Author's Note: Now that I'm finished writing all of these chapters, I want to speed up the posting of them so we can to the sequel. So I propose a new system. As soon as I get to 20 reviews, I'll post the next chapter. Otherwise, it'll be a week between updates.
Oh, and if there are any Chas fans who haven't seen it…I wrote a fic. It's called Fate.
Chapter 23
Salem, OR
October 24, 2005
11:21 A.M.
"He's being held at the station in town," said Angela, snapping her cell phone shut. She'd spent the past half hour on hold, pretending to be an investigative reporter looking into the Charles Malone case, as it had come to be called over the past few days. Already the case had begun popping up on the radio, in side columns of the newspaper. They'd even seen a tabloid in an airport newsstand claiming that aliens were beheading people.
"How far?" asked Constantine, spreading out the map Angela had gotten from the attendant in the airport rental garage. She'd insisted on driving, as usual, though she looked worse than ever. It was hard to think that they'd only been on the case for two weeks; it seemed an eternity since the first body had been found.
"I don't know. You're the one with the map." Keeping one hand on the steering wheel she reached over and pulled a pen from her bag. "Mark it."
Watching her drive, Constantine smiled silently. Weiss had left them at the airport, after telling Angela quite determinedly that he could not support her decision to ignore their orders, and was in serious doubt of her judgment at the moment. Constantine had barely resisted the urge to slap him, but getting arrested ten feet away from airport security certainly wasn't going to free Malone and find their murderer.
"All right," he said after a moment, tracing a decidedly jagged and somewhat inaccurate line on the map. "About five miles north. Just um…stay on this road for a while, then you should start getting signs."
"Says the man who is perpetually lost," said Angela, smiling just a little.
"You always like this?" asked Constantine, folding the map back up. It wasn't going to be much help anyway.
"Like what?"
"You know a guy for a month and you start writing his life story."
"I'm a detective, remember?" said Angela. "I have access to your darkest secrets courtesy of our wonderful government."
Constantine shook his head and stared out the window. It was a depressingly gray day in which everything seemed to be dying. Appropriate. It suddenly struck him as ironic, that he'd immediately written Angela off as weak when they'd first met. It had been a long time since he'd paid enough attention to anyone else to go beyond a first impression.
"So what's your plan?" he asked at last. He knew she must have given at least some thought to what they were doing, though he hadn't pressed her about it.
"Honestly? I don't know." Constantine looked over and suddenly noticed that her hands were shaking on the wheel.
"Well, we're going to have to come up with something, because we'll be there in a matter of minutes, and walking up to that desk saying 'Please, would you let this man go so he can lead us to our demon killer?' probably isn't going to work."
"All right. So your plan would be…what, a jail break?"
"Bail?" asked Constantine, ignoring the gibe.
"Twenty thousand. I'm sure they'd like to hold him indefinitely, but they haven't been able to come up with any more than circumstantial evidence so far. Not that it matters. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of money hidden under the mattress."
"I think I can work something out," said Constantine noncommittally. Somehow he couldn't see Angela being impressed by the fact that he'd made almost his entire livelihood selling relics for ridiculously inflated prices to desperates in his line of work.
"How?"
"We can't let Malone know who we are. If he knows we're following him, who knows what he might do."
"You don't think he'd work with us?" asked Angela hopefully.
Constantine gave her a look. She shook her head.
"So we bail him out anonymously. Sit back. Wait for him to make his next appearance."
The cell was cool and dark. It smelled of things unnamed, things full of grief and fear. But the smell was faint, far off in the walls. A scar, more than a wound. More than anything else, the cell was quiet.
Closed.
Safe.
Charlie leaned back against the wall and let the voices wash over him again. They sounded muffled now, almost comforting. They were chaotic, pulsating. But they were safe now, like background music. Something to remind him that was alive, that he was human, that he was awake and not stuck in some perpetual nightmare that had become his live. His very existence.
The guilt was a little nag in the back of his mind, but it was easy enough to ignore when he tried. He'd done his duty, after all. He'd warned them. But nobody wanted to hear. Crazy old Charlie Malone, the leader gone invalid.
They'd respected him once. There had been a time when they took his orders without question. When they'd risked their lives for him without being asked. When every single one of them had trusted him implicitly.
Batty old Malone.
The one who'd let them all down.
Who'd gotten the others killed.
Who was going to get the survivors killed as well.
Suddenly he had the overwhelming urge to get up. It was as if someone else was influencing his thoughts, for suddenly his emotions were not his own. He had to avenge them. Had to make this stop. Had to stop being selfish. Had to get out. Charlie dug his fingernails into his palms.
He was so lost in thought he barely noticed the officer standing outside, the cell door sliding open.
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