Written for telesilla, at the sticksandsnark Rodney/Teyla Thing-a-thon 2009 on LJ. Her prompt was "AU, Teyla and Rodney investigate supernatural events (cameos by other SGA characters a plus!)"
Notes in chapter one - sequel in the works!
"No, it wasn't a tulpa, you moron! There were wings, and flying, and it was at least the size of the car. Oh, for the love of... It's not a tulpa! If you would shut up for one- Get someone else on the line!" he shouted into the phone. "Well then, stop trying to prove you're smarter than me, which you're not, and listen to what I'm telling you!"
While Rodney fought with Kavanagh, who was apparently the only member of the research department still in the office at that hour, Teyla maneuvered through the city streets. Her back ached from hunching over the wheel but she could not bring herself to stop watching the sky through the windshield. If Rodney had not heard the beat of its wings as it approached, or if they had been farther from the car... She cut off that train of thought before it could paralyze her.
"Four and a half meters, at least. No, obviously we didn't get a good look," Rodney snapped. "We were a little busy trying not to get eaten."
The car was silent for a moment as he listened to what Kavanagh said. She tried to uncurl her aching fingers from around the steering wheel, hearing her knuckles pop as she did.
"I don't think it had- Teyla, did you see the thing's head at all?"
"Only a glimpse. It was a lighter color than the rest of the body and I did not see a beak."
"Did you get that? Yeah. Okay. Call us when you find something." He threw the phone down on the floor after disconnecting. "Idiot."
Normally, Teyla would try to rationalize with him; Kavanagh was a valued member of the research team, even if his personality left a lot to be desired. But tonight she had no patience for it. The adrenaline rush was starting to wear off and she could feel her muscles beginning to tremble.
Rodney sat forward and draped his arms over the back of the passenger seat as she turned into the parking lot for their hotel and turned off the car. She could just see him out of the corner of her eye as she scanned the lot and the sky above. His hair was sticking straight up like he had been worrying it with his hands and a flush lingered along his cheekbones. Her stomach gave sudden sickening lurch as she thought how close she had been to losing him out on that road.
He reached out and smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. "You okay?"
She tried to smile and managed only a slight lift to one side of her mouth. "I will be better once we are safely indoors."
"Look," he said, then paused long enough that her throat closed and she leaned forward to check the sky again, certain that the creature was in sight. When she did not see anything out of the ordinary, she turned to face him. His eyes were downcast and his mouth twisted down on one side in a familiar grimace. She knew before he could speak again what he was about to say.
"We are not going to split up," she said.
"We have to face the facts here. This thing is targeting couples! If we split up, we'll be far more likely not to attract its attention and-"
"And we will be without backup if it does show up again," she interrupted. "If that was the creature that we seek, I do not believe tonight fits its regular pattern. It has never taken people in the same place twice."
"I... I didn't even think of that. Even when the disappearances happen in the same city, they aren't even in the same neighborhoods." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shuddered and said, "And as much as I never want to see that thing again, I really hope we're not dealing with two giant people-eating things wandering around out there. I mean, obviously I don't want to draw any conclusions until we hear back from Kavanagh or get online ourselves, but a predatory bird of that size - even if it isn't a supernatural creature - would certainly be capable of inflicting the kind of damage the blood stains indicate, as well as carrying off full-grown adults without leaving any traces."
"Not to mention that it seems to have targeted us, and the only connection to the case we have investigated so far was the bird sanctuary," Teyla added, thinking of Ann's nervous reaction to being questioned about the Andersons, even indirectly.
Rodney picked up her train of thought immediately. "Her?" he said in an incredulous tone. "Ann? You think she's connected to that thing?"
"Possibly. Or David Mason is the true connection and she knows something."
He heaved a sigh and reached forward to disengage the door locks. "Let's go up and see if anybody's got any more information for us."
They hurried across the dark parking lot, each lugging one of the boxes Halling had provided. The bright, gaudy lobby was a welcome sight and her shoulders sagged in relief as the automatic doors whooshed shut behind them. The single elevator was out of commission so they took the stairs, Rodney complaining all the way about the weight of his burden.
"What the hell did he send, lead cannonballs?" he huffed when they reached their floor.
"Anything is possible."
Rodney grumbled, "Someone needs to talk to him. There is such a thing as being too prepared."
Once they were in their room, he dropped his box with a loud thud and flopped face-first onto the bed he had previously stripped of its comforter.
"Perhaps when we return home," she ventured, "you should renew your gym membership."
His only answer was a groan.
While he rested, she checked the voicemail for both of their phones and brought him his laptop. He propped himself up against the headboard with another groan and read the emails aloud as she unpacked the supplies from Halling.
"Novak finally sent her report, which is completely useless, of course. Listen to this nonsense: 'HERMIOD calculates that there is an 81 percent likelihood that the attacks are perpetrated by a rogue dryad who becomes active in the days after unseasonably high temperatures.' I don't know why they let her keep working with that damn database; it's never been anything but wrong."
"It correctly identified that the Lavin you encountered in Buffalo was a gestational form of a Sumerian incubus," Teyla reminded him.
"Okay, you know very well that that entire situation was entirely misrepresented!" he began before being interrupted by the sound of a new message arriving in his inbox. "Oh, hey, Kavanagh's actually got something."
She decanted a plastic bottle of holy water into two flasks, then murmured a quick blessing over a new box of salt-packed silver bullets while she waited for him to finish reading the email.
"Huh," he said, finally. "You know anything about la lechusa?"
"I know that lechuza is Spanish for owl but I am not aware of any other use of the word."
She joined him on the bed and he tilted the computer so she could see the image he had pulled up. It was a crude black and white line drawing of a dark, hulking bird with a pale humanoid face. The eyes were huge and pitch black. The claws were long and wickedly sharp, and the artist had drawn something dripping from them and collecting in a puddle under its feet. There was nothing to indicate of the size of the creature. A shiver ran down Teyla's spine as she mentally compared the drawing with what they had seen in the glare of the headlights.
"So apparently Kavanagh's not entirely useless," Rodney said, "but not by much. He's managed to track down some newspaper clippings detailing sightings and encounters with this thing that aren't completely insane, but he's also included a bunch of crap about thunderbirds and pterodactyls."
"Let us concentrate on the lechusa then. Did he find anything that mentions ways to destroy it?"
"Ah, no. We should be so lucky. All I've got are a couple of quotes from a drunken hillbilly who says the lechusa ate his camper van, and..." He paused to scroll down the page. "And a picture some guy took with a Polaroid that looks more like someone's throwing a frozen turkey in the air. I take back what I said about these not being completely insane, by the way."
"Is the lechusa a wholly animal creature or is there a human component? Perhaps some sort of controller who sends it out to hunt?"
"His summary says there's a Mexican, or possibly Texan, legend that it's a witch who transforms herself into an owl but retains her face, but that's it."
"He specifically says witch?" At his nod, she asked, "Does that mean it is always a woman, or could a man have this ability as well?"
"Well, shape-changer legends are pretty much always about how evil women are. Ow!" He rubbed the spot on his arm that she had just punched. "I didn't say I believed that crap!"
"I did not say that you did, but sometimes the lesson needs reinforcing."
Rodney harrumphed. "What I was going to say is that there's no reason it couldn't be a man, although it does raise interesting questions about inheritable traits and whether the ability to shapeshift is dominant or recessive." He drifted off into silence, a slight furrow to his brow.
She took the laptop from him. "You can spend a full day of theorizing with Radek when we return."
"If we re- Never mind. So, you think it's Mason?"
"I would not rule out either Ann or Mason at this point. It is clear that we provoked one or both of them with our visit to the sanctuary today. We should return tomorrow to see if we can speak with Mason."
"Yes, good idea. Even if he's not there, we can poke around the grounds to see if there's any sign of a bird that could star in its own SciFi Channel movie. Oh, that reminds me: did you set the DVR for the Friday night shows?"
"Let us just look to see if there is any way to incapacitate this creature. We can talk about your worrying attachment to implausible television shows later."
---
The visitor center was locked and dark when they arrived early the next morning. A faded sign taped to the inside of the window directed them to a self-service information station at the nearest trail head and apologized for any inconvenience. A smaller, less faded sign was stuck to the door and reminded people that donations of any size would help to return the park to normal operating hours.
Rodney tried the door anyway, then shrugged when it did not open. "It works sometimes," he said. "You'd be surprised how many people forget to actually lock the door."
"Would those be the same people who frequently trip over Sheppard's feet when they attempt to avoid speaking to either of you?"
He narrowed his eyes at her and stalked off, but she noticed that he did not bother with a denial.
"Let's get going. I don't know if lechusas can only shift at night and I'd really rather not be wandering around the woods all day trying to find out."
They set off down a different path than they had taken the previous day. It wound back through the woods, away from the river and the few people braving the cold, grey morning for a few moments on an observation platform. Teyla took point and unzipped her coat far enough that she could easily withdraw her revolver should the need arise. Rodney trailed along behind her, waving the Sneakoscope and several other devices through the air. Every few feet or so, he called for her to halt while he recalibrated or pulled another device from his backpack.
As they slowly advanced deeper into the preserve, she kept her attention trained on the trees that surrounded them. The bare limbs waved in the wind and dry, yellowed leaves drifted down to skate across the gravel, but nothing else disturbed the peace of the morning. There were no squirrels or rabbits nosing through the underbrush, no birds wheeling overhead, none of the usual and comforting sounds of the world going about its business around them. Even the shift and crunch of stones under her boots seemed hushed and still.
"Do you find it odd that we have seen no birds in this bird sanctuary?"
"Hmm," was Rodney's only reply.
When she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw that he was scooping dirt out of the path and pouring it into a small evidence bag. "Have you found something?"
"Maybe. I think so, anyway. I noticed the ground was disturbed under that oak and it sort of continues here across the path and down into that ravine on the other side."
Teyla went to him, following the movement of his arm as he traced a line across the ground, then pointed off into the distance. From the new vantage point next to him, she could see what she had missed earlier as she walked over it. A shallow groove was worn into the dirt under the overgrown grass, mostly hidden by decaying leaves. Where it bisected the gravel, there was almost no trace of it - which meant it was old enough to have been disturbed by many pairs of feet as visitors moved through the sanctuary.
"Maybe three weeks old, you think?" he asked as he stuffed his equipment and evidence bag back into his backpack and shouldered it once again.
"Perhaps. There has been rain recently, and snowfall, so it could be less than that. Shall we make our way down to that ravine?"
Nodding, he cinched the straps of the backpack tighter where they ran back under his arms and stepped off the path. She fell in behind him, pulling her weapon from its holster as she did. Hearing the slide of metal on leather, Rodney pulled his own gun and gingerly started down the slope.
Teyla quickly overtook him as he picked his way from one small tree to the next, careful not to overbalance with the load on his back. She reached the bottom of the ravine and saw that the trail they were following turned and headed north, parallel to the path above. It zigzagged through the rocks and bushes and curved around a bend. A few feet beyond that, it turned sharply to the right when the ground started to slope upward again. She climbed up a few feet, high enough to see that it had not continued on the higher ground.
She slid back down the hill to where Rodney was bent over the grass at the end of the trail.
"I cannot see where it leads from here," she told him.
"I don't think it does," he replied and pointed to the ground around him. "The ground here is trampled, and see how there are fewer leaves over this area? I think this is where she transformed and carried off whatever she was dragging."
"It could be 'he'," Teyla reminded him.
Rodney waved a hand at her. "Whichever. Do you think we should keep moving in this direction?"
She tried to orient herself to the path they had been following earlier, then nodded. "It cannot hurt."
"Oh yeah, there's the enthusiasm we need," he said as he pushed himself to his feet.
They tramped through the woods for another hour, every once in a while picking up what they thought was a sign of the trail they had been following. Only once did they come within sight of one of the paths that wound through the sanctuary. Rodney pulled a Powerbar out of his coat pocket and broke it roughly in half, giving her the larger of the two pieces. She accepted it gratefully; the coffee and doughnut he had insisted on picking up from Tim Horton's before heading out had been barely enough to break her out of the morning fog.
She had not slept well the night before. She had tossed and turned for hours until Rodney mumbled into his pillow that he would tie her to a chair if she did not stop moving. She thumped him lightly on the back then moved to the desk to go through the meager information they had on confronting a lechusa. He stomped over less than half an hour later, complaining that her typing was worse than her thrashing, and pulled her back to the bed where she curled against him and called on every meditative trick she knew to slow her mind. As she started to slide into sleep, he draped a heavy arm and leg over her and snored in her ear until she dropped off.
Standing in a small clearing, she felt the exhaustion dragging at her limbs. She rolled her head back, listening to the crackle and pop of her spine and staring unseeing up into the canopy. "Rodney," she called to where he was standing, arms akimbo, staring off into the distance. "I think that perhaps we should begin making our way back to the-"
She broke off as she realized what was directly over her head.
"Oh, finally!" Rodney cried. "We're never going to find anything out here. We need some kind of topographic map of the terrain, and some compasses. Maybe even a GPS, though I don't know what good it's really going to do us, wandering around in the middle of nowhere. What are you looking at?" He craned his head back and cursed.
"My thoughts exactly."
Twenty or thirty feet above them, a massive nest spanned the top of a thick, gnarled cottonwood. She could not be certain but it looked like the pictures of bald eagle eyries she had seen while researching the lechusa legend. Half of the nest was starting to slip down out of the tree and huge holes were knocked all through the structure. She looked around the base of the tree, seeing broken sticks and chunks of dried mud scattered in a semi-circle under the nest. Large brown feathers, small white ones, and pellets as large as her fist were mixed in with the detritus.
"Could this have been storm damage? I have read that the size of the nests makes them vulnerable to high winds," she said to Rodney as she knelt to pick apart several of the pellets. Hollow bird bones, pieces of feathers, and delicate, nearly translucent fish scales were all that remained of the eagles' prey.
"There's no visible damage to any of the trees - no shearing or breakage, no bark stripped off, no scorching. I wonder if.... Eagles mate for life, right?"
Teyla considered his words, hoping she was following his logic as well as she was able. "You think it was the lechusa that did this?"
"Why not? It's obviously got some kind of problem with couples, and the lack of wildlife here in the park might explain why there were so many gaps between disappearances: it's been eating in its own backyard. You know, kind of like that vampire town we uncovered down in Texas who stuck to their own livestock - oh, what was that guy's name, the one with the camper van and the fake teeth...."
While he continued, they started hiking north again and soon reached the marshy bank of the Bow. They moved upriver, watching for signs of life around them. Teyla hoped to see one or both of the eagles gliding on thermals far overhead and felt ashamed of the sense of loss she felt for two birds when she had thus far managed only a desire to discover what had happened to the human victims.
The trees and undergrowth gradually thinned around them and ahead a large red brick house came into view. She remembered that it was the former home of the family who had donated the land for the sanctuary. It had been restored by the city, with shining white columns flanking the wraparound porch and new paint on every wooden surface she could see. A sport utility vehicle was parked at the top of the paved driveway. They jogged nearer and Rodney peered through the windows, then tried the driver's side door. It opened and he leaned in to rifle through the center console.
"Found a parking pass for the university and David Mason's insurance card," he told her when he emerged with a few small papers clutched in his hand. "Did you find something?" he asked when he realized she had moved away.
"The spoor is relatively fresh, no more than a few days old," she explained when Rodney joined her under a tree near where the driveway straightened. "I believe there may also be human remains in these pellets but I cannot confirm it here."
Rodney's entire face nearly turned inside out with disgust. "And you're touching it?" he squawked. "Oh my God, you've been doing this the whole time we've been here, haven't you? I thought those were rocks you were picking up!"
Teyla wiped the offending hand clean on the grass, then used the other to unzip Rodney's backpack and pull a sanitary wipe from the package inside.
"Wait, human remains?" He leaned closer to examine the bones she had sorted into piles.
She pointed to the largest of the bones she had found. "These are from a human hand or foot, are they not?"
When he nodded, she pulled an evidence bag from his pack and flipped the bones inside without touching them. She stuffed the sealed bag into her pocket and pulled her weapon out again. Rodney tightened his grip on his own gun.
"We need to check inside the house," she told him, then moved quickly across the exposed yard and up onto the porch.
While she looked in through one of the windows, Rodney tried the front door. It swung open easily and he shot her a look. She nodded and shifted to a two-handed grip, then stood with her back against the wall to one side of the open door.
"David Mason?" Rodney called into the house. "We have a few questions about your work here."
There was no response. He signaled to her that he was going inside and she fell into step behind him. Inside, they spread out to clear each room as they passed through it. Everywhere they looked were signs of human habitation - magazines piled on an end table, takeout food containers on the kitchen counter, a shaving kit on the back of the toilet in the downstairs bath - but no one was home. Teyla started up the stairs when Rodney made a short chopping motion with his free hand and pointed at his right ear, then the floor. She froze and tilted her head to hear whatever it was that had caught his attention.
From below, there was a muffled banging noise. She would have dismissed it as coming from the plumbing or the furnace but it stopped suddenly and then repeated in the same pattern after a few seconds.
They ran for the front door and down around to the back of the house.
"There!" he shouted when they saw the entrance to the cellar. A large, heavy padlock, so new that it gleamed in the early afternoon light, secured the doors set on an incline close to the ground.
She took aim at the lock and Rodney moved back out of range of any flying metal or ricochets. She pulled the trigger and the lock flew apart.
Behind her, Rodney yelled, "Teyla, get down!"
She had just enough time to see something huge bearing down on her as she threw herself to the ground. She heard him fire and everything went dark.
---
She awoke on a cold, bumpy dirt floor. Rodney was sitting by her knees, bare-chested and shivering. She tried to sit up, stifling a gasp as a lance of pain stabbed into her side.
"No, no, don't move." Rodney put a hand to her shoulder and gently pushed her back down to the floor. "I think I winged her, no pun intended, but not before she got you. It's not bad but I had to sacrifice my shirt to stop the bleeding and you hit the ground pretty hard. There's a knot on the side of your head but it hasn't bled at all, thankfully."
Teyla tried to looked down at herself. He had covered her in his jacket, presumably to ward off shock from the blood loss. Her head was swimming and it took a moment for her to speak. "Are we in the cellar?" she asked.
"It was the only place I could think to move you. I, uh, left all our stuff outside, though." He paused then said, sadly, "Including the guns. Every time I've tried to go up there, the lechusa's been within sight."
She closed her eyes and regretted it immediately as the floor tilted and spun. When she managed to open them again, Rodney's face was hovering above her.
"Okay, you really have to stop doing that," he said, a hint of panic in his voice.
"How long have I been out?" She tried to push his jacket off of her but he kept pushing it back into place.
"At least four or five hours. The sun's gone down outside and the temperature's dropping."
"Then stop trying to cover me and put your coat back on," she gritted out as she shoved the jacket to one side again. She pressed a hand to her side, feeling his sweater tied around her torso. Underneath that layer, she could feel his shirt, bundled into a makeshift bandage and stiff with dried blood. She thought longingly of the painkillers and antibiotics tucked into his pack.
He did not argue, for a change, and hurriedly stuffed his arms into the sleeves and zipped it closed. "David Mason's down here too. At least I think it's Mason. He's in pretty bad shape; dehydrated, bruises and lacerations, not making much sense. I tried to call Weir and Beckett but I'm not getting a signal down here."
Teyla pushed herself up onto her elbows, slowly this time and breathing deeply through her nose as the pain tried to overwhelm her. Rodney shifted to put an arm behind her, holding her upright. After a few minutes, she became accustomed to the slow burning throb in her side and could think somewhat clearly.
"We have to get him out of here," she said.
Rodney sighed. "Did you miss the part about that thing waiting to take off my head every time I looked outside?"
"We cannot stay down here indefinitely, and now that we know Ann can change into the lechusa during the day, there is no point to delaying. Help me up."
Together they shuffled over to the wooden steps that led up and outside. Teyla kept one arm wrapped tight against her wound and bit down on her lip whenever the pain flared, which was with nearly every movement. She clung to the rickety wooden post at the bottom of the steps as Rodney scrambled up and crouched just below the doorway.
"I don't see her," he whispered. "And my backpack isn't as far away as I thought."
"Do not go out there," she hissed.
He backed down from the opening. "I'd rather eat a key lime pie than go out there. Do you see any long poles or broom handles or anything like that?"
From her vantage point, she saw a push broom leaning against the wall under the steps he was crouching on. She gathered herself with a few deep breaths and then leaned as far as she was able in order to grab it. Rodney snatched it out of her hands once she had it clear of the stairs and crawled back up to the doors. He flattened himself on the top few steps and threw the head of the broom outside. After a few minutes of cursing, he managed to snag one of the straps and drag it back to their shelter.
She had to move quickly to get out of his way as he nearly tumbled back down the steps in his haste. She propped her shoulder against the post again and panted through the pain. Behind her, Rodney was tossing things out of the pack without a care for their cost or function. She heard something land with a thud and something else crack against it and winced. Before she could say anything, Rodney was wrapping his arms around her and easing her down to sit on the bottom step. He fumbled with a bottle and poured several capsules into her cupped hand, then broke open a blister pack of antibiotic tablets. Teyla dry-swallowed them all and slapped Rodney's hands away when he tried to untie the sweater.
"Leave it," she said. "We do not have the time."
"But I should clean it with the-"
"We must hurry, Rodney. Once we are away from here, our first destination will be the nearest hospital. But we must go now."
His mouth opened and closed a few times but he ultimately did not argue. She willed the painkillers to begin working their magic quickly and shakily rose to her feet. He hurried to scoop up most of what he had discarded and toss it back into the bag.
"Help me put the backpack on then help Mason to get outside," she directed.
When he walked away to the back of the cellar, she turned and mounted the steps. Her hand felt empty and useless without her weapon and she poked her head up far enough to see it lying in the grass a few feet away. She scanned the sky and the trees at the edge of the lawn, but the lechusa was not in sight.
She heard movement behind her at the foot of the steps. Darting a quick look back, she was shocked by the sight of David Mason. He looked nearly gray in the gloom and was sagging against Rodney's hold. His skin was stretched taut across his face and he looked like he had aged a decade or more since the photographs they had seen in the Andersons' file.
"I do not see the creature outside," she told them. "When you clear the steps, head for the truck. Are the keys inside?"
Mason mumbled something and Rodney translated. "On the floor on the driver's side."
She braced herself against the pain that leaped up to engulf her when she rose to her feet and darted outside, first to scoop her revolver off the ground then to head for the relative safety of the SUV. Rodney came panting along behind her, Mason making a long low moan as they crossed the lawn to the front of the house.
The truck was mere feet away when she heard the loud screech of the lechusa echoing from above. She dove forward and nearly vomited as she hit the ground and every nerve in her side screamed in pain. She fought through it and scrambled on her hands and knees to crouch down in the driveway next to the rear wheel. Rodney was pelting toward her across the lawn, Mason stumbling along beside him. Behind them, the lechusa was beginning to dive down, talons outstretched. It was dark brown, with a wingspan that blotted out half the sky between the house and the trees.
Teyla pulled up her gun and sighted the creature with one elbow propped on the rear bumper of the truck. The sight of Ann's face atop the feathered body, her skin mottled and dark with rage, rattled her and she missed her chance for a clean shot. It dropped lower behind the two men and screeched again. She shouted to Rodney who put his head down and used both hands to throw Mason forward. Mason skidded on his chest through the grass then scrabbled weakly across the pavement and collapsed beside her.
The lechusa drew even with Rodney and threw its wings and tail back to slow its flight as it flexed its feet over his shoulders. He screamed and dropped to his knees, rolling to the side and away from the talons. His jacket shredded in its grip and Teyla saw bright blood well up and start to cascade down his back.
She rolled away from the safety of the car, ignoring the burn in her side, and came up into a shooting position on her knees on the driveway. The kick of the revolver set her whole body to vibrating but the painkillers had kicked in enough to dull the wave of pain. The creature shrieked and flew backward in the air, wings beating uselessly as a dark bloom of blood spread rapidly down the bedraggled plumage of its chest and it plummeted to the ground.
She yanked open one of the doors and pushed Mason inside. He flopped boneless down onto the seat and she slammed the door behind him. She turned back to find Rodney still sprawled on the grass. Her heart flew up into her throat and she almost gave in to the panic clawing at her before she saw that he was slowly pushing himself up on all fours. She hurried over to him, keeping her gun trained on the spot where the lechusa had fallen.
He was on his feet by the time she was close enough to touch him. Heedless of the threat the lechusa might still pose, she threw her arms around Rodney hard enough to make them both moan in pain as they jostled their injuries. He ran his uninjured hand over her hair; she pressed a kiss against the pulse in his neck, trying not to bump her chin against his shoulder.
"Give me a couple of those painkillers and I will love you forever," he said and patted the backpack she still wore with his good hand. "I won't even mention what I'll do for you if you patch up this shoulder."
A giggle bubbled up through her throat and she did not bother to try to catch it back. She was shaky with adrenaline and relief at the feel of Rodney, big and solid and mostly whole under her hands. She released him finally and turned around so he could fish the small bottle out of the bag. When she did, she caught a glimpse of movement from the grass where the lechusa lay. She snapped the revolver up to shoulder height and trained it on the creature.
Rodney followed her gaze. "Of course it's still alive," he muttered.
Teyla walked slowly toward the creature. It struggled weakly, trying to get up. Ann's face was twisted in pain and her body was only part of the way back to human. Feathers straggled down the side of her neck and chest, then down her arms. Her bare legs ended in taloned feet that opened and closed uselessly in the grass.
"What's going on, where am I?" she whispered, then coughed and shuddered. Her chest was covered in blood seeping from the gunshot wound above her left breast and only rose and fell on the right side.
Teyla dropped to her knees and fumbled with the sweater tied around her, pulling it free and wadding it up against the hole in Ann's chest.
"Just lie still," she told her. "We are at Inglewood. Do you remember how you got here?"
Ann squinted up into the sky. She moved her lips but nothing came out, and then she was coughing again, gasping for breath, and red bubbles of blood spilled from her mouth.
Teyla pressed harder, willing the blood to stop soaking her hands. "Rodney, call for help!" she cried.
Ann's eyes rolled back and she started to convulse. Her chest was rising fitfully under Teyla's hands as she struggled for breath. Rodney fell heavily to the ground next to her, his left arm wrapped tight around his torso.
"They won't get here in time," he said, putting his hand over hers. "Hold her hand. Let her know she's not alone."
She shifted back, easing off the makeshift bandage as Rodney bore down in her place. She ran a hand down Ann's arm, the soft yet bristly feel of the feathers bringing tears to her eyes. She clutched the woman's fingers in her own, and smoothed back the hair and short feathers around her face.
Ann's convulsions were slowing and her gasps for air were farther and farther apart. It felt as if an eternity passed between each labored breath, until finally they ceased. Her hand fell slack in Teyla's grip.
Teyla bowed her head and whispered a short prayer to ease the woman's passage into what lay ahead for her. She was barely aware of Rodney rising and pulling her to her feet, then helping her into the truck. Gradually, she came back to herself, realizing that Rodney was repeating her name as he drove out of the park and onto the city streets.
"We need to find an emergency room," he was saying. "Can you do that? I need you to remember where the nearest hospital is. Are you with me?"
She dimly remembered marking one on the map and directed him through the streets as best she could. In the back seat, Mason groaned and she snapped to attention, turning to look at him. He was still sprawled face-down across the bench seat and his skin was paler than it had been at the foot of the cellar stairs.
"Mason, David, can you sit up?"
He moaned in response and Rodney snapped, "Forget about him, you're bleeding again."
She looked down at her side, surprised to see the ragged tears in her flesh and blood spilling down to stain the already stiff fabric of her trousers. She pressed her hands against the wounds and tried not to gag at the hot, wet feeling of blood and bare muscle where skin should have been.
Rodney took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to push her back into her seat, then took the next corner so fast she could have sworn they tipped up onto two wheels. Within moments, he was braking under a canopy and tumbling out of the vehicle, yelling for help.
A virtual army of orderlies and nurses and one doctor in a clean white lab coat spilled out of the hospital's doors. They pulled Teyla out of the truck and lifted her onto one of the gurneys. She saw Rodney being lowered into a wheelchair, and someone opening the back door and reaching in to Mason. Lights flashed by overhead as she was wheeled into the building, down a long corridor, and into a small, curtained exam area. A nurse with a broad, dark face leaned over her and shouted questions, then another took her place and cut away what remained of her jacket and shirt. Something jabbed into the crook of her elbow and a burning sensation spread out in its wake and pulled her down into the dark.
---
Rodney was asleep in the chair next to her narrow bed when she awoke. His left arm was in a sling, the shoulder bulky with padding under the scrub top he was wearing. She rolled cautiously to her side and studied him, looking for more damage that she might have missed. His hands were clean and white but her rusty dried blood still caked his nail beds. With a start, she realized that some of it was Ann's blood as well.
His face was peaceful, the lines between his eyes and on his forehead smoothed out in slumber. His neck was tilted at an awkward angle and his mouth was closed, relaxed. She wanted to reach across the space between them and run her fingers along the downward curve of his lips but the IV pinched uncomfortably under her skin when she tried it. She settled for stretching her arm down the length of her body, fingertips just barely brushing his where he had rested his hand on the mattress.
After a long while - she could not determine exactly how long; her internal clock was muddied by whatever drugs they had coursing through her bloodstream - he stirred and came awake in a rush. His head snapped to attention and he bolted half out of his chair before his surroundings caught up with him. He sat back with a soft smile and moved his hand to hold hers.
They did not speak. Teyla was content to let the silence spin out between them until she slipped back into sleep.
The next time she surfaced, Rodney was pacing by the window of the private room, cell phone pressed to his ear.
"I don't really care what you have to do to make it happen," he barked. "Sir. Just get us out of here. That detective's already been back twice and I can't hold him off much longer."
"Rodney," Teyla called, her voice froggy with disuse.
He spun on his heel, eyes wide and joyous as his anger melted away. "She's awake," he shouted into the phone, then hit a button and dropped it on the chair. He rushed over to her, taking her hand in his and rubbing a thumb over her skin. "Seriously, I already told you you have to stop doing that."
"I will try," she promised with a weak smile. She felt as though she had been dragged backward through a thousand hedges, weary and bruised from her head down to her feet. "How long was I out this time?"
"Oh, just a day. You did wake up a few times, mostly to tell me to pick up my socks or ask for more water."
She was not sure she believed him until she noticed that his eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw shadowed with at least a full day's growth of beard. "Fever?"
"And blood loss. Apparently my first aid skills aren't what they should be."
"You will get no complaints from me on that score."
"Exactly what I told them! Them being the Nurse Ratched wannabes who keep parading through here and criticizing my technique when they take your vitals."
"What do they know?" she mumbled and let her eyes drift closed.
"I knew there was a reason I married you."
She could hear more than a trace of a smug smile in his voice. "How is your shoulder?"
This time, there was a definite whiny tone to his words. "It feels like someone put a pair of vise grips in a fire then tried to tear off my arm with them. And I have to keep my arm immobilized, which means I have to do everything with my right hand. I should have been ambidextrous," he grumbled. He dropped into the chair, then winced and shifted to one side when he realized he had sat on his phone.
"What about Dr. Mason?"
"Ah, well, funny story there."
She waited for him to continue and, when he did not, opened her eyes to fix him with a look.
He squeezed her hand a little tighter and tried to give her a reassuring smile. He got about halfway to a grimace before giving up. "They started to treat him for dehydration and exposure - apparently he'd been down in the cellar for more than a couple of nights - but when the daytime nurse went in on her first rounds, he was gone. They think he slipped out during shift change."
"Why would he-"
"The, uh, detective who's been harassing me since you weren't awake to protect me? He told me this afternoon that Mason and Ann were related, half-siblings or fourth cousins or something. Of course, he also thinks that Mason skipped out because he's the one who shot Ann and attacked us."
Teyla tried to make the pieces of the story fit together but her mind was too thick to allow her to catch up. "But he did not attack us," she said slowly.
"No, that was definitely all Ann. But see, if they were related by blood, there's a chance that they were both able to effect the change. It's like I was saying the other night about inheritable traits. Odds are pretty good that this kind of ability runs in families, like with werewolves and that French thing Lorne's always running into. And, Mason sneaking off definitely points to that conclusion; why else would he run unless he had something to do with at least a few of the disappearances?"
He continued on, weaving together facts and suppositions in what she recognized as his first attempt at writing up a case report. She was too tired to follow so she played her fingers along the skin of his hand and wrist and let him talk until something caught her attention. "We are just going to let Mason go?"
"He's already gone, completely and utterly disappeared. Cadman's been running all of his account numbers and relatives and coming up empty. The only way we're going to find out where he's gone is if people start turning up missing again."
"That is unacceptable! We cannot sit back and let him start again in some other area!" The heart rate monitor started beeping faster and she drew in a few long breaths through her nose, trying to calm herself before someone came to investigate her condition.
"I don't like it either, but that was Sheppard's decree," Rodney said with a shrug. "You can take it up with him when he gets here. We're not giving up entirely, though: Bates and Lorne are going to stick close to Coeur d'Alene for a few weeks, see if they can pick up Mason's trail between there and here."
"John is coming here?"
"That was him on the phone, calling from the airport. Apparently he got confused by all the cowboy hats and couldn't find the car rental center."
"Rodney," she said in a warning tone.
"Sorry. No more Sheppard-bashing while he's here, I promise."
"That is a good enough start, I suppose. Will he be helping us to leave?"
"Yeah, he's waiting there for Beckett, who's getting in on the next flight from Denver. Here's something you probably didn't know, since I certainly didn't until a few hours ago: he's apparently licensed to practice medicine in like six provinces. He's going to harass the hospital into releasing us into his care and then it's straight back home."
He stared over her head, seeming to turn something over in his mind.
"You are not allowed to ask him to start prescribing you medications that can be filled for cheaper up here," she told him.
"Oh sure, leave it to you to take all the fun out of prescription drug trafficking."
She drifted off again into the medicated haze, still swirling her thumb over the soft skin of his wrist, in the middle of his long list of reasons why buying muscle relaxants and Epi-Pens over the border would be more cost-effective in the long run.