Chapter Three: Following the Evidence
As the clock on the wall ticked past 2 AM, Lewis Young felt more numb than exhausted as he and Team Three's bomb tech finished assembling the last of the raw recordings into 'surveillance footage'. Behind them, Team Three's backup tech was doing a last second polishing of the Spike/Wordy footage, enhancing it as much as possible. In the other room, Team Two and Team Four's techs were finishing up four other tapes; they hadn't asked questions, they'd just pitched in, determined to help their missing colleagues.
No one had breathed the word 'magic', but it hardly mattered. After Teams One and Three's frantic scramble out of town to rescue the stranded upper ranks of the Canadian Auror Division, the cat had been out of the bag. Teams Two and Four hadn't even blinked when a third of the barn was commandeered for the newly instated Toronto Auror Division; instead, they'd welcomed the new arrivals and gone out of their way to help get the area set up.
Ordinarily, having virtually all of the SRU's techs working together would've brought a smug grin to Lou's face; putting too many SRU computer techs in the same room was a recipe for smart remarks, bruised egos, and technical brawls of all descriptions. Not today. Today the less-lethal specialist was numb with shock, horror, and a slowly building sense of utter fury.
"How many does that make?" Team Three's tech asked, rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes as he leaned back from his computer to snatch a quick breather.
"Thirty-eight," Young replied. "Forty if you include our guys."
"I would." A sigh, a grimace, and a limp hair-swipe. "Even if you find 'em alive, they've been through hell. And Wordsworth…" He trailed off helplessly.
"Clean hands," Lou whispered, throat tightening. "Wordy's always saying he's gotta be able to go home and hug his girls with clean hands."
A finger pointed in his direction. "Then you make him believe he's got clean hands. He didn't have a choice. You know it, I know it, even those Fibbies know it." One hand flapped and the other constable wearily forced himself to his feet. "Now get outta here, Young. I gotta make sure nobody screwed up my setup out there."
Lou snickered and collected a thick stack of shiny discs. Humor vanished as he regarded them, wondering sourly if they'd ever identify all their dead subject's victims. Even as a much bigger part of him wondered if he'd ever see his best friends alive again…
FBI Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid didn't protest when an exhausted Gideon pushed a stack of discs in his direction. "What's this, sir?"
His mentor looked old. "Each disc is a victim, Spencer," he explained. "The last one is two."
"Two?" Morgan asked, tone sharp. "They died?"
"No," Hotch countered, regret and sorrow bubbling just behind his professional mask. "As far as we know, they're alive, but they're still missing."
"And the unsub?" Prentiss inquired.
"Dead," Rossi announced succinctly without elaborating. He pointed to the discs. "Watch those; you can share them with Garcia if you'd like. We need as much information as possible and we need to start identifying as many victims as we can."
"Are these classified?" Reid asked.
"The same as any other investigation," Hotch said flatly before disappearing towards his temporary office. Rossi sighed, paused long enough to squeeze Gideon's shoulder, then went after the grim Unit Chief.
The younger profilers glanced up at their one remaining supervisor, questions plain. Gideon's shoulders slumped. "Watch them," he ordered softly. "Then you'll understand."
Understand. The young genius didn't see how you could; how did you understand dumping people in the middle of a maze of death traps? How did you understand watching them struggle and flail to escape, ultimately dying to one trap or another? How did you understand pure evil?
He turned away from the screen as one poor soul made it past the poison gas staircase only to die at the jaws and claws of the feral dog pack. It was completely obscene, made even worse by the screams as the dogs bit into flesh already scored by the mechanical zombies their latest victim had somehow outrun.
"That's thirty-six," Emily Prentiss announced tonelessly. "Garcia, did you get a good shot of him?"
Their Quantico based computer tech was just as demoralized as her coworkers. "I got one from the glass room," she replied. "I think we've gotten all our shots from there."
"Three more discs," Morgan grumbled, holding them up.
"At least we're almost done." Prentiss sighed and worked out the kinks in her back. "And can I say I'm glad Rossi told us the unsub didn't make it?"
"You can say it to us," Morgan reassured her.
"Babydoll is right," Garcia agreed. "This guy was one serious sicko. Hope he didn't have a friend."
"No," Reid replied absently. "The unsub might have enlisted help to set up either the surveillance or the traps, but all the other clues point to a single unsub. No accomplice."
Prentiss inclined her head in agreement. "The profile pointed to a single unsub."
"Once he had everything set up, he didn't need help," Morgan concurred.
Garcia hummed, not entirely convinced, but moved on. "What are they doing to the factory?"
Reid frowned. "I overheard Hotch and Rossi talking. Once Wordsworth and Scarlatti are found, the locals are planning on just burning it down. Keep anyone else from stumbling into the traps."
"Good," Garcia and Prentiss chorused in perfect sync despite being in different countries.
With a wan smile, Morgan pushed the next disc into his computer. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, meet victim number thirty-seven." When an eighteen-year-old girl appeared on the screen, there was a mandatory pause while half the junior profilers swore up a storm and other half headed for the closest bathroom to throw up.
Sighs of relief met the final disc; Prentiss double-checked her pen to ensure she still had ink, Reid straightened, his focus entirely on the screen, and Morgan adjusted his notebook, eager to see how the traps had been overcome by their last pair of victims. From her spot in Quantico, Garcia leaned towards her webcam, just as interested as her profiler coworkers.
The first scene drew puzzled frowns – two English speaking cops and one was suddenly not? Reid stole the laptop, backing the video up so he could watch again, nose pressed against the screen, as Scarlatti babbled in another language at Wordsworth and couldn't even use his own phone.
"Reid?" Prentiss asked when their slender colleague backed the video up again.
"I can't understand the language," Reid replied.
Morgan whistled – as a certified genius with six degrees, three of them PhDs, what Spencer Reid didn't know often wasn't worth knowing. Although he wasn't quite as proficient at languages… "Maybe it's Spanish," the African-American joked.
"No." Reid didn't even glance up. "The inflection is more like English, only it's not." Scowling, he ran the footage again, mumbling something indistinct under his breath.
"Okay, boy genius," Morgan interceded. "You can try and figure it out while we watch the whole thing." Spencer blinked, but allowed his coworker to gently remove the laptop from his grip and continue the playback.
The officers' boots meant the glass room wasn't an obstacle to them; the lack of embedded glass also rendered the moving spike wall largely moot. Unlike several previous victims, the two cops managed to reach the overhead bar without taking any sidelong hits from the whirling spike club, though Prentiss winced at the axe's near-miss and Garcia let out a little scream.
Curiously, the two men had no trouble with the tightrope pit, quite literally strolling across without a care in the world; Reid scribbled furiously on his clipboard. But it was the next room that broke the case wide-open. The floating specter, which had chased several previous victims right into the arms of the mechanical zombies, let out its usual babbling shriek.
"Stop."
Morgan obeyed at once. "What've you got, Reid?"
"It's the same language Scarlatti's speaking."
The other profilers traded wide eyes, but neither doubted Reid's assertion. "Wait, it's actually talking?" Prentiss asked.
"Like it's not just crazy babble?" Garcia interjected.
"Yes," Reid confirmed to both women, tapping his clipboard. "I thought it was babble, too, but it's not. Several victims reacted to this, implying that they also went from speaking English to…whatever this other language is."
"You've got more." Morgan's expression was intent.
"Some." Clearing his throat, Reid inspected his own writing. "They walked right across that rope, but Wordsworth went first and he had to encourage Scarlatti across. Why? Presumably they both know why they were able to get across so easily."
All three of his colleagues pondered his observations for a minute, then Prentiss joked, "Maybe that's actually a ghost."
Morgan rolled his eyes. "Come on," he jabbed. "Next you'll be telling me those are real zombies."
"Well of course they are, babydoll," Garcia countered. "Ghosts and zombies are the perfect accessories for your up and coming serial killer."
"Let's keep going." Ignoring the banter, Reid tapped the play button.
Scarlatti reacted just like they'd half-expected, but Wordsworth spotted the trap ahead in the nick of time. Instead of trying to outrun the mechanical zombies as every previous victim had, he slammed Scarlatti sideways, knocking them both down, and even covered his mouth.
"What's he doing?" Morgan wondered.
Then the constable pulled a grenade from his belt, primed it with his teeth, and tossed it into the next room. Shrieks of agony rattled the speakers and all four recoiled. The ghost, which all of them had believed to be some sort of projection, wailed genuine dismay and rocketed into the fire, vanishing without a trace.
In mute, horrified silence, they watched the rest. Saw two bracelets on Wordsworth's wrist light up as gas poured into the poison staircase. Stared slack-jawed as Scarlatti hurled a second grenade at the feral dog pack and shot them all dead. Gawked when the next staircase morphed into a slide and dumped the pair into a pit of scorpions.
Prentiss let out a soft cry as their unsub started to autopsy a living, terrified, screaming victim; in the background, Garcia's mouth was wide in a silent scream of her own. Reid stared at the screen so intently, he was hardly breathing any more. When Wordsworth glowed blue, they all jumped, then jumped again when he attacked the unsub and the unsub fired a spell at the courageous officer.
By the time the screen went black, they were convinced. Reid scrawled one word across the bottom of his clipboard and held it up.
Magic.
Somehow, Greg couldn't muster the energy to feel surprised. The risk had been taken, the older profilers insistent that the videos, by themselves, would not be enough to spill the secret. He'd been skeptical, but Ed, still in command, had agreed to let the younger profilers see all the videos. Including Spike and Wordy's.
Now he watched as the older profilers listened to their subordinates' report, a report that included the profilers' serious conclusion that magic had been used to murder close to forty Toronto citizens. Fear shone in Agent Gideon's eyes as he glanced over at the watching Aurors, fear that his subordinates would be Obliviated and stripped of their memories. That same fear was echoed in Agents Hotchner and Rossi, though they hid it better.
As the report wound down, the younger agents picked up on the growing tension, glancing between their superiors and the Toronto officers in some confusion. Agent Reid opened his mouth, only to stop as Agent Gideon lifted a hand and looked directly at Onasi.
"Please."
Plaintive and fearful, pleading and helpless; Parker winced and cleared his throat significantly. Eddie accepted his boss's return to command with nary a whisper of protest. "Giles?"
The Auror's shoulders slumped. "You know what Locksley said."
He did; the Aurors were prohibited, until further notice, from using magic in techie areas, no exceptions, a prohibition Giles had broken in hopes of saving his SRU colleagues. The Neo Death Eaters had complete control of the Canadian Ministry of Magic, including the aptly-named Magical Surveillance Office. Within magical areas, there were simply too many witches and wizards using magic for the Neo Death Eaters to pick the 'rogue' Aurors out of a crowd, but in the tech world? As the saying went, they'd get caught in a New York minute.
With a brisk nod, the Sergeant turned towards Braddock.
"Get the forms," Sam replied before his boss could speak and vanished toward the trucks. Extremely skeptical that they could hide the magic Wordy had used from the junior profilers, Greg had insisted on bringing the Official Secrets Act forms along. Thankfully, Eddie hadn't argued, a fortunate decision given the turn of events.
"Forms?" Agent Rossi inquired.
No sense in hiding anything now. "Your agents will need to sign onto Canada's Official Secrets Act if they wish to remain a part of this investigation." He knew the older agents would translate that to mean 'if they wish to keep their memories', a misconception Parker did not intend to correct until after the forms were safely signed.
Sam reappeared with the forms already mounted on clipboards. "Sarge, what about their computer tech?"
"I've got a copy of the form on my flash drive," Lou offered. "She can sign digitally."
"Lou, go set that up," the negotiator ordered; his constable saluted, but remained where he was when Agent Rossi motioned for him to wait. Turning back towards the younger profilers, Parker asked, "Have you shared your conclusions with Agent Jareau?"
When Agent Reid looked confused and the other two appeared mulish, Agent Hotchner cleared his throat. "Did you tell JJ?" he demanded, his tone harsh with ill-concealed fear.
"Hotch?" Agent Reid questioned, glancing between his boss and the SRU cops. "What's going on?"
Agent Gideon's terror was palpable. "Spencer!"
"No, we haven't told her yet," Agent Morgan answered. "What's going on?"
"What's going on is that you three and Garcia will sign these forms, now," Agent Hotchner ordered, seizing the clipboards from Sam so he could pass them out himself. "Morgan, once you've signed, get Garcia on the phone and have her give Constable Young her work email. Stay on the phone until she's signed, understand?"
With the elder agents' fear spreading to their younger counterparts, the junior profilers didn't argue, though all three looked as though they wanted to. In less than ten minutes, the Canadian Official Secrets Act had expanded by four American feds.
And Greg, once Jules had collected the clipboards and Agent Morgan had turned his phone's speaker on, glanced over at Onasi and nodded once. Drawing a deep breath, the wizard stepped forward and drew his wand with a twirl. "I'd say magic is real," he remarked wryly, "but you lot already figured that out."
"You have magic," Agent Morgan growled, backing up as if to protect his fellow agents. One hand edged towards his gun.
"Guilty as charged," the brunet quipped. "Auror Giles Onasi, at your service." Tilting his head at his coworkers, he added, "Meet the Canadian Auror Division's first Muggle Aurors. Or No-Maj if you like, seeing as you're Americans."
"Is Wordsworth a wizard, too?" Agent Prentiss asked.
"That would be the irony," Giles replied. "Auror Wordsworth is a Squib." At the gasps from the older profilers, he smirked mirthlessly. "I take it your bosses have heard of Squibs before."
"Aren't most Squibs murdered by their own families?" Agent Rossi questioned, ignoring the stunned expressions from his subordinates. "That's what I've always understood."
"Not as much anymore," Sam offered. "I'm Squib-born; my father is a Squib, too." The blond squirmed, not willing to relate Wordy's history to a group of strangers.
Parker intervened. "Wordy is a Squib, but he was raised completely tech-side. No member of my team, Wordy included, knew about magic prior to my niece and nephew moving here from Britain." His narrow-eyed glare kept any of them from asking about Sam's past; he'd already told the older profilers anyway and the longer it took to get the junior profilers on board, the longer Wordy and Spike were in danger.
Giles cleared his throat, reclaiming attention. "Look," he began, running a hand through his hair, "your bosses can tell you more later, including why they were so scared that you lot figured out magic's real, but the important thing is that Spike and Wordy knowing about magic saved their lives today." His voice trembled. "All those other people never had a chance and the guy who killed them…he's a monster, no matter which world you're from."
"How'd he get away with it?" Jules asked suddenly. "Giles, you can't even summon a paperclip tech-side without getting caught right now, so how'd he kidnap forty people without the Neo Death Eaters catching him?"
"Because he is a Neo Death Eater," Lou blurted. "They knew what he was doing and they didn't care."
Onasi hung his head; he'd figured it out roughly about the time they'd been looking at the Pensieve memories. "Yeah," he whispered. "They knew his hunting ground, that's how I got away with the detection spells." At first he'd thought the nearby gateway had saved his tail – their tails, but it hadn't made sense…until it had.
Determination lit his eyes as he lifted them. "But if we go back to the factory, I think I might be able to track their magical signatures."
"Wait…" Agent Reid interrupted. "If they don't have magic…how do they have magical signatures? And what's this about 'Neo Death Eaters'?"
Onasi blanched and the beginnings of his smirk dropped off his face. "I, um…"
Lou saved him. "It's complicated."
"Yeah… That…" Giles agreed rather limply.