Come On
Chapter Four
London, 2002
Nothing was quite as effective as cold-blooded murder. It had rid the world of some of the greatest minds and lives to ever exist, some pure and benevolent and others darker, dangerous, capable of deeds that would make a living man's blood run cold. This was the more insidious side of their work, the subtler nuances of manipulations and secrecy that had allowed them to stay alive in a world with powers far greater than those of simple humans.
Cold-blooded murder, messy as it sometimes was, still worked better than any memory spell or bribe or threat. And there were no chances of a change of heart or a guilt trip. Simple and effective and the men and women who carried out these simple and effective means of self-preservation were hidden even among the Council.
And it made their work even easier.
Now, after checking the pulse with two fingertips, he straightened, yanking off his gloves and stuffing them into the back of his jeans, eying the cooling body with a dark gaze before nodding, turning away to check the office, glancing out the door into the dark hallway for a moment.
The search through the books was easy enough, grazing the back of his hand across the bookshelves that lined the walls, stopping at every soft tingle he felt and getting that book, setting it to the side. Almost every one that raised his higher awareness was a journal and, replacing his gloves, he proceeded through the desk and drawers.
The bullet had traveled easily through the large window, hitting Murphy right where it was supposed to and killing him instantly. His aim was unerring, even to some of the older, more practiced members of the wet works teams, and he had very rarely, if ever, missed a shot. Some of it was practice but they weren't idiots.
He just knew how to kill.
A half an hour later, quietly exciting the office, he carried one full box against his hip and looked for all the world like he was supposed to be there. Not a fingerprint, not a stray hair, not a single hint of anything wrong except for the small hole in the glass and the mess that lay on the floor of Murphy's office.
And, just like that, he had eliminated a threat to the Council.
Seattle
"She's a pretty little thing, huh?"
Jonathon looked up from the file in one hand, cocking an eyebrow at the skinny man in front of him, looking nervous and uneasy as his eyes darted around. There was no one around, but he didn't seem relieved by that. Biting back the urge to roll his eyes, Jonathon shifted attention back to the File, studying the small photo clipped to the side.
"This is all we had on her?"
"If I had more, I would brought you more," he muttered, tapping one toe on the pavement of the sidewalk in the park, a stark contrast to Jon's calm presence sitting on the bench, intently reading through the mix of medical and school records and the other assorted tid-bits that they were so damn good at gathering up.
Slipping the photo into one pocket of his jacket, he snapped shut the folder and then rolled it, slapping it on his hand twice before he stood, shoving it into an inner pocket in his leather jacket nodding to himself. "I'm gonna need you to stick your neck out here. If you hear anything else about her or the twin, I want you to bring it straight to me. Okay?"
"But—"
"No," he snapped, an edge in his voice. "No, you hear anything and you tell me or you keep it to yourself." The smaller man, a man who was surprisingly gifted at long-distance work, was pathetic when it came to the close and more personal work that Jonathon had always excelled at in addition to the long-distance work. "You got me, Pete?"
A long hesitancy, and then a beaten sigh, shoulders slumping as he nodded in defeat and it was enough for Jonathon. Moving forward, he patted Pete once on the shoulder before leaving the park, pulling the photo back out and studying it in the fading light, the growing dimness that he had watched gather wile waiting on the park bench.
He was straddling both worlds and, now, after years of careful movements before he had settled here, he found himself faced with a inner knowledge that he couldn't keep up such strain on himself and his body, not if he wanted to stay as good as he was at what he did. Sighing, exhaling softly, he climbed into his waiting car and started the ignition, heading to the apartment… wait.
Pine Valley
Brushing a few stray curls from her face, Kendall poked at her tropical drink with the end of the little umbrella, eying it with green eyes and, reaching down with a sigh, she slipped off her pump and rubbed her foot, digging in her thumb and trying to ease the stress that came from long hours of clenching and unclenching her feet in the offices, especially when Greenlee threw things at her.
Short, irritating midget with bad highlights…
Still, at least, unlike some people, she could apologize when she treated Kendall like she was crap. Snorting, sighing, Kendall dropped her foot from her lap, twisting on the bar stool to observe the inside of the Valley Inn with a chilly glance, feeling, as usual, pathetically lonely with Greenlee not around.
With a grimace, she downed her tropical drink, swallowing it down before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. This was her life now, her only friend being the woman who was, for all intents and purposes, her only real friend. She hadn't had sex since that one time that had ended so badly and an orgasm was beginning to be something she remembered with a hazy recollection.
Jesus, Binks probably had better luck than she did.
Kendall stopped, cocking her head as she considered before shaking it with sympathy for both herself and her sister. Shouldn't it be illegal for a Kane to go for more than a few weeks without sex of at least some kind? It just wasn't fair, not in the slightest and, pushing herself to her feet, she reached back and stuck the little umbrella in her ponytail, deciding that, just because she couldn't go on a vacation didn't mean that she had to look like she couldn't.
Cleveland
She was quick on her feet and it was a good thing as she skillfully shot down the fire escape, hands slipping once or twice on some unrecognizable gunk that stunk to high heaven. She staggered when she finally got her feet on the cement of the alley, swaying for a moment before getting her balance and running.
Streaking around the corner, she let out a screaming sob of frustration when her heel caught on a crack in the pavement and she went down, slamming onto one knee and digging nails into the cement. Finally, after several tries, she managed to get on her feet again, limping for a moment before once more falling into her quick pace.
She kicked off her heels as she went, leaving them behind as she picked up the sounds of that thing, that creature, and tried to increase her pace even more, even though she was already going as fast as she could, her legs aching and her lungs burning, even with the extra stamina she had learned to finally control.
Thankfully, the talons hadn't nicked a vein and the only blood that stained her cream blouse came from the scratches that it had managed to give her, claws piercing her skin and the tearing when she managed to get a good kick at it, managed to get it off long enough to get her ass out of the apartment.
She bit her lip when she caught the sound of a heavy something hitting something else, and it jarred her, especially when she picked up the sound of claws scraping across metal, a noise that made her grit her teeth so badly that they ached. Turning a corner, she darted into a more open alley, blinking rapidly at the bright light for a moment before hearing that thing again.
Grabbing onto an old doorknob, she twisted, swore at the feel of the lock before, growling, she tensed her arm and then yanked, the wood around the lock splintering. When she heard old cans and bottles explode nearby, a few entering her line of vision while the scrabble of claws got closer, she threw her weight against the door, easily falling in.
Warehouse, she registered, picking up the shape of crates and forklifts, some of the crates rotting with age. Swallowing, shivering, she quickly left the door, darting into the shadows along the sides of the building, struggling to settle down her heavy breathing. She easily heard it when it entered, hearing the tail slide across the floor and the talons fumbling harshly.
She just had to be quiet, she decided, eyes searching for any kind of weapon, anything she could grip and hit it with. The knife hadn't worked, hadn't been able to get through the scales and leathery skin, so she needed something heavy, something she could swing easily, use to break bone or a skull.
She was so busy searching the floor with something heavy to swing that, when something heavy slammed into the crates beside her, she almost shrieked, holding it back only by digging her teeth into her lip and sucking back her breath. Quickening her pace, she stepped quickly through the aisles of boxes and crates, becoming more desperate as she looked for something, anything, to give her an edge.
Turning a corner, she froze, eyes falling on the creature, which had gone still, like some great cat, regarding her with large eyes, still on four legs, simply gazing at her like she was just food, like she was a cow or a chicken who didn't know what was what and didn't understand that she had only one purpose in her existence.
The reason this thought pissed her off was because, hey, she was a goddamn vegetarian.
She was about to run into the other aisles when, in an fit of dust and shattering wood, the crates along one side exploded outward, hitting that grotesque mix of lizard and cat like an avalanche, toppling and rolling, little toys and made in Taiwan items finally stilling as Connor climbed through the gape he had made in the wall, eyes falling on her.
He didn't look much better than he had when she had dropped him off at his place, but the bleeding had stopped, the heavy marks where the sledgehammer had landed now an angry and disturbing purple. Still, in jeans and one of his usual long-sleeved shirts, he looked better than the normal person would have looked after being beaten to an inch of their life by a sledgehammer-wielding demon with super-strength.
Swallowing, she moved forward, grabbing his hand and hauling herself up, glancing down at the thing buried beneath all this crap. "It's not dead," Connor supplied, eyes alight with violent hate as he stared down at the mess beneath their feet. "I can still hear it and its breathing… it just isn't happy."
"Well, then, let's leave, huh?" Hissing but not fighting when he helped her up the last few steps by holding her arms, feeling a flood of relief when her feet finally got on the floor, she fled the warehouse with him, following him up the fire escapes and traveling on the rooftops toward his apartment.
LondonThe Council, at least what was left of it, had hardened over the years since the explosion that had rocked the headquarters years before and the ones left were known to be colder and harsher than the older Council, the one that had been destroyed in a blast of fire and heat, no help coming to those out in the field, scrambling to survive.
They had… survived, that is, but not without scars. In some, the wounds remained as ghastly marks inflicted by the curved blades of the Bringers or in hints of some of the inquisitions given by The First's followers. In others, it was the worn look of somebody who was cursed to live while their husband or wife, brother or sister, father or son, mother or daughter, had not.
They had always been stern, and yet, despite some of their darker aspects, they had existed for the simple reason of keeping the Line going, of training the girls who were touched with that something so faint, so ghostly, only the heightened powers of magick could sometimes just barely detect it.
Or, of course, the casual geneticist with a good eye…
Stepping off the elevator, she took off, striding down the hall, adjusting her name tag as she went, checking that her hair was up and out of her way as she made a beeline for the office that was her own, passing by the other offices and cubicles, some of whom shot her wary looks, fears of her little virus stronger than any terror encountered by some of the creatures brought in to study.
She was used to it by now.
Entering her office, she stopped on a dime, settling her face into a friendly mask as the gentleman studying her family pictures turned to her, a slight frown on his aging features. He was one of those men who aged well, and she let her gaze flick up and down his frame quickly, noticing that he was using no cane, like Travers had.
Unlucky that he had no weak leg to kick in if he came after her.
Leaving the bulletin board where her pictures were pinned, he held out one hand, smiling pleasantly as she scrambled mentally, trying to come up with the right response. When she finally set her hand in his, he raised it, planting a kiss on the soft skin of the back, a move that made her stomach twist in her middle. "Ms. Scorpio."
"Call me Robin," she managed as she tried to wench her hand out of his hold, something that he didn't seem to like, for his fingers tightened almost painfully before at last releasing her. The meaning behind it was imperceptible but there, a sharp edge in his gaze of warning against disrespect.
Effortlessly putting the desk between them, she took a seat in her chair, making herself move things around and feeling his gaze on her. By the time he had taken a seat opposite hers, Robin was feeling the first touches of perspiration on the back of her neck and her hands itched to reach back and scratch the skin.
"You expect me to believe that my best researcher can find nothing in the blood samples I had brought to you?"
She looked up and stopped, pinned by the ice blue eyes that his son had inherited. But there was something vicious and cruel in the back of his eyes, something that wasn't present in Wesley's even on his worst days. Wesley could be ruthless and could be harsh but he was never cruel, never vicious.
"Not yet, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce but then, I just started the work on them…" She reached up, absently flicking an escaped strand of brown hair from her face. "Genetics are not easy, you know that; it takes a lot of hard work and intense concentration to do what we do…" Again, she hesitated and hated that she was letting herself be intimated by an older man like himself. "I'm doing my best."
"Your best isn't good enough." He reached out, set one hand on her desk and leaned forward, freezing her with those disturbingly cold eyes of his, empty of anything other than that greedy ambition that had allowed him to survive all that he had while others of the Council had fallen by the boatload. "Seeing as how my son has that girl hidden, I need some means of finding what I need and this is where you come in. Your job is to find me what's in that woman's blood."
"Mr. Wyndam-Pryce—"
Robin jerked when he slammed the hand back down on the desk, making some of her picture frames topple, making her coffee slosh onto her papers. "It took a little bit of work, seeing as how some of Rupert's little pets are in Seattle but I got you what you need, I got you all the blood you could need or could ever want. You, Ms. Scorpio, are useful… you're gifted at what you do and that's why we put up with you."
"I'm doing all of the tests," she noted quietly, calmly, the last thing she needed was to become one of the many missing scientists that had not done their job or kept their mouths shut. "So far, I'm finding no indication of the alterations but I haven't stopped my work and I will not stop my work. Sir, you will get exactly what you need."
There was a long silence, and he reminded her of some coiled snake, deceptively slow and seeming harmless until he caught sight of the chink in the armor or the flaw in the design and struck with all that he was, effortlessly obliterating his enemies, one at a time, fearless in the face of death.
If Robin didn't hate him so damn much, she might have respected his inner strength.
Pine Valley
David observed the phone nearby him with intense dark eyes, fingering the cord thoughtfully as he considered. It was ridiculous to get so worried after just a phone call, he knew it but still, he couldn't help the warning that he could feel in the back of his mind, something that told him that there was more to it than just Bianca's headaches.
She was hiding something and he didn't like it.
David was a survivor, he just was, something he got from Vanessa, she of the great and evil bitch queens and, while there were times that he despised being related to her in any way, shape or form, he had come to accept the fact that her habits, good and ill, had taught him to take care of himself.
Surviving was something that both he and Greenlee were good at, something that they learned to do early in their lives because, hey, it wasn't like anybody else would ever take care of you, right? They had survived their childhoods, at least partly and, somehow, they had survived when Leo had died, leaving them alone in so many painful ways.
Leaning back in his chair, he set his feet up on his desk, continuing to eye the phone, biting the inside of his cheek absently, trying to pinpoint exactly what it was in the conversation that had set off his alarm bells and unable to past the slight break in her sentences, a weakness that he had picked up even though he felt her trying to hide it.
A few minutes later, sighing, he was dialing the number and waiting for the other person to pick up.
Seattle
If Frankie Stone had known that the last thing she'd ever say to Maggie was "Why don't you steal your own damn clothes, huh?" she probably would have found something better and more meaningful to say. As it was, she had accepted that Maggie could not see her, feel her or hear her and it made no sense, not with the twin thing.
Their connection, even at the worst of times, had always been present, sometimes as nothing more than a warm knowledge in the back of the consciousnesses that their other was somewhere, even if you they couldn't see each other. Frankie, upon realizing that she was, in fact, dead, had not spared a single though to her mother.
She had set out with every intention to find Maggie, talk to her and do something. She didn't know what she was supposed to do but there was something she had to do, an innate something that was a constant buzz just beneath the surface of her thoughts, something that was becoming more desperate as the time ticked on and she watched Maggie do what she was doing.
It was no way to live.
Bianca, she had finally realized, was exactly what she was supposed to be, this brilliant beacon in the shadows that she felt on the edge of her awareness and the others swarmed around her like honeybees, not understand why but responding to her presence as they naturally would. Cordy, ever tactful, had called Bianca a 'box of donuts in the great universe that is Homer.'
Frankie had found that she understood that explanation way better than any of the mumbo-jumbo that that the Guide had offered, things like blind guys touching an elephant and being one with the universe. So, here she was, trying to protect Bianca from some of the nastier things that she was unknowingly letting into her head and trying to get everything where it was supposed to be.
Turning away from the tossing and turning figure in the bed, mumbling, she walked to the window—she refused to hover because, really, it looked so stupid—and peered out, frowning at the sight of the car sitting silent and still below, the shape that rarely, if ever moved.
Walking through the bedroom door—something that felt eerily like walking through a pane of glass made of warm mist—she stepped, silently of course, down the stairs and then through the front door, thicker than the first and enough to make her invisible shape shudder slightly at the inherent fear of being caught in that huge hunk of dead wood.
Frankie found that while she could step easily enough through manmade materials—she didn't even realize she was most times, there being such an ease behind it—dead wood and vegetation proved to make her feel like she was touching something empty on all the levels of existence, an odd thing to feel for the girl who had never once really thought about any of this stuff growing up.
Walking through forests, something she had once just to do it, had proved to be a liberating experience for the unseen spirit, feeling the entire time like she was shedding herself of something heavy and rotting each time she waltzed her way through a fern or an oak, leaving her feeling cleaner and more real with each step.
What she wouldn't do to be in a forest at the moment.
It took seconds—maybe minutes, maybe hours but it felt like seconds—for her to slip into the passenger seat of the car, following his line of sight to Bianca's window in the night, no light shining and she turned back regarding Jonathon Lavery with narrow eyes and an odd and sudden awareness that she did not like him.
He made the energy—boy, didn't that sound stupid?—stand up along her spine and, feeling suddenly chilled, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, wishing she hadn't died in a tank top in the middle of summer. Noticing the feeling made it even stronger and she peered at him, not quite understanding what it was about the dark eyes that was affecting her—not her body but her existence if that was even the word—so badly.
At least until he turned his head, met her gaze with his own and grinned. "So you would be the one and only Frankie Stone… I'd shake your hand but you don't exactly have one." He cocked his head, chuckled at her wide-eyed look of shock and lifted an eyebrow. "So, is there anything you might lie to tell me about you sister?"