Chapter Twelve: Ziva and the Ghost

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Tony's cell rings as they drive to the children's home.

It is someone completely unexpected.

Jeanne Benoit does not question why they have his cell. Just confirms the address, confirms that she and the children are alone, and then promises to wait for them. The atmosphere in the van is tense.

"Boss, I don't think she knew," McGee says finally, breaking the quiet. "Why would she call us if she knew and was trying to hide it?"

"She didn't call us," is his short answer, the anger that Ziva is starting to be wary of still simmering hotly under his skin. "She called Tony."

"She called someone who could help," McGee presses. Ziva is impressed. McGee has shown something new this past day, something she has not seen from him much before. In shades, definitely, but never so clearly.

An iron backbone. He had not merely risen to the occasion back at the house where Tony had vanished, he had spectacularly overcome both obstacles thrown at them, even when Ziva could tell it was hurting him greatly to do so. And now? Faced with Gibbs in a temper? He still stands his ground and speaks his mind.

Tony's absence from the team has done that, at least.

"This media leak isn't going to do us any favours, anyway," McGee says finally as Gibbs ignores him in favour of speeding up. Ziva is pleased. Cars are not made to amble politely, especially when the streets are this empty. "We could be looking at riots once it spreads and people start getting angry."

"We're definitely looking at riots," Gibbs replies, expression grim. "Every cop in the city is on standby. But that's not our problem—right now, we need to focus on getting those kids out of that house before the riots start. Any vampire-owned property is going to be a target."

"Especially if they know children live there," Ziva murmurs, shivering a little. She knows what happens when innocents are caught in the crossfire. She thinks, for a moment, of her dear Tali…

"And what do we do once we've moved the kids?" McGee asks.

"We go find Tony," Gibbs answers, as though there is nothing else as important. "Leave the rest to the FBI. They want it, it's theirs. We got bigger problems."

Ziva does not think it will be that simple.

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There is little they can do once they arrive at the home. Ducky is not far behind them, Ziva and McGee opening the gates to let his van in fast in order to pick up Benoit's body. That had been another unexpected outcome: Ziva very much doubts that any of them were expecting that thread to end so abruptly.

They have been regulated to guards on the front of the premises, as the small waves of activity begin to gather attention. From the beginning of the removal of the children within those echoing halls, Gibbs had stressed that they would need to be several things: fast, quiet, discreet. No ambulances to remove the children, no marked vehicles beyond the two NCIS vans quickly moved out of sight into the closed staff parking lot. Ziva and McGee linger in the front yard, mostly obscured by the high walls and watching to make sure that the small crowd of curious onlookers does not grow. Pairs of plain-clothed FBI agents pass, each arriving in yet another unmarked SUV and taking with them three children each to medical facilities that they aren't even alerting NCIS to the location of. Ziva watches them go and wonders about what the necromancer had said about each blank-faced child led placidly out: if summoned, is there something within each of those quiet children that will make them a danger? Will they strike for a cause they are so newly introduced to?

"It really makes you wonder about the nature of free will," she muses out loud.

McGee shoots her a strange look. "No, it doesn't," he replies sharply. "We got them out. They're safe. They're not… brainwashed automatons, they're just kids."

It seems fitting he would feel that way. She does not remind him that without the shem on his wrist, a mindless automaton would be exactly what he is.

Gibbs steps out beside them, silent as always. "Seventeen," he says. "Records in there says there should be fifty-five."

They take that in, Ziva's heart sinking. She fears to ask the obvious question: could the missing children be the ones Tony believed he saw that night?

"Where's Jeanne?" McGee asks, peering around Gibbs into the building. Gibbs continues looking past them, muttering something short under his breath. Ziva follows his gaze, spotting a car pulling up and a familiar red head appearing. The director. A complication.

"Inside." Gibbs steps down and strides towards where Ducky and Palmer are working on the body, throwing back over his shoulder, "Get in there and watch Benoit, both of you. As soon as this place is clear, I want to be gone."

"We are not even searching for evidence?" Ziva asks as they move inside to the room where Jeanne is sitting under FBI guard. "He is completely giving this over to the FBI?"

"I mean, it's not really Navy," McGee replies, hunching his shoulders unhappily. "There's no real clear link between this and Tony. We've got no leg to stand on, beyond that being our body out there."

"Hmm." She does not know why, but this does not sit well with Ziva. They are investigators and they are here. Why are they not investigating? Panicking will not help Tony, wherever he is.

A flicker of movement catches her eye. When she looks, the hall is empty.

"Ziva?" McGee asks from the doorway.

"Go," she tells him, following her instincts. Cheetahs hunt by movement—she does not doubt her eyes. "I will be there in a moment."

He shrugs, slipping in and closing the door behind him. Aside from the heavy clomp of boots above her, she is alone to follow whatever she had just seen.

It is easier to be a cat for this. Shifting and slinking low to the ground, she moves silently up the hall, past a dining room, an office, what looks like a parlour, until she passes through an arched walkway and finds herself following her nose down a brightly lit hall with no windows. The air smells of incense and wood, a hint of burning matches, and she comes out in a chapel. Lines of pews that do not smell at all of being used. Cold, stone floor under her paws. She sniffs and smells nothing but, across the room, sees the door of a closet pull shut. She shifts back, striding over there and pulling the door open, one hand on her weapon and fully expecting a child.

Nothing. Just an empty closet. Frowning, Ziva studies the doorway, seeing nothing in the closet that is untoward. It appears to just be… normal?

Shaking her head, she closes the door, makes a mental note to ask the mages to check it over, and returns to McGee, finding him sitting beside Jeanne in the room they had left her in, a photo between them. Ziva steps up behind them, looking down at a child.

"'I guess he's been with you guys all along, huh?" Jeanne is saying, staring at that photo. Ziva smells salt, uneasy with the idea that the woman may be crying. She does not handle overt emotions very well. "I didn't know… I just… I didn't know this had happened to him…"

"I don't think he knew either," McGee says inexplicably; it takes Ziva a moment to realise who they are talking about.

Tony. The child in the photo is Tony.

If there was any doubt that he was once one of those children… well. Ziva frowns at that thought. If he was one of them, indoctrinated just like them—what happens when the war the necromancer speaks of comes to pass? What will remain of his free will? After all, he is not born… and bitten vampires can be demonic.

She decides right then: if it turns out that the worst is true, that every soulless vampire is forced into action against them when the time comes that they must fight… and if Tony is still alive to fight, then she will take him. She will not allow Gibbs that pain.

Maybe, just maybe, she can reach him.

"Ziva?" McGee is looking at her, frowning as though he is reading her mind. She does not tell him what she is thinking: McGee will never understand her thinking. He has never had a loved one turn traitor. "Gibbs wants us back at NCIS ASAP. Ducky's taken the body."

Jeanne winces. Ziva nods.

"We better go then," she says, casting one last look back up the hallway.

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Ziva reaches the bullpen first, Gibbs and McGee signing Jeanne Benoit in at the security check-in downstairs. She is expecting a frenzy of movement when the elevator dings and she steps in, after all, the radio on the way back had begun to hint to pockets of unrest building and they had been diverted through no less than three roadblocks designed to break up traffic and avoid large congregations forming. Her mind when she walks in is on these things, as well as planning ahead to their next step—joining the raid on the VFD, which is ongoing and meeting resistance throughout. She knows that is where—

And, abruptly, she realises that the room is very, very silent. People are working, but in a hushed, shocked kind of way, their gazes constantly skittering back to… Ziva's desk?

Ziva approaches, seeing people turn to look at her, standing to get a better look. What is going on? Even as she wonders that she sees the director appear on the stairs overhead, staring down with her expression absolutely stunned. Not looking at Ziva, but looking at the same point everyone else is, people grouping up behind her.

A woman is at Ziva's desk. She turns to look at Ziva as she approaches. Ziva frowns. There is something familiar about her… but, when Ziva scents, there is nothing on the air but the usual smell of the bullpen. The elevator dings behind her, Gibbs and McGee appearing and reaching the same point that Ziva had before realising something is strange.

The woman stands, skirting the desk and coming out into view, her brown eyes locked on Gibbs. Ziva blinks. She is in an NCIS windbreaker, and McGee makes a strange, choked sound. Gibbs is silent, his scent turning sharp and shocked. Ziva looks at him, stunned to see his expression raw… open. Grief. Disbelief. Fear.

She looks again at the women, and then it clicks.

Caitlin Todd.

"Hi, Gibbs," Kate says quietly, slinging her hands into her pockets and rocking back onto her heels uncertainly, the room silent enough that her voice echoes. "You're late. Well, I guess… I guess I am, huh?" And she laughs nervously, the sound high-pitched and cracking.

McGee covers his mouth. Jeanne just looks from one person to another, clearly confused.

"Kate?" Gibbs finally rasps out, taking one unsteady step forward, and then another, reaching his hand out to brush her cheek. His fingers are trembling. That is… completely unnerving to see.

When his fingers brush her face, Ziva can see her skin shift with the touch. She has skin. Living skin. Fear strikes.

"Hi," Kate says again. "I'd love to chat, but we have a problem."

There is a muffled shriek behind them, a choked off sob. Abby, panting heavily, having clearly run up here as the news had filtered down. Kate glances at her, half a smile appearing and vanishing just as quickly, her expression distracted.

Gibbs does not answer, just does something completely shocking.

He hugs her. Drags her into his arms and pulls her close, his arms pulled so tight around her slim shoulders and what Ziva can see of his fingers white with how hard he is holding her, his nose buried in her hair. Scenting, Ziva can tell, and hurts to see; it is such an unconscious wolfish action of a pack mate to do to another that has been missed that she knows he did not consciously choose to do it, it is entirely his shock and grief driving him.

When they pull apart, he does not let go and Kate's eyes are glassy. She stammers anyway. "T-Tony." At her words, Gibbs goes still and silent, what little colour is left in his face draining away. "We need to help Tony."

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The riots break as they recover from their shock. They gather in MTAC with the screens around them showing video footage of the unrest as it grows and spills over. The district favoured by vampires burns. Ziva wonders distantly if Tony's apartment is okay, although she doubts there is anything there he loves.

Kate stands by Director Shepard, watching the screens and looking tired and overwhelmed. Even as Ziva stands behind her, flicking her gaze from the screens to the dead woman come back to life, she thinks that she can see her edges fading, as though she is becoming unfocused. The light of the screen seems to shine through her.

Uneasy, Ziva sidles back. Spirits are not her forte, especially not ones who seem corporal one moment and incorporeal the next. She prefers that which are obviously alive or dead.

"Tony's alive?" Gibbs asks without looking away from the screen.

"Yes. I don't know where though. We… one moment, I'm dead and stuck in the fog, the next I'm breathing and it hurts and everything around me is dark." Kate huffs, looking surprised to do so like she is still adjusting to the air in her body once more. "Dark and… damp. It stunk. I mean, stunk. I guess probably because I haven't smelled anything since I… well, it was bad anyway. Remember when Tony got kidnapped that time? In the sewers? Like a cleaner version of that."

Gibbs nods slowly, relief written in the deep lines on his face. Some of the anger has faded. "But, he's alive," he repeats again. "We can go get him."

"Yes…"

There is a 'but' in Kate's voice, a lingering 'um'. Ziva watches her carefully.

"But what, Todd?" Gibbs snaps, wincing at his tone. "Sorry."

Did Gibbs just… apologise?

"Maybe if we die, Gibbs will be nicer to us," Ziva quips in a whisper to McGee, who just frowns at her. Perhaps, too soon.

"How did you get here?" Ziva asks, Kate's head snapping around to stare at her. It is the first time the ghost-spirit-something has noted her, and they both look as unnerved as the other.

"I just…" Kate trails off, closing her eyes for a moment. "I can feel it? This place. It's somewhere deep inside me… I can feel here, and my… I think it's my parents? And I can feel each of you… and Tony. I can feel him. I don't know where, or what he's doing, but I think I can go to him if I try."

"You tried to come here and you did?" The director says something softly to one of the data techs working the screens, that person standing and hurrying out. "And you think you can get back to him?"

"I didn't try to come back here—I got scared and I think my brain just latched onto here as the first port of call." Kate smiles weakly as she looks at Gibbs. "Guess being three years dead doesn't stop me trusting you to get me out of shit, Gibbs."

He does not answer, just swallows and meets her gaze steadily. "Why scared?" he asks finally. "Of being alive again?"

Kate shakes her head. "No," she murmurs. "Tony… whatever they did to us, I think it hurt him."

"Scared for him, or of him?" Ziva asks. This also earns her several glares, but it is pertinent they know. Beside her, McGee makes a shocked sound, his eyes wide and head snapping up to stare at Kate.

"Problem, McGee?"

"I, uh. Kate. Do you remember when I was, uh, dead? And with you?"

Kate nods slowly.

"What we saw… what Echo showed us. I forgot most of it, but I remember… I remember seeing Tony. It was Tony, in the dark, and he was…" McGee swallows hard, hard enough they all hear it and manages to choke out the word: "Terrible. Is… is that what you were scared of?"

Kate does not answer, just grits her teeth and says, "Does it matter? We need to find him before he hurts himself. Whatever it did to him, it's temporary."

Ziva is not so sure.

But they are interrupted by the tech returning, the probie who had been working with Tony scurrying behind him. "You asked to see me, ma'am?" he squeaks out, gaze leaping from one person to another nervously. "Uh, ASAP?"

"Agent Dorneget?" Shepard says, facing him and lifting her chin. "Will a camera on you travel with you through your conduits?"

"Uh, yes? I think so. I mean, not to Agent DiNozzo's, if that's where you want me to go. I already tried—that conduit is fried. I can't hear a thing through it anymore. And if it's a, uh, new one… you'd have to plug it in."

Shepard turns to Kate: "Can you carry items with you when you step from place to place?"

There is silence as Kate seems to consider this, looking down at her hand as it reaches out to tap a coffee cup near her. "Maybe?" she murmurs. Gibbs tugs his cell out of his pocket, activating the screen and tossing it at her. Before it even touches her hands, it sparks and the screen goes dark. Sheepishly, she hands the cell back, Gibbs throwing it over to Dorneget.

Dorneget winces as he studies the phone. "I mean, I guess that's why you called me and didn't just put a camera on her, no offence, Miss, uh, Todd. Agent? Yeah. But like, you can't just teleport from one place to another, it doesn't work like that—you need to take, uh, steps. I step through my USBs, and data mostly survives that trip. A camera feed will, anyway, because my magic insulates it—and if you give her one of my USBs, that will survive it too, because it's me and I don't think whatever she does it going to kill me? Probably? But a laptop, nope."

"Give her one," Shepard says in the thoughtful quiet that follows. "Agent Todd—"

"Agent?" Kate asks, blinking.

"I don't remember you quitting," Gibbs answers roughly.

Shepard frowns at them both. "Agent Todd," she says again. "Agent Dorneget is going to give you a USB device. Your priority on the other side is to find an outlet to insert it into—we need eyes on you, and we need eyes on Agent DiNozzo. As soon as we have that, we can work on getting you both out."

"Okay," Kate says, nodding firmly. "I can do that. Wow, first day back from the dead and I'm already back at work… Mom was right about me, I am overworked."

This time, McGee laughs.

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"We have a problem," Ziva informs them upon returning from checking in on their necromantic friend in interrogation. "I asked her if she knew of any dark place within DC, figured they were likely to know all the nasty places."

"And?" Gibbs asks, his voice terse. It has been over half an hour since Kate has vanished back to wherever DiNozzo is lost, and, so far, the screen on MTAC that is supposed to be receiving the video feed from Dorneget is showing nothing but static.

"And, judging from how much she laughed, I believe she knows."

Gibbs turns on her, teeth clicking together as he struggles not to bare them with anger. "Why aren't you down there finding out?!"

"Because she was not done. She told me that we may want to hurry." Ziva pauses, waiting until they are all looking for her to continue. This is not good news. "The thing they told us that they had released? Well, wherever Tony is, it is down there with him. She said, and I quote, 'All of the rats of this city shall burn along with it'."

"Uh oh," McGee says.

"Indeed," Ziva agrees.

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It is just over an hour when Shepard calls the team back to MTAC. As soon as they walk in there, they all know: the feed is live. It shows a dingy room with a narrow bank of computers, Dorneget turning in fast, nervous circles as he tries to take everything in at once.

"Slow down, Agent," Shepard tells him. "Take your time."

"Just how new is this guy?" McGee mutters. Ziva assumes he probably does not want an actual answer to that, both of them coming up to stand behind Gibbs as the wild turning on the feed slows and Dorneget stops to settle on Kate. She is watching him curiously, and she is more transparent than ever.

"She that see-through before?" Gibbs asks, frowning. "Fading?"

"I don't know," Shepard answers, looking around. None of them can offer any answers either—none of them knows what she is, or how she is.

"Maybe this was a mistake," Gibbs says quietly.

Ziva looks at him. "Are you doubting yourself?" she asks, ignoring his glare. "It is a solid plan. We risk very little and stand to gain Tony back. That does not sound like a mistake to me."

"I mean, we're risking me," Dorneget's voice mutters through the feed. He is following Kate back out into a narrow hallway, both of them pausing by a ladder leading down. "Oh boy. That looks…"

"Dark," Kate answers, vanishing down the ladder. "Come on. You can see."

"In the dark? I mean, a little, but not…" Dorneget falls quiet as he climbs down and stares at Kate. In the grim dark of the tunnels they have climbed down into, she is luminous. Her entire form gleams a white so sharp as to appear blue, the light throwing strange, hallowed shadows into the place they are in. "Whoa. That's cool. Spooky, but cool."

Kate is not listening. "He's this way," she says, jogging away with Dorneget scrambling to keep up.

"Why did she not get Tony to come with her to the computer bank?" Ziva asks as the feed follows the two agents winding deeper and deeper into the earth until even Kate's glow seems to be muted by the absolute darkness.

But no one needs an answer, because it is very shortly after that that they find him.

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It is a room. Kate pauses outside, looking at Dorneget.

"I'm not sure you can come in here," she says. "Uh… he's not alone."

Dorneget looks around. "Boost me," he demands, pointing up to a narrow runway of pipes above. They will definitely not take his weight, and Shepard opens her mouth to speak, but he has already shapeshifted. Suddenly, the feed is very low, Kate looming overhead as she crouches to pick him up.

"A rat?" she asks, before touching him. As soon as her hands close around him, the feed cuts. The screen goes dark.

Ziva tenses, feeling everyone tense with her. If they just lost them…

But it snaps back in, the screen clearing and showing nothing but pipes as he skitters along them to find a safe junction before peering down into the room below. All they can see is where Kate is edging nervously through prone figures: some standing, some lying down, some sitting with their heads bowed and no movement visible. Ziva cannot count them; although they stand like statues, Kate's uneven light is not strong enough to throw their features into stark relief. None of them seem to notice her moving among them.

"What the hell is wrong with them?" someone asks from behind Ziva. They are all just staring, all shocked and alarmed by this strange sight. "Are they dead?"

It is not such a dumb question. If Ziva did not know better, she would believe that they are dead too—but she knows better.

"They are what happens when a turned vampire is left empty," she says, silencing the room. "I think you will find they are the ones who could not be integrated into society when Benoit was done with them."

"Oh my god," someone else whispers, probably McGee.

"Are they dangerous?"

Dorneget's paws slow as he hears that, looking around nervously. The camera feed jitters with him.

"In the right hands, absolutely," Shepard answers. "Where's Tony?"

But Kate has stopped by the wall, crouching by one of the figures. Ziva's heart sinks, and she looks to Gibbs. It is going to destroy him, to see Tony as empty as the rest of them…

A feeling niggles at her: these vampires are static. That means they are fed. Who feeds them?

But Ned is climbing carefully down a pipe along the wall where Kate is sitting, getting low enough that he can hang over and get a clearer look at Tony. Tony, alive.

Somewhat.

Unlike the other vampires, he is not completely motionless. He looks up when Kate approaches, watches her, but there is no recognition in his eyes. Nothing familiar in his face. He is a ghastly blue colour—Ziva assumes white, but with the refraction of Kate's luminosity off of him, it makes him look even more corpse-like. His lips are stark against his skin, his hair plastered to his sweaty forehead, and his hands tremble from where he is hugging his knees so tight to his chest that his nails are cutting through his trousers. Even from the awkward angle they are at, they can see his shuddering breathing and how black his eyes are.

"Tony?" Kate murmurs, touching his hand. He does not even seem to register the touch. "Come on. Get up. We have to go."

Tony looks up at Dorneget, his eyes narrowing. They see his nostrils flare; his lips slip slightly open. Ziva notes his fangs and realises: "Tell Dorneget to get out of reach," she warns them. "He is starving."

"That's not possible," Gibbs argues, frustration flaring in Ziva's gut at his tone. He needs to listen! "We only saw him earlier—it takes longer than that for starvation to kick in. Weeks."

"We do not know what the necromancers' spell did," Ziva argues. "But look at him, Gibbs—he does not look like Tony right now, not the Tony we know. Would you rather find out when he attacks?"

"He's not attacking Kate."

"She is dead." Perhaps that is too harsh; Ziva feels cruel for saying it, but it is not wrong. "She has no blood for him to scent. Neither you nor I smelled her when we walked in—he cannot smell her right now either, and that is the only reason he is not moving."

Dorneget moves fast then, scampering back up the pipes and racing back through to escape the room, Shepard barking at him to slow down before he slips into the silent mass. But, on the other side, he keeps going until he can climb down safely and change back, the feed flickering with him as he stands, human-formed once more. Kate appears, looking pissed.

"What the hell?" she snaps.

"He's the only one like that, right?" he asks fast, almost rambling. "That hungry? I guess the only reason he's not, like, attacking or hunting or going looking for food is that whatever brought you guys here hurt him a bit or something? Because vampires can go, like, nuts? And he looks vampirey, no offence, is that racist?"

"Ned," Kate and Shepard say as one.

"Sorry, sorry, anyway—so he's probably the only one that will chase blood if he smells it? Because I could, you know…" His hands move in front of the feed, miming cutting his hand before he drops them back to his side and out of sight. "We lure him up and out, fast."

"No," Shepard says, talking over Gibbs. "That's too dangerous. He's faster and stronger than you, and we're not risking you both for that. Leave him there, go above ground, and triangulate your position. We'll come to you and get him out ourselves, as well as the rest of them. We can't leave them down there like that, God knows how long they've been there…"

But Dorneget does not answer as Kate says, "Alright, come on." Instead, he is frozen, looking down into the dark and breathing strangely. "Ned?"

"Do you smell that?" he asks, voice suddenly shrill. "I smell… oh god, oh god, I smell something bad…" There is a strange whine in his voice, and he is backing up as he speaks. On the edge of panic.

"I don't?" Kate turns and looks down the hall. "I don't even hear anything. Are you alright? You look scared."

"What does it smell like?" Shepard asks. Dorneget does not answer. "Agent? Answer me! What does it smell like!"

There is a hollow thunk that echoes. A low sound of scraping. Slithering.

In the darkness, something whispers.

Dorneget turns and runs with a yelp of fear, right into the room filled with vampires, despite both Gibbs and Shepard yelling at him to stop, Kate darting after him. But it is too late—he is in and leaping through them, bouncing from vampire to vampire until he skids to a stop in front of Tony—Tony, who Ziva notes with a lurch of horror, is suddenly alert and looking very closely at him. "Come on!" screams Dorneget at Tony, "move! Come get me, now, all of you!" And he is running again, yelling at them to run, to flee, Kate joining in—

Ziva sees, as Dorneget whirls to see if he is following, Tony stand in one fluid, dangerous movement, and then stop. He looks at the doorway.

The doorway looks back. A wide, sunken eye appears from the black. There is, for a heartbeat, silence, before it slips into Kate's flickering light as she appears between Tony and Dorneget, her hands outstretched.

It is a dragon or was one once. Now, it is dead. Something black and alive flickers in its rotting jaws as it opens them.

Fire, Ziva realises. Even dead, the creature can still breathe fire.

So many people yell at once then that their voices drown each other out: it does not matter. There is nowhere for the people in that room to go. With a sound like fear itself, a sound that sinks deep into Ziva's body and drives her to the ground with a yowl of fear, the creature screams and fills the room with purple flames, right before the feed goes black.

There is silence. Ziva finds herself curled small on the floor, her entire body rattled to its core. Whatever noise that monster had just made, it had overtaken any sense in her mind and turned her into a frightened child huddled waiting to die. Embarrassed and horrified and with the slow realisation of what she has just seen sinking in, she stands up fast, only to find that she is not the only one the creature's scream has affected. Everyone else in the room is on the floor too, some standing now with shock showing on their features; some, like Gibbs, seemingly frozen.

McGee is the only one who has not moved.

"Tony," he whispers, and it hits. The flames. The one door. The monster.

"Kate?" Gibbs rasps, sinking, somehow, even lower. But the feed stays black, and Ziva closes her eyes. They are not coming back. None of them.

Witchfire burns all.