"Did Metro PD search this place properly boss?"
"They said they did," Gibbs replied tersely and McGee winced slightly. His Boss sounded annoyed, worried and more terse than usual, always a bad sign. "According to them those offices at the back are empty."
There was a brief silence. McGee counted to ten in his head and on the stroke of 'ten' he heard the sound of two guns being pulled of their holsters followed by stealthy footsteps heading towards the offices – the very empty offices – at the back of the warehouse.
McGee stretched out with the Force and then sighed slightly. No, there were still too many people near the entrance – and he could feel that tightly-bound bundle of energy that was Ziva David approaching. Ah well, so much for a fast exit.
Judging by the sound of approaching voices from the back of the warehouse he'd guess that the Boss and DiNozzo had rapidly discovered that the offices at the back – all two of them – were indeed empty, apart from a lot of mouse droppings and the dessicated corpse of a rat.
"What is wrong?" The Israeli NCIS agent had obviously caught sight of the faces of the other two.
"We found this over there by that wall," DiNozzo said in a clipped tone. "It's McGee's phone. He was here at some point last night."
"McGee was here?" Ok, there was a bit too much surprise in her voice. Then: "Well, that might explain part of what the witnesses told me. Not all though – they must have concussion or something."
"What did they say?" Gibbs asked before snapping: "DiNozzo, if that damn finger's bothering you so much go see the paramedics taking care of the witnesses."
"I'm too tough for that boss," came the wounded reply and McGee grinned at the ceiling.
"Chief Petty Officers Abigail Harrison and Cynthia Hernandez, both from the USS Abraham Lincoln, both on liberty and at 11pm last night both looking for a bar about ten blocks away from here that Hernandez had known when she was last stationed here," Ziva said, no doubt from memory. "Instead they met a group of men with what they both described as facial deformities, who knocked them both out and brought them here.
"They were both hit pretty hard, but Hernandez woke up for long enough to see the men who had kidnapped them talking to another man in a strange black robe and similar facial deformities. And then, ah, the concussion kicks in, because she said that the next thing she heard was the sound of a 'lightsabre' coming on and then a fight. Then she became unconscious again."
"A lightsabre," Gibbs said in a flat voice. "From Star Wars?"
"Apparently so, Gibbs. Concussion, as I said."
"Did she say which colour? Because it might have been one of… shutting up now Boss."
"Thank you DiNozzo. What else did they say Ziva?"
"Well, Harrison was unconscious the whole time. Paramedics say that they thought that she might have a severe concussion, due to the length of time she was out. They're taking them both to hospital in a few minutes. Hernandez however woke up again. She said that there was no sign of any of the men who had kidnapped them both, or the leader. She did however said that there was a brown-haired man kneeling by Harrison and apparently tending to her wound. She said he had green eyes and that he tried to reassure her that she was safe now."
"Green eyes, brown hair – it could be McGee boss," DiNozzo broke in quietly.
"Yeah, but why was he here in the first place and how did he come to lose his phone. And where the hell is he? Ziva, have you got a picture of McGee on your phone?"
"I believe so yes. You want me to show it to Hernandez?"
"And quickly, before they leave for the hospital. DiNozzo, lets take look at that weird diagram and try and see if we can work out what the hell happened here."
"Yes Gibbs.
"On your six, Boss."
Hmmm. McGee didn't like the fact that they were going to take a look at that pentagram. It was definitely to be used to summon something or someone and even without the blood sacrifice there might be wards around it and-
He sat up suddenly and then stared at DiNozzo, who was still fussing over his wounded finger. The NCIS agent was staring at it – and then caught sight of Gibbs glaring at him, whereupon he shook his hand in what he evidently hoped was a nonchalant gesture. But that wasn't what got McGee so concerned, because in that one shake of a hand he'd released at least one drop of blood. Which fell on the pentagram.
Damn it, he was so going to kick Tony's butt. Because the blood fell in exactly the wrong place. It flashed briefly and then the stored magic within it activated itself. The pentagram glowed suddenly with a dark light that looked so very wrong to the eye and then it moved, rotating within itself like an insane gearing mechanism designed by a mind that operated using the wrong set of dimensions. A howling void leapt into life for a microsecond above the pentagram and McGee surged to his feet, summoning the Force in a desperate effort to shatter the floorboards that the pentagram was painted on before it could fully activate.
He failed. The void crackled once before the eyes of the two startled men and the alarmed Jedi above them and then there was a 'paf' of displaced air as a hunched figure suddenly occupied the middle of the pentagram.
Sithspit, McGee thought as he pulled out his lightsabre and started to run along the roof beam, that master vampire had either gotten his summoning amounts horribly wrong or he'd just been into a lot of blood. Or perhaps he's been hoping to summon an army of those things. Which looked and felt very nasty, very nasty indeed, because all of a sudden the huddled figure was straightening itself, unfurling night-black wings, tasting the air with a lizard-like tongue and looking around with a face that looked like a cross between an armadillo and a crab. With horns. And scaly armour.
The demon caught sight of the two men in front of it and stamped on the floorboards, buckling at least one of them, before it threw back its head and roared a challenge at them. And then a single taloned hand came around and backhanded a startled DiNozzo into a small mound of packing cases to one side.
Even as DiNozzo hit McGee was concentrating, slowing his friends impact with the Force, but even then he hit pretty hard. As the demon roared with triumph McGee threw himself into the air, tucked himself into a tight roll just as Master Oz had taught him, and headed straight down.
As he hit the floor he heard the crack-crack-crack as Gibbs fired a tight grouping at the demon's chest with his SIG-Sauer. Unfortunately the demon had quite a tough carapace, because it shrugged the hits off, much to Gibbs' utter horror. It brought its arm around again – and then McGee used the Force to throw it about twenty yards back. It hit the floor with a massive thud, thrashed briefly to get its feet back under itself and then came back upright, spitting splinters and with murder in its eye.
A visibly confused Gibbs brought his gun back up again, but then McGee intervened. "Leave it to me Gibbs," he called as he activated his lightsabre and threw himself into the air in a force-leap straight at the creature.
The demon saw him coming, its eyes drawn by the yellow light from the blade, but it couldn't stop him. No matter how sharp its talons or how strong its arms it was no match for the lightsabre and McGee felt a pang of regret as he hacked its nearest arm off – and then whirled quickly around to take off its head in a simple clean strike at its neck.
The bellow that the demon was emitting cut off with a blink and then the head slowly toppled off the body, followed a millisecond later by the rest of the body. It hit the ground with a hell of a thud, stirring up the 'dust' that had not too long ago been the bodies of the vampires who had started this entire mess.
McGee reached out with the Force to make sure that it really was dead and then relaxed slightly, turning off his lightsabre. Then he turned to the pentagram and gestured sharply, using the Force to break the floorboards under it and destroying the damn thing. Only then did he turn to face Gibbs, who was standing there, seemingly in a daze. He suppressed a laugh – he'd never seem Gibbs look so thunderstruck. Then he heard a noise and looked over to see Ziva David staring at the body of the demon, her own weapon in her hand.
"Ok," McGee said, "I guess I have some explaining to do."