Disclaimer: Don't own things, etc. etc.
Chapter One
Ghosts From The Past
"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Dark green vest over a nice, clean, crisp white button-up. Straight slacks, dark grey, concealing the gun Hotchner gave me years ago after my first shooting. It was in a holster not unlike his, but the slight added weight didn't help me look any less like a zombie. I knew I did, it wasn't like I ever hid my disgust with mornings. They were the most tiring part of the day, the hardest in general and at times the most difficult to get right. Because I needed to get everything right. Everything calm and in order as much as possible, to avoid the emotional jolts that led to relapse. I never had relapsed, never gone to seek out the needle, but there were times. Emily's 'death' and stint in witness protection, Hitch leaving... Maeve.
She was the worst. I never even got to touch her when she was alive.
But I pushed those thoughts aside, half stumbling like the undead for the communal coffee area. The coffee cup I always used was there, the pot was fresh and delightfully dark, with the rich aroma of sweet caffeine permeating the air. I drew it in, the mere smell shedding some of my exhaustion, until my eyes fell on the sugar container. It was empty. It was empty and the container was in the hands of Alvez. My eyes slid up to meet his, blinking once, before settling into a glare.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" He set the offending container down and picked up a stir stick, stirring the last of the sugar into his coffee, "Look like the dead there, Reid."
I sighed and turned away without a word, taking my unsweetened coffee to my desk. Breaking under the pressure of my own exhaustion, I sipped the cup, feeling goosebumps break out across my skin at the sheer bitterness of it. It really, really needed sugar but I really, really needed caffeine. I could feel Alvez's eyes on me, probably confused, but in my sleepiness I didn't really care. Definitely didn't help that my apartment neighbors have been keeping me up at all hours when I actually was home with all the moving vans and packing.
"What's up with Reid?"
"Well, judging from that container, you took the last of the coffee sugar," Ah, JJ to the rescue, explaining was I was too tired to, "Reid both needs caffeine like the rest of us, but can't stand it without enough sugar to kill a diabetic."
I sipped more of the black coffee, shuddered, and called over the bullpen, "Actually, the two to four tablespoons I usually drink with my coffee is far below what it would take to reach toxic levels in a human, diabetes or no."
"Okay, Reid," I could feel his eyes rolling. That was a common reaction to most of things I said to my coworkers, all in good jest. Usually. Even if they did tell me to shut up quite often.
With the occasional sip of the disgusting coffee, I set about my morning duties, noticing with a wry grin that my stacks of reports had somehow grown overnight. I didn't mind it so much, when the others slipped me the extra report or twelve, but on days when I didn't have my requisite caffeine in me yet (due to only being able to sip this black coffee), it was a bit annoying. Yet the reports and geographic profiles requested from local PDs and other offices were soon tossed aside as Emily called out from the balcony near Hotch's office - her's now, I reminded myself - "Round-table room, everyone. We've got a case."
As the others finished their work, I just shunted my reports to the corner of my desk and slid from the chair. The bit of caffeine in me was beginning to work it's magic, and by the time I sauntered to the meeting room and plopped in the nearest chair, I was at least somewhat awake. JJ was the first one to call it the 'round table room', owing to the large, circular table that took up the center. Probably some 'King Arthur' joke, but without Hotch here, it fell kind of flat. Emily was trying, and doing a damn good job at that, but it just wasn't the same.
On the table was a single box, open to reveal a bunch of manila folders. Emily picked one out and opened it. I didn't miss her quick wince, "We were contacted by the Las Vegas field office to assist in this case." Emily set down the folder after snapping it shut. My ears perked up at that; we were going to my hometown again? "According to the case file, over the last seventeen years, eleven newborn bodies have been found across the US. They all shared a similar modus operandi around the killings and disposal methods; each were killed within hours of being born, still attached to their placentas, and were..."
Rossi picked up the manila folder and opened it, eyes scanning the pictures inside as his complexion rapidly turned green. He set the folder back down and looked out the window, away from us all as Emily continued, "... they were all dismembered, legs, arms, and head removed, torso cracked open and heart removed. All were done postmortem."
"Eleven bodies over seventeen years?" JJ breathed. I twisted in my chair; she was eyeing the folder, but didn't reach for it. I couldn't blame her, especially if they held crime scene photos. Henry was still fairly young, after all, "Why didn't the Vegas PD link them together until now?"
Emily reached into another folder, pulling out a photocopied piece of paper, "This was left outside the Vegas FBI field office last week, along with the bodies of two of the newborns. Before this, only one had been found within Vegas PD jurisdiction, and all the others were in varying parts of the US, with no newborn being discovered in the same state twice. Vegas, as of last week, is the only place to have more than one victim discovered."
"What's it say?" Alvez reached across the table for the folder.
Emily yanked down a projector screen and placed the photocopied paper under the light. It looked like a scan, probably of the original that was still in Vegas. The handwriting was impeccable and curving with very elegant scripting;
These creatures were not perfect. The mother is perfect, but we have yet to find the perfect father. You have not discovered the link yet because we did not desire it, but in light of these failures we have decided to nudge you in the right direction. Eleven creatures you now have, nine before plus these two here, all connected through blood. Soon, a twelfth will join them, as we already know that it is not the child we must create. Scan their blood, you will see the connection. Alaska, Oregon, Texas, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Dakota, Hawaii, and Tennessee are where the others are. You have until her due date come June to save the twelfth creature. You will not, but you have until then. We suggest you call in all your resources. We will be in touch.
"Scan their blood?" My brow furrowed, "Did they run a DNA test on the bodies?"
"After the two were found outside the field office, yes," Emily said, "The test matched five already in the victim database, and using the clues in the note, the field office and Vegas PD quickly found files on the other four. And... all eleven tested positive for an overdose of morphine, as well as..." Her gaze slid to the box of files, looking thoroughly disturbed, "... all eleven newborns were born of the same mother. Each had a different father, but using DNA taken from the bodies and tissues and blood from those with intact placenta, they all matched the same woman."
"The unsub?" Alvez said.
"Not likely," I cut in before Emily could, "The note mentioned 'her', as in 'her due date', and 'the mother is perfect'. She may be a captive, or somehow under the sway of this person."
"For seventeen years, though?" Alvez countered, glaring up at the projector as Emily set about putting the screen away and boxing up the manila folders again, "That's a hell of a lot of time to keep a girl captive."
"Jaycee Dugard was kept for eighteen years and two months and gave birth twice during that time," I said.
"She could be an accomplice," Alvez shrugged and leaned back as Emily replaced the box lid.
"For now, we'll operate under that assumption, that there are two unsubs here," Emily patted the top of the box before picking it up, "Wheels up in thirty."
I only seemed to go home for cases anymore. Sure, there was the odd time I happened to be in town when my mother was lucid and I would go to see her, but I could count the number of times on one hand that I'd gone back to Vegas just to visit since joining the BAU. It helped that we seemed to get called out to Vegas or the surrounding area with a bit more regularity compared to other states or cities, but still. I couldn't help but feel at least a little bad for not visiting more, just like every time we all climbed aboard the plane on the way to a Vegas case.
Emily brought the box of manila folders after telling us that the lionshare of evidence was waiting for us at the Vegas police department. Despite the bodies being found outside the FBI field office there, the Vegas PD were leading the investigation in cooperation with them. Since the two recent bodies, despite being years old and heavily decomposed, were found there, it was as good a place as any to begin. Especially if, as we were assuming due to the contents of the letter, the unsubs were still in the vicinity of Vegas.
As I thumbed through the crime scene photos, they got to be too much for even me. I set them side with a bit more force than necessary, favoring watching the clouds outside instead. The sheer volume of gore and mutilation of the infant corpses reminded me too much of our goriest cases, of the worst and bloodiest of them. The Tribe, cannibals, others still. There was just so much blood in the photos. Newborns generally have about a cup of blood in their body at birth, but from the pictures... it looked like more than that. Granted, each was still covered in the mother's blood and afterbirth, but still. Their chests were pulled open from the front and sides, butterflying each newborn's torso and completely disemboweling them in the process. The few photos that also included intact crime scenes all had a single candle, either put out or melted into a pile, at the feet of the bodies. After so long in the BAU, after so many cases and seeing so many people around me injured - mentally and physically - or killed, it takes a lot to get to me now. But this... this was something else. Something else entirely.
"Disturbing, aren't they?"
I sighed, turning to Rossi as he slid into the seat across from me, "That's an understatement. How you holding up?"
I smiled, just slightly, at his concern. He wasn't Gideon - no one could replace Gideon - but over all these years, Rossi had slowly started to fill the void my mentor left behind. Now that Hotch was gone into witness protection and Emily the new BAU head, he'd taken to that role even more, "Fine. Just tired."
"Headaches again?"
"Yeah," Nightmares too, but I wasn't about to tell him that. They were a constant fixture, as they'd been for years at this point, so I was used to them usually. But this time every year, just like on the anniversary of my kidnapping at the hands of Tobias Henkel or the murder of Maeve, they were just a bit harder to deal with. I saw the sea of blood again, the crudely drawn hieroglyphics on the wall, the bodies on the wall and the chunk of hair on the couch...
"Reid?"
I jumped, "S-sorry, just tired." Before Rossi could say a word, I stretched and stood, heading for the thankfully vacant couch on the other end of the plane, "I think I'll catch a nap before we touch down." He didn't stop me, but I could feel his questioning eyes boring into my back. I wasn't about to answer his unspoken questions. Not now, and not ever, if I had any say. All of them already knew about Tobias, Maeve, my parents, Riley... I wanted to keep something for myself for once.
By the time we touched down in Vegas and headed to the local PD, it was late in the afternoon. The detective in charge of the case, Maria Williams, led us through the precinct to a room full of boxes. They filled the room, the tables, the tops of file cabinets, all of them. Some held manila folders, like the one back in Quantico, while others were chock full of evidence bags. Against the far wall was a huge dry erase board covered in writing and pictures of the victims and crime scenes.
"These are all the case files, crime scene photos, statements, everything we could gather from all eleven victims," Williams patted the nearest box, "There's been no match for any of the babies, no birth certificates or who the fathers or mother are."
"Fathers?" Alvez took a folder the detective offered.
"They all had the same mother, but no two the same father," Emily muttered, "No two the same father... that would make sense if it was the mother who was one of the unsubs, but..."
"Where would they get the sperm of eleven different men all over the country?" I said.
As we looked through the files and talked to each other, several things became clear. The murders were ritualistic in nature, with each occurring between a year or a year and a half from each other. That made sense since they all shared the same mother; she would need time to recover from the pregnancy and become pregnant again. Each were murdered mere hours after birth, since each still had either the placenta present, or the remains of one. Then a timeline... a timeline...
"The woman is currently pregnant," I said, looking up from a timeline of approximate births and deaths of each victim, "We know that from the message found with the two in front of the precinct. It matches the time of death of the newest of the victims; it was around this time last year."
"What's the date?" Lewis asked.
"May 20th," I answered without looking up from the folders.
"That gives us, what? A month?"
"If that," I said, "The note said 'due date come June' not when in June."
"So what're you all thinking?" Williams crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. I knew the look wasn't for us - she stared passed me at the photos on the erase board - but I could see the rage in her eyes, "We've been running around in circles here, and if another baby shows up on the FBI doorstep, or heavens forbid here..."
"This has been going on for nearly two decades," Lewis said, "Was there any difference between the first victim and the latest? Anything at all?"
"None," I flipped open two folders, one with photos of the first, and one with the latest, "They're... identical, in terms of M.O. Placement of the candles, lacerations to the body, all of it. Even after so long, to have no change whatsoever to the murders... and for them to have occurred like clockwork..."
"They have resources, and a lot of them," Lewis added, "The babies were healthy before their murders, well taken care of, so the mother likely was as well."
"What if there was only the one? The mother?" Walker said, "We were thinking two, but think about it; she gets pregnant, carries the child to term, gives birth, then murders them right after."
"The victims were killed right after birth," This time it was JJ who popped up, "Placenta's attached. Now, I don't know if Detective Williams here has children-"
"I do, two of them."
"-but doing that?" JJ pointed at one of the crime scene photos on the board, "Right after giving birth? Not happening. Especially if it's a home birth, which it would have to have been for there to be no records or birth certificates for the children."
Williams left us to the files. We went through them, but there was nothing we didn't already know, nothing we hadn't figured out. It was easy to get frustrated, even if it was still the beginning. Despite the brutality of the victims bodies, the crime scenes were relatively clean and unrelated; a forest, an empty trash can, and alleyway, a broken into hotel room... yet the unsub took the time to set the body flat, and place a candle at the feet. And the mutilation had to have been done before dumping the bodies, since there was no blood found at the scene despite the bodies being completely exsanguinated.
An hour later, there was commotion outside. Before any of us could get to the door, Williams stormed in, brandishing a disc in her hands. She was halfway across the room to the computer at the far side in a flash, "This was just dropped off at the front desk. Some kid said a man paid him a hundred bucks to drop it off."
"What is it?" Lewis asked.
"A video. It came with a note that specifically mentioned the murders," Williams whipped around as the computer kicked to life, her eyes boring right into me, "And Dr. Reid's name was on the disc."
All eyes turned to me, "M-my name?"
Williams nodded and she turned back to the computer, slipping the disc into the CD tray and closing it. I could see the questions on everyone's face, but I just shrugged, perplexed. Why would my name be on the CD? One delivered by some random person along with a note that specifically mentioned this case. When a prompt came up on the screen, Williams first clicked to open the files on the CD. All there was on it was a single .mp4 file, and it took up most of the disc. Williams hesitated over the play key, looking over her shoulders at us.
"Play it," Emily said.
The media player kicked to life and the file began to play. There was a bed, shot from the front. It was lavish and ornate, hand-carved possibly due to how intricate it looked in the high definition footage. It was four poster, curtained, and pulled open. Pillows and fluff covered everything, piling high on the back of the bed, and a dozen blankets half shielded the figure on the bed from view. Most of the room was dark, very dark, save for brilliant lighting from the top of the bed, illuminating all the light colors with an almost eerie glow.
Sitting on the bed was a woman, small, hands resting against a very large, pregnant belly that somehow made her seem even smaller by comparison. She wore a white dress, somewhere between a billowing nightdress and a 16th century chemise. There was much lace around her throat and hands, obscuring them so only the tips of her fingers showed. Her hair shown stark white, long, draped around her like a curtain, covering her shoulders and face as her gaze was held downward by her bulging stomach. I could see chains on her wrists, and two others disappearing beneath the bed. There was something... familiar about her. Something in the back of my mind.
The image went black after a few moments, white words glaring at us from across the page: 'Do you recognize her, Doctor Spencer Reid? Do you recognize the mother? Your own mother did. Do you?'
As the video of the bed came back, the woman's hands moved. Rubbing her stomach. She looked up, to the side, eyes flickering back and forth. Reading something. Then her eyes, those eyes that, even in the dark, I knew would be a purplish red with an almost blue ring, looked up at us. No, this wasn't possible. Not reddish, not lacking melanin like the hair and that skin, so pale that it glowed in the lights from above. No, no, this wasn't right, it couldn't be right.
I could feel the eyes of Lewis and JJ as the video faded to black again, more words flashing onto the screen: 'Do you recognize her, Spencer?'
Then the video was back. She'd moved, back straight as she sat on her knees, arms now at her side. Her eyes flickered off screen, reading something again before looking directly at the camera. Directly at me, "Spence? Spence, it is me. It is-"
In unison, both the woman on the screen and I said, "Nephi."
I slid down, to my own knees, but was unable to look away from the screen. Her hands rose to rest on her stomach, and her eyes flickered down to the bulge, "You will not..." Then her head shot up, eyes pleading someone off screen. Then, her eyes widened and fell, downcast. Whatever question she'd been silently asking, she'd gotten a no. She gulped, fingers clenching over her stomach, "You will not save this baby-" Something crashed, and another person screamed behind the camera, and the video jump cut. She was still in the same place, put one hand was up against her collarbone, "You will not save this... creature. But... but please... please find me." She looked up, eyes once again pleading through the camera, "Please find me, Spencer."
"Her name is... Nephilim Christenson," I swallowed thickly. The video had long since finished, and everyone was looking at me expectantly. But it took exactly five minutes, forty-one seconds before I could articulate it. It's been seventeen years since I'd seen her... "It was just after my first year at Caltech; I was here in Vegas during vacation, taking some classes online over the summer. Our parents were colleagues, and when I was very young, my mother and her's set up play dates for us. She's two years younger than me. About halfway through the summer, she... I thought she was killed."
I could see it in my mind, even as the words came out. Knocking on the front door, but finding it creaking open instead, "I went inside. I was... Nephi and I were going to hang out. I was tutoring her on math, she was never very good at it. But, the door was open. I found her parents inside." Their bodies, mangled and bloodied, strung up against the wall. Hieroglyphics, written in their blood, across the top of the mantle. And candles, the flames long since snuffed by the blood dripping off their feet onto the wicks, "... they were dead, and Nephilim missing. I was... interviewed, of course, but they never found her. The trail went cold."
I felt a strange numbness settle over me then, as I sat limp in the meeting room chair, surrounded by boxes full of the pictures and evidence of eleven dead newborns. In the video, she'd been pregnant. These were her children. Eleven, over seventeen years... and a twelfth on the way, "She was assumed to be dead after a while. No note, no more bodies found, no prints or hairs or anything at the scene." I laughed once, a mirthless and dead sound, "I was considering science as a major at that point, Biology specifically. Then medical school, to get an MD/PhD and go into medical research. I wanted to study genetic illnesses..." I rubbed my mouth with a hand, feeling tears at the back of my eyes, "She was always sick. Her hair, skin, you can't see it in the video but her eyes show an obvious lack of melanin."
"What is she, albino?" Alvez said, earning a withering glare from JJ, who'd taken a spot next to me. I could feel her calming hand on my shoulder.
"She has Type 3 Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome," There we go, Reid. Right back into what you do best; reciting data and facts, "It's an autosomal recessive condition characterized by albinism of the eyes, skin, and hair as well as reduced vision, sensitivity to light, among other things. Patients have problems with blood clotting, easily bruise, and tend to have prolonged bleeding when they do, and some develop breathing problems later in life and are diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Less commonly, they develop inflammation of the large intestine and kidney failure. They're also at an above average risk for skin damage and skin cancers as well."
"And she's still alive?" Alvez said, "After all these years?"
"It's happened," Rossi said.
My fists clenched, unclenched, then clenched again. Seventeen years. She's been missing for seventeen years. To find out, after all this time, that she was alive... I didn't know what to feel. There was happiness, deep set in my chest, but a heavy knot of disgust in my stomach. And guilt, so much guilt. That I was here and she was not. What had happened to her in all that time? What horrors had whoever took her done? Had she been sold into sexual slavery, and been bought by this unsub? That would explain the pregnancy, but not the fact that candles were similarly placed at her parents death and the newborns. Twelve total newborns, each from a different father... how many times? How many times did her captor let others rape her? How many times did she scream, did she fight, before giving up? Giving up like I'd given up on her.
"The Christenson case..." Williams eyed me, expression half cop, half pitying, "I'll... go pull the files. Should be in storage with the other Vegas cold cases."
"I'll go with you," Walker said after exchanging a look with Emily. The detective nodded, and they left.
JJ's hand on my shoulder squeezed, but I couldn't look at her, "We'll find her, Spence."
Was she even the same girl anymore? She'd been gone more years than I'd known her, more than she'd been alive at that point... And in a case like this, I couldn't even begin to hope. My psyche couldn't afford it. My god, she was pregnant, had been multiple times, by twelve different men. My memory, my damn memory, remembered her smiling. Whenever she needed to go for a check-up, or got some infection, I would come over with soup afterwards. Soup and crackers, both homemade by my mother, sometimes with a chess set or some board game to play with her. I knew this girl, I knew her...
"What changed?" I muttered, not seeing my coworkers but through them, to the boxes, to the case, "Seventeen years, why now? The unsub has had her so long, so why..." I swallowed, brow furrowing, "Why involve me now? Why dress up two other bodies outside the precinct here when there's only been one Vegas case before? And... and the CD, the CD, he's... it was on purpose. He knew leaving those bodies would call us here, he knew that leaving this CD would effect me, he-"
"Spence, I-"
JJ moved half in front of me, but I was faster. I jumped to my feet, eyes wide and with a cold shooting through my veins. I could feel my face grow cold, pale, as the words on that screen shot through me. I couldn't forget them, my cursed mind wouldn't let me.
'Your own mother did.'
"My mother," I breathed, halfway to the door before I could even think, "He knows my mother."
Author's Note: DUN DUN DUN, see it may be a rewrite, but I'm changin' a lotta stuffs :D