A/N: Standard Disclaimers Apply

Chapter Five: Little White Lies

Jinx held onto Raven's hands and felt the heat dissipate. The young witch's hands changed from purple to pink and slowly ashen. Raven's fingers were gnarled and dry, but suppled quickly.

"Why, Rae?" Jinx asked softly.

Raven's large lavender eyes looked up to her friend before hopefully for a brief instant. Her lips parted to and she took a short breath. Suddenly a scowl masked Raven's face as she heard her other two friends approach. Her eyes narrowed, and she cast them downward.

"I don't feel like talking," the pale witch said dryly. Raven surrounded herself with her power and phased through the floor.

Jinx, Kory, and Vic traded worried glances. Jinx looked to the other two for answers, but Starfire rubbed her arm nervously, and Cyborg gnawed on his lower lip. A heavy silence blanketed the common room.

Vic rubbed the back of his neck, "For once I wish Gar was here. He'd say something so stupid that we'd all have to stop and react to it."

Kory drifted away. She slouched as she glided toward the giant communications console.

"What are you doing?" Jinx asked sharply.

"I am calling Robin."

"Oh, no you're not," Jinx chided. "You're a big girl and can more than take care of yourself." Jinx twitched a little, remembering how much Starfire's energy blasts hurt. "Besides, getting him to turn around wastes a lot of time. We can handle this."

Kory glanced at the floor where Raven stood and then locked her eyes on the pink-haired sorceress. "I hope you are right. What do I tell him when he…?"

Everyone's T-Communicator chimed at once.

"Titans!" Robin's voice came over the small speaker. "What happened? I just got this weird police report."

"Yeah," Cyborg said, "there's some crazy stuff going down. We're on it."

"I'm turning around."

"Robin," Kory said, "Based on the fact that is was, too, a random act of violence, I believe the death of Andre le Blanc is somehow tied into this mysterious event. You still need to investigate it before the… trail? Before the trail becomes cold."

There was a long uneasy pause.

"Okay, but keep in contact. Robin out."

Jinx let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. "Good job, Star," she said.

"I had to tell him something," she said her voice touched with sadness. "X'hal, help me if I am wrong. And may she help us more if I am right."

…..

A frustrated Selinda Flinders yanked her black robe off and chucked it in a corner of a small common room. She revealed a sparkling metallic bodysuit with boot cut flares on the cuffs of her pants. Keyholes were cut out along the seams starting at her shoulders, her hips and cut across her chest, showing off a tantalizing amount of cleavage. She flopped into a large chair and hung one of her shapely legs over the arm. Selinda leaned back and leaned on the opposite arm.

"I am so bored," she complained.

"Well find something to do then, Sellie," a gruff voice called from the other side of the room.

A massive wild red haired youth sat opposite a diminutive boy. They played a natural disasters card game where each player tried to trump the other's disaster. The small boy just played Tornado.

Selinda narrowed her eyes and sparks surrounded her hand. The cards turned into a puddle of paper pulp and ink. "No one calls me 'Sellie,'" she growled. "Not even you Baran."

Mammoth got to his feet and took two steps toward his older sister. He glared but backed away. Gizmo leered at the red haired young woman and stuck out his tongue. "Great job Shimmer, now what are we going to do until Mr. I-Found-God-And-You-Will-Too decides why the sprock we're here?"

She stormed out of the lounge, "Find something to do then."

Shimmer strode down the empty corridor and soon found herself in the "chapel." It was made of dark soot stained stone. Empty cast iron racks were want of candles, and near the missing altar on its wax drippings marred pedestal, sat the Book. Shimmer approached slowly, and turned the pages. It did not feel like paper or smell of an old book at all. The odor was much more metallic. Shimmer couldn't read the pages. She recognized some of the words as Latin, others Greek, but it was a mishmash of unknown glyphs and undecipherable words.

"You shouldn't be reading that," a soft, but dangerous voice purred.

Shimmer looked up and saw a young woman with platinum hair and steely blue eyes. The white haired girl wore a black robe and slowly approached the pedestal.

"Phhft," Shimmer shrugged, "it's only a book. And it's not like I can read whatever the hell this writing is anyway… Ravager is it?"

Selinda watched as the other woman moved with an uncanny lightness. On approach, the scent of roses filled the red head's nostrils; she closed her eyes slowly and took in as much of the other girl's perfume as she could.

Ravager looked at the script and narrowed her eyes. She, too, failed to recognize most of the variable languages, but a sigil caught her eye. It seemed terribly familiar. She curled her snow-white hair over her ear and put her hand on the book.

Shimmer leaned over and whispered something so quietly, Ravager couldn't hear. She turned and saw a strange light in the redhead's eyes. Opium perfumes hung around the young assassin, at first she wanted to pull away, but the redhead was so numbingly beautiful.

Shimmer leaned in and kissed the Ravager on the lips.

Neither of them noticed their hands were still on the book as they deepened their kiss.