Reflection, a Sentinel confrontation with Guide mediation, by Glacis.
Rated NC17, no copyright infringement intended. This is a sequel to Distortion. Set after and spoilers for Sentinel Too.
This story doesn't stand alone, so the gentle reader might wish to read the
prequel first.
It had been a damned hard six months. Jim Ellison stared through the
hospital window, enhanced sight not seeing a thing beyond the streaky glass,
all his attention centered on the room behind him. The machines were blinking,
humming and beeping. The intravenous tube dripped steadily. The cotton sheets
rustled with every breath the young man lying between them took.
The heart beat just like it was supposed to, strong and sure and calm.
He'd come too close to losing Sandburg this time. An instinct strong
enough to rip his head apart was screaming at him to find Alex Barnes and shred
her into little bloody pieces. With his teeth.
A stronger instinct wouldn't let him leave his Guide's side until he
knew, absolutely knew, that it was going to be all right. That he was
going to live.
And return home, where he belonged.
If there really was a god, anyway, that's what should happen. Ellison
clenched his fists against the cold glass, and found himself praying.
Maybe somebody was listening. Someone besides himself.
In a small, very well insulated hut twenty miles south of Allakaket,
Alaska, a man sat bolt upright out of a sound sleep. His eyes widened, and he
had the Glock in his hand, cocked and ready, before he had his eyes completely
open. Every self protective instinct he possessed, and they were legion,
shrieked warning.
Narrowed, fully alert eyes scanned the room. Nothing. He flicked the
safety back on automatically. Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
If not with himself, then
where? Who? What the hell had given him a
nightmare so bad he'd woken up?
Lee Brackett didn't suffer from nightmares. In order for one's
subconscious to bother one, one had to actually possess both a moral compass
and a sense of guilt. He'd never suffered from either.
But once, for a short time, he'd had something better. He'd had a Guide.
Who was in deep trouble.
Stupid damned cop. He had respect for Detective Ellison, almost as much
respect as disdain. The man was hopeless at protecting the Guide. From the
tenor of his dreams, Ellison had fallen down on the job again.
Well, he was getting tired of snow, anyway. It had been over a year, it
was time to go back to the jungle that was the city. Time to return to his
Guide, and settle this ridiculous rivalry for good. Time to take out Ellison.
Time to protect the Guide.
Everything was falling apart. Alex huddled in a corner of the diner,
warming constantly chilled hands against the thick ceramic cup holding yet
another strong cup of coffee she didn't dare drink. Caffeine was playing hell
with her senses.
Everything was playing hell with her senses.
She was seeing things that weren't there, things out of the corner of
her eyes that disappeared as soon as she turned to look at them. Her skin was
clammy, all the time, no matter how many layers of clothing she wrapped around
herself. Everything tasted like chalk, except every once in awhile when her
taste buds felt like they'd been coated with napalm. She couldn't smell
anything, then all the sudden her sinuses would explode and she'd lose
everything except her sense of smell, and it would overwhelm her. But
the noises were the worst.
Something was growling at her. Constantly, a low raspy threatening
growl. At the base of her skull, making her head vibrate. She tried to do what
Blair had taught her, dialing it down
but every time she brought his voice to
mind, the growl would escalate into a bone-shaking howl, and she'd find herself
curled up in a little ball, arms thrown over her head, tears dripping down her
face.
It was coming from within her. It scared the hell out of her.
She tried to ignore it all, as much as she could when it felt like she
was losing her mind, and concentrate on business. Her Cascade contact had
bugged out on her, and she was hauling around a canister of toxic nerve gas and
an empty checkbook. Two months on the run had made her nervous about the first
and tired of the second. Hopefully, the meet today would take care of both
those problems.
She'd worry about the growling later.
The door swung open and a man walked into the dining room. First
reactions rippled through her
cute, nice body, coldest eyes I've ever seen,
including my own
want to kill him. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl that
startled herself. Where had that come from? Judging by the stiffening in that
fine body, the man was feeling the same reaction. The familiarity shook her to
the core.
Great. She finally managed to find a buyer
and he turned out to be a
Sentinel. How the hell many of them were there? She'd thought she was the only
one, until she'd met Ellison. Now they were coming out of the woodwork. He
stopped at the edge of her table.
"Ms. Alexander?"
With an effort, she stifled the growl and forced the snarl into a
semblance of a welcoming smile. He had the pseudonym right. She nodded at the
opposite chair. He looked around the dining room, pinned a smile on his face
that would have been convincing if not for the absolute lack of warmth in his dark
eyes, and gestured toward the sidewalk outside the window.
"Let's take a walk." She opened her mouth to protest, and he
shook his head. "Humor me, Ms. Alexander. I'm
claustrophobic."
Right. And she was a seven foot NBA player with a billion dollar contract.
Oh, well, if he made a move at least she'd be able to run. And he needed her to
find the gas canister
so she should be safe enough.
"It's a beautiful day," she lied, disregarding the gloomy gray
mist and the intermittent rain, ducking past him out through the door.
She felt his eyes on her, and it made the hair on her arms prickle. The
growling started again, and this time she couldn't block it out.
He'd been seeing the panther a lot. The first time it showed up was in
Blair's hospital room, winding with delicate precision between the heart
monitor and the IV pole. It had stopped at the edge of the bed, placed one big
paw on the sheet an inch from Sandburg's shoulder, and stared into the
unconscious face. Its whiskers had quivered, and it had looked over at him,
staring at him as if to tell him that this was his fault, that the Guide
wouldn't be fighting for his life if the Sentinel had been watching over him.
Not that he needed an imaginary cat to tell him that.
It turned up at the station, a couple days later. Crouched on top his
desk, should have made a hell of a mess with his paperwork, but it was all in
his head, of course, so it hadn't. Or maybe not quite all in his head. The
cat had looked pissed, and worried, lashing its tail, ears flat against its
skull, low rumbly growl coming out of it. He'd taken one look at it, grabbed
his jacket and headed to the hospital.
Sandburg was having a seizure. It had been close, too damned close, and
he'd stayed there all afternoon, through the night and into the next day, when
the doctors finally pronounced the crisis past. The panther'd been there, then,
too, in the room, crouched at the foot of the bed, staring at Sandburg.
Whining.
Nobody heard it but Ellison, of course. Nobody saw it. Although Blair
had opened his eyes for the first time since they'd fished him out of the
fountain, and he hadn't looked at the docs. Hadn't looked at Jim. Hadn't looked
at the nurses. Had looked at the foot of his bed, and his eyes smiled, and he
went back to sleep.
So maybe somebody else had seen it.
Didn't really matter. What mattered was that after much too long away
his partner was finally coming home in the morning. Jim had worked like a
madman putting everything back as much like it had been as possible. He hadn't
let anyone help him, disregarding offers from everyone from Simon to Connor.
The compulsion was strong in him to make a safe place for his partner, to bring
Sandburg back, wrap him up, apologize to him, make love to him, and try to
patch all the cracks in their combined life that he had put there to begin
with.
It took a lot of hours laying on his back tracing lines in the ceiling
before he finally got to sleep, triple and quadruple checking the clock to make
sure he'd set the alarm, didn't want to be late picking up Blair from the
hospital. Didn't want to be late when he was trying so hard to make amends.
He didn't know it when he slipped into sleep, but he did recognize the
jungle when he got there.
The foundation of the temple was crumbling, with vines and moss clinging
to the tumbled stones. The altar had shifted, was lying on its side, one corner
broken off. The clearing before it was ragged, the foliage beginning to take
back its territory.
The panther was there, but it was ignoring him. It crouched beside a
wounded wolf, and Jim recognized the blue-eyed animal he'd shot the last time
he was in the spirit plane. He moved forward instinctively, then froze.
Something else was there.
Undergrowth broke and scattered as a heavy body moved through it,
dragging something in its mouth. He squinted and peered harder, not quite
believing what he was seeing. A cougar, tawny and golden in the half light,
blood streaming from claw and tooth marks in its coat, was dragging the corpse
of a spotted jaguar through the brush. The jaguar's throat had been ripped out,
its coat was shredded, and its eyes were staring sightlessly directly at Jim.
Blue eyes.
Barnes' eyes.
The panther shifted, hovering protectively over the wolf, who whimpered
and lay still. The cougar hauled the jaguar's body to within a few feet of the
pair, then threw it down at their feet. Oddly enough, Jim had the strong
impression that the cougar was offering its kill to the wolf, that the panther
was merely a bystander. Then the cougar threw its head back, bared
blood-streaked fangs, and howled a challenge at the panther. The wolf stirred,
trying to put itself between the two cats, and the howl was cut off abruptly.
The panther whined, nuzzling at the wolf, trying to make it lie back down. The
cougar growled, then coughed, once, gently, before turning to go back into the
underbrush. At the edge of the clearing, it turned, glared at the panther,
coughed again at the wolf, and finally glanced at Jim.
Dark eyes.
He knew those dark eyes.
Before he could figure out the puzzle of dark eyes in a golden face, the
alarm shrilled.
He didn't think he was ever going to be warm again. His memory was a
little hazy; the last clear sight in his mind's eye was a lovely, insane,
immoral bitch pointing a gun at him. Then a short walk, something about
freedom, a massive pain in his head
and a whole lot of cold water.
The forest was cold. Mist hung in the air, and there were icicles
hanging off the leaves on the trees. It was the Rain Forest gone medieval, and
the only thing that was missing was the Norse God. Then warmth stole across his
lips, down his throat. It only thawed his lungs, didn't make it as far as his
heart.
He'd been betrayer and betrayed. Too concentrated on protecting both his
new research subject and his lover / partner to see what he was doing. In the
end, they'd both turned on him. One tried to kill him.
The other may as well have.
Only it wasn't the end. If it had been the end, he wouldn't be wrapped
in scratchy cotton with a tube stuck in his nose and another in his hand,
having to pee so bad he could taste it and not able to make a sound because his
throat felt like it was stuffed with old newspapers. He was out of the water,
out of immediate danger, still out of the loft, and in deep shit, from what
little he could remember. It made his head hurt to think, so he closed his eyes
and went back to sleep.
He dreamed, but he didn't remember the dreams. He didn't hear himself
whimper, didn't notice the restless movements that prompted the doctors to
increase his pain medication. Didn't feel the tears the few times they escaped
his closed eyes, and didn't know that a warm hand brushed across his face to
wipe them away.
A week passed, then two. Gradually he spent more time awake than asleep,
and eventually the medical profession officially passed him as free to go home.
Jim had stepped up and declared that he, Blair, would return to the loft --
home, he'd called it. Sandburg wasn't so sure.
Hadn't looked much like home the last time he'd seen it.
She was expecting the attack, at a level somewhere so deep she didn't
even know it was there. But her muscles were tensed, and she turned under the
grasping hands right before they made contact. It wasn't fast enough, far
enough, strong enough
simply wasn't enough. A part of her brain was in denial
-- why would he kill her before he had the gas? Her soul answered, growling
muted to a strained whine. It wasn't the gas. It never had been.
She tried to scream as the arm circled her neck and the hand came up
along the side of her head, tried to kick. Punch. Bite. Claw. Nails connected,
but there was not enough force behind them to do much damage. There was a
howling scream in her head, coming from her? Him? Them? Then pain flashed
through her spine, and her eyes widened. Her struggles stilled. She didn't feel
the slash of the blade as it marked her flesh. There was darkness.
There was a jungle.
She was trapped in the temple.
She couldn't breathe.
Bright, angry eyes stared at her through the leaves she could see
through the tiny hole above her head.
"Help me?" A whisper. The growl came back to her. The stones
closed in. She flexed one paw against the cold stone wall, and watched
helplessly as the final stone was set in her prison.
In the darkness, behind the stone, she licked at the blood staining her
fur, and she began to scream.
Blair didn't say much when Jim came to pick him up. His partner looked
like shit, bags under his eyes, fine lines bracketing his mouth, a barely
perceptible tremor in the strong arms that held the requisite wheelchair for
his escape from medical confinement.
Blair noticed.
A little of the ice deep inside his chest cracked, and started to melt.
Jim practically lifted him into the cab of the truck, and Blair shooed
him away irritably. "I may look like an invalid, Jim, but I'm not. I can
buckle my own seatbelt." He half expected a comeback to his snappishness,
but the other man simply nodded and walked away to the driver's side. Great.
Silent treatment. If there was any way in the world he thought he could carry
it off, he'd be the one giving Jim the silent treatment. But he
knew himself better than that.
He did manage to keep his mouth shut all the way home. Jim didn't seem
to have any trouble at all doing the same, clutching the steering wheel,
staring out at the road as if his sight was a laser weapon and he was clearing
a minefield with it. By the time they got back to the loft, Blair was
exhausted.
He half expected a bare floor and bare walls when Jim opened the door.
Instead, it looked
normal. Cluttered to some extent, with a mixture of his
stuff and Jim's stuff sitting side by side just like it had for the last few
years, fitting as they had fit. Had.
His eyes started to burn, and he blinked furiously. It couldn't be that
easy. It wasn't going to be that easy. He wasn't that easy. Blair
turned automatically toward the stairs, to go up to their bed, then stopped in
his tracks. He wasn't sure any more if it was their bed. He turned
partway, staring over his shoulder at Jim, standing motionless in the doorway.
His partner was suffering. Something inside Blair twisted, and broke
open, and he shuddered. Part of it was history, part was genetics -- he was a
Guide, and his Sentinel was in pain. He was a scientist, and his subject was
suffering. He was a lover, and the one he loved was hurting. And he was a man,
whose best friend looked like he had just lost his best friend.
One hand came up on its own and extended itself toward Jim. Blair looked
down at the hand, the arm, shaking in the distance between them, then up at his
partner. Jim crossed the floor in a blink, and their fingers wound together.
They clenched with desperate strength, drawing from one another, reconnecting.
The words could wait.
The hold was close enough.
A wave of dizziness passed through Blair and he swayed on his feet.
Immediately Jim's arm came around his waist, and he leaned gratefully into the
solid length of his Sentinel. "I'm wiped, big guy. Can we thrash through
this later?" With a soft, "Sure, Chief," Jim gathered him close
and headed up the stairs with him. Blair clutched at Jim's belt, concentrated
on moving his feet, and sank into bed as soon as they made it to the top. He
was vaguely aware of warm hands moving over his body, tugging off his clothes,
settling a quilt over him
and the heavy purring weight of the big cat
settling alongside him, before he drifted off into healing sleep.
By the end of the week, Blair was pushing Jim out the door to get him to
go back to work. His partner had gone into hyperdrive Blessed Protector mode
and it was making Blair nuts. True, they hadn't actually gotten around to
talking about what had happened with Alex -- he'd tried, twice, and Jim had
gotten that 'deer caught in the headlights' look and immediately started
cleaning the loft. Hard to discuss deep emotions at the top of one's lungs over
the roar of the vacuum and the dishwasher. So he'd let it rest. They had time.
But Jim was showing his remorse in other ways, or at least that was the
only explanation Blair could find for his bizarre behavior. He was
hovering.
Mother henning. Practically chewing Blair's food for him. Barely allowing
anyone at all, even Simon, to come over and visit. It was almost as though he
was building some sort of tall brick wall around Blair, protecting him from
every breeze that blew by, from every raindrop.
It was ridiculous.
He'd even taking to sniffing the air, nearly zoning out trying to look
everywhere at once. He was pacing, four or five times around the perimeter of
the loft, first only at bedtime, then more often, until it was practically once
an hour. If he'd had a tail it would have been twitching. If Blair had been
completely well, and not sleeping eighteen hours out of every day, he'd have
sat on the Sentinel and not let him up until the other man admitted that he was
being paranoid and offered some kind of explanation for his weird behavior.
Or maybe just sat on him, until they'd finally make love again,
after which Jim would be too tired to even think about checking the locks for
the ninety seventh time.
As it was, they'd cuddled, yeah, and done some light necking on the
couch. But a combination of what he saw as Jim's guilt and his own residual
resentment, not to mention the fact that he fell asleep at the drop of a hat,
were making it tough to even get to first base, much less horizontal and fully
engaged. He shrugged, stared down under the railing at Jim pacing the living
room again, and sighed. Later. When he was feeling better. And Jim was not so
far into his cleaning / guarding / nanny mode.
The ringing of the telephone interrupted his thoughts, and he cocked one
ear to listen in. Sounded like Simon, calling Jim in. Cool. Maybe he could get
a nice long nap in without the sound of an overzealous Sentinel pacing
underneath him. He listened to the end of the one-sided conversation, then the
click of the handset being placed in the cradle, followed by Jim's light tread
on the stairs.
"Go for it, Jim. I'll be fine. I'm just going to sleep," he
ordered gently, before Ellison could open his mouth. A silent look, an aborted
gesture; he read the concern there and nodded. "I'll be okay."
"Need any tea? Some soup?"
Blair had to grin. "No, Mom." Jim didn't smile back, and Blair sighed
again. He loved the guy, but there were times when he found him impossible.
"Cell phone's on the stand.
This time it was Blair's turn to nod tiredly. With a small shooing
motion, he burrowed back under the quilt and closed his eyes. Jim took the hint
and headed back down the stairs. Blair smiled to himself in the darkness under
the covers. Jim was really freaked by nearly losing him. Good. Blair had been
pretty freaked himself over nearly losing Jim. Maybe now they could clear the
air and start over.
He looked forward to Jim coming home that night.
His approach had to be different, this time. His planning was
meticulous, as always, but the Guide was too weak to subject to the extremes of
sensation he'd felt the last time. Stress must be minimized, until the healing
was complete. Then the bonding could begin. Isolation, complete removal and
total care, followed only when the Guide was healthy again with the challenge
to the other Sentinel. Ellison would die, eventually. But first, the Guide had
to be cared for.
And for that, the detective had to be distracted, and Blair Sandburg had
to be removed while the distraction was still in place.
He'd taken vengeance on the fool who had damaged the Guide. Guides were
rare, and precious, and this particular one would be his. Too bad the bitch
hadn't taken Ellison down when she'd had the chance -- leaving the way clear
for him to walk right in. But this was the next best thing. She'd broken the
first rule, after all, one of the very few rules he actually followed. Protect
the Guide.
Which was precisely what he was going to do.
Captain Simon Banks stared at what used to be Alex Barnes and manfully
repressed the strong urge to lose his breakfast in the nearby bushes. A uniform
and one of his detectives already had. Whoever'd done her had done her with a
will. He breathed shallowly through his mouth, trying not to smell it, then
looked up as Jim Ellison ducked under the crime scene tape. There was a
closed-off look to his face, and his nostrils were pinched. Simon could
understand the feeling.
"What do we have, Captain?" the detective asked, then froze.
His eyes were fixed on what remained of Barnes' face. He started to sway, and
Simon reached out a hand to steady him.
"You okay, Jim?" He didn't look like he was. He nodded without
pulling his eyes away from the corpse, and Simon continued. "Hell of a
mess. M.E. hasn't given the exact cause of death yet, probably gonna take
awhile."
"To find all the pieces," Brown said sourly from beside the
photographer. He had a faintly green tinge to his skin. "Looks like some
kind of animal tore her apart."
Simon watched with barely concealed curiosity as Jim knelt down by the
corpse. The detective snapped on rubber gloves, reached forward with one finger
and pushed gently at the battered skull. It rolled easily, separated as it was
from the rest of the corpse.
"He ripped her head off," he said, so quietly Simon almost
missed the words. "The bruise at her cheek
"
Simon looked again. Her jaw was hanging open, broken at the joint, but
there, under the streaks of blood from the torn scalp, was a long, vertical
bruise in front of her ear. He looked closer. It looked like a strike bruise,
from a chopping blow, either with a blunt instrument or the side of a hand.
Jim had moved now, and was examining one clawed hand. It was also
separated from its limb, and lay curled by itself a few feet from the body. Jim
held the hand up to his face, and Simon moved hastily to shield the detective's
movements from the rest of the crime scene team. For a horrified second Simon
was certain Jim was going to lick it, then he took a deep, relieved breath when
Jim simply sniffed it. Simon saw the narrowed blue eyes gradually widen, lose
focus, then snap back to life.
He didn't know how Ellison did this, and in spite of the kid's
explanations it still seemed more like magic than real life, but he was glad he
had the Sentinel on his side. Even if his methods were more than a little
strange. Now, he was sniffing the material along the spine of the corpse, that
small amount of fabric that wasn't soaked in blood.
Jim's head shot up, and Simon instinctively glanced around for the
source of the danger. Then Jim looked over at him, shook his head, and said,
softly, "Shit!"
"Jim?"
"Brackett." Flat tone. Utter conviction. Simon's neck itched.
"Shit," he agreed. Then he gestured for the coroner's
attendants to come gather up the remains. "Time to do some footwork. We
find out where she's been-"
"We find Brackett." There was a feral gleam in Ellison's eyes
that Simon didn't completely trust. But this was his bloodhound, and he was
prepared to trust him as far as it took to get the rogue CIA agent back in
custody.
He might even leave Ellison alone in the interrogation room with the
creep for a little while when they did bring him in.
And turn off the videocameras.
Blair was half asleep when he heard the click of the lock downstairs.
"Jim?" he said softly, knowing his partner would hear him. To his
faint surprise, Jim didn't answer. He heard the quick patter of feet coming up
the stairs, and only had time to remember that Jim hadn't been wearing his
Reeboks when the hand came across the front of his face. He pulled in a breath
in automatic response, trying to yell, and a faintly sweet scent filled his
nose. His head went fuzzy, and he looked up to see a familiar face bending over
him. Strong arms gathered him up, quilt and all, and he muttered, "Fuck.
Not again," before passing out.
Ellison was pacing at the station, now. He knew it had been driving
Blair crazy, but he hadn't been able to stop, and it was getting worse. His
skin itched. His scalp crawled. Hell, even his teeth were itching.
Something was wrong.
He'd thought, when he saw the mess that had been Barnes, that he'd had
the answer. The other Sentinel hadn't gone very far, was still inside his
territory, still a threat to his Guide, himself, his tribe. So, when he found
out she was not only dead, but destroyed, surely the itch should have faded.
It hadn't. In fact, it had gotten much, much worse. He tried to do the
things Sandburg had taught him, center himself, listen to his instincts, try to
pinpoint the threat. It worked really well on the streets. It didn't work so
well in the middle of the precinct. The third time he was interrupted he'd
literally growled at Rafe, causing the younger cop to drop the file he was
holding. Scooping up the fallen papers in silent apology, he found himself
caught in the clear whiteness of the weave of the paper he was holding. A
heartbeat away from a total zone out, he caught himself.
It was all perfectly clear. One sentinel had indeed been killed. But the
other one, the truly dangerous one
was still here. And Blair was in danger.
He thrust the papers blindly at Rafe then nearly bowled him over heading
for his desk. He grabbed his keys, his jacket and his spare .38 from the drawer
and headed for the loft at top speed. The bastard had taken Sandburg from him
once. No way in hell was he gonna get away with it again.
Brackett had taken him out through the side door, around to the alley,
and directly into the back of the pickup with camper shell he'd gotten
specifically for the snatch. Then a few hours' drive across the border, a solid
story about fishing with buddies at
He'd been consciously monitoring Blair's vital signs, reassured by the
steady heartbeat and calm whooshing of air in his lungs. The Guide was sleeping
soundly, a deep, chemically aided healing sleep. He'd looked surprisingly
robust for a man who'd nearly died and that in itself gave Lee cause for hope.
The sooner Blair was healthy, the sooner they could get to work forming a bond,
the sooner he could get rid of Ellison once and for all, and the sooner he
could get on with his life. Their life together. His groin stirred at the thought,
at the tactile memory of the last time he had Blair Sandburg, and he grinned
briefly to himself. Later. Not much later, but when they were safe and alone.
He was going to take it slow this time, because he could, and because he had
to. But Blair would be his.
When they got to the cabin, Lee carried the unconscious form inside and
deposited him on the bed, making sure he was comfortable and securely bound
before returning to the truck for supplies. Once they were settled in, he
methodically primed all nine levels of security devices hidden in the woods and
small clearing surrounding the structure. Each trap was lethal, and all were
built in a fashion that screened them from Sentinel senses. If he was lucky,
Ellison would try to find them and rescue Blair before the Guide was fully
cognizant. Then he, Brackett, could go outside, clean up the mess, burn the
remains, and go back to the important things in life.
Jim nearly wore out lights, siren, and tires making it back to the loft.
The door was locked, but his nose twitched and he coughed, choking on the
strong smell of ammonia. Oh, yeah, Brackett had been there -- and he'd done
whatever he could to cover his tracks.
Just about taking the door off its hinges in his haste, Jim barreled through
the doorway and hit the stairs, gun out and up, every sense on alert.
"Blair!" he yelled, but he knew it was useless before the word left
his mouth. There was no sound in the loft. It was empty.
No heartbeat.
The bed was stripped, Sandburg was gone, and he was wasting time. He
holstered his gun, grabbed the cell phone and hit the second speed dial button.
Simon answered on the third ring.
"Sir, Brackett took Sandburg," he rapped out, ignoring his captain's
strident demands to know what the hell he meant taking off like that in the
middle of a murder investigation. His brisk statement shut Simon up completely.
"I need an APB put out on him. I'm going to track him, please send
backup."
"Where?" Simon asked reasonably.
"I'll tell you when I know," Jim answered truthfully, then
shut off the phone and focused his senses on finding his partner. Standing
stock still in the middle of the room, he extended first his sense of smell,
then his sight. The loft looked clean. Sighing with irritated frustration, he
did it again, pushing a little harder this time.
Sweat, musk, chamomile tea, orange peel, chili, toasted bread, newsprint
chili. Beer. His eyes narrowed to close in on a hair, lying along the stair.
Not much, not enough -- but it was proof. He followed his nose out to the front
of the loft, down the stairs, out the side door, and stopped dead in the alley.
This was the way Brackett had taken him. There was no fresh oil, no
tread marks, nothing to mark the passage of the vehicle the bastard had used to
take Sandburg away. Jim crouched, running his hands over everything in the
alley, extending sight and touch and smell until he was past the point where he
would have been safe, desperate to find a trace of his Guide, some clue, no
matter how small, that would lead him to his partner. A broken patch in the
pavement gradually grew, darker, larger, all encompassing, and he fell into the
darkness, no voice to call him back, no hand on his shoulder to anchor him.
Simon went to the loft himself, half expecting his cell phone to ring at
any moment and Jim to tell him that he'd tracked the car by a microscopic trail
of antifreeze or something and needed backup to pick up what was left of
Brackett.
No such luck.
Jim wasn't at the loft, but his truck was. There was no sign of
disturbance or forced entry. The door was still unlocked. The elevator was
empty, the stairs were empty, the front of the building was empty. For a weird
second Simon had the impression that the whole damned world had disappeared and
he was the only person left on the planet. Then he rounded the corner of the
building toward the back alley and nearly tripped over his detective.
"Damnit, Ellison! What the hell are you doing!" Not much, from
the look of it. Simon realized that Jim hadn't even flinched when he'd hollered
in the man's ear. Not a good sign. Neither was the unnatural stillness in the
big body, or the totally rapt look on the frozen face. "Oh, Sandburg,
where are you when we need you," Simon sighed, then bit back a curse as he
remembered precisely why Sandburg wasn't available. Standing uncertainly
beside the life-size statue that was his friend, he tentatively tugged at his sleeve.
"C'mon, Jim, don't do this to me. Don't do it to yourself. The kid
needs you. Come on back, now, from wherever the hell it is you're at."
There was no response, and Simon settled in for the long haul. He had to
get Jim out of this state, and Sandburg was getting further out of reach the
longer they wasted time with this. When another ten minutes of coaxing,
ordering, cajoling and barking didn't do the trick, he went back upstairs. Got
a bucket. Filled it with ice water. Tramped back downstairs, carefully removed
Jim's gun from its holster, and emptied the contents of the bucket into Jim's
face.
The results were spectacular.
Hearing and taste had been subsumed to smell and touch, which were then
harnessed to sight. The attack, when it came, overwhelmed his vulnerable sense
of touch, which had been cranked up almost as far as it could go. Thousands,
no, millions of icy needles plunged into his body, battered against his flesh,
burned his face. He snapped out of the zone immediately, so fast his other
senses went momentarily off-line, and he clawed at his skin, sure he was coated
with burning oil, it hurt so badly. Instinctively, he grabbed for his gun, then
panicked slightly when his fingers closed on empty leather.
He crouched down in a defensive position, ready to defend, poised to
kill. Slowly, as no further attack came and his touch adjusted itself back to a
more normal level of intensity, other senses came back, hearing first. There
was a low, rumbling noise coming from directly in front of him. It was calming,
soothing, and he found himself responding to it, even though it wasn't the right
voice. Sight was next, and he focused on an unexpected sight -- Simon, backed
up against the wall, both hands, palms out, up next to his ears, eyes huge,
mouth going a mile a minute. Take away eight inches in height, sixty pounds, a
lot of pigment, and add a mass of hair, and he'd've been a dead ringer for
Sandburg.
The thought brought him all the way back to reality, and with it came
realization. He didn't have a trail to follow. His knees wavered, and he stared
around the alleyway, lost. His eyes came back to Simon, and he cut into the
reassuring flow of words.
"He's gone, Simon." Anger, desperation, fear all mingled in
the simple statement of fact.
"I know, Jim. But we'll find him," as his boss and friend did
his best to reassure him.
"Yes," he agreed quietly, the mix of emotions coalescing into
a ball of fierce determination in the pit of his stomach. "I will."
It wasn't that he was beautiful, although he was a very attractive man.
It was something different that Brackett saw when he looked at Blair Sandburg.
He saw possibilities.
He'd always been a loner. Now that was no longer possible. He'd always
learned from the best, then eradicated them, so that he was the best in their
stead. It had kept him alive and as close to sane as he got his entire life. It
had put him at the top of the Game.
It had pulled him back down again.
Now, he not only had a partner, he had another half. Sandburg was
brilliant. Annoyingly moral with it, but that could be overcome in time.
Brackett also had something else he'd never had. An imperative to protect
another human being. He sensed that if something
permanent happened to
Sandburg, then his last chance at getting a handle on his life would be gone.
He and Blair could do great things together.
Now he just had to convince the Professor of that.
He started gently. Of necessity, Blair had to be restrained. Otherwise
he would do something foolish, like try to escape. Then he'd be caught in a
trap and probably killed. Not something Brackett was willing to chance. So he
was securely and lightly chained by the ankle to the bed. The chain was long
enough to allow him to get to the chamber pot in the corner, the sink beside
it, and within four feet of the window so he could see outside. It was a
comfortable room, with a radiator heating it, a soft, thick blanket replacing
the quilt he'd been brought in with, and plenty of room to stretch out on the
large double bed.
Not that one would know it looking at Sandburg. The young man had woken
from his initial sleep with a jolt, then nearly broken his leg trying to
escape. Lee'd had to wrap himself around the frantically struggling body to
keep him from hurting himself. Then he'd explained that Blair was safe, that he
was not going to hurt him, that everything was going to be all right.
Blair had responded by questioning his ancestry, his intelligence, his
capability to walk upright and his relative place in the gene pool. Then he'd
tried to head-butt him, bite him, kick him and pummel him. Of course, all he'd
done was wear himself out. But he had tried.
Spirit was a wonderful thing.
That had been four days before. Since then, Blair had thrown his food at
Lee, nearly sawed his ankle in half trying to pull it from the cuff, gone on a
hunger strike and screamed abuse until he was hoarse. It had been painful to
watch. Finally, Brackett gave in and began dosing him with a sleeping drug,
because all the fuss was wearing on Blair's health. And he'd taken him away, in
part, to heal him -- not to make him worse.
The small amount of narcotic was working very well. Blair was floating
in a haze most of the time, amenable, sleepy, and no longer trying to hurt
either himself or Brackett. It was working. Blair was relying on him for
everything, and whether he admitted it or not, a bond was forming.
Brackett had intended on waiting until Blair was healthy before he began
his campaign to strengthen that bond. But there was something
appealing about
the young man sprawling bonelessly in the middle of the soft covers. Brackett
knew his own psyche very well, and knew that the combination of vulnerability,
fight, captivity and lust between them would be good.
Very good.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, he finally gave into temptation.
Settling alongside the drowsy form on the bed, he began running his hand gently
along the inside of Blair's leg, starting at the manacle around his ankle,
gliding along the length of calf, the roundness of the knee joint, the satin
skin of the inner thigh. Since he'd been keeping Blair naked as a deterrent on
the off chance that he might find a way to escape, there was no
impediment to his wandering hands. He looked up at Blair's face as his hand
cupped the soft wrinkled sac between his thighs. Hazy dark blue eyes shifted
past him, around the room, and back to his face.
"Jim?" he slurred. For a moment, Brackett's fingers tightened,
and Blair moaned in response to the pressure. Then he eased his grip. Not
answering, he simply dipped his head and began sucking. Soon the moans from the
head of the bed weren't forming words at all. One hand worked at Blair's
testicles while the other stroked his shaft, and he sucked steadily at the
head. In very little time, Blair was writhing under his hands, humping up into
his grip. When he felt the sac in his hand tighten, Brackett backed off,
brought both hands to bear, and rapidly stroked him to completion. Blair cried
out, sharply, arched, then settled back against the blanket. Brackett kept
stroking gently, until the tremors subsided, then walked over, picked up a
washcloth from the side of the sink, and came back to the bed. Wiping the
spilled semen from Blair's skin, he smiled.
Not Jim, never again.
It became a ritual of a sort. Twice, sometimes three times a day, Blair
would wake to find Brackett's hands on him. Lee would suckle and milk him dry,
then clean him up. Blair's existence narrowed to a hazy combination of gently
coaxed ecstasy and deep sleep. In the back of his mind, buried under layers of
drug-induced lethargy, a voice was urging him to fight. It kept saying a name,
bringing a face up to him, but he couldn't quite hear the name, couldn't quite
focus on the face. So he drifted, and he woke enough to moan and shiver and lie
satiated until he slept again. And as he slept, he dreamt.
He recognized the forest, the temple, the heat and the moisture dripping
from the leaves.
He didn't know the cougar.
He was lying on his side, curled over, panting. He stretched his paws
out toward the temple, but the stretching hurt, and he didn't understand it.
Looking down, he saw that one hind paw was caught in a vine. He tugged, but
before he could pull free, he was distracted by the cougar. It was grooming
him, licking at the wound, cleaning it. He wanted to roll away, even barked
weakly at the cougar, but it ignored him and kept cleaning.
It felt good.
It shouldn't.
It was healing.
It couldn't.
It was.
Ellison was losing his grip. It had been almost two weeks since Sandburg
had been kidnapped, and they didn't have a hope of a lead. No one had seen or
heard a damned thing. There were no paper trails of any sort to follow. He'd
even contacted old acquaintances from Covert Ops who were still in the field,
and so far, no go.
He wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating, wasn't doing a damned thing but
trying to find his partner. Captain Banks had finally put him on desk duty,
next step administrative leave, because he couldn't focus on anything but
Sandburg. He wasn't even pretending to carry on with his work, because the
center of his entire life was missing, and until it was restored, he was
hopelessly off balance.
Entering the third week of enforced insanity, he was sitting at his
computer running down everything he could think of on
Maybe he could help. Thought was catalyst for action, and he headed
immediately to the University. Once there, he waited as patiently as possible
for Kelso to finish his lecture, then met him at the front of the room.
"Detective!" the professor greeted him. "I'd say this is
a pleasure, but I can tell from your expression it won't be."
"Can I talk to you?" Jim nodded toward the door. "Your
office?"
"Of course," Kelso responded, then quickly cut off the last of
his students' questions with a blanket statement that he'd have office hours
the next morning, and that now he had an appointment he had to keep. The two
boys and one girl took one look at Ellison and cleared the room.
Safely behind closed doors, Ellison laid out what had happened to Blair,
and who was responsible. Kelso winced at the name. "God, not again. I wish
someone would just shoot the bastard and put us all out of his misery."
"Find him," Jim promised, "and I will." He stared down at
the professor, and Kelso believed him.
"Let me put out some feelers, Detective. I'll find out whatever I
can and get back to you as soon as possible." Jim nodded his thanks and
turned to go. "Blair Sandburg is a good friend, Detective," Kelso
added softly. "We will get him back."
Jim clenched his hand on the door frame and took a deep breath.
"Soon, Dr. Kelso. Please."
Blair was getting stronger, and Brackett was relieved to see it. He'd
made arrangements long before, when he'd first taken the Guide, to escape out
of the country to a hideout he had in
Until then, he used what he had to. He cared for his Guide, and he began
training the young man to expect, and need, both the drugs and the pleasure.
After two weeks of both, he allowed himself the pleasure of the next step.
That night, he dosed Blair, and stroked and petted and sucked him as
usual. But this time, he was in bed too, and when Blair was relaxed in the
aftermath of climax Brackett turned him on his stomach, slid a pillow under his
hips, and worked him open. Then he slowly, carefully entered him, and thrust to
his own completion. The sensation was as good as he remembered it, hot, tight,
sweet, and Blair swamped his senses. Just as he had before.
Just as he always would.
He slumped over his Guide's sweaty back, then slowly pulled out and
shakily cleaned them both off. Then he draped himself around Blair and drifted
off to sleep.
Something was radically wrong. The hands weren't quite right, but they
were just hands, and they felt good, and they left him alone afterward. This
time, they weren't the end of it.
He felt strong arms turn him over, long fingers slide around his hip and
align his spent penis against a soft pillow, then those same long fingers slide
into his body and start to stretch him. It felt right, but wrong at the same time.
Right action, right care in the preparation, right approach to filling him and
fucking him.
Wrong cock.
Wrong thighs slapping against his. Wrong voice in his ear. Wrong mouth
at the side of his neck. Wrong angle, wrong rhythm, even as his prostate was stroked
and he felt his body respond again, even as clever (wrong) fingers milked his
new erection, even as warm (wrong) hips nestled against his, even as strong
(wrong) arms wrapped around him.
It was wrong. But it felt right.
He fell back to sleep, and the voice was a little louder. The face was a
little clearer.
Then he was back in the forest, and the cougar was propped against him.
The wound was nearly healed, but it itched, and he couldn't scratch it. He
snuffled into the golden fur against his snout, and it was the wrong color.
He could hear sounds, very faint, but frantic. He felt comfortable, and
safe, surrounded as he was by the cougar's care. But as secure and unthreatened
as he felt, he also felt
wrong. He tried to concentrate on the sounds coming
from the heart of the forest, but his head was fuzzy and he couldn't hear
right. The effort wore him out, and he settled back against the cougar's warm
flank.
He'd just have a little nap. Maybe it would be clearer when he woke up.
Objectively, Ellison knew that some things couldn't be rushed. The
deeper the shadows around the source, the longer it would take to get to the
information.
He wasn't doing objective real well.
It had been almost a full month, now, and he was getting nowhere fast.
His dreams, when he did actually get some sleep, were muddled and confused.
Lots of fighting through tangled vines without a machete. Lots of screaming at
the top of his lungs and fighting as hard as he could only to end up completely
entangled, caught fast. Then he'd fall out of bed, land with a thump hard
enough to wake himself, and find himself wrapped up like a fucking mummy in the
sheets.
He was seriously contemplating contacting Gustavo and seeing what it
would take to put out a contract on Brackett when his computer beeped. He
recognized the edress and immediately switched over to email.
From : jkelso@u.ranier.edu
To: ellison@mc.cascadepd.gov
Subj: Sighted
The fox has been run to earth. Come by for coordinates.
jk
It was enough. It would have to be. For a brief moment he considered
calling in Simon and making sure he had backup. But his instincts told him the
best way, perhaps the only way, to take Brackett would be as quickly, quietly
and permanently as possible. One man operation.
His operation.
Kelso sat at his desk and watched his visitor disappear. He liked Jim
Ellison. Considered him one of the few people on earth he'd judge worth Blair
Sandburg. Had gotten to know him as well as might be expected for an intensely
private man on relatively casual acquaintance.
The Jim Ellison who'd just taken the slip of paper and vanished out the
door was not a man Kelso knew. He was not an enemy he'd care to have, and even
as an ally he'd be very cautious. There was something about his eyes that was
not quite human. Fierce, intelligent, determined, feral, even, but not human.
A shiver passed through him, and he turned to his computer. He sent out
a coded note of appreciation for the information, then wheeled himself away
from the desk and over to the window. Staring out at the misty rain, he found
himself wondering how it would go down, and wishing, for a scant second, that
he could be there to see it.
The pleasure was happening more often, now, an almost constant
counterpoint to the rush of the drug through his blood. His mouth or his penis
or his ass were in near constant use, but he wasn't hurt, wasn't pushed beyond
anything he could handle. Hands were always on his skin, it seemed, massaging,
cleaning, stroking, petting.
Blair knew it was wrong. But he couldn't understand what had been right,
and why this was not it.
The voice in the back of his mind was faltering now. He could barely
hear it.
When he dreamt of the forest, the cougar was always there. The heart of
the forest wept and cried, and the wolf didn't remember why.
Ellison was operating on instinct. He hadn't felt this edge even when
he'd gone against Yuri, because Yuri hadn't held the trump card.
Blair.
Sandburg was in there, and he was vulnerable. Jim knew that Brackett would
have an array of electronic listening devices around the perimeter. So Jim had
gone to some friends, squeaks and geeks from black ops who owed him a few
favors, and he'd come armed with his own countermeasures.
Safely out of the range he'd been told to expect from state of the art
equipment, he set up the lap-top and tapped in the codes he'd been given. They
were blanket signals, reflecting signals back onto themselves, in essence
creating a black hole in the security net. Knowing it wouldn't fool the system
for long, hoping it would be long enough, he wove into the trees surrounding
the house and headed for his prey.
The first trap nearly speared him. He caught a flash of movement out of
the corner of his eye, his ears picked up the swish of displaced air, and he
threw himself sideways just in time to escape impalement on a wooden spike, now
buried a foot deep in a tree trunk. He swallowed, upped the intensity of his
senses a notch, and went with his instincts.
One inch away from putting his foot down between two trees, he froze.
There was heat there, and there shouldn't have been. Withdrawing his foot as
delicately as a cat picking its way through spilled water, he concentrated on
the heat source. Eventually, his eyes caught the pattern of an electrified net
spread out under the leaves. Far enough down that the light tread of the
occasional forest animal wouldn't trigger it, and with enough voltage to fry a
human on the first step. He backtracked a little way, looked around, and
couldn't see the side edge of the net. Okay. Couldn't go around it. Had to go
over it. With a small growl, he scrabbled up a handy tree. Eyes scanning ahead,
ears tuned for the tell-tale creak of a branch that wouldn't bear his weight,
he moved forward, branch to branch, tree to tree, until finally after what felt
like an eternity the far edge of the net appeared. Leaving it intact, not
wanting to set off any alarms, he ventured forward.
In all the time Brackett had had Blair, all the ways he had had him, he
had never kissed him. He realized this oversight one afternoon, buried to the
hilt in Blair's ass, hands working his Guide's nipples, face buried in his
Guide's hair. With a final thrust, he came hard enough to nearly lose
consciousness, then carefully pulled out. Turning Blair gently, he wove his
fingers in the curls at either side of his Guide's skull, and devoured his
mouth.
To his triumphant satisfaction, Blair's mouth opened to accept his kiss,
tongue sliding forward to share tastes. He moaned, and Blair moaned back. The
sound made him stiffen.
"jim"
No. Not Jim. Would never be Jim again. Anger washed through him at
Blair's inability to accept the reality of his new place, of his new Sentinel.
He drew back, one hand wrenching from Blair's hair to circle his throat. Then
he froze in place, staring at his hand. His eyes darted from the confused,
uncomprehending azure eyes to the slender throat under his fingers. The grip
eased until it became a caress, and he dropped a kiss alongside the pulse point
at the base of Blair's throat.
"No," he said quietly. He would not kill the Guide. He would protect
the Guide.
He would kill the other Sentinel.
Ground that had looked and felt solid under Ellison's feet suddenly gave
way, and only explosive reflexes kept him from falling into a pit that hadn't
been there a moment ago. There were razorblades embedded in the sides of the
pit, and sharpening his gaze, he could see a smear of light liquid along the
edges. The faintest smell of almonds tickled his nose, and he breathed harshly,
trying to calm his heartbeat at his near escape. If the fall hadn't killed him
the poison certainly would have.
The traps were slowing him down. He didn't have a lot of time before the
blind spot he'd jury-rigged in the perimeter surveillance net became obvious
and he lost the element of surprise.
Something snapped at the thought of being so close to his Guide and
losing him again. His body lightened, and his speed increased even as his heart
rate dropped. Time slowed to a crawl and he slipped through the forest like a
ghost.
Behind him, metal crashed together as a leg trap missed his ankle by a
whisper. A tiny popping sound and a whiff of spray washed through the air,
killing the vegetation it impacted, just missing his face. Foliage parted to
reveal camouflaged razor wire, an inch from his chest as he slid sideways
through the brush. An instant before a sonic explosion hit, his hearing dialed
down to zero, warned by the disturbance of the air pushed to the front of the
sound wave. His entire being was reduced to survival instinct, one thought
taking all others from his mind. Reclaim the Guide.
At the edge of the final clearing before the house, he felt tiny
vibrations under the ground. He sniffed deeply, and smelled the faintest whiff
of explosives. Reaching out with his hands, unable to discern any difference in
the ground pattern with his sight, he used touch to determine the placement of
landmines from the edge of the clearing to the walls of the house, hovering
fingertips centimeters above the dirt, feeling for minute vibrations in the air
to tell him where the live, electronically primed mines were planted.
He would never remember the trip in through the forest, or the narrow
escapes he made. All he would remember is peering around the corner of a window
to see Lee Brackett and Blair Sandburg nude in bed, wrapped around one another,
kissing. He nearly zoned on the sight of his partner's lips opening under
Brackett's mouth. Then the obscenity of a kiss broke, and a whisper of sound
came from Blair.
"jim"
It was loud to his ears. He started to move forward, and his eyes caught
a shimmer in the air. Relying on touch again, he discerned lines of infrared
energy crossing the window. Backing away, he did a quick reconnoiter of the
outside of the house. The IR net was secure everywhere. With the sinking
knowledge screaming at him that time had run out, he edged back around the
corner of the house.
Brackett had left the bed and was standing at a sink, running water over
a cloth. Jim took in the long thread of chain holding Blair to the bed, the
cleanliness of the room, and the generally healthy appearance of his partner,
then went with instinct one last time. Pulling his Colt 9 mm sub-machine gun
from his back, he shattered the window with the butt, threw himself through the
resulting hole, and brought the weapon to bear on his enemy, placing his body
between Brackett and Sandburg.
A boot lashed out and caught the stock, jolting it out of his hands. He
clawed futilely at the weapon as it was wrenched from him, and lashed out with
a foot, kicking it away, finally, from both combatants. With a snarl, he flew
at Brackett, all instinct and hatred, no finesse or science left. Energy flared
between them, and Brackett responded in kind, as their bodies crashed together,
hands digging at eyes, knees, elbows, feet lashing out at chests and groins.
Blood flowed as blows landed, and neither heard the commands being bellowed
from the bed behind them. All that existed in the world was the tang of blood
and sweat, the thundering sound of the Enemy's heart, and the sheer animal need
to rip that heart from his body.
Blair was seeing things, and it wasn't just from the drugs in his
system. Jim, he knew Jim, how could he forget Jim? He couldn't, hadn't, of
course, had merely been distracted, ambushed. Mislead.
But they were both Sentinels.
He was seeing three worlds, overlaying one another, people moving in and around
one another without overlap. Jim, crouched over him, telling him to stay put,
to stay safe. Alex, staring at a clump of flowers, her face lighting up in a
smile as she successfully dialed down her senses for the first time. Lee
Brackett, hand wrapped around his throat, turning the threat into a caress.
Jim, promising to keep him safe. Alex, apologizing with tears in her eyes as
she tried to shoot him -- and couldn't. Brackett, nuzzling the back of his
neck, holding him
Jim holding him
Alex kissing his cheek
the cougar
licking his wound.
Jim shooting the wolf.
Images over the reality, like shadows in a puppet play. A cougar and a
panther, circling one another, grappling, clawing, biting. Tearing at one
another. A wolf, barely healed, torn by the need to protect. Protect the
Sentinel. But which Sentinel? How? WHO?
Protect the Sentinel.
Too few. Wild, can be tamed, tamed, can be set free. Potential as long
as there is life.
The calling of the Guide. Protect the Sentinel.
"Stop!" This time it was a howl.
This time they heard him.
Ellison froze at the command from his Guide. So did Brackett, for a
moment, then he seized the advantage. Or tried to.
Instincts were still running high, and Jim caught the movement in the
muscles beneath him telegraphing the blow. He twisted and grabbed, turning the
momentum around on his attacker. His hands tightened in a death grip.
"Please."
It was Sandburg's voice, calm, centered, irresistible. He paused, looked
up through the sweat and blood streaking across his vision, and asked, quietly,
"What?"
"Don't kill him."
A knife twisted in his gut, and his grip tightened. "Why?"
"You are a Sentinel. He is a Sentinel. I must protect the Sentinel,
and I don't know how. If you kill him, you will kill a Sentinel. If he kills
you, I will kill him. I
don't know what to do."
Ellison looked down at Brackett, who was looking at Sandburg in shock.
"Kill me?" Brackett managed to squeeze out past the choke hold across
his throat.
"Jim's my life," Sandburg said simply. "My imperative as
a Guide is to protect Sentinels. But my choice, as Jim's guide, is to
protect him. So I can't let him kill you. You didn't hurt me, and he doesn't
have to kill you to protect me. But I can't let you kill him, either, because
if you do," his eyes turned fierce, the calmness belayed by the ferocity
of his protective instinct, "I will kill you." The light faded in his
eyes, and he settled back to a sitting position on the bed. "So I'm kinda
stuck here."
"We could turn him back over to the CIA," Jim suggested,
tightening his grip against Brackett's increased struggle. "Except they'd
just let him loose again. We could lock him up, but he'd find a way to get out.
Or we could turn him over to the government as a lab rat," a brief pause
as Brackett nearly bucked him off and he fought to regain control, "but
he'd probably talk, then we'd all be in trouble." He looked over at Blair,
who was playing with the chain running from his ankle to the bed frame, and
staring at Brackett. "Or I could just kill him."
A sound took his attention away from his Guide, and he looked past
Sandburg to see the panther, sitting slumped in the corner. Blood ran from
wounds in its side and along its shoulder. Further away sprawled a cougar,
licking at its own wounds and hissing at the panther. Between them a wolf
prowled, back and forth, whining a little and barking questions.
The Sentinel. The other sentinel. Finally, the wolf turned to the
cougar, and Jim's heart stopped. The muzzle came down, and the wolf nosed at
the tawny cat. The cougar looked over at the wolf, then back at the panther,
who was watching intently. The wolf nudged him again. With a final questioning
cough the cougar turned his back to the panther, licked the wolf's cheek, and
staggered away.
When Jim looked down again, his choke hold had come undone. Brackett was
nowhere to be seen. Blair was sitting on the bed, staring at him. Smiling at
him.
"That was probably the stupidest thing I have ever asked you to do,
Jim," he said quietly. Ellison nodded numbly in agreement. "Thank
you." He tugged at his ankle chain. "Now, would you please get me the
hell out of here and take me home?"
Jim located the computer controlling the surveillance and security net
around the house, disabling the minefield and all of the computer controlled
traps before using the short-wave in the kitchen to call for help. It arrived
in the form of a Medivac helicopter from
In the morning, Simon showed up, bearing coffee and asking questions.
Most of them, Jim couldn't answer. What he did remember was fuzzy at best, and
incomplete at most. Brackett was gone, Blair was going to be okay as soon as
they got the drugs out of his system, Brackett hadn't hurt him
hurting being
relative, of course. Jim was on autopilot for the next three days, until
Sandburg was cleaned up, cleaned out, and discharged with seven pill bottles
and exhaustive instructions into Jim's care. Blair slept all the way to
Cascade.
Pulling up in front of the loft, for a moment, Jim thought he felt eyes
on him. He shuddered, then concentrated, trying to sort out the fatigue and the
paranoia from what his instincts were actually telling him. The itch wasn't
there. The need to prowl and protect was muted. Brackett was really gone.
For now.
Leaning over and gently shaking his partner's shoulder, he said,
"Chief. Come on, let's get you into bed."
Sandburg mumbled something indistinguishable even to Sentinel hearing
and half fell out of the cab into his arms. Staggering slightly, he managed to
maneuver both of them into the elevator and into the loft. The stairs were too
big a challenge, and he sank onto the couch, draping Blair over the top of him.
Wrapping his arms around the smaller body, drinking in as much of his partner's
presence as he could on a deep breath, he closed his eyes and nuzzled his face
into Sandburg's mop of curls.
It had been a long fight, but he'd won. The Guide was home safe and
sound. And while the threat from the other Sentinel remained, that was a fight
for another day. A day when they would meet, alone, without the wolf between
them. The day when only one would leave the field of battle.
Another day.
~f~i~n~i~s~