The gunshots had stopped. After a few seconds, Carlton stopped as well. He still hadn't placed an exact fix on where the shooting had originated and without further guidance, he was left with coin flipping. Hell, without descent light and a compass, he was starting to realize he had no idea where he was either.
He rubbed the back of his neck and flinched when his fingers brushed the knot that had risen there. Possible concussion was probably the cause of his vision skewing all warped for a minute. As it stood, going back to his vehicle to await the back up that might be on its way wasn't optional. Spencer could get hurt on his watch, and he was willing to live with that. Was perfectly fine with that, in fact. Not to the point of crippling, but a bit of bruising to head and ego was satisfying in its own way. But leaving the man for dead? Aside from the personal aversion, O'Hara would be second in line behind Henry and one step ahead of Guster for the chance to create modern art from his intestines.
O'Hara. She'd finally reached a point where Spencer's flippant disregard for the meting out of justice didn't tempt her to stray from proper procedure. Keeping a leash on the consultant was trying at the best of times without his own partner feeding him kibble every chance she got. Now, though... She may have thought she was being crafty but more than once, Carlton had spotted her granting peeks into folders, making whispered phone calls, and even allowing her personal space to be breached at a crime scene without so much as a hard glare.
He knew she hadn't worked out all her trauma from the Yin fiasco. If they survived to see the Chief again, Carlton was making damn sure his partner put in a few more sessions with the psychologist. Whatever repercussions came from that, he'd take them like a man. But he intended to wear a vest just the same.
Concerns for his partner helped to bleed off some of the panic at finding himself totally without his bearings – enough that when Carlton looked around for a second time, he noticed a thinning spot amidst the trees ahead.
Stepping over a fallen pine, he worked his way over to the clearing.
He'd gone through Jesse's Girl, Drip Drip Drip, and Head Over Heels. His next effort was still wavering between David Bowie's “Underground” and Aerosmith's “Livin on the Edge”. Actually, there wasn't really a debate. David Bowie was the answer. David Bowie was always the answer. The question, was what song would finally aggravate the human parasite clinging to his legs enough that the man would just let go – choosing the pit over a never ending serenade?
Somehow, he'd managed to get hung up on a spear of metal jutting up almost flush with the pit wall. Hell if he knew what it was attached to – pure damn luck that he'd hooked the cuff on it at all. He was still working out the law of averages for that particular feat and hadn't even started on the likelihood of Rogers getting a save by grabbing him around the waist as they'd fallen. The added hundred and ninety or so of dead weight to his halted plummet had snapped something in his wrist – the burst of nauseating agony beyond his pain tolerance – leading to a fuzzy segment of time that had involved breaking down into Nell-speak. Unfortunately Liam Neeson wasn't there to save him from the backwoods, dark jedi, or the Nazis so it'd fallen on him to fight his own battles with the only arsenal he had. Taunting.
Hmm... Magic Dance?
“You remind me of the bab-OW!” Rogers pulled his teeth from Shawn's calf in time to dodge the kick aimed at his nose. Jerking movement wrenched at Shawn's wrist and now it was his turn to sink teeth into his own flesh at the sear of pain arching all the way to his shoulder. Screaming was a luxury locked beneath his chest. Gnawing into his bicep wasn't making the pain jolting from his wrist any less, but he couldn't help himself. So this was why trapped animals chewed off their own limbs!
The hand gripping a little too personally around the inside of his thigh let go long enough to grasp the waistband of his jeans. Startled at the groping, Shawn lashed out and connected with Rogers' knee – no reward for good behavior as Rogers landed a punch to his kidneys before clawing his fingers into the back of Shawn's shirt.
Yanked taut against his throat the soft cotton turned garrote severed his inhale and pitched his vision black – body thrashing in a spasm as oxygen fled with consciousness.
Maybe only seconds of ignoble strangulation but the sobs of respiration brought him back in time to appreciate as Rogers lost his hold and skimmed back down his body towards the pit.
Until desperation locked hands around a lower limb already torn and abused.
This time he did scream – though more from startle than pain. The pain, sinking in, syphoned off his wail to a noiseless gape. He tried, so hard, to keep still. Movement was a lesson of punishment he only needed a single time to grasp. But Rogers hadn't gone to the same school and continued to kick and flail – shaking them both and torquing pain throughout Shawn's body.
“Stop! Stop it-stop it!" He couldn't retaliate with his legs clamped together by Rogers' monkey cling but the constant shaking was bowing his threshold on reality at the axis where his wrist was crushed between metal – one curved restraint, the other sheared off and dicing the thin flesh that made such poor barrier to the veins beneath. Blood had reached his elbow – a slick rivulet aided by the sluicing rain and dammed only by the roll of his sleeve. Even in darkness he could see enough to note that there was far too much deep red swathing his forearm. His other hand, vice gripped on the metal snag, was taking a fair share of the damage as well though the cuts were restricted to the folds of his fingers and the palm of his hand.
He didn't want to do what he had to do.
Sending Rogers on a trip to Hell's attic, he had no problem with. If he still had his phone he'd record the event and share it with friends over the holidays. But the manner of doing it...
His eyes shut and his mouth sealed in a frown only his father and Gus would recognize for its absolute stubborn determination. He floated the idea of a last minute save. He'd had a lot of those, actually. Factoring in that he'd been at the core for why he'd needed saving wasn't required as it was enough that he'd dodged nearly all the bullets flung at him through combined personal grit and the timeliness of those around him. Lassie, Jules, his dad, Gus, even a stenographer who'd actually been alive longer than most sequoias.
He was stalling. He had a gift for stalling. Stalling had saved his ass more often that the handful of people who had an investment in his survival. Stalling had prevented everything from pantsing to being poisoned.
Well, barely poisoned. Actually, Gus had sorta stepped up his hero game for that one – stalling had actually made it worse... “Nggh-hey!” Not that he needed that point illustrated but with the trailed off thought he felt Rogers begin his second climb up Mount Spencer.
He knew he could just let the guy go – he probably wouldn't turn around and finished his crappy murder attempt. He'd probably take off through the woods and would probably be picked up by the cops who would probably return to the pit to rescue their beloved psych- “OW! Seriously!?”
Rogers didn't seem sorry about using Shawn's hair as a handhold. No more than he'd care about finding a large branch once he'd climbed free and using it to bust open a sexy pinata. Shawn's grace period was clinically dead.
Dizziness added a new vibrance to what he had to do.
Do it! Hurry up before you pass out, jackass!
Wriggling his fingers to loosen their sticky hold, he pulled in one more breath, and trapped it in his chest.
This was really going to hurt.
His fingers let go and he dropped – the two inches like a fall from the top of a Jiffy Lube. Instant snapping stop and his teeth chattered around empty sound, throat hitching through the waves of ice lashing down his body.
He only came back, announced by a groan that barely made it over his teeth, when a slipping felon managed to get his grip back and dug fingernails into the tender skin between his shoulder and neck.
The hand he'd freed to defend himself still dangled all useless and whatnot by his side. He'd blame his sluggish brain electronics on the lack of any decent starches in the past day – that and his plummeting glucose made for a sleepy Shawn.
Rogers had made past his waist now and the man's crotch was practically in his face. Baseball analogies along the lines of “double header” were enough to give him the smallest grin as he ignored the way the bones ground against each other in his wrist. Free hand making a fist, he got ready to hit a home run when Rogers looked down.
“Oh, I would think again.” Legs gripping tight to Shawn's ribs, Rogers let go of a handful of shirt to probe one hand into his jeans.
A second of fishing and then his hand started to pull free again.
Barely there light reflecting off the shiny in his hand and Shawn lost the upward curve of his lips.
And even as Rogers began to move, Shawn's hand cut through the rain to lock around the wrist that swung towards his face.
Rogers smiled in return.
“Game on.”
He'd been going the wrong way when he'd heard the scream – spinning him back around and towards the darker thicket of trees. Not the terrified preteen melody he'd become accustomed to but a wrenching howl that throbbed with agony.
Carlton gouged the forest floor with his wingtips, making a mental note to put in for some cleats, and managed a solid ten feet before wobbling on a patch of soaked leaves. Damned if he didn't keep his feet that time though, not that he didn't come within inches of beaning his skull on a low branch seconds later.
He was still counting his luck about the last near miss when a branch, studded with needles, smacked him across the eyes. Hissing between his teeth, he bent double and pressed the heel of one hand against the sear of pain. Eyes streaming with tears and rain, he fought to blink through the the sting to find the flashlight that had gone bouncing from his grip. Five feet beyond him he spotted the beam slicing at a right angle up through the trees. Still blinking, he took three long steps – and shouting in surprise, missed a Greg Louganis into pitch black by less than an inch.
The mud rim peeled back from his soles as he hopped away from the pit's edge. One heel clipped the flashlight – flipping the focus from sky to ground and highlighting the crumbling hole. And in that instant, five fingers lashed out and snagged the brim – heart ramming moment flashing on that twisted horror train wreck with the bourgeois title suggesting romance flick ala J.Lo and Hugh Grant. His one and only date with bubbly, pink cheeked Kitty Cat – middle name not an ironic jab but honest to God stamped on her birth certificate – five minutes into the movie and plans to coax some caterwauling later that night were stomped flat with a a hiss and spit as the mild-mannered pastry chef nearly split his boys clawing over his seat, up the aisle, and into the night.
No Ring reenactment though, blood coated as the digits were. Snagging the light, weapon ready, Carlton eased back towards the edge, shifted his grip grown slick with sweat, and looked down.
Rogers stared back at him. It was his fingers sinking into the mud, but at a glance it became obvious that it wasn't his blood smeared into his nail beds. Spencer, by some impossible and highly questionable luck, had somehow magicked his handcuff over the only protrusion in sight. Wrist swollen, purple, sporting a misshapen lump, it was the only thing supporting the weight of the two men as they played a fatal version of Capture the Flag – the handicap afforded the psychic a technical win for the other as he swing a close quarters punch to a hard to miss nose. Burst of blood and a yelp retaliated for with fingers hooking into Rogers' cheek and Spencer showed some steel by bearing down until nails clawed red lines into the patch of flesh.
Carlton licked his lips, gun suddenly a brick of useless steel with the two men so close together – no chance for even a wounding shot without putting one through the man he was forced into rescuing. Again. Cramming the weapon in his holster, he kneeled instead, hating every angle of his only option. Grabbing the hand still death gripped on the edge, he started to pull Rogers out of the hole and off of Spencer – worse for wear and epitomizing rode hard and put away wet.
Awkward crouch and poor leverage meant a pulled muscle in his future – handholds everywhere but none that didn't melt between his fingers. Oblivious to what Carlton was trying to do, Spencer snatched at Rogers' right hand yanked back – tug of war game he had no chance of winning but he went at it with as much gusto as a vegan at an all-you-can-eat salad bar.
“Spencer, let go!” Carlton could feel himself slipping as he hauled at his prize, limbs stretched from the knob of a root jutting up from the ground to the fingers wrapping his own. Rogers could gain no purchase with Spencer weighing down his other arm and Carlton could gain no ground with just one hand invested in the extraction.
He had no choice – he let go of the root. Legs spreading wide for balance, fighting hard to banish the mental video of the Chief in a similar pose while birthing her daughter, he encased both hands around Rogers' slippery wrist and heaved.
“No, Lassie!”
“Dammit Spencer, just let go!”
Kicking him in the face was a low blow he fought to resist. Not for malicious pleasure but because both hands were occupied and he had no other limbs free to break Spencer's grip. Not to say there wouldn't be some ass kicking once they were all on solid ground again.
The rain torrent now took it up another notch, a fury above at the wind combined with the sheeting downpour to whip against their bodies and cut their words to ribbons. Grip going from difficult to damn near impossible, drenched skin slipped, inch by inch through his fingers. Rogers shouted something – heaving himself upward – only to be jerked back down by a Spencer, no doubt out of his mind from infection.
Leaning forward, risking balance for a handful of sopping jacket, Carlton could just make out Spencer's voice screaming through the roar.
“Lassie! He's-” And the rest of it snapped out in a bark as the knee of his wrestling partner slammed into his belly.
Trapped with feeling ire for Spencer in spite of the fact that the young man had been asking for it, Carlton pushed his heels in and dragged Rogers from the slackening grip on his other wrist. Though coughing and breathless, Spencer made a single play to regain his hold – and Rogers twisted his arm and ripped free.
“NO!”
The instant that Spencer screamed, Carlton saw the flash – a swipe of bright silver as it lashed towards his throat.
“Geez!” His arm swung in from of him – instinctive action that saved his jugular but not his sleeve or the flesh beneath. Falling back, he released Rogers and curled over his wound – looking up in time to meet eye to eye with a killer looking to adorn his title with “serial”. Half expecting the man to throw himself forward with a battle cry, Carlton jumped when, instead, Rogers twisted away from him and shrieked in pain.
The knife hand pulled back over the edge as Rogers shifted his attention into the pit. Still holding digging into the muddied earth with one hand, he raised the blade over his head. Carlton dropped his hands to the ground and kicked. Hard soles struck shoulder and jaw – knocking Rogers off balance just as his arm was sweeping down. The single handhold on the pit's edge wasn't enough and with a wild jerk, he toppled from his perch. This time, Carlton got his scream – a long and trailing wail that faded with the form as it dropped out of sight.
Carlton shifted to his belly as he hung over the edge. Below, Spencer was spitting and grimacing.
“What did you do?”
Tilting his head back and grabbing for the hand stretching towards him, Spencer went a bit more green. “Do the words 'take a bite out of crime' mean anything to you?”
As he got a grip and started to pull, Carlton snorted. “Where the hell did you bite him? The only thing in reach would...” Another look at Spencer's face and his lips curled down into a mew. Oh gross.
Carlton turned his focus back to extraction as he hauled the wincing, grunting body back to level ground. As pressure was relieved from his caught wrist, Spencer was able to wriggle it free from the strip of metal. However, after carrying so much weight for so long, the limb was basically dead and dropped the moment it was loose. Unable to really help with his rescue, the younger man did his best to dig his toe tips into the wall of the pit while Carlton did his best not to throw out his back as he heaved at the mostly dead weight.
Five minutes later they were panting on their backs as rain thudded down from above. Bleeding, bruised, one of them still spitting out a mouthful of defilement, the sound of dogs barking not too far away was almost ignored. Almost, until Carlton heard another sound overlapping. Shouting voices – shouting two names over and over. Their names. But best of all, one voice he'd been starting to think he wouldn't ever hear again.
“Jules...”
Carlton turned towards the man beside him – eyes barely open but his mouth curving with happiness.
Too tired to care about their awkward camaraderie, Carlton merely smiled back.
“Jules.”
His teeth had started chattering again, damn it was cold! And with all that mud super glued to his body – sticky, slimy mud with some sort of gritty stuff threaded through it like pulp – he was going to be the grossest corpse ever.
Shawn's eye opening lasted through two blinks. More mud. Mud everywhere. Mud floor, mud walls, mud Lassie sitting beside him. Oh, and rain. Cause without rain they couldn't have mud and what a tragedy that would be.
“Don't just sit there, Spencer!” Lifting himself from the mud with a slurping pop, Lassiter staggered through the wet soup until he got his feet beneath himself. Reaching down, he hooked his dancer's fingers around a soaked cotton encased wrist and started to yank.
“Ow, ow, ow – dude, put the claws away!” Not that complaining was earning him a reprieve as he was likewise unsuctioned. Little effort for Lassie to get him to his feet, it wasn't until he was standing that Shawn took in his own attire. Scuba gear? Why had he put on flippers for cripes sake? No wonder he was finding it so hard to move through all this muck!
“No time to dally, Spencer! We have a mission to complete!” That didn't sound like Lassie...
Turning back towards the other man, Shawn, instead, saw a very Lassitarian Buzz Lightyear with one glove enclosed hand pointed towards the sky. This didn't bode well for his plummeting health issues – unless, of course, that rocket pack was real.
“Shawn?”
Jules...
His floppy feet sliced through the mud as her turned and... “Jules... what...?”
A single, delicate hand pressed against his face as she smiled at him. The other hand, just as delicate, remained with her – curved around her massive belly. Sweat trickled down the side of her face. “I think it's time!”
“Time? Time... time for what?” Did his voice squeak? And what was with the dry mouth thing? Oh God, Jules was starting to kneel in the mud...
“Out of my way, Sweet Pea!” Bullying past with a rough shove, Lassiter ripped off his helmet only to put it on Juliet's head. “We have to keep the rain off of her so she can deliver!”
“Deliver!?”
Now Juliet was on her back, knees bent and apart, her long skirt the only thing keeping her decent. Lassiter took a baseball catcher's position before tapping a button on his chest – blasting the area with the screech of Metallica.
Straining into a bow, Juliet glared through her bangs, sweet face going murderous. “How could you do this to me, Shawn!?”
No answer possible on his numbed tongue, Shawn stared back as the first squalling, bald, creature appeared. The moment it was born, Lassiter wrapped a blanket around it and pressed a tiny weapon into its hands. “Congratulations little Space Ranger!” A light pat and he turned to hold the bundle towards Shawn. “Well go on, take him! I still have work to do here!” And it was true; Juliet already straining on the next one.
Shawn stepped back – stumbling in the muck and shaking his head. From the blankets, a tiny pink hand emerged, clutching the itty bitty Glock.
“No...”
A single baby laugh... and it fired.
“NO!”
Shawn lurched from sleep and grasped the arm in easy reach. “I don't wan' any babeez!” Slurred delivery was met with Lassiter's stare.
“Excuse me?”
“What?” Status check – he wasn't being rained on, Lassie wasn't in a space suit, and Jules wasn't birthing a litter of super cops. Juliet was, in fact, staring at him too – like he'd sprouted a third eye and named it Lenny.
Shawn squinted, going so far as to reach for the slender arm just within his reach. Getting his fingers into the fabric, he pinched.
“Ow! Shawn!”
“Oh my God, you're real.”
“You're supposed to pinch yourself!”
Juliet was there. Juliet had found them. Juliet was about to get smothered in a bear hug.
Juliet stood before he could fashion a means to get his arms around her, still rubbing her bicep and going all Death Star to his Alderaan. Absorbing the laser beams as well as his surroundings, Shawn finally clicked that he was back at Rogers' cabin. Warmer this time, a fire-smith had managed to get some logs lit and dry heat baked one side of him, sending him into a full body shudder of bliss.
A creaking door and stomping boots on a welcome rug, cheery little frogs on lily pads no less not exactly the sort of bad guy décor Shawn would have predicted psychic or no, and the voice that came with it announced another fresh body to their party. “The ambulance should be here in another ten – they got stuck at the turn off and a few officers are helping to get them free.”
“Buzzy!” Shawn grinned at the tall man, who smiled back but looked him up and down with concern.
“Hey, Shawn! How are you feeling?”
It was taking him a while to reply, slow blinking filling in for the lack of speech until he could process the question.
“I feel nifty!” If nifty covered chills, fever, and paralyzing agony. Rather than dwell, Shawn turned back towards Lassiter. “I can't believe you killed Rogers for me! I'm touched, man.”
Flinching when Juliet reached for his sliced arm, Lassiter glared. “I didn't kill the man! They pulled him out fifteen minutes ago! McNab!”
“Yes sir?”
The young officer, perpetually sporting a guilty countenance when addressed by his barking superior, nearly knocked heels to stand at attention. Jerking away from his partner, her scowl ignored, Lassiter stood to speak to the other man, walking with him towards the window as their voices lowered. With their backs turned, Juliet pivoted towards Shawn, her hand going to rest on his knee with her eyebrows bunching together.
“I'm okay,” he mouthed in silence, brushing his thumb over her fingers. Her expression remained anxious, though, as she squeezed his hand. Then the contact ended as Lassiter spun back around, eyes pinching as he pushed the flexibility of his battered limbs.
“Can't believe these things don't come equipped with four wheel drive...” Dark mutter before snapping his fingers at the man slowly listing sideways on the threadbare couch. “Can you stand?”
It took a few eye blinks to realize Lassiter was addressing him, Shawn snorted as he braced his hands on the cushions. “Can I stand...” A single attempt to push upright, arms trembling violently, and he dropped back with barely a thought for his bludgeoned ego. “Carry me?”
He might have earned a sympathetic smack to the back of his skull if Juliet hadn't been strategically positioned to block the police brutality. With Lassie rubbing his forehead, Shawn tried to thank her with a loving squeeze to her too easy to reach assets, only to nearly lose a digit when she smacked away his caress. Injury superseding rampaging hormones he allowed the infraction in favor of later usage for guilt induced hospital bed debauchery.
“McNab is going to drive you to the ambulance.”
A great idea but Shawn frowned at what was left out. “Wait, what about you? A few pints short means Lassie gets to ride the red and white roller coaster. But don't worry, I won't tell anyone that heights make you scream.”
Leaking hemoglobin must have also contributed to the odd little smirk that flitted across Lassiter's face before resettling into the standard issue flat line that hid all but the most aggravated emotions.
“Another car will be sent for myself and O'Hara. Besides, I need to look over this cabin more thoroughly. No way Rogers killed his neighbor just for being loud – there's something else going on.”
Shawn scanned the room. His eyes narrowed, head tipping only slightly before he made the conscious effort to just quit doing that!
Two sets of boots by the back door.
Propane tanks tucked beneath the junk shelf.
Enough diet pills and cold medication to stock a pharmacy.
And was that the faint aroma of... cat piss?
“Rogers was starting up a meth lab. McFeely-”
“Abner.” Juliet didn't smile but Shawn saw her eyes crease.
“-Abner, Rogers' partner, wanted a bigger cut. Rogers doesn't like to share his toys so he and Abner had a little fight. Not all was magical in the Neighborhood of Make Believe – Rogers grabbed the closest weapon he could find, a corkscrew, and SCHPLCH! SCREEET! Blood sprayed across the wall and Abner died a hideous death – one crooked finger pointed towards the man that had taken his life!”
“Shawn, Abner was found with his hands tied behind his back.”
Sinking back into the couch, Shawn frowned. “Really? Well sometimes the spirits deliver their message in a jumble of confused impressions.”
“You were at the crime scene.”
Nonchalant shrug. “Jules, you know I can't be responsible for my visions. They sometimes compel me with the emotional intent of the victim – the final message offered up by the visceral desires of their slain spirit.”
The chatter of his colleagues so much blowing air from the distracted look on Lassiter's face, the detective brushed past McNab as he limped into the kitchen. A few seconds of looking around and he spat out something that would have earned him a slap from his mother and a few rings around the rosary.
Mystery put to bed, Shawn sagged a bit more and rubbed at the blur in his vision. “So, you ready to go, Lassie?”
Uneven clunks as Gimpy moved back into the livingroom. “Spencer?”
Did he just slur? Heavy blinks at the half moon of faces looking down at him – expressions slipping towards alarmed. Damn, he had slurr... And then the faces began to fade – color to gray to mist.
“O'Hara, hold open the door!”
Whispery shouts and cool wash of air – body levitating from the cushy comfort.
He could hear the mud squelching underfoot as the rain began to slam into his body once more.
As the darkness sucked him down – down and down...
And into the pit.