Fractured Mirth
part 9
Phoebe Halliwell sauntered out of the bathroom, a single towel wrapped around her petite frame, as she pulled one from her long brown hair, shaking it loose, and offering a prolonged sigh at the tangles that came to life with the sudden gesture. Her bare feet halted at the dresser, as she quietly grabbed a brush from the top, inspecting herself in the mirror. The reflection that greeted her, also allowed her a quick glimpse at the figure who sat on the bed directly behind her, his dark hair settled against the headboard, cushioned by a large pillow, his scruffy visage preoccupied, as his blues ran their way over a slightly tattered newspaper, a pen in his right hand, as he curiously circled something of interest upon it, entirely oblivious to her presence. He was clothed in a white t-shirt with the tiniest of sports logos in the upper left hand corner, and his legs were covered with a pair of zippered track pants, slightly undone at the ankles, where crisp white socks hung in position rather loosely. She studied him a moment longer, as she calmly drew open a drawer, fishing out a spaghetti strap top and a pair of bottoms. "Okay, what's wrong?"
"Wrong?" he returned innocently, as he finally glanced up at her for a mere five seconds, before refocusing his attention on the matter at hand.
"I didn't tell her you lived here, if that's-"
"And I'm not mad," he cut her off abruptly.
"Yeah...well....you sure could've fooled me," she noted, raising an eyebrow, as she readjusted the towel, using her hip to shove the drawer closed. "Is it because I didn't get a premonition?"
He shook his head, his pen still at work. "If she had half the decency to even think before she pours herself headfirst into risk, maybe we'd have our confession by now."
"And it's not that simple, Cole. For all we know, they could be two separate cases with minor similarities."
He rolled his eyes. "Please. Tell me something I don't know."
"What are you reading?"
He shrugged. "The obits. Trying to see if I can somehow pinpoint my own lead as to where these guys might be hiding out, aside from what the VCTF has already derived."
"Um....they don't really disclose everything there. It could take hours to narrow something down by the deemed printable cause of death."
"Well, I currently don't have the ability to break into a morgue, or the expenses, for that matter- to even attempt to revive a deteriorated dead body in a cemetery. So out of all those? It's say this is definitely the better choice of the three, wouldn't you?"
She couldn't help but smile. "There aren't exactly going to be any headings saying, death by syringe and triquetra, see page F4, in bright flashing letters. Dead is dead."
"Without a sufficient means to let the grieving families rest in peace. Sure. Okay. I'll buy that."
"And sometimes they don't. Sometimes they never will. It's not up to us to decide that. We can't obtain justice in the official sense. We can only try and save innocents from demons and hope that's good enough."
"Well, right now, I think it's far from being good enough. They've got an agent who's down, but can't admit to it, and another whose as fiesty as they come."
"Speaking of Rachel, I see you two must have really tortured each other when you were together."
He laughed. "Together? Phoebe, we couldn't have been further apart. I warned her not to act on every instinct, but she's trained, and she thought she could beat those guys at their own game. She misses how the human eye really works."
"And how does the human eye really work?"
"Either way, I refuse to be her backup on that location. She can go in herself, for all I care. I'm through playing the guy on the sidelines."
"You want up close and personal," Phoebe sided.
"Isn't that the idea? To get as close as you can, as quickly as you can, without being caught? The waiting's driving me nuts."
"Then maybe it's time you put Belthazor to the test again," she mused softly.
"That wasn't really the answer I was looking for," he added, his expression residing to a blank state. "In fact, I think it's just the opposite."
"Which is?"
"Keeping him at base...under control. If I let myself get too upset, I might just shred some innocent guy to pieces for what I only think he did to those women and little girls."
"It's really getting to you, isn't it?"
"Anyone that's capable of doing what he did, shouldn't just get a tiny cell with no outside access for life."
"Death," she agreed.
"Rachel tells me Robertson isn't her guy, and yet she can't bring herself to take me to her point of view."
"You think she's hiding something?"
"I don't know. I don't...."
"She's real driven," Phoebe concluded, as she moved out of the bedroom, coming back minutes later, fully clothed in her pajamas, as she gently pulled back the covers, getting onto the bed as she best she could, while he still remained above the covers, lightly gritting his teeth, as he gently tossed the ads aside, placing his hands directly behind his head, focusing his gaze straight ahead.
"I'm going," he decided.
"Going?" she questioned, immediately retreating into an upright position, her eyes striking a faint chord, as they grew somewhat tense. "Going where?"
"Dammit, Phoebe, I can't just sit here....knowing they might have somebody's little girl down there right now, torturing her, letting her experience pain, injecting her with God knows what....this isn't connected to John, and I think those bastards wanted it to only look that way. But it's not....it's not, and they could have someone down there right now, and we wouldn't even...."
"It's late, you're just tired. It's only natural to think like this when-"
"But it just doesn't feel right."
"And you're going to feel helpless. You're going to- just look at your past, Cole. You couldn't deny that it would affect you at some point. It was bound to."
"So tell me. How can something meant for good, be left to promote the cost of evil?"
She shut her eyes, laid her head upon his shoulder, as she sunk lower beneath the sheets, pulling them protectively up to her chest. "Wish I could, but I'm not a profiler."
"See, thats why it's so hard for us. We've spent half our lives with demons, and we have no idea how to get into the human mind."
"Maybe we're not supposed to. Everybody has a purpose."
"And even I know Robertson's becoming a little obvious, but I can't discount his childhood."
"Well, look at it this way. Your mother made you. She turned you into what she wanted you to be. She let you kill for pleasure, and you overcame it. Maybe it wasn't the same for Duane. Maybe he took the rifts between his parents a little personally."
"Well, of course they were personal. The bruises were real, and so was the heart. And honestly? If you asked me now, I'd say I never knew my mother."
"And if he still had a heart, he might think his victims go to Heaven, right?"
"But it's a little hard to come by," he noted, shrugging.
"Do you remember what you felt when you made the first-"
"Phoebe, don't."
"I'm not saying it will help you sympathize with a sick man, and far be it for me to even go in that direction, but it might just help a little more if we had a clearer picture on motives."
"No, I need to somehow get a hold of Rachel's notes, and I know I'm going to have to sweet talk her to do it."
She looked up at him then, playfully narrowing her eyes. "And did you ever hear of just asking her to share?"
"Is confidential information normally shared with a half demon civilian?" he quipped.
"But you two are nearly buds now, right?"
He nearly choked, as he bolted upright, gazing at her, his blues going wide. "I'm sorry?"
"I just meant that you're becoming friends since we ran into her at the hospital."
"And explain to me how I could form a sudden bond with a woman who proceeded to arrest me as soon as I was introduced to her."
She smiled. "It adds character, I'll give her that."
"And just so we're clear? She didn't have me for a minute. I would've been out of that cell by daybreak, hands down."
"But yet you felt compelled to tell her who we are," she murmured quietly.
"She's skeptical, but not as skeptical as her partner."
"Bailey?"
"No. John. I could sense he was a little out of it when- I just can't see him taking it in."
"Cole, the guy was just beat up and bruised over nearly his entire body, not to mention the explosive mishap with the car. Give him some time."
"I'm just glad none of you were hurt," he whispered, giving her a light kiss into her hair, strong arms finally settling comfortably around her shoulders, as he lay back again, his lids faltering slightly as he felt fatigue kick in at long last.
"If it's one thing we can already rule out, it's that the job with the rental was done by anything other than a tormented human being."
"And we're always going to have to put our lives on the line. That won't ever change."
"Is this your way of saying you might want to consider law enforcement before this is over?"
He raised a thoughtful eyebrow, as his lips gently met hers. "I think the part of the resume that read 'half demon' might throw them off track."
She laughed. "Yeah, that could both scare and stump them to no end."
He carefully reached his free hand over, and gently tucked a few fingers beneath the light switch, bathing them in sudden darkness, as he let himself fall into the bed completely, watching as she placed her head upon his chest, sighing contentedly.
___________
"Don't they have ice in this place?" John Grant prodded, when he finished rapping a pair of tired knuckles across the big wooden door.
That door to the next room was pulled open, directly meeting the soft, and yet perturbed gaze of Rachel Burke, a clipboard hanging loosely in her right head. She ran the other through her distorted mop of red hair, blinking a few times to let her eyes adjust to the bright lights of the hallway in front of her, her lips creasing into a simple frown. "That's what room service is for," she proclaimed with a long yawn.
"Yeah. I tried. No answer. I figure the guy's either drunk or asleep. In his case, I'd vote for wasted."
"John-"
"Did you get a good look at him when we came in?"
"Is it that bad?"
"His shirt had coffee stains on it."
"I mean, are the bruises really that swollen?"
"Actually, it's just my ego," he quipped, giving her a smile. "But I digress."
She sighed, though she couldn't help a grin of her own in spite of the situation. "C'mon in. I'll see what I can find."
"Usually I'd go down to talk to Bailey, but....well...to be honest, this place just gives me the creeps in a way I can't really describe, and Bailey's of course....nowhere in the vicinity for miles."
"So I'm the one to fall back on?"
"Maybe you could take it as a compliment," he suggested hopefully.
"You might want to know I reconsidered Robertson," she brought forth then, as she stuck her head into the tiny refrigerator that positioned itself directly across the bed, her hands closing themselves around a couple of ice cubes, as she reached for a small towel, securing them tightly within it.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I was thinking about what Bailey said....about the games. The fact of the matter is, John, I think he's playing a bigger one than either of us realized."
"How do you figure?" he asked her, reaching for the towel, as she randomly drew it back, calmly shaking her head.
"Let me," she said softly. "Here. Sit down."
He hesitantly found a spot upon the bed amongst the scattered pieces of paper, gently shoving a few sheets of notes aside. "Left side of my face," he said quietly. "Stings like you wouldn't believe."
"Mmm...maybe we should take you back to the hospital," she reasoned, as she gingerly pressed the makeshift soother to the skin, watching him wince slightly, as his hand fell absentmindedly over hers, her heart skipping a surprisingly small, unnoticeable beat. His touch was warm and gentle, and she grew somewhat uncomfortable, offering the cubes to him, as she abruptly stood up to pace the room, struggling to shake her mind free of the thoughts that crept in without warning, knowing full well they weren't what she needed right now.
"I hate to break it to you, but hospitals and I see way too much of each other...even under normal circumstances."
"When I thought I lost you, I think I was even beyond reason," she mumbled more to herself than to him, her attention now clearly drawn elsewhere, as picked up the clipboard yet again, bringing it tightly to her chest. "A part of me didn't care what it took."
"Rachel, you can't just go after a man you thought was innocent, just because of me. It isn't-"
"Logical? It is, if you believe strongly enough in the cause."
"So this is why you changed your mind?"
She quickly shook her head. "It's complicated."
"Is it those scary demons again?"
"They talk about cults on the news all the time. People join them because they need to feel accepted, they need to feel something. Maybe Duane was lacking because of his upbringing, so he chose the darker side of life. It would certainly coincide with the triquetra, as he struggled to maintain a sense of balance, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah. He's battling his nerves through light and dark. Excuse me while I go and apply for membership."
"But it's not like that. He probably thought it chose him, rather than the other way around."
"Still, it doesn't confirm the injections."
"But if we could just find one person that got into his mind, we'd be able to-"
"That's going to keep bugging you, isn't it?"
"I've only gotten a single series of clues to lead me on. When you're working with this kind of madman, the rules become slanted, reality blurs."
He readjusted the towel upon his face, looking up at her. Her eyes were tainted with exhaustion yet, and her lips remained slightly pursed. "Okay," he sided. "Okay. Alright. Look, let's say he is getting his mission in life from a supernatural demon with horns and red eyes who bears a striking resemblance to Satan. Given his childhood, he'd also be prone to resist it."
"Since when did you-"
"Like I said, I'm just saying-"
"Hypothetically speaking?"
"Hypothetically," he agreed, laughing briefly.
"In that case, maybe I should raise that hypothetical."
"The one victim's mother...." he started, freeing the towel, as he tossed his hands behind him onto the matress. "She said the injection probably wasn't enough, didn't she?"
"Well, naturally, you can also assume Miss Walker was literally scared to death on top of it. Whoever she encountered wanted her vulnerable and under his control. When you have a set plan, it's kind of hard not to come off as being the top guy in command, you know?"
"Phoebe believes in spells, doesn't she?" he inquired then, his eyes searching.
"Not that it anything to do with any of this..." Rachel smiled, pausing a moment. "Oh, you're smitten, alright. Bailey's really going to love this one."
"All jokes aside, it was a formal response."
She nodded, trying to keep a straight face. "I'll bet it was."
"Does that irritate you or something? I find women attractive all the time. Trust me, it's nothing new."
"Why would it irritate me?"
"Mmm...no reason."
"If you think that for one minute I could be capable of being jealous of a friend...."
"Friends," he murmured.
"John, I'm happy for you. I really am. Only problem is, her boyfriend is as devoted as you can get. They've got a real history."
"Maybe I just wanted a reaction from you," he offered, mindlessly shrugging.
"I don't under-" But she didn't get to finish. Her cell phone buzzed with an incessant ring, as she turned towards the single dresser in the room, backtracking a few steps to retrieve it, as she nearly succeeded in tripping over her own shoes seated upon the lime green carpet. "Yeah?"
"Agent Burke, we need you down at the apartment complex a block away from Prescott Street. There's been another one."
She didn't even realize she was already pulling on those shoes that had only minutes ago nearly led her to a fatal fall, until John was up and draping a coat across her shoulders, holding a hand to his side, as he began to make it to the doorway.
"Female?"
"Yep. And by the looks of it, another young one."
"Dammit. That means he's in the area."
"We've secured a road block about-"
She nodded, without bothering to let him finish. "He's probably already fled by now. Won't do any good. Look, I'm on my way."