The Long Dark
VII.
Aurora Borealis
The dream was convoluted - blood and sacrifice, trembling and boiling darkness, streaks of the colored sky above naked hips and legs. He reached for her, and his hand passed through shadows as the voice whispered, "Abandon hope...and you will no longer be alone."
Into the hungry mist, he breathed in denial, "...never."
"Then suffer...and find no solace in your emptiness."
His eyes opened, silver in the moonlight from the window.
Jill was still there beside him.
Leon tried to hang onto the images in his dream as he roused, rested, and soft with slumber for the first time in a long time. They flittered away like butterflies, abandoning his conscious mind with little regard for their meaning. It didn't take a therapist to give him the gist of it - he was alone. If he just embraced it, he'd find peace.
He didn't want to embrace it.
And he was tired of being alone.
Jill had fallen asleep sitting against the headboard with one hand lying on his chest while he slept and one hand cradling the gun tucked into her lap.
Touched, he carefully divested her of the gun and laid it on the nightstand. When he angled her down on the bed, she roused lightly, starting to fight against him until he soothed, "S'ok. S'alright. You're ok."
Her sleepy eyes looked blind in the darkness as she murmured, "...I'll go."
He shook his head and eased her down onto the pillows beside him. "Not yet. I got you."
"...you, ok?"
For the first time in a long time, that answer was easy. "I'm good. Go back to sleep."
She didn't even fight him. She just sighed and slumped into the mattress. Her hand slid over his thigh, where he propped himself up beside her and curled. An absent gesture, he thought with a smile, like touching his chest had been.
She was sound asleep again in moments. The tv flickered shadows and light around them as he looked down at her and thought - he should get back to work here. He should keep digging. The second he stopped, the world waited for him to fail.
Abandon hope...and you will no longer be alone.
He couldn't. He didn't know how. He'd tried in Spain, and she'd drug him to the end without ever relenting. He didn't know how to abandon anything...except his own happiness. He'd left that behind a long time ago.
He should get up and find the answers that waited beyond this room.
Instead, he slid beside her on the bed and brought her against him. His hand slid against her lower back. Her hand on his thigh transferred to his chest and flattened against the muscle there, and her head shifted to rest on his biceps as he slid it under her and the pillow on which she lay. He curled his fingers into her hair and brought her in until her mouth and nose rested against his neck.
She sighed sweetly and snuggled against him.
And he drifted back into sleep that wasn't soaked in nightmares for the first time in years.
The warm skim of nose to nose had his face tilting down. His hand started grabbing the gun on the nightstand, and she caught his wrist to bring it to her mouth and whispered, "Easy. Just me." Right. No threat here.
At least not to his body.
He wasn't entirely sure about his heart.
Noses skimmed, and her mouth feathered his -soft, simple. Their legs tangled on the bed. His tongue slid wetly at the seam of her lips, begging for entrance.
With a slight sound of surrender, she parted her lips for him.
A soft kiss, tender, almost impossibly sweet.
They slid back into sleep - content and twined together.
She was gone when he woke up with the warm sun on his face. It wasn't surprising. She was known to run. It mostly amused him as he rose to get ready for the day.
The little town of Nome was barely thirty-five miles wide. It housed less than thirty-five hundred people. The small-town feel spread around the gathering of houses on the Norton Sound and invited you to spend a little time breathing in cold, clear air.
The small shops and pretty snow on endless fields were breathtaking in the dying sun. The sky turned rosy, illuminating the world with a sugar-coated sweetness of blushing cheeks and pearly clouds. The sign at the edge of town proudly declared, 'There's No Place Like Nome.' There wasn't. It was somehow surreal how simple and beautiful basic could be.
The people gathered in the streets as they shopped and enjoyed the building of a bonfire to welcome the night. Leon thrust his hands in his back pockets and rocked on his heels, watching the faces of the eager patrons who had no clue what had happened up the water from their perfect paradise. He barely turned back toward the little bar on the corner when a woman came eagerly hurrying toward him.
Pretty young, she was a Deputy with the Sheriff's department. Her name tag said, Nolan. Her dark glossy hair bobbed as she reached him and gushed, "Agent Kennedy?"
When he nodded, Nolan added, "I'm Uki. I'd like to show you what we've found if you've got a minute."
Uki had the genetically gifted beauty of copper skin that didn't even need to be kissed by the sun. She was an Eskimo, though he'd discovered they preferred to be referred to as Inuit. Those found here in Nome were primarily either Inuit or Yupik. They encompassed a majority of the population of Alaska toward the Canadian border.
Uki gave him determined dark eyes and a flash of white teeth in a smile, "We're delighted to have you here. I-I'm sure the locals can see a bit...uncomfortable with outsiders...but it's only because the last time the government inserted itself in a jurisdictional situation, we ended up having part of the seaboard annexed for trade. Since most of the villages around here rely heavily on fishing, it put a heavy cramp in commerce."
Leon gave her an answering smile, "I can imagine. Let me assure you that I'm not here to cramp anyone's trade. I just...want to ensure it's safe for the fishing to resume. Right now, I can tell you that what we're dealing with isn't something you want to take lightly."
"I agree," Uki nodded raptly, "I agree completely. Working together is the only way we can get answers, and quickly. Do you have a minute to come with me?"
He shrugged a shoulder and fell into step beside her as the eager deputy urged, "A quick toss of a cabin across the water turned up a handful of things that we couldn't make sense of before your people arrived."
She opened the door to the Sheriff's Department building, and a bell rang to signal their arrival. She escorted him beyond a swinging gate into the inner sanctum and gestured to a chair before her desk. He claimed it, unzipping his parka against the push of heat that joined them.
There was another Deputy at a desk toward the far side of the precinct. He had thick dark hair braided back from a handsome dark face with slashes of impressive cheekbones. He eyed Nolan, eyed Leon with significantly less warmth in his intelligent gaze, and kept a keen look of interest on his face as he didn't even bother to feign busy work. He stared at them with an unambiguous indication of cool reservation.
In her heavy leather jacket sporting the Nome logo, Nolan gained the other seat across from him and gestured to the folder on the desk. He opened it and scanned the photos and intel within the manilla binding as Nolan informed him, "Honestly, Gunnerson was mostly a local nutjob, ya know? He liked to blather on about conspiracy and the eyes of the 'man' watching our every move. You know the type?"
Leon confirmed, "No telephone. Tinfoil on the windows. Wears a hat made of it to stop the mindreading. I've met the like before."
"Exactly," She smiled, and dimples flashed in her cheeks, "Opie wasn't exactly the type you took seriously. But when he started talking about monsters in the caves, people mostly dismissed it as his typical flack. He'd claim he saw aliens in there and demons and the like."
Leon glanced at her, and she flushed a little, "I know. But he'd been talking about this kinda thing for years before, and we had no reason to take him seriously. And then he started flashing pictures."
She gestured to the first three. It was from inside the cave; no getting around that: people and things in various states of mutation and suspension. Leon propped an elbow on the desk and set his chin in his hand, tapping his lips as Nolan went on, "When I went by his place to bring him in for questioning, he was long gone. But what he left behind made me think maybe...he's the guy you're looking for."
When Leon met her eyes again, Nolan nodded, "He was working for somebody. I don't know how long ago, and I don't know if he still is. I think something broke his mind or at least fractured his sanity. He had files all over the floor, pictures all over the walls, and boards around the room with string from one thing to another."
Leon considered that as he flipped through some of the pages in the file. When his eyes fell on a familiar name, Nolan stated, "Do you know someone named Spencer?"
And just like that - pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
He glanced at her as Nolan nodded, "Oh, yeah. He was in communication with somebody named Spencer. Apparently, Spencer sent him out here years ago with the idea of uncovering whatever was in those caves. The bad news? Opie sorta lost his mind and stopped reporting back. From what I can find, Spencer assumed it was a lost cause and seemed to have stopped pursuing it."
Leon licked his lips, "There's some good news there, at least. It means we might be working against ourselves without opposing forces trying to lay claim to what's in there."
Nolan nodded rapidly. "Sadly, it doesn't mean Opie wasn't working with someone else. I find a few telegrams from someone in a place called Rojo Le Muerte?"
She pronounced it Ro-joe la Meer-tay. So, the Spanish was all wrong - but the town had been too. He'd stopped Saddler there and nearly lost his life. His eyes flicked over her face as he demanded, "Anything about a Los Illuminados?"
She shook her head. "Some mention of a man named Sera."
"Luis?"
"No...Mateo? Is that familiar?"
Odds were it was Sera's grandfather. Interesting. It meant that the grandfather was further involved than they'd been able to prove in Spain. Leon gathered the file on the desk and said, "I need to see the cabin."
Nolan nodded and encouraged, "It's beyond the water and sorta isolated. We can't go by dark without risking the boat on icebergs. But I can take you over in the morning."
Leon bobbed his head as he rose, "If you can, find me anything on Opie before his time here. I'll put a call into my people to dig further, but it would help to know if the locals have heard anything relevant in all his blathering."
Nolan scrambled to her feet as he headed toward the door and called, "W-would...hah...you wanna get a drink?"
Oh.
He paused. He glanced back at her pretty face as she invited, "We could...ya know...talk work or just...talk life. Whatever. At Hoopers? It's-down the road a ways."
Leon tilted his head and smiled at her, "Deputy Nolan...Uki...I'm flattered. But I don't think you know exactly what you're asking."
Nolan laughed lightly. "Sure, I do. I'm asking you out, Agent Kennedy. You shooting me down?"
He laughed a little, "With no small amount of regret, I am. But I'll see you in the morning."
She sighed and watched him go. She had no doubt he'd continue to break hearts all over their small town. At least she'd taken her shot. Softly, she told the other Deputy, Morgan, who was smirking in his chair at her, "Some lucky girl is gonna snatch him up."
"Yup," Mused Morgan, "Just not you. My moneys on that one with the heart-shaped ass asking questions at Hoopers about access points to the cave. You see her face when they took him off in that ambulance?"
"Maybe they're friends."
"I'd make friends with her too if she blinked those big blue eyes at me like that."
Uki slapped the back of his head and made him laugh.
Leon made his way to Hoopers. He grabbed a chair outside and listened to the revelry beyond the swinging doors. A bit like a saloon, he mused with a smile; the people inside were whooping, hollering, and laughing. There was music and the clink of glasses.
He might have said yes to Nolan. A few months back, he'd have gladly let her buy him a drink and buried his troubles between her thighs for a night. Now? Now he was sitting here thinking about Jill crouching over him in that cave. Dark hair and blood and battle. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't even really sex at all.
What was it?
She'd covered him while that big bastard had tried to kill them like bugs beneath a fly swatter. She was just there - backing him up, pushing him on, and pulling him clear when the blood was eyeball deep and sinking fast.
The heel of his hand rubbed absently at his sternum like he could feel the pieces of plagas left behind there. He waited for the phantom pain to follow but found it absent. The shiver of emptiness taunted him beyond the body and into the soul.
Plagas? Or just him?
It was likely he'd never know.
Abandon hope...
He shook his head to clear the echoes of the dream.
He thought about the softness of that kiss during the night. He couldn't remember kissing without it ending in a facile fuck. Who was he kidding? He didn't kiss the women he fucked. It was...what? It was too intimate. It was something you reserved for someone who mattered. Who was the last woman to really kiss him?
Well, he knew that too. Ada. Ada had found him after Spain and shared intel with him, and when questioned about Jill, he'd been guarded and withdrawn. As she'd needled and cajoled, she'd slid her hand up his thigh and kissed him - eerily reminiscent of the first time she'd kissed him on the train car on their way to Nest. The first time she'd done it to shut him up and confuse him. This time, she'd done it to prove a point. Sex was one thing; a kiss was entirely different. He hadn't kissed her back, but she'd proved what she'd been after - kissing changed the game. It made things more complicated. He'd never forgotten Ada's first kiss.
And he'd never forget Jill's either.
Right at this moment, neither kiss was relevant anyway. He'd be kissing his ass goodbye if he didn't figure out how to stop what was in those caves. He didn't have time for romance.
Maybe that was part of the problem; when all he had was the fight in front of him, how did he remember what he was fighting for?
He'd been warned to take it easy; he wasn't entirely sure he knew how. Usually, his version of taking it easy involved a quick fuck and a bottle of whiskey. It was empty and pointless and left him wishing for something more tangible. It wasn't complicated. A real romance would be. These days, he didn't have time for either.
Turning his attention back to why he was here, he opened the file in front of him.
As he was flipping pictures Opie had taken, a beer appeared at his elbow. Surprised, he looked up to find Kevin joining him at the table. The big guy flopped down and speculated, "It's way after working hours, hoss. Why not put that away and enjoy the evening?"
Leon flipped the file closed and leaned back in his chair. He picked up the beer and concluded, "Are we ever really off duty?"
"Probably not," Kevin decided and tugged off his sock hat to lay it on the table as he sipped his beer, "But we can pretend."
Leon filled him in on what he'd found out from Nolan. Kevin, true to form, took in every word and just listened.
"Interesting, but what can you do about it tonight?"
Leon arched a brow as Kevin encouraged, "You need to chill out. And I get that it's redundant to say that when we're surrounded by snow and ice, but you heard the doc, right? Relax. Do you even know how?"
Leon snorted a little. "I vaguely remember how it's done."
Kevin patted his arm. "Then do it. Forget this shit on the table and just let Agent Kennedy wait another few hours. Trust me, he ain't going anywhere."
"Can you? With what happened in that cave?"
Kevin rolled his eyes. "I live my life one day at a time, Kennedy. Know why? With what we do, that's all we've got. Now. Here. This night, this moment, this beer, " He lifted it and gestured, "Why worry about tomorrow when you can't do a damn thing about it?"
Leon tapped his finger on the table and digested that. He was right; nothing could be done right this moment about anything. But it didn't change the nagging feeling that he should be doing something.
A trill of laughter drew their eyes to the bonfire. Rebecca was engaged in conversation with three women. They pointed and giggled and swooned. Kevin smirked, "I think they're talking about you."
Leon rolled his eyes, "Maybe it's you."
"It's never me, buddy. Not when you're sitting here looking like GQ goes Jason Bourne."
Leon snorted, "I look like Jason Bourne got hooked on drugs and started turning tricks for cash."
Kevin snickered. "So? The girls love it. That little scientist over there? If you winked at her, she'd hop in the sack with you in a hot second."
Leon considered that as he studied Rebecca. She was certainly looking over a lot, but his radar told him it wasn't aimed at this side of the table. "You're either blind or stupid, Ryman. You noticed how she stuck to you in that cave, right? It's not me she's sniffing after."
Kevin, brows arched, lifted his beer toward the girl scientist in a salute and watched her flush. She nearly tripped over one of her companions as she spun away and made them all laugh.
Surprised, he grunted, "I'll be damned...a woman who knows what's up."
Leon twitched his mouth. "She has no taste."
"Or likes herself a good beer over a shitty martini."
"I've never drunk a martini in my life."
"Sure. Because you only take it shaken, not stirred."
Leon snorted and flicked his gaze around the fire, looking for...what? Shenmei? Nope.
Jill.
Curious, he remarked, "Where's Shenmei?"
Kevin shrugged, "Lost her after we got back to town. With the stick up her ass that binds her to the job, I'd say she's on the horn with Washington trying to further her career. Why? You got a thing for her?"
Leon shook his head, "I don't. Hitting on her when we met was more perfunctory habit than actual interest."
Kevin snorted. "She's hot; no getting around that. But something is off about her. Like she's hiding shit, and you know it ain't good."
Leon nodded sagely. "She's just driven, I think. All work and no play."
"No kidding. Besides, I knew in two seconds where your dick was pointing."
Jill appeared on the other side of the fire like he'd conjured her with that one statement. The red and orange reflected in her eyes as she watched the rising flames. Kevin studied Leon until he cleared his throat, "Yeah. Stare harder, Kennedy. Maybe you'll develop X-Ray vision and see into her top. How's the tits look?"
Leon tossed him the finger and had the other man chortling, "Seriously, go after her. You lit up like a Christmas tree around her the second she showed up. I've known you a long time; I ain't never seen you happy. Around her? You're happy."
When Leon kept sitting there, Kevin gathered his files to his side of the table. "There. Now I can work, and you can go play. Maybe I'll invite that little scientist over and let her teach me something."
When he did just that, waving Rebecca over with a curl of his hand, Leon rose from the table. "I should say no."
"You could, but why? Go enjoy the night. God knows when we'll get another one. Do me a favor, would ya?"
"What's that?"
"Stop being the legend and be the man. Somewhere inside that ugly exterior is the guy you were before all this shit happened. Let him out for the night before you shut him behind your walls again, and...enjoy yourself."
It was good advice. Leon stated, "Be ready about six a.m. We'll head out to the cabin with local P.D. to see what we can find."
Kevin gave him a thumbs-up, made him laugh, and Leon wandered away just as Rebecca arrived to squeak, "Yes! I'm here!"
Her tone was sweet and enthusiastic as Kevin invited, "Have a seat, smart girl, and see what you can tell me about the ramblings of a nutcase."
"Yes, sir! I'm happy to!"
"Easy, darlin, I'm nobody's sir. That's this guy."
Rebecca giggled a little and invited, "Sir? You'll stay with us?"
Leon shook his head, "It's Leon, Rebecca. Just Leon. No sir."
She flushed and stammered, "O-Of course. Yes. Of course, it isn't. Sorry."
Leon winked and left them to it as he heard Kevin coax, "Sit down, sweetie, and show me whatcha got."
Leon eased around the fire and figured out it wouldn't be that easy. A pretty girl with shimmery dark hair barred his path and cooed, "Hi! You're the FBI guy, right?"
Leon held her eyes and stated, "Nope."
"Oh...CIA?"
"...fraid not."
She frowned, confused. "Secret Service?"
"Not exactly."
With a giggle, she shrugged, "You wanna come dance with us? There's six of us having a bachelorette party over here."
Another girl shouted, "Although after looking at you, I'm regretting getting married a little!"
Everybody laughed. Leon shook his head and winked, "Can't tonight, ladies. But enjoy your party."
The girl pouted. The gaggle of girls in silly tiaras and shirts proclaiming Best Bitches Send-off 2004 waved at him as he finished his trip around the fire. Jill teased as he reached her side, "I think they're hoping you're the stripper."
He chuckled as he stood beside her. "I could use the cash. Maybe I should dance a little and let them stick dollars in my g-string."
Her eyes crinkled when she grinned, "I bet you'd give them all a heart attack."
He tilted his head, "Yeah?"
"Oh, I've seen what's under that coat, Kennedy. I don't think those poor girls would survive it."
He laughed and offered her his beer. She took it, taking a good chug and making his brows fling up. Jill gave him a steady look, "You've seen what I can handle. This is nothing."
Behind him, the aurora borealis lit the night sky like waves of ocean water across the world. It was like a phantom made of green and purple flickering in the navy dark as a rainbow. It was the most incredible thing she'd ever seen as a backdrop to his face.
She breathed, "Jesus...that's beautiful."
Without looking away from her, Leon returned, "Gorgeous."
Jill tilted her head at him. "I meant the lights."
"I didn't."
He was something else. She let the little arrow of hunger for him pierce into her chest as she laughed. "You clever thing."
"I have my moments."
They held eyes until she said something, "...this is a mistake."
His brows arched. "The bonfire? I tend to agree. But the locals seem to know what they're doing."
Jill rolled her eyes lightly. "You'll joke us both to death."
"I've heard that before."
Jill twitched her lips. He copied it. She arched a brow. He echoed that too. Feeling the flutter of amusement, she teased, "You're in a mood."
"Hmm." Abandon hope...he shook his head at the voice in his head. If there was one thing he had when Jill was close by, it was hope. "Someone told me to take it easy and enjoy myself for the night."
"Ah," Jill cocked her head and watched him mirror her in the gesture. Eyes sparkling, she queried, "What's on the agenda for tomorrow?"
"A fabulous boat ride to a cabin in the middle of nowhere possibly connected to Los Illuminados and Spencer."
Jill sighed and shook her head. "Ah, so we just have the night to be normal before the fun continues."
"Seems that way."
"No rest for the weary, right?"
"Looks that way. But maybe we can do some whale watching and make it fun."
She chuckled. "As long as none of the whales have parasites in them, I'm in."
"Maybe having a parasite doesn't automatically make you a bad guy."
Ah. Her eyes tracked his face. She saw the echo of worry in those blue eyes. Licking her lips, she answered, "I think it depends on how hard you fight it."
"...and who's there to help you take it out."
Their arms bumped where they dangled side by side. She had the strangest impulse to try to hold his hand. When she caught Kevin watching them, she gave him a narrow look, and he bobbled his brows.
"...did Kevin send you over here to flirt with me?"
Leon snorted. "...that's classified."
Her laugh made the worry on him fade away under good humor. He grinned, and it was nicely impressive under the beard he was rocking. Tilting her head, Jill mused, "I'd say the beard isn't you, but in a way...it kinda is."
"Yeah?" He stroked a hand over it, "Man of the mountain?"
"Hmm...more biker bad boy than clean-shaven spy."
"It's rough and tumble, like me."
Jill arched a brow, "It's soft...like you."
Expression curious, he teased, "I'm not always soft."
"No?"
"Only one way to find out, of course."
Jill figured she should run back to her room. There wasn't really any time for this kind of thing. They had an agenda here. They had a purpose. They couldn't really do anything until they had more information to go on, but flirting by the fire seemed...what? Normal? Too normal when parasites were brewing beneath their feet?
Something.
But maybe that was how their world worked. You found normal in the handful of seconds available to you. And you made the best of it.
Leon held her eyes until he finally invited her, "Come inside with me, Jill. You owe me a game of darts."
She considered, shrugged, and consented, "Why not?"
She was ready to have a handful of normal...for however long it lasted.
