~*~*~*~*~
I should know better. Hanging onto the armrest for dear life, Simon tried to brace Blair in the middle of the pickup. I do know better, damn it. "Jim, slow down!"
"Gunshots."
"And we've got officers on the way!" Teeth gritted, Simon refused to cringe as they took the corner onto Twelfth at high speed. Held back a shiver as he felt the F-150's wheels rise off the pavement. More top-heavy than a 250... god, I had to remember that now?
"They'll never find Mulroney in time." Blair was pale, staring ahead as if he were the one with enhanced sight. "Something's wrong, Simon. Something we don't know about. Something the uniforms won't know about." Teal eyes pleaded with him. "We have to get there first, Simon. We have to."
Save me from those eyes. Simon risked taking a hand off Sandburg long enough to pat down both their vests. Thank god he'd finally bit the bullet and sprung for an extra vest to leave at the loft. He'd been in too many shootouts near Prospect to go there unprepared. "Thought you thought Mulroney was dirty."
"Maybe he is." Jim glared at the road, weaving through traffic like a cabdriver on a bet. "I'm not leaving even a dirty Fed to die here-" Jerking back, he tore the wheel toward the curb.
Glass shattered, the windshield raining bits into Simon's glasses. Blair yelped, dove for the floorboards.
Shit! Simon hugged close to the door, trying to put steel between him and the following bullets as Jim threw the truck in reverse. That would have hit one of us!
"Shots fired!" Low in his seat, Blair had the radio pressed near his lips. "Officers need assistance, Twelfth and Stanford!"
Simon felt the truck jerk to a halt, ducked. "Jim!" Why are we stopping?
"White Diamond." Jim's lips were peeled back off his teeth, taking in whiffs of air. "Mulroney's cologne. And blood."
"Just hope it's not ours." Blair glanced at him, at the passenger door. Lifted a brow in silent question.
Can't even tell him to stay in the truck anymore, damn it- Simon threw open the door, jumped for the nearest bit of cover among the fire-rotted walls.
Something hit, like a sledgehammer to his left ribs. Simon scrabbled for the wall, breathless, only now hearing the crack as bullets bored through air. At least two shooters. He didn't dare look down.
"Simon!"
The captain felt at his vest, glared Sandburg back to cover as Jim opened up on their assailants. No blood. Thank god. "Cascade PD!" He drew in another breath, shut away the burning agony in his side. "Freeze!" Who the hell are we shooting at?
"Mulroney!" Jim growled.
And Blair dove out into the hail of lead, latching onto a red-soaked bundle of rags that had been an aggravating FBI agent.
Damn it! Simon added his cover fire to Jim's, feeling his heart beat like thunder. Going to kick one anthropologist detective's sorry ass down all seven flights to the basement....
Mulroney groaned.
I'll be damned. He's alive. "Blair!"
"Ambulance is on the way, Frank." Amazing how soothing the guide could sound, even in the middle of a pitched gunfight. "Just hang on, man."
If he hadn't been shooting at a blur of leather and muzzle-flash, Simon would have rolled his eyes. "Not him, you!"
"I'm okay." Blair bent his head near the agent's, listening as the man's lips moved. Blanched. "Jim!"
The sentinel's nostrils were flared, sniffing; eyes narrowed. Gun steady as a rock, he fired.
A strangled gasp, and silence.
"Got him," the sentinel said with satisfaction, moving into the open.
"Jim, no!"
Simon moved before Blair could drop Mulroney, aiming at his best guess on the trajectory of that last blur of leather. Two for the chest, one for the head-
"Ahh!" Flesh thumped into old ash.
Breathing hard, Simon dragged his most aggravating detective back to their fragile bit of cover. All the while expecting another fusillade of shots. "Him, sure. You forgot her!"
Jim grimaced. Listened to the wind, the rising sound of sirens. "She's still alive."
"Damn you...." a woman's voice whispered through the wind.
"But not for long."
~*~*~*~*~
Tuna on wheat. Could be worse, Vivian thought, munching her way through her second pickle-laced sandwich. At least it's not that far off the usual starving-grad breakfast. Noted Ben's sidelong look. "What?"
"No offense, Viv," he nudged up amber glasses, gave her a frank look. "But where the heck do you put all that?"
"'M hungry."
"It was a long night," Matt agreed, hand drifting across the center table until it closed around his mug.
Perched on the loveseat across from the attorney, Viv tried not to stare. I never thought about how a blind person eats.
Carefully, from what she'd seen. Touch judging and re-judging where every item was, always placing his mug back in the same spot so it wouldn't get mixed with the other two. And every so often taking a delicate sniff of suspect food or drink, just to be sure.
"And when you're eating, you don't have to think," Ben said matter-of-factly.
Pickles turned to ash in her mouth.
"Sorry, Viv," the reporter said, more gently. "But you got to think about what you're gonna do next."
Vivian swallowed dryly, suddenly aware of every twinge in half-healed muscles. Her hands were not shaking. She wouldn't let them. "I told you what happened. On the tape. Isn't that enough?"
"Hearsay," Matt said matter-of-factly. "A vague account of events glimpsed from across the street? All that tape attests to is that someone was having an argument, possibly Graves and Palermo, and a knife may have been involved. No photo IDs, no statement that you've picked anyone out of a lineup? Nothing to identify who else might have been in the room and responsible for the actual killing? Any good defense attorney could raise enough reasonable doubt in a jury's mind to let Graves walk. I could." He spread empty hands. "Nothing convinces like an eyewitness."
"I-" White walls were closing in. Too hot, too tight.... "I can't."
"Why?"
"They'll kill me!"
"News flash, Viv. They're already trying that." Ben's face was grimmer than she'd ever seen it. "Only way you'll get out from under the gun is to get these guys off the streets for good."
She looked away. "I'll just - I'll keep going. Somewhere else." Disappear into the night. Into stone, and the terrifying rage....
"Running's a damn hard way to live, kid. Sooner or later, everybody slips." Ben leaned closer. "And it won't keep them from going after Es. Nothing will. Not until we stop them."
"I'm scared," Vivian whispered.
"I know." Matt's hand brushed over her arm, warm and comforting. "Someone has to stand up to them, Vivian. Someone has to stop them."
She felt the hot wetness welling up in her eyes. Tried to hold back the tears. "But w-why does it h-have to be me?"
"Chance." Matt touched the side of his glasses, brushed the faded lines of old scars. "Accident. Good, bad, somewhere in-between - sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's not your fault. What matters is what you do after the pieces stop falling."
Accident. I'm going to die because of an accident.... "C-can we stop them?"
"Homicide was already on the case when we flew out," Ben said levelly. "They're still looking for the body; dragging the Hudson, last I heard. But they got the scene, they got probable cause. You pick the guys out of lineup, they can slam 'em into jail so hard their lawyers'll think they went three rounds with Ali." He took off his glasses, gave her a frank look. "It's gonna be hard, Viv. Maybe the hardest thing you ever do. But you got a chance to get three killers off the streets. You gonna turn your back on that?"
We have to protect. It's instinct.... Vivian snarled. "You know I can't."
"Uh-uh. I know you won't. Big difference." Ben's gaze never wavered. "All the difference in the world."
Vivian dropped her eyes first, drew in a shuddering breath. It's too tight in here. "I just - I need some air." Stepping around the red cane, she headed out onto the balcony.
"Accident, huh? Father Everett agree with that?" Ben's wry whisper carried to her ears as she leaned on the rail, laced into the gulls and traffic noise of downtown Cascade. "Don't sound like good Catholic doctrine to me."
"He ministers in Hell's Kitchen," Matt murmured. "Even God's plans get screwed up there."
Ben's chuckle caught Vivian off-guard, touched a part of her that had been stunned for nights. He's laughing? She'd known the reporter for almost three months before he'd cracked a grin. Ben Urich kept the world shut away behind cynical amber lenses, jaded by too many years of death and despair on New York's mean streets. He'd seen it all, penthouse to slum, articles showing shards of city life that pierced the heart like broken glass.
And he thinks you can do this. Vivian took a slow, deep breath, let her gaze drift through bird-dusted skies. There was the panicked explosion of rock doves, the slow wheel of gulls, the glimmering black staccato of a cormorant.
A gleam of sun from the street below, stabbing pain from chrome-
No! "Ben!"
Glass shattered behind her; Vivian fell sideways toward the potted plants, clawing where the door had been. "Ben!"
Matt's hand gripped hers, dragged her in with surprising strength. Behind him she could hear Ben's wobbly curses, caught a glimpse of red spreading on the towel the reporter had pressed to his temple. "How many?" the lawyer bit out.
Something in that grim growl echoed in memory, night and fear and blood. Vivian shook it away, pressing the reporter's shaky hand to the wound. Stay calm! You've got to stay calm. You've got to try! Change right now, you'll end up a statue! "I don't know. I don't know! Oh, god-"
"Stay with him." Matt's head tilted; the man crouched slightly away from them, barely breathing. Lips moved, shaped a silent count. Bared teeth in an angry grin. "Three. Coming up the elevator. Two more just busted through the clothing shop, they're on the stairs...."
"I'll block the door," Viv said in a rush.
"No." His swift grip stopped her. "If they can't get in here, they'll take hostages. We've got to get out of here."
"How?" Ben yelped. "They got us boxed!"
Matt's grin froze her blood. "There's only one sniper."
"How do you know that?" Viv demanded.
"Don't ask," Ben said groggily, blinking against the sun as the lawyer dug into his luggage. "You got a plan?"
A pair of red and metal rods clicked as Matt pulled them out. "It's only three stories."
"Only - oh, no." The reporter tried to shake his head, sagged against her. "Uh-uh. No way."
Matt pressed the rods into her hand, demonstrated with a quick flick how they pulled apart to unleash metal cord. Touched the reporter's unwounded cheek, one swift brush of fingers. "Don't be afraid, Ben," he said softly. "You can do anything if you're not afraid."
~*~*~*~*~
Watching for the ambulance, Blair wet his lips. "Take Frank."
"Blair-"
"Jim. Please." Blair glanced at Simon, pleading with his eyes.
Simon rose to his feet, wincing at the burn in his side. Damn. Cracked, definitely.
But if Blair thought he had to talk to a dying woman, he wasn't going alone.
God. I never get used to what bullets do to a body.
Worse when one of the bodies was still breathing, blood trickling wet black over brown leather.
Blair reached out, took a bloodstained hand. Ignored the very still, very dead form of one Ignatius Calabrese. "Frank wants to know-" he swallowed. "Why, Kay? Why?"
Kay gave them a crimson smile. "I have been one... acquainted with the night."
"Say what?" Shoving her gun out of reach, Simon blinked.
"I have passed by the watchman on his beat," the dying woman whispered. "And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain...." Her breath caught. "Go under often enough, nobody trusts you anymore. Think you've turned. All the glittery, glory toys, the fun, the killing. Why... not."
"Frank trusted you." Heartbreak ached in Blair's voice. "He wanted you to come home."
"Too bad... for Frank...."
Simon watched the body sag, tried not to watch the tears in Sandburg's eyes. Hell, Hairboy, ten seconds ago she was shooting at you.
So why were his eyes burning?
Forget it. Gunpowder in the air. Something. He worked his way back to the truck, picked up the radio. "Dispatch, this is Captain Banks. Code 30; we need an ambulance at Twelfth and Stanford."
"Simon."
"Not now, Sandburg," Simon grumbled. "We've got a critical Fed, a dead gang-leader, a dead informant-"
"She wasn't an informant, Simon!" Grabbing his wrist, the anthropologist made sure the radio wasn't transmitting. "She was Frank's agent!"
"She was a Fed?" Behind them, Jim cursed. "Simon! Get uniforms to the loft, now!"
The radio crackled. "...Be advised, 911 from 852 Prospect Avenue, 10-71 in progress...."
~*~*~*~*~
There. Matt traced the rapid heartbeat paired with deliberate, even breaths. Noted the scent of gunpowder, the iron-in-wind ring of the fire escape the man was perched on, the distinctive silver shape of a high-powered rifle.
Alone, he'd take his chances. He'd dodged snipers before.
But they can't. So let's hope I know how to get you out of there. "Vivian!"
A chunk of oak landed in his outstretched hand, edged with the scent of ash. "Closest I could find," she said in a rush. "Is that - are you-"
Billy-club in hand, Matt threw the hard lump into the air. Gauged, and swung.
Crack!
Matt drew a breath, tracking the grainy echo through wind. And it's going, going-
Splintery wood slammed into flesh and bone.
"Aughhh!"
"Go!"
~*~*~*~*~
No way, Ben thought, frozen by the gulf below. I can't. The world was fading in and out, grayed by a hot burn across his temple that ached all the way to his stomach. Just let me lie down and pass out.
"Come on!" Tugging his arm, Vivian climbed over the edge. Disappeared.
Easy for you to say, the reporter thought, not moving. Gray, grayer; the world fading into a blurry, red-tinged haze. You got wings part of the time.
"It's not hard, Ben."
"Oh yeah?"
He heard Matt's grin. "I could do it with my eyes closed."
"Yeah. And I'm gonna have to." Ben swallowed back acid, shut his eyes against gray. "Got me a good one. Everything's spinning."
Breath hissed by his ear. Matt's hand took his, led him to the rail. He heard a subtle, steel creak, felt the shift in grip that must mean the attorney was standing on the edge itself. "Trust me."
"I got a choice?"
"Depends." Matt wrapped the reporter's hands around the grapnel grip. "You feel like arguing with them?"
Even gray couldn't blur the crash of Ellison's front door.
"Ah, hell." Heart in his mouth, Ben fell.
~*~*~*~*~
"Freeze, police!"
Megan Connor whipped in behind the chorus of uniforms, taking in the latest wreck of Ellison's loft. Oh. My. Goodness.
A salt breeze blew in through the shattered balcony doors. Ash was flung over polished hardwood, as if someone had burrowed into the wood stove; trailed toward the most whole door, a dark counterpart to drops of blood. More blood dotted half the rug from white and yellow to darkening brown. One leather-clad man was comatose on the kitchen counter, under a bullet-holed skylight. Another had been most effectively jammed into the stair railing. Two more were buried under what was left of the stereo shelves, remnants of the plant that had lived nearby providing a terracotta crown for the unconscious idiot on top. And on the balcony itself....
An officer checked the pulse of the battered form under pieces of white chair, grabbed his radio. "Dispatch, we need ambulances, now!"
"I'll say," Megan murmured.
Behind her, Taggert whistled. "Looks like somebody redecorated in Early Thug."
"Positively mediaeval," the Australian agreed. Good lord. And Jim wasn't even here.
Which, to one who knew Sentinels, left only one suspect.
Where is Murdock?
Her phone rang.
Megan backed toward the staircase, started noting spots to gather evidence. "Connor here."
"Inspector?" A young woman's voice, shaken, but still hanging on.
"Vivian?" Thank goodness. "Where are you?"
"Um... we're in a taxi?"
~*~*~*~*~
"You're going to wear a hole in the floor," Joel pointed out.
Blair watched the tapping cane halt. Matt touched County General's waiting room wall near Vivian's chair, grimaced. "I don't like hospitals."
"No problem," the anthropologist said neutrally, eyeing the lawyer's neatly bandaged hands. Joel said your dad was a boxer. Guess we never really get away from family. "Only, we've got some twitchy people in the ER. Watching friends of their patient pace makes them a little bit jumpy."
"Is that why they let Detective Ellison in with Captain Banks?" One hand fiddling with her sweatshirt cuff, Vivian kept glancing at the exits.
"Ah... something like that."
Matt cocked his head, evidently listening to all the undertones in Blair's voice. "I'd say it's a bad sign when you know all the paramedics by name."
"With you on that one," Blair sighed.
"We're working on it." Joel gripped the younger detective's shoulder. "Soon as we find that trouble magnet, we'll dump it in the incinerator with Vice's latest bust." The ordinance expert stepped back. "So... I guess we have to wait until the doc comes out to find out?"
Vivian gave Matt a sidelong look. "I guess."
Matt let out a slow breath. "Mulroney's still in ICU. They say it's touch and go, but if he makes it through the next eight hours, he ought to be clear. Captain Banks is currently getting his ribs taped and a stern lecture on not trying to shower alone for at least the next week. Ellison's offering to get someone named Rhonda to help." A red brow went up. "For some reason, your captain's not too thrilled with that."
Blair chortled, nudging Joel. Who rolled his eyes, imploring the ceiling tiles.
"And Ben's finally stopped casting allegations on the sniper's prosecutable behavior with innocent farmyard animals." Matt's fingertip traced the silver angel's face on his cane. "The doctor said something about mild concussion and, I quote, 'Put down the pen and the tape recorder before someone gets hurt'."
Vivian gaped.
Matt shrugged. "I listen."
"I listen, and I can't...." The grad student shook her head. "You're... different, aren't you?"
Matt's gaze was inscrutable, hidden behind dark lenses. "I don't like to talk about it."
"Oh yeah. I know about that." Vivian rubbed her arms, as if the air conditioning had suddenly turned up a notch. "At least you don't turn into a monster after dark." Her face brightened, swiveled toward the door. "Es!"
"No," Matt said softly, face turned away as Esmond and Sarah Cannon swooped through the door, a relieved Megan Connor in their wake. "I guess I don't."
Blair worked his way over to the wall under the cover of their happy chatter. Sarah had her stepdaughter in a death-grip, while Es was waving his hands to paint the picture of last night's gun battle in the office building. "You're not going to tell her."
"I haven't made it this far by telling people." Matt gave him an abbreviated shrug. "Thank you."
"Sure, no problem," Blair nodded. Caution kicked in. "What for?"
"Whatever you and Ben did. It... helped." Matt gave him a shadowy smile. "I don't think I would have hit that sniper otherwise."
And thank you for reminding me of that little fact. Blair shuddered. The paramedics had found the sniper six blocks away, in shock and bleeding from his eye-socket, and he didn't want to remember the rest of the gory details. Sure, life and death, but... ugh. "It's not a permanent fix," he warned. "You and Ben are going to have to work something out." Maybe better than I did.
"I think we will." The lawyer's smile turned wry. "We'll have another day here to try. Dr. Robert was pretty firm on Ben not flying for twenty-four hours. Something about pressure changes being a bad idea with a possible brain injury."
Gaah. Twenty-four more hours for these two to rip through Cascade. "That's... great."
"We'll probably spend most of it on-campus at Rainier," Matt went on matter-of-factly. "Nice, quiet... I plan to look up one or two of your law professors, talk about the merits of some recent civil cases here in Cascade. The laws aren't the same in New York, of course, but there were a few interesting arguments that might apply. And Ben thought he was on the track of something interesting." Dark lenses looked straight at him. "Possibly criminal misconduct by a certain university official?"
Blair froze.
A red brow lifted. "Have you talked to Dr. Kelso lately?"
"Ah...."
"I would." Worsted suit and all, the smile was pure Daredevil. "But then, I'm not you."
~*~*~*~*~
And they're off, Jim thought, watching the flight for New York clear the edge of Cascade International's airspace. Thank god. Winced, and worked his jaw; even with Blair's help turning down his hearing, being this close to the airfield made his ears ache.
"Couldn't just take their word for it, could you." Simon leaned his arms on Blair's open window, regarding his pair of detectives. "You had to make sure they were gone."
Jim stifled a sneeze; the nasal assault from the rental car had started with cigarette smoke, gone through five varieties of perfume, and ended with ancient mustard. "Wanted to be sure Mulroney's office didn't pull them in while they were scrambling to put the pieces together on Dorcea Kant." The entire Organized Crime Task Force was scrabbling for cover, trying not to explain how one of their undercover officers had gone dirty. It would have been funny if it weren't so serious. "And everybody lies to the police."
Blair stirred in his seat, watching the sky. "Leaving a few facts out isn't always lying."
Aha! Jim skewered his partner with a glance. The anthropologist had been too quiet all morning. I knew they were up to something. "So what did they leave out?"
Silence. Blair's fingers wove together, unraveled. "Ben said he wouldn't say anything about Sentinels. Or you, Simon."
"Thanks for small favors," the captain grumbled.
Good, Jim thought. But I know a deflection when I hear one. "Blair-"
The anthropologist's cell rang. "Sandburg," he picked up hurriedly.
Curious, Jim listened in.
"Blair." Steven's voice, eagerly interested. "I was looking at those notes of Professor Kelso's, and-"
"Ah, I'm in the truck."
"Oh. Right. Well, give me a call when you can."
"Steven and Jack Kelso?" Jim asked. "What's going on?"
"No such thing as a private conversation sometimes." Blair implored the roof of the truck. "For your information, it's a surprise. Okay?"
No. Definitely not okay. "I hate surprises, Chief."
"Tell me about it. So do you think you can make it over to the loft tonight?" Blair flashed an infectious grin Simon's way. "I can borrow some materials from the physics lab; carbon, insulating plastic, some sheet steel. And a voltmeter should be easy."
"What?" Simon backed up.
"For the levin-bolts," the anthropologist explained. "Come on, Simon, we've got to test this! Bio-electricity is way cool."
Watching the shocked realization settle into his captain's face, Jim snickered. "Welcome to the other side, Simon."
~*~*~*~*~
Leaning into the plane window, Vivian gazed down into a net of broken clouds, laced with stone and steel. Swallowed back the gnawing fear. New York. The City That Never Sleeps.
The city where she'd face a killer. Again.
Matt sighed beside her, tension easing out of suited shoulders. "Home."
"Some home," Ben grumbled from the aisle seat. "Hell's Kitchen, Matt. The original concrete jungle. Chew you up and spit you out, and never think twice."
"Home," the attorney agreed softly.
"Yeah." A rare smile glimmered on Ben's cynical face. "Yeah, it is." The tan cap tilted her way. "What d'you say, Viv? You up to it?"
Home, Vivian thought. For now, anyway.
And home is worth fighting for.
She gave him a shaky thumbs-up. "So where do we start?"
~*~*~*~*~
LAPD Ten Codes:
Code 30: Officer needs help, emergency.
10-71: Shooting.
Acquainted With the Night -Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.