A Sky Full of Tears

(Nip/Tuck – CSI: Miami)

Sequel to "Martyr's Moon"

Disclaimers in part I. Excerpt from "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin. Used without permission. No copyright infringement intended.

A SKY FULL OF TEARS

(Nip/Tuck – CSI: Miami)

by wordwolf

PART VI.

Dr. Sean McNamara leaned back comfortably on his couch, looking past the dark television toward the nearly dark window. Indeed, there was nothing like watching heavy weather from the inside of a nice dry house. Christian had been absolutely right about closing the practice for the storm. He had a nice hot cup of coffee, a cozy seat, warmth and quiet – until the phone shrilled.

He rose with half a sigh and went to get it. "Hello?"

"Dr. McNamara?" The voice was clear as a bell but very small; it seemed to be coming from a long distance away.

He recognized it, but didn't want to. "My God – Miss Avalon? But – I don't – how –"

"That's not important now." The voice trembled with urgency. "Christian – Dr. Troy – needs you."

"Didn't you call him a couple of days ago?"

"That wasn't me; it was a trick of Pierce's!"

That's right, Pierce! McNamara had forgotten about him for a moment. "But isn't he holding you captive?"

"No, thank God, no!" The voice relaxed. "I'm safe, and free; he can never touch me again. But he's set a trap for Christian."

This was just too crazy; McNamara shook his head. "I don't know what to make of this. How do I know this is you, and not the same trick?" Something occurred to him. "If you're really Karen Avalon, recite something by Philip Larkin!"

Annoyance in the voice now. "There's no time for that, Dr. McNamara!"

"I insist." He felt kind of proud of himself; this would be a good way to flush an impostor. Who memorized poems these days? He quickly suppressed the awareness that he didn't, either.

A distant sigh. "You asked for it… 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.' Satisfied?"

His eyes widened. "I guess I am. What's going on with Christian?"

The urgency had reappeared. "I told you: He's walking into a trap! He's gone into the Everglades, to the same spot where I – where it all went down… Pierce is waiting for him, and is up to no good. You and Lt. Caine came to save him once; now you must do it again!"

A sudden feeling of helplessness clawed at McNamara. "But what am I supposed to do?"

"You can do it again." The repetition was solid and confident. "Please hurry, Dr. McNamara; he's in terrible danger!"

"Okay, okay, I'll call the cops first and do whatever I can. Don't worry… Karen."

"Thank you. And please… tell Christian that he will be loved. Always." The last word seemed to echo as the connection broke.

XX

"Oh, damn it." The voice was still Karen's, but the weary, irritated tone wasn't. She shook off Troy's grip with a snap of both wrists and retreated through the dark. A switch clicked; sudden light blasted through the shack, and Troy squeezed his eyes shut against the flood scalding his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, tested them against the light, and saw –

"Jesus Christ! KIMBER?!"

"So you found me out," Kimber Henry admitted in a voice not her own. She reached up to grasp the wig of smooth dark hair and yank it off, revealing her own bleached curls.

"But what the – my God – what the hell did you do to your voice?"

She shrugged. "It won't last. Should wear off in another half-hour, I guess." Another shrug, this one uneasy. "It'd be a relief to sound like myself again for good."

Troy couldn't move; rooted to the spot, he could only stare at his past lover and nemesis, finally forcing out the real question: "Where's Karen Avalon?"

This time Kimber didn't shrug. "Dead. You know." She forced a deeply false laugh. "Like they say: Live by the sword, die by the sword!"

His eyes narrowed and flashed. "And live again – by the lying mouth of a desperate, grasping bitch like you." Swiftly he was upon her, hands firmly on her shoulders, pinning her to the wall of the shed. "Why'd you let that murdering bastard put you up to this?"

"Christian!" she gasped. "Put me up to this? How do you know he didn't force me to?"

Now it was time for his false laugh, a brittle and harsh one, as he grabbed for one of her wrists, yanked it up and waved it in front of both their faces. "Force you? See any rope burns or handcuff welts here? There's not a goddamn mark on you, Kimber! Now tell me before I force you: Why'd you do this? What was Pierce going to pay you?"

Her sob was real. "Let go of me! Just let go, and I'll tell you." He obeyed and stepped back a pace, glaring hard and waiting.

She dropped her gaze to the floor to avoid his. "He said he'd pay me in – in you."

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The tears flowed a little faster. "If I helped him, he promised he'd set things up for me… that you'd be mine, always need me, never leave, never want another woman again. I wasn't going to do it at first! That's why I tried to talk to you, to get you to come to your senses and move on from Karen. But you wouldn't listen! So he had me drink this stuff that changed my voice for a while, told me what to say when I called…" She let out a howl. "Can't you see? I did it for YOU, Christian, not for me! I just wanted to help you!"

"Do you have any idea," he snarled through his teeth, "how disgusting it is to hear that bullshit in her voice?"

"You prefer my voice?" It cut across Troy's consciousness like a lash; he whirled to see who had just entered and spoken. The slim blond man with a light pack on his back was dripping wet from the rain, but unlike the mud-smeared Troy was clean as a polished knife; he almost seemed to be glowing with health and exhiliration. There was barely time to register his presence before he attacked.

James Pierce was upon Troy like a tiger and within seconds had wrestled him into the chair Kimber had occupied. All the surgeon's considerable strength didn't even slow his enemy down. There was a click and a hard, cold sensation against Troy's right wrist, then his left; in the darkness he hadn't noticed the handcuffs locked to the chair, and now his arms were shackled securely to it. Two more sets went around his ankles easily in spite of all the kicks aimed at Pierce's head.

The task complete, the sorcerer stood up and straightened his wet leather jacket. "All set. It comes in handy, having the strength of ten men."

"Who'd you have to kill to get it?" Troy spat, still struggling against the chains.

"Believe me, you don't want to know. And you also don't want to know what I could have done if you'd had the sense to let me do my purushamedha properly last month. Burning down the whole metroplex from Miami to Boca Raton would have been only the beginning. But you had to play the big hero!"

Troy's eyes flashed pure hate. "Karen was the hero. If that's what you were planning, I'm sure she believed her life was a small price to pay to stop you."

"NOTHING human can stop me, not for long! Two bullets through my chest barely knocked me down for an hour!" He laughed harshly. "Stupid pathetic cops let me get myself into the water – let me touch the flow, use the power. By the time their so-called recovery team showed up, I was long away! Now I'm back, and so are you, and it's finally payback time – will you shut up, you stupid bimbo!" he snapped at Kimber, who huddled at the wall, weeping.

"Oh, leave her out of it, Pierce. You got what you wanted out of the poor bitch; let her go. Just kill me already and get your stupid corny revenge over with."

"Kill you?" He grinned toothily. "I can't. I made a promise."

Somehow Troy was able to keep his eyes and voice level. "If you're trying to frighten me, pack it in. Hell, I wasn't a torture virgin even before you came along, and compared to a pissed-off narcotraficante with the balls to tattoo himself instead of three helpless little girls, you are strictly amateur hour."

Pierce chuckled. "Keep up the act, Christian; it's just making this more fun. Love makes men do stupid things, and the last stupid thing you ever did was not letting me chop pretty Karen's head off. I could have opened the gates of hell… but now I'll open them just for you. Consider it your reward for being such a hero."

Kimber screamed and rose shakily to her feet. "But you promised me!"

"What? That I wouldn't hurt him? When did I say that? All I promised you was that he'd be yours!" Pierce strode over to his collaborator, reaching out to yank a cellphone from the waistband of her jeans. "By the way, I'll want this back now that you've done your job." He swung the pack off one shoulder and thrust the phone inside. "Trust me, Kimber, you'll get exactly what we agreed to: Dr. Christian Troy needing you, crawling at your feet, and not interested in other women. Here, take this." Out of the pack he pulled a deceptively delicate hacksaw and tossed it at her; stiff with fear, she made no attempt at a catch and it clanged at their feet. "You'll need this to cut him free… after I crush every bone in both his hands and feet. But first I do one of those operations easy enough to do without an MD." He crossed the shack again to stand before his prisoner; out of the pack came a small rubber mallet and a slim, silvery pick. "Ever heard of the legendary transorbital lobotomy, Christian? No anesthesia. Pull back the eyelid and slide straight to the brain by way of the upper eyesocket, and then a good hard tap on the spike. Or lots of good hard taps." Pierce twirled the pick in his fingers as he slowly approached. "Have to make sure that pretty Kimber gets the helpless, mindless, utterly dependent lump she was promised!"

TO BE CONTINUED