Chapter Five

Vaughn POV

Weiss and I hurried back to my place from the park to drop Donovan at home and pick up our cars. It took an enormous amount of will power not to run, since Weiss happened to be with me and had just insinuated that I was in love with Sydney so if I had it would have only cemented his suspicions.

It seemed like Donovan was still acting weird. When I opened the door to let him in, he whimpered a bit and opened his eyes as wide as they could go, refusing to walk in the door.

"Come on, Donovan. Please go inside? I'm really in a hurry." I patted his head and he slowly entered my apartment. "Good boy," I said to him and left.

I wondered why he was acting so odd. Maybe he sensed how upset I was and wanted to help? Then again, maybe he was sucking up for more food or something. Maybe he was sick. I made a mental note to take him to the vet after this whole situation was resolved.

I drove behind Weiss to the command center. As we arrived in the main room Jack, Devlin and, Kendall were waiting for us.

"Agent Vaughn, Agent Weiss thank you for coming down. We may have some new developments on what happened to Agent Bristow-" Devlin began, but was cut off by Jack.

"SD-6 has a document with information about the device Sydney stole in Madrid. It speaks of a way to reverse the effects of the device."

"Wait a minute what are the effects?" Weiss asked.

"We don't know," Jack said, "However, from the document there is reason to believe that the effects may be......debilitating in some way."

"Alright. Agent Vaughn, do you still have the device?" Kendall asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Good, get it down to our quarantine lab so we can figure out what the effects of it might be," He ordered. I nodded.

After sending the device down to the lab, I sat at a desk going over the reports.

Sydney's flight landed at LAX right on time the night before, she arrived at Credit Dauphine at 8:30 the next morning and then left at 5:00, no one has seen her since, our team found the Rambaldi device in the park yesterday but no other sign of Sydney, and as far as Sloane and her friends know she's out of town for the weekend. Now we had a document that talked about "the effects" from the device.

I chewed my lip nervously at the thought that she might be somewhere hurt or sick. It would have to be bad too, Sydney's no wimp.

Yet somehow that didn't really make sense either. If she were hurt so badly that she couldn't even make it to a phone to call for help then how could it be that our team couldn't find her in the park? I felt a headache coming on thinking about all the contradictory facts in this case.

It suddenly occurred to me that their might be one person who would be able to give us more information about the device. The only problem might be getting her to share...........

Sydney POV

I hopped up and down a hallway a few times before finally plopping down on the floor with a groan. The dog in me was finding it great fun, but the human was bored stiff. After Vaughn brought me home this morning I figured that if I was ever going to get out of this I would have to find someway to communicate with him. I tried holding a pen in my mouth for about an hour before I finally gave up.

It obviously wasn't going to work. So my situation was not looking very good. I could only make the dog noises, no coherent words, and writing was out as well........what else could I do?

I snooped around his apartment some more but there isn't much to be found when you're only a foot tall. So now here I was sitting around in Vaughn's apartment. What normally would have been a good thing, spoiled by unpredictable circumstances.

My daydream was interrupted by the sound of a door opening.

Before I even had chance to wonder who would be coming to his house in the middle of the day, the question was answered by a female voice calling out his name, "Mike?"

"Oh! You have GOT to be kidding me!" I thought to myself.

Vaughn POV

Why is it that every time I entered this room I suddenly felt fifty pounds heavier? It was like this huge weight was suddenly rested onto my back, and it wasn't lifted until I was far, far away from her little room shrouded in glass.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself; She saved your life before. And this is for Sydney.

"Irina," I said as I caught sight of her smoothing her new blanket out.

She turned quickly and her eagle eyes pierced me like a laser. "Mr. Vaughn."

How could I do this? Especially after admitting my feelings for Sydney to her.

"I'm here to ask you a question."

"I figured."

"Sydney is missing. Two days ago she was sent on a mission to Madrid to retrieve a Rambaldi device, and no one's seen her since. Apparently the device is supposed to have some kind of effect on people," I explained, sure she already knew.

She looked at me, eyes blazing. "I need you to describe the device to me."

I thought back. "It's a wooden box. That's what it looks like. There's a hand outline on the top and a Rambaldi symbol engraved into the side. But I've held it and it didn't do anything to me."

She looked distantly past me for a second, then focuses again. "There is a Rambaldi device, supposedly one he built as one of the main keys to his 'master plan.' I'm not sure what it did, but I know that the stories say it is only effective if you place your hand on that outline."

I suddenly remembered sitting in my house with the box, about to match up the traced fingers with my own when Donovan had distracted me. Strange.

"Do you have any idea at all what it does?"

"All I know comes from a Rambaldi document owned by one of my contacts in Kiev. It's another prophecy. It was just an incomplete record written by Rambaldi about the effects. 'If human flesh meets the mark depicted here, its energy shall be burned within their skin, and this world's alternating power will be scarred into their blood.'"

I thought hard about it, trying to pull each word apart and search for the hidden meanings. "Do you remember anything else?"

"Just the next couple of lines. 'When this force has laid its effect upon the bearer of its burden, he will be subdued by its mordant power and from within the depths of soul will be changed into that which just felt his touch.'"

'Changed into that which just felt his touch,' I repeated inside my head. After thinking about this information for a minute I nodded my head.

"Thank you," I muttered instinctively, my mind in other places. However as I was turning to leave I saw the triumphant and amused look spread across her face, and heard her words echoing inside my head,

'How do you say thank you to the woman who killed your father?'

Sydney POV

Dogs throw up, right? I mean, they don't hack up hairballs like cats, but they have to have some type of regurgitation system.

Whatever it was, I knew that I had to figure out how to do it soon, because Alice was causing me to experience serious physical and psychological nausea.

She was like one of those 'nannies' you always read about in books and see in shows but never think they actually exist. She spoke in a high pitched, sugary sweet voice that made me want to choke. Her extremely strong perfume that was smothering me wasn't helping.

Thank God we were walking outside. I think I really would have dropped over dead if I didn't have the scent of fresh air mixing in.

One good thing came out of all that. I realized that Alice hadn't come to the apartment to have a date with Vaughn, she'd only come to drop off an old, dirt stained Kings jacket. It had amused me to imagine Vaughn wearing that.

Well, maybe there is one more not-so-awful occurrence could come out of this ordeal. People always say to have a positive outlook. And anyway, it wouldn't be entirely my fault. I mean, it's perfectly innocent for a dog to accidentally mistake a person's leg for a fire hydrant.

Somehow, after our walk, I concluded that Alice didn't agree.