Chapter 62
As Hotch, Rossi, and Morgan walked, Morgan looked at Hotch. "I was really scared that you were going to shoot yourself, Man."
Hotch shrugged. "I could hear someone coming, and once he was close enough I knew it was Rossi. I was just trying to stall the unsub until Rossi got close enough."
Morgan ran a hand over his head. "But how did you know Rossi would be able to do anything to help?"
Hotch huffed. "Please. After the way you all acted at the station, it was obvious he had gotten a pistol to shoot those bullets."
Rossi huffed. "You didn't know."
Hotch's left brow rose and he was about to offer up another smartass retort, but his head snapped to the right as he held up a hand.
The other two men froze and tried to see what had their Unit Chief's attention, but they couldn't see or hear anything other than the forest and its inhabitants. Rossi mentally huffed because he knew that really didn't mean anything because their unsub could easily be pretending to be one of those inhabitants.
After a second or two, Rossi edged closer to Hotch. "What is it?" he asked in a tone so quiet that only Hotch's enhanced hearing could pick up on it.
Hotch took a deep breath and ran a hand down his face, and Rossi's stomach ached when Hotch winced as his fingers caught the tip of one of the long gouges on his jaw. The older man kept his concerns to himself, though, knowing that it wouldn't do him any good to voice them right then. Hotch shook his head. "I thought I heard something. Let's go," he offered and started out again.
Morgan leaned over to Rossi. "You think we actually have a chance at catching up with this thing?"
Rossi nodded. "I do. Did you see the way that thing was flying. While that bullet may have only caught him in the shoulder, it's hurting him."
Hotch nodded. "I agree. It's heart was. . ." The statement dropped off as he lifted his chin, and they froze again.
"You hear it?" Morgan asked as his hand went to his holster.
Hotch's nostrils flared and then shook his head as he started moving again towards the right.
Morgan looked at Rossi who just shrugged and followed him, so Morgan shook his head and quickly brought up the rear.
Hotch stopped and investigated a few leaves. "Blood," is all he said and reached out and rubbed his finger in a drop of sticky liquid on a huge leaf.
Morgan's eyes grew wide and he shook his head again. "And you just knew that was there?"
Hotch glanced at him as he cleaned his finger off on his pants. "I can smell it." He looked up. "It's all over the trees."
Rossi chuckled. "Better than a blood hound."
Hotch gave him dark look and started moving again. "Shut up, Dave."
Rossi licked his lips and was about to make another crack but Hotch's stomach growled so loudly that he and Morgan stopped in their tracks and shared a look. Morgan grimaced and Rossi sighed and moved closer to his chosen son. "That's why you're not healing."
Hotch looked at him with confusion in his eyes. "What?"
Rossi huffed. "Did you not feel that?"
Embarrassment heated Hotch's cheeks. "You heard that?"
Rossi nodded. "That's why you're weak. You need to feed."
Hotch tried to shrug it off. "I'm fine," he offered lightly and started walking again.
Rossi grabbed his shoulder, though, and turned him back around. "You're so hungry that you could smell a drop of blood fifty feet away, but you're fine? Yeah right, Aaron."
Hotch smirked. "I fed yesterday, so I should be fine."
Rossi's sigh was deep. "Obviously what you have already gone through with this thing is taking a toll on you, Aaron."
Hotch took a deep breath and stood up tall trying to seem stronger than he felt. "There isn't anything I can do about that right now, so there's no use in worrying about it."
Rossi saw right through the façade, of course, and shook his head. "Don't you have some extra in the SUV?"
"Yes, but we don't have the time to go get it. Lana needs us," Hotch insisted and took off walking again. He truly felt drained and beaten, and that was the first time he'd felt that sensation since he'd been changed. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, he didn't even think he could feel anything but great since he started in his new life, so the pain fueled, worn out feeling that was coming from deep within half scared him a little.
He shook himself trying to shake off the feeling of dread but that just agitated the many wounds littered all over his body and he had to swallow back the moan that wanted to escape. Gashes on his face, neck, and upper back, scratches on his arms and legs, and even a particularly bad bite on the back of his right leg were screaming for relief, but he tried to ignore them and focused on pushing himself on.
Rossi watched him walking and when Hotch ran a ginger hand over his right butt cheek, Rossi's heart ached for him. He so wanted to order him back to the vehicle, but he knew Hotch was right about Lana needing them. Knowing Hotch was right didn't stop him from taking out his phone, though.
Wanting to ease the tension he could feel growing, Morgan put his arm around Rossi's shoulders as they started moving to catch up with Hotch. "We can always buy him a fanny pack to carry an extra bag with him."
Hotch turned back around so abruptly that Morgan slipped trying to move back out of arm's reach. "You can be reassigned, Agent."
Morgan looked horrified for just a moment but then he smiled. "You love me."
Hotch took a step closer to him. "Buy me a fanny pack and you will see exactly how much I do not love you, Morgan."
Hotch's stare bore into him and he swallowed thickly. "I was. . . I was just joshing, Man. Chill."
Hotch snorted and turned back around.
After about twenty steps and letting Hotch get a little bit of a lead, Morgan leaned closer to Rossi. "He never threatens you when you give him shit."
Rossi balked. "Yes he does."
Morgan wilted. "Yeah but. . ."
Rossi smiled. "I just don't let him intimidate me."
Morgan huffed. "I'd like to know how you accomplish that."
Rossi chuckled, but Hotch hissed as he held up a hand and stopped. Both men joined him and he pointed further into the woods. "I can hear it."
"Can you hear Lana?" Morgan asked him as he tried to see through the trees.
Hotch focused for a second and then shook his head. "Not yet, but the unsub's heart is pounding, so it could be drowning hers out."
Rossi took a deep breath. "What's the plan?"
Hotch took a step. "Let's get close to it and then decide."
Rossi grabbed him and fixed him with a serious look. "You are not doing this alone, Aaron!"
Hotch gave him a little grin and nodded. "I know."
Rossi took a deep breath as Hotch's sincerity made him relax a little. "Then let's do this."
Morgan nodded. "Yep."
They followed Hotch wordlessly for what seemed like forever and when they could hear what sounded like the ranting and ravings of a mad man, they crept forward even more.
"Damn it. I was really hoping we'd find him dead," Morgan offered in a hushed tone.
Hotch silenced him with a look and then frowned at the sight emerging through the foliage. The unsub was standing in the center of a circle of stones that looked like a smaller, Hawaiian version of Stonehenge, and he was busy trying to dig the silver bullet out of his shoulder with nothing but his fingers. By the explicit language that was escaping him, he wasn't having a very easy time of it.
Rossi tapped on Hotch's shoulder and pointed off to the right. Lana was huddled down in the mouth of one of the many caves peppering the mountainside next to the rugged old clearing. Hotch didn't have to tell them he could hear her crying because it was obvious even from their distance that she was.
Rossi reached for his new pistol intending on shooting and hopefully killing the shifter before Hotch had to worry about fighting it again, but before it was clear of its holster, the shifter looked up as it sniffed the wind.
Hotch shoved Morgan and Rossi down to hide them behind the bushes they were standing next to. Damn it! Jamison said they had an enhanced sense of smell! Why didn't I remember that? He cringed as the shifter ran and picked up Lana, and then covered her mouth because she had started screaming.
"I know you're out there, Bloodsucker. I can smell the stench of decay in your undead wounds. Show yourself and maybe I won't snap this little one's neck."
Hotch took a deep breath, ignored Rossi's and Morgan's pleading eyes, and then stood back up. "You won't kill her like that. You want to eat her heart."
The man laughed, the girl screamed even louder, and Hotch mentally cringed. He hadn't meant to scare her even more.
Rossi peered through the branches and then mentally cussed because the unsub was hugging the girl to his chest with tight hands.
"The heart doesn't have to be beating for me to eat it," the disturb man instructed as Hotch moved even closer to the clearing. He smiled a sleazy smile and motioned Hotch even closer. "We don't have to fight. We could share her," he suggested and the repulsed look on Hotch's face made him laugh. "Don't tell me you don't want it. So sweet, so invigorating. . . Just imagine it."
When Hotch swallowed back the excess the saliva that had flooded his mouth as he did just that, the shifter laughed again. "You can almost taste it, can't you?"
Hotch clenched his teeth to keep the vampire within him at bay. "I don't kill to feed my hunger."
There was genuine shock on the man's face. "But have you ever tasted the blood of a virgin? Innocence really can make all the difference."
A disgusted snort escaped Hotch before he could stop it. "Killing virgins? That's a little too cliché for this day and age, don't you think?"
"And yet I can tell you're thinking about it." He held the girl out to him. "Here, take a swill. One drink and you'll be hooked," he suggested.
The sickening sweet tone sounded wrong coming out of the man, and Hotch had to wonder if he was truly seeing the shifter's real form or not; but he quickly pushed that thought to the side and took a step forward as he licked his lips. "I guess one little sip wouldn't hurt her all that much," he offered trying to get the man lower his guard.
The unsub smiled some more as he nodded. "One sip won't hurt her at all," he agreed and held the girl out a little further.
Hotch didn't want to chance looking at Rossi to see if he was ready, but he could tell by the way the older man's heart was racing that he was. We've worked together long enough. He knows what I'm doing. He gave the unsub a minute nod and took a few more steps closer to him.
Morgan nudged Rossi to get his attention and then motioned that he would work his way around to try and flank the unsub. Rossi held up a finger to halt him, though, as he focused on what Hotch was doing. Come on, Hotch. Get that girl out of his grasp so I can send that son of bitch back to its maker. He eased his new pistol out of its holster and tried to slow down his breathing so if he did get a chance his aim would be truer.
Hotch was also trying to prepare himself; drawing upon every bit of strength he could muster. He knew all he had to do was get the girl away from the maniacal being and Rossi would take care of everything else. Yes, his first instinct was to arrest the thing; make him face justice and pay for all of his crimes, but he knew beyond a doubt that there was no prison that would ever hold such a creature. Allowing it to live would be tantamount to sentencing other innocents, more than likely children, to die by its hands to feed its extremely sick addiction, so Hotch took a deep breath and forced the law upholding agent inside him down, and let his baser side, his vampiric side, come to the surface.
Each step brought him closer to the killer shapeshifter and the poor girl whom it had chosen as its last victim, and Hotch studied them both. The girl, who looked so much like Joey that his heart ached, was wide eyed with terror, but she had grown quiet. The shifter was anything but quiet. He was grunting and moaning with each movement and he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat diluted with blood. Hotch mentally smiled. Rossi's silver bullet is really doing a job on him. I wonder how weak it's made him.
Before he could figure how to test his theory, he stopped in his tracks, and the shifter smiled. Hotch frowned as he tried to take another step, but his feet wouldn't move. He looked down half expecting some sort of trap or something, but there wasn't anything there, just the ground, and the shifter laughed.
"What the hell is he waiting for?" Morgan asked Rossi.
Rossi shrugged and then cringed as the shifter's guffaw echoed off the mountainside.
When Hotch's feet still wouldn't obey, he reached out a hand wondering if it was just his feet or if his whole body had stopped moving. His hand met no resistance, and the confusion on his face made the shifter laugh so hard that he almost dropped Lana in his excitement. "Welcome to the circle of Pele, Aaron," he yelled as he gestured like a carnival hawker to the clearing around him.
Hotch took a step back and then took a forceful step forward, but he was stopped in his tracks again. Thinking he had grown weaker than he thought, he tried to force himself past the invisible barrier, but that only brought more laughter from the shifter.
Being the butt end of a joke he didn't get made Hotch's anger flare, and the shifter could tell. "Would it help if I explained that Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of wind, lightning, and volcanoes?"
"Shit!" Rossi uttered under his breath as he jumped up and rushed out to Hotch.
Morgan scrambled to join the two men, but he looked just as confused as Hotch as they all stood there staring at the shifter which made him laugh even harder.
"Vampires can't walk on sacred ground, you idiot!" the shifter yelled and then held Lana closer to him as his eyes settled on Rossi. "Go ahead and shoot. You'll only have to kill this beautiful little girl to get me. Could you live with that?"
Rossi's face showed his rage as he went to take a step, but Hotch tried to hold him back. "I can go to him," Rossi insisted as he pulled away from the younger man.
Hotch grabbed his arm again and locked eyes with him. Knowing he couldn't protect him once he was out of reach made his slow beating heart pound. "There's got to be another way," Hotch urged as his eyes pleaded with the man he loved as a father.
"We can't sit here and wait for him to kill her," Rossi insisted.
"But. . ." Morgan wanted to suggest something, but nothing was coming to him.
"Don't worry. You won't have to watch for long. I'll make it quick," the shifter swore as he turned Lana around to face him, and she started kicking him as she screamed.
"Aaron! I can. . ." Rossi started but his words caught in his throat when Lana's screams or protest abruptly stopped and they all turned. Rossi cringed as he did so because he thought the shifter had actually killed her.
"She's seizing!" Morgan hollered as he watched in horror as the little girl's body stiffened up and started to shake.
Rossi wasn't sure if fear or her epilepsy caused the seizure, but it didn't matter. They had to save her, so he took a step preparing to do whatever he could; but Hotch stopped him, again, and Rossi bristled. "Aaron, I can. . ."
"No!" Hotch yelled to be heard over him and turned to Morgan. "Get ready!"
Morgan balked. "Get ready for what?!"
"To catch!" Hotch stated as he tensed.
"Huh?" Morgan's face showed not only confusion but also fear for what his Unit chief was about to do.
"I don't have to walk to reach him," Hotch all but whispered and then jumped.
