LILITH (PART II)

by

D.L. Witherspoon

Chapter Five

Edgar Masden glanced at the pages of scribbled notes and wondered what they added up to:

James Joseph Ellison. Born February 23, 1962 in Tacoma, Washington. Father: William Ellison. Mother: Mary Margaret. Army Ranger. Rank: Captain. 1988: Helicopter crash, missing eighteen months, recovered after completing his mission, resigned with full honors. 1991: Joined the Cascade P.D. Worked Narcotics then Vice, before joining Major Crimes in 1993. Partnered with Jack Pendergrast, who subsequently disappeared and reappeared dead a few years later. Next partner: Blair Sandburg. Graduate student in Anthropology at Rainier University. After the addition of Sandburg, Ellison, always a good detective, becomes a star detective. Best solve rate in the Northwest. Officer of the Year Award. Works closely with the FBI and the Secret Service. Some conflicts with the CIA and NSA. Details: Classified.

Plenty of information, but what did it all mean? After gathering the basic facts, he'd tried getting the rest by using his incredible interviewing skills. Hell, at his peak he'd had priests confessing to him. But either the alcohol and drugs had robbed him of his gift, or Ellison was very well protected. No one he talked to would go past, "he's a good detective, a fine man, we're lucky to have him." Nobody was that well-liked. The whole thing smelled fishy.

He frowned at the knock at his apartment door. Before answering, he looked at the clock and noticed it was after one. Damn. He had spent the entire morning trying to get something on Jim Ellison and was still batting zero. "Cindy!" he exclaimed in surprise as he opened the door and found his former assistant, Cindy Hartwell, waiting patiently. "What are you doing out here where the buses don't run?"

She shrugged and walked past him into the room, eyeing it judiciously as she plopped down an obviously stuffed briefcase. "You intrigued me, Edgar. Thought I'd come and see for myself that not only have you changed, but you may have stumbled upon a worthy story during your exile."

"You found something on Ellison?" he asked hopefully.

"Something? Damn, Eggie. You're talking about a national hero." She opened the briefcase and pulled out the News Update magazine whose cover story was "Beyond the Call: G.I. Survives Jungle Ordeal."

"Got it. What else do you have?"

"Why the interest in this man, Eggie?"

He grinned at the familiar nickname. She was the only one he allowed to get away with using it. "Come on, Cin. I know you wouldn't have come all this way with just the magazine. What else do you have?"

"Answer my question first," she bargained, delighting in the look in his eyes. Just like before when he was onto something big. Maybe sending him to Washington hadn't been such a bad idea.

"Went out to cover a murder this morning. Ellison showed up even though it's out of his jurisdiction. Not only investigated that murder but discovered another body while he was at it. Stokes said--"

"Stokes? As in Laurie Stokes?" Cindy asked with a hint of jealousy which totally went over Masden's head.

"Yeah. The Cascadian had sent her out to do the story, but when Ellison arrived she had to call in Larry Jordan. Apparently the man had it put into his contract that he covers whatever Ellison is into. Seems Ellison and his partner-- get this, an anthropology grad student-- are assigned to all the top crimes. What the hell is a grad student doing working directly with the cops? Need to run a check on him too."

"So, we got a cop working with a grad student. I understand that seems a little strange, but I'm still not getting your interest in this," Cindy pressed.

"I overheard the sheriff say something this morning, Cindy. I heard him asking Ellison's superior how he managed to get a profiler working for him. A local level profiler is more than a little strange, don't you agree?"

"Yeah, if it's true. Did the superior confirm it?"

"I couldn't hear the rest of the conversation. So after I called you, I came back here to do some checking around. No one, and I mean no one, will say anything bad about Ellison. I even called his ex-wife and if any of my ex-wives talked about me like that, I'd still be married to them. It's as if everyone's taken a vow of silence about the guy. I've made a couple of contacts in the area, both sides of the fence, you know. My street people will only say you don't want to mix it up with Ellison, and my contacts within the department talk about his record and little else. The only thing I've discovered is that the grad student lives with him."

"A couple?"

Masden shook his head. "I would say no. They're too open about the arrangement. I think there's something else going on."

"And that would be?" Cindy prompted impatiently.

If he had been a nail-biter, his fingers would be bloody by now, he thought, as he debated how much to tell her. The idea was crazy and he really wasn't sure he was ready to voice it yet, but he trusted Cindy as he did no one else in the world. "This is going to sound like something from Oliver Stone, but what if Ellison wasn't missing those eighteen months? What if he was involved in some secret government project? The thought came to me when one of the clerks at the police department mentioned Ellison had come to them from the military.... You didn't see how he behaved at the crime scene, Cin. His movements were almost robotic at times. He just walked from one murder to the other, as if he was following an invisible line or something."

Cindy put up her hand to quiet him. "Let me get this straight: you think he was experimented on while he was in the Army, and that they turned him into some kind of super profiler or crime-solver? Why would the Army care about crime?"

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "This police ruse is only a training scenario. He's learning to control whatever it is they've done to him."

"And the grad student?"

He shrugged. "Maybe he designed all this. Anthropology could be a sham major. He's probably a geneticist or a bioengineer. Or maybe, he's some kind of shrink." He looked at the woman staring in disbelief at him. "You think I'm a fool, don't you? That the coke and the gin have eaten whatever brain cells I had left?"

She crossed the room and stood before him, her hands reaching out to cup his chin tenderly. "Actually, I was thinking you're brilliant."

*****

"The captain send us to track you down," Joel Taggert was explaining to Jim and Blair, who had walked out of an antique dealership only to find Joel, and his partner, Zack, leaning against the truck. "He says we're to continue looking for the dagger while the two of you get your butts back to the station. And let me tell you, he's not in the mood to argue with. He had his son with him and neither was looking happy."

Jim sighed. He wasn't looking forward to going back to the station. Simon was going to expect him to have more insight into the murders and Blair, he eyed his partner warily, was going to be asking questions he didn't necessarily want to answer. But, he was going to ask the questions anyway... "Okay, guys. Here's the list of dealers we've been to. Call in if you get anything."

"Will do, Jim."

The detective looked at his oddly silent partner as they made their way back downtown. "Spill, Sandburg," he ordered, finding the silence unnerving.

"What?"

"Something's going on in that head of yours. I want to know what it is."

"It's called thought, Jim. You should try it some-- Ouch!" He rubbed the back of his head where Jim had gently cuffed it. "Okay, fine. I wasn't going to bring this up until we were home, and you had a nice cold beer in your hand, after having enjoyed an excellent meal cooked by my talented hands, but if you insist..."

"I insist," Jim said firmly. Blair's questions couldn't be nearly as bad as the questions he was imagining Blair was going to ask.

"What's with the hand movements, man?"

Jim stopped at a light and looked over to the passenger's seat. "What hand movements?" Definitely not a question he had anticipated.

"When you switch to 'overdrive' on the senses, you actually finger the remote."

"I do?" he asked with a frown. "I hadn't realized it. Sorry."

Blair shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about, Jim. I just want to know why you're doing it."

"I didn't do it before?"

His partner started to answer in the negative, then he flashed back to a few months before when Jim had tuned into the voice of a little girl named Flip who had been kidnapped. They had been in Simon's office and Jim had... the thumb had moved that time too. Why hadn't he noticed it? "Never mind, Jim. It's not important. Just as long as you feel comfortable, keep doing what you're doing. Besides, it gives me a clue as to what mode you're in."

"For the time being."

"About that, Jim..." They pulled into the station's parking garage. He glanced over at his partner to watch his face as he heard the news and was surprised to see the fingers moving. Now what? "Jim?"

"I smell her, Chief," he said, hopping out of the truck and racing toward the stairs.

"She's here in the station?" Blair called as he hurried behind Jim.

"Not her. But someone who's been in contact with her. Possibly one of her callers." He poked his nose through the door on the first floor landing, closed it, and ran up the next flight.

Blair, not knowing what else to do since Jim seemed to be perfectly in control, dogged his partner's steps as he sniffed every floor before going to the next. He did manage a quick apology to the officers Jim almost bowled over on the fifth floor, which made him slightly behind Jim as the detective entered the sixth floor. With the little breath he had left, Blair sighed. Of course whoever this person was would end up on the sixth floor-- home to Major Crimes. If he had been thinking, he would have just caught the elevator and gone on up.

Jim was thinking similar thoughts as the trail led down the hall and into the Major Crimes bullpen. When it continued into the captain's office, he reached back to draw his gun. Silent steps took him across the room and through the office door... to face a startled captain and his son. He focused first on Simon, then quickly to Daryl. He did not like what his senses told him, and cold blue eyes engaged the brown ones staring back at him.

"Damn," Daryl swore softly. "I've been busted."

Chapter Six

"You don't know how scared I was that you were going to recommend an asylum for me," Masden said, as he and Cindy settled into their first class seats and clasped the restraints.

"I'm not sure what's going on with Jim Ellison, but I knew from the moment I saw copies of his recent cases that something wasn't kosher. What's a cop from Cascade doing working cases in Baltimore and New Orleans? And the nature of these cases were so similar."

Masden nodded. "He's obviously been 'altered' to seek out dead bodies, starting with those forty-two in Cascade. That must have been the first big test because they sent a profiler in as a cover on that one. What's his name?" He flipped through the files that spilled from the briefcase. "Dr. Anthony Bozeman. Have you contacted him yet?

"According to my source, he's no longer with the Bureau and no one seems to be able to locate him."

"I wonder if he's still among the living," Masden said softly, quieting as the stewardess bent over to check their seatbelts. "Maybe he knew too much and had to be silenced. I mean, he accompanied Ellison to Baltimore, yet is barely mentioned in the final report. And he's nowhere to be found in the New Orleans case."

"I still don't understand the purpose of this skill they've given Ellison," Cindy worried.

"Think of MIA's, Cin, or the killing fields of Bosnia. 'No, Uncle Sam, there hasn't been any mass killings.' Then Ellison comes in and pinpoints every dead body in the area. Sorta puts an end to the lies, doesn't it? Or maybe dead bodies is just a beginning. Think of the things that are buried underground or undersea. Most of the bodies in New Orleans were underwater, right?"

She nodded. "I just hope the people in Baltimore are a lot more forthcoming than those in Cascade."

"Well, even if we don't get anything from the cops, Ronald Prescott sounded eager to talk. I wonder if he realizes how lucky he is. He's the only one of the perpetrators that is still alive. Conveniently, Harold Reagan, the killer of those forty-two in Cascade, and the infamous Helaire Delacroix are both dead. Wonder how they missed the Baltimore killer?"

"Someone's getting sloppy," Cindy agreed. "You know, I really should call the New York office and tell them what we're on to."

"Not yet. All we have is speculation, and maybe once upon a time that would have been enough coming from me. But I screwed up, Cin. They aren't going to trust me to pour coffee unless I take a urine test first. Let's just get the facts lined up, okay?"

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "You know I'm starting to like this new, humble you. You wear it well, Eggie."

"Thanks, babe. Thanks for keeping the faith." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Thanks for not giving up on me."

"My pleasure, Eggie," she said softly. "My pleasure."

*****

"What the hell is going on here!" Simon bellowed as his detective crashed through his door and confronted his son.

"You want to tell him or should I, Daryl?" Jim asked, his stance softening as he sensed the tremors running through the teen. He carefully returned his weapon to its holster.

"You really know, don't you?" he asked hesitantly and Jim nodded. Instead of the guilt he thought he'd feel from Daryl, relief flooded the kid instead. "I thought you would, man. At least I hoped. That's why I had the office call Dad instead of Mom. I told myself you would see me and you would know. I couldn't tell you, you see. They made me take a blood oath and after what I saw last night, well, I knew better than to break it, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, right? I wanted to come to your place last night, right after it happened, but I think I was being watched. I was the newest one. I don't think they fully trusted me. God, Jim, I'm so glad you know, man." He collapsed into a chair with a dramatic slump.

Simon had had enough. As soon as Blair jogged into the office and shut the door, he was on his feet, leaning over his desk at the two people seated in front of it. "One last time, gentlemen. What the hell is going on?"

Jim looked at Daryl who nodded. "Daryl was one of people who called Lilith."

Simon blinked, rubbed his forehead, then took off his glasses. "Say that again, Jim."

"Daryl was part of the group who called forth Lilith last night."

"Is that true, son?" he asked calmly.

"I--" Jim began.

"I'm not talking to you, Ellison," he said sharply. "I'm talking to my son. Is it true, Daryl, that you're some freaking Satanist, that you've been running around in the woods calling up demons?"

"Dad, it isn't--"

"Just answer the question, boy!"

"Chief, take Daryl outside," Jim ordered softly. Blair hesitated as Simon flicked him an icy glance. "Do it," the Sentinel commanded. Blair motioned for Daryl to join him and they fled the room.

"Don't even pull that 'your Sentinel commands you' shit on me, Ellison," Simon warned angrily. "This doesn't concern you and all this weird crap you've dragged me into. Or maybe it does. Tell me, O Great Warrior, is my son chanting up demons because of what he went through at your loft? The boy who was there that night knew squat about demons. Now all of a sudden, he's a devil-worshiper. What? Destroying my sanity wasn't enough for you, Jim?" he asked, smacking his hand against the desk. "Did you have to destroy my son too?"

When Jim didn't comment, didn't move an inch in the chair, Simon walked around the desk. "How am I supposed to tell his mama, huh? How am I supposed to tell her that her baby boy is out dancing naked in the moonlight and participating in orgies? I know about these cults, Jim. I know what goes on in them. Wonder has Daryl been whipped? Or is he the one doing the whipping? Better check at home to see if I'm missing a set of handcuffs. They work well with the chains. You should see some of the things I've found where these cults have met. But you know what I've never found? Condoms, Jim. All that sex, all that bloodletting, and I've never found a condom. Tell me, Mr. Sentinel, can those senses tell you if my son has contracted AIDS? Or do I have a year of testing hell waiting for me in the future? He's a kid, Jim, my only kid. What have you-- we-- damned him to?" He buried his face in his hands.

"Simon, please, let's not jump to conclusions," Jim begged softly.

The captain looked up, laughing slightly. "Jump to conclusions?" he repeated. "My boy was there last night, Jim. He called a murderer into this world, this dimension, whatever. That's a fact. You knew it when you ran in here, didn't you? What happened? Did you smell her on him?"

"Yes."

"Damn it, Jim. Why? Because his mother and I got divorced? Because I'm not there every day to be his father? What drove him to finding answers by worshiping demons?"

"We don't know that's what he was doing, Simon-- looking for answers. He seemed rather eager to be caught," Jim pointed out.

"He did, didn't he?" The captain perched on the corner of his desk and sighed. "I was so disappointed in him when I went to the principal's office... and so angry because every time I or the principal would ask a question, he would completely clam up. In the car over here, I think he tried to give me a hint to what was going on, but I didn't want to hear it. Just like I wasn't ready to listen to him about last night." Thoughts and recriminations warred in his head for several minutes and he looked at the man who patiently sat there through the silence. "Thanks, Jim."

"For?"

"For keeping me from saying something to my son I couldn't take back."

A shrug. "You were in shock and didn't know where to direct your anger. I just showed you the right path."

Simon looked a bit ashamed. "You didn't deserve my anger either. Whatever Daryl was doing with those demon-worshipers last night--"

"Had to do with me," Jim said softly. "That part you were absolutely right about, sir. Whatever Daryl did last night, he did because of me. And for that, I am very, very sorry."

*****

"It's because of what happened at the loft that I happened to participate in the invocation," Daryl explained to Blair as the grad student handed him a cola in the break room. "You see, the reality of demons was really wild, you know. So I did the library thing, looking up stuff and cruising the 'net for 411. It really helped me develop the computer game. I named it Sentry because that means the same thing as sentinel. I'll download a copy of the prototype to you and let you get a feel for it," he offered. A night at the loft had introduced him not only to demons, but had also revealed the Sentinel to him.

"Thanks, Daryl," Blair said distractedly as he fought the guilt Daryl's words brought. And if he was feeling guilty, God help Jim and Simon. "Curiosity took over after all the stuff you found, right? You felt the need to reaffirm what you had experienced at the loft?"

Daryl shook his head. "Uh uh. I swear to God, man, if I don't have another 'up close and personal' with a demon, that'll be all right with me. I was just trying to help you out. See, my digging got me eyeballed by people who practice this stuff like Teo Augustino. He's in my computer lab, which means he got to test Sentry, and he noticed it was about fighting demons. He like started asking me questions about why I was interested in demons, and had I ever called one up, and stuff like that because he and some of his friends were down with that shit. I started to tell him to fuck off. I still remember what Jim said about the people who were into this crap wanting to hurt Flip and I knew I didn't want to be anywhere near them."

Daryl knew Flip was Jim's daughter some kind of way. Well, he guessed he knew what kind of way, although Flip's mom, T'Dette, and Jim seemed more like friends than lovers. But his dad had told him during "the talk" that love didn't have a lot to do with making babies. At least Jim was being a man about it, accepting his responsibility and stuff. But, then again, Blair always called his partner "the poster boy for responsibility" and hell, how much more responsible could you get than fighting demons in your spare time. In fact, that's how Daryl had gotten to know Flip so well. She had been kidnapped from her home in New Orleans and brought to Cascade by a cult who sexually abused children. While Blair, Jim, and his dad had fought demons, he'd taken care of Flip and her mother.

He looked at Blair, who was patiently waiting for him to continue. "Telling them off was my first instinct. My second one was to come to you guys and warn you that some of my classmates were into this. Probably should have stuck with that one, but I didn't want to get you stirred up just to find out later it was just some dumb kidstuff without any real demons. So I pretended to go along with them, see if there was anything to it. That Lilith chick wasn't even really supposed to come in real form. It was just supposed to be like those voodoo scenes you see on TV-- you chant a little, a spirit takes over somebody, lots of sex, and everybody's happy."

"Sounds pretty dangerous to me," Blair said, reminding Daryl of the times.

"I went prepared."

"For the sex?" The teen nodded. "But what about the bloodletting beforehand?"

Daryl looked away sheepishly. "I knew the ritual called for cutting ourselves, but I honestly didn't think anyone would go through with it. But they had this music pumped up in the background and the air was full of incense... It was so hard to think, Blair. It didn't take me long to realize I was in way over my head. But I couldn't get out of it... I didn't want to get out of it," he added with surprising honesty. "Anyway, we completed the ritual, but instead of Lilith entering Shannon--"

"She was the Main Operator?" Blair interrupted, knowing the leader of such a rite was called that.

"Yeah, but instead of this spirit leaving the mirror and entering her, the mirror breaks apart and there's this dark form shimmering in front of us. For a second I wonder if someone's not burning more than incense, but the woman becomes real. She is so beautiful, Blair. Long dark hair. Really red lips, and huge..." He used his hands to illustrated her shapeliness. "She walks up to each of us and kisses us on the lips, even the girls. Then she's gone and we're all standing around like 'what the hell was that' and it finally hits us that Lilith had come to life. My first thought was that I had to tell Jim. I was about to jump in my car and head to the loft when Teo reminds all of us that we'd taken an oath before the invocation and that it still held. As I tried to explain in Dad's office, after seeing what just happened, I was pretty skeptical of breaking the oath, you know."

"What happened this morning at school? Did you find out about...." Damn. Did Daryl know about the murders and if he didn't, should he tell him?

Daryl looked at him curiously. "About what? After not sleeping last night, I decided to try again to get out of the oath, but Teo wasn't having it so we got into a fight. Then I had the brilliant thought of calling my dad, and I was hoping beyond hope that Jim would be able to tell what I'd done. When he came bursting through those doors, I knew my prayers had been answered." He smiled and leaned back in the chair. "Now, what were you talking about? What should I have found out earlier?"

Blair debated how much to tell him but in the end, the decision was taken from him as Jim opened the door and closed it. "Lilith has already killed twice, Daryl," he told the youth.

"No," Daryl said slowly, looking at Jim with horror. "It's only been a few hours. She couldn't have... What have we done?"

Jim squatted before him. "Some things that have been done, can't be undone, Daryl. But putting Lilith back where she belongs can be done. But we're going to need your help. We need to know who was in this with you and the ritual you used. If you want, I'll go over to your school and pick them out myself so that--"

"No, that won't be necessary. I'll tell you, Jim. I'll tell you everything," Daryl vowed.

Chapter Seven

"Your ass is mine, Banks!"

"I want a lawyer!"

"My mom's going to kill me."

"It's his word against ours!"

Blair looked at the teenagers and shook his head. He had convinced Jim and Simon to let him sort of "head" the interrogation of the six kids involved in the invocation ceremony-- three girls and three boys. In fact, the questioning was being held in a nice, very unofficial and non-threatening psych lab at Rainier (it paid to have friends who owed you one). Simon had eagerly agreed to all the preparations. He hadn't wanted to go the legal route because a) his son was involved and b) although he'd brought in people for messing around with demons before, he hadn't really known demons were involved. This time he did know, and the thought of how to write up such an event with stomach-turning.

The teens had arrived sullen and silent, but that hadn't lasted long-- the silent part anyway. Blair had tried to bond with the group, but they would have nothing to do with that, so he had switched to the professor approach. But apparently these kids had no respect for their teachers. So, he had recruited Jim to play the bad cop to his good cop. That hadn't gone over too well either. As an aside to his main thoughts, Blair wondered about their parents, what influence they had on the behavior of their children, and was this why they had ventured into the world of demonology. Demons expected to be obeyed and if you failed to do so, you were punished. In other words, behavior mattered to demons which meant the kids themselves mattered-- something they probably weren't too sure of at home.

Behind him, Blair could feel Jim getting restless as he sat backwards in a chair in the far corner of the room, indolently leaning his chin against the back of the chair and watching the group as calmly as a predator watches his prey. That wasn't good. Not that he didn't think his partner could get them to talk; he just didn't want them having nightmares afterward. Then again, maybe what these kids needed was a lesson in respect.

"Enough!" he said, raising his voice as if to carry across an auditorium instead of a small lab. "I've heard enough whining, accusing, and sniveling for one day. If you think you're adult enough to do things in the dark, then you're adult enough to pay the consequences when the lights come on. So stop worrying about what your parents are going to say, and who told what. Believe me, you have enough to worry about without adding to it."

"Oh, so now we're supposed to be terrified, right?" one of the brats sneered.

Blair's stormy gaze scraped across Mateo Augustino, the leader of the mini-coven. "If you're smart, you would be, Teo."

The teen laughed nervously. "You're a cop. You have to obey the laws even more than we do."

This time it was Blair who was laughing. "I'm not a cop, man. I'm a grad student here at Rainier. And even you should be bright enough to know how well college students obey the law. But now, my friend here, he is a cop. Maybe you can make that appeal to him." All eyes fell on Jim.

The detective shrugged. He had already left his gun with Simon. Now, he stood, took out his badge, and tossed it out the door. "No badge. No weapon. At the moment, I'm just like you guys-- able to do what I want. You want to have me brought up on charges later, be my guest. But for now, I suggest you answer my partner's questions." He casually resumed his seat.

"You were all involved in a dark ritual last night," Blair began.

"According to Rat Man Banks," Teo corrected. "Should have known better than to include the spawn of a cop."

"Shut up, Teo, or I'll finish that ass-whupping I started this morning," Daryl muttered angrily.

"You know, I'm getting tired of all these threats being made in my face," Jim said. "Daryl, I suggest you be quiet because you're in enough trouble as is. Teo, I'm sorry, son, but you're going to have to take responsibility for your actions. You just can't keep on blaming Daryl for your troubles. Daryl hasn't told me anything that I didn't already know."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Jim," Blair warned.

He looked at his partner and smiled. "Who's going to believe them, Chief? They sit around chanting up demons and sniffing incense and who knows what else. They are not exactly what we, in the law enforcement world, would call 'reliable sources.'" He picked up a folder beside his chair and distributed copies of the dagger he'd drawn. "Look familiar? And before you go lashing out at Daryl, think. Did he see the weapon long enough to remember it in such detail? He only held it when he pricked his finger, then passed it on to the next person, correct?" That got their attention and held it.

"You know the invocation?" Shannon questioned hesitantly.

"I know that each of you cut your index finger except for Teo. To show how daring he was, he chose another so that he could draw the cross and flip off everyone at the same time. Is that not right, Teo?"

"Who the hell are you, man?" Teo asked suspiciously. "What the hell are you?"

"Think about it, Teo." Jim had heard Daryl tell Blair that Teo had tested his game.

"You're the... the Sentry?" Jim nodded. "Nah, man. He's just some freaking fantasy," Teo argued.

"Yeah, just like Lilith," Jim said flatly as he opened his folder again and handed out photos from the crime scene-- the second, less messy, one. "But freaking fantasy or not, this man is dead and Lilith killed him. Before he becomes your father, brother, favorite uncle, or best friend, I suggest you help me put your little fantasy back in her cage."

They looked at the picture, then at him. All nodded in agreement.

*****

"Mr. Prescott, thank you for seeing me," Masden said as Ronald Prescott was led into the chamber in chains, then cuffed to the desk. The interview room at the Maryland Correctional Institute at Jessup was as dreary as the others he had visited in his long career, and he was doubly glad Cindy had had to go back to the hotel to wait on a fax on Sandburg's background. This was not the place for her.

"First visitor I've had since I got in here. Wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth," Prescott said jovially as he absently rubbed his wrist. "A reporter, huh? Whatcha doing your story on? Serial killers? Child murderers? Men Who Kill Without Remorse?"

"Actually, Mr. Prescott, as I mentioned on the phone, I'm doing an expose of James Ellison. He's the--"

"Oh, I know who the hell he is. He's the pig who busted me. For eleven years, no one knew nothing. Then he waltzes in, makes like he's my friend, and nails me.... You said you're doing an expose? So you know about him, right?"

Masden had to fight to keep his excitement from showing. "Know what, Mr. Prescott?" Always call the prisoners 'mister', he remembered one of his early teachers telling him. It showed you respected them and whatever crimes they had committed.

"That he ain't normal. You know how he catches us, don't you? If I hadn't been so mad, it probably would have scared me to death," Prescott added with a shudder. "I don't know how he handles it. He has to be one tough son of a bitch. No wonder he looked like the walking dead. The walking dead..." he repeated, laughing at his unintentional joke.

"I'm not following you," the reporter interjected, smiling nevertheless.

Prescott leaned over and said softly, "You really don't know, do you? Your detective becomes the dead. One minute, I'm talking to this big blue-eyed man and the next, I'm facing my brown-eyed son-- the one that I murdered. Scary as hell."

Masden wasn't sure what he was expecting but this wasn't it. Ellison channeled the dead? Was it possible to turn a person into a psychic? Well, there had been cases where near-death experiences started people into have psychic bouts, especially traumas involving the brain, like lightning strikes or concussions. Like maybe a concussion after a helicopter crash? What had been the extent of the good captain's injuries? But if this was the case, there went his government conspiracy. Now, all he had left was something fit for a tabloid. No! There had to be more. Too many people were covering for Ellison. The FBI had sent a profiler to shield him, and he'd gotten nowhere questioning the Baltimore cops. In fact, all he had received from talking to them was a couple of thinly-disguised threats. He shook his head in denial. No. This channeling business was just part of something bigger, something more clandestine.

"You know when they get me in the gas chamber, I plan to pay the detective a visit. See how he'll like having a big ghost take over his ass. Should be fun," Prescott concluded.

"Yes, it should be," Masden said distractedly. "Has anyone else questioned you about what happened with the detective? Maybe someone from a government agency?"

"Nah. As I said, you're my first visitor. I didn't have too many friends on the outside, I guess."

"Well, thank you for your time, sir. You have been a big help." He gathered his notepad and pencil. They wouldn't let him carry a pen inside.

"You don't want to ask me how it felt to kill my own flesh and blood? Or the other boys?" Masden shook his head and Prescott sighed. Oh, well. Maybe after he hit it big with this story. "You'll send me a copy of the article when you finish it? And it'll have my name in it?"

Masden nodded. "All of my sources will be accurately documented. Goodbye, Mr. Prescott."

Cindy was waiting for him as he walked out of the depressing place and into the sunshine. "Well, Eggie? You get anything?"

He shrugged. "Just more strangeness. Maybe I have done too many drugs, Cin."

"Maybe not. I got the report on that Sandburg guy. It may have the info you've been looking for."

Masden grabbed her arm excitedly. "Tell me, Cin. You don't know how much I need good news right now. Is he more than just some dumb, anthropology student?"

"He is an anthropology major, Eddie. In fact, he has a master's degree in it. His paper was on something obscure-- people called Sentinels."

"Never heard of them."

"They purportedly died out a long time ago."

"Who the hell were they?"

"They had heightened senses... perhaps so heightened they could smell bodies long buried?" she broadly hinted.

"Or maybe not so buried across a parking lot?" He grinned and threw his arms around her. "You're a godsend, Cin! Now, tell me all you know. Theses senses? How many of them are heightened? How are they heightened? Is this a hereditary thing? Doesn't matter now with all this gene altering crap going on. Could you imagine the kind of army you could have if they didn't need to haul around all the technical shit and didn't have to worry about dampening fields or radio signals being traced... And where would you train such a being, to see if he works the way you want him to work? Make him a policeman, of course. Put him into various situations, no matter where they occur, assign him an observer..... How clever. What time is our flight to New Orleans?"

"Two hours," Cindy answered as she drove back to the hotel.

"Good. That gives me time to go back over Ellison's case files, looking for instances of extraordinary uses of his senses. If we're right, you know what this means? It means the government has been doing genetic experimentations on humans since at least 1988. No wonder people have been dying over this. Can you imagine the flack if this got out? Turning men into sensory automatons.... My God, Cindy. We just may have the story of the year!"

Chapter Eight

"So what do we have so far?" Simon asked wearily as he looked out into the empty space of Major Crimes. It was late. Everyone else had gone home. Except for the Demon Busters.

"Not much," Jim replied with a frown. "The kids used the same invocation Sandburg had already found."

"But we now know how the embodiment of Lilith was able to cross over into our plane of existence," Blair said, trying to pretend they were making progress. "Usually with this rite, a part of her spirit weakly possesses the Main Operator, then the spirit is banished back to where it came from. But in mythology Lilith is known as the 'Black Moon'. It rules the night sky in our regular moon's absence, you know on those 'moonless nights' in horror stories where it's so dark you can't see your hand in front of you. Last night was like that, and I think the ritual plus the Black Moon created some kind of portal. It was a fluke, an accident."

"Accident or not, two men are dead and there will be more by morning," Jim pointed out in frustration.

"And my son helped cause this," Simon muttered.

"Daryl was trying to help us, Simon," Blair said quickly. "And he did. Now we know the callers and they will be necessary when we send Lilith back."

"How?"

"You hadn't said anything about that, Chief."

He held up his hand for silence. "I just found out myself. Willow left some information on my email."

"Willow?"

Blair shrugged. "Don't know if it's a male or a female. We met in a chat room, and I'm going to guess and say she because I hate saying he/she. It's so stupid--"

"Chief."

The simple warning put him back on track. "Willow seems to have access to an incredible occult database which she calls 'The Library'. According to what she told me, the original callers are the only ones who can send her back by doing the ritual in reverse."

"Then why did we let them walk out of the lab?" Simon demanded.

"Because Lilith isn't ready to go back yet."

"What does that mean?"

Blair shrugged. "Willow isn't sure. She's going to do more digging and let me know."

"How do we know this Willow is reliable?"

"She was the one who told me about the holy water before." The holy water which had kept the demons out of the loft and gotten the one out of him.

Jim knew how guilty Blair still felt about that, so he quickly stood and stretched. "Well, the best thing we can do right now is go home and get some rest. Everybody has a partner, right?" Lilith attacked men who slept alone, so he wanted to make sure none of the principal players could succumb to her.

"Teo and Josh are doing a sleepover at Teo's, Daryl is bunking with me, and I'm sure you and Sandburg have your plans."

Jim nodded. "Then we're all set for the night. It'll probably be another early morning call," he warned.

"We may not be able to work the crime scenes, Jim, if they are not in the CPD's jurisdiction. Not everyone is like John, although I did notify the surrounding authorities that we are working a possible serial, and would appreciate being informed."

"That won't be a problem, Simon. She's in the city."

He nodded, taking Jim's word for it. "When I get called, you're next on the list. Go home and relax while you can. That's what I'm going to do as soon as I pick Daryl up from the Y."

They said their goodbyes and left Simon closing up his office. "Well, it's happened, Jim, and I hope you're proud of yourself," Blair said as he settled into the truck's passenger seat.

Jim sighed. "What have I done now?" he asked, resigned to everything being his fault.

Blair dug into his pocket. "Got me carrying a badge, that's what," he replied with as smile as he flashed the shiny medallion Sheriff Robinson had tossed at him. "But I am not giving up my ponytail, man. Got it?"

"Aye, aye, Deputy Blair," Jim replied laughingly.

Blair examined the badge. "You think he buys these things by the gross in a novelty catalog?"

"Lighten up, Chief. He's shorthanded and gets by the only way he can."

Blair stared at the figure beside him. It looked like Jim. He bounced as the truck zoomed around a corner. It drove like Jim. But it sure as hell didn't sound like Jim. "Where is all this tolerance coming from, man? Is this something Michael infused in you?"

Jim shook his head. "Not Michael-- life. I can't afford to be intolerant, not anymore. Just the idea of how intolerant people would view me, the me I've become, makes me cringe at the way I used to behave. Despite your supportive words, I am not normal and there are people out there who would scorn me, exile me, or more than likely, kill me because of what I am, what I can do. I have knowledge, Chief, of spirits and demons and angels.... I know now it's not safe to ridicule anything, for the impossible is just likely to be possible after all."

Blair looked over compassionately at his partner. He had not fully appreciated the depth and breadth of the changes Jim had had to accept in the past year. Sure, he'd known he was a bit uneasy conversing with ghosts and the experience he'd shared with Alicia had been enough to shake a pope's faith. But Jim had also had to contend with raising the remains of the girls in the bayou, traveling to another plane of existence and wrestling with demons, and to top it off, he had been in the presence of an actual angel-- no, an archangel, who had empowered him to be a warrior for all of mankind. It was no longer about a tribe, nor a city, nor even a nation. No, Jim fought for the hope of a species, for its future.

The weight of that responsibility had to be heavy and even though he and Simon had pledged their support, the majority of that weight would always rest on Jim's shoulders. And the wonder of it was that Jim had not balked, had never once bemoaned his fate. It was as if after embracing his status as a Sentinel, he was resigned to whatever life handed him. Hell, maybe he had been expecting further changes. That enhanced sixth sense of his....

"You worry me when you're this quiet," Jim remarked apprehensively.

No matter how much Jim had grown, Blair instinctively knew he wouldn't appreciate the sympathetic thoughts, so he pointed out something he'd meant to mention before. "You really threw me when you confessed to those kids that you were the, uh, Sentry."

Jim shrugged. "They had seen Lilith, Chief, and knew that demons, evil, actually existed. I just thought they should know that the alternative existed too, that they had a choice."

Blair couldn't help it. "You amaze me, man," he gushed. "No wonder you're such a good detective. You understand people. You know how they think, their motives, their desires and needs. That's what's so confusing."

"What?" Jim asked, knowing he should long be over being embarrassed when Blair praised him, but felt his face warm nevertheless.

"Why you were such a jerk before you met me."

Jim laughed, grateful for this man at his side. "Jerks are ignored, Sandburg. They don't participate in conversations, but they still hear and see. How else could I do such a thorough study of people?"

"So, you're saying there was method in your 'jerkiness'? I ain't buying it, man," Blair challenged with a smile.

"Can't blame a man for trying," Jim said with good grace.

"Just wait until I tell Simon...."

*****

"Look at this," Masden said, shoving a crinkled piece of paper beneath Cindy's nose as the plane soared toward Louisiana. "He spent some time at Ellsworth Air Force Base after doing some rescue work."

"In South Dakota?"

"Yeah, the detective gets around," he agreed. "Oddly enough, those Baltimore cops were with him there too."

"You think they're involved as well?"

"I think anyone who works with him is subject to extensive review. If you pass, you live. If you don't.... Apparently, the ones he worked with in New Orleans had to fly to Cascade recently. Wonder if that was some kind of test?"

"So it's a pretty safe bet that they're not going to talk to us, right?"

"Probably not. But the New Orleans gig was a big operation. Lots of people were involved," Masden pointed out.

"So back to the prisons?"

He shook his head. "Nah, once they took out the leader, I doubt anyone else will have the guts to say anything. But as I said, a lot of people were involved, not just cops and cons. Like those who helped retrieve the bodies from the swamp, and the family members of those girls. I think we'll find at least one person willing to talk."

"And then what?"

"And then maybe we'll have enough to convince Ellison that it would be in his best interest to cooperate with us."


To be continued in PART III
Back to Lilith Main Page, PART I

Back to What's New & What's Coming

Back to TVLIT 101

Back to Guide Posts

Back to Cascade Library