Thank you for the lovely reviews. Also to autumngold, sorry I couldn't send a proper reply. Please continue, I loved reading them, and every one helps me to continue this.
Black Moon Rising - Divination
Mac feels his body stiffen. Without moving he stretches his senses into the cool and dusky room. Where is he? What could have happened? He feels like something is resting on his head, and the faint light of his alarm clock is not visible. He bends his wrist slightly to decipher the position of the hands on his watch. Past the third hour of the night. He feels the awkward position he's lying in. He remembers snatches of the dream, a cloud of dazzling light. Then it hits him. He falls back down to earth. Stella.
Her hand has slipped from his. He remembers the sudden feeling of cold. He realizes the weight on his head must be hers. His hand travels up and down the sheet, searching for hers. He finds it, feeling cold. He moves his hand further up, brushing over his hair, slipping his hand between his head and hers. Carefully he sits up and looks at her in the semi-dawn, her cheek resting against the back of his hand. Cool and soft.
She looks pale and exhausted. He calls her gently, no perceptible reaction. He watches intently, dawn stepping closer. And he sees the change. She lies still. No more spasms seizing her. She's taking deep breaths. He calls her again. Her eyelids flicker, and for a moment her eyes stay open, but unaware. Then she's gone again, back in the hold of sleep. He takes her hand again, feels her fingers fit into his.
-o-
Flack picks up the receiver after the second ring. It's Angell.
"Hey. I've just passed through missing persons on the way, and I think there is a woman here who can identify our first victim. Could you bring the folder over?"
A little later Flack enters the other office. Angell sits at a small table together with a woman probably in her late thirties. "So you think you know what happened to Mr. Jones?" she asks immediately, looking straight into his eyes.
He looks at Angell and she nods at him. He pulls a picture of the victim from the folder and hands it to the woman. She studies it carefully. Then she sighs. "Yeah, that's him, Gavin Jones. Can you tell me what happened to him?"
"Unfortunately, no." Angell responds. "May I ask why you didn't report him missing earlier?"
"I simply didn't know. I'm only his cleaning lady. I come in every Tuesday, and I have my own key. It happens sometimes that he's not there, but twice in a row … I got concerned. And I noticed that nothing had been used or moved over the past week."
"I guess you don't really know much about Mr. Jones then. Whether he was ill for example, or had received any threats?" Flack inquires.
"Sorry, no." the woman says, "And I'm sorry if I have cleaned anything away that could have helped you find out."
"Don't worry about that, you couldn't have known." Angell reassures her, feeling certain that if the crime had occurred in Mr. Jones' home, the woman would have noticed and come earlier.
"Imagine that," Flack says after the woman has left, "being missed only by your cleaning lady. Kind of sad, isn't it?"
"Well, it's better than not to be missed at all. But don't worry," Angell repeats with a smile, "that will never happen to you."
"Or you." he smiles back.
-o-
Mac shifts a little in his chair. He feels a faint movement in his hand. "Stella?"
Slowly her eyes open. Dazed she begins to look around. Taking in the room that still lies in gloom, despite the sun being up. The curtains drawn. She recognizes her surroundings.
"Damn," she mutters hoarsely, "not again!"
He replies with a smile and a gentle pressure of his hand. She looks at him, her eyes still worn.
"What did I do this time?" Her voice is sore but she's determined to use it.
"I don't think it was anything you did." he says softly.
"Yeah, well, I get this feeling that I'm attracting trouble. Especially the kind that gets me into hospital." She looks around again with a decidedly annoyed glint in her eyes.
"You know, I once read that God tests people because he thinks they can handle it."
She raises her eyebrows. "Somehow that sounds like there's going to be more coming my way."
-o-
He places the cup of coffee down on the table. He can't shake the feeling that in its taste there is a hint of dishwashing detergent. He looks around at the other people in the place. A cheap coffee shop. He's amused by the fact that the other customers seem to be avoiding him. One of the games that can drive his boredom away, see how close they dare get to him. Most turn away when they see the look in his eyes.
One makes it closer. He looks up. "Hey, Raff! What brought you here?"
"Peter." The man called Raff jerks a hand through his shimmer of hair. "What shouldn't? Since when do you need a reason for something? Especially when it's not you who does it."
"Just sit down." Peter has given up trying to understand Raff long ago. But maybe that is exactly why they are friends, or at least pals.
-o-
Mac opens the curtains and sits down again.
"How are things going outside?" Stella turns to Mac after having looked out the window. "Are Danny and Lindsay talking?"
"I don't know." he shrugs.
"Mac," she eyes him, "have you been here all of the time?"
He feels the still smoldering concern crumble into ashes of defensiveness. He looks down. "No, I did take a walk."
"Because who made you?" She follows his glance over to a bag and recognizes it as Sid's. She smiles. "Mac, really, you didn't have to watch over me all of the time."
She sees him hesitate, wondering if he should tell her. Tell her how he had thought he had seen her. Had she maybe called out to him? And that strange woman he had met in the corridor. And just this case, with some of the victims having been ill too.
"Mac," she looks at him quizzically, "you didn't think I might get staked, did you?" It doesn't sound as funny as she had meant it to. His look chills her.
He swallows. Her hand reaches for his. And he tells her. Feeling the firm touch of her hand keeping the visions at bay.
-o-
Danny turns on his heels to survey the flat. "Yep, looks like a typical bachelor's place." he comments, "Bet it wouldn't be as clean though had the lady noticed earlier that she was working for naught."
Lindsay looks at him. "Dreadful that nobody else noticed he was gone. The neighborhood doesn't seem to be very caring." She bites her tongue, but if her words bring up bad memories he doesn't let it show. "Let's see what we can find."
Danny does another spin. "You take the living room and the bedroom; I take the bathroom and the kitchen, okay?"
"Okay." Lindsay walks into the living room first. She looks at the walls, only a few posters hanging there. A number of pictures on the sideboard. Gavin Jones, alone on almost all of them, even on the ones as a boy.
"Hey," Danny's voice comes from the bathroom, "I think I may have found the drugs he had been taking. Looks pretty random to me, but maybe Hawkes can figure them out. Plus, some are prescription so we can get his medical record."
"Good." Lindsay says. She's going through the contents of a drawer. Some more photos, these together with friends. Why did he decide to put them away? A driving license that looks like it hadn't been used in a long time, shoved into the furthest corner. She thinks of checking his coat, no wallet in there, she frowns. She returns to the drawer. Pieces of writing. They look familiar.
-o-
Adam blinks at the screen. He's worked his way through hours and hours of surveillance tapes Flack and Angell have brought in. He wonders how much longer he will have to hold on, and if he will find something in the end. Thinking of Stella and knowing that she's doing better helps him a little. He blinks again.
Kendall pretends to yawn as she walks past. "The Hot Ticket, sure, maybe if you burned it."
Adam chuckles, much to her delight. She doesn't like to see him sad. He thinks that she's right about the place. Not much going on even on the busy Friday night. It makes him wonder why Mr. Anderson kept all the recordings. Adam looks at the stack of tapes on his left. He looks back at the screen. Maybe …, he zooms in. He turns to another computer and types something.
"Found something?" Kendall is behind him again. "Whoa!" she stares at the other screen. "Well, that explains a few things. Casting calls for vampire slayers."
-o-
Sitting on the bed Stella looks out the window. The sun has wandered from her view a while ago. She thinks about what Mac had told her the day before. Interrupted again and again by doctors and nurses examining her and still finding nothing, he had stayed on and on. Even after he had told her everything he didn't want to leave, and she didn't want to make him leave.
No new victims, and Sinclair would be deterred if he showed up. No hurry to get to the lab. They had watched the sun rise together, coloring a flock of shapeless clouds in a frosty pink. It seems like all the sun can do today; its rays transport no warmth. A knock draws Stella's attention to the door.
"Hey Sid." she greets the ME cheerfully, "Thanks for taking care of Mac."
"Any time." Sid smiles, genuinely glad to see her so much better. "And I've also got something for you." He pulls a laptop from his bag. "They have internet access down in the cafeteria, and I heard you'd like to do some research."
"Oh yes." Her eyes light up, happy about anything she can do to pass the time in this place. And maybe help the case along too.
"Would you like to go there now?" Sid asks. "The coffee can't compare to my wife's but it is quite drinkable."
Stella gets up slowly. The world still spins out of control when she moves too fast. "Can you give me some news on the lab?"
"I'm not sure how much progress they are making, but you got Danny and Lindsay to talk." Her smile tells him he picked a good piece of information. "There's also been some progress with the case. We have the identity of our first victim. Turns out that Gavin Jones too had been ill. He died of a hereditary heart disease, as all of his relatives on his father's side had. No way could I have discovered that after the stake had destroyed most of the tissue." Sid frowns at the memory of some clown getting in his way.
"You think he knew that he was dying?"
"Definitely." Sid confirms. "And Lindsay has determined that he had written that copy of the serenity prayer himself."
-o-
"Over here." Stella calls out as she sees Mac in the door of the cafeteria. She had asked Sid to tell him where to find her. She feels he has been worried enough over the past few days.
He walks over and sits down beside her, glancing at the laptop. "So you got right to it?"
"Seemed like a good idea. And" she pushes aside the concern she feels building up again inside of him, "I feel up to it, really! Whatever it was I had seems to be going as quickly as it came."
He hopes that is the truth, he wants to believe her. "What have you found out?"
"Well, you said that what the woman said sounded rhythmic, like poetry. And also, some of the words you picked up sounded old-fashioned to me. So I thought maybe she was reciting something. There was a line that you remembered, 'e che la mente nostra …', so I simply searched that."
"And?" he's curious.
She hits a button to make the screensaver go away. "I think that all she said was from Dante's Purgatory, Canto IX."
Mac's eyes are drawn to the screen, slipping from line to line, recognizing the ones he had heard before. Gliding onwards to the translation of those bits.
'With gems her forehead all relucent was,
…
And of the steps, with which she mounts, the Night
Had taken two in that place where we were,
And now the third was bending down its wings;
…
Just at the hour when her sad lay begins
The little swallow, near unto the morning,
Perchance in memory of her former woes,
And when the mind of man, a wanderer
More from the flesh, and less by thought imprisoned,
Almost prophetic in its visions is,
…
Terrible as the lightning he descended,
And snatched me upward even to the fire.
Therein it seemed that he and I were burning,
And the imagined fire did scorch me so,
That of necessity my sleep was broken.
…
Sleep fled away; and pallid I became,
As doth the man who freezes with affright.'
He looks at Stella, feeling the chill of the last lines again. It all sounds so familiar, so fitting. The lightning, the third hour of the night, the dream of fire, the waking feeling cold.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Yeah." He shrugs the feeling off. "This is just … a very weird … coincidence, right? I mean, it can be nothing else." Suddenly the thought that everything is connected is worrying.
She puts her hand on his. "I don't know what caused this or what she saw in you … but even if it wasn't a coincidence, I don't think it said anything more than what already happened."
-o-
"Dr. Saunders, thank you for coming. I'm Sheldon Hawkes." Hawkes extends his hand to the woman before him, feels it taken into a firm hold.
"Please, call me Michelle." Her voice is kind but resolute. "I believe I can help you identify the woman you had found suffering from Rett's syndrome."
"Thank you, Michelle." He turns around to get a picture of the second victim.
The fellow doctor studies the picture for a long time. "It has been five years since I last saw her; she had decided to try alternative treatments. But it's definitely her, Tamara Winters." She hands the picture back. "Sorry that is all I can tell you. I have her medical file, but it's not up to date, so I don't know if she still has … had the same address."
"That's okay. Having her name is a great help. We can find out the rest." Hawkes takes the medical file from her. "If you could just wait a moment while I make copies of this. We … have a break room where you can get a coffee."
"Thank you." she smiles.
-o-
Finally they have a lead on a suspect. Mac and Stella enter the house together. He's not happy about it. He still feels that she should rest some more, but he hasn't the heart to tell her. Or maybe the courage. They walk up the stairs side by side. Several floors. He looks around. Sullen grey concrete, like a manifestation of gloom. The place looks abandoned; he's not sure people can actually live here. Somehow the walls seem to be closing in.
"What are you thinking of?" The color of her eyes draws him from his bleak thoughts.
"Nothing in particular. I just have the feeling that this isn't over yet." he says.
"You might be right." Stella replies, looking around.
They stand in an empty hall. Again he wonders how people can live here. Everything is quiet, everything looks so empty. Mac bends down to examine a piece of paper lying on the ground. Penciled scribbling covering it, faint and writhing like smoke, unreadable. Stella moves further on, towards an open window.
A sudden instinct tears Mac onto his feet. No. A man standing behind Stella, where did he come from? Mac runs towards her. No. A hidden door. Mac sees Stella's eyes go wide.
"No." He thinks it must have been him calling that.
They are caught in a swirl of hands and arms. Mac suddenly thinks that the walls look like a tornado seen from inside. Then his world tilts, a glimpse of blue.
"No!" It doesn't sound like his voice.
Mac gasps, but the air escapes him, he's falling faster. Flashes of grey, a glance of blue, some green.
The only pain he feels is that which he sees reflected in her eyes. Her pleas for him to stay with her die away unheard.
… ropes, anyone?
Many thanks for taking the time to read. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think; good, bad, confused …? All comments are very welcome any time, and always replied to if logged.