Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter Thirteen) by Lexikal
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait for this chapter. Life has been busy. Please review!

"If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us."- George H. W. Bush

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes." - Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952

"People aren't evil and people aren't good. They live how they can one day at a time. They come out of dust they go back to dust, dusty feet, no wings, and whose fault is that?" - CARYL CHURCHILL, A Dream Play

Friday, November 2, 2013 1:46 P.M. P.S.T.

They'd been on the road a little under an hour of the 6-or-so hour journey Lisbon was to make so Jane could recharge. Jane had tilted the passenger seat back a little to help facilitate sleep and was, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world. He hadn't really slept since Charlotte had come into their lives and was both physically and emotionally exhausted. Lisbon could all but hear the hum she imagined was his body as it furiously attempted to recharge itself (almost mechanically, driven beyond the boundaries of almost any human's ability to endure), and yet, despite his extreme exhaustion she knew beyond all doubt that she'd barely have to say his name and he would instantly be awake, and blinking, and ready to defend both her and his daughter. With his life, if need be. She knew it in her bones. However, Jane knew a confrontation of almost Biblical proportions was fast arriving and had seemingly turned himself off to recharge, to make the most of every second of time he could to sleep, to enrich himself with the blessings of sleep. He had turned himself off, Lisbon was certain of it. Like a machine shutting down.

Charlotte, for her part, had been mostly silent, burrowed under the pilfered motel towel, listening to music (sounded quite a lot like AC/DC) and Lisbon couldn't help but gaze back at her every few minutes, gaze back at her and see the man she had come to love in the girl's features. Charlotte's eyes were bright and intense, like Jane's, but somehow... even moreso. They were a bright electric green, a colour Lisbon had assumed was always the end result of contact lenses, but right around the pupils was a ring of amber-yellow and hazel that looked like something celestial... rings around Saturn, perhaps? The end result of two comets colliding? Something like that.

Everything about the girl was intense and even with her earbuds in and huddled under the towel (despite the warmth of the day) she seemed to pulsate with heat and energy and fear. She glanced in the rearview mirror again and caught the teen's eyes, smiled back at her. Charlotte nodded in acknowledgment and smiled a little, but there wasn't much effort behind it and Lisbon was certain that, as they neared the US-Mexico border, the teen would only become more pensive, more closed off.

Lisbon thought then of her own brothers and her parents, of the sum total of her life and what she had been like at Charlotte's age (sensitive, a bit angry and stubborn as Hell but still- basically- "normal"). Lisbon considered the multitude of little decisions which had led her down this path, led her to this moment in time: driving a car (which may or may not have been legally obtained a little less than 24 hours ago) with a teen who was almost certainly being hunted not only by law enforcement but a sadistic, prolific serial killer... while her famous fake-psychic-cum-police-detective father slept like the dead in the passenger seat charging up for the battle of his life like some Japanese movie monster. Sometimes life was just so damned surreal.

There was a stirring from the back seat, then, and Charlotte made a low whine in her throat and shut her eyes... hard. Lisbon glanced back, watching her. Charlotte's eyes popped open and in that moment Lisbon could see nothing but terror in those green fields of electricity. The girl's eyes bulged and she looked for all the world like someone caught in the midst of a particularly soul-crushing nightmare. She still had her earbuds in, music turned up as loud as it no doubt went. Charlotte made a coughing noise then, fingers moving over the terry-towel cloth of her new blanket somewhat manically. She squeezed her eyes shut once more and reopened them. And again, this pattern was repeated.

She finally caught Lisbon watching her in the rearview mirror and shook her head quickly in dismissal. Lisbon wasn't exactly sure what the head shook meant, but her intuition told her it meant not to notice, not to get involved. Lisbon smiled again, a smile she hoped was at least somewhat comforting, but Charlotte simply shut her eyes again, pulled the towel up out of her lap and covered her head with it so Lisbon could no longer see her face. Lisbon sighed and looked back out at the long expanse of blacktop and tried to wonder what Jane's child was thinking and feeling and experiencing that had her looking so thoroughly freaked out. Looked like panic, or at the very least, marked anxiety. The girl was expertly controlling herself, but Lisbon could see, now, the towel trembling. Adrenaline. The shakes. No noise except for the steady thrum of AC/DC through the earbuds.

Lisbon turned back to the road, but her concern for the adolescent had ratcheted itself up another few notches.

It was 2007, June 22nd, and she was nine. Red John had brought her up to Sonoma county, California, to witness something he called the "cremation of care", at a place called "the grove". They had been driving most of the day, and now were in a monster forest of red woods. Red John had chopped her hair off before the trip, a bleak page-boy done ad hoc in the bathroom at the house with the red door and the black awnings. She had bitten her lower lip as he cut her curls, but had not cried. Red John had explained to her that women were not allowed at the grove, and that he wanted her to see with her own eyes.. see with her own eyes the ways of the real world. "The world behind the lie," he had called it.

He'd wrapped her fallen locks of hair with white satin ribbons and they had disappeared, but Charlotte was convinced they hadn't been thrown away.

And now, they were here. She was the only passenger in the car with Red John. She was wearing dark blue denim shorts and an Oakland A's baseball cap (Red John had insisted she select a baseball cap and she had selected the A's simply because the hat was dark green and they were a Californian team). She was wearing a dark blue t-shirt covered in ravenous sharks. Red John had sized her up visually before they had made the last leg of the trip and sighed. She had asked him what was wrong and he had said, somewhat cryptically: "I know what you are so I can't be objective." And he hadn't said anything else.

Red John parked the car and they got out amongst the towering red woods (Red woods for Red John? Red woods like bloody woods?) and began to walk. There was a gate and they were let in. A post read "BOHEMIAN GROVE" in capital letters, the letters burnt into the wood. Red John had explained that they were at a very prestigious club house and that, for all the silliness of some of the customs there was power here. Here... being the woods, Charlotte guessed.

They went to a little cafe nestled past the gates, hidden from the road, and Red John pushed the door open and entered with the girl's hand in his (although she had been told she was not a female, not for this trip, and would respond only to the name "Charlie"). He was greeted by others. One man in the shadows drunkenly called out, smiling, and in Charlotte's memory this man was recorded as a pair of silver teeth floating in darkness.

"So you finally got yourself a little friend, did you Roy?" The silver grin in the dark said in a leering voice and Charlotte could tell Red John was not amused. He said nothing, but ordered a glass of red wine. Silver-teeth would not be dissuaded.

"What's the little fellow's name?" The voice from the shadows piped. Red John had glanced down at her then and tilted his head in such a way that it was obvious she was meant to answer. Charlotte had turned, trying to seek out the man visually, but he seemed to be hiding in the gloom. He was a voice and shadow, but not really a man. He smelled of tabacco.

"I'm Charlie," she squeaked, and her voice was so high and frightened that even to her own ears she sounded something like a rodent. In the den of... something... not rodent.

"Charlie! Cute! He's a looker!" The silver-teeth said and Charlotte felt his eyes, eyes she couldn't even see (at least not in her memory, later) scanning over her, leering, hungry, thirsty... eager. As much as she feared Red John she had never felt like that under his gaze.

"Charlie, would you like something to drink?" Red John said then, a bit more loudly than he really had to and Charlotte knew that she was expected to say yes, so she did. She nodded.

"What would you like to drink?" Red John prompted.

"What... what do they have?"

"They have whatever you want," Red John said with an air of certainty. "What do you want?"

"Um.. chocolate milk?" She said, then. Another squeak in the gloom of the forested cafe.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Red John prompted.

"Chocolate milk, please," she repeated. He nodded and looked in the direction of a rather somber looking waiter who had silently appeared out of the walls (or so it seemed to Charlie).

"He'll have a chocolate milk," Red John repeated with an air of finality.

"Very good, sir. Anything to eat?"

"Do you want anything to eat?" Red John repeated, even though Charlotte had clearly heard the man.

"Grilled cheese sandwich? With french fries?" She couldn't keep the lilt out of her words, the questioning rise at the end of them, but this time Red John let it go. Simply nodded. The voice of the waiter in the gloom spoke again.

"And for you, sir?"

"Liver and onions. Is it any good?" Red John's voice was coming back into it's own now: confident and indulgent, the voice of a man used to being served and attended to.

"It's satisfactory. But if I may, sir... I'd recommend the lamb cutlets with mint sauce and mesclun salad. That would be my choice, if I were you."

"That would be your choice?" Red John said indulgently. "Then I suppose I will have to try it, won't I? Lamb it is."

"Very good, sir," the tall waiter said pleasantly (but rather blandly, in Charlie's opinion) and was gone. And sometime later the food was delivered, hot and good, and she ate it, ate her grilled cheese sandwich and her french fries (no ketchup, though, there was no ketchup anywhere that she could see and she didn't dare ask for any even though she knew that if she wanted ketchup, she would have ketchup) and tried to ignore the way the food seemed to stick in her throat like it was trying to choke her.

They were sitting in a dimmed place with candles glowing, even on the walls, and the chairs looked like some sort of very expensive wood, the seats were soft velvet and the colour of midnight grapes. The walls were wood, too (redwood wood?) and there were stained glass images set in the windows splashing a cheerful, visceral red light over the tables like a splash of something forbidden and vital.

And her grilled cheese and french fries (the french fries were crinkle cut, which just happned to be her favourite shape of fry and the bread was white Wonder bread, which just happened to be her favourite type of bread and the straw that had come with her chocolate milk was bright green, which was also her favourite colour)... her grilled cheese was sticking in her throat, despite attentive chewing. She had the persistent, irrational thought that the food was trying to choke her. It tasted good, but it wouldn't go down easily.

From the shadows men with keen, shining eyes and teeth that seemed silver (and maybe even pointed) gathered and ate and watched. And her grilled cheese was trying to choke her.

Later that day she had been allowed to explore, because Red John had had some business to attend to (which, like most of his business, he did not elaborate on). She had seen a very large stone owl in a clearing, which Red John informed her represented the sum total of all human wisdom and knowledge. They'd gone for a walk and Red John had pointed out what looked like a stately hotel. He would be there. He would be busy for a while. She was to go for a walk and come back in a few hours. The gentlemen at the front desk of the "hotel" could attend to her if she needed him...

So she had gone for a walk in the late day and found a stick lying in the underbrush and had proceeded to drag it around. She had come back to the giant stone wall (at least 40 feet tall it was, impressive but also somehow unnerving, like a vision from an ancient dream). This place- "The Grove"- unnerved her. The people. The secrecy. Even the watchful, ancient, towering trees.

"How old are you?" A voice said, just as she was thinking these thoughts. A boy of about 11 or 12 had appeared from the foliage and onto the footpath, apparition-like. He was wearing a red t-shirt and yellow shorts and the combination instantly reminded Charlotte of ketchup and mustard (was he supposed to be the hotdog?).

She stared at him a moment. She blinked, as if waking from a dream. She hadn't really expected to see children in this place, although Red John had told her she might see others about her age. He was a very pale boy with somewhat large eyes, arched eyebrows and thin lips. His hair was so dark it was almost black and in the shade in which he was enveloped he seemed to glow blue, he was so pale. He had an intelligent- albeit sinister- look about him and she suddenly found herself thinking that he wasn't really a boy at all, but the spirit of one of the trees who had come to trick her. But thoughts like that... thoughts like that were crazy. It was best to shut them out.

"Don't you talk?" He said then. Charlotte shifted uneasily. Decided to answer him.

"I'm nine."

"Nine? Who owns you?"

"Owns me?" Her words were uncertain.

"That's right," the boy said, resolutely. "Who owns you?"

"Nobody owns me," Charlotte said angrily and crossed her arms in front of her chest. The boy grinned at her and she could see that he had very tiny, very even teeth. His teeth were even whiter than his flesh and seemed to glow even more... like milk. Like milk in gloom.

"Somebody owns you," the boy taunted easily. "Or you wouldn't be here right now."

"Nobody owns me!"

"What's his nammmmme?" The boy was grinning now, and it wasn't an entirely nice grin.

"I don't have to tell you anything!" Her words were rising. The boy giggled. He was amused.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" He said then, sizing her up, head shifting to the side as he considered her thin frame and gentle features. Charlotte felt a cold finger stroke along her spine. She shivered, even though the day itself was bright and sunny and smelled of summer.

"Boy."

"No you're noooooottttt," the mystery-boy said and he smirked at her. "No. Not a boy. Not. At. All. You have a slit, don't you?"

"Shut up!" She suddenly wanted to punch him. Punch him hard. The little creep!

"I didn't think any of them went for little girls..." the boy said smugly, apparently already bored with her outrage.

"Any of who?" Charlotte pressed, both annoyed and intrigued.

"You know. Them." And he motioned the trees. More than that... the men who had assembled in the trees.

"You belong to one of them?" Charlotte asked then. Suddenly she had to know.

"Sure do. Mine is named Matthew Keefer, but sometimes in the newspapers he is called the 'blue-moon slayer' or the 'blue-moon man'. Poetic, right? He works mainly down in South America, but sometimes he comes up here for fun. You know. There are more to chose from up here... or... I guess he likes the challenge, really. Up here everybody thinks they are entitled. They think nothing can touch them, don't they? Self-entitled creeps. Serves them right."

"Chose from?" Charlotte wondered, and the chills stroking her back moved over to her belly. Ghost fingers stroking. Her skin was crawling.

"You know. When they want to let off steam?" And the boy dragged his right pointer finger across his throat in a symbolic gesture of... something really not very good.

"You... you have one, too?!" Charlotte demanded. She knew he did, but this conversation was weird. She couldn't really believe it. Not really. And yet, on a deeper level, she could not only believe it, but she knew it was all too real.

"You see the odd kid in here? They all have certain special guardians. All of them. But not all of them like to play those types of games, the guardians. Most don't actually, just teach their protégés how to get ahead in the world through special channels. And even most of the ones that like to play games, play war games through politics, they don't take out individuals on their own time. But... but yours does. Doesn't he?" The boy's eyes had become slits as they analyzed her. "Yours is like mine. I can tell. I can see it in your eyes."

There was no sound, except maybe the sound of mosquitoes. Maybe the sound of tree leaves. Trees talking. Ancient, ancient trees talking. Trees that could just as well have been aliens, they were that sentient. Trees that had seen many things... and would see many more.

"Play games?" Charlotte said. She didn't want to make any dumb assumptions. But she already knew. In her heart, she knew.

"The not-so-friendly games? Bloody games? You have that look about you. So tell me his name."

"What sort of games does your guy do?" Charlotte said then. The boy shrugged.

"Choking games mostly. He likes to choke. He has his childhood issues. I know that. He has told me that. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, is it not? Kissinger said that, and I think the fat fuck might actually be on to something. Now... what is your's named? I've told you enough."

"I doubt you'll know his name," Charlotte whispered.

"Bet you I will. There are like 10 of them that I know of. Just by name alone. Reputation. There are just ordinary killers, and then there are our types of killers. They're protected, somewhat, but they're also just better at what they do than most. I bet you he's one of them...one of the ten I know of."

"Roy. Roy Tagliaferro," Charlotte said then, suddenly exhausted and wanting this to be over with.

The boy seemed to think it over. "I don't know that name. Does he have another name? Something he goes by? Maybe his newspaper name?"

"Red John," Charlotte finished, eyes shining in the gloom. Instantly the stranger boy's eyes lit up like fourth of July fireworks.

"Oh yeah! I know 'im! Red John? REALLY?! YOU?!" He had a grin on his face like she had just said her father was Batman.

"Yes," Charlotte said resolutely, feeling oddly proud of herself.

"I can't believe it," the boy said, grinning and shaking his head. "Wow. Knew right away when I saw you that you had a guardian like mine, but I never thought it would be Red John! Wow! I'm actually kind of jealous right now. Red John is your father? Wow."

"He's not my father," Charlotte corrected, and suddenly she had the urge to hit the weird pale boy with her stick.

"No? Not even... did he adopt you? I mean, me, I was chosen. When I was 3. I came from Russia once upon a time. Was a real fucking nutcase, actually. Used to bang my head on my crib bars till there was blood on 'em. No self control. And Matthew came, and he changed all that. Showed me my worth. Showed me just how powerful I can become. I owe him a lot, you know? Where were you adopted from?"

"I wasn't adopted," Charlotte amended.

"But you just said he's not your father. So which is it?"

"He took me," Charlotte continued. She didn't want to say this. But she couldn't say anything else, apparently.

"Took you?" The boy with the dark hair from Russia said.

"From my parents. He... he killed my mother. And took me," Charlotte said. Her words were bland, like she was discussing the weather, but her nose was silently burning and her stomach was shooting with little needle pains.

"What about your real Dad?" The boy from Russia asked.

"He is still alive."

"So he doesn't know you're alive? Your real dad?" The boy continued.

"Red John said he gave me to him." Her words were glass. One wrong move...

"Wow. That sucks, I guess," the boy from Russia said, and seemed to consider it. Then, a beat later, a huge grin broke out over his face, a savage grin.

"What?!" Charlotte demanded.

"You're going to grow up to be so damned bad ass," the boy said. Charlotte stared at him, but couldn't bring herself to grin back. And sometime later, the boy said he had to go. He disappeared in the general direction of the huge stone owl, and she never saw or heard from him again.

They were assembled on stone pews, many, many men. It was dark out. The cremation of care ceremony was underway. Lit torches illuminated the giant stone owl but otherwise there was no movement... just the flickering of the torches against stone. Bagpipe music was playing. The bagpipe music changed into something which sounded like an eerie violin piece. Charlotte glanced over at Red John, who was seated beside her, a wistful, pleased look on his face. The ghost fingers from earlier in the day were back, stroking her.

She felt both frightened and powerful, sitting alone in the dark next to one of California's most prolific serial killers, watching this ceremony. This ceremony which female eyes were not (as a general rule) permitted to observe. What would happen to her if these people discovered she wasn't really a little boy? The thought made her chest tighten. So many dark, impressive shapes in the night, and each one was capable of God only knew what.

She knew the men sitting around her were very, very powerful. They were dressed rather casually, but she could still feel their power. It was both thrilling and dizzying being in the dark woods with them, but she had no choice but to observe. The violin piece, it turned out, was a famous classical piece Charlotte could not place. Something German, she thought. She had seen movies about the Holocaust with the very same piece playing in Nazi commandants offices while they smoked and dispassionately decided how many people to kill that day...

She could see black tarps hanging in the trees. Dark curtains (the tarps) were hanging from the redwood trees and Charlotte waited, shivering, suddenly filled with the urge to leave. Nothing appeared to be happening, but she knew men were behind the black tarps. They were doing something back there. She wasn't sure what, but she didn't like it... didn't like to even think about it what it might be. The people waiting on the pews seemed, for their parts, to be filled with a strange mixture of excitement and solemnity. She turned her head and watched them, watched the watchers, and could make out row after row of gleaming eyes.

(They're all owls, Charlotte, just like the stone one...)

She didn't like this. It felt wrong. But she knew why Red John loved it. It was wrong and illicit and powerful and dangerous. All the things he loved. And most of all... secretive.

There were men in brown or black robes and peaked cap holding torches. They were starting to walk out in front of the giant stone owl. Suddenly, over a loudspeaker, a theatrical voice called out to the audience:

"The Owl is in His leafy temple. Let all within the grove be reverent before Him."

Charlotte glanced over at Red John. He was grinning now, an honest-to-God grin.

The man speaking over the loudspeaker (dressed, unlike the others, in a simple white robe) continued: "Lift up your heads, oh ye trees and be lifted up ye everlasting spires. For behold! Here is Bohemia's shrine and holy are the pillars of this house."

There was the sound of a gong in the night, amidst the croaking of the frogs and the chirping of the cicadas.

"Waving spiders come not here!" This was followed by another gong.

Now, men in robes with torches were walking in front of the owl. Another voice cut the knife, this one louder, more impressive, older...

"Hail Bohemians! With the ripple of waters, the song of birds, such music as inspires the sinking soul- do we invite you into Midsummer's joy. The sky above is blue and sown with stars. The forest floor is heaped with fragrant grit.

The evening's cool kiss is yours. The campfires glow. The birth of rosy fingered dawn. Shake off your sorrows with the city's dust and cast to the winds the cares of life. But memories bring back the well-loved names of gallant friends, who knew and loved this grove. Dear, boon companions of the long ago."

Charlotte cast another glimpse at Red John, and at the dark, amorphous shapes that were others in the night. Red John was still grinning, but to Charlotte, the words coming over the loudspeaker were both odd and silly, like something a highschool student might come up with for a drama club production. Under the words, though, was a solemn, insidious menacing. The words- Charlotte knew- were sugar-coated bons bons hiding a much darker truth.

"Aye! Let them join us in this ritual! And not a place be empty in our midst..." The voice in the night continued. Charlotte gulped down a feeling of unease. Was the man in the darkness, whose voice was guiding this ceremony, speaking of ghosts? The entire situation was surreal.

"All of his battles to hold in this gray autumn of the world or in the springtime of your heart. Attend our tale. Gather ye forest folk! And cast your spell over these mortals! Touch their world-blind eyes with carrion. Open their eyes to fancy. Follow the memories of yesterday, and seal the gates of sorrow. It is a dream. And yet? Not all a dream. Dull Care in all of His works, harbored it. As vanished Babylon and goodly Tyre, so shall they, also, vanish. But! The wilding rose blows on the broken battlements of Tyre!

And moss rends the stones of Babylon. For beauty is eternal! And we bow to beauty, everylasting. For lasting happiness, we turn to One alone. As she surrounds you now... Great nature. Refuge of the weary heart. And only found, her breasts that had been bruised. She has cool hands for every fevered brow, and dreadless silence for the troubled soul. Her councils are most wise. She healeth well, having such ministries as calm and sleep. She is every faithful... Other friends may fail, but seek ye Her in any quiet place.

Smiling, she will rise and give to you her kiss! So ye must come as children! Little children that believe don't ever doubt her beauty or her faith, nor deem Her tenderness can change... or die!"

The voice in the dark stopped speaking and church organ music began to play. Charlotte's hands felt suddenly cold and drained of blood. Suddenly the music became harsh and jarring and Charlotte stiffened on the pew. Red John seemed to remember she was with him and gave her a sidelong grin. She smiled back at him perfunctorily.

Yet a third voice began to proclaim eerie truths in the night.

"Bohemians and Priests! The desperate call of heavy hearts is answered! By the power of your fellowship, Dull Care is slain!"

At this, there was sudden cheer and clapping from the people in the audience. Red John, Charlotte noticed, remained silent.

"His body has been brought yonder to our funeral pyre to the joyous pipings of a funeral march! Our funeral pyre awaits the corpse of Care!"

Charlotte narrowed her eyes. Were they deceiving her? There seemed to be the black shape of a corpse amidst the Grove priests... a black shape in the night, the size and approximate shape of a grown man.

The 9-year-old shuddered and looked to Red John for clues, but to her surprise she saw tears shining in his eyes. Sorrowful music began to play, something like a horn... there was a man in a boat, and he had the body in his boat, in front of the lake which was in front of the Owl. The boatman's face was painted up like a grinning skull. The boat with the body in it was approaching those gathered around the owl. When it finally arrived, the voice in the night began again.

"Oh thou! Thus ferried across the shadowy tide in all the ancient majesty of death!"

Red John, sitting beside her, had a delighted look on his face.

"Dull Care! Ardent enemy of beauty! Not for thee the forgiveness of the restful grave! Fire shall have its will of Thee! And all the winds make merry with Thy dust! Bring fire!"

From around her, the audience members cheered again, gleaming eyes and gleaming smiles in the night. Red John was just one set of eyes and teeth in the dark, just one of many. One of hundreds. In front of the owl, more men were arriving, and these were also carrying lit torches but also a small platform with a small bonfire glowing menacingly on it.

Theatrical music which sounded like it belonged on the opening credits of a 1950s-Joan-Crawford movie pealed through the air and, just as suddenly, shut off. The body (was it just a doll or an actual human corpse?) was placed beside the fire and the men carrying the platform with the original fire rushed off, together, into the woods. A sudden brazen, screeching laughter pierced the night air and Charlotte stiffened against Red John's side. He looked down at her and smiled, and she knew that he was trying to put her at ease, but she could barely breathe.

"Fools!" A voice in the trees screamed and there was a burst of thunder. Charlotte startled visibly and could smell gun powder in the air. Red John was grinning again, eyes gleaming, his apprentice forgotten once more.

"Fools!" The same voice, shouting at them all loftily. Charlotte squeezed her eyes tightly shut and told herself not to panic, but her fear was increasing. She knew she was overreacting and that this was just (in all likelihood) a silly play, but at the same time, she felt frightened and that fear was growing...

"FOOLS!" The loud voice in the night declared a third time. "When will ye learn that me ye cannot slay? Year after year ye burn me in this grove! Lifting your puny shouts of triumph to the stars. When ye again turn your faces to the marketplace, do ye not find me waiting? As of old? Fools! Fools! Fools to dream ye conquer Care!"

Charlotte could feel panic starting and told herself to calm down. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't want to be here in these woods, in the dark, surrounded by these men. These weird, scary, powerful men. She didn't want to be here anymore. The sense of fun that had existed at the beginning of the ritual had bled away, leaving behind only a growing sense of unease and increasing adrenaline.

A new voice began to speak from the trees over the loudspeaker.

"Say Thou mocking spirit! It is not all a dream! We know Thou waiteth for us, when this, our sylvan holiday, has ended. We shall meet Thee and fight Thee as of old, and some of us prevail against Thee! And some, Thou shalt destroy. But this, too, we know! Year after year within this happy grove, our fellowship bans Thee for a space. Thine malevolence which would pursue us here has lost its power under these friendly trees. So shall we burn Thee once again this night! And, with the flames that eat Thine effigy, we shall read the sign! Midsummer sets us free!"

Another voice, the voice of "Care", blurted out into the night: "Ye shall burn me once again?!" There was sudden maniacal laughing. "Not with these flames! Which hither have ye brought from regions where I reign! Ye fools and priests! I spit upon your fire!"

There was a burst of light and what looked like a falling star arced overhead in the direction of the owl, and the priests, and the wrapped body. Pyrotechnics, apparently, and once again, the smell of gunpowder and with it, a riot of clapping and cheering and whistling from the audience.

Another voice in the night suddenly declared: "Oh owl! Prince of all mortal wisdom! Owl of Bohemia, we beseech Thee! Grant us Thy council..." Violin music began to play once again and suddenly there was a deep baritone voice singing out.

"No fire! Noooo fiiiiiree! Nooo fiiiirrrrreeee... unless it be kindled in the world where care on the hates of men, and drive him from this grove. One flame alone must light this fire! One flame alone must light this fire! A pure, eternal flame! A pure, eternal flame! At last, within the lamp of fellowship, upon the alter of Bohemia..."

"Oh, great owl of Bohemia! We thank Thee for Thy adoration!"

The melodramatic 1950s-movie-music began to play once again There was movement from the robed priests in front of the owl, but Charlotte could not make out what they were doing.

"Be long detested Care! Be gone! Once more, we banish Thee! Be gone Dull Care! Fire shall have its will of Thee! Be gone Dull Care! And all Thy winds make merry with Thy dust! Heil fellowship's eternal flame! Once again Midsummer sets us free!"

The light in front of the owl was suddenly stronger and Charlotte could see the wrapped body on the stone altar in front of the owl going up in flames. There was the sound of screaming, theatrical and improvised, but she still felt upset. As the body (she kept telling herself it was just a doll, even though she was pretty certain the men in this place were more than capable of procuring an actual body for their little play) went up, the audience members around her began to clap and cheer once again.

There was a sudden burst of pyrotechnics once more and a series of flares hidden in the ground suddenly blazed to life. The flares in the ground were suddenly higher and brighter and Charlotte could see the faces of some of her neighbours, all grinning and laughing and clapping gleefully. The corpse on the the stone altar was on fire and Red John was grinning and the people around him, the unnamed masses, were grinning and cheering and jeering, and there was another boom and another burst of light while classical music Charlotte was sure she'd heard paired to some of Bugs Bunny's antics on the old school Bugs Bunny and Tweety cartoons played over the loudspeakers.

The entire thing was so surreal and somehow, so anticlimactic. Red John was like a child himself, watching a staged play. Charlotte needled him in the side and he looked down at her indulgently and maneuvered his head so that she could whisper in his ear.

"Was that the body of a real person?" She asked him, over the sound of the pyrotechnics and theatrical classical music.

He didn't answer, but just grinned at her and went back to watching the performance.

Friday, November 2, 2013 2:13 P.M. P.S.T.

Charlotte had been extremely quiet, the towel draped over her head, the same song on repeat it sounded like. Lisbon knew that song well. It had been one of her favourites when she, herself, had been a teen: Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper". Lisbon glanced over at Jane, slumped in his seat, face more or less peaceful except for a slight deepening of the small lines around his eyes. His mouth was open a bit and he mumbled something too soft to make out. Lisbon cast him an affectionate smile and said a silent prayer for all of them.

Her own thoughts were pounding in her head something like a bongo drum and the detective knew the signs: if this kept up, she'd have a full fledged cluster headache in twenty minutes. She reached out, punched the button on the glove compartment and pulled out the extra large bottle of pf Extra Strength Advil Jane had purchased for an inflated penny at the overpriced convenience store earlier in the day. She pulled the lid off, shook out two pills and dry swallowed them.

But 5 minutes later, the pounding was only worse. She knew it was stress. Severe stress. Lisbon sighed and reached over. Turned the radio on and scrolled through the digital, pre-set stations.

She came to a Los Angeles news station called C-FOX ("L.A.'s home of Classic Rock!"). Currently a mundane voice was droning on about the weather that was expected to greet Los Angeles residents later in the day. The voice finished up with the weather and then started in on the news. Lisbon listened to news of a shooting outside a Starbucks and then, a moment before the voice said his name, she felt chills. A premonition.

"In other news, California police and the CBI are asking the public for any information about a missing CBI agent and CBI consultant. Agent Teresa Lisbon of the California Bureau of Investigation and CBI behavioral consultant Patrick Jane- known in the early 2000s for the immensely popular television show "Across the veil with Patrick Jane"- have gone missing following a bizarre turn of events involving the prolific Californian serial killer known only as "Red John". Agent Lisbon, a senior agent in charge of a taskforce responsible for hunting the serial killer was working with Mr. Jane when information surrounding Jane's daughter- previously believed to have been one of Red John's victims- came to light suggesting the girl is alive and well. The teenager is believed to be with the agents and is wanted for questioning. If you have any information about the missing agents or the teen, you are advised to contact your local authorities. In other news..."

Lisbon blinked wearily. It had only been a short news burst, but her heart was racing. She and Jane both had known that their disappearance might be made public, but she still felt considerably upset. She glanced over at Jane, still fast asleep. She would wake him up when she got to San Diego, like they had planned. Jane would need all the sleep he could get.

From the back seat, "Don't Fear the Reaper" started again from the beginning and a shadow passed over the mid-day sun, making the light appear flat and gray.