Two for two! I'll be the first to admit I remember very little about Deaders besides the ending, so I apologize if Amy seems OOC here. I'm going to try and get one more chapter complete by the end of the day if I can get away with it, and then I'll be off for a week. But hey, it'll give me more time to write, won't it? Also, a big thank you to L.J. for the review! I'm glad to hear this piece is off to a good start.

As always, please let me know what you think, and happy reading!

Julia Cotton considered herself a charitable woman. Sometimes she even acted like it.

Kirsty was not her daughter, but she'd hugged the girl when Larry had suddenly disappeared, and let her cry into Julia's shoulder, until her tears threatened to soil Julia's new dress. It had been a dreadful long time they'd sat next to each other and Kirsty had cried and cried, waiting for the police to arrive. Still, she did feel sorry for the girl; whatever she had seen had shaken her terribly, and she couldn't even remember what it was that had supposedly taken her father.

That wasn't to say Julia wasn't upset over her missing husband. Oh, no, she was absolutely worried. Larry Cotton was a good man, a kind man, loyal the way a dog was, and she didn't believe for a second that he had disappeared willingly as the police suspected. He wasn't cunning enough for that. Still, she had plenty of doubt about him just vanishing in a flash of light the way Kirsty had said he did. And while she certainly had her own questions, she was all too glad when the police stopped asking them and investigating the attic – the inexplicably spotless attic – and left her alone.

Now she could do her own investigating.

Julia scoured the upstairs with a flashlight and a feather duster. The room was musty and old, but didn't smell like old cologne and sex the way she'd expected; the way Frank had smelled that one night.

It technically didn't count as infidelity, since she and Larry had been on a short break from the relationship. Julia had told herself this enough times that she believed it.

It must have been an hour that she spent up there, checking for false floors and hidden compartments in walls, looking for anything that might have been… a clue, maybe, even if just thinking the word made her feel like a child. But there was nothing; no blood, no weapons, not even discarded needles or whatever accouterment was required to live as Frank Cotton had lived. The attic – in fact, the whole house – was devoid of evidence he'd ever lived there.

Julia started to make her way back to the stairs, the flashlight and duster tucked under her arm. She stopped just long enough to look at the room one more time, and see the evening sun spill through the single window.

Something twinkled.

Julia frowned. She hadn't seen anything in that spot before, but as she walked over, the glittering thing didn't disappear as a trick of the eye. It sat, patiently, until she picked it up.

It was a box. Julia turned it over in her hands, not even noticing the duster dropping to the floor, and ran her thumb over one of the designs. The entire thing was adorned with a thin sheet of carefully-cut metal. Julia discovered this because part of the design sliced into her thumb.

"Shit!" She dropped the box and looked at her hand; it didn't hurt badly, but it was bleeding a ridiculous amount for such a small cut. Julia cursed again. She started to head for the stairs, intent on getting to a sink, when her ell phone rang. She answered it with her clean hand, still walking.

"Hello? …Oh, is this Kirsty's doctor? No, she hasn't come to see me yet… yes, I have time to talk to you, what time would work? I'm not very busy this weekend."

Kirsty had gone right to sleep as soon as she and Joey had gotten to her place, and Joey didn't blame her. She couldn't imagine how taxing the hospital must have been, on top of everything else, and she'd fallen asleep herself not long after. She dreamt in passing and woke up to find only four hours had passed; it was still dark out, not even a moon to break the darkness.

Joey peeked into Kirsty's room for only a moment; she was sleeping soundly, almost peacefully. She deserved it.

She may have driven the girl home, but Joey was a guest, and didn't want to intrude on Kirsty's space without permission. While she was aching for a cup of coffee, she instead poured herself some tap water, and sipped it while tossing ideas back and forth in her head. She didn't want to go back to sleep, but it wouldn't be a reasonable hour to start calling people for a while. She could start unpacking her files, she mused.

…Or…

Joey pulled her phone from her pocket. Low battery – she had to get in the habit of carrying a portable charger with her. 37% was still a decent amount for one long-distance call, though. She dialed and waited, her finger tapping against her glass as the dial tone sounded. It picked up after two rings – she always did.

"Joey, did you get there yet? Any sign of it?"

"Hello to you too, Amy," Joey smiled, "I did. She's asleep right now, it's like 4 AM. Are you back from Bucharest?"

"I just got off the plane. It's good to be home." She heard a sigh on the end of the line. "I'm so tired, that was not a good flight. But I have what I needed."

"You found the Deaders?"

"I wish. I managed to track down the man in charge – Winter, can you believe that's his actual name? – but I followed him to where this ritual was supposed to take place with all of the Deaders, and I must have missed it. And them."

"Please don't tell me they're gone."

"Gone!" Amy was cut off by a grunt; she must have bumped into somebody. "Sorry, I'm trying to get to the taxi service as fast as I can. But they were all gone from their cult dungeon, there was nothing but candles and old blood."

"Amy, I love you, but that's really creepy." Joey said it with a smile and shook her head. "What now?"

"I managed to spot Winter leaving, but I don't know where he went. All I know is that the one time he spoke, he talked about a cousin of his, and unlocking the secrets of the Lament Configuration."

The back of Joey's neck prickled. "I'm sorry, the what?"

"The box, the one in the notes you sent me. It's called the Lament Configuration. Joey, I couldn't find it anywhere in that dungeon."

Joey swallowed a knot in her throat; in the back of her mind she could see Terri, fiddling with something glimmering in black and gold. The box, how could she have forgotten? Where had it gone?

"Joey?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry Jo, I have to catch a taxi, there's a huge line – hey, watch it! – I'll call you when I get home, okay? I've got my notes from the trip, I'll send them over to you. Get some sleep!"

"Yeah, I will. Get home safe." The call cut off. Joey looked at her phone – 14% - and took a breath.

A box. Had Kirsty seen a box? She'd have to ask in a few hours.

Joey shook her head. Maybe she did need some more sleep.

I will be the first to admit I contradicted what I had written in the first chapter for our good Doctor, and just now fixed it. Proofreading!