Still the Deep

Still the Deep by Audra Rose

“Though the great Waters sleep,
That they are still the Deep,
We cannot doubt –“
-Emily Dickinson


Prologue: (Blair)

I guess I’m haunting this city.

I’m not dead – not anymore – but I may as well be a ghost. It doesn’t matter how closely Jim holds me, hard up against him in his bed, or how much I want to stay there with him; as soon as I fall asleep, my spirit walks.

I don’t know why. Maybe Incacha gave me the power before he bled out on Jim’s couch. Maybe once I left my body behind in the fountain I never quite settled back into it. Whatever the reason, I spend the hours before dawn on near-empty streets, an unseen audience to the small dramas of strangers. I watch and I listen, all the while searching for a place of blue silence that isn’t there anymore; at least not for me. I wander until he calls me back with soft breath on my shoulders and words he won’t say in daylight.

Maybe some night I’ll wander so far that even Jim won’t be able to find me. I’ll float away and drift forever, lost with all the others. I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one out there searching. This city is crowded with ghosts.

***

(Jim)

I knew Mara Caton in high school. She was always on the periphery; one of the girls who hung out with the football team, but no one’s girlfriend. I didn’t know her well, but after half an hour in her office, 23 years later, I am beginning to remember why I never liked her.

“Nothing is actually missing? No damage?” I ask, for what must be the third time.

Her smile is cool. “No, Jim, as I said before, nothing is missing. But I’m positive that someone was in here after close of business last night. This file is usually –“

“Yes, I know.” I stop her, because one complete explanation of her filing system was enough. “The problem I have here, Mara, is that there is no evidence that a crime was committed.”

Sandburg and I are on this milk run of an investigation supposedly because I used to know Mara, and Mara’s architectural firm is designing the chief’s new house. She called him, he called Simon, and Simon sent us here to placate her. The real reason we’re here, the one no one actually said out loud, is that our colleagues in Major Crime needed a break from my unofficial partner.

Blair drowned three months ago. After he came back to me and left the door between this world and the next open, I watched him fade. He became more and more a part of that other place, and if he hadn’t figured out a way to close that door, I think I might have followed him through it.

But somehow Blair found a way to stay here, and now he’s getting better, finally. Sometimes I worry that I’m seeing something that isn’t there just because I want it so badly, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Unfortunately, there’s more to healing than the repair of the physical shell.

In the past two weeks, ever since he shut himself out of the afterworld, he’s developed an unnerving restlessness. Purposeless pacing, tapping his fingers, the way he avoids eye contact – it’s enough to make anyone crazy.

Anyone who doesn’t know what he went through, anyway. Whenever I feel like snapping at him to just sit still for a minute I catch a glimpse of something like grief in his eyes and I let him be.

Right now he’s prowling the perimeter of this cold, starkly modern office. Mara’s eclectic taste in pottery and sculpture is scattered around the room on shelves and pedestals, and Blair is moving from piece to piece with indifferent ease. I can hear him moving around behind my chair, near the doorway.

“We have very important documents here, Jim,” Mara says. “We’re one of the top firms in the city; we’ve designed dozens of buildings. What’s more, we’re in the final stages of bidding on the new wing of the Cascade Natural History Museum.”

Even I’ve heard of this – the city is adding on to the museum, and the design competition has been fiercely debated in the news for months.

“You think someone broke in to get a look at your design.”

“I think it’s very possible.”

“Well, that’s serious. But unfortunately, there’s still very little we can do without actual proof of a crime. I can add an extra patrol sweep, if you’d like.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.” Then her gaze flicks up, past my shoulder. This isn’t the first time she’s done this since we arrived; it’s probably the tenth.

Mara is talking to me, but she is watching Blair. Not making sure he doesn’t hurt her priceless collection of ancient junk, but watching him. The same way I do. I’m really getting tired of looking at her look at him, and turn to see him myself.

He is facing us, looking down at a pottery vase on an onyx pedestal. He is just a little too thin, the edges of his shoulders a little too harsh beneath his smooth black sweater. He touches the rim of the vase with gentle fingertips.

“Do you like that piece?” Mara asks him.

He looks up, and light from the window behind Mara’s desk hits him full in the face. With his hair pulled severely back the impact of crystal blue eyes, pale skin and sculpted cheekbones is startling. He’s probably thinking of Simon’s admonitions not to touch anything in his office, so he removes his hand and slants a shy grin at Mara. We both goggle at him.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Oh, no – please, go ahead.” I have to give her credit. She snapped out of it pretty quickly. “I couldn’t resist it myself when I saw it at auction. Are you interested in pre-Columbian art?”

Blair really looks at the vase for the first time. He picks it up, turns it around in his hands. “5th century. Peru… Jequetepeque Valley region, maybe?” he remarks absently. I can tell that he isn’t really interested, though once he would have been. Nothing seems to pique his curiosity anymore. “It’s a beautiful piece.”

“An expert,” Mara remarks, and we watch him carefully replace the vase on the pedestal. I may as well be on Mars. Which would be a good place for Mara to be about now.

I never liked Mara, but this sudden seething irritation is out of proportion. I’m irritated with Blair for making a simple gesture a reason to stare. I’m irritated with Mara for staring so blatantly. And I’m irritated with myself for feeling what I am very quickly going to have to admit is stone cold jealousy.

“Sandburg,” I say, more sharply than I intend. “We really need to finish up here.”

He nods, a little confused at my tone. “Okay. I’m going to go wait downstairs, then.”

I hesitate only a second before nodding sharply. I don’t feel like I need to watch him every second anymore. Really. We watch the door close behind him.

I turn back to Mara, and she’s smiling, but there is no warmth there. “Restless,” she says. “You’re going to have a hard time hanging on to that one, Jim.”

“Excuse me?” My shock is genuine, though I’m beginning to remember the nasty streak she had in high school.

“Not that I blame you. Just don’t get too attached. I’ve seen the signs before.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

We stare at each other for a long minute, until she finally smiles her snake-grin again. “So sorry. I thought – well, never mind. My mistake.”

Only she isn’t sorry at all, and she knows she didn’t make a mistake; that’s evident in her knowing smile.

“I think we’re done here,” I say, standing. She walks me to the door, and places her hand on my arm.

“So many things have changed since high school, haven’t they Jim?”

“Yeah, and some things haven’t. We’ll be in touch.”

I leave her office calmly, but I lean against the wall in the elevator. Mara’s words shook me more than I’d like to admit. I’ve spent the last two weeks thinking that what Blair and I have is ours alone, somehow not connected to the outside world. His grip on life seemed so tenuous that nothing else mattered. Mara’s words force me to think about it.

What exactly are we? We went from partners to lovers in about thirty seconds, and although I’d known how much I wanted that to happen, I don’t think he really thought about it. I can’t help thinking that he’s hanging onto me because I keep him grounded here, connected to the world he left once. I’ve never asked him. We’ve never talked about it because I’ve never been able to come up with the words to tell him how I feel.

Except at night. When I feel him begin to release his mind and wander outside his body, the words come spilling out of me. Closing the door to the afterlife didn’t stop him from spirit-walking, and it’s only when I sense him slipping adrift that I tell him what he is to me. I think I would say anything to make him stay.

***

I had to get out of there. I’m sorry Jim got annoyed but the walls were closing in on me. Those two didn’t need me anyway - I was only interrupting their prep-school bonding ritual. I’ve never understood how people can look at Jim and see only the cop, the ex-military guy, the jock. How anyone could spend any time with him and not see old-money confidence is beyond me. I was relieved to leave them to it.

I finally make it down to the street and head toward the truck parked down the block. The last time I was in this neighborhood, a few years ago, it was unique – an ethnic mix that you couldn’t find anywhere else in Cascade. Since then, gentrification has begun seeping in. Loft apartments and law firms have encroached on the Asian markets and Pakistani restaurants. It makes me a little sad, but there is still an eclectic feel to the neighborhood. A street artist is making chalk portraits while three little girls, probably his daughters, are using his art supplies to draw on the sidewalk.

I try to lean back and enjoy the sun on my face, but before I know it I’m tapping my foot. I resist the urge to walk down the street, because that’s all I do anymore – I walk when I’m awake and I walk when I’m asleep. Now that the afterworld isn’t waiting for me around every corner, hovering at the edge of my mind, you’d think I’d be able to rest. It’s over now - the demon in the black vortex shattered, the ghosts banished, the fucking door into forever closed and locked - end of story. Except it isn’t over.

We’re not supposed to remember. That’s the problem. Once we get there we’re supposed to stay, but I came back. I remember. The goddamned irony of it all is that now that I can be still without falling into that blue, silent world, I can’t stop moving. If I stop for a second, I’ll start looking for that place. Every time I try to find it and it isn’t there, the loss hits me like a kick in the gut.

Where the hell is Jim? I look down at the sidewalk and glance over the pictures that the girls are drawing – stick-figures and rainbows, hopscotch and flowers. The little girl nearest me is scrubbing blue chalk in a thick layer over the concrete.

I drum my fingers against the door. “Is that the sky?” I ask her.

She doesn’t look up. She’s reached for the black chalk now and starts drawing concentric circles in the center of the blue. I feel a chill run up my arms.

“Is that a storm?”

She begins to add strange shapes and symbols beneath the black and the sound of the chalk on the sidewalk scratches at my mind. Finally she looks up. “You know what it is.”

I don’t know what to say, but she doesn’t give me a chance anyway. She looks up and past me to the building across the street, and says quietly, “She’s going to jump.”

I whirl around to see what she sees, and there is a woman on the ledge, maybe three stories up.

“Oh, god,” I whisper, unable to move.

The woman is looking down, directly at me. She isn’t so high that I can’t see her face, and I shake my head.

“Wait!” I yell, and reach an arm up as if I could hold her to the ledge, but she meets my eyes and steps forward into the air like taking a step off a curb.

I turn away, grabbing at the girl’s shoulder and spinning her around so she can’t see the impact. “Don’t look,” I choke out.

I am expecting screams, shouts, a sickening thud, but there is only the sound of the street noise.

I finally glance back, and there is nothing there – no body, no blood, no screams. The artist is standing, looking at me suspiciously, and a few pedestrians on the sidewalk hurry their steps to get past me. The little girl just looks up at me curiously.

“She always jumps.”

***
(Jim)
Blair is sitting in the truck when I get down to the street, which surprises me. I fully expected to end up waiting for him to come back from wherever he’d wandered off to. I step around chalk drawings on the sidewalk and open the driver’s side door.

As soon as I climb in, I look over at him in sudden concern – I can hear his uneven breathing and rapid heart-rate without even trying. He doesn’t look at me; just rubs the back of his neck and takes a deep breath.

“Did Mara tell you anything else?” he asks, neatly forestalling any questions I might ask.

“Not really.” I pause before starting the engine, thinking about Mara’s parting words. “My class reunion might be interesting, however.”

He nods, and I know he isn’t listening to me. I start the engine and pull smoothly into traffic.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I ask, after a few minutes.

He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands, then turns to look at me.

“I saw another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another one. A ghost, apparition – whatever.”

“What?” I feel ill.

“I saw a woman on a ledge, she jumped, and – poof. Suddenly she wasn’t there.”

I pull over to the curb, because the roaring in my ears is too distracting. I can hardly get the words out. “You said the door was closed. You told me the dead couldn’t use you to come back anymore.”

“Jim, man, believe me, the door is closed. I didn’t do this.”

“Then how –“

“I don’t know, but I’m telling you it wasn’t me. Every time I’ve seen these people… or things… before I could feel them coming through me. Not this time. No pressure on my chest, no passing out, just… she was there, she was gone.”

“Blair,” I murmur, rubbing my eyes, too upset to say anything else.

“I didn’t do it!” he says defensively, and he sounds exactly like a kid holding a baseball bat next to a broken window. I have to smile a little.

“So how do you explain the ghost-jumper?”

He shakes his head, looking out the windshield. “Maybe the kid did it. There was this little girl, drawing pictures on the sidewalk. She saw the woman, too.”

“That would make sense,” I tell him, feeling slightly relieved. “You can’t be the only one who ever left the door open.”

He doesn’t answer, just looks out the window, his stare a thousand miles away.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“The picture she was drawing… it was all blue. Then she started drawing a black swirling thing in the middle. When I asked her what it was, she told me I already knew.”

The air in the truck suddenly seems cold.

“It’s gone, Blair,” I reassure him. “You shattered it. I watched it come apart, just like you did. Even if that little girl was drawing the demon, what difference does it make? It’s gone.”

“It wasn’t supposed to shatter.” Blair’s words are low and quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you ever wonder how I knew what to do?”

I shrug. “I got the feeling you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“After you left that night, the demon almost came through me. The only reason it didn’t is that I went back through the door.”

I close my eyes, not wanting to think about him willingly leaving this world.

“It was chasing me, all through that blue silence,” he continued. “But I found Gabe again –out there. Or Gabe found me. Anyway, when I got back into my body, I knew how to contain the demon. Contain it. Not shatter it into a zillion pieces. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I remember scattering darkness, shards passing through me while I floated disembodied in an endless blue expanse. My skin crawls.

“Did you ask the girl what she meant?”

“I didn’t have time. I got a little distracted by the woman flinging herself to her death.”

I think for a minute. “Was the jumper on the white building over the market?”

“Yeah… how did you know?”

“Cheryl Russell,” I tell him, pulling back out onto the street.

“Wait – you know who this woman is? Or was?”

“I worked the case five years ago. It was officially ruled a suicide, but there were questions about whether she had some help.”

“Well, for the record? She jumped.”

“Really. Well, that’s good to know.” We drive in silence for a few minutes. “You know, maybe this whole seeing-ghosts-thing isn’t all bad.”

He looks at me skeptically. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that I go around looking for the ghosts of murder victims.”

“Not looking exactly… but if you run into one, you could ask a few questions. Clear up some issues…”

The look on his face is priceless. We are pulling into the station before he realizes I’m joking, and he starts to laugh. I feel something in my chest ease.

By the time we get to the bullpen things feel lighter between us, and I sit down at my desk to start writing up the report. Blair remains standing, fooling with the blinds over the window, until Megan comes over to join us.

“So how did it go?” she asks.

“A waste of time. Probably just corporate paranoia. What have you got?” I can tell by the look on her face that something’s up.

“Another report of a break-in at an architectural firm.”

I sit back. “You’re kidding.”

“No. This one was at Vance-Harrison.”

I look over at Blair, who still hasn’t gotten the blinds adjusted to his satisfaction, apparently. “Let me guess. They’re bidding on the new museum wing project.”

“Got it in one. In fact, they designed the original building over 70 years ago. I talked to the senior partner and even though nothing was missing, he’s practically in a panic over the break-in. Apparently the original project was one disaster after another – it’s a company legend. ”

A loud thunk from the blinds makes us both look over at Blair. When he realizes we’re waiting for him to stop making noise, he shrugs sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he says, perching on the edge of my desk, and picking up a pen. “I know about this. It’s really a fascinating part of Cascade history. All kinds of wild stuff happened during the museum’s construction - accidents, collapsing walls, even a murder, I think.”

“Right,” Megan is smiling now; glad to find an interested audience. “The entire project was almost abandoned.”

“I don’t remember all the details,” Blair says as he begins doodling on a legal pad next to my computer.

“The senior partner didn’t either, so I tried to get the original police file pulled from Records.”

“Does any of this have anything to do with an actual crime?” I ask. “In this century?”

Blair grins at me, and asks Megan, “So what did you find out?”

“They can’t find the file.”

“From 70 years ago? I’m stunned,” I mutter, and go back to my paperwork.

Megan ignores me. “Believe it or not, it should still be in Archives. They just can’t find it.”

“I bet it’s just misfiled. I’ll go take a look.” Blair drops the pen and gets to his feet.

“Wait a minute, Chief – “

“You know what Records is like – they’re so backed up down there, we’re lucky they can find last week’s cases. This is what I do – research. Later.”

We watch him go, and Megan says softly, “He looks a lot better.”

“Sure,” I say, breathing out. “Physically.”

“It’s going to take time. You just need to be patient.”

“I’m trying.” I decide to change the subject. “No damage at Vance-Harrison, either?”

“A few files dumped out, some things out of place. Nothing to speak of. I think the only reason Simon sent in MC is that it was too much of a coincidence.”

“Who took the initial call?”

Megan looks down before she answers me, studiously casual. “McGovern and Harris.”

“So how’s that going?” I ask, trying not to smile, but I can’t resist. It’s a small office, and at the first hint of an interoffice romance the rumors fly like confetti. Conner’s flirtation with Officer Dave McGovern is practically documented.

“Not sure I want it to go anywhere at all,” she says. “We work together, he’s younger than I am – “

“By what? A year?”

“Six, actually. And those are a big six. Come on, Jim, it’s the same for you and Blair. You know what it’s like dating someone who would have been in secondary school when you were at university.”

I try not to choke.

“Conner, you’re a great cop.”

The apparent non sequitur surprises her and she raises her eyebrows.

“And a good friend,” I continue. “But –“

Suddenly she smiles. “But sitting here knocking our boyfriends doesn’t appeal to you?”

I smile back, tightly, and I’m sure mine is far less amused. “Thanks for understanding.”

“No worries.” She stands, about to leave, then turns. “Just one question,” she says, so quietly no one else would catch it.

“Yes?”

“Isn’t Dave gorgeous?”

She’s gone before I can shoot her or something. Megan’s known about us since the beginning. I know she was joking, but just like with Mara earlier I feel the circle around me and Blair tightening, and the outside world beginning to press in. I try to shake it off, and look down at my paperwork, suddenly catching sight of the pad that Blair had idly drawn on.

There are strange symbols there, pictures or writing… I can’t really tell what they are but they look too deliberate to be random. I tear off the page and stand up. He’s been gone long enough. I wonder when I’ll be able to let him be away from me without this feeling of dread.

***

“Here you go, Blair,” the duty officer says, as we round another seemingly random corner of towering shelves. She reaches up and pats a file box on the third shelf. “That’s the one.” I wrestle it down and set it on the floor, and she looks at me doubtfully. “Are you sure you don’t mind if I just leave you here? I was going to go to lunch, but I can stay…”

“No, it’s fine, go,” I say, waving her off. “I’m not going to be long. Thanks.”

“Well, good luck,” she says in parting. As she leaves me, I look around. The Archives room in the basement reminds me of the stacks at the U. library - huge but so over packed that the air is close. Not for the first time, I feel sorry for the officers who pull this duty.

I go down on one knee to start looking through the file box, but in just a few minutes I start to feel claustrophobic. The crowded shelves are too close, and too dimly lit. I needed to get away from the bullpen, but now that I’m here I want to be somewhere else. I just wish I knew where.

No matter where I go, nothing seems familiar anymore – not the station, not the U, not the loft. Just standing still is disorienting. If things don’t change soon, I’m not going to be able to avoid one looming question - if I can’t stay where I am and there’s nowhere to go, what does that leave?

Before I can get too freaked out about it I hear approaching footsteps, and for the moment, everything falls back into place. I’d know that measured tread anywhere. I have to smile. It’s been a whole twenty minutes, so of course Jim is coming to look for me.

I look up from my seat on the floor as he comes around the corner. In this small space between the shelves, the sheer presence of him – my lifeline in jeans and a sweater – is almost overwhelming. I know I’m smiling like an idiot, and Jim smiles back, a little curiously.

“Hi,” I say, and it sounds strangled.

“Hi. Any luck?” he asks, looking down at me.

“Just got here.”

He nods. “Everything okay?” He’s picked up on my imminent wig-out, I can tell. I am so tired of putting that wary, carefully banked worry in his eyes.

“Yeah. Fine.” I look at him for a second. “So. Are you going to just stand around, or are you going to help me?” I manage to grin crookedly at him.

He doesn’t want to let it go, I can tell, but he does. I am pathetically grateful. “I’ll help you,” he says, looking around. “I don’t think we should spend too much time on this. Tell me again – why are we looking for this file?”

“Background information? Intellectual curiosity? Like I said, it’s probably just misfiled – if we check out the surrounding years we should run across it.”

“Great,” he says, looking at the dusty file boxes with distaste. “Sounds like fun.”

We start looking through boxes in silence, but just having him near makes me feel more grounded. I make myself comfortable on the floor and start flipping though 70 year-old files. They are surprisingly orderly, and after about 15 minutes I look up at Jim, who’s started on the box for the previous year.

“This is weird,” I tell him.

“Everything you talk me into is weird.”

“I mean it’s weird that the file isn’t here. There’s usually a kind of logic to misfiling – proximity, transposition, something. We’ve looked in all the most likely places, and nothing. Weird.”

“Okay, it’s weird. Let’s go.”

“The file isn’t here. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Jim shrugged. “Yeah, it is, actually. But anything could have happened to it in all this time. I don’t think it’s significant.”

“You’re probably right,” I concede, looking down into the box and wondering why this bothers me so much.

After a minute, Jim says softly, “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” and reaches down to touch my hair. In my other life he would have dropped his hand away immediately, but in this new one he curves his palm around my head and brushes the back of my neck with his fingers, caressing gently. I close my eyes. In exchange for all the things my brief death in the fountain took from me, it did, after all, give me this.

I reach up and he takes my forearm, pulling me to stand next to him. I just keep going, pulling him into my arms and pressing my face into his neck. He makes a sound of pleased surprise and puts his arms around me.

He is warm and close and mine to touch – a fact I can still hardly believe. To prove it to myself I run my hands up under his sweater and t-shit, over the taut muscles of his chest. I feel him take a harsh breath and tense beneath my hands, shivering when I skim my fingers over the flat disc of one nipple. In the two weeks we’ve shared his bed I’ve touched him everywhere, learning the places on his body that make him shudder, and now I start rubbing slow, hard circles with my palm, loving the way the small nub hardens for me.

He hasn’t moved, either to pull me closer or push me away, so I start mouthing the skin of his neck, feeling the hard tendons with my teeth, licking up to the soft spot beneath his ear. Suddenly he makes a soft, helpless sound, and I pull back to look at him.

“Jim?” His eyes are unfocused, his body tense, and I take in the shallow pace of his breathing. “Still with me?” It hits me, suddenly – he’s on the edge of a zone. I took him by surprise, and the sensory overload has him teetering. The knowledge slams through me like a drug.

I could overwhelm him. I am still learning his body, but I know this man. I have been his guide, his friend, his shaman and now his lover. I could turn him blind and deaf, insensible to everything but the touch of my hands and my mouth. I am shaking, instantly hard for him, and God, if we were at home I would do it; I would turn him inside out with just a kiss. But we’re not at home.

As it is, it takes everything I have to grip his shoulders and step back. I start to murmur familiar words, the soft, rhythmic things I always say to drag him back, and wait for him to focus on me. As soon I see his eyes begin to clear, I brush my mouth over his jaw in apology and step away.

It takes him a second to look at me, and when he does his expression is surprisingly blank.

“Hey,” I say, trying for casual. When I don’t get an answer, I move a little farther back. “We should probably put this stuff back, huh?”

I turn toward the shelf. Faster than I could imagine, he is behind me, his hands gripping my biceps with steely fingers. He pulls me back against him, my shoulders colliding with his chest and suddenly I can’t breathe. I’ll never get used to this. Compared to the slight women I’ve dated, Jim’s body is a massive, engulfing furnace, the heat of the sun against my back, and when he steps closer to me, snugging rock hard thighs against mine, I end up gasping.

“You’re going to touch me like that and just walk away?” His mouth is warm against my ear, his words low with tension and what I really hope is amusement. I can’t see his face, so I’m not sure.

“Just playing around,” I murmur, distracted by how close we are.

Then we are moving, turning, and I end up facing the cinderblock wall behind us, practically shoved off my feet. The motion is violent, but if he were angry he probably wouldn’t reach in front of me to catch my forehead on his arm before I hit the rough brick. If he were angry, he wouldn’t sink heavily against me, pulling me up into the cradle of his hips with one arm around my waist.

“You make up good games,” he breathes against my neck.

He is so hard; every part of him, but my focus has narrowed to the steel rod resting against the seam of my jeans.

“So do you,” I mumble, but it comes out more like a groan when Jim slides his hand down and presses it against the buttons of my fly, cupping me. I can’t help it, I rock slightly against his palm, and he shifts his hips to match the movement.

I am held hard, surrounded, trapped between his hand and his cock and I feel like I could catch fire. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could move away. I’ve been useless since he discovered he can make me want him like this; turn me blind and needy with it. It’s physics. I’m strong. He’s stronger. This makes me crazy.

His movement is uneven now, less deliberate. I know he started this to punish me in a way, to get back at me for teasing him, but now he’s as caught up and helpless as I am.

“Blair – “ he whispers against my ear, his lips brushing the edge. “God, Blair – “

Pushing back against him I turn in his arms. His mouth is waiting, and I make him open for me. I grasp his hips hard and grind us together, swallowing the ragged sound he makes. The total insanity of this situation hits me, and I drag my mouth over his ear to ask him, because he’s too far gone to care.

“Alone?” I gasp, feeling lucky that I can still form words.

He lifts his head, his eyes glassy and dark, and listens, focusing for just a second before he grates out, “No one. C’mon –“

Then we’re just hard and wanting and ready to come all over each other. His fingers are agile, unbuttoning, unzipping, until the second we slide together through thin cotton. He falters then, his hands suddenly clumsy as he moans against my mouth. I move my hands off his hips to shove damp cloth out of the way, frantic to touch him, have him touch me, and my fingers tangle with his. For one brief second he squeezes my hands, then sets them away - I let him because he is just so, so fucking good at this. Whether it’s the senses, or instinct or just freaking inborn talent all it takes is a few strokes of his hand and his cock and the smooth hot skin of his stomach and I’m gone, shaking beneath his hands. He is just a few seconds behind, bending his forehead to my shoulder as he pulses against me.

Jim helpless like this, coming in my arms, unleashes something protective in me – if I could keep him here against my body forever I would. I lean my head against his and pull him tight up against me.

“It’s never been like this for me,” he whispers into my shoulder. “Only with you.”

I don’t like hearing him sound so shaken and unsure, so I try to make him laugh. “Yeah, I’ve never had sex in the archives room, either. We should start a club.”

He lifts his head and he isn’t smiling – there is something damaged in his eyes. I curl my hand around the back of his neck, not sure what to do. Being in love like this isn’t the easiest thing this man has ever done, I’m beginning to realize. I shove my hands into his hair and kiss him hard, because nothing has ever been easier for me.

When I finally let him go he looks a little more grounded. “Hey, we need a tissue or something,” I tell him, laughing ruefully. “We’re kind of sticky.” He’s calmer now, and smiles a little in return.

“Wasn’t exactly planning this,” he murmurs, but he sounds amused. He listens for a second, more intently this time. Apparently satisfied that we’re still alone here, he quickly pulls his sweater and t-shirt off, balling up the white cotton and using it to mop up. When he reaches down to clean me up, too, I can’t stop myself - I have to slide my hands up his bare arms and over his shoulders.

“At this rate we’re never going to get out of here,” I tell him, and he laughs.

“I just remembered we’re at work,” he tells me, trying to sound irritated but he seems pleased, and puts his sweater back on over bare skin. After we’re dressed again, we look each other over to make sure we’re at least half-way presentable. I reach over to brush dust off Jim’s sweater and hear paper crumpling in the front pocket of his jeans.

“I meant to ask you about this,” he says, reaching into his pocket and handing me a piece of yellow paper. I look at it in surprise, amazed to see the symbols the little girl drew on the sidewalk.

“Where did you get this?” I ask him, turning the page over to see if there’s anything on the back, but it’s blank. He doesn’t answer me, so I look at him.

“I took it off my desk,” he says. When I shrug, he continues, now a little warily. “You drew this, Blair. Right before you came down here. Don’t you remember?”

“I did?” I look at the page again, and I would swear that I’ve never seen it before. Jim is looking at me and the worry is back with full force, only now he seems afraid, too. For one wild second I consider lying, covering so he won’t look at me like I’m a stranger, but I know there’s no point.

“The little girl who drew the demon on the sidewalk wrote these symbols underneath it. Or at least ones a lot like these.”

“You don’t know what they are?”

I shake my head, feeling a little nauseated.

“Jim, I don’t even remember drawing this.”

He takes the paper from my fingers, briefly curving his hands around mine. “I think we should go talk to that kid.”

“Yeah, I think so, too.”


***

(Jim)

Blair is quiet as we walk down the street in front of Mara’s firm. I can still feel the heat of his body against me and breathe the scent of him on my skin. I don’t know what the hell happened in the archives room – one minute I’m brushing dust from my shirt and the next I’ve got Blair up against a wall. I have no control when it comes to him, and it’s beginning to scare me.

When he’s touching me I don’t care if the only thing I am to him is an anchor to reality. It’s afterward, when I’m away from his hair and his mouth and his hands that I begin to doubt. We’re going to have to talk about this, and soon, no matter what new supernatural threat is hanging over us. Another week like the last two and I’ll be certifiable.

“Where did you see this kid?” I ask him.

He looks around and then walks over to the children’s chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

“The artist had his stuff set-up over there,” he points to a shop front, and then looks down at the sidewalk. “and the kids were drawing here.”

I walk over and look down at the chalk drawings. It’s the usual little-kid stuff, except for one that has been completely scrubbed out with harsh, black strokes and smudged footprints. If the symbols Blair drew were there, they are completely obliterated now.

We stare at the ruined picture for a few seconds. Finally I say to him, “If the artist was drawing in front of the coffee shop, he might have asked for permission to work there. Let’s go in and see if the manager knows who he is.”

I start walking toward the door, though Blair is still looking at the picture.

“Hey!” Blair suddenly shouts. “Hey, wait!” I look back and he has erupted into motion, setting off at a run down the street. I follow, irritated that he didn’t wait for me, while a part of my brain is ecstatic that he has the physical ability to run again. Two weeks ago it would have been impossible for him.

He stops suddenly and I practically run into him. “I saw her, Jim! She was right here…” He’s casting about frantically and then stops at a narrow two-foot space between buildings that heads back into darkness. “She must have gone down here.”

It seems unlikely, but I listen, and sure enough I hear light footsteps moving away from us. I automatically go in ahead of him, and when we reach the end of the passageway he pushes impatiently past me. We are in the alley that runs behind the buildings, and there is no sign of a child.

“Damn it!” Sandburg curses, but I put my hand on his shoulder to quiet him. I listen intently and hear a soft, childish voice singing.

Ashes, ashes…

“This way.” We turn right, heading past dumpsters and back doors, until we come to a place where a building is set back from the alleyway. There is a tall wrought iron gate here, and past it, in a courtyard fenced off with solid wooden panels, I can hear singing. The gate is unlocked, so I push through it, then around two panels off-set against each other to provide privacy.

We all fall down.

The courtyard beyond is beautiful – the panels are painted in elaborate, colorful murals with pictures that intertwine and seem to change as I study them. The ground is a tile mosaic that mimics the walls, and potted trees and plants and flowers are scattered thickly around adding a different layer of texture. The sight of it all is almost overwhelming, and I have to concentrate to find the child.

“Is that the girl?” I ask Blair.

He nods, and says softly, “Yeah, that’s her.”

She’s sitting on the steps that lead into the building at the far end of the yard, and her song falls away as we approach her. She can’t be more than eight, but her eyes are too old in her childish face, with the same far-seeing stillness I see in Blair’s sometimes. They are staring at each other, and I can hear his breath hitch. He hasn’t moved or spoken, so I hand him the piece of paper with the pictures he drew. Blair takes it from me without looking away from her.

“I know you,” the girl says.

“We talked on the street,” Blair answers, and his voice sounds thick.

I watch the too-sharp edge of his jaw set and then he drops to one knee to get down to her level. It strikes me what a stark contrast he is to the vibrant color around us, and I wonder why it’s taken me so long to notice that the only color he wears most days is black. I wait for him to ask her about the picture. He takes a deep breath, and looks down at the paper in his hand.

“I wanted to ask…” he begins in a halting voice, but then suddenly he tightens his fist around the page, crumpling it in his fingers, and says unevenly, “How do you bear it?”

The little girl reaches out to lay her hand on Blair’s wrist. “Can you still see the light?” she asks, as if they share a secret.

He looks at her, his expression bleak. “No,” he says and the word is heavy with grief.

Her small face softens in sympathy. “If you find me when you’re sleeping,” she says to him, “I can take you there.”

“No!” They both start, and I know I’ve spoken too loudly, but I don’t care. This was supposed to be over, damn it. He’s not supposed to be able to leave me anymore.

“What are you doing here?” A sharp voice interrupts from the doorway. “Who are you? This is private property.”

A woman is standing at the door to the building, and though small she is tense and ready to spring.

I’m still trying to get my head around what Blair just said, but I step back from the child and pull out my badge. “Don’t worry, ma’am – I’m Detective Ellison with the Cascade PD. We just wanted to ask your… your grand-daughter, is it? We just wanted to ask her some questions.”

“Why would the police want to talk to Lily?”

“Well, ma’am – we’re not exactly here on police business,” I say awkwardly.

“Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Lily can’t help you,” she says firmly. She looks at Sandburg who hasn’t moved except to bow his head and quickly wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. Her tone softens slightly. “I’m sorry for your loss. But she can’t reach whoever it is you’re trying to contact –“

She breaks off when Sandburg looks up, his face a mask of grief with that terrible, too-knowing gaze. “Oh,” she says softly.

The child, Lily, rests her hand briefly on Sandburg’s shoulder. “He stayed there too long,” she says to her grandmother. The woman sighs.

“I guess you’d better come inside,” she says, her lips pressed together grimly. “Let’s go sit down.”

The little girl hops up and follows her grandmother into the house. Blair hasn’t moved, so I grab his arm and pull, steering him up the steps and into the building. My insides are churning, and I want to ask him what the hell he meant by that comment before, but I bite my tongue. We sit at a wooden table in an incongruously bright kitchen. The woman is pouring coffee from a carafe on the counter in silence, and I can’t help thinking she’s giving us a minute to pull ourselves together.

She sets the mugs before us, with a glass of milk for the child, and joins us at the table. She hands the little girl a coloring book and crayons, and I almost ask her if that’s such a good idea. Glancing at the book I decide that we probably won’t get any messages from the beyond through “Bob the Builder”, and say nothing.

“I’m Ellen. Apparently, you already know my grand-daughter, Lily.”

I’m about to pull out my badge again, but realize it’s a little pointless. “Jim,” I tell her, reaching a hand out to shake hers. “This is Blair.”

She turns her attention to Blair, who is staring into his coffee, looking a little shell-shocked.

“How long has it been?” she asks him.

“I’m sorry?” he says, looking up.

“Lily fell through the ice of a frozen pond when she was five years old. It took them 45 minutes to revive her. That was three years ago. How long has it been for you?”

“Three months,” he says softly, then looks up at her and clears his throat. “I died three months ago.”

I hate those words. I hate everything about this situation. I want to drag Blair out of here and never come back.

“I drowned, too,” Blair continues, and he seems relieved to be talking about it. “I don’t remember very much after going into the water, just...” he trails off.

“The blue place,” Lily prompts, coloring in a dump truck.

Blair seems startled, but goes on. “Yeah, the blue place. I was there a long time, I think.” Blair looks at me then, and smiles slightly. “He brought me back.”

From the look Ellen gives me, I almost feel like I should apologize. She sits back as we all watch Lily color for a minute.

“There have been sensitives in my family for generations, but no one like Lily. She seems to exist in both places,” Ellen begins. “She goes easily back and forth. I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

“I tried to do that, too. It was killing me,” Blair says, his voice quiet.

Ellen shifts uncomfortably.

“There’s more,” Blair continues. “There was something else there, a – a presence. Ancient. Evil. It used to be here and it wanted to use me to come back. If I’d left the door open it would have been able to. I think – I think Lily knows what it is, too.”

He unfolds the yellow page with his scribbling and flattens it on the table. “Lily?” he asks, and she looks up. “Can you tell me what this is? You wrote this on the sidewalk.”

She looks at it for a second, then shakes her head. “No, I didn’t. I wrote this.” She takes a crayon and begins drawing similar symbols above Blair’s. “The first part. What you wrote is the second part. See? Now it’s finished.”

“Do you know what it means?” Blair asks her.

She shakes her head and then tilts it to one side. “Do you?”

“No.” Blair says, looking at the writing.

Great.

“You don’t remember writing this at all?” I ask him, and fear makes my voice sound angry.

He shrugs helplessly, and Ellen reaches for the page. “Maybe the door isn’t shut as tightly as you think it is.” She looks up when we turn to her. “If this is, in fact, a message from the other side, then you must have some kind of connection remaining, however slight.”

“I don’t,” Blair whispers. “I know I don’t.” He looks down, then jams his fingers into his hair, clutching hard and I know it must hurt. I reach over and place my hand on his shoulder.

“I shut it away,” Blair mutters fiercely. “I closed the god-damned door. So how come I’m seeing ghosts and getting messages from the fucking afterlife? And why the hell do I spend every night walking outside my body?”

Ellen crosses her arms in front of her and sits back to look at him. “If you’re asking my opinion, I’d say you’re obviously a sensitive, probably always have been.” At his blank look she elaborates. “A medium. You may not be able to travel to the other side yourself anymore, but you have a connection to the others who come here.”

He rubs his eyes. “Terrific.”

Ellen hands the paper back to him, and says, “Maybe this came from a presence that’s already here.”

He looks up, suddenly ashen, his eyes stark.

“Lily, the black thing you drew in your picture – you know what it is, don’t you?”

She is staring at him with wide eyes, frightened now for the first time, and I feel her fear bleed over into my gut. Without a word, she nods, once.

“Is it – is it here?” he asks.

“It’s hiding,” she says in a small, scared voice. “It wants to play, but I don’t want to.”

“Don’t play with it, Lily,” Blair says to her, suddenly vehement, and it’s like they are the only two people in the room. “Don’t even talk to it. If you see it, you run away. Hide, or - or come find me. I’ll protect you.”

“What’s going on here?” Ellen demands as Lily nods, and I hear the note of hysteria in her voice. I feel it, too. She stands. “What are you talking about?”

“The dead aren’t the only ones who can come through,” I tell her.

“I think you two should leave. Now.”

I think that’s a great idea. I stand and grab Sandburg’s arm, pulling him toward the door we came in earlier.

“Remember what I said, Lily – it’s important! You know how to find me,” Blair says as we go out the door. Ellen slams the door behind us as I drag Blair down the steps. He pulls out of my grasp, practically vibrating with distress.

“Fuck, Jim!” he yells. “It’s here. None of it mattered – everything I did, everything I gave up, and it’s here anyway!”

I grab his shoulders, make him face me.

“Calm down! We’ll figure this out!”

“Don’t you understand?” he demands, and his voice is bitter with tears. “The last place it lived was in David Lash.”

“You told me that.”

“Yeah? Well, there’s something I didn’t tell you. When you killed Lash you sent the demon out of this world for the first time in thousands of years. It won’t forget that, Jim.” He puts his hands on my face, and I can feel them shaking. “If it’s here, it’s coming for you.”

***

(Blair)

I’ve pushed my laptop and my books back across the table, and I’m tapping the legal pad in front of me with my pen. Really, though, I’m just watching him. He’s doing the usual evening stuff - putting away the dishes I washed, looking through the mail - nothing I haven’t seen him do a hundred times before, but now it’s like I want to store it up, like I’ll need it later.

He glances at me briefly over the electric bill.

“Just stop, okay?” he says, smiling slightly to himself.

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me like flying monkeys are going to swoop down and carry me off.”

“You know, you are just not getting this, Jim. Compared to what’s really out there? Flying monkeys would be good. At this point flying monkeys would be a bonus.”

“I saw it, too, Chief,” he says quietly. “I don’t think I’m going to forget.” He gets quiet and I know we’re both seeing the black presence come apart, reliving the moment when that yawning darkness disintegrated.

Jim clears his throat. “What are you working on, anyway? You’ve been at it for hours.”

“Well, I spent the first hour trying to figure out if this garbage Lily and I wrote actually means something, or if it’s just… garbage.”

“And?”

“You’re not going to believe this, but I think it might be some kind of hieroglyphs.”

“As in Egyptian?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but there are distinct similarities. Maybe it’s a variation on a dialect… or maybe it’s total crap. Some of these symbols are completely unlike anything I can find in the on-line library. Anyway, tomorrow morning I’ve got an appointment with a friend of mine at the U who specializes in this stuff. He’ll probably laugh me out of his office, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

“You’re right, that’s pretty unbelievable.”

“Tell me about it. So I spent the last hour or so looking into automatic writing. Essentially, it’s writing or drawing done in an altered state of consciousness that allows spirits to speak through the medium like… haunted doodling or something. In case after case, the medium has produced messages in languages they’ve never learned, or in handwriting that isn’t even remotely close to their own. I don’t know how reliable these sources are, but I’ve been trying it out.”

Jim frowns. “You’re trying to make a spirit speak through you? I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, well don’t be too concerned. Judging by the results so far, I’d say that as a medium I make a pretty good anthropologist.” I toss the pen down in disgust.

He moves to stand behind me, and I feel the warmth of his chest against my back. He leans over me and props his hands on the table, brushing his cheek against my temple. “Show me.”

I pull the pad closer and lean back so he can see.

“What’s that?” he asks, sounding puzzled.

I’m insulted. “Dude… obviously it’s Mickey Mouse.”

I feel his chest vibrate as he chuckles under his breath. “Well, Sandburg, as an artist I’d say you make a pretty good anthropologist, too.”

“Ha.” I look at it critically. “It’s not that bad. However, while I’m sure some people might argue the point, personally I don’t think the House of Mouse is currently planning the doom of humanity. This has been a phenomenal waste of time.”

He nips at my neck and moves away. “Maybe that’s a good thing, Sandburg. I don’t know if you should be messing with this stuff.”

“Jim, this stuff is messing with us. We need to use whatever we have, fight the battle on their turf, you know? Besides –“ I break off, and he looks over at me, questioning.

“I have to do something. I didn’t stop it, Jim,” I tell him, wanting to apologize somehow. His expression softens.

“I don’t know if you can blame yourself for not being able to defeat a two thousand year-old embodiment of evil. I think anyone would have had a hard time with that one.”

I refuse to be comforted. “No matter what you say, it doesn’t change the fact that you banished it, and I let it back in.”

He exhales, looking down at his crossed arms for a minute. “I’ve been thinking about what Lily said. Maybe it isn’t here.”

“That’s wishful thinking, man –“

“No, listen. She said, ‘It’s hiding.’ That thing wouldn’t hide. I think if it could do more, it would.”

Hope blooms in my chest, quick and tight.

“You think it might not be too late?” I ask, and I sound a little desperate. “I really need to talk to Lily again.”

“We’ll go see her in the morning.”

I know I don’t need to wait that long, and I see Jim figure out what I’m planning almost at the same second I think of it myself.

“Now, wait a minute, Chief,” he says, his concern making him sound harsh, but I can’t hear the rest of his warning. I’m staring at the legal pad in front of me and wondering when the hell my life got away from me.

“What is it?” Jim asks, hurrying over.

“Oh, shit.” I shove the pad of paper away like I think it’s going to bite and look up at him, sure I must look more scared than he’s ever seen me.

“Jesus Christ,” Jim breathes, staring at the picture on the pad. I don’t remember drawing while we were talking, I don’t remember even thinking about drawing, but sketched over my pathetic cartoon is a twisting, dizzying three-dimensional shape. It isn’t so much the subject of the drawing that is so frightening. It’s the fact that it has perspective and depth and shadows and life – it practically leaps off the page, and I know that I’d never be able to draw anything like that even if I had days to do it.

With a steady hand Jim reaches past me and turns the pad over, then takes my hand and pulls me up from the chair.

“In the morning,” he says firmly. So by tacit agreement we decide not to discuss this yet, and get ready for bed without speaking about much of anything. My brain is whirling, though, with no answers to be found until I speak to Lily again.

He watches me when I sleep; I know he does because I hear his voice in my dreams, calling me back when I wander too far. But tonight I need him to let me go, so at the top of the stairs I drag him into my arms and make him fall with me onto the bed. With sudden rain slicking the skylight above us I do my best to exhaust him; to exhaust us both until we are lying tangled in blankets and each other with the taste of him still in my mouth.

Draped across me as if he could hold me here with his weight alone, he whispers, “What did you give up?”

It takes me a minute to figure out what he’s talking about, and then I remember what I said when we stumbled out of Lily’s house.

It’s here. None of it mattered – everything I did, everything I gave up, and it’s here anyway.

How can I explain it to him? I’m still trying to come up with a way when he speaks again.

“I saw your blue place, Chief – I followed you there, and I don’t understand why you want to go back.”

“You will,” I tell him. “You just don’t belong there, yet.”

“Neither do you,” he whispers harshly.

Maybe he’s right, but the moment I fall asleep I am immediately on rain-washed streets that bleed into each other beneath my steps, moving among the living who have no knowledge of my presence and the dead who touch me briefly in passing. In this twilight world the true wandering spirits, those with no body to return to, are drawn to me. They brush against the living warmth I bring, and I can’t find it in myself to deny them this small comfort in their loneliness.

Both the living and the dead have deserted Lily’s street. It is dark but for the street lights and a single lamp burning in the window where I remember Mara’s office to be. I move quickly to the courtyard, because where else would a little girl who isn’t allowed to cross the street alone go, even in her mind?

The bright colors are shades of gray in the darkness, elaborate shapes that twine around each other. Lily is jumping up the steps, a child at play even here, but she isn’t alone. The courtyard is alive with movement. Benign spirits surround her, stroking her face and touching her hair, and she moves easily in and out of their embrace.

She notices me and smiles, and I wonder if I can bear it. “Did you come to see the light again?” she asks me. “Should we go now?”

“No,” I choke out, though I am filled with bitter longing. “I can’t go with you, Lily. I need to talk to you. About the one who hides.”

She stills, and suddenly we are alone, the courtyard deathly still and all her erstwhile playmates flown away.

“We don’t have to worry,” she whispers earnestly. “It’s just pieces, and pieces can’t hurt you as long as they stay apart. They keep trying to get here, but I’m not going to let them.”

Then I am next to her, trying to make her understand. “You won’t be able to stop them, Lily. They’re going to keep coming, until enough of it is here…” I take a deep breath, and feel my heart break a little. “There’s only one way to keep them out. I can help you.” I reach out. “You need to close the door.”

“No!” her reaction is violent and swift, and she pulls away from me as if I’m burning her. Then she is gone, and inside the house I hear a child screaming into wakefulness.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and leave that place.

The street is still empty, except for the figure of a man kneeling with his back to me just outside a doorway. There is something on the ground in front of him, and I move closer, curiously. I realize the man’s broad back is clothed in a police uniform, and I wonder what has happened.

His arm is rising and falling in harsh, controlled movements, and I then I hear the sounds – the soft thud as the knife connects, and the liquid hiss as it pulls away. The body at his knees isn’t moving, and though I’m almost afraid to do it I look at the face beneath the fall of dark hair. Mara Caton lies on the street and she is very, very dead.

I need to see who is doing this, know who is soaking their uniform in blood, so I move closer.

“I know you’re watching me,” he says, not stopping his motions.

(thud) (hiss)

I freeze, not believing it; not believing it at all because it’s impossible for the living to see me, I know that. I move closer still. The figure blurs, and all at once I can see the hunched, crouching thing inside the human shape, the knife a part of one taloned claw.

(thud) (hiss)

“I will be whole again.”

It turns its head to look at me, and I am staring into yawning, empty eyes the exact color of my deepest fear. They look out of a familiar face.

It smiles.

“Run.”

***

(Jim)

I don’t know what wakes me – the first glimmer of light as the sun rises or Blair’s utter stillness beside me - but my heart is pounding the second my eyes open. At first I’m frozen, staring at him, taking in the pale skin beneath the morning beard. Then I reach for him and it’s the fountain all over again - his body limp and unresponsive in my arms, his skin cool beneath my frantic touch. The only difference is his heartbeat, present but so slow that between beats I’m sure that I won’t hear it again.

“Blair,” I rasp, “come on, Blair, please…”

Before I can start thinking past my panic he gasps for breath, pulling away from me with his eyes wide and staring. The sudden relief leaves me shaking, running my hands over his back as he slumps forward.

“My god, Blair. What happened?” I ask him. He shakes his head, still trying to catch his breath and he reaches out to grasp my hand in a bruising grip. A suspicion forms in my mind.

“You were looking for Lily, weren’t you?”

He nods, still breathing hard, and the residual fear and adrenalin inside me become rage. Suddenly I can’t be near him. I am overwhelmed by my anger at the fact that he’d risk himself like that and I draw away to the other side of the bed.

“What the hell, Sandburg?” I demand, trying to keep my fury under control. I am practically incoherent and the only thing that is crystal clear to me is that he tried to find Lily. Lily, who offered to take him back to the light.

“You can’t – You can’t keep fucking doing this, Sandburg. Because I can’t –“ I break off, afraid of what I was about to say, of what I mean.

Blair finally looks at me, and now I can see the fear. “It’s here, Jim. The demon’s here. Not all of it yet, but enough. I think Mara Caton is dead.”

The sudden, jarring ring of the phone prevents me from answering. I reach for it blindly, still looking at Blair.

“Ellison,” I bark into the receiver.

Of course it’s Simon, and of course he’s calling to tell me how Mara’s body was found early this morning, mutilated on the street in front of her office. I tell him that I’m on my way and hang up, then get out of bed without another word to Blair. I don’t know what he does for the five minutes I’m in the shower, but when I get back upstairs he is no longer in my bed. I throw on my clothes and head downstairs, where he is huddled on the couch in ancient sweats and a blanket.

“Aren’t you coming?” I bite out; still so angry I can barely think.

He shakes his head. “I think I better keep my appointment with Professor Farrell. I’ve got to find out if that writing is significant.”

“Fine.”

“Jim!”

I stop at the door, pausing at his desperate tone.

“It killed Mara. It’s here and it is hiding. I think it might be someone in the department, someone I’ve seen before but it just isn’t clear – “ He rubs his head as if he’s in pain, but I force myself to ignore it, wallowing in my sense of anger and betrayal.

“Anything else?” I ask him coldly.

He looks up at me, and my heart jolts at the devastation on his face. “Be careful,” he whispers. I almost crumble then, but the memory of him cold and heavy in my arms stops me, and I walk out the door.

I’m lucky I make the drive to the crime scene without wrecking the truck. I was fooling myself when I thought that I could be enough to keep him here. The thought that he would seek out escape is a hurt I refuse to examine. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I do know that I sure as hell can’t wait around for him to leave me again.

It doesn’t matter right now anyway - I have work to do. Carolyn hated my self-control but it serves me well now. I push my twisting emotions down deep and focus on the job. Conner has just arrived at the crime scene, and apparently we’ve both beat the forensics team to the site. In the early dawn, Mara looks like a broken doll on the pavement, the horrible wounds in her chest and abdomen incongruous next to her untouched face.

“Okay, there, Jim?” Conner asks quietly, touching my arm, and I start. “You knew her, didn’t you?”

I turn my face away and nod briskly, not sure which question I’m answering.

“No time of death yet, obviously.”

Conner shakes her head. “Forensics is on the way.”

I look at Mara closely, trying to think of the body as simply that. By the look of the blood and the feel of her residual heat, I can tell it hasn’t been more than an hour or two, but I keep this information to myself.

“Who found her?”

“The security guard who came to open the building. McGovern and Harris were first on-scene.”

I look over at the two uniformed officers keeping the few early-morning by-standers away from the perimeter. Megan leaves to speak with the guard and I motion McGovern over to join me. I notice that Megan’s almost-boyfriend is looking a little green, but I just don’t have it in me to tease the rookie today. Besides if McGovern hadn’t found Blair the night he took on the demon, Blair might have died from exposure out there in that drainage ditch. I owe the man.

“First knifing, McGovern?” I ask him casually, ignoring the way his gaze skates away from the body.

“Y-yeah. I guess.” He wipes his mouth with one slightly trembling hand and then pushes his hair back from his forehead. He looks as young as Megan insists he is, and I feel incredibly tired.

“Deep breaths, kid,” I say under my breath, and then briskly ask him to fill me in on what he found. I assume the routine of reporting the sequence of events should get him back on an even footing, but if anything he is getting more and more agitated. I can hear his heartbeat accelerating, and I smell a sour scent I’ve learned to recognize as fear. When he finishes his report, I clap him on the shoulder.

“Take a minute to get yourself together, Officer. Then get back to crowd control.” Beneath my fingers I feel a wave go through the muscle of his shoulder – it isn’t a spasm or a tremor, but a slow roll as if something is moving beneath the surface. It’s an odd sensation, and I automatically pull my hand away.

He looks at me for a second, his eyes suddenly clear, and says, “I’ll do that. Thank you, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’,” I say automatically as he walks away, and I watch his back as he moves off.

“Is Dave all right?” Conner asks, walking up to me.

“He’s fine.” I wait as she watches him walk down the street a ways. “Did you need something, Inspector?”

“Oh. Right.” She turns to me. “I just talked to Simon, and I have to tell you that our case is becoming curiouser and curiouser.”

“Well, fill me in, Alice.”

“A partner at Vance-Harrison just reported another break-in at the firm, but this time with massive damage done to the files and computer systems.”

I look up at the windows of Mara’s office. “I think we need to take a look upstairs.”

“Right, then. We have one of Mara’s partners waiting in the lobby.”

Megan and I walk into the building where a thin, balding man looks like he’s trying not to shake apart. We introduce ourselves but he isn’t listening.

“Who would do something like this?” he asks as soon as we finish speaking. “I mean, Mara could be difficult but all artists have their idiosyncracies –“ He suddenly looks up at us in alarm. “Not that I found her difficult, of course, I loved working with Mara –“

“Sir, where were you between midnight and 6 a.m.?”

“Why? I’m not a suspect, am I?” His voice is high with concern, the register rising with each word.

“We have no suspects at this time, sir, but if you have an alibi it will help us rule you out,” Megan tells him, and although he flinches at the word alibi he calms considerably.

“At home, in bed, until you people called me. My wife can verify that.”

I note down his answer. “Can you think of anyone who might do something like this? Anyone have it out for Mara?” I ask him, and he shakes his head.

“No one. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to harm her.”

“Yeah, she was a saint,” I say under my breath.

“Except…” I look up at him, waiting. “You know we were involved in the design bidding process for the new wing of the museum. Perhaps a competitor?”

“Hold on a minute. Were involved?”

“Yes. We found out yesterday that our design was accepted. We won the bid.” Even the death of the senior partner can’t completely dim the excitement in his words. Megan and I look at each other.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmurs.

“Let’s go upstairs and take a look around.”

We go through the rooms of the firm’s suite carefully, starting with Mara’s office, but it is readily apparent that nothing has been vandalized. After almost an hour of methodical inspection, we reach the final door.

“This is just the conference room,” Mara’s partner tells us, opening a door to a windowed room containing a long chrome table surrounded by black leather chairs. The only thing I can see is the large three-dimensional model in the center of the table.

I grab the man’s arm, hard enough to bruise.

“What is that?” I ask, my voice grating.

“That? That, Detective, is our winning design. You’re looking at the new wing of the Cascade Natural History Museum. Of course, I hope I can count on your discretion – we won’t be unveiling this design until the press conference –“

I’ve stopped listening to him, because the model is also a three-dimensional rendering of the picture Blair drew last night.

This doesn’t make sense. “When was this designed?” I ask him, sounding strangled.

“When?” he seems surprised by the question. “This competition has been going on for months. We submitted this proposal, oh… five months ago. At least.”

Five months ago. Before Gabe, before Alex, before the demon found us. Before Blair died.

I thank the man for his time, leaving Conner to finish up. I have my cell phone out before I get two steps down the hall and he picks up on the second ring.

“Sandburg, where are you?”

“At my office. I just finished my meeting. Jim, you’re not going to believe what I found out –“

“Stay there. I’m on my way.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just wait for me, Sandburg. Don’t move.”

***

(Blair)

My office is gloomy and claustrophobic, so I go out to sit on the steps to wait for him. The class period has just started, so there aren’t very many people around, and I close my eyes and turn my face up to the sun.

If I concentrate on the warmth I won’t think about empty eyes in a familiar face whose features slide away each time I try to focus on them. If I concentrate I won’t remember pursuit down empty streets, oblivion chasing behind me, only to wake to a stranger who couldn’t possibly trust me just one fucking time –

“Tell me something.”

His voice startles me, though the words are said softly enough, and I open my eyes to find him standing at the bottom of the steps looking at me.

“After you left Mara’s office yesterday, did you go into the conference room before you went down to the truck?”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, but it seems easier to just go along with him. “No…”

“Didn’t peek in a doorway as you passed?”

“I said no, Jim. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. What is this about?”

“I’m just wondering, because last night you drew Mara’s winning design for the new wing of the Cascade Natural History Museum.”

I look at him blankly. “No, Jim, last night I drew the gateway to Hell. At least according to the priests of Am-Heh, an Old Kingdom god fondly known as the “Devourer of Millions”. So obviously, we’ve got a much bigger problem than we thought.”

Now it’s his turn to look blank.

“Not only that,” I continue, starting to feel a little hysterical, “according to the Chair of the Egyptology Department, the message Lily and I wrote out is the complete linguistic key to the gateway, which has only existed in fragments up until now. The key, Jim. To hell. Since I have no fucking clue what to do about it, I’ve been sitting here trying to think up a valid explanation to give Professor Farrell for why I have the coded language of an obscure, 4,000 year-old death cult written on a legal pad. In crayon.”

He is silent for a few seconds and then sighs. “It sounds like we definitely have a bigger problem, Sandburg.” He moves up the stairs to sit beside me, close enough to touch. I lean forward and stare down at the steps, shaking my head.

“Fuck, Jim.”

“Yeah.” He says, and he sounds exhausted, but when he speaks again his voice is distant. “I really hate seeing you here. I used to like this place – I liked the thought of you being here. But now…” He trails off and I lean my shoulder briefly against his.

“I knew,” he continues. “The whole drive over here that morning, I knew, even though I wouldn’t let myself believe it. When I finally got here I didn’t turn off the engine or close the door – I just ran up these steps. But when I got to the top, I turned around because I knew.” He is staring at the fountain, and I reach out to grasp his chin and turn his face toward mine.

“I felt you leave,” he says, his voice soft with grief. “Just like last night. I felt you leave, Blair. I don’t know if I can take that again.”

I’m listening to him, hurting for him, my anger gone when I imagine how I would feel if he were the one leaving me. It would be terrible, it would be hell. Then I have an insane urge to laugh, because it occurs to me that he might be doing exactly that.

“Jim,” I say, and I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice, “are you breaking up with me?”

His eyes widen and he fists one hand in my hair, a strange half-smile on his lips. “No, genius, I’m trying to tell you that I-“

For the second time in as many hours we are interrupted by the phone, ringing insistently in my back pack. I don’t want to answer because I sure as hell want to hear what Jim was about to say, but the moment is gone. He shakes his head and looks back at the fountain, putting his hands in his pockets. “Well, answer it, Sandburg.”

I dig the damned thing out of my backpack, mentally cursing whoever picked that minute to call me.

“Hello?” I snap, and then I’m back-pedaling, trying to be calm. “Okay, okay, just try to calm down and we’ll meet you at Cascade PD head-quarters. Do you know where it is? Fifteen minutes.”

I look over at Jim, his face grim and stony. “That was Ellen. Lily’s missing,” I tell him, unnecessarily because I know he heard the entire conversation. He is already standing, moving down the steps.

“Let’s go.”


***

(Jim)

Of all the pointless, terrible crap we see day after day in Major Crimes, cases involving kids are the worst. I feel like the air itself is pulled taut. There’s a rushed, edgy tension hanging over the entire department that stops conversation and makes everyone walk around with their lips pressed tight. Even Simon looks grimmer than usual.

“Okay, the APB has gone out,” I tell him as I hang up the phone. “We’ve got uniformed officers canvassing her street and checking with her friends. I’m going to take Sandburg and start searching the neighborhood.”

“You finished with the grandmother?” he asks, looking up from his desk.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t want to leave. Lily’s father is waiting at their house in case she comes back. I think Ellen wants to be here if something breaks.”

“Try to convince her to go home. There’s nothing she can do here.”

“I’ll try, but I have a feeling she isn’t going anywhere until we find her granddaughter.”

Simon sighs, his expression grim. I know he’s thinking about Daryl - these types of cases really get to him, too. “Well, let’s make sure we find her, then. What a day – prominent citizen gets knifed in front of her office, missing kid, missing officer–“

“Missing officer?” I ask him.

“A patrolman just walked off the job this morning…” he looks at a pad of paper on his desk. “McGovern.”

I remember a pale face and a sickening wave of motion beneath my hand. “Captain, I think you better add McGovern’s name to that APB.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“He may have the girl.”

“Based on what Ellison?” Simon’s looking at me like I’m insane. “You’re talking about a good man here – you better be pretty fucking sure.”

I think about McGovern finding Blair in the drainage culvert two weeks ago, in a place where even I would have had a hard time seeing him. I think about Blair seeing someone in a police uniform killing Mara. Somehow I know I’m right.

“Simon, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I don’t think we can afford to take the chance.”

“Give me something here, Jim. I can’t do this just on your say-so.”

There’s no way to explain it to him, and I don’t have time to try. “He disappeared in the vicinity where a knifing and a kidnapping happened within hours of each other. At the very least, he could be in trouble.”

I’m on the receiving end of a glare, but Simon is picking up the phone as I leave his office. Out in the bullpen, Ellen and Blair are in a deep, intense conversation at my desk.

“You have to try!” Ellen tells him, her voice vibrating with anxiety.

“I’d do anything to help her, you know that, but I don’t know if it’s even possible,” Blair replies, and I can hear the tension in his voice.

Ellen looks up at me as I approach. “Anything, Detective?” she asks, and I cringe inwardly at the hope on her face.

“Ellen, did you notice any police officers around your building this morning?” I ask her.

“What’s going on, Jim?” Blair asks.

“Dave McGovern hasn’t been seen since he worked the Caton crime scene.” I watch his face pale. “Could he be the one you saw last night?”

“Maybe,” he says, and I can tell that trying to remember is causing him pain. “God, I hate this.”

Not as much as I do.

“We’re wasting time,” Ellen says urgently, turning back to Blair. “You’re the only one who can do help her. Why won’t you try?”

“What is this about?” I interrupt, already knowing I’m not going to like the answer.

“Ellen thinks I can reach Lily in a trance state,” Blair says quietly. “I don’t know if I can do it, but I think I have to try.”

“A trance state?” I ask, disbelieving. “What makes you think you’ll have any more control over it than you did last night?”

“We’re running out of time,” Blair says urgently. “You know it has her, Jim, whoever it’s hiding in. Lily’s been trying to keep it out, night after night, but it’s been slipping through a piece at a time. It wants to be whole again, and it’s going to force her to let it through. If it does…,” he trails off and looks at Ellen before he finishes, “well, for one thing, it won’t need her anymore.”

“Oh, God,” Ellen whispers. She grabs at Blair’s arm, knocking a stack of mail to the ground. “You do it. You find my granddaughter now,” she hisses.

Something inside me snaps. “The last time he tried to ‘find’ your granddaughter he almost died,” I tell her, suddenly back in bed with his body dead-weight in my arms.

“And Lily will die if he doesn’t!” Ellen’s voice is strident.

“What is this?” Blair says, and we both look at him. He’s staring down at the tile, where Ellen’s sudden movement has scattered files and envelopes all over the floor.

Blair stoops and grabs a piece of faded paper. “This is the message Lily and I wrote – but there’s a lot more of it here…” He starts sifting through the papers on the floor. “This is the old museum file, Jim - the one we were looking for,” he says, and I bend down to help him gather the papers up.

“Where the hell did it come from?”

“Hell, I don’t know; maybe the Archives staff finally found it somewhere. Oh, man, look at this stuff. Here’s the gateway symbol again.” He shows me a sketch like the one he drew last night. “The glyph message looks like it’s part of a statement – hey, see if you can find more of this section.”

I flip though the papers until I find a hand-written page that matches the one Blair is holding. The hand-writing is jagged, with the pen marks gouged deeply into the paper.

“He will open the gateway where the veil is thin,” I read out loud. “And death will thunder from the skies.” I glance at Blair before I skim the rest. “It goes on like this. This guy is confessing to the murder of one of the museum directors. He talks about the key, and opening the gateway. He says that when it opens it will let in the legions of hell.” I look up at him. “It looks like this has been going on for a lot longer than the last couple of weeks.”

“I think we can assume that,” he breathes, reaching reluctantly for the page, and I hand it to him.

“What the hell does this have to do with my granddaughter?” Ellen demands. “I can help you control the trance-state, Blair, but we’re wasting time!”

He doesn’t look up from the paper in his hand. “Okay,” he says reluctantly. “I’ll try.” Then he looks at me, trying to gauge my response to this, but I’m thinking about Mara’s original call to the police, and the destroyed files at the other firms. I think about Mara’s murder, and how it happened right after her gateway design was accepted.

“No,” I tell Blair. “You don’t need to do that. He’s going to come here. Looking for this.” I toss the pieces of the file onto the desk.

“That’s kind of a stretch –“

“The man who has my granddaughter is coming here?” Ellen asks, grabbing my arm. I ignore her.

“Everything he’s done – the break-ins, the vandalism, the murder - he doesn’t want anyone to know what the museum really is. McGovern worked the break-in case with Conner - he knows she was looking for this file. He can’t afford to let us find it.”

Blair stands. “We have to get down there,” he says. “It won’t waste any time now – it knows we’re going to figure out who he is.”

***


(Blair)

As I run for the stairs I hear Jim telling Ellen to stay put and shouting to the rest of MC to mobilize for a possible hostage situation in the PD basement. He catches up to me before I get half-way down the first flight, and we pound down the stairs together.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask him as we round a corner.

“To combat a demon? Hey, you’re the medium, Chief. Got any ideas?”

“Holy water?”

“Do you have any?” he counters, stopping at the top of the last stairwell.

“Didn’t make it to mass this week,” I tell him. “Since I’m Jewish.”

“Plan B, then.” He pulls out his pistol and looks at me, his face serious now. “You take care of the girl. Try to get her to safety. Let me handle McGovern.”

I nod, and he smiles at me briefly. Even though I’ve never heard the words from him, his expression is incredibly easy to read.

“Me, too,” I answer, and he touches my shoulder before he turns away.

The basement is silent when he eases the door open, the administration desk deserted. The shelves stretch away in windowless gloom through the entire length of the building, and I realize that if McGovern and Lily are here, they could be hiding anywhere. I know Jim is listening for any sign of them, but before he can move I feel a fluttering touch against my mind, breathless with fear and confusion. I grab Jim’s arm and point toward the back. He looks at me, questioning, but starts moving in the direction I’ve pointed out.

As we approach I try to reassure that butterfly presence, sending out what I hope is comfort, but suddenly I’m plunged into darkness as a cold, black wall slams down over my mind. I know I’m stumbling, falling to my knees, and Jim’s hard grip on my arm is the only thing that pulls me back from the dark. Reluctantly I let go of my hold on Lily, and stand up to follow the sound of sobbing that even I can hear now.

McGovern is in the alcove where Jim and I were looking for the file yesterday, pulling boxes from the shelves and randomly dumping papers on the floor. There is a can of gasoline on the floor beside him, and I realize that he has no intention of finding the file – he is simply going to destroy them all. Lily is huddled on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest and her head on her crossed arms, but she seems to be unhurt.

As soon as he senses us McGovern whirls and pulls out his gun, aiming at Jim over Lily’s crouched form. “You can’t stop me,” he says, and his voice is high and taut, skating the edge of hysteria. “It’s already too late. It’s here.”

Lily raises her head and looks directly at me. She’s terrified, but she’s still holding the creature out, I can feel it. Jim glances at me and I shake my head.

“Dave, you can fight this,” Jim says quietly, talking to him like they’re having a conversation over a beer instead of loaded weapons.

“I’ll enjoy killing you,” McGovern whispers, and his voice sounds raw. “You will pay for banishing me.”

“If you could kill him, you’d have done it already,” I speak up, and I feel Jim tense beside me. “McGovern’s too strong for you, isn’t he? You’re just a shadow here. ‘Devourer of Millions’. Ha.”

There is a sudden gust of wind in this airless basement, and it feels gritty with dirt or sand. “What do you know of me? I existed for millennia before your birth and I will be here ages after you are dust.”

The voice is like gravel, distorted and grating, but one thing I know is bravado when I hear it. “I know exactly what you are,” I tell it. “And I know how to send you back.”

Taunting a demon may not be the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but the thing inside McGovern reacts exactly as I’d hoped. It turns on me in rage, firing, but I drop to the floor the second I finish speaking and the shot goes wide.

Before the echo dies Jim is in motion, and I hear the report of his pistol. I don’t see exactly what he does because I am running for Lily, bent nearly double as I grab her and drag her back out of the way.

The creature within McGovern roars, a shriek of frustration and pain that is nearly deafening, but I curl myself around Lily and wait. In one shocking blast the dim lights on the ceiling above us flare into blazing suns and then shatter outward, plunging this section of the basement into darkness. I feel glass shards ping against my back, and pull Lily more tightly beneath me. She is sobbing into my ear and I whisper words of reassurance that I desperately hope are true.

I hear a flurry of movement, shouts and pounding footsteps moving away, and realize that we are alone. The creature is running now and Jim is pursuing it through the darkness. I sit up with Lily, checking her for injury.

When I’m convinced that she isn’t physically hurt, I hold her hands. I can hear the sounds of our back-up piling into the basement, and I know it’s only a matter of minutes before they reach us.

“You know what that creature is, Lily,” I tell her urgently.

“It tried to hurt me,” she whispers through her tears.

“I know,” I tell her, and I am aching for her pain. “It wants to hurt a whole lot of other people now, too. You know what you need to do, don’t you?”

She shakes her head vehemently. “No. No! I don’t want to!” I remind myself that she’s just a kid. I start hating myself for what I am about to do.

“If you don’t close the door it will come back for you,” I tell her firmly. “It will try to hurt you again. Or maybe this time it will hurt your grandmother or your daddy.”

She is sobbing, and I am filled with self-loathing. “You need to keep it out forever,” I tell her. “If you let me, I’ll help you.”

Finally, finally she nods, and I grasp her small hands more tightly. She rests her head on the wall behind us, and as easily as breathing, she falls away. Not so long ago I was able to do that, too, but now I can only follow where she leads, trailing after her bright presence.

But something is wrong. Instead of an endless expanse of azure light we are on a twilit city street with boarded windows and chained doors. The entryways yawn into darkness and our steps echo against the deserted buildings.

“Where are we?” I ask her, feeling about her age as I grasp her hand tightly.

“This is where it’s hiding. I don’t like it here, but we have to make it leave.” She looks up at me with wide, knowing eyes and squeezes my hand, hard. “Don’t let go.”

***

(Jim)

The thing runs ahead of me, spilling boxes to the floor and shoving entire shelves over as it flees, ignoring the bullet in its arm as if it were nothing. I don’t know how much of Dave McGovern remains, and I can’t take the chance of firing at it if he is still able to take control.

Suddenly he stops, falling to his knees and screaming as if in horrible pain. He drops the pistol and puts both hands to his head.

“What are you doing?” McGovern screeches, and I know he isn’t speaking to me. “I will destroy you both.”


***

(Blair)

In its entirety, when I tried to contain it in the blue, the creature was a gargantuan, swirling vortex, threatening to consume everything in its path. Here, on this dark, boarded-up street, the pieces that have managed to come through the doorway are shuffling creatures, scuttling in the shadows, their presence given away by the chink of claws on cement and the dry rustle of leathery wings. The light is too dim to see them clearly, and I am grateful.

Lily’s hand is steady in mine. “We can send them back,” she tells me. “We need to make them follow us.”

“Follow us where?”

“Back to the blue.” She concentrates, opening her mind, and suddenly I am thrown back by her power. It is a bright, shining presence in this darkness, and I can feel the reality around us begin to shimmer. The creatures in the shadows begin chittering in alarm, a wordless husk of sound that makes me shudder.

Suddenly their movement changes, becoming swift and purposeful, and I feel the darkness begin to close in on us. There is a rift in the pavement near Lily, rain-washed blue streaming in, but it isn’t nearly large enough. I do the only thing that I can – I let go of her hand and rush toward the blackness, leading the things within it away from her.

So again I am running, pounding down empty streets with the sound of my pursuers gaining behind me. When I am sure I will never stay ahead of them, I hear a horrible, wrenching tear, and the city around me shakes as if in the grip of an earthquake. I look back to see Lily screaming, her head thrown back. The hunched things closing in on me regroup, turning, rushing toward her and the gaping hole in the street faster than I could possibly follow.

The creatures become part of the blue, and for one single instant I see Lily outlined against the brightness.

“Blair!” she screams, once, her voice cut off as the rift slams shut.

“Lily!” I call desperately, but only my own voice echoes back. I am alone on an empty street.

***

(Jim)

Whatever Blair and Lily are doing, it distracts the creature long enough for me to move in. I send McGovern’s gun skittering away across the floor and pull McGovern’s arms behind his back, snapping the cuffs into place. He looks up at me, his eyes empty, and hisses, “This means nothing. Others will come after me. The gateway will open.”

Then he collapses forward and I allow him to fall, not sure that this isn’t a trick. When he finally stirs he looks up at me awkwardly, his arms bent behind him. “Detective Ellison? Is it gone?”

“That you, McGovern?” I ask.

“Y-yeah…” I can tell he’s starting to panic, and as Simon and the others move up to join us I help him sit up.

“Where’s the girl?” Simon asks me, looking askance at McGovern in cuffs.

“I didn’t hurt her!” McGovern says desperately. “It wanted me to, but I wouldn’t do it.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and tell him he shouldn’t try to talk right now.

“This man needs medical attention. Lily’s with Blair,” I tell Simon. “She seemed to be okay, but I think I better check on them.”

“Go ahead. Then you’re going to explain all this.”

“Detective Ellison!” McGovern says, and I turn to him. His face is depairing, and I feel an inkling of dread. “I’m so sorry. I tried to help him…”

The dread uncoils and crawls up my spine, and without another word I turn away, running back the way I came.

I find them in the alcove where Blair and I made love only yesterday. He is lying still on the floor and Lily is huddled over him, weeping, her small hands stroking his hair over and over as one would soothe a wounded animal. I drop to my knees beside her.

She looks up at me, her tiny face streaked with tears. “He got lost,” she says mournfully. “I told him not to let go.”

“No.” I shake my head, denying it even as a cold certainty curls around my heart. I touch his face, brush my fingers over the features that I know so well, and reach out. I want to lead him back, drag him back if I have to, like I’ve done so many times before, but this time there is no path to follow.

“No,” I say again, pleading with him gently, my voice breaking. “Come on, Blair, don’t do this.” I feel nothing - no movement, no breath, no heartbeat.

Grief is waiting for me in a vast, gaping void, but I turn away from it and simply pull him into my arms. I wrap my body around him as if we were safe at home, like any minute he’s going to put his arms around me and hold me back. With his head resting on my chest and my face beside his, I feel something break inside, and suddenly it’s easy to say the one thing I should have been telling him every day since I met him.

Maybe he can still hear me.

***

(Blair)

I always expect him to find me. I realize that now, that I didn’t try hard enough to stay with him, because I knew he would bring me back. This place is different though – dim and lonely and growing darker all the time. Without the creatures that created it, this place is disappearing, and I wonder where I will be when it is finally gone.

For the last time I close my eyes and let go.

There are endless minutes when I think I will be alone in silence forever. But suddenly, beautifully, I hear a voice, his voice, and I realize that I can see him, too. The angle is wrong; I am looking at him from above and across the room, but I’ve never seen him so lost in grief. The desire to soothe his pain, to run my hands over his bent shoulders and cradle him close becomes a living thing inside me, and the only thing I can do to relieve the ache is reach up and take him in my arms.


***

(Jim)

I don’t remember much of what happens after Blair stirs against me. The others come, Simon and Joel and Megan and other familiar faces. They want to take him from me, but I won’t let them – not until Blair is breathing easily and the color has come back to his face.

I vaguely remember Lily and Ellen finally together again, and endless explanations going on around me. I know I speak, but nothing seems real until Blair and I are back home again.

We are barely through the door before I turn to him, dragging him up against me and crushing my mouth into his. I need to prove to myself that he’s still with me so I reassure myself with the quickening pulse of the blood through his veins and the deep breaths that come faster and faster as I bare his skin to my hands. The quiet words of comfort that he whispers are becoming soft, incoherent moans as I map his body; bone and muscle and skin and life.

“Jim,” he mutters harshly, “not- not here-“ He steps back, looking drugged, his mouth swollen and flushed, his shirt open and hanging from his shoulders. I ignore his words and drag him close again, slipping his shirt down his arms and running my hands up over his biceps and his shoulders, down the smooth skin of his back and over the hard muscles beneath his jeans. The rough denim abrades my fingers after the smoothness of his skin, and I fumble the closure of his jeans open and shove the cloth down his hips.

He is moaning into my mouth, shoving at my jacket until I shrug out of it carelessly, then pull him close again to touch all that beautiful skin. “Need you,” I tell him. “Now.”

“Oh, god,” he whispers. “Right now. Come on.”

I don’t want to let go of him, but somehow we stumble to his room, the place where we touched each other for the first time. It seems right that this is the place where we go now. When he was ill I tried so hard to be careful with him, keeping myself under a tight control that I never knew I had, but he’s strong now, sleek and sinuous in my arms. He’s pulling at my clothes, yanking them off of me without thought until somehow we end up skin to skin, weaving our bodies together on the bed as I try to touch him everywhere. I am out of my mind wanting tight, velvet heat and the feel of his body arching against me, so I use my hands and my mouth and my body to drive Blair wild, too. Finally he is begging me, biting at my neck and digging his hands into my shoulders.

In practically one motion I am behind him, half-lying on top of him with one hand on the hard muscles of his thigh. Then I am pushing his knee toward his chest so that his leg is coiled beside him and I can stroke him deep inside with oil-slicked fingers. He pushes back against my hand, moaning, and I haul him back against me with one arm tight around his chest. I am practically writhing against him but I need to know for sure. “Are you – Is this –“

“God, Jim,” he grates out, “just – just – please!”

That broken whisper pushes me past rational thought and I surge forward, pushing deep into slick, perfect friction. The sensation is consuming, almost unbearably sweet, and at first I am only partially aware of Blair stiffening beneath me, his shoulders taut. I remain motionless, suddenly unsure. “Blair?” I whisper, my voice ragged. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and mutters one word through gritted teeth.

“Harder.”

Something primal tears loose in me, and I give up all control. This is mating, fast and violent, with Blair’s hands reaching back to urge me on. His cock leaks over my fingers as I grasp him, working him hard and fast until with a ragged cry he is coming hard over my hand. The sound and feel of him push me over the edge and I come apart with his name on my lips, finally collapsing against him in a nerveless heap. We lie motionless, breathing hard until eventually we slip apart.

At his soft moan I freeze, instantly alarmed. I turn him to face me, none too gently, careless in my sudden concern. Before I can say anything, he is laughing, a low, intimate sound that makes me smile, too.

“Un-fucking-believable,” he whispers, his forearm over his eyes.

“I guess that’s good.”

“Yeah, that’s good. Where the hell did that come from? I really need to die more often – hey, I’m sorry!” he winces as pushes himself up, grabbing my arm as I start to get up. “Jim, come on – I didn’t mean anything.”

I shove him back on the bed, holding myself over him. “No more.” I tell him, feeling completely out of control. “Promise me. I don’t care what fucking over-the-rainbow crap you hear calling your name, you promise me. No more. I’m not going to do this without you, Sandburg. So you stay with me, and I’ll stay with you until we’re too fucking old to remember this god-damned conversation. Okay?”

He swallows, no trace of laughter in his eyes anymore. He reaches up to grasp my hair in both his hands, gripping almost painfully. “Okay,” he says, his voice hoarse. “You and me. Until we’re old. I promise.”

The words hang there between us as we look at each other, until finally I lie down beside him. I take him in my arms and he feels boneless, slumping sated against me. Briefly and finally grounded. “I love you,” I tell him, and the words sound so good that I say them again. I feel the vibration of his laughter through my entire body.

“Last night you asked me what I gave up,” he says softly, his head resting on my chest. “That wasn’t the right question.”

“No?” I ask, and then wait, running my hands over his shoulders. He raises his head to look at me, all tangled hair and serious eyes. Then he stretches up to kiss me hard.

“You should have asked my why I gave it up,” he whispers against my mouth. “That’s the only question that matters.”

I kiss him back, because it’s the only answer that matters, too.