Disclaimers and notes: see chapter one
It's quite late in the afternoon, and not early morning when, jacket of his grey suit in hand, Jane strolls with a smirk and a mischievous light in his eyes out of the penitentiary, already foretasting what's to come, the final battle. He has an hunch, that the circle is going to close around Red John, that with the help of the team, this time around he'll make it, find him and make him pay, taking a life for the two the killer has robbed him of, and all the other who he has taken along in the process of making the life of so many people miserable.
Besides, everything will be easier now. He has seen her eyes, Lisbon's soft gaze, and now he knows. She is empathizing with him, she understands him, at some level. He knows she'll still be hurt when everything will be said and done, but it will not be as painful as he thought at the start of his quest, because, somehow, right now they are almost on the same page. Now he knows- maybe, deep down she'll not agree with his method, but she'll understand, in some ways, and she'll not hate him. Not as much as she would have at the beginning of their partnership or when he told her about his plan for the murderer, at least.
His smiles reaches his eyebrows when he sees the Citroen parked right there. Only one person could have the courage to actually drive that "trap on wheels", and that person is Teresa Lisbon. Besides, even if she'll not admit it, not even in a court of law, she loves the car, is quite fond it, and she thinks it's sexy in an old fashioned way, even sexier that those fancy and flashy sports cars Mashburn used to drive her around back in the days of their short-lived affair.
That's probably why she is hiding somewhere. Poor woman, being ashamed of him noticing how much she loves the "deadly contraption"…
"Oh, Lisbon, how nice of you to bring me my beloved car! Now, tell me, are you planning of keeping insulting her? Because, trust me, if she allowed you to drive her, it's because she likes you as much as you like her, and…." The breath dies in his throat, and all he can do is stop and stare at the unbelievable picture in front of him, for it's not Teresa Lisbon approaching him with quick steps from a corner of the penitentiary, cigarette in hand ready to be lighted , nor any other member of the team. It's someone he knows, though, someone he hasn't seen in almost twenty years, a man who was still a boy last time they saw each other, back when the carnie was the world they both belonged to, together with their girlfriends, Angela and Roxanne, and their fathers.
The man smirks, still the arrogant, leather and denim clothed, jackass he used to be back when they both were merely 18, he smirks of an arrogance Jane had too, but lost once tragedy touched him in that faithful night, but not this man, not him, maybe because, once upon a time, he was everything Jane wished to be but wasn't, he was richer, more famous, always under the spotlight, and not the little psych from California, but he was travelling with his own truck all over the world, staying years at time in Vegas with his own number, one named after himself, a real celebrity, and not a class B like the fake psych used to be.
The man smirks, but the smile isn't fully sincere, doesn't reach his eyes, and it's when Jane sees it, a shadow behind the happiness, probably fake anyway, the hint of a broken soul, all things, signals Jane knows too well, recognizes from his own experience, all lines tracing his own skin after that faithful night of almost a decade before.
"Johnny?" Jane wonders if he is the one who spoke, because the voice who spoke was so low, he isn't sure he recognized it at all, it seems alien, coming from a place that's not inside his own body.
"Johnny Blaze at your personal service, Paddy!" Blaze smiles, all the while patting Jane on the shoulders, in a friendly but yet manly way, almost forcing him inside the passenger seat of the Citroen. Jane frowns, obviously at uneasy with this sudden new development, by how weird it feels not being the one driving his own car, and yes, by his long lost friend's behavior and presence.
He can see Johnny is nervous, looking over his own shoulders, checking his surroundings, like to spot someone looking for them, following them. He doesn't like, he doesn't like it because he remembers being young with Jonny, he remembers the young man he used to be, one always looking for troubles even when troubles weren't there, a man who loved complications and danger and risking willingly his neck, his old number being the first evidence of this. He can see him, getting in troubles still now, with the wrong people, especially after the spotlight abandoned him and Johnny Blaze has suddenly turned into an absolute nobody, just another man fighting to arrive at the end of the month.
"C'mon, let's go, I'll bring you back to your motel" Jane sees it, Johnny checking his surroundings one last time, and then entering the car, clenching and unclenching his fists on the wheel, his knuckles turned white for the effort, breathing erratic, dilated pupils, not in need or want but in fear and desperation.
What did his friend do this time? Is it really that bad? And why coming now, of all the times, to him for help? He knows another one would talk about coincidences, but Patrick Jane is a firm believer of the theory that everything is connected and happens for a reason… so, it's no coincidence Johnny's appearance after he shot Red John. Is the killer connected to this man? Is that another little game or what? If that's the case…. He finds himself wondering how feeling about this. Being relieved because the killer made a move he shouldn't have made, making Jane closer to him than in a long time, or is it dangerous, having him so close, trusting a person Jane himself trusted once upon a time, testament of how he could touch and transform in rotten beings everyone the killer lies hands onto?
They drive away from the prison. Slowly, Johnny's hands moving with grace on the wheel and the change, almost like an hypnotic dance, beautiful, but definitely wrong. Because Patrick Jane knows Jonny Blaze, and Blaze never did slow, wasn't the kind of man, he hated slow, but still… here he is, driving slowly in the half-empty Sacramento Streets, not so slow to retrieve attention or suspicions but slow enough to awake something in Jane. Besides, he keeps checking the cars following them in the mirrors, and that means the world. It means he has been right: Johnny is in trouble, probably with the worst kind of people, the ones you shouldn't want to get involved with, the ones you don't want to get mad at you.
Is it the leverage Red John used on him? Or, simply, there's nothing about it, and Johnny just appeared out of the blue to put him out of his misery and get something in exchange for being nice?
He changes road, shifts a bit from the usual, and keeps checking, exhaling an irritated breath when he gets a good glance of what he is looking for; at his side, Jane merely frowns, uncomfortable in his own skin like he hasn't been in a long time- probably since that time he went undercover to solve the mystery of the dead Santa, or when he had to make that dam video with that cold-blooded and hearted reptile of Erika Flynn.
"You obviously know where my motel is, but yet you are taking a longer road to get there, changing direction every now and then but keeping a slow speed, which, let me tell you, it's unlike your usual behavior, and few minutes ago you started driving in circles" Jane states, looking in front of himself, still in shock- for the facts of the last few days, or what is happening right now, he isn't sure. "We've been followed" Johnny doesn't answer, nor nods, but his body language is screaming for him, telling Patrick Jane everything he needs to know and more. "Uhm I hope you didn't get in troubles with mobsters in Vegas. Heard you had a number outside one of those big casinos…"
"Hate to break it to you Blondie, but contrary to common belief I'm not the one who's a magnet for troubles."
Jane grins, a part of him delighted by the way his "friend" is feeling. He has been, after all, the one at uneasy not long before, it's just right that Johnny could get to feel it as well. "I think it's the charming personality. People loves me, I'm kind of… mesmerizing, we can say."
"I'd dare to call you even hypnotic"
"Nice one, I like it" they pause, and look around, sides, front, back, everywhere. "So… am I wrong if I assume this is related to me shooting Red John?"
"You got close only because he wanted to, and he wanted to only because the endgame is getting closer and closer. He knew he'd have survived, and wanted to make you suffer, and awaken the seed of doubt into your very soul."
"Why do you claim the endgame is near? Does he want to kill me? Does he really want to leave the killing scene as he claimed? And how can you know all of this? Unless you are part of the conspiracy, of course… but I highly doubt it. I know you, Johnny, and I'm a good judge of character. My guts tell me you have nothing to do with him…"
"I have everything to do with him" he whispers, more like talking aloud to himself. Jane, though, he isn't scared nor worried by the last statement. He knows like others may read it, but he doesn't see that way. Johnny isn't helping Red John, there's more to it than it meets the eyes, there's something hidden behind the veil he has yet to uncover, a truth that, he knows, will be stunning. And he is quite sure it will help him in getting closer to Red John himself.
"And what it is, this everything you have to do with him? You are not one of his minions, of that much I'm sure. This only can mean you are, for some reason, after him. The question is, why? I don't think it's because of me. Of course we were friends, but our relationship was one that brought benefits to each of us. We were friends because it had its benefits, not because we particularly liked each other, that we got along pretty well was just an added bonus. I had the charm, you had the bikes. I had the look, you had the personality. Together we were a perfect magnet for girls, the rest didn't count, so, at the cost of being trite, you aren't doing this because of me or because of Angela. I highly doubt you are somehow connected to some other victim, otherwise I'd known, because believe me, I know everything there is to know about Red John" he changes, like he has changed so many times in the past, the happy go lucky man leaving place to the beast, thirsty for blood and death. But Johnny doesn't seem impressed by this all, nor scared. He keeps driving, barely sending glances in the direction of the man he used to call a friend a long time before.
"You know Paddy, as much as it probably breaks you, you are not the center of the universe. Not everything people does is because of you or to gain your precious attention. There are few billions of other human beings out there, each one of them would die to get my help in a situation such as this one you get yourself into, so, if you feel the need to say please or thank you, make me the favor of listening to that tiny little voice in that thick skull of yours and, for once in your life, act according to it.."
"Are you telling me you are some kind of…. Urban super-hero? Someone like Batman, reborn in the aftermath of his parents' killing? Did the shock of your father's death turned you into some kind of… revenger? I knew you were upset because security wasn't enough compared to how dangerous the number was, but he is the only one to blame, and you know it. Going around looking for someone else to put the blame into, trying to hurt people, getting yourself into troubles… listen to me, Johnny, it's not worth it. It's wrong. And dangerous."
Johnny doesn't answer, even if Jane believes that the man hissed something at low voice, whispering words he has never heard before between his teeth (he understands just something, the word "strange" and something close to "demon", but he isn't sure), and just stops. And Jane's heart loses a beat when he suddenly realizes where they are, that they are parking in the exact spot he parks almost every night he isn't sleeping at the CBI. This isn't good, this is dangerous, maybe even too much. He loves traps and endgames, and sometimes, very often, actually, he improvises to get what he wants, but this…. this is a move he didn't see coming. Maybe he wasn't looking so well at it. Or maybe.. maybe he has simply been wrong, and Johnny really is helping the murderer.
"With all due respect, I think it could be seen as dangerous coming here, to my motel, if someone connected to Red John is really after me as it seems, even following us. Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but as much as I love my suits I don' t need them all the time. Rally, I can make it without them for a couple of days, maybe even more. If- sorry, allow me to rephrase that, since there's a serial killer with huge connections after us, don't you think we should try to evade him instead of waiting for him at open arms? Because I don't have a plan yet, and I don't feel like improvising. Unless you have some idea I'm not aware of yet and Lisbon and the team figured everything out and are waiting for them for a secret team-meeting outside the walls of the rotten CBI ..." a pregnant pause, nothing is said while they leave the car, faking a calmness they are both far from feeling, Jane first, everything getting more and more complicated by the second. "I assume that your silence means that you don't have a plan and Lisbon isn't involved at all."
"Lisbon? You mean the hot chick, brunette, huge emerald eyes, the one who's attacked to you by the hips?" Johnny stops halfway to the room, his eyes falling to the wristwatch on his right pulse. Lines of worries appear suddenly on his forehead, almost transmutating his features, and a curse is whispered between his teeth, followed by a quick Sign of the Cross- something that make Jane stop and stare, something so strange, something so different from the young man he knew back in the day. The just probably both grew up in something entirely different, even if back them none of them knew what faith was like. "Damn, we took too long to get here. It's almost the sunset…. We have just few minutes left and they are almost here"
"What? I thought you didn't have a plan!" they don't exactly run, but the last few steps are made in a hurry, Johnny pushing with crude force and rudely Jane with an hand on the small of his back, almost making him fall on the old carpet of the entrance once the door to the Spartan living arrangement is opened. "Johnny, what the hell are you up to? You said you didn't have a plan, but your reference to timing seems to differ…" as he talks, he follows Johnny, pacing for the room, busy securing every corner from prying eyes. Doors are locked, blinds turned shout, nothing is left to the case as sunset quickly approaches. "Jonny, if you have a plan, I'd like to know it so that I could make something about it…."
"You want to know what you can do? Ok, I'll tell you what you can do: stay here while I go in the other room. Don't pull one of your stunts, just keeps the lights off, stall and keep your eyes closed until I tell you otherwise." He is pushed into the main room, the metallic sound of the lock closing behind Johnny, and all Jane can do is sitting in the dark, on the edge of the bed, sweating palms on his pants and pulse and breathing erratic. He knows, he can feels it. whatever will happen, it will not be just another step into the right direction… whatever it will happen this night, it will be the beginning of the end.
His time has almost come. He can foretaste revenge on his tongue, the bittersweet taste as strong as never before.
One minute, three. Five. Maybe ten. Or even more. He doesn't know. In the dark, with just the sound of the outside traffic, it's hard to tell exactly how long it has been, and it's even harden considered the emotional turmoil Jane finds himself feeling at the moment. He has always been a sort of prisoner of his own mind, but never the statement has been as true as it is right now, when all he can see and feel and hear it's Red John, his voice, his face, his own hate and need for revenge…
It's the cold metal of a gun against his skull to awake him from his reverie- Lisbon has ben right all along. Revenge isn't healthy, that's what thinking about killing Red John did, he, Patrick Jane, almighty mentalist, missed something as small as the presence of another human being in his room, a human being he was even waiting for. That's what thinking about Red John is doing. It's getting him killed.
He stands and turns, hands up, in surrender, no words, the gun still cold against his blond curls. LaRoche on the other side of the gun, ready to pull the trigger, ready to kill him, grinning, evil. The man with the small, white dog. He has always knew there was something sick about it, something wrong. Now he knows. LaRoche is a mole if not the mole - and a murderer and a traitor, that's what is wrong with this man. Not the perfect image of efficiency like Bertram likes to picture him.
"I'm sorry Mister Jane, but, as fond as we all are of you, we can't allow you to interfere further more into our Master's planes. I'm sorry to say playtime is over."
The use of the plural doesn't go unnoticed, is the first thing Jane's brain registers, maybe even before fully comprehend there's LaRoche actually pointing a gun at him. Plural. It means, like they have always feared, he has always feared, that Red John doesn't just take allies randomly, every now and there, but that he has a network, fully operative, and that there's a bigger conspiracy hidden behind his secrets and his lies and deceptions. He remembers another motel room, this time in Mexico, words written on a wall with the blood of a dying man, the same hands that tried to tell them. He is Man. Many. Was that what Jared Renfrew meant, what he tried to share with his last breath? That Red John doesn't just have followers, but an entire network, people working actively with him as partners in crime? Or, did he meant that the killer has way too much followers, almost a small army? Will he ever know? If the cold metal of the gun against his skin is of any indication, he doubts it.
"Let him go" Johnny's words echo in the room. Jane gulps, aware that he has almost forgotten the presence of the old friend. A friend who's in danger because of him, because he played doctor with a psychopath. If Johnny doesn't have a plan… if Johnny doesn't have a plan, it will be over for both of them, and he'll have destroyed yet another life.
"Let. Him. Go" Johnny repeats, his voice firm, strong, fearless and demanding. Run, Jane would tell him, go looking for help, call someone, call Lisbon, but he can't, doesn't seem able to perform a single syllable. All he can do is concentrating on the here and now, on the gun pointed right at his forehead, between his eyes, at LaRoche grinning like an evil maniac, at the fact that it's end, an yet again he is going to turn into empty promises so many things he said… revenging his family, saving Lisbon… nothing is going to matter, soon it will be over. Soon he'll be dead. It's not as easy as he thought, and he isn't like it at all. He isn't ready as he always claimed to be.
He wants to live, for so many reasons, some still unknown to him but already there, waiting to be faced and accepted, and he didn't even know until now.
"Oh, look who's here, what a fortunate coincidence that I come to visit you as soon as I heard that you were out of prison, Mister Jane. How sad that your friend here managed to kill you before I could actually do something to help you… but at least, while he was escaping and refusing to cooperate with us, I shoot and killed him, preventing him for hurting any other poor soul out there. We just should be glad no bystanders got injured in the process…"
Johnny grins, shaking his head, if in disbelief or simply to say no, it's hard to tell, and walks, slowly, calm, towards the mole, like nothing was happening at all. "I'm going to give you one last chance. Let him go. In exchange, I'll be merciful, and I'll make it quick and as painless as possible."
LaRoche chuckles, and Jane shivers, as scared as never before for his own life, wondering in what mess he got himself into, how he managed to find himself sandwiched between LaRoche, one of Red John's friends, maybe even his right hand, and Johnny, who, according to his words, sounds like a crazy killer himself, a revenger like Jane himself would be, even for different reasons- maybe not even a reason at all.
He shivers, eyes closed like Johnny asked him to, almost ordered him to, the metal of the gun colder against his skin, like a thorn, LaRoche definitely not in the process of letting him go as Johnny is asking to. Johnny. There's no Lisbon around to save him, ready to get him out of troubles. Only Johnny, Johnny, who's actually making things worse.
LaRoche simply laughs. "You? I'm sorry, Mister…Blaze, is it? You are nothing but a stuntman, almost forgotten. Do you honestly have it in you to save your friend? Or yourself, for what it matters…."
It's Johnny's time to chuckles. "First, I was a performer, not a stuntmen, there's a huge difference, and I just have to snap my fingers to get my number back in Vegas, so, forgotten? I don't think so. Not that I care so much, considering that riding a bike on a stage isn't exactly a job, but only the way I make money to live…"
"I'm sorry, Mister Blaze, but somehow I don't care about your job or your pastimes. I do know, thought, that after you lost your number in Vegas and your precious wife and children, you fell victim to depression, and that's why you killed Mister Jane here. I've been told you used to be friends a long time ago, when he claimed to be a psych. You run the same circles, and you believed him. You asked him to help you, you wanted to talk with your beautiful wife one last time to ask for her advice, because, let's face it, she was the reasonable one, right? But he refused, told you he was just a fraud, and that's why you lost it… " At closed eyes, Jane is even more aware of his surroundings, at least, for what concerns the sounds all around him. He hears everything ten times louder, the secure being discharged, the trigger being pulled. He doesn't feel the gunshot, only hears it, but it's different from the times Lisbon or someone from the team fires a bullet. He has looked at Lisbon practicing more than once, and he recognizes few sounds. Right now, he heard a gasp, then metal on the pavement, falling, and then the bullet. He heard it, but didn't feel it. LaRoche not only missed his target, but he let the gun fall. And the bullet didn't hit him.
"You should have cared about me more" says a voice coming from Jane's back. It sounds like Johnny, but at the same time it doesn't, it's close but distant as well, human but metallic, almost… he heard once, a man without vocal cords, using a stimulator, and the sound… it's that but it's not at the same time, it's everything and nothing he has ever heard in his whole life, like something beyond comprehension, and it's not just a weird sound, it's something… it's plain scary, it's something that makes him shiver, makes him wish to pray for the first time in his whole life, something scarier than the sound of bullets hitting him, and he knows. He knows what needs to be done.
Going against Johnny's orders, Jane opens his eyes, because he has to see it on his own, he needs to understand, and to know. He needs to know if this is just a byproduct of his mind, elaborating a bullet going through his brain and trying to process new nervous connections.
He slowly and tentatively does it, hands still up in the air in surrender, and the first thing Jane sees it's him, LaRoche, cuddled in a corner, in silence, shaking like a kid in his room late at night, scared of the dark and of the weird sounds. But he can read LaRoche now, and LaRoche isn't only scared. He is terrified. Of what exactly, Jane wonders? He focuses on his surroundings, asking if the voice scared the investigator as mush as it scared himself, and then, when everything is covered in darkness and silence, he feels it, at his back, burning, hot, covering the room with a tiny veil of light, just where Johnny was, or maybe still is.
He turns, even if the voice asks, terrified, not to, and that's when he sees it, or maybe him, Jane isn't sure, he has never faced anything like that…. Something….real, dressed with Johnny's signatures clothes, the ones he was wearing few minutes before, and… it's real. And it's a burning, living, talking and walking skeleton, dressed with his friend's clothes.
"Paddy?" the skeleton comes closer and closer, so close their noses are almost touching, and while Jane keeps gulping, somehow aware this isn't just another carnie trick, he, or maybe it, waves an hand in front of the consultant, still in shock.
The only thing Jane is sure of is that he'll never laugh at Van Pelt's beliefs, nor he'll make fun of Lisbon's faith. Nope, never again, not after… after whatever it is that this thing is walked past him. Well, close to him, at least. He is even starting to seriously consider the possibility that psychs could actually exist. But only for few a matter of seconds. Maybe, deep, deep, deep down there's a very rational explanation to everything that's going on.
Or maybe not.
Light engulfs the mass of dry and stark white bones, and suddenly the skeleton is no more, and where there were bones and fire, here there is, once again, Johnny Blaze, fully human, once again like he used to be, a man like any other and not… whatever it was, or it is. "Paddy? Oh My God, are you all right? Are you seeing something? What are you seeing?" He asks, frantically, shaking Jane for the shoulders.
"Uhm… I'd say I'm seeing you, but I'm rather sure I'm losing my mind, so I believe I should think carefully about my answer, because I'm not exactly sure it's really you I'm looking at right now… just, out of curiosity… am I dead? Because, you know… you… that thing… it looked like… some kind of… " he turns around, like to inspection the room to carefully see nobody is there, like he is ashamed of what he is going to say. "like… a demon" he hisses at low voice, gulping and blushing, ashamed of his own theory, something that, though, is safer that the other one, the possibility that he could be actually ready to join Sophie Miller once again in her office to talk about his mental health. Not exactly something he'd look forward to in any occasion, this one included.
"Nothing else, nothing besides me?" he asks, looking carefully at Jane, almost… inspecting him, studying him.
"Uhm… my room, and… dear old J.J. who's scared to death and cuddled in a corner. Which, by the way, is probably one of the scariest things I've ever witnessed. And I've seen a lot."
"Are you sure you aren't witnessing all your mistakes, your sins and evil actions, that you are not facing the Door of the underworld to be send to eternal damnation?".
"Oh, well, that… everything I've done is always harassing me, like a constant reminder of my mistakes, but… I don't re-live them. I remember them… they are… you know… memories… is that… what you mean?."
Johnny laughs and exhales a breath at the same time, allowing himself the luxury of falling on the carpet, out of relief, and keeps looking at Jane, keeps laughing, like a nervous laugh, and points a finger to his former friend "Well, count yourself lucky, Mister, what happened to you, isn't usual routine for the likes of me."
"So…I guess… it's normal to… end up like… him and…unusual to… be…you know, like me? Like me right now, I mean…"
He paces the room, the "biker", running a hand through his short brown hair, his gaze shifting from Jane to LaRoche. "Yeah, uhm, sorry, I didn't mean to look at you, it's just that, I hadn't turned the vengeful stare off yet, and I know I told you to keep your eyes closed, and, well, I thought it was going to take longer to get him…" he stops to look at LaRoche, once and for all, and he exhales a big breath, running now the hand over his face, tired, but mostly… Jane would dare to say he is worried. "Damn, I didn't think it could work that well on a human being…. I'll have to call in for back-up if we want to try to bring him in to question your boss about Carter's whereabouts…."
"Yeah, yeah, sure…" Jane frantically walks across the motel room, eyes on the pavement, lost in silence, lost in his own world. Suddenly, he stops, and lifting his chin, his eyes look for Johnny's ones. "Johnny, what the hell just happened here?"
Blaze chuckles, once, and then smirks. " Paddy, my friend, you can't imagine how right your choice of words has just been, in some kind of twisted way…."