Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 42)
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: I am so sorry guys for the long wait- computer died and it took this long to get a new one and write a new chapter, with life getting in the way and eating through my spare time. Please review!
Tuesday, November 14th, 2013 2:13 p.m. PST
Lisbon took the elevator up with Jane as Jane stood facing the doors, expression unreadable.
She smiled at him and he gave her a smile back, dazzling like when he had first met her and he was trying to impress and assumed his pearly whites could shoulder the lion's share of making a good impression. Under the smile was profound fatigue, the type of knee-bucking weariness that dropped people for weeks. The man needed a vacation. Couldn't take one.
The doors slid open before she could think of anything to say and Jane strode out of the little box of an elevator with the hiccupping light, approached the door of the locked unit Elian was being "held" on and pressed the intercom button.
A tinny voice came out from the speakers and Jane announced his arrival and that of Lisbon's, waited for the familiar electronic buzzer noise.
He clicked the door open when it came and held the door for Lisbon as she followed him into the sterile, fluorescent world. Jane immediately went to the front nurse's desk, and flashed his winning smile yet again to the young woman sitting behind the desk. She bought it and returned a prim smile of her own.
"We're here to interview Elian?"
"Ah, yes, of course," the woman behind the desk said, still smiling, eyes tired and strained.
" I'll page his doctor for you ."
"Thank you," Jane said brightly.
It was hard to know for sure with Jane, but in conjunction with the earlier talk about Charlotte, something about Jane's smile looked over-bright and put-on. The cracks were starting to show, so to speak. To Lisbon, in that moment, even his teeth looked too white. Too white and too dazzling. The man had spent his entire life perfecting his act, trying to impress, trying to create a set of impressions the way a painter built up an illusion on canvas with oils, and seeing the ongoing stress made it harder for Lisbon to buy the illusion. She felt almost like she was looking at one of those 3D puzzles and her eyes were starting to fluctuate between seeing the illusion and seeing nothing but visual garbage.
There was some movement down the hall then and a middle aged man with a beard and spectacles appeared, dressed in khakis and a beige patterned sweater, loafers on his feet. He was such a "good guy shrink" cliché that Lisbon had to bite down a sudden, desperate urge to laugh out loud.
Jane sized up the man immediately, grinned at the stranger, a little less wide of a grin than he'd used on the receptionist. The man (he was wearing the deliberately "casual" attire of a shrink or a social worker who wanted others to know that he didn't need to be called "doctor" to help out his patients) nodded at Jane, then at Lisbon, indicated they should follow him and showed them both to an interview room.
Mr. Cosby-sweater unlocked the door and nodded at the room to indicate its suitability.
"This okay?" The room had the same harsh fluorescents running through the ceiling, but the floors were thread-bare carpet and there was a couch, a small circular table with a box of Kleenex tissues sitting conspicuously in the center of it, a few hard-backed chairs, framed pastel prints of bucolic landscapes.
Someone with minimal funding had obviously tried to make the place look homey, and had almost-but-not-quite succeeded. There was the smell of some sort of pine cleaner in the air under the musty, recycled air smell. Vaguely and underneath that, the smell of orange juice and peanut butter.
Jane took in the perfunctory "artwork", muttered something snide under his breath about said "artwork", and nodded back at Mr. Cosby-sweater to indicate that "this", sure, would be okay.
"This will be fine, thank you," Lisbon said dutifully and at that, Jane turned back and flashed another toothpaste-commercial-smile at the stranger. Ta-da!
Elian's doctor (Lisbon was sure at this time it was the kid's doctor, Jane's brain was barely focused on the outer world but was several "moves" ahead, already preparing questions of Utmost Importance) nodded and left the room.
Lisbon looked at Jane, who was squinting at one of the boring prints as if he had never before seen anything like it and wasn't sure what to make of it.
"I see this sort of thing," Jane pointed to one of the framed prints with an accompanying flap of the hand, "everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. From fleabag motels to dentistry offices. The artist- if you want to call him that- an artist… is he rich, you think? I'm assuming it's a male, but this is so lifeless it's really hard to read gender."
Lisbon just smiled at that and Jane grinned back at her.
He was good at grinning; he'd spent a lifetime plastering on that winning smile™ and it was something he could control when the world decided to stop making sense and started to scare him. The door opened and Elian stumbled in, followed by his sweater-wearing companion who had one hand on the boy's thin shoulder. A paternal father-figure for the insane pubescent boy-children of this part of California. Jane's smile was beginning to look mighty strained.
"Elian, hi," Jane greeted the kid happily, nodding his head in the direction of the couch. "Want to take a seat?"
Elian eyed Jane uneasily, eyes haunted and underscored with that particular shade of purple-black which denoted many a sleepless night, and shrugged wordlessly.
His darker skin (which Jane had referred to as café-au-lait once to Lisbon's combined amusement and astonishment) now looked pale and sallow. The boy looked back at the man who had become his "doctor" with drugged, buggy eyes and shuffled his way to the small room's little sofa. His feet made a whisking, whishing noise over the thin carpet.
He sat down, looking tired and drawn in his issued gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, his stocking feet and brand-new gleaming white sneakers.
"Do you remember me?" Jane said to the kid in the same over- bright tone. The boy nodded.
"And agent Lisbon here?" Jane pressed and motioned Lisbon, even though it was obvious who he was referring to.
Elian nodded again. Dutiful. Robotic.
Elian's doctor was standing in the doorway, watching Jane with an appraising look that made Lisbon feel annoyed and protective.
Jane didn't like that for a different reason.
He wanted to talk to this kid- really delve into his mind- and he couldn't do that effectively with the prince of Khakis overseeing him.
No way would they let one Patrick Jane hypnotize such an unstable witness. There'd be some law or rule or some such about hypnotizing unstable children and places like this were all gung-ho about rules and laws and playing fair.
"Doctor, do you think we could interview Elian alone?" Jane tried. The man known only as "doctor" frowned, as if considering it and looked at Elian.
"Elian? You okay with talking to these people alone?"
"Yuh," Elian mumbled, looking at his hands. A real trooper.
"If you feel upset or want to stop, just ask them, and they will stop," Elian's doctor told him in the soft, gentle way adult professionals so often spoke to juvenile head cases and waited while Elian nodded his drugged understanding.
"Okay," the boy muttered, still looking at his hands. For their part, his hands remained still and obedient. Little dogs with heat-stroke, cradled in the dip of his lap.
"Okay, then," the doctor said, and slipped out of the door, gently closing it behind him after aiming an appropriate warning glance at Jane. Jane held his hands up in a "don't shoot" gesture and the doctor frowned at that, but left, anyway.
Jane stared at the boy and sat down across from him on one of the hard-backed chairs. Lisbon took the other chair. Elian kept looking at his hands.
"Elian, will you look at me, please?" Jane coaxed gently, dimming the wattage of his smile just a bit. The kid seemed to almost flinch at the words, but then slowly turned his sallow face upward to meet Jane's blue gaze.
Jane smiled wider again at the boy's compliance. Elian looked tiny in his sweats, tiny and scared and so very young and Lisbon thought of her brothers at the same age, acting tough when their father went into an alcoholic black-out and became "physical". She knew the signs of a little boy trying to be a "man"- the lower lip on the edge of trembling, the too-wide eyes, the grinding of the jaw and downward glances.
Lisbon felt an overwhelming protective urge rise inside of her. She wanted to sit next to Elian, hug him, tell him she had this and that everything would be okay.
Knew she couldn't do any of that, so she just sat and watched him carefully. Based on the tone of his voice and his body language, Jane felt a similar protective instinct.
"Thanks," Jane said to Elian, eyes locked on the young teen in front of him. "How are you feeling today, Elian?"
Elian stared at Jane and then through Jane, as if the question were obscure and hard to understand, a trap maybe? The boy frowned, licked his lips nervously, looked over at Lisbon shyly, looked back at Jane.
Finally he shrugged.
"I don't know. Okay, I guess?" Like he wasn't sure. Like he was asking for permission to have an opinion about his own emotional state. Jane nodded immediately at Elian.
"Okay. Okay, that's good," Jane said and his voice began to slip into the slow, gentle cadence of what Lisbon had come to think of as Jane's "hypnosis" voice.
"Because I want you to feel okay, Elian. Calm. Safe. And warm. Do you feel calm… and safe… and warm?"
Elian blinked heavily, looked back down at his hands, back up at Jane. Nodded once.
"Okay, that's good. It's nice that you feel calm… and safe… warm. Relaxed. It's nice to feel so relaxed. At peace. No worries. Warm and soft and deeply in your mind. Like you're about ready for a nice, loooong sleep," Jane murmured sotto voce and Elian blinked once more and his eyelids drooped a little more.
Lisbon watched the boy, watched Jane, and not for the first time marveled at Jane's skill with hypnotic inductions. Jane used tone and timing the way some used oils and some used key notes. He was a master of the mind.
People could be trained to hypnotize others, but you couldn't train raw talent. Jane was great at what he did; a natural- that much was undeniable.
"As you speak to me, you'll feel calmer and warmer and sleepier… more relaxed. As you listen to my voice you'll fall deeper into a light sleep; a warm and peaceful sleep, a soft and fuzzy sleep. No worries. No fears. Just warmth and peace."
"Warmth and peace," the boy murmured back at Jane, eyelids even heavier now, pupils very, very dilated under the masts of his eyelids, fingers gently curled in his lap and no longer interlocked. There was something soft about the boy's hands now, something that almost made Lisbon want to sketch them with charcoal.
"Yes, that's right, Elian," Jane said in his soothing hypnosis voice™. "Warmth and peace. Falling into warmth and peace. Nothing can hurt you here. Falling into warmth like a warm bath. You just want to close your heavy eyelids and sleep, and when you wake, you will feel rested and calm."
"You will not remember anything that frightens or upsets you. As I ask you questions, you will remember the past in perfect clarity, like watching a movie. If what you see frightened you the first time it happened, it will not frighten you now. You are far away from what is playing out on the screen inside your head. You will see everything in clear detail, on the inside of your eyelids, like watching a movie, and if you want you can pause the movie. You can rewind the movie. You can fast-forward the movie. You can turn up the sound and you can lower the sound. You will not feel afraid, because you're just watching a movie. Your body is warm and calm and at peace. Your mind is warm… and soft… and at peace. Even if the movie become scary, you will remain calm and at peace."
"At peace," Elian mumbled. Jane's smile was gone. The kid was almost in the hole, and it was a very black hole... demons lurked in that hole. Their shadows danced impossibly over the event-horizon of that hole, forecasting unimaginable horrors.
Whether the boy knew it or not, he was sinking into Hell.
"Your eyelids are so heavy now, so incredibly heavy, Elian. You feel so tired, so sleepy, so warm. You feel like there are invisible weights on the top of your eyelids, pulling them down. All you want to do right now is close your eyes. … close your eyes, Elian."
The boy complied and his eyes flickered closed. His expression- which had been stressed and strained when he had first entered the room- was now considerably more relaxed. The kid looked younger, more like the child he still was. His breathing was deep and slow.
Lisbon watched as Jane pulled a small audio cassette recorder from his pocket.
Jane had never used an audio recording device in the past, not in as long as she had known him. That meant that this case was different. That meant that whatever the boy said, Jane wanted a permanent copy of it.
Which made perfect sense, all things considered. This case was Jane's life. His daughter's life…
Jane clicked the record button on the audio cassette recorder and placed it on the circular, melamine table in front of him. He asked Elian a few basic starting questions to judge his depth of hypnosis and comfort level. When he was satisfied that the boy was thoroughly and deeply induced, Jane lowered his voice just a little.
Jane had the kid think of a safe place inside of his head, a safe room in his mind. He would go there if he got too upset- the mental equivalent of a panic room. He would go there if- by some accident- the movie inside his head became too scary, even with the skillful commands for peace and warmth. Did he understand?
Yes. He understood.
"Do you remember being in the desert in Mexico, outside the Chicken Man's house?" Jane began in his soothing, golden voice. The boy was only still for a moment, eerily still like a statue, before nodding.
"Yes," Elian murmured.
"Do you like living with the Chicken Man?"
"Yes."
"Does he treat you well?"
"Yes."
"Besides the other kids that live there- and the animals- does anyone ever come to the Chicken Man's house?" Jane glanced at Lisbon, then, and Lisbon saw what she thought was a shadow flit across his eyes.
She blinked and it was gone.
There had been no shadow. Of course not. Just a trick of the light or a glitch in her own vision. There was no way there could have been a shadow, not in this impossibly fluorescent room which smelled of peanut butter and orange juice and pine sol.
"Sometimes," Elian said in his drawn out, far-away voice. Fuzzy and warm and soft voice. Disconnected from any fear voice.
"Who comes to the house?" Jane prompted gently. The wheels inside the microcassette recorder turned, recording the interview for later analysis. The wheels in Jane's mind also turned, planning and thinking and formulating his questions.
"People from town come sometimes. Sometimes tourists. Chicken Man sells them herbs and cactus… cactus that makes them… have visions. Cactus for visions."
"Peyote?" Jane prompted. Elian's eyes moved under his eyelids, his breath was soft.
"Yes, that is it. Pay-oh-tee. Yes."
"Does the Chicken Man sell them anything else?" Jane asked and waited while Elian's eyes moved back and forth behind his closed eyes, waited while the boy ran through his memories.
"Snake meat. Medicine bags. Beads. Things… things like that. From the land or… we make them. Gringos like stuff we make. Chicken Man says they like to take it home to their expensive homes to seem worldly."
"Okay, great… you're doing great. Thank you, Elian."
"You're welcome," the boy murmured and a small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. He let out a tired, sleepy sigh.
He felt safe. He felt warm. He felt peaceful. He was a good boy. He was doing a good job.
"Besides tourists, does anyone ever come to the Chicken Man's house?" Jane asked in the same golden honey voice. The boy was silent, eyes tracing back and forth, hands gently clasped in his lap now.
He began to chew his lip. Jane waited a moment longer.
"Elian, warm and safe. You're warm and safe. Who else comes to the house? Who else?"
"The man," Elian breathed. There was a small line forming between his dark eyebrows.
"What is the man's name?" Jane's eyes were locked on the kid's, lasers on target.
"I… don't know his real name."
"That's okay. What do you call him?"
"I… we… we call him Red John. Juan de Rojo. Chicken Man calls him… sometimes… the devil. Not to his face. After… after he leaves. Calls him… el Diablo. Sometimes… the red devil? El Diablo rojo. Or the red wolf. Or sometimes even swear words. And… he never swears."
"Does Red John come to the house alone?"
"Sometimes," Elian murmured.
"Who does he come to the house with?" Jane asked softly. The words had rounded corners. They were bath-water-warm and hazy, warm and fuzzy and safe words.
You could tell the words anything. They weren't judging. The words could not judge. Only people could judge. And these words weren't connected to any person. Just words, soft and rounded and safe words. Anchors in the darkness.
"The girl. Charlotte. Her eyes… are broken. Like glass, like mirrors. Broken and so sad. I tried to tell Chicken Man about her. Help her. I don't know how to help her. I… don't know how to do it."
"Do you know Charlotte's last name?" Jane prompted, frowning at the description of Charlotte's "broken eyes" but aware of the time restrictions at play.
Elian shook his head to indicate the negative.
"Nuh uh," he murmured. "I don't think she has one."
"When did Charlotte first start coming to the house?"
A.. long time ago… before I got there. I don't remember… a long time. I think she is Red John's pet."
Lisbon looked at Jane then and saw his jaw grind a little at the word "pet". Felt a similar sense of anger and unease.
"Okay, you're doing great. Do you remember being in the desert just a few weeks ago? At the Chicken Man's house?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember the fire at the Chicken Man's house?"
"Yes," Elian confirmed. His eyes were moving quickly now beneath his eyelids. His breathing hitched and Jane gave him a few commands to slow his breathing, reminded him that he was just watching a movie and was feeling calm.
"It won't hurt you. What you're seeing is just a movie on a television. Nothing will hurt you, now, or upset you."
"Yesss," the boy slurred, and his facial features relaxed just a bit.
"Do you know what caused the fire?"
Elian shook his head no. He didn't know.
"What happened before the fire?" Jane asked gently. Lisbon glanced over at Jane again. Saw that- despite his soft, gentle voice- his shoulders were tense and rigid.
"Red John came," Elian breathed.
"What did Red John do?"
"He… he is driving up to the house. He gets out of his truck. He goes into the shed. I am watching from the window, at the house. He comes back out of the shed. He is carrying… carrying the boy… with the… carrying him."
"What boy?" Jane asked gently.
"His head… deformed. He… his face… his face has tumors."
"Is the boy moving?" Jane asked. Elian shook his head.
"Not moving. I think…" Elian trailed off.
"You're feeling soft and safe and relaxed. Warm and sleepy. Nothing you see can hurt you. Nothing you see can cause you any fear. You're just reporting on what you're seeing. Is the boy moving?"
"He is dead," Elian said slowly. Beside him, Jane felt Lisbon stiffen.
They both knew Red John had killed that kid and several others.
They knew what he was capable of. But hearing Elian's memory of the event highlighted- not just for the first time- how many other lives Red John's evil had tainted.
"What does he do with the boy?" Jane pressed.
"He takes him away. To the truck. He is gone. He drives away."
"Is Charlotte there?"
"No."
"Is the Chicken Man there?" Jane asked. He already knew the Chicken Man wasn't there, but wanted to make sure the kid's sense of chronology was in order.
"No."
"What happens then?"
"I go out to the shed… and I go inside… and two kids… two kids are not moving. I don't want to… no. I don't want to know that they are there. But I know that they are there. But I pretend I don't see them."
"Okay, that is okay. You don't have to think about that. What do you then?"
"I go outside and sit on the ground and Grumpy Gus comes out of the house and he sits with me. I feel dizzy."
"What happens then?"
"He is looking at me!" Elian breathed in suddenly. Jane shushed him, a paternal noise. Elian relaxed at the gentle "shhhhhh", seemed to rock a little in response to it.
"Grumpy Gus is looking at you?" Jane clarified.
"No!"
"You're safe and calm. You're just reporting. Who is looking at you, Elian?"
"Red John!" Still too much charge in the kid's words.
"Red John has come back?" Jane's voice was artificially calm, as it always seemed to be when Red John became the subject of a conversation.
"Yes! He is smiling at me! He… his teeth are…how can they be like that? Those aren't human teeth! He is smiling at me! His eyes…. His eyes are wrong. His eyes… they don't look human. He is smiling at me. "
"What is wrong with his eyes?"
"The blacks… the pupils? Yes. Pupils. The pupils are lines… slits. Like… a snake."
Lisbon shivered at that. If it affected Jane, he didn't show it externally.
"What does he do then?" Jane prompted, getting back on track and away from the supernatural, impossible snake-eyes. This must have been the kid having a psychotic break in reaction to seeing the children he had come to think of as brothers and sisters murdered. Perhaps a post-hypnotic suggestion, or a side-effect of combined heat and stress and the Chicken Man's story-telling.
"He is talking to me." Elian's words trembled.
"What is he saying?" Jane asked. There was a moment of silence and Elian's face screwed up. He mouthed something, silently.
His hands turned into fists and then opened, then clenched again.
Lisbon leaned towards him protectively.
"Elian? What does Red John say to you?"
"I… do not know. It is not... it is not English. It is not Spanish. I don't like this." Elian's face was screwed up again and before Jane could give a command to relax or feel safe, tears had formed in his eyes and splashed down his young cheeks.
"What language is it?" Jane inquired gently.
"I don't know…" the boy was floating in a dark ocean. A sharp line had formed between his eyebrows again and was growing deeper with the passing seconds. The tears stood out on his cheeks and rolled slowly.
"Try to repeat what he said, what Red John said. You can hear him right now, talking. Talking in the strange language. What does he say?"
"Non…om-nis…more-ee-are…"
"What happens then?" Jane prompted, glancing over at Lisbon.
"I am wearing a.. . a suit. And a cape? Yes… cape. Hat. Shoes. I have a stick… stick in my hand. In front… I am in front of the shed?"
"Red John was speaking to you and then you were suddenly in front of the shed dressed in a suit?" Jane clarified.
Elian shifted on the worn couch, seemed to rock in his place for a moment. His eyes continued to scan behind the closed lids, trying to make sense of the images and smells, the timeline and the words.
"Yes. There was a… jump. He was talking to me. Then… then I am in front of the shed. In the… suit. Magic suit. Magician? Yes. Magician suit. Holding… computer. DVD player? Holding… I don't know. In my hands."
"What are you supposed to do with the object you're holding?" Jane pressed.
"Give it to the man… the one like Red John. Red John's twin. Looks like Red John, but not like him. Different eyes. Different... different soul. Give it to him."
"Do you give it to him?"
There was silence as Elian's mind ran the events of the last few weeks through his head. Finally, he nodded.
"Yes. He is… coming now. I give it to him. He is… he goes into the shed. He goes inside the shed."
"What do you do then?"
"I can move now! I can move now!" The boy's voice sounded suddenly excited. "I can move now. I run… I run into the desert. I run into the desert. I need to get away. I need to get away. Everybody is dead. The kids… Chicken Man…. I need to run away… I need to get away…"
"The Chicken Man is dead?" Jane pressed carefully. The boy shifted on the couch, frowning.
"Elian?"
"He…. I think he is dead. I think he was in the shed. I think he was in the shed. I think I saw him."
"Did you see him in the shed?" Jane asked gently, coaxing gently, trying to tease the truth out of the kid.
"I….large shape in the shed. With hands. Large shape with hands. Old hands. I think… maybe him. I ran away into the desert. I had to run away. I don't want to die, too. No more thinking about this, okay? No more thinking about this. I don't want to die."
"No, you're not going to die," Jane soothed.
"No," Elian confirmed in a tremulous voice. "I'm running away."
"What happens in the desert?"
"I am running… there is an explosion. Everything is on fire! The world is blowing up! Black clouds! Everywhere! I keep running. My lungs… burn. Smells so bad. Smells like… the world is ending."
"When do you stop running?" Jane prompted.
"My lungs burn. My legs are burning. I slow down. My heart is going… fast. Someone… licking my hand."
"Who is licking your hand?" Jane leaned forward.
"Goat… Grumpy Gus? Grumpy Gus! Grumpy Gus is alive! Licked my hand! I can't speak. I look at him… he looks at me. His eyes are angry but he is scared, too. He licks my hand. I want him to stay with me but he walks away. Grumpy Gus is angry with me."
"What happens then?" Jane's voice was soft, his own mind playing the images back in his imagination.
"As if you don't know, Patrick," Elian spat out coldly.
His voice was very suddenly harsh and much older than a moment ago. Jane shifted in his chair and threw Lisbon a glance before looking back at the boy. Lisbon felt the temperature of her blood drop several degrees.
"Who are you?" Jane asked with infinite calm.
"You know who I am," the deep voice said. Jane felt a slight shudder run through him, felt his arms prickle with gooseflesh under the cloth of his expensive suit, but remained as outwardly calm as possible.
Elian opened his dark brown eyes and stared at Jane. Smiled at him, clearly delighted.
"Yes, I know who you are. But I still would like you to tell me," Jane prompted calmly. The eyes that were usually Elian's scanned the room, saw the microcassette recorder on the little melamine table and grinned devilishly at Jane.
"Recording our little interactions for posterity, Patrick? How incredibly thoughtful."
"What's your name? You're not Elian."
"No. I'm definitely not Elian."
"What's your name, then?"
"I thought we were past this sort of childish materialism," the voice said, even deeper now.
Lisbon, from her seat beside Jane, had grown very still. Jane looked over at her, saw the sudden pallor of her skin, and felt a rush of anger bubble up inside of him.
"Childish materialism? I'm afraid I don't know what that means," Jane said in his calm hypnotist voice. The boy's features contorted in annoyance.
"You know exactly what it means. Don't play stupid, Tricky. It doesn't suit you."
Tricky.
Jane licked his lips quickly. Stared into the boy's dark brown eyes. Now, they were almost completely black, the pupils were so large.
"I'll stop playing stupid if you tell me your name," Jane said simply.
Whatever intelligence was running itself through Elian's brain decided it was bored with Jane and turned its gaze to Lisbon. The grin grew wider and the eyes flashed with an ancient sentience. Lisbon felt her mouth dry out, having those liquid-silver eyes take her in.
"Hello, Teresa. How are we feeling today?"
"You don't talk to her," Jane said immediately, feeling a rush of emotion well up inside of him, a fierce desire to protect his partner.
"I'm okay," Lisbon said calmly, but it was the forced calm of someone who was teetering on primal fear, the fear of the dark, of what lurked in the dark… Sometimes there was calm before trembling and tears, before the subconscious mind let the sensation of fear pass the gates into consciousness. Lisbon was that sort of calm.
"Really? No nightmares at all?" The voice was taunting, faux-concerned, completely focused on Lisbon. Lisbon remained steadfast, but her hands balled into fists at her side, and there was a pulse of tension at her temples as she ground her molars.
"I'm fine."
"You know who I am, don't you, Teresa? You're not going to pretend like you don't, are you? Patrick likes to play pretend, but you strike me as altogether more genuine."
Jane turned, saw Lisbon's tense features, knew that with every ounce of her being she wanted to get as far away from this hypnotized kid and this room as possible, but wouldn't allow herself to do that.
Teresa Lisbon was never weak and she never admitted to fear. His little fighter.
"I said I'm fine. Why don't you answer Jane's questions?"
"Why answer a question you both already know the answer to?" The deep voice inside Elian gurgled. "What sorts of games are you people playing, anyway?"
"Lisbon," Jane said, and when he caught Lisbon's gaze, he shook his head to indicate she should not respond. Lisbon nodded.
The entity inside Elian huffed, clearly annoyed.
"Okay… what do you want to know, Patrick? Is the Chicken Man dead? Is that the 64 thousand dollar question?"
"Okay," Jane said calmly.
"Of course. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
Jane nodded sadly.
"Who killed the Chicken Man? You already know that, too."
"Red John," Jane said with a nod of his head. Elian grinned at Jane.
"Point for the genius." There was silence, and then Elian's mouth grew wide in a vicious smile.
"Is little Charlotte a killer?" The voice in the boy crooned cruelly. Jane was still. Just watched. Finally, he nodded.
His heart was pounding, but a slow pound, much slower than he felt it should have been going.
"Of course. But you already knew that, too. The question you should be asking yourself is… did she like killing or was she in shock when she did it? Anybody can kill, Patrick… but the type of killer that really upsets you is the type that kills of his… or her… own free will and develops an honest taste for it. Am I right?"
"Yes," Jane breathed. The thing in Elian grinned impossibly wider.
"Riiiight. That's the question. Did she like it?"
"Is Charlotte that kind of killer?" Jane asked the being using Elian's face as a mask. Elian's features became thoughtful. Finally, the thin shoulders shrugged with mock indifference.
"Why don't you ask her?"
"I will."
"Of course you will. What will you do if the answer is not to your satisfaction, though, Patrick? What will you do if Charlie really has… changed? Your precious little baby? Oh dearie me."
"She hasn't," Jane said dangerously.
"But… if she has? Just suppose?"
"Then I'll get her help," Jane said sternly. Licked his lips quickly, a "tell" of nervousness. The thing caught the licked lips, nodded slowly, clearly pleased with itself.
"Help. Ah. I see. Like the young Elian, here, is receiving? Like our late friend Felix was given on the taxpayer's dime? Help being code for incarceration in a looney bin? Preparation for electroshock… or the grave?"
Whatever intelligence was operating behind Elian's not-young eyes was obviously trying to taunt Jane. Jane forced himself to smile, but the smile felt wrong on his face, crude and greasy, an oil slick on an ocean. Vulgar, somehow.
He hated himself in that moment.
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Jane said calmly, still smiling at Elian's face even though the grin was repellent to him. Elian nodded playfully and clapped his hands together like a delighted child.
"Yes. I know you do. But you're not," Jane continued simply. His heart thudded its slow drum beat. Blood pulsed in his ears, a sanguine ocean tide; the drumbeat of the damned.
"Oh, but, I am." The voice dropped impossibly deep for Elian to make naturally. Lisbon felt her blood freeze a little more in her veins at the drop in that voice. The air in the room was suddenly cold, too cold for comfort. Felt like someone had suddenly opened the door to a walk-in freezer.
If Jane felt the temperature drop, he didn't mention it.
"Not really," Jane said nonchalantly, standing up, deliberately calm and at ease. The eyes that had once been Elian's watched Jane with spite and hatred, not convinced by his casual act.
"On your belly, Tricky boy… on your… belly…you little trick…" the voice was suddenly very different, but equally as real and impressive. A hoarse crackle, clogged with phlegm. There was a sudden, brutal smoker's cough, a giggly laugh.
Jane went pale in a rush.
His pupils bloomed. Lisbon saw it. The blanching of his face seemed to delight whatever personality was operating inside of Elian, and there was laughter. The smile on Jane's lips trembled at the corners of his lips, just barely visible to Lisbon but definitely there. The intelligence operating inside of the boy was delighting in the pain it was causing, that much was obvious.
"Elian, thank you for your help. When I snap my fingers, you're going to wake up, feeling alert and refreshed and not remembering any of this," Jane said in a plastic voice, but Lisbon knew he was off his game.
She could hear the underlying uneasiness in his words, could see the pallor under his tan and the way his pupils were drinking in all the light. Mentalist or not, he was still human and he still was capable of getting upset after a certain point. This thing had crossed the line.
"Close your eyes, Elian," Jane said softly, and the thing in the boy's eyes looked at Jane coldly and with remarkably condescension. Then the boy known as Elian winked at Jane, and the eyelids fluttered shut obediently.
Lisbon fought back the urge to outwardly shudder. What the Hell was going on here?
Jane counted back from 100, watching the boy carefully as he went. By 50, he was fairly certain, Elian was asleep and resting.
He counted back the rest of the way, snapped his fingers. The boy woke up blinking, rubbing the side of his head, looking disoriented. His eyes were bloodshot now, where they hadn't been mere minutes before. As Lisbon looked on in wonder, she realized, no… not merely bloodshot. One of the boy's eyes was filling with blood. Like he had been punched in the face.
God.
"You okay, Elian?" Jane said carefully. The kid nodded dully.
"Have a headache," the kid admitted slowly. Jane nodded.
"Want me to get you some water? Maybe some juice?" Jane said paternally. The boy shook his head, rubbed his temple, pulled on his ear. He reminded Jane of a toddler with an earache. The red in his eye was spreading fast.
"I want to go back to my room," Elian said weakly, still pulling on his ear. Jane nodded. Got up off his seat and opened the door. Jane ushered Lisbon out of the room, and steered Elian out, pocketing the microcassette recorder as he did so. Words were coming to Lisbon now, words like "hemorrhage" and "sudden death".
Elian shuffled back in the direction of his bedroom and Lisbon and Jane stopped at the front desk.
"It go okay?" The receptionist said politely. Jane nodded but his eyes were far-away.
"I think we got enough information for one day," Jane said. The woman nodded back at him understandingly, not perceptive enough to pick up his shaken state.
"Elian was complaining of a headache towards the end," Jane added, looking back in the direction of the bedrooms. The receptionist (or was she a nurse? Who knew?) nodded at that. Just another task to complete, another pill to drop in a cup for the loonies.
"I'll inform his doctor."
"Thanks. One of his eyes went red, some sort of psychosomatic reaction to stress, perhaps," Jane said, and stood near the door. He grabbed the handle the moment he heard the buzzer and all but ran to the elevator. Lisbon followed after him. Jane was hammering the "down" elevator button relentlessly.
"Jane?" Lisbon asked after a few seconds of watching him repeatedly hit the down elevator button.
"Hmmm?" Jane said, turning to her, grinning. An adrenaline flooded grin. Lisbon felt her guts tighten almost painfully.
"Towards the end? What he said to you? What was that?" Lisbon's voice was very soft, almost a whisper.
Jane hit the elevator button 5 more times and the doors suddenly made a loud ding and slid open. Jane got on, hit the L button and hammered the "doors closed" button until the doors slid shut.
"What was what?" Jane said brightly, only increasing Lisbon's growing concern. Lisbon sighed.
"When he called you Tricky boy? When he said… to get on your belly? Your face… Jane, you went white."
"Just a disturbed child trying to get a rise out of the stupid gringo," Jane said with too much panache and smiled at Lisbon again. "Nothing to worry about, Lisbon."
"If you say so," Lisbon said, but the words continued to cycle in her mind. They hinted at very dark things indeed.
It didn't take a mentalist to see that Jane wasn't being forthright… only a functioning pair of eyes.