"
"Right this way, Mr. Wahl," Castle directed with a gentle nod.
The group strode quickly down the hallway, barely giving Lucas a chance to peek in windows as they went. "This is more..."
"More what, Lucas?" asked Henry.
Lucas rolled his words around before giving voice to what was going through his mind. "This place feels more...organized...than I figured a superhero's hideout might be. Unless, of course, you're, like, Bruce Wayne rich and keeping it super well-hidden..." Lucas froze when he recognized the man who was examining his case's victims in the brand-new lab he had just entered. "Doctor Perlmutter?!" He turned to Castle. "You guys are Feds?!"
"Technically," Castle replied. He scanned the room and instantly recognized the focused look of intense concentration on the face of his fiancée. "Kate, what have you found?"
Beckett was fascinated by the fragile, loose skin underneath the breasts of one of the victims. "I don't think these are just runaways," she declared.
The statement instantly got the group's collective attention. "How can you tell?" asked Lucas.
"Oh God, here we go," Hanson muttered under his breath.
Beckett let the corners of her mouth turn up for a split second before returning her focus back to the case. "I noticed something as Grumpy was examining one of the girls..."
Lucas turned to Henry. "Grumpy?" he whispered.
Perlmutter stared the two men down, daring either of them to challenge the moniker. Beckett, however, ignored the standoff completely. "Come here and take a look at this." She carefully shifted the body's skin and remaining tissue until the skin closest to the chest was smooth and visible. "At first when I saw this I thought it was just a birthmark. When I took a closer look, though, I noticed multiple lines."
Castle nodded in agreement, even though his eyes were closed. "And you found the same mark on the other victims?"
"This is the fifth one I've checked," Beckett agreed.
Ryan, Henry and the cops joined the group crowding around the body. "What are we looking at?" asked Lucas.
Henry noticed the mark immediately. "My God..." he whispered.
"You see what they're looking at?" asked Jo.
Henry nodded. "It's so small that I doubt I would not have seen it had it not been pointed out to me, but now..."
"I'm still lost," Hanson insisted. "What are we looking at?"
Jo's expression was grim. "You never worked vice, did you, Mike?" When Hanson shook his head, Jo explained, "If we're looking at what I think we're looking at, then the Jiangshi didn't grab these girls off the street. They were trafficked first."
"Trafficked?" asked Abe.
Jo nodded. "These girls were abducted, herded into an underground brothel, and branded. This is the smallest brand I've ever seen, though."
"It was a much larger mark when the girl was alive, I suspect," Henry added. "The severe dehydration greatly shrank and discolored the brand to the point where we didn't notice it initially. In fact," his eyes locked with Beckett's as his face shifted to an expression of awe, gratitude and deep respect. "I may never have noticed the mark if it hadn't been pointed out to me."
"Can we be sure these girls were sex slaves?" asked Hanson, eyes wide.
"We'll need to go back and check for signs of sexual abuse," Perlmutter replied. His mind started to almost audibly whirl as the calculations began. "With the number of doctors and MEs in this room, it should take..."
Henry was making similar calculations in his mind. "An hour," he suggested, "depending on the testing equipment you have available to you..." The change in Perlmutter's expression worried Henry. "You don't have the proper testing equipment, do you?"
"It's something of a startup around here," Perlmutter explained. "We're on a tight budget. Long story."
Henry sighed wearily. "It might take us considerably longer than an hour, then. We're dealing with an extensive quantity of trace evidence, here."
"What about bringing the bodies back to our lab?" asked Lucas. "Now that we're working with Dr. Perlmutter and not running away from him?"
Henry shook his head. "It would arouse too much suspicion. Unfortunately, I believe that much of the delay will be in travel between the lab and...wherever this warehouse is."
"I could help with that," Castle volunteered. "I could make the travel instantaneous."
"Nuh uh," argued Lanie, shaking her head. "I wouldn't wish your lack of patience on my worst enemy. If you have to wait around for test results when the only thing you can do is just sit there..."
"Honey...the last thing we need," Beckett added, agreeing with her friend, "is to get delayed by repeatedly having to fish Henry out of the East River." Besides, Beckett projected through her link to her fiancé, we might also be able to take care of that...other thing...
Lucas frowned in confusion even as Castle perked up with excitement. "Why would we need to plan around fishing doc out of the East River?" asked Lucas.
"What about me?" asked Alexis.
"Saved by the bell," muttered Abe.
The group turned around to face the new person entering the conversation. "Doctor Henry Morgan," Castle introduced the redhead standing in the doorway, "I'd like you to meet my daughter, Alexis."
"Your daughter?" asked Henry, eyebrows raised. "Does that mean that she...?"
"Is a chip off the old block," Castle explained.
The implications of the expression caught Jo and Hanson by surprise. "Really?" asked Jo. "You mean she...?"
Alexis let the answer to Jo's question remain unspoken. "Doctor...Morgan?" she asked, slowly recalling the name. "Doctor *Henry* Morgan?"
Henry was surprised by Alexis' recognition of his name...until a flash of the girl's red hair jogged his own memory. "Have we met before?"
Alexis shook her head. "Only in passing, maybe. I interned with Doctor Parish and Doctor Perlmutter a few years ago. I got an earful of Doctor Perlmutter's displeasure with your last meeting shortly after the two of you talked. That's how I recognized your name."
"You were an intern?" asked Lucas.
Alexis nodded. "So not only do I know where to go, I can bring you back and forth and help with the tests...instead of driving you crazy."
"Then we'll split up," Henry declared. "I'll shuttle back and forth to the lab with Ms. Castle. Lucas, would you mind staying behind with Drs. Perlmutter and Parish and helping them with the autopsies?"
"No problem, doc," agreed Henry. He turned to his new friend. "Michel, care to pitch in?"
"Bien sûr, mon ami," Michel replied.
The matter settled, Henry started to head to the door to join Alexis. Jo and Hanson turned to Castle. "Can you get us back to our precinct?" asked Jo. "I still have some contacts in vice. Maybe they'll recognize the brand."
"Of course," agreed Castle. "Which precinct?"
"The 11th," Hanson replied.
Beckett and Castle turned to each other. Coincidence? asked Beckett
Is anything with us? Castle argued through their mind-link. Setting aside their questions for the moment, the Guardian turned his attention back to the two cops. "You guys ready to go?" When Jo and Hanson nodded, the two teams disappeared.
"We're going to hit the bullpen, too," Esposito announced to the doctors and their assistants. "See if we can find anything about trafficking rings operating in the area." He then crossed the room to kiss his fiancée. "Catch you later, chica."
"Have fun," Lanie added with a smile.
Lucas turned to Michel. "Are they...?"
"Husband and wife," Michel replied.
"Ah," Lucas agreed silently before turning his attention fully to the folder front of him.
"Coming, Kat?" asked Ryan. "We could use your help to see if any of these guys have ties to the vampire community."
Katya's attention was more focused on the room's odd man out than it was on the current status of the case. "I will catch up to you later, honored ones," she told Ryan. "How would you like the grand tour, Abraham?"
Abe was surprised by suddenly becoming the focus of vampire's attention. "You sure, Katya? Don't they need you on the case?"
"A problem easily solved," Katya replied. She turned to Esposito, firmly clasping the Guardian's hand. The Xiānzhī updated his copies of Katya's memories and smiled at the most recent one. "Go," Esposito told Katya. "I think it's a great idea."
Abe frowned as he watched the interaction between the Guardian and his vampire friend. "Okay...I must be missing something," Abe declared. "Do they need you or no?"
"Master Xiānzhī has everything he needs," replied Katya. "I will explain as we go."
"In that case," Abe agreed with a shrug before offering his arm to the younger-looking being, "lead on."
