Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Law and Order franchise. It belongs to Dick Wolf, NBC and any other respective copyright holders. This story is written purely for my own amusement, no money is being made from it and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Feedback is still very much appreciated, and it's my cue to keep this story going. No feedback, and I may not bother to write any more chapters.


One Police Plaza – New York City

By the time her flight landed at LaGuardia, her curiosity had really begun working full scale. The feeling was double sided, as always, because Miriam knew well enough through experience that if there was anything that could get her into trouble better than most other things, it was her curiosity. The questions burning the inside of her mind were many, and none of them had satisfying answers. Why had the young man, whomever he was, been murdered in such a fashion? It was illogical to think that a murderer would bother to mark his victim with so uncommon symbols if they were without meaning. Unless it was done to confuse… The manner of the young man's death was another mystery to her. From what she could make out of the photos she had received earlier he had been stabbed clean through the heart, seemingly without making any attempt to resist or fight off his attacker. Had he perhaps been sedated, so that he was incapable of resisting? And why on earth had someone murdered him in the first place?

The same questions were in the back of her mind when she found her way to the eleventh floor of New York's One Police Place, and the Major Case Squad. Captain James Deakins met her at the door. He was what she could only describe as normally built, perhaps a little taller than average. He was wearing a grey suit, a light blue shirt and a tie in shades of grey and white that fitted nicely with the suit, He smiled as they shook hands, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. She guessed that whatever this case was that he had brought her in for, it was bothering him.

She threw a glance around the room as he led her into his office. She was slightly surprised that she could see no one there but the two of them, but assumed that it was because the other people that worked there had business elsewhere. Captain Deakins showed her to a chair in front of his desk, and closed the door behind him before he sat opposite her. It seemed he decided not to waste time, and pushed a folder across the desk, towards her. The folder was thick, containing at least two dozen printed sheets of paper, along with at least as many photographs, some of them Polaroid shots, some not. The first sheet of paper was a death certificate, from what she could tell. To it two pictures were attached by a paper clip, one of a young man with straw blonde hair and blue eyes, posing for the photographer in the height of summer, probably a vacation picture of some sort. The second was clearly taken after death, all the color of life was gone from his skin, and only the slightly bluish color of death remained. The sheer contrast of the two pictures made her speechless for a minute. It made her think about how easily it was to rip a life away, and with it all the possibilities that had existed in it.

She noticed that the man across the table was studying her, as if to see her reaction, and as fast as she had let the pictures draw her into grieving for someone she didn't even know, she let his glance draw her out of it again. She glanced down on the paper that the pictures were attached to, and read a name.

"Damien August Huntley II?"Deakins nodded, and leant back in his chair."The son of Damien Huntley, founder and director of Huntley Pharmaceuticals. Found in his home yesterday morning by his younger sister, Serena.""Was he found the same way I saw him in the photo you sent me?""Yes, at least that's what his sister claims, and we have no evidence to disprove it, which is part of where this case gets strange. He had no defensive wounds, no marks on his body except for the fatal wound to his heart and the…runes, that you identified for us, and there was no sign of a struggle or a clean-up in his apartment.""So, you're thinking this is a ritual thing… any indications besides the runes?""A ritual killing is our best theory right now…everything else we've turned up so far has been a dead end, literally. This case has few indications to speak of and precious little evidence. It's one of the stranger cases that I've had to handle in a while, and that should speak for itself. I need something to go on, Miriam… I need you to give me something, preferably something stronger than smoke, which is all we've been grasping at so far.

Miriam didn't answer him. Not because she had a sudden whish to be rude, but because she had been rifling through the pictures in the folder and noticed something."Are these close-ups of the markings on his body?"Deakins leant forward across his desk to see the pictures she was holding, shot a quick glance at them and nodded. "Yeah, the M.E took them for reference before the autopsy…""Have you identified what was used to mark his body?""It was some form of ink…but not the kind you would go and buy in a store. Expert said that it was probably home made. Analysis of what it was made of aren't back yet…"

She turned in her chair to give him a view of the photo she was holding, and pointed to the rune on it. It was in the shape of the letter F, but the two short lines were pointing in a downward angle. "See this… I'm taking an educated guess and saying that these runes are Germanic. The Germanic runes are the oldest kind, some where found as early as approximately 100 years A.D, in parts of Eastern-Europe…Romania, Germany and Russia. Some believe that the runes were invented here. Anyway, in this form of the runic alphabet, this rune is called Ansuz, or Aza, and means 'god', more specifically one of the gods present in the ásatrú, which is the name of the Old Norse religion. Either that, or it could mean divinity, much in the same sense.""This one…" She flipped to another picture. "Is called Reda."That rune was very much alike the shape of the letter 'R', except that its shape was more poined, as it would have been, carved in stone. "It means 'travel' or 'journey'." She brought out the next photo. The rune it showed was an 'X', as the letter, or the kind of crossed used to mark the spot on a treasure map."It's called 'Geuua' or 'Gebo'… it means 'gift' " Again she flipped the picture to the back of the ones she was holding, showing another one. It was very much alike the shape of an arrowhead, the way one would draw it if drawing fast and undetailed, a single straight line with two shorter lines extending from its top in a downward angle. "This is called 'Tys' or 'Tiwaz'. It could mean 'warrior', but it's also used as a symbol for the god of war -Tyr."She was now holding the last detailed close-up in her hand. It pictured a rune that resembled the modern letter 'M', except that on this rune, the two shorter lines of the letter shaped into an 'X', in that way reuniting them with the two longer lines."This is the symbol meaning 'man'. Its name is Manna, or Mannaz."

She threw the picture on top of the others, in the folder still lying on the table. Leaning back and taking a breath. She looked across the table, seeing the face of one who had been trying his best to pay attention to what she was saying, but not succeeding. She knew that look, she'd seen it before more times than she could count. For many people, perhaps most, what she has made her professional career was boring beyond belief. To each his own, and so on, she thought. She would normally not bother going out of her way to defend her choices, they were hers and she was happy with them. Here, there was no call for defense, but more of a smile and perhaps a recap, so she straightened up in her chair, and continued;"So, you've got runes meaning "god", "journey", "gift", "warrior" or "warrior god" and "man". You're the Detective, but I'd say that so far and from what I know, this supports your ritual-theory. I'm still a little skeptic, though…"He had stood up while she spoke her last words, and now he turned towards her and seemed to survey her again. "Why?"She turned halfway around in her chair to face him. "Historically speaking, human sacrifices did occur in the Old Norse religion, but they weren't by any means common. Usually it was animals that were sacrificed…""What about some neo-nazi group? Some of them have been known to use symbols like this in the past…"She shrugged. "Sure, it's a possibility… Some groups have been known to use these symbols, and the religion itself to support their views on the supreme power of the white race, and on the mixing of races, well, mostly anyway. The truth, again historically speaking, is that they have little, if any foundation in the religion or the symbols themselves to build such support on. And there are also groups who practice this sort of religion who take a strong stand against Nazism and other such beliefs with a similar view on race. But won't that be hard to prove in a courtroom, unless you have something to connect your victim to either such a group, or something that could have caused him to be targeted by one…?"

Again, Deakins nodded, his expression showing that he wasn't pleased to have the weak points of his theory pointed out to him. "I brought you down here to help, not so you could point out the weakness of every theory I send in your direction!""Now you're being rude James…and ungrateful. I'm not a homicide detective, I don't see people or read evidence like you do. I'm an archive worker, for crying out loud! This is not the sort of thing I'm trained for. From what you've given me so far, I've told you all I can… I've told you the meaning of the symbols on his body, now it's your job to figure out what they represent in this case. You've given me one young man with symbols written on his dead body, and apart from his name, his fathers name, which is exactly the same by the way, and his father's employment, I know nothing about this Damien Huntley. I don't know his friends, his interest or what he does or doesn't do for a living! I can tell you a lot of things James, but I'm not a damn oracle! And besides, I'm not a lawyer either, but if you find a suspect, what I just questioned about your theory will be nothing to what the defense attorney is going to come up with. You know that…

His eyes found her quickly, and the look in his eyes told her that he was slightly surprised of her exasperated outburst. A second later it changed to a sort of understanding, and he said quietly;"I know…I'm sorry Miriam."That was all it took for her to become friendly towards him again. She smiled disarmingly, and said; "Don't worry about it… But if you want more than what I've given you, I need more to go on. Like I said, I'm an archivist, not a police officer. "

A short knock on the door broke off their conversation, and in came two people, a woman and a man. The woman looked to be in her late thirties, had dark blonde hair and brown eyes. The man, whom Miriam judged to be well over six feet tall based on the fact that she would have to tilt her head slightly upwards to be able to look him in the eyes, looked a bit older – somewhere in his forties perhaps, and had dark brown, slightly graying hair. The Captain, who had turned to face the door once he'd heard the knock, didn't waste a second. "The sister give us anything?"Both of the newcomers, whom Miriam now assumed to be detectives, shook their head. The woman said; "Nothing we didn't already know. Probably still in shock, poor thing, imagine what it must be like to find your own brother like that."Deakins nodded in an understanding manner, but it was apparent that he wasn't entirely pleased with the answer."So, where exactly does that leave us?"That question it was the man who answered, but as he did so, he appeared to look over his captain's shoulder and straight over at her. Miriam herself had gotten up together with Deakins when the two detectives came into the room, but now stood behind all of them, still slightly in front of Deakins' desk. She met the glance of the detective with her own, but said nothing. "The tox-screen came back showing large amounts of morphine in his system. Could be that the killer drugged him before he murdered him. Which indicates that whoever the killer is, he cared about the victim enough to not wish him pain or suffering."

"They just wished him dead…"She could help herself any longer, she was curious to know more, and hated to be left out of a conversation that she felt appealed to her. It seemed like the three police officers only know noticed that they were in fact not alone in the room, even though she knew that at least the tallest of the men had to have seen her. Deakins turned his head and looked at her for a moment, then smiled and beckoned her closer. "I was wondering when you would make your presence known... Miriam Sage, this is two of my detectives Alexandra Eames and Robert Goren. They're working the case I was telling you about. Goren, Eames, this is Miriam Sage. I called her in from the National Archives in D.C. She works for an old friend of mine, and I thought she might be able to help."Now Miriam understood why Deakins hadn't been spooked at the mention of her supervisor back in D.C, and it also explained how he had gotten a hold of her phone number. Miriam gave a nod, and shook hands with the two detectives. The woman gave her a disarming smile. The man on the other hand didn't smile, but he met her gaze with his own in a fashion that she wasn't really used to. It was as if he tried to see right into her heart, to see what she could be hiding in there. When he let go of her hand, he cocked his head to one side and said, with a hesitation that surprised her;"We're looking for someone who knew our victim…knew and probably also loved him. What confuses me is that there is no hesitation… One stab, one kill… These things contradict each other to such a degree that I… I don't know quite what to make of it. Maybe there was more than one killer…"

Deakins looked at his detective in exasperation, both his arms spread in a gesture that suggested that he was fast becoming impatient with the profiler he had in front of him."Right now we're going to have enough trouble nailing one person for this murder. We have virtually no solid evidence that's going to hold up in a courtroom, and as of right now we don't even have a viable suspect. I've got a dead 23 year old kid in the morgue, and superiors crawling all over my ass, I need you to get out there and give me something I can use, and I need you to play this one by the book," he paused and gave Goren a serious look "both of you…" he finished.

"Go take another look at his place… and see is you can dig up something more. And," he indicated Miriam with a hand gesture, "take this one with you. Let's see if she can help shed a little light on things…"

With a nod to Captain Deakins, Miriam left the room, following the two detectives out.

It was a grey day in New York, blackened clouds looming on the horizon, warning that rain might come at any moment. Although Miriam was trying her best not to look like an out-of-towner, she could not help letting her eyes wander all around her, taking in the pulsating rhythm of the city, which seemed to her like one giant living organism. Everywhere there were things catching her attention, and for a moment she thought that she might have been better of with a few extra pairs of eyes.

Alexandra Eames looked over her shoulder at the woman walking behind her, and smiled at the expression on her face. New York had that effect on people seeing it for the first time. "First time in New York, huh?"

Miriam reluctantly removed her gaze from everything that went on around them, and focused it on the female detective. Busted, she thought with a shrug of her shoulders. Smiling back, she said;"Yeah. I was hoping it wouldn't be that obvious, but I realize now just how hard it is to conceal.""Almost impossible, actually," said Eames, falling into step beside Miriam, "if I'd had a dollar for every time I've seen that look, I could afford early retirement."

Damien Huntley's apartment – Manhattan, New York City

The apartment building looked as if it had just been constructed, and judging from the patronizing look she received from the doorman upon entering this shrine to concrete, steel and glass, she understood that an apartment here wouldn't be in her price range before hell froze over. Not that she really wanted to live there, it was the kind of place where, at least she felt that her mere breathing was enough to destroy the perfect façade it presented to everyone who entered.

Following the two detectives into a nearby elevator, she watched as Goren – that was his name, wasn't it? She quickly searched her memory, finding her way back to earlier that day, in Deakins office. Yes, she concluded, detective Robert Goren - pressed the button of the top floor of the building. Of course, she thought to herself, penthouse. What else?

"Right," Eames started when they had all gotten out of the elevator. "You ever been on a crime scene before?""No."Eames searched through her pockets, and finding what she was obviously looking for, she threw a pair of white latex gloves to Miriam."Ok, put these on and let's see what we can find. We might have missed something the first time around. I'm still going to ask you to use your eyes instead of your hands as much as you can. A defense attorney would have a field day if they found out that we had someone unqualified handle possible evidence."Miriam nodded in understanding, and watched as the two of them started scouring the apartment for things that they might have missed on a previous visit.

She took a hesitant step forward, and looked around the room she had entered. She stood at the top of a small set of stairs, three steps that led from where the elevator was and into a large living room. On her right hand side there were huge windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, and offering an excellent view of the city. In front of the windows stood a large sofa and a couple of chairs, black and modern looking, and therefore no doubt uncomfortable, she thought. Almost every surface was white, the exception was the stone floor that had some grey and black veins in all the white, and brought her thoughts immediately to marble. From where she stood she could walk right into the kitchen area on her left hand side, where all the appliances were of brushed steel, and the countertops were marble like the floor. Across the room from where she stood, she could see a door made out of frosted glass, which she assumed led to a bedroom and a bathroom. Beside the door stood a desk in some sort of dark, expensive looking wood, with a surface out of marble, but as opposed to the floor and the kitchen countertops, this marble was completely white, in front of the desk stood Goren, apparently inspecting its surface in greater detail.

Slowly she walked down the three steps and down into the living room itself. She was slightly surprised that the young man who had been living here had actually read books, judging by the fact that he had bothered to fill the bookshelf that had been built into one of the walls. Her eyes wandered over the spines of the books in it, finding a few classics, some books on archeology, quite a few on historical subjects, focusing mainly on the early Middle Ages, and many books about mythology around the world. Here she also detected a favorite subject in Norse mythology, and she thought to herself that Deakins might not have been way off target after all, when he had thought ritual killing.

"Finding anything interesting," Goren inquired, peering over her shoulder and in the process making her let out a small scream of surprise and jump three feet in the air. "Jesus Christ…!" Miriam exclaimed, turning her head to face him."No, not much about him here," said Goren, giving her a wry grin that Miriam thought damn near insufferable right then. "…You scared the living hell out of me! Do you always creep around like a phantom?" As much as she wanted to avoid it, she couldn't conceal the smile that crept up on her face. It had, perhaps, been a little bit funny after all…"No," admitted Goren, straightening up, "only when I want to scare the hell out of people.""Something he does quite often," sounded the voice of Eames, who had just then opened the glass door at the end of the room, about to go into the room behind. Goren smiled a disarming smile at this, and said with mock world-weariness, as if he had been forced to defend his right to scare the hell out of people many times before."Well, what can I say – it was in the job description…" He gave another half smile in her direction, and studied her reaction with a mischievous spark present in his eyes that she was surprised to find there. He had struck her at first as a unconfident bureaucrat, his occasional stutter and seemingly unconfident mannerisms, the hand gestures in particular, only adding color to the picture, but now she wondered if she had misjudged him terribly, and in reality he was anything but unconfident. She had to admit that it was an excellent disguise. One she probably would not even have seen through if it hadn't been for the sudden changes in body language.

She moved away from the bookshelf and walked a few steps to the right, where a picture was hanging on the wall. Beneath the picture was a glass case where an intricate long sword lay resting on a dark blue velvet cushion. The framed picture depicted what she recognized as another runic symbol. "He had unusual taste in art," she remarked mostly out into the room itself, but also to Goren, who was still surveying the bookshelf. "Beautiful and expensive, but still…unusual"."What makes you say that?" Goren had walked left after leaving the bookshelf, and was searching with his eyes for clues in the opposite end of the room. Her remark, however, made him turn his head towards her to make eye contact. "He displays long swords in his living room, expensive replicas of swords found in Viking tombs. He has runic symbols on his walls," she indicated the picture right in front of her, "this one is called Aegishjalmur. It means the 'helm of awe', the Vikings used it as a warrior talisman. It was supposed to give the wearer protection and irresistibility in battle.""You know a lot about runes." He sounded slightly amused, in a way that wasn't offending, as it could have been in the words of someone else."I do." She agreed. "It's what I do for a living."She knelt down, to align her eyes with the glass case containing the sword. It was very well done, she concluded, even if she didn't know that much about metalworking. It had probably cost more to have made than what she paid to rent her apartment in a whole year. One who could spend that much on a single artifact to exhibit in his apartment, had to have a lot of money to burn. "There was another sword over there," he pointed to another picture, and another glass case, "it's gone, so I think it's safe to say that it was probably the murder weapon."

"You know what?" She straightened up, and walked towards the desk at the other end of the room. "I don't get why Deakins went through all the trouble of getting me down here from D.C. I don't feel like I've got anything to contribute that's going to help this case.""Miriam…that was your name, wasn't it?"She nodded." The use of different symbols are embedded in human nature, you don't have to be a cryptologist to realize that. It's a way to communicate… You see this case from an entirely different view than Eames and me. We think links, solid evidence and motive, you see ancient symbols and artifacts. Sometimes you need a different angle to see all the connections… Maybe when it all comes down to it, it'll be the symbols that crack this case open."Eames was back in the doorway, holding something in a latex gloved hand."Goren. I found this in the bathroom… morphine, almost empty. Goren didn't respond to this statement, but Miriam on the other hand, did."Why would a twenty three year old man have morphine in his bathroom? Not much to get high on there…"She looked at the two detectives, and they in turn looked at each other, and it seemed they understood perfectly what the other was thinking. Finally, it was Eames who said; "We need to see that autopsy report." To which Goren replied nothing, but instead swiftly took a cell phone from one of his pockets and dialed a number.

In the mean time Miriam had walked to the empty glass case on the other side of the windows. The picture above it was also that of a runic symbol, this one called the Vegvisir, also known as the Runic Compass. It was another talisman, meant to lead the way for its bearer.