6.
It was still sunny, but they were on a beach now, a beautiful sandy beach on a gorgeous day. As Tara and Alex looked around, they noticed it was not a normal day, but a crime scene; there was tape marking out a space around a dead body, and cops and crime scene investigators swarming the beach, although Adele was no longer with them.
"What the hell was all that about?" Tara demanded.
"I guess Adele was only with us cos that show needed three sisters..." Alex mused. "After she 'vanquished' the Trickster, she disappeared too."
"And all the other stuff? About us becoming angel vessels?"
"Who knows? Just means we have to find a new way out."
Alex looked over the crime scene, thoughtfully, then looked down at themselves.
"Not Rizzoli and Isles again. So who are we now?"
They were dressed more like themselves, still in jeans, but with plaid shirts, though Tara again sported a cop badge, while Alex was carrying a silver case, and her badge was different.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!"
"What?" Tara glanced over the scene again, then back at Alex.
"This one of the CSIs?"
Alex showed her the ID badge, her face like thunder.
"Miami Police Department: Blood spatter pattern analyst?" Tara read out, puzzled. Then she realised, and burst into hysterical laughter.
"Oh my God! You're Dexter!"
"That's right, laugh it up." Alex was not amused.
"She made you the serial killer!"
"Guessing it was a coin flip to see which one of us got which sibling, Debra."
"No, I think she got this right." Tara was still shaking with laughter.
"We don't have to play our roles, anymore, but I can still kill you," Alex reminded her. "And I bet I could get away with it, too."
She looked over at the murder scene; carefully arranged, with dismembered limbs, and then the hand caught her attention, each nail painted a different colour.
"I remember this... The Ice Truck Killer."
"Yeah?" Tara was only half-listening, checking out the guys roller-blading past in tight shorts.
"Yeah. Turned out the guy was Dexter's brother... Do you think she's trying to tell us something?"
"Who, the Trickster? Nothing we want to hear."
"No, I mean bringing Adele into this, putting us in shows about siblings."
"She's just trying to hammer her point home. About Lucifer and Michael. I wouldn't waste any more time on it."
Tara's attention moved from to the crime scene, watching the cops and CSIs. Her eyes narrowed as she saw one of the technicians, standing a little back from the crowd, sucking on a lollipop.
"Alex. Check out the guy with the sweet tooth."
Her sister followed her gaze.
"You think she's hiding this time?"
"She was that Surgeon serial killer guy, before, right?"
Tara looked over the scene again, thinking fast.
"Let's try something different this time."
She walked over to the body, ducking under the tape, Alex following.
They were greeted by a Cuban man in a bright shirt, shades and a straw fedora hat.
"What've we got?" Tara asked, her eyes never stopping moving over the scene.
"Jogger called it in this morning. Clearly this is a step above your usual dump job; this is staged."
"Serial killer?" Alex asked.
"We don't say that until we got proof," Angel Batista replied, looking very serious.
"What do you think about the body? As it is."
Alex knelt by the scattered limbs. It wasn't quite how she remembered the TV show; the whole body was here, and there was a lot of blood from the slashed throat. Tara picked up a piece of driftwood, poking at the body while Alex examined the staged body parts.
"Any thoughts?" she asked the CSI technician behind them, the one sucking on the lollipop.
The man shrugged, taking a step forward.
"Never seen anything like this before."
"You sure about that?"
Tara pivoted, striking out with the sharp wood in her hand, coated in blood. She stabbed the CSI straight through the heart, and the man fell, dying. Everyone else recoiled in horror, except for Alex, who got up, tensing herself, and Batista, who started inexplicably laughing.
The sisters watched as the man changed before their eyes into a familiar looking woman.
"Oh, darlings. Ten out of ten for effort, but really? You need to do better than that."
"Okay." Tara threw the stick to Alex, who swiftly ran the Trickster through with it.
The woman looked outraged, then her expression became just annoyed.
"Clever girls."
She fell to the ground, and everything blurred into static.
When it cleared, Tara and Alex found that they were back in the warehouse, where it had all begun.
The Trickster lay dead at their feet, still impaled on the stake.
The sisters looked around; there was nothing else there.
"Is that it?" Tara asked.
Alex looked wary.
"Looks like it."
"But what about Cassie? Where's she?"
"How about we get out of here first, and try and find her later?"
"Okay."
Reluctantly, Tara followed her sister out of the warehouse, and they went back to the motel.
Tara paced, checking her phone for the millionth time.
"I'm worried, that's all," she said, in answer to her sister's unspoken criticism, accompanied by an eyeroll from Alex.
"What could the Trickster have done to her? To an angel?"
"Look, take a break, will you?"
Alex was working on her laptop, losing patience with Tara's antics.
"Go have a beer, or take a shower or something."
Tara tossed her phone down on the bed.
"Fine. But I'm still worried!"
When she got out the bathroom, her sister had vanished. That wasn't too weird; she could have gone for food, or ice, or just to stretch her legs. But her laptop was also gone, and there was some weird kind of speaker box in it's place.
"Alex?"
Tara went over to the door, checked outside. There was nobody there, and the car was empty.
Puzzled, and no less concerned, Tara went back inside, confronting the mysterious speaker box. She tapped it.
"Hello?"
There was a pause, then Alex's voice came through.
"Tara? That you?"
"Alex? Where are you?"
"Uh... I don't know."
Tara stared at the box, an extremely annoying realisation dawning on her.
"You know how we were just talking about Angels?"
"Oh, crap."
Alex's tone was just as annoyed.
"We didn't kill the Trickster, did we?"
"No, 'Charlie', we didn't. Question is, am I Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz or Drew Barrymore? Or I guess it's more likely this is the TV series-"
"Not really the issue right now, is it?" Alex sounded more pissed off.
Tara picked up the speaker box; it was not plugged in, nor did it look technologically advanced enough to be using wi-fi.
"Are you in the box, or-?"
"Tara! Focus! We need to find the Trickster, and, I don't know, what else could kill her?"
And then another thought struck them both.
"I mean, she is a Trickster, right?" Alex asked.
"I don't know," Tara replied, slowly. "Cassie said she was too powerful for a Trickster... So maybe not."
"Then what?"
"Did you see the way she and Cassie looked at each other? Like they knew each other."
"And she got pretty pissed when you asked which side she was on. You don't think... no. She couldn't be."