Dragonfan's Stories

Down a Different Path 21

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:53:49 GMT

Title: Down A Different Path
Fandom: V and V the Final Battle, the original people!
Rating: R
Author: Dragonfan

Author Note - Well, I wanted this to be longer but it didn't work out that way. The next chapter/s will cover the final battle and the end of the story. I'm sorry I haven't updated for a long time. I have been dealing with depression and I finally went to the doctor. It's been a big help. Ok, I don't know how to fix the double link, but either one will take you to the chapter. Sorry about that.

Ham Tyler got up at two a.m. the next morning. While Donovan had the raid on Diana's mother ship and Robert Maxwell had the diversion attack on the Visitor's security headquarters, he was in charge of the real attack. A full dozen hot air balloons with red dust payloads would be launching just before dawn local time under his command. There were also a half dozen other groups around the LA area that he had already given balloons, helium and red dust to. As long as Donovan and Martin didn't blow up the planet, the war was won. He proceeded to walk down the halls of what had been the officer's quarters, banging on the doors and grinning his head off. "UP! UP! Everybody up!" Today was going to be a great day.

He stuck his head in Donovan and Julie's room. "Up and at 'em Gooder! We've got lizards to kill!" Tyler laughed when he saw a rather delicate hand reach out from underneath the blankets and flip him off before he continued on. Maxwell was already up and he was getting his daughters out of their bed when Tyler checked on him. Robert waved in his general direction and continued to try and wake up Polly. Katie was already up, bouncing on the bed beside her sister.

Several doorways later Tyler poked his head in Robin and Harmony's room. He wasn't surprised to see a blanket hanging down that bisected the room between the two beds, nor was he surprised to see that Martin and Willie were there wrapped around their ladies. What did surprise him was that they were all still asleep. He had been loud enough to wake the dead. "HEY! Everybody up!" He stalked over to the end of the blanket and pushed it aside, only to find that Martin was pointing his laser pistol at him. "Times a wastin' kids," he grinned and turned around and left.

Robin grumbled something into her pillow but started getting out of bed. Martin spent a short moment relishing the memory of beating the Human to a pulp but then sighed and joined Robin in getting dressed. He really didn't like Tyler but Donovan trusted him and he had helped Robin during her pregnancy, so he'd put up with the man when he had to. He finished putting on his uniform and turned to help Robin with hers.

This was going to be a hectic morning even if everything went perfectly. The three prong attack here in LA was planned for nine in the morning, but those who were dispensing the red dust into the atmosphere had at least five hours of hard work to do before that. It took time to prepare, load and launch each hot air balloon and many smaller groups were loading tiny amounts of red dust into thousands of smaller balloons that they would release at nine. Those balloons would burst once they reached a certain height, releasing the red dust.

Those who were attacking Visitor Security Headquarters actually had the easiest job of the day, although it was much more dangerous than handling the red dust. After being resistance members for more than a year, they had learned the hard way how to conduct a raid on a Visitor target. They were now very good at it and everyone was well aware of what their jobs were.

Naturally those who were making the early morning raid on Diana's mother ship had the most dangerous and difficult job of all. Sneaking on board the mother ship was the easy part of that raid. Martin already had clearance to bring the freighter on board, or rather the freighter captain that only existed in the mother ship's computers did. Once they were on board they would be splitting into two groups, one heading directly to the bridge and the other would be dumping the freighter's cargo of red dust, which had been loaded last night, into the ventilation system. The first group would leave the freighter with hopefully enough time to reach the bridge before the synchronized attack began.

Martin was knocked out of his musings by a sharp pain in his arm. Instinctively he hissed and grabbed at his arm, right where the Battle Bride mark was located. The pain wasn't his, he realized. It was Philip's and the pain had woken Elizabeth. 'Daddy?' she cried, worried about the pain.

'It's all right sweetie,' he soothed. 'Your Uncle Philip just got married. The pain comes from a part of my people's marriage ceremony. Usually a person getting married takes medicine to keep from feeling the pain but your Uncle Philip wanted me to know that he was married. I can feel when he gets hurt and he can feel when I get hurt. That was how he found out that I got married to your Mom.'

'Ok Daddy,' Elizabeth thought. She could feel the pain easing right away so her Uncle Philip had to have taken medicine for his arm. 'Are you and Mommy coming to get me soon?'

'Very soon sweetheart,' Martin sent. 'We're coming to get you this morning. Don't let Diana or anyone else know. You might see some people falling down and clawing at their faces or throats. Don't worry about it. We're putting something into the air of the mother ship but it won't hurt you.'

'Will it hurt you Daddy? What about Uncle Willie?' Elizabeth worried. She knew the difference between Visitors and Humans and had a pretty good idea that whatever her parents were going to be putting into the air would only work on Visitors.

'Your Uncle Willie and I are going to be taking medicine to make sure that it doesn't hurt us. Try to go back to sleep, it's going to be a very busy day,' Martin said before returning his attention to his surroundings.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Elizabeth sighed as she felt her daddy’s attention turn away from her, but she knew that if she needed him her daddy would be there in her mind in an instant. He was always there when she needed him. She wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep though. Today she was going to go home.

She got up out of her bunk and put on her uniform. It was just like the ones that the adult visitors wore. Diana didn’t like it when she wore human clothes. Elizabeth thought that both human and visitor clothes had something wrong with them. The visitor uniform kept her warm in ways that human clothes didn’t, but human clothes were much nicer to look at and move around in. They also came with real pockets instead of the belt pouches that didn’t have anywhere near enough space for anything or the vest that sort of made an open sided hiding place in the front and back. She missed her pockets, especially when she wanted to carry something, like now.

Elizabeth looked around the small area that Diana had given her. She couldn’t take the hairbrush with her, besides the one that Mommy had was much nicer and didn’t pull her hair the way Diana’s did. She had the two books she had been given, but they were rather big. She turned Father Andrew’s bible over in her hands for a moment before attempting to stuff it into the front of her uniform. It didn’t make too much of a bulge but it was obvious that something was there. She shrugged. It wasn’t like Diana didn’t know she had it. Then she placed the visitor book in the back of her uniform. That actually fit better as it was flatter than the bible, although it was larger.

Satisfied with the arrangement, she looked over her blocks. They were the last thing that she wanted to take with her, but she had no idea how she was going to manage that. They were far too bulky to carry or to hide. Sighing she sat down and began to build yet another city. It would be some time before her parents arrived, and even if she couldn’t take the blocks with her when they came, at least she could play with them one more time.

RL - depression and writing

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:34:38 GMT

For more than twenty years I have struggled with depression. It has rarely gotten bad, I've only been severely depressed once as a teen. But lately it has really effected my writing. Over the last eighteen months I have written less and less as the stress and depression have sent the muse running away wailing in terror. ;) So about two months ago I went and bit the bullet, talking to my doctor. Within two weeks I was feeling much better and today I actually was able to write!

Ok, it wasn't more than a couple of paragraphs but it was actual words put down in my files! \o/ I haven't really been able to write anything for a good six months. (sorry Alisa!) I've been able to get down a sentence here and there, but really I haven't been able to make real progress. In the last six months I've only been able to get 1356 words down on my latest epic fic. That's only about three quarters of one single chapter! UGH!!!!!! But today I was able to get down 700 words! Hip hip hooray!!!!

Only about 100 words were in any of my wips I'm afraid to say. The rest were the start of a reboot fic. *ducks head sheepishly* I read twos fic lately that were the result of a prompt and my brain suddenly decided that it was an interesting enough concept to start giving me scenes for. I just wish I had been able to get more done on my V fic. On the other hand, I'm so grateful to be able to write again that I really don't care which story it was! lol

Rendered Invalid

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:15:23 GMT

Ok, thanks to Jessica I went ahead and watched the new Star Trek movie. Everything I said before - toss it out the window! Everything I had heard and read about the movie had lead me to believe that both the Romulan Nero and Ambassador Spock's ships arrived at the same moment in time - which led to my ranting. They did address all of my nitpicks and I'm just down to one, Spock having a relationship with Uhura. Everyone knows why they put that one in. So yes, the movie was good and I'll probably watch it again some time. I almost totally recant everything I had said before.

RL -Movies WTF?!?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:03:48 GMT

Ok, so not a very nice way to put it, but really. My son and husband were watching the new remake of V tonight and I caught a few glimpses. That is what leads me to my reaction. Now, I did not get to see the original V when it was first shown, but I did get to see it the second time it made the rounds. I loved it and even got it on DVD a while back. So here I am thinking that I already know the story and characters and I can just peek over and check out the new special effects, etc. Not so fast.

Just what is up with changing all of the characters?!? There was nothing wrong with them as far as names went and while yes, you would want to update the characters lives a little bit, Mike Donovan wouldn't have a sound man for instance, you really shouldn't muck about with the basic characteristics of the personalities. I saw characters that were minor ones suddenly have major roles, or at least it looked that way to me, and others that came out of no where. Was the interviewer supposed to be Donovan or Walsh? Why was the priest young and preaching in what looked to be a larger role than Father Andrew - an older, experienced in warfare, priest who was never shown with a congregation/parrish or whatever you call it for a catholic priest?

The original miniseries was semi based on real people. That's why Julie was the leader of the resistance. Her character was based on a real French resistance leader who was actually arrested more than once, but was let go by the Nazi's because they couldn't believe that a cheerleader type was that effective of a soldier! Where is the commentary on the Nazis and how people reacted to them? What little I could see didn't go into anything but a don't leap before you look spiel.

Sorry folks, but second day in and all I can say is another one screwed to heck and back. Wasn't it bad enough when they shot Star Trek cannon down the tubes? Yes I know they said they were going back and changing history, that's not what I mean. Take a look at what I write. When you start an AU, you have to start with the basic cannon and work WITH IT! Go off in a different direction, screw things up, but don't mess with the basics like characterizations and backstories. Kirk was "a stack of books with legs" in the academy. He never, ever slept with anyone who was under his command. In the original series he never got the girl either! Where did this slut of the galaxy stuff come from anyway? Just say that they got shunted into a different universe and be done with it. That's the only way that story works.

On the other hand, GI Joe was cool and so was XMen - Wolverine. They did some really good work on not conflicting with the backstories there. Snake Eye's problems with Storm Shadow were very well done, including the fact that no one saw Storm Shadow kill their master. They could have taken the easy route and said, yes he killed the old guy and this is why duh dut di dut..... Instead, they remained true to the comic version that said although the master was killed with Storm Shadow's sword, Snake Eyes did not see it. He just assumed that's what happened.

Wolverine's past was well done too, up to and including just why he and Sabertooth hate each other's guts. There is nothing like brotherly betrayal. Plus, it really gave a good explanation as to why Sabertooth and Wolverine each did what they did. No one can walk through that many wars without getting their heads screwed up big time. Ok, rant and praise over, thanks for reading.

RL - Ren Fair

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:57:34 GMT

Oh gosh, THE REN FAIR!!!!!! I've known for years that there was a big Ren Fair down in KC every year, but some reason I've never gone. Boy was that a mistake! It was wonderful and the only thing that I didn't like was the whining that my daughter did a little at the end of the day. The shopping made me wish that I had about a thousand extra dollars to spend. The artists were amazing, the seamstress's work made me drool, and the jousts! It was just one of the best days ever. I even had several people ask me where I had gotten my cloak. It made me blush to tell them that it was part of an old halloween costume, but it fit the dress I was wearing. It was one of the more expensive ones, covered in velvet. I'm glad that I had picked it up that year.

Due to RL my youngest was the only one who went with me this year. She didn't like the princess dress she had to wear, but it was the only thing we had that fit her. She wanted to be one of the fighting ladies. Those costumes are neat, but not what I wanted on my ten year old! lol They show way, way too much skin for her! They are also expensive! The ladies costumes, with all of the layers tended to run about 200.00. I'm not sure I wanted to know how much the fighters outfits were, including the gear.

The artists work was just amazing. There was everything from jewelry to wall art to glass work and beyond. I could have spent several hundred dollars there. Maybe I should just start a savings account for decorating and spend it all down there! hehe

The jousts were fun to watch. There were two that I saw, both scripted but it made me wonder just what the real competitions were like. I can't wait until next year.

Setting up the New Council 13

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:25:27 GMT

Title: Setting up the New Council
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural - after that the list is getting too long to type out each time, lol.
Rating: Teen

A/N: Oh dear, I thought that I was done adding in new fandoms. It seems I was wrong. Welcome The Sentinel to the group everyone. ;) I also mentioned the X-Files, but kept that one as an actual TV show, my bad. LOL

Smecker had thought that everything in the bar was fake, costumes and geeks and the like pretending to be all big and bad. The monster’s decapitation disabused him of that notion fast. There was no way in hell that had been faked. Smecker tried to bury himself in the wall at his back as the brawl he had been looking forward too suddenly erupted into a slaughter. He turned a quick glance back at the bar to see the other men’s reactions to the death dealing women. Their calm demeanor and the twin’s loud encouragement to someone named Faith, told him that not only were the men expecting what was happening, it was probably a regular occurrence.

‘It’s a real demon bar, with real demons. What the hell is going on here?’ Smecker wondered. He had thought that it was strange that the McManus family would have him meet them in a hell themed bar. This was worse because he could not begin to understand how they reconciled their belief that they were called by God to destroy evil and having a friendly drink in a bar filled with real demons. Smecker had never had a real good relationship with God, even with the encouragement that he’d had from the twin’s priest, mostly because of his ‘if you don’t want me, I don’t want you’ attitude. Faced with a bar full of real demons, he knew that when he finally crashed tonight he was going to have to revaluate that attitude.

The bartender seemed to understand the confusion he was experiencing, or at least thought that he did. “Yes, they really are demons. They come in different types, from different dimensions. They mostly fall into one of three categories; evil, neutral, and good, although the good ones don’t show up here very often. The ladies are Slayers. They’ve been called to kick evil’s ass on a nightly basis. The PTB’s gave ‘em speed, strength – the usual package – so they have a shot at surviving the hand to hand combat.”

Smecker suddenly understood the joke behind the Slayer drinks as one of the smaller Slayers used a short sword to slice a demon in half. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to tangle with one of these ladies if she had a bad case of PMS. He also finally understood why the bartender’s father didn’t want any of the ‘movie prop crap’. The weapons they were using had to actually withstand the stress of being used to kill. “So who’s Faith and what’s with this place? I mean, I would think that the Slayers would be too busy kicking demonic ass to be serving drinks.” Not to mention the seeming conflict of interests for them to be serving demons. Smecker was proud that his question came out cool and calm. He had a reputation to maintain, even if it was just in front of the Saints of South Boston.

“Faith’s our goddaughter,” Murphy explained over his shoulder. “The brunette in the leather.”

“Not to mention like I said, not all demons are inherently evil,” the bartender reminded him. “This bar and others like it all over the world are neutral territory. Here no one gets killed just because they happen to be on opposite sides. Start something here though, and you pay for it in spades. Plus if the evil types are in here, having a quiet drink or poker game, they aren’t out on the streets killing people.”

Smecker felt that he should have figured that out on his own, but chalked it up to the shock he’d received. It was beginning to look like the world of demonic evil had a great deal in common with the more mundane type that he was used to dealing with. This place was probably a regular meeting place for snitches and other information sellers of all types. At least Faith’s being part of the McManus family made his meeting them here make sense, and it just figured that she’d have a lethal calling of her own.

Smecker was surprised to find that he was pleased to see that the demons and humans that were not involved in the fight were allowed to leave without hindrance. In fact, one demon stopped at the bar and made a poker date with Xander before leaving. It was a feeling that he hadn’t expected to have here, the almost paternal pride of a senior LEO watching a junior do the job right, something that he seldom ran into. The Slayers weren’t cops, but here they were the law and they were good at cleaning house, killing all but three of the demons involved in the battle. Those three were quickly restrained by Xander and the bartender’s father.

Smecker threw back the rest of his drink and turned towards Murphy. “Well, now that the entertainment portion of the evening is over, do you boys want to tell me why we’re having this little meeting?”

“You know our rules,” Conner pointed out with a wave of his drink. “We only kill evil men, not women or children. We also don’t mess around with this sort of thing, except to lend a hand if we’re asked. Your case is both, so you needed to learn about what goes bump and to meet the ladies who keep the world from being fucked over and flushed down the crapper.”

“And those who support them and fight alongside them,” the Duke rumbled. “Special Agent Smecker of the FBI, I’d like you to meet John and Dean Winchester, two of the most infamous Hunters you’ll ever meet and it seems that you’ve already met Xander Harris and Spike, Master of the line of Aurelius, of the Watcher’s Council.” He pointed a finger at each man as he made the introductions.

Smecker returned the nods each man gave him, even as his stomach sank like a lead balloon. He did not want to be Mulder, he really didn’t. He was much better looking than David Duchovny, although he wouldn’t have minded working with Nick Lea, the guy who played Mulder’s partner in the second season. He was yummy. Besides, Smecker had all he could handle working with, and against, the McManus trio.

“Let’s get these three back to the school,” John said, once the demons were tied up. “Dean, do you think you’ll need any back up until the second patrol group gets here?”

“Nah, just leave me Xander. He’s good with clean up.” The knowledge that the women who made up the second group of junior Slayers tended more towards breakage than repairs went unspoken between the two men.

There were fifteen junior Slayers in Cleveland at the moment. The eldest of the women was 45, the youngest 25, and only four of them had been on duty at the Pit tonight. They all took turns patrolling the city, trying to cram years of schooling into weeks or in some cases days, and working down at The Pit, each group taking turns working not only with the two senior Slayers, but their Watchers as well. While the school was not being just set up for the new Slayers, most of the Hunters that John had asked to come to the school were wary, both of their reception and of the Slayers themselves. It was posing to be an interesting problem as they had hoped that the Hunters would at least be willing to consider becoming Watchers.

“Faith, can you tell me what type of demon you’ve got there?” John asked as he turned his attention to the Slayers, and one of the more practical aspects of his job.

Faith blushed. She didn’t know how John had figured out that she hadn’t recognized the demon but she wasn’t about to try and fake her way through. John could see a lie a mile off and wasn’t kind to slackers. It was much better to admit your mistake and get it over with fast. “No, but I figured I could look it up as soon as we got back to the school. Greater and Lesser Demons of the Deep should at least have a description and where to find more information if it doesn’t cover the breed in any real detail.”

John nodded. “That’s a good place to start and I’ll give you a little hint because you fessed up so fast. Look for demons that originate in the Mediterranean and surrounding waters. Your tactics were good. Slice and dice will pretty much take care of a lot of demons. There aren’t that many who can survive losing their heads and most of their anatomies.”

“Spike, Jennifer, Sondra, Amber good job,” he said turning towards the vampire. Spike just shrugged and grinned. He loved a good brawl and John knew it. “Megan, you made two mistakes tonight. First, you need to stop focusing so much of your attention on the fight in front of you. That’s how those vampires got the drop on you. Pay attention to everything and everyone in the fight or sooner or later you’re going to end up having an accident, either hurting one of your sisters or an innocent. I know that you don’t want that. The second thing you did wrong was how you picked up Kretit, the Tarkal demon. If you hadn’t been so fast he would have spun his head around and taken your hand off at the wrist. You have to pick Tarkals up by the ears, not the scruff of the neck, that immobilizes their heads.”

Megan took her scolding stoically. She was one of the Slayers who were having a really hard time, mostly because she had so little of it. By profession Megan was a New South Wales, Australia police detective, on assignment to Cascade, Washington, United States as the CPD’s international exchange officer, assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. She was here on her three week vacation and had only two weeks left to go before she had to head back to Washington State.

Megan wished desperately that she had a better memory for the ins and outs of this new world, but at least she knew that she was heading back into a better situation than most of her new sisters. Her captain was well aware that there was more to the world than most people knew, and he was used to having a detective with a higher calling in life. It would take a hands-on demonstration, but she knew that once it was over she’d have her entire unit to help her out, and no one was a better researcher than her fellow officer Blair Sandburg. She would have to sound out the other men in her unit about being her Watcher though, because Sandy’s partner would never give up his shaman/guide to anyone, not even her. As she followed the group out to their vehicles, she wondered which of her mates would be both willing and able to take on the job.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Although she would never consider it if their prisoners had been human or a species that was usually more friendly, Buffy did not hesitate to use torture on those demons who had proven to be fully evil. They even had a separate chamber for it down in the basement of the school. Well, it was more like they simply hadn’t gotten around to getting rid of the one that was already there, but it was coming in handy now as the group from The Pit came in with three demons.

She let John give the lecture on when to and when not to use torture while she and Faith tied up the demons. If this was, as she suspected, the first volley of this year’s apocalypse, then having the junior Slayers work down at The Pit was paying off. With the hard won knowledge of one who had fought at and survived far too many such things, she knew that if the Slayers hadn’t been there, the new hellmouth would have been lost.

The New King of the Vampires 24

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:52:22 GMT

Title: The New King of the Vampires
Fandoms: Forever Knight and Subspecies
Rating: Teen

Chapter 23

Lucien LaCroix stalked through the newly restored gardens of Castle Vladislas deep in thought. He did not apologize, ever; at least not to anyone who was not an Enforcer or the King. It was simply not in his nature. He had never thought that his two favorite children would ever be placed on that very short list, but now he was faced with that very situation. Nicholas’ temper tantrums over the centuries had been caused, not by his willfulness as Lucien had always assumed, but by Lucien’s own carelessness in taking proper care of his son. If he had only looked deeper into why Nicholas had been so very uneasy around other vampires! ‘If only wins no battles!’ he reminded himself sharply.

LaCroix stormed to the top of the curtain wall and looked out over the forest that surrounded Castle Vladislas. It was as dark as any night he had ever seen. The only light to be seen came from the moon and stars. He could not even see a faint glow from the village. He was more than happy to ignore the fact that the village was even there. The presence of so many mortals only reminded him of his current difficulties. Nicholas had been obsessed with mortals for nearly three centuries now. Lucien wrenched his mind away from the mortals and turned his attention back to the problem facing him.

The only question was what form should his apology take? He most certainly would NOT simply tell Nicholas that he was sorry. He would not demean himself that way. There had to be some sort of gesture that he could make that would achieve the same result. Most of what he would think of as an appropriate gesture he knew that Nicholas would reject out of hand.

In some ways the fact that he knew he should also apologize to Janette was even worse. Janette was a fine daughter, a good vampire and had made a fine companion for centuries, but she was a woman. Lucian had never apologized to a woman, not once in his two thousand years. On the other hand, there was a gesture that he could make to her that would do and that he knew she would accept. It had been a mistake to turn the boy child she had asked to take in during WWII. It seemed that she had had plans for the boy that he had not been aware of. He had been nauseated with the way Nicholas and Janette had been playing house and parents to the boy, and had turned the child so as to return his household to normal. If he procured a child for her, one that she could once more do with as she saw fit, he would have to do nothing more. That still left the problem of Nicholas.

Although Lucien did not want to admit it, it was the rumors coming out of Toronto about his son that had him contemplating making an apology. It seemed that Nicholas had at long last given up his search for mortality. That meant that it was his treatment of his son that had driven Nicholas to such absurd lengths to escape him. He hadn’t been careful enough with his son, and in doing so, had lost him forever; unless he could find a way to show that he regretted his actions. It was only this small possibility that had him even contemplating making the apology.

Where he could easily get a child, no an infant, with the new queen pregnant that would suit things better, for Janette, he had only a few ideas about what to do for Nicholas. The directors of the orphanages in this country were easy to bribe and he would be able to send Janette an infant in a matter of days. Dr. Lambert, on the other hand, already had as much funding for her research as she would ever need now that vampires were public knowledge.

That woman was the one that Nicholas had fallen in love with, something that could easily torment Lucien’s undead heart if he let it. The king had put an end to their agreement, so there would be no repayment for his beloved Fluer’s life. No matter what other’s thought, he knew that before now Nicholas had never truly been in love before. He marched down the stairs to the flower gardens that he had ordered replanted. There was a white rose against one wall. He paused there, gently touching one of the closed flowers. Could he let her memory go unavenged?

It would be the smart thing to do, he knew that. He also knew the odds against his survival if he did not. Lucien LaCroix had not been a top ranking general for the Roman Empire because he bought his way into the position. He simply had a hard time letting go of the idea. It had been the only thing that had kept him going on many occasions over the last eight hundred years. Any time another woman had caught his attention, the memories had overwhelmed him, and he had taken his grief and anger out on Nicholas. It wasn’t like he had romanticized her memory either, vampires had perfect recall. He could smell her scent, recall her words, even remember the feel of her soft hand any time he wished.

It was that memory that had caused Lucien to look after Fluer’s descendants over the centuries. Nicholas had tried, but he had made certain that it was he who would be the one that his Fluer’s family could turn to. At least he had that comfort. Lucien stopped in his tracks and cursed. That was the gesture that would ensure his son’s return; returning his family to him. LaCroix roared his fury into the night.

88888888888888888888888888888888

“Should I worry that you seem to know the name of every clerk in every flower shop in Toronto?” Nick teased. Schanke scowled from his side of their desks, phone caught between his shoulder and his ear, and his hands working on a list on his desk. “It’s called politeness, customer service and a rookie with a phone book Knight,” he whispered. “Yes, four dozen roses, to be delivered to Dr. Natalie Lambert at the city morgue.”

“Yes, at the morgue,” Schanke confirmed.

“Because that’s where she works,” Schanke said rolling his eyes. The clerk’s reaction of disbelief was one that he’d been getting all night since he’d started calling flower shops. It was no wonder that Nick had been so hesitant about ordering flowers for Nat, or the fact that he’d willingly traded his partner doing Don’s paperwork for the job.

The fact that Nick had simply handed over a credit card and told him to order whatever hadn’t surprised him. What did Nick know about ordering flowers anyway? That was a modern custom that he seriously doubted his partner had ever needed to take part in before. The fact that Nick had told him to simply get Nat all the roses he could, and hadn’t so much as blinked at the prices, had him thinking that maybe the joke Nick had once told him about moving, (what had it been half a million? A million and a half? It had been something like that) from his savings to his checking account during that cult case hadn’t been a joke after all.

“Knight, Schanke, Vetter! My Office!” Stonetree yelled. They put up what each of them were currently working on and filed into the captain’s office. “Alright listen up. We’ve just had a credible threat against King Stephan.”

While they were homicide cops, rather than major crimes, everyone knew that the three detectives were involved in the vampire community up to their necks. So being called into their captain’s office for this threat was no surprise to them. It was also no surprise to the other detectives gathered in Stonetree’s office that Knight had his cell phone out and was making a call almost before Stonetree had finished. “Janette, someone’s made a threat against Stephan. I’ll let you know when I have the details. For now, stay with the king and keep safe.” Nick closed his phone and turned his attention to the other captain standing next to Stonetree. “What do we have?”

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Tracy Vetter let herself and her tagalong into her apartment. “Bathroom’s through there,” she pointed out for her fellow detective. Rather than follow Nick, Schanke and the major case detectives assigned to work with them down to the Raven so that they could get to know the major players among the local vampires, Detective Carpenter and Tracy had decided to head to her place to continue to go over the files of possible suspects. The back seat of her car was full of them, as was her arms. She went to put her armful down on her kitchen table and start a pot of coffee. If they had to stay up all day, she was going to need better than the sludge they had down at the station.

“HEY!” she heard, coming from the bathroom. Automatically she pulled her gun as she hurried into the living room. There she found Carpenter hauling a semi-naked young man out of the bathroom. “This guy was about to take a shower in your bathroom and he’s covered in blood,” the detective explained.

Tracy smirked. It seemed that Carpenter was going to get his first lesson on the Community right now. “Let him go Carpenter.” She turned to what she figured was a fledgling. For some reason it was the younger members that tended to show up at her place. “Go ahead and finish your shower. Just remember the rules and there is o and a positive in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks my lady,” the vampire said, giving her an awkward bow before hurrying back into the bathroom.

Tracy turned to the bewildered detective. “If he was mortal, you’d be right to be suspicious, but he’s not. My apartment is a sanctuary.” She turned and led him to the kitchen.

“What’s a sanctuary?” Carpenter asked. He sat down at the table and watched Vetter bustle around the kitchen. He wished that he had about half of her energy. “And what was that my lady business about?”

Tracy paused in making a pot of coffee and glanced over her shoulder. “Nobody told you that I’m a lady in waiting to the Queen of the Vampires?” Carpenter shook his head slowly. “Well someone should have,” she muttered. She switched the pot on to brew and went over to sit down at the table. “A sanctuary is basically a bolt hole. My place is one where vampires can get cleaned up, get a packet of blood and spend the day if they get caught out by the dawn. I get paid for it, either in money or information. We’ve gotten quite a few tips that way. It’s mostly the younger ones that hangout here anyway, that and the occasional carouche. I’m all set up here with blood deliveries and my windows are covered with shutters and heavy blinds. They don’t have to worry about sunlight and few mortals with homicidal intentions are going to go breaking into a cop’s place.”

Carpenter shook his head. “I’m going to get the rest of the files. When I get them all up here, you can tell me everything that I didn’t get briefed on. I’m thinking that there’s a lot of stuff that someone didn’t consider important that I should know.”

Real Life

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:29:32 GMT

I am on vacation in Florida! After two days with only five hours of sleep, I crashed hard. Now I am up and ready to go exploring, I just need to keep the rest of the family in line!

New Student 27

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:33:06 GMT

Title: New Student 27
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: teen

Chapter 27

HARRY DRESDEN

I had never doubted for a second that Bob would do his best to protect Anna. I also knew that there were many things that Bob would not be able to protect her from. That was why I had been in such a hurry once I knew they were down here in the storm drains. It wasn’t just the Will-O-The-Wisps and smeakers that hid down here. There were a host of other things that used the storm drain system to hide, such as Third Eye addicted vampires.

One such vampire had Bob and Anna backed against the storm tunnel wall. If it had been able to think clearly Bob might have been able to talk it into leaving them alone. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, although that didn’t stop Bob from trying.

“You will not touch her,” Bob said, glowering as only he could. He’d had many centuries of practice after all. To get to her, the vampire would have to go through the ghost. I really didn’t think that was a good idea. I wasn’t concerned for the vampire. It was welcome to experience the sensation that gave me the heebie jeebies whenever I accidentally shared the same physical space with Bob. I also know that when that happened Bob did his best to limit how much of his curse I felt.

I didn’t think Bob would do that for scum like this. I just didn’t want Anna to see it happen. She didn’t need for her partner in mischief, (never crime, not for this proud descendent of police officers) to suddenly become more scary than the monster she faced. “You can’t do anything to me ghost,” it sneered.

Behind me I could hear the safeties on Murphy and Kirmani’s guns being flicked off. I could also feel the temperature in the air around Winifred plunging down towards absolute zero. I knew that Murphy and Kirmani thought that it was human, but the truth was, it wasn’t even much of a vampire anymore. Some vampires were decent enough for what they were, Bianca for example, and if you were careful and fully aware of just what you were getting yourself into, they made nice acquaintances and allies, as long as you didn’t get too far into debt with them.

Winifred on the other hand, knew exactly what sort of danger Anna was in, or at least what she would be if I wasn’t here. “You should be very glad of that because Bob really wasn’t the kind of sorcerer you wanted to cross when he was alive,” I said as I limped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bob. This had the effect of blocking what little space Bob hadn’t been able to, (thus hiding the monster from Anna) as well as blocking Bob’s sight of who I had brought with me. The last thing we needed right now was for Bob to be anything less than completely in control of himself, not that the vampire was going to be a danger for much longer. “Unfortunately for you, while I’m no where near his league, you just really pissed me off on what was already a really bad day.”

It hissed at me, but before it could attack us I conjured up a fireball and threw it. Normally I wouldn’t have used a fireball on a vampire, mostly because I tried to stay on the good side of Bianca, remember what I said about them being useful allies as long as you were careful? I didn’t have to worry about her this time though. She didn’t like Third Eye scum like this anymore than I did. She wouldn’t hold its death against me, and its death was quick, if painful.

“Well, that takes care of that,” Bob said with a smirk. He turned towards me and his smirk grew a little wider. “I would ask you what took you so long Harry, but it seems a bit obvious.”

I turned towards him and glared. “You know, it’s a good thing those traps were meant for Anna’s kidnappers. As it is, I don’t want to be in your proverbial shoes when the ladies get through with you.” I know, that was just a bit mean, but in my defense I had just gone through far too many prank style traps and I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t sure just what Murphy was going to do to Bob for what he did to save Anna, although I wouldn’t put it past her to accomplish whatever punishment she set out to deliver. Murphy wasn’t happy.

If it was possible, Bob straightened even further. “Lieutenant Murphy?” he asked, twitching at his cuffs, or perhaps he was just trying to cover his shackles. I nodded. Bob took an un-needed breath and peered around me to see who I had brought with me into the storm system. I had been standing with Anna on my right, now I moved to sit down against the tunnel wall next to her feet, keeping my eyes on Bob. There was no way I was going to miss this reunion.

It was everything I could have hoped for. Bob didn’t even get a single word out before he realized who was standing there next to Murphy. “Winifred?” he whispered in shock. The look on Winifred’s face was one of a woman deeply in love, and didn’t care who knew it. She smiled and walked over to take Bob’s hands. To his shock, which I could see he couldn’t take many more of, she could actually touch him.

“Is she a ghost too?” Anna whispered as she slid down the wall next to me. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had moved her backpack to her lap, but still held onto the wand she had managed to pick up somewhere. I knew from the traps that Bob had been teaching her apprentice level spells already, not very difficult ones but ones that would help her to set up the traps and teach her the control she would need; the very same control that I still found hard on occasion to maintain.

“It is I, my beloved,” Winifred said.

They stood there holding hands, completely wrapped up in each other. “Yeah,” I whispered back to Anna as her mother and Kirmani hurried over to make sure she was alright. “They’ve been apart a very long time.” I pulled my own knapsack around to my lap and pulled out the skull that was inside. “This is the skull she stays in. I guess you could say that after so many centuries it belongs to her now.”

Anna pulled out the skull she had, while fending off her mother’s searching hands. “I’m fine Mom. Did you get Mr. Tattoo and Mr. Skinny?” She then proceeded to give her mother a surpisingly accurate description of both of her kidnappers. I was very impressed. She couldn’t have seen either man for more than a couple of minutes. “This is Mr. Dresden’s skull. It’s where Bob lives. He’s a ghost.” She pointed at Bob. “He says that if it’s ok with you, he can teach me magic the way he taught Mr. Dresden. Can he Mom, please?”

I looked over at Murphy. “You should let them both teach her Murph. It isn’t a good idea to let someone with magic go untaught. Things have a tendency to blow up around untaught magic users; like what happened with the car.”

Anna squirmed when I mentioned the car. “I didn’t mean to do that. I was scared and it just sort of happened.” From the uneasy look on her face, the last adult who had encountered her uncontroled magic hadn’t reacted well. It was a good thing that Murphy wouldn’t have a problem with it. She was used to magic after hanging around with me after the last few years. Anna didn’t have anything to worry about.

“Then what’s your excuse?” Murphy asked with a laugh. I could see the sheer relief on her face that she had found nothing more wrong with her daughter than a cover of grime. “Don’t worry about the car honey. It helped you to get away from…Mr. Tattoo and Mr. Skinny.” I could tell that she liked Anna’s monikers for the duo.

“I didn’t get taught soon enough,” I said grimly. “It wasn’t my dad’s fault. He was too busy trying to keep me out of my uncle’s hands to find me a decent teacher. He couldn’t teach me because I inherited my abilities from my mom. I’m pretty sure my uncle murdered her too. By the time Bob started teaching me, my abilities had already outstripped my ability to control them. It took Bob a lot of years to teach me what control I have. Sometimes I think that if I hadn’t had him as a teacher, I never would have made it.”

I knew that Murphy was going to have to absorb that fairly unpleasant piece of information before she could make her decision, so I piped up, “Hey Bob, why don’t we get outa here? I’m sure there’s lots of nicer places we can take this reunion.” Everyone seemed to agree with me and Anna handed over Bob’s skull to me.

I in turn, handed Winifred’s skull over to Murphy, but instead of taking it she gave it to Anna. “Eldest daughter to eldest daughter means that this is yours now.” She took a look at the ghostly lovers. “I don’t have a problem with you studying with Bob, but I think that Winifred might want to teach you too. She’s been teaching our family for a very long time.”

Murphy led Anna over to Bob and Winifred. “I want you to know that I’m grateful that you took care of Anna while the two of you were down here,” she told Bob.

Bob bowed. “It was my pleasure Lieutenant. Your daughter is a very delightful child. You should be very proud of her; both her courage and her ability with magic have served her well today.”

“I am proud of her,” Murphy said. She held Anna against her side with the arm she had slung around Anna’s shoulders. “What I’m worried about is her turning into someone like Harry. I don’t want her blowing things up all the time.” Although she shot me an amused grin, I could tell she was serious. “Were you serious about your offer to teach Anna how to use her magic safely?”

“I would be honored if you would consider me as an instructor, but as you have said, Winifred is more qualified than I and she has taught your family for centuries. My only student has been Harry, and as you pointed out, he’s not the most proficient of wizards.”

“No,” Murphy agreed, “but he’s one hell of a good man. He wouldn’t have become that without your help.” As I happened to fully agree with her, at least as far as Bob’s influence went, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to think of what I would have become if I had been left alone with my murderous uncle.

“In that case, I would ask that you allow both of us to oversee Miss Anna’s training,” Bob replied.

“Agreed,” she said. Then Murphy leaned in close. “I may not be able to do any magic Bob, but I’m a cop. I figure things out for a living. The last thing you want is for me to be motivated to figure out how to hurt you. No black magic, and you keep her as safe as you possibly can.”

“Lieutenant, you have my word,” Bob swore.

Murphy nodded, satisfied. “Let’s get out of here gang.” She led the way back to the nearest exit. I hefted the skull in my hand at Bob as a hint, and both he and Winifred took it. They both dissolved into balls of gold and black sparks that darted into the skull.

I hastily stuffed the skull back into my pack before hurrying after the others. I really didn’t want anyone to ask me questions about where the ghosts had gone, even if I was the only one who understood just what was going on. Bob, and I assumed Winifred as well, still retained a great deal of their living urges. It was part of the punishment inflicted on them by the curse. As long as I stayed near Anna, or at least the skull in her backpack, Winifred would not be yanked away from Bob at an inopportune moment.

Back at the station I settled down in a corner to watch Murphy and Kirmani deal with the paperwork. Anna Murphy was alive, unharmed and now knew just what was happening to her. I had spent my first eleven years in a completely mundane world, but at least my father had been able to tell me about my magic and the mother who had gifted it to me. Anna hadn’t had any help before today.

Murphy now had the beginnings of the knowledge she would need to help Anna. She had already proved that she wasn’t going to back down on that when she threatened Bob, not that I had ever doubted her for a moment. I was already deep into plans for setting up an area for Anna to study at my place.

I doubted that Kirmani would ever change, so my expectations for him were naturally low. It really didn’t matter in the long run whether or not he accepted magic was real or not, we were never going to be close friends. As long as we could work together and protect Murphy and Anna, I was content.

As for Bob and Winifred, now that they were reunited I felt that justice had truly been served. Bob had committed the sorts of crimes that did deserve a harsh punishment, but to my way of thinking the Council had gone way too far. To be trapped for eternity serving your enemies was bad, to be able to interact but unable to touch was worse, but to have the skull of the one person that you loved with your entire being be your prison, was simply torture.

The reuniting of Bob with his lady would make their sentence bearable without diminishing their punishment. Now all I had to do was keep them together. Fortunately for me, I think I have a small ally in that. I glanced beside me to see Anna carefully wrapping both skulls in paper and placing them in a cardboard box. Yeah, for the first time I had someone else to count on to help me protect Bob, and now Winifred as well.

The End.

New Student 26

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:00:49 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter 26

CONNIE MURPHY

“Harry,” I said quietly, “it’s impossible to die from both an aneurism and blood loss.” I didn’t really want to know, but I had to find out what was really going on. Anna’s life depended on it.

“No it isn’t,” he told me, “as long as you’re dealing with creatures that can create pools of liquid anywhere.” We were both speaking quietly, hoping that we wouldn’t be heard, either by Kirmani or anything else. Just then Harry hit the next trap.

I had always known that Harry was one of those people who just kept going until they dropped, in his case that often meant that he was bloody, bruised and often somewhat broken by the time he did. This however, was the first time I had seen him get that way first hand. From the very beginning, Harry had insisted on being the one to follow right behind Aunt Winnie.

After the first two traps, a roller skate that sent him to the ground with a knock to the head and a twisted ankle and then a baby alligator that clamped down onto the twisted ankle, I realized that Harry was setting the traps off on purpose. It wasn’t hard for me to understand why. In the years I had known Harry, he had always been the sort of person who did his best to protect people, even me, although he knew I could take care of myself.

Normally I would have objected to someone else taking the risks of setting the traps off, but there were two things that stopped me. The first was that none of these traps were going to be lethal; annoying yes, lethal no. The second was that there weren’t just the traps that Anna and Bob had set up in these tunnels. The animal that had shredded Anna’s kidnappers and just whatever the hell it was that Harry had placated with the pizza proved that. I did not want to have to tell Anna that anyone had been hurt trying to rescue her. On the other hand, Anna already knew that Harry could get hurt walking across room when he was doing his wizard stuff. I had told her that so she would be expecting him to not be in the best shape.

There were five more traps, each more childish, annoying, and guaranteed to drive an adult completely out of their mind. By the time we had gotten past the last trap, Harry was soaking wet, limping from where he’d twisted both his knee and his ankle, and had what looked like bug bites all over his exposed skin. Those hadn’t come from bugs. I didn’t know what the things were, but no bug in Chicago was three inches long, flew, and was bright neon in color; all different colors. The damned things had stingers though, and as usual Harry had done something to either attract them or he had shielded us somehow and forgotten to include himself. The man needed to take better care of himself.

The last trap was worthy of something by Wile E Coyote, and had packed a one, two punch. The first part was a slippery spot on the floor of a downward section of tunnel. One step and it was a quick slide down to land hard against the wall of the t-junction at the bottom of the slope. That was where the second part of the trap was set up. Somehow Anna and Bob had made the tunnel wall sticky, like fly trap sticky. Harry had looked like those plastic witch stickers that I saw every October on people’s doors, the ones that said ‘splat’.

None of that mattered though, when I finally laid eyes on Anna. Anna stood with her back to the tunnel wall. Her denim jacket and jeans were filthy, but I had expected that. None of us were very clean, except for Aunt Winnie. She was wearing her Happy Bunny backpack, and she was holding what looked like a toy wand in her right hand. She was scared to death. Standing in front of her was, I assumed by the way he was protecting her, Bob.

New Student 25

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:03:33 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter 25

HARRY DRESDEN

Murphy was right; we were close, just not close enough. We went through eight more traps before we caught up with Bob and Anna, but then we were the lucky ones. Moore didn’t live through the next trap. Not that Bob’s trap had killed him, mind you. Bob would not expose Anna to such things, not unless it was a matter of her life or death.

Moore had died because of two reasons, the first of which was because he was a junkie. Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for junkies because I’ve walked that line myself. All it takes is one single use of the Black for a magic user to become addicted for life, not that they generally live long. I had used the Black twice. The first time was when I had killed my uncle, and accidentally or not, it was no wonder that the Wardens kept a close eye on me. The second was when I had tortured Murphy’s body in order to free her from a possessing bully of a spirit. I used to have nightmares about killing my uncle. They had been overshadowed by what I had felt when I used the Black the second time. I truly think that if it hadn’t been Murphy’s body I had been torturing, if I had been torturing someone else to free her, then I would have been lost to the Black. As it was, I regularly woke up to puke up everything I had eaten the night before when my nightmares made me relive how wonderful it had felt.

Moore didn’t have the physical resources to combat the animal that lived in the lair that had been down the tunnel that Bob had turned into his trap. That was the reason that he had sustained so much more damage than Fleck. Fleck had survived it just fine. It was like the difference between being bitten or mauled by a vicious dog. If you were reasonably healthy, and had your wits about you, you were likely to just end up with a few bad bites. If you weren’t, well Moore had been lucky he hadn’t been killed on the spot.

The second reason that Moore had died was that he hadn’t been able to handle any more stress. Winifred had done what I would normally have asked Bob to do, and after placing her hand in the body had announced that Moore had died from a combination of blood loss and stress. He’d had an aneurism.

Some would consider Moore lucky. I was certainly one of them. Fleck had been found by a group of Will-o-the-Wisps, which scattered at the sight of us, or more likely Murphy and Kirmani and their guns made of Cold Iron. Put enough bullets in a fey and they died, immortal or not. From what I had seen, it was bitch of a way to go too. So here was Fleck, down on his hands and knees, literally begging Murphy and Kirmani to take him into custody.

He had been half drowned, and I really didn’t want to know where the Swamp Lords had gotten the water to do that. There wasn’t enough standing water to drown a rat in here. My all too fertile imagination immediately fed me the image of them pulling water from the muck and pouring it down his throat, making him breathe it. Shuddering I wrenched my focus back to what else had most likely been done to him. There were rat bites that had to be infected already, scratches from the claws of the fey, pulled out hair from his beard and head, and from the wild look in his eyes the Will-o-the-Wisps had done a number on his head as well. They weren’t called the Swamp Lords for nothing. They had total mastery in their element.

While Kirmani dealt with having some uniforms come down and deal with Fleck, I was rummaging through my pack. “What are you doing Harry?” Murphy wanted to know. She was itching to get back on the trail.

“I need to leave a parting gift for our friends to thank them for their kindness in leaving this,” I motioned at Fleck, who was now being hauled away, “alive for us to deal with. They could have just left us his corpse.” I pulled out the pizza that I had stuck in there earlier, and put it up high on a little ledge. They would be able to find it there, and knowing them, they were probably watching us right now.

“Friends?” Kirmani asked warily.

“You don’t want to know,” I said with a shrug. “You’d probably sleep better not knowing.”

Kirmani made a face. “Let’s just get going.” As Fleck had been hauled away, as well as Moore’s body, the rest of us were as eager as he was, and we were soon back on the trail. Did I forget to mention that after meeting up with Fleck, there were seven more traps?

New Studen 24

Thu, 28 May 2009 03:32:40 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter 24

CONNIE MURPHY

The next sign was in a tunnel leading off a junction. It said, "Go on, I dare you." Murphy wasn't sure whether to laugh or fume. On the one hand, nasty practical jokes of the sort that Bob was orchestrating were not things that she wanted Anna to learn. On the other hand, the perps deserved anything that the ghost and Anna could throw at them. She hoped that after setting the slime slide or the crap trap Anna had used the hand sanitizer she had packed in her daughter's backpack. She was well aware of Harry's lack of housekeeping skills.

"Oh no," Harry moaned.

"What?!" Murphy demanded. Then she saw that Winifred was ignoring the marked tunnel and was taking the tunnel on the right hand side. She realized what that meant. "It's another trap isn't it?"

"Yeah, and it looks like our new friends took the bait," Harry said. He sighed and shrugged out of his backpack.

"Harry what are you doing?" Murphy didn't care what happened to the creeps that had taken Anna. They needed to get to Anna first, everything else could wait.

"I have to go and check it out, see if either of them survived," Harry said simply. It was obvious that he really didn't want to go but felt that he had to. It was one of Harry's most annoying traits, and his most attractive, Murphy had to admit. The man couldn't ignore anyone who might be in real trouble.

"Blood trail," Kirmani called out, interrupting what could have been a spectacular argument. "It leads out of there and it's fairly recent. The blood's only slightly tacky." He was panning a small penlight along the tunnel floor.

"Winifred, could you see who the blood came from?" Harry asked.

Kirmani glanced over at Murphy but she just shrugged at him. She didn't have any idea how her new ghost would be able to do anything but then Harry had called Bob his tea expert once before. There had to be someway that the ghosts could interact with things even if they couldn't touch them. Winifred knelt down next to the blood and delicately placed a single finger inside one of the drops of blood. Murphy was startled when Winifred began to transform. The transformation swept over Winifred like a wave, preceded by the same glittering sparkles that had accompanied her first appearance. In just a few seconds a man covered in tattoos knelt where Winifred had been. "Jason Fleck!" both cops exclaimed.

"Murph?" Harry asked, worried.

"He's muscle for Kemerling, nasty piece of work," Murphy growled. She didn't specify which one but the truth was she didn't need to. They both were the sort of scum that wouldn't hesitate to hurt Anna in every way possible just to get back at her mother. Kirmani nodded in agreement.

"Any blood from the other one?" Harry asked. Murphy knew that it was a good idea to know if the other perp had survived and who he was. Fleck had a few 'friends' that would love to help him out, some more than others.

Kirmani scoured the muck with his penlight again and this time found a second blood trail. It was actually larger than the first one but the dark and muck on the tunnel floor had hidden it. Without hesitation Winifred hurried over and once more placed her finger in the blood. This time she appeared to become a skinny young man with greasy long hair and a scraggly beard.

"Joseph Moore," Kirmani identified while Murphy cursed under her breath. Moore looked like any other junkie that could be found of the streets of Chicago and his only redeeming quality right now as far as she was concerned was the fact that he wasn't a pedophile like some of Fleck's boys. Anna was safe from that at least.

"He's a heroine addict and one of Fleck's all around errand boys. He'll do almost anything to get enough money for another fix." Kirmani looked over at Harry bleakly and Murphy didn't bother to get angry about it. She knew that Kirmani was just being realistic. If they couldn't get to Anna first, she was going to be in real trouble.

"Let's go," Murphy said. As long as either one of those men were still alive and going after Anna they didn't have time to waste. "We're getting close," but she was fiercely glad that Bob had sent them into a trap that had nearly killed Fleck and Moore both.

New Student 23

Mon, 11 May 2009 14:36:08 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Dresden Files

Chapter Twenty Three

HROTHBERT OF BAINBRIDGE

"Look Bob, fireflies!" Anna exclaimed as she pointed out the small flickering lights headed in their direction. "I didn't know that fireflies could live down here."

"I do not know if fireflies can live in this place," Bob said with a disdainful look at the muck on the sides and floor of the tunnel they stood in. "Those however, are fey not fireflies. You should be very careful in your interactions with any of the fey. Say nothing to them. You haven't learned their rules of etiquette as yet. The last thing we wish is to offend them. This type is very small but all are far more powerful than their appearance suggests. Our best bet is to bribe them with food or sweets to perform a simple task, such as pouring those cans over our pursuer's heads."

Bob pointed at two rusty paint cans that were filled with stagnant rainwater, among other things that he didn't wish to examine more closely. He did not mention the outcome of the pranks the Will-O-The-Wisp fey played on mortals. Death by drowning was the most pleasant fate that awaited an unwitting mortal caught by these tiny fey. He would not allow Anna to fall into their clutches. "If they agree, they won't play pranks on you."

"Which is better, food or sweets?" Anna asked as she rummaged through her backpack. "I've got both."

Bob could see that Lieutenant Murphy had thought of the probable leanness of Harry's larder and had packed appropriately. There was more than enough food and snacks to last Anna a couple of days. "Sweets are far better for these fey, although Harry knows a group that is positively addicted to pizza."

"I've got a Snickers bar!" Anna announced proudly and held up the king sized candy bar. "It's my favorite, my mom's too."

Bob nodded, "Perfect." He raised his voice and called down the tunnel, "I would make a bargain with you, Swamp Lords!"

The lights drifted closer until they could see the tiny people inside. "You have nothing to bargain with ghost." The one who spoke looked like a tiny figurine from a 'Lord of the Rings' catalog that Bob had seen once. The kind of reading material he was forced to stoop to from sheer boredom appalled him sometimes.

"No, but my charge does," Bob said as he pointed at Anna's hand. She held up the now bare Snickers bar. Bob could see the fey try to put on a good bargaining face, but the sheer greed of the buzzing group behind him let Bob know that they would gladly take any offer made to them.

The spokesman fey looked at the candy bar and said, "That is not enough for a large bargain, but perhaps we could agree to a small one." Bob thought that the counter would have been much more believable if the fey hadn't been practically drooling. "We fey are not at the beck and call of mortals."

That statement, and the not at all subtle threat it conveyed, was much more convincing. Bob was determined that no harm would come to Anna and answered the threat with a faint sniff. "I would be a poor teacher if I did not instruct my student on giving all fey the proper respect. Even the least among the fey, which you and yours are not, is far too powerful to be trifled with." Bob bowed, careful to give neither too much nor too little deference in the gesture. Anna followed suit awkwardly, careful not to lower the candy in her hand.

"AH!" the fey exclaimed. "That is good. While we enjoy playing with mortals, wizards who show no respect are annoying." While the fey was pouting adorably, Bob remembered that Will-O-The-Wisps often fed on the flesh of their victims, and they did not always wait for the victim to be dead first. That was why the candy was the better choice in bribes. The fey could have flesh to eat at any time they wished. They weren't picky about what they caught and ate. Sweets of any kind were far more difficult for the small creatures to obtain. "Name your bargain ghost."

"There are two mortal men following us. One is very skinny, and the other has visible tribal markings. In return for overturning those paint cans over these men's heads, I offer you this sweet." Anna sort of bobbed her hand with the candy on it.

"Nothing more?" the fey asked with suspicion.

Bob looked affronted. "You are the Swamp Lords. I would never dream of dictating your actions towards mortal men that trespass into your realm. I am asking for your participation in their humiliation. I have no doubt that my student's parents are currently tracking us and will soon find these men. I merely wish for them to be on their knees begging to be taken into custody by the human Wardens by the time they are caught." He paused for a moment and then leaned forward, as if to convey a confidence. He whispered, "You might want to avoid the child's mother. She carries a great deal of Cold Iron on her person. I would be a poor guest in your territory if I did not warn you of the danger."

The fey nodded as though to say 'of course', his attitude very much the lord of the manor. "We agree to your bargain ghost." At that the group swarmed Anna's hand and suddenly the chocolate bar was gone. "Now I suggest that you continue on your way." Bob bowed once more, Anna following suit before ushering her further on down the tunnel. He was glad that he could no longer break into a nervous sweat. Dealing with any of the fey was a chancy thing, but he had managed to steer Anna to safety.

New Student 22

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:51:33 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter Twenty Two

SID KIRMANI

Harry Dresden was a flake, a goofball who thought he could do magic. Magic didn't exist. Sid Kirmani knew this. He also knew that Dresden had the most astounding luck in finding things and helping them close cases. It couldn't have been anything else, or at least that was what he had thought this morning. Now he wasn't so sure. Dresden could have easily set up the glowing light ball that now floated above their heads, but he knew, he knew that the storm drain hadn't been rigged. The skull maybe could have been, but really the ghost woman was far too elaborate for Dresden to have come up with.

Kirmani wasn't sure the guy knew how to tie his own sneakers some days, and forget anything to do with electronics, but the clincher came when Murphy and Winifred the ghost knew each other; by name. So he was willing to go along with things for now. He would go back to being in denial later. Then he spotted more of the same type of words floating in the tunnel ahead of them that he and Murphy had seen in Dresden's shop during that missing corpse case and he pointed them out. "I wouldn't follow the girl if I were you," Kirmani read aloud.

"Harry?" Murphy demanded. Kirmani glanced over at Dresden. The guy was not comfortable. Kirmani knew that Dresden would give up whatever was bothering him though. Murphy had that sort of effect on people.

"Well, the good news is that Bob's protecting Anna," Dresden said weakly.

"And the bad news?" Murphy demanded.

"Bob's having fun tormenting her kidnappers and I think that he's having Anna help him," Dresden said in a rush. Murphy glared up at the floating words. Kirmani did not want to be Bob when Murphy caught up with him. Ghost or not, Murphy would tear him apart if he had messed up Anna in any way. "We should be on the look out for traps," Dresden finished.

Murphy growled at the letters out of her reach and marched down the tunnel. Winifred hurried ahead of her to keep her on track and Harry followed them, absentmindedly reaching up to wave his hand through the words. Just as they had done before the words disintegrated into a shower of sparks. Now that he had seen Winifred manifest though, (and yes he did know the proper terminology for ghosts showing up out of the blue) Kirmani thought that the sparks resembled Winifred when she came out of the skull. Shaking his head Kirmani once more brought up the rear.

It wasn't ten feet further down the tunnel when they realized that Dresden was right. The smaller of the two perps who had taken Anna Murphy had been wearing a distinctive bright orange jacket. That jacket was now lying on the floor of the tunnel, covered in some type of animal droppings. "He had better not have let her touch that!" Murphy snapped as she walked around it.

"Ghosts on Bob and Winifred's plane of existence can't physically touch things," Dresden admitted. Murphy shot him such a glare that if she had any talent for this magic stuff, Kirmani was certain that Dresden would have burst into flames. "There are things a lot worse than animal crap down here Murphy. Bob's more concerned about those than he is about keeping Anna clean." True or not, Kirmani knew that the only way Dresden was going to get out of this one was if Anna Murphy escaped without a scratch and a lot of groveling on Dresden's part.

Real Life

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:02:32 GMT

I hate having teeth pulled. First off, I'm a coward where the dentist is concerned. Second, I knew something had to be done but there aren't any 'nice' dentists around here, at least not that I know of. It isn't fun going in to see someone that was rude to your kids when they were scared and you know that you're worse!

I tried the laughing gas this time to see if it helped. I'm almost convinced that it made things worse! Can someone have a bad reaction to laughing gas???? I don't know, but things were going fine until the dentist started working. I was all giggly/light headed until he started to work. Then I went from giggly to scared in seconds and I actually cried a little. I'd never done that before!

He was quick though. He pulled both teeth in the space of time that I thought he'd only pulled one. So now I'm recovering and on the soft to liquid diet for a few days.

New Student 21

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:52:31 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Dresden Files

Chapter Twenty One

CONNIE MURPHY

“What prophecy?!” Murphy demanded. That was the second time that Winifred had mentioned a prophecy. If she was supposed to be involved in a prophecy, she wanted to know exactly what it was. The tunnel wasn’t giving her any more information other than they were still going in the same directions as the footprints. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to trust in Harry’s magic, but she was always happier when she could see some physical evidence he was right.

“When a tainted line brings forth a white knight/The black soul shall repent/And redeem himself for the sake of the knight/Only then shall lovers be reunited in death. From eldest daughter to eldest daughter/This trust shall be given/As one is guarded/So must the other be.” Winifred quoted serenely.

Murphy could see Harry blanch. “What Harry!”

“It’s already happened. Do you remember what I told you about my uncle? That he killed my father with the Black?”

“And you killed him,” Murphy finished. She still wasn’t sure what to think about that one.

“I had found the evidence that he had killed my father. I was demanding that he confess. We both were using magic. He was throwing things at me and I squeezed the doll that he killed my dad with. I’m not proud of that, but I just wanted him to tell the truth. He threw a table at me and I threw myself on the ground. I fell on the doll and he died. The Council ruled it as self defense.” She could see how even talking about the subject brought back haunting memories for him, but if there was one thing that she knew about Harry Dresden it was that he wasn’t the one who had started the fight.

“He had made contingency plans though, a silacrum of himself that would take his place if he ever died. The silicrum was to make a deal with Bob; release Bob from his curse, return him to mortality in exchange for bringing my uncle back from the dead. Bob went along with it in order to save my life and to make sure that my uncle was destroyed forever. I’m just glad that for Bob, once cursed means forever cursed. He returned to being a ghost after he gave up his life for mine.”

“That’s how the crushing evidence disappeared from your uncle’s corpse?” Kirmani butted into the discussion.

Harry nodded. “The point is; Hrothbert of Bainbridge would never have given up his life for anyone except Winifred. Bob did for me, which fulfills the prophecy.”

“And if Maria had been allowed her way, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.” Murphy could hear the growl in Winifred’s voice. “She did not wish to acknowledge that she had ever been married to Sergeant Murphy. I’m afraid that included refusing to admit to your existence Constantia.”

Murphy shrugged. That wasn’t anything she hadn’t long ago figured out. “It’s Connie or Murphy, not Constantia.”

“As you wish,” Winifred said.

“So what did you do?” Harry asked. Murphy wanted to know as well. There was no way that Winifred would have let that get in her way.

Winifred smirked. “I had your brother Carlos mail Hrothbert’s skull to your father’s station.”

All three of the mortals laughed at that. “Sneaky,” Kirmani said admiringly. “Hey Dresden, there are some more of those weird floating words up ahead.”

New Student 20

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:45:03 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter Twenty

WINIFRED OF BAINBRIDGE

Winifred stared at the wizard in shock as the prophecy ran through her mind once more. The one thing that hadn't changed in all of the centuries she had been a ghost was that people, regardless of their station in life, loved to gossip. So she knew who Harry Dresden was, and what he had done; namely the fact that he had killed his uncle, Justin Morningway with Black Magic. She also knew that he had somehow managed to survive the White Council's trial. The Morningway line was one of the more powerful ones among wizards and it had long been rumored that it was as black as it was powerful, but the man standing in front of her was no dark wizard. The tainted line had finally born a white knight.

Winifred had known real knights when she was alive. They had simply been the soldiers of the time, but even then a few of them had been the sort of men who had inspired the myth of the white knight. They had been the sort of men who had been unable to do the wrong thing, no matter how it had affected them personally. She had met more of them over the centuries and because of the prophecy, she had done her best to learn to spot them. Harry Dresden was just that sort of man.

Mentally Winifred gave herself a shake and returned her focus to the matter at hand. The sooner they found young Anna, the sooner she would be reunited with Hrothbert. "With your permission?" she asked Constantia.

"Harry, just do whatever it is you're going to do and let's get on with it. The longer we wait, the closer the perps are getting to Anna."

"Right," Harry said and cast a simple like to like spell.

Winifred would have once felt immediate distain for such a performance. Now, having taught children to master their abilities for so long, she felt much more sympathetic. "You say that Hrothbert was your teacher?" she asked as she turned and began following the pull of magic that would lead her to all that was left of her mortal remains. What was once a part of a person remained so forever, that was the connection the magic was able to use.

Harry squirmed a bit. "It's not Bob's fault. He tried to teach me finesse, but my magic runs more towards brute force." Harry hesitated before going on. "He doesn't know about you. I mean, he knows that it's your skull he's trapped in, obviously. He just doesn't know that you're trapped in his skull."

"I know," Winifred said gently. That had been one of the conditions she had been forced to deal with.

"Excuse me," Murphy jumped in. "Would someone please fill me in here? Who is Hrothbert or Bob or whatever his name is? Why is he trapped in her skull and vice versa?" She held up the hand that wasn't holding her gun. "I get that he's your 'tea expert', Harry. I get that he's a ghost too, that he raised you and that he's the one who taught you to do your thing. Tell me what I don't know."

Winifred glanced back at the mortals behind her. This was bound to be interesting.

"Ok," Harry glanced around. All three of his companions, even Kirmani who was supposed to be watching their backs, had their eyes glued to him. "His name is Hrothbert of Bainbridge but I call him Bob. When he was alive he was one of the most powerful sorcerers around."

"And the imprisoned inside the skull thing?" Murphy asked. "Let me guess, he was the bad guy in the fairy tale; selfish, cruel, hated everyone and power hungry. How did Winifred get mixed up in it? Did he kill his unwanted wife for a new piece of tail?"

Winifred would have verbally flayed Constantia for voicing the suggestion, if it hadn't been for the fear in her eyes. Winifred took in the guns in both Constantia's and the other man's hands and realized that was the sort of man that, as a police officer, she had to deal with often. As Hrothbert was the only thing currently standing between young Anna and those who had kidnapped her, not to mention on the other horrors that might be lurking in this place, Winifred could understand her position.

"No, but in a way it might have been better if he had been that sort of man. Hrothbert only loved two things, knowledge and Winifred. What he didn't care about was how he got that knowledge. Eventually he fell deep into the Black. Even then things might have worked out the way things usually do; hero rides in, the bad guy goes down, and everybody celebrates, except that when they tried to take him out, Winifred was killed and he wasn't. I don't know all of the details, but I'm pretty sure he went crazy with grief."

Harry paused and a wave of sadness crossed over his face. "He used his knowledge to bring Winifred back from the dead. Do you remember that case we had a while back? The one with Sharon, morgue assistant?" Murphy and Kirmani both nodded. "Well, bringing someone back is supposed to be impossible for even a wizard but it can be done, if the one casting the spell is willing to pay the price. Very few people know that it is possible, Sharon is one of them and Bob is another. While I don’t know what sort of price they both paid to cast that spell, I do know the price the White Council exacted on Bob for his crimes. He was caught and his sentence was to spend all of eternity trapped inside of her skull as a ghost, only until today I thought it was his own skull. I don't know why Winifred here is in the same position though, she would have been seen as the victim."

"Because it was the only way to fulfill the prophecy," Winifred answered.

New Student 19

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:08:20 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: PG 13

Chapter Nineteen

HARRY DRESDEN

This was Winifred, Bob's Winifred. She stood tall and graceful in front of me, wearing a modern woman's business suit. It suited her just as Bob always wore his suit with panache. With the heels she was probably Bob's height and her dark red hair was braided into a type of bun. When she turned to me and gave me that look, I couldn't help what came out of my mouth. "You two so belong together."

When the look on her face turned to confusion I blushed. I really hadn't meant to say that out loud but it was true. The very look she had first given me told me that she was more than a match for Bob, the snark master extraordinaire. "Harry Dresden at your service, Lady Winifred of Bainbridge," I said with a bow.

"I was never a lady Wizard and how are you aware of my name?" The coldness in her voice was reminiscent of what I had heard from Bob at his angriest. This was one dead and damned sorceress that I did not want to cross. Good thing for me I didn't want to do anything that would get me into trouble with her.

"I'm the current owner of Hrothbert of Bainbridge's prison and you have always been his lady," I said at my gentlest. "Bob was the one who raised me after my father died. Officially it was my uncle who was raising me, but truthfully I spent a lot more time with a certain grumpy ghost. Right now Anna Murphy has Bob's prison with her. While I do have a tracking spell on it that only shows me the area where it is. As you can see," I gestured to the concrete walls around me, "that's not going to do me a lot of good down here. However, he is connected to you and you are connected to him in ways that cannot be broken. With your permission, I can use that connection to track them down."

I had always been very careful before to never refer to Bob's skull as his prison, not wanting to deliberately remind him of his cursed state and punishment. That was something that I would never do again. It had to hurt him far worse to know that he was imprisoned inside his lady's skull than anything I could do or say to remind him of how he came to be there.

New Student 18

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:50:08 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter Eighteen

CONNIE MURPHY

I looked at the skull I now had in my hands and looked back at Harry. I didn't want to deal with this. I just wanted to find Anna, alive and well. To do that I needed Harry and he needed me to make a fool of myself. 'Well, it isn't like you haven't been down that road before Murphy,' I thought remembering the one time Harry and I had kissed. I took a deep breath. "Come on out ghost whoever you are."

I didn't expect to see a sparkle of gold and black emerge from the eye socket. I was even more startled to see that sparkle start to swirl around and turn into the form of a woman, a woman I recognized. "AUNT WINNIE?" I gasped. Aunt Winnie had disappeared long before my mother left my father. She had read me bedtime stories and watched me when my mother was busy. She had been my favorite babysitter, hands down. She had never once been anything but nice to me.

"It is good to see you again, Constantia," she said with a nod. "I hadn't hoped that you would remember me."

"You're a ghost!?!" I spluttered.

She merely nodded. "From eldest daughter to eldest daughter for a thousand years your family has guarded me and my prison so that one day a prophesy may be fulfilled. Now the duty has been passed on to you." Winifred stopped and looked around. This place was not where she had expected to have this conversation. "May I ask why we're in," she gestured around her, "this place?"

"My daughter Anna was kidnapped this morning. She escaped and came down here. Harry says that he needs your help to find her." I gestured at Harry. She turned towards him with a single lifted eyebrow. I remembered that look, but never in all the years could I remember trying had I been able to copy it. Harry wasn't going to weasel out of this one.

New Student 17

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:19:09 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter Seventeen

HARRY DRESDEN

As soon as we were down in the tunnels I swept the cover back over the storm drain hole. The last thing I wanted was more cops coming down here to look for Anna, even if that was where her kidnapers had gone as well. The reason I knew that was because on the opposite side of the tunnel from where we had jumped down were two trails of adult foot prints, but I could see no sign of Anna's. Well, that and the storm drain cover had been a lot easier to move than it should have been. Someone had moved it not long before we got there. Personally I hoped that they ran into a rumble of smeekers. Smeekers are a sort of snake crossed with a rat and a small, very small, fairy. Don't ask me how that one happened, all I know is they're as fertile as rats, mean as fairies, and hungry like a swarm of starving locusts. You really don't want to know what they get from the snake. Yuck.

The tracking spell that was linked to Bob wouldn't show me which meant that I was going to have to use another way to track our missing people. Fortunately, thanks to Murphy's mother, I now had a truly foolproof way of doing so. I reached into my pack and brought out the skull that was inside. I raised it up and looked once more at the, oh so familiar and heart wrenching grin; Bob's grin. I had known for years that Bob's facial features, most notably his teeth, did not match what I saw when he materialized. I had always thought that Bob had changed his appearance to suit himself, after all the man had been dead for more years than anyone knew. Why shouldn't he change his looks if he wanted?

But this skull had Bob's smile, while the skull he had been imprisoned in did not. Knowing the Council the way I did, that could only mean one thing. Bob had been imprisoned inside not his skull, but most likely what they would see as his greatest victim's, Winifred. Knowing just how much Bob loved Winifred, even now; the very idea chilled my soul. The worst part of that was the fact that this skull, Bob's skull, was also covered in the curse runes that kept Bob imprisoned. There was no way that Bob could know that most likely his lady, his great love, was as imprisoned as he was. He would have begged me to find her if he had.

I held the skull out to Murphy. "Listen to me Murphy. I know that you don't believe in magic. I know that you don't want to know the truth about this sort of thing, but you don't have a choice now. That's why I didn't make you ditch Kirmani. He's going to be you're witness that what you're going to see is real, not just right now but from now until we find Anna and get her out of here. Now, your mom sent you this skull. That means the skull belongs to you and to you alone. The runes on the skull tell me that there is a ghost imprisoned in this skull. Only the owner of the skull can command the ghost, no one else." I could see that Murphy still didn't understand. Sighing I reached out and took one of her hands in mine and placed the skull, (Bob's skull! I was never going to get used to that!) into hers. "Just tell the ghost to come out. I need to use whoever the ghost is to track Bob."

New Student 16

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:32:16 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating : Teen

Chapter Sixteen

ANNA MURPHY

Anna liked Bob the ghost. He had the best ideas for pranks to play on Mr. Tattoo and Mr. Skinny. First he wrote messages in the air. That was neat. She had to be careful not to touch them because they disappeared if she did. He had explained that not only would the messages make the creeps nervous; they were also just like when her mom yelled, 'Freeze Police!' at the bad guys. Good guys always gave the bad guys a chance to surrender, and they were the good guys.

Of course because Bob was a ghost he couldn't touch anything. That was where Anna came in. Bob showed her how to set up the traps. He even guided her hands like her mom did when they were making cookies together. Anna was setting up a slime slide when she found a toy magic wand. "Bob, how do you tell if a magic wand is a toy or real?"

"Ah, that is an intelligent question. The answer on the other hand is a bit more complicated than most would suspect." Bob led Anna further down the tunnels. "In the hands of a gifted person, a wizard or sorcerer for example, any wooden object that can be pointed can be used as a wand, however when channeling a significant charge of energy, a wand is not enough. A staff is necessary for anything truly large, but as with a wand, anything made of wood that can be pointed is sufficient. Harry uses a wooden drumstick as a wand and a hockey stick as his staff for instance."

"How do you know someone can do real magic?" Anna wanted to know.

Bob stopped at an intersection of the tunnels. "We don't want to go down there," he muttered quietly. He smirked and then wrote another message in the entryway of the tunnel he didn't want to take Anna down. "This way my dear," he said a bit louder and led her down the other tunnel. "The gift for magic manifests itself in late childhood to early puberty, between the ages of ten to thirteen. There are exceptions, but those are usually the result of having a magical entity somewhere in the family tree, having a dragon for an ancestor, for instance."

"Dragons for ancestors? You mean that dragons can have babies with people?" Anna gaped at Bob.

Bob looked sternly down at Anna. "Dragons are people. Never forget that Anna. They tend to get very testy when they think that those they are dealing with are prejudiced against them."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that," Anna said ashamed. Her mother would be ashamed if she thought that Anna was acting like one of the idiots that committed hate crimes.

Bob smiled gently. "True ignorance is one thing and I am certain that you are the sort of person who does their best to correct their ignorance rather than be complacent and embrace the state." Anna was staring back at him confused. "I mean that when you make a mistake you do your best to learn from it and correct it. When you know that you do not know something you do your best to learn about it rather than just continuing on making the same mistake over and over again."

"Making the same mistake over and over again is stupid!" Anna snorted. Then she gnawed on her lip, "Bob, do you think, well I'm not ten yet but things, things have been happening around me when I'm upset, like what happened with the car. Do you think that's magic?"

"I know it is magic. You have a strong gift, and I mentioned the dragons because your magic has a similar feel to it. That wand would make a good beginners tool for you." Bob said gently.

"Could you teach me?" Anna asked hopefully.

"I would be honored, but we must ask your mother for permission."

New Student 15

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:44:02 GMT

Title: New Student
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: Teen

Chapter Fifteen

HARRY DRESDEN

The car that had been transporting Anna wasn't hard to find. Cops were crawling all over what was left of it and they had the street blocked off but I was able to find a place to park close by. Close up the destruction was more complete than I had thought. I had only seen a short glimpse of it with the tracking spell because of the spell's focus being Bob. "Harry tell me she's ok," Murphy demanded.

"She was fine when she ducked into the storm drain," I tried to reassure her. "We just need to find her before something down there does." The wind shifted, bringing with it the faint taste/smell of the magic used in Anna's escape. To my surprise it reminded me slightly of Ancient Mia, who I suspected of being a dragon. I knew for a fact that she was a shapeshifter, the most obvious clue being that she had never looked the same at any meeting I had, had with her. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to investigate. I had to get us down into the storm tunnels as quickly as possible.

"Harry, what happened to that car?" Murphy asked as we got out of my jeep.

I was busy checking my pack for supplies, mostly stuff that I had grabbed at random out of my office and out of the back of my jeep, so I wasn't really thinking when I answered Murphy. "Anna happened," I said as I packed two slices of pizza I'd swiped from the break room down at the precinct.

"WHAT! HARRY!" Murphy spluttered.

"We don't have time!" I snapped. Anna Murphy's terrified burst of raw power had shown an enormous amount of potential, far more than I would have expected coming from the Murphy family. Looking around to make sure that no one was watching, I pulled the storm drain cover out of the concrete with a little magic. I knew Kirmani and Murphy were probably gapping at me but things were going to get a lot stranger than that for them. Murphy in particular was going to have to learn how to deal with my world now that her daughter was showing the gift. Knowing her, I had a pretty good idea that she would be as protective of Anna as my father had been of me, and I would be there to make sure that this time, she had the backup that my father hadn't had.

Guides for Guardians 13 - Final Chapter

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:50:07 GMT

Title: Guides for Guardians
Fandoms: The Sentinel, The A-Team, Stargate SG1, The Invisible Man, The Magnificent Seven
Rating: Teen
Open Universe

Chapter 13

As they had expected, it had taken time, but eventually they tracked down the information that they needed. The Agency was an offshoot of the same organization that had, in time, spawned the NID. Once Jack had that, it was easy for him to track down Borden's bosses. The hard part had been convincing them to come to Cascade. Fortunately Jack was well known as someone who didn't joke around about certain subjects.

The ten men and women who gathered at the Cascade Warick Hotel were a powerful group. Not only did they all serve on various subcommittees, they allocated the funds for more than one top secret group. The Agency that Hobbes and Fawkes worked for was only one of them. These people were a hardened group, but one that also didn't tolerate criminal activities that could be traced back to them. They were going to be more than willing to let Borden fry for his crimes.

"You are certain of these allegations?" the spokesman for the group asked. The documents that were being passed around covered more crimes than the ones that Darien had been able to come up with. Between all of the different contacts that the group at the Sentinel and Guide Center had, they had found that Borden had done more than set up his top people. Murder, blackmail, suppression of evidence, assault, rape, Borden had ordered it done and all of it done not against terrorists, but against innocents that he used to further his own goals.

"We're certain," Hannibal said. He had been elected by the others to detail Borden's crimes. He had been dealing with groups like this for years. He knew just how to present the information so that these people were aware that they were not being accused of condoning Borden's actions and at the same time give them the scapegoat they needed to keep their own positions.

One of the women sighed, "Charles Borden was a big fish in a small pond. He was effective in keeping Chrysalis under control and changing from a small threat to a large one. Frankly with everything else that we deal with in keeping this country safe from terrorism and other threats, I for one, didn't feel that we needed to look any closer at his methods."

"Are his agents willing to continue working on the Chrysalis problem if we replace Borden?" another woman asked. "They do the real work in keeping that organization down to a minimal threat. The last thing we need is for Chrysalis to get out of hand. They could quickly escalate into something as serious as AlQuida."

"They merely wish for Borden to be removed and punished for his crimes ma'am," Hannibal said seriously. "They have no intention of abandoning their posts. Much like my men and I, they merely wish to have the threats against them removed so that they can continue their work without those threats hovering over them."

Jack knew these people. Some of them were on the committee that funded the Stargate program. He had also been dealing with small time despots and power struggles that spanned across solar systems for years. He had seen the calculating look that crossed over the spokesman's face before. He was about to dump this problem on someone else, probably more than one someone.

"Colonel O'Neill, can I count on your program's cooperation in dealing with Charles Borden's disposition?" the spokesman asked.

"Yes sir, I do believe that a suitable place of incarceration has already been selected should it be properly authorized," Jack said. He was not about to do anything with Borden without that. He had no doubt that it would turn around and bite him if these people thought that he owed them a favor.

The spokesman nodded, he hadn't thought that he would be able to catch the Colonel out that way, but it really didn't matter. Borden would no longer be a problem once he was deported off world. That only left the disposition of his operation. "Colonel Smith, you and your men have worked for years to clear your names of similarly false allegations. You have also done a lot of work helping other people with problems during that time using unusual methods. The Agency needs someone to run it with that sort of flexibility. Would you be interested in the position?"

Hannibal was a bit taken aback at the suggestion. He hadn't thought that they would offer Borden's place to him. He had thought that there was already someone ready to take over the job. It didn't, however take any time for him to make a decision. "I'd be more than willing sir, provided that I'm given a free hand and a slightly bigger budget. Limiting the budget to the minimum also limits our effectiveness." Unspoken was the knowledge that Smith was not one to blow his budgets on fancy gadgets. He and his men had survived for years by using every penny to its fullest potential. There was also the fact that giving him a free hand would allow them to continue to ignore The Agency. Should anyone try and take them to task for repeating the same situation that had allowed Borden to commit his crimes, they would be able to point out Smith's integrity.

"Good, then Colonel O'Neill I will make certain that Charles Borden is delivered to your base with full authorization for his disposition. Colonel Smith, I will have everything you need to take over The Agency to you within 24 hours. Good day gentlemen," he said dismissing them both.

"That won't be necessary sir," Jack said, stopping the dismissal. "A 'friend' of mine is ready to take Borden into custody as soon as I have the written orders. It's the safest way to ensure that Borden isn't given the chance to do something that any of us will regret later." The emphasis that he placed on friend wasn't lost on the man he was speaking to.

Knowing that O'Neill was most likely referring to the Asgard Supreme Commander Thor, the man had to acknowledge that it was the most efficient way to remove Borden. Thor would be able to transport Borden from his office to the SGC in a matter of seconds with the advanced technology at his disposal. "You'll have your authorization within the hour Colonel."

88888888888888888888888888888888

Blair had determined that Robert Hobbes wasn't crazy. His former fellow agents with the FBI really had been dirty. They had been caught three years after Hobbes had been fired. There was now no doubt that they had been planning on killing Hobbes but had ditched their plans when Hobbes had been fired for being crazy. There was no longer any need for Vin to help Ellison with the situation. That meant that Team Seven was free to return to Denver.

"I can't wait to get home," JD moaned. He missed Denver. He missed the weather, his job, his home computers and his girlfriend.

"Just a few more hours JD," Josiah promised.

Team Seven had already said goodbye to everyone they had met on this trip and were now waiting in the airport for their flight back to Denver to be called. Vin was reclining against the nearest large window, watching the rain mist down onto the concrete below. Ezra was in the chair closest to him, going over the Guide's Guide, a large notebook filled with information on Sentinel care and observations on behaviors. He was also watching Vin to make certain that Vin's claustrophobia wasn't getting the better of him.

JD and Josiah were sitting on either side of Nathan, who was clutching his first aid kit to his chest. Normally with their badges taking a first aid kit on board a plane wasn't a problem, but Nathan's kit wasn't standard. The large gym bag was filled with enough medical equipment and supplies to take care of almost anything short of a triple bypass surgery. People had tried to prevent him from taking it on planes as his carry on before. Between Ezra's silver tongue and Chris' glare no one had as yet succeeded, but Nathan was always fearful that this time someone would. With their luck it was inevitable that the one time he was without his kit would be the one time that it was desperately needed.

Chris and Buck were sitting opposite the others, making the second leg of the human wall that blocked access to Vin and Ezra. The team knew that their sharpshooter and Sentinel needed time to prepare for the flight. That preparation was best done without interference. "What do you think the Judge is going to say when we get back?" Buck asked quietly.

Chris snorted, "The same thing he always does and then he's going to turn around and use our arrest to boost the ATF's reputation. I'm just glad that he's the one who has to deal with the politics. Gimme somebody I can shoot any day."

"You can politic when you have to, Big Dog," Buck said with a grin, "Well, sorta anyway." He had to admit that although his oldest friend could play politics, he was best when decisive action was needed. Chris was not the sort of man who dealt well with compromise. That was best left in the Judge's hands.

Just then their flight was called. "All right ladies, it's time to go home," Chris called.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Shelly went with Blair's suggestion and began testing everyone she could for Guide abilities, starting with Lieutenant Peck, Colonel Smith, Sergeant Baracas, and Agent Fawkes. Colonel Smith and Sergeant Baracas both tested negative as expected. Lieutenant Peck tested positive for Guide voice, also as expected. She was surprised however, to find that Agent Fawkes tested positive as well. From what she had seen Fawkes was so laid back she wouldn't have thought him capable of standing up to or for a Sentinel. Agent Hobbes set her straight on that assumption.

"Fawkes may be laid back but he's as stubborn as they come. He just doesn't do it loud unless, well, it's complicated. Let's just say that he doesn't have to get in my face or anyone else's." Shelly noted that Hobbes was standing rather protectively in front of Fawkes and that Fawkes was rubbing his wrist. It seemed to be a nervous gesture.

Noting that pushing any further was likely to provoke a BP response; Shelly nodded and brought out the new copies that she'd made of the Guide's Guide. That simple notebook had the only known single collection of information on how to Guide a Sentinel. It was also very much a work in progress. "While the best teacher is experience on how your particular Sentinel will react to any given situation, this is a basic primer on what to watch out for. While there are a great number of worksheets to help you find the causes of problems and successes, there is only one person who has spent any significant amount of time doing these. You are unfortunately the testing phase of what little we know about Guides."

"Which means that we should take nothing for granted," Daniel said as he started looking through the notebook.

Shelly shrugged. "What may work perfectly for one Sentinel may not work for another. We just don't know yet. The Sentinels that we have identified so far have already been trained in their native traditions. They are in the process of teaching their Guides. You gentlemen are the first to be put through the scientific process of data gathering. This entire field is brand new. I've only just figured out how to identify Guides, and even that needs to be tested further. Unfortunately, the only way to test that identification is to pair those identified with Sentinels."

"How do we know if someone you've picked out isn't a Guide?" Jack asked. He didn't want to have anyone else as a Guide other than Daniel. He started to make contingency plans to keep Daniel.

"That at least is the easiest test," Shelly said firmly. "Only a Guide can bring a Sentinel out of a zone just by talking. Anyone else who tries has to use brute force, usually pain or other overwhelming sensory stimulation. We will be doing that test to confirm each Guide's identification well before any of you leave at the end of your training next week. The reason that we do that here is because we have Guides that can bring the Sentinel out of the zone in case the Guide identification is wrong."

The three Guides sighed with relief while their Sentinels shifted restlessly. While the Guides were relieved that their Sentinels were protected by a definite test, the Sentinels weren't so happy with the idea that their Guides might not be Guides. Shelly was sure that the voice test was accurate though and that all the new Guides would pass with flying colors.

Janet looked down through the cafeteria windows at the group of Sentinels and Guides. "How are things going with Borden?" she asked Carter. They were alone as most everyone else was either taking a nap or out exploring the grounds.

Carter grinned as she scooped up another bite of her ice cream snack. "Sucker had no clue anything was happening until Thor beamed him up. The General didn't waste any time either. The minute Borden was beamed down in the embarkation room he had Walter dial up planet Hell. SG3 chucked the bastard through the 'Gate literally by the seat of his pants."

The two women sniggered at the mental image of Borden being flung through the Stargate by SG3's Marines. It was a fitting end for the man who had caused so much misery.

The End

Guides for Guardians 12

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:40:30 GMT

Title: Guides for Guardians
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the television shows in this fanfiction story.

Chapter Twelve

There was a strange sense of connection among the four Sentinels who were at the gathering the next morning. Officially Vin and Jim were supposed to be giving Murdock and Jack an overview of daily life as a Sentinel. Unofficially, everyone save Blair, Hobbes, and Dr. Beekum, were gathered in the dining room going over the documents that Darien had managed to copy or steal. An almost palatable air of anger hung over the group as they passed around the papers printed out from the disk and the documents Darien had given them.

"It's a con. Beekum doesn't know he isn't authorized to hear the classified portions of Hobbes' life," Face said. He was going over the information on that situation. "He thinks that Hobbes just isn't ready to talk about his work. He doesn't know that there is no way the man will talk without seeing signed authorization."

"I agree. I believe that the good doctor is of the opinion that anything Agent Hobbes refuses to tell him is not due to being classified, but rather is related to his mental illness," Ezra offered his opinion. "It's the perfect con. Any information that deviates from what the doctor has been told is automatically discounted. Agent Hobbes, not realizing this, is performing his duty to the best of his ability in keeping the classified information that he possesses to himself. He is also doing his utmost to heal what he believes to be his fractured mind. I have found that Agent Hobbes regularly checks out psychiatry books from his local library and works in other ways to improve himself as well as taking his psychiatrist's recommendations as seriously as anyone could wish."

"Makes sense," Murdock said. "Borden doesn't want Hobbes to get better. As long as he can keep Hobbes thinking that he's nuts, and that Borden is the only guy who will keep him in the field, Borden has an agent who will do almost anything to keep on his good side."

"That fits his pattern," Josiah rumbled. "He sets people up so that they have to either obey him blindly or are forced into obeying him because the consequences of disobedience are far worse than anything he asks of them. He sees himself as a benevolent man who does what he does only in service to his country."

"Run into a few of those before," Jack growled. He was on a secure satellite phone with one of his contacts. He figured that he would be able to find out who Borden's bosses were, but it would take several hours.

"You're not the only one," Chris growled back. He too was on a secure phone; only he was busy tracking down who was holding onto Dr. Keeply's immigration papers. One of Borden's threats against Dr. Keeply was to have her deported back to England as a criminal.

"The Official never talks about his bosses. I mean I know that he has to have someone over him, but he acts like he's the top dog. The only time I've ever heard him say anything even vaguely about who he answers to is complaints about our budget." Darien sighed as he rubbed his head. He would have to go invisible soon and he did not want to have to do that anywhere near these people. With his luck the Sentinels would be able to sense him and that would create too many problems.

"Of course he doesn't. If he admitted that there was someone over him you would have access to someone who might possibly be on your side. He can't let you, or anyone who works under him have that recourse." The tone in Daniel's voice was utter disgust. "He has to be the ultimate authority or he loses all of his power over you."

Janet and Nathan both snorted. As medical professionals the very idea of any one person having ultimate authority over anyone was laughable. They dealt with the reality of that everyday when they tried to save a life. More than once they had both had patients who should have survived seemingly minor injuries die, while patients who should have died from life threatening ones made full recoveries. "Everything you've given us on Doctor Keeply's situation is easily dealt with," Janet continued. "I can have a formal hearing for her arranged within six hours. It will be official and I doubt it will take more than an hour to clear her of any and all charges. Most of that time will be going over the evidence, all of which says that she wasn't in a position to doubt the legality of the procedures she performed or the experiments themselves."

Darien nodded. "The Keep's a great doctor and she knew that I had volunteered for the experiment. I'm sure that she didn't know why I had volunteered before everything went down the tubes with the procedure. She had no reason to ask why until long after everything went bad for both of us." He stopped rubbing the back of his neck and started running his fingers over the snake tattoo on his wrist. His leg started jiggling too. He really needed to get out of here so he could let the quicksilver out.

No one commented on Darien's fidgeting. With everything that was at stake, they understood his nervousness. "Are you sure that you just want Borden removed from his post?" Jim asked gently. "I may not be able to arrest him, but I'm sure that Jack could find a way to have him punished somehow."

"And it'll even be legal," Carter smiled evilly. There were things that they at the SGC could do to certain intelligence operatives, like send them off world to a certain prison planet. There was no way that man could ever escape from planet Hell.

"No, I just want him out and someone decent in," Darien said firmly. "Bobby needs to do work like this. He's damned good at it, but I can't risk him being known as a Sentinel if the Official is in charge. There's no telling what he'll do if he finds out Bobby isn't crazy. Clair won't stop working until she finds a cure for what went wrong with the procedure that they did on me and she helped with. She feels horrible about that. It's not her fault, the experiment was sabotaged, but she'd rather work herself to death trying to fix it than walk away from it," Darien sighed, "Me." he admitted.

"What about Eberts?" JD asked, trying to shift attention away from the subject of the experimental procedure. There wasn't any real information on what had happened to Darien in the files they had, but there was evidence about the rest of the failures. One man had lost every sense other than touch. Another man had lost his mind permanently and was now dead. A third was out wandering around somewhere with some sort of physical deformity. What exactly that deformity was wasn't described in any detail but the efforts of the man to kill anyone associated with the project were. It took a great deal to drive a man to that extreme. JD wasn't sure that he wanted to know what had happened to Darien. He did know that there was no way he wouldn't help anyone caught under the Official's thumb.

Darien shrugged. "As far as I know, the little weasel is happy as the Official's lap dog, but knowing what I do about how the Official operates? He could be a willing participant or he could have a set of chains like the rest of us. I don't know. Eberts could go either way."

JD nodded and printed out a paper before passing it around. "Eberts was an accountant with the IRS. Apparently he's something of a fanatic about the profession and he's also very good at it. Borden had his books fixed. Eberts was fired, had his license revoked and now works strictly for Borden as his assistant. From the timeline, I'd guess that Eberts was approached right after he was thrown out."

"One more victim," Vin growled.

Darien stood up. He had to quicksilver. "I'm going to go check on Bobby." He left the group still hard at work and went outside. He made sure that he was well away from the main building and had more than a small group of trees between him and anyone who might be looking before stopping. He checked one more time before thinking that special twist of mental command that released the quicksilver. He no longer shivered when the quicksilver oozed over him, covering him completely. In fact, he now felt more comfortable than ever.

He walked down the trail to the small lake, taking his time. There was no need to worry about Bobby sensing him as his partner was very much aware that Darien had to go invisible from time to time. It wasn't actually all that bad, seeing the world from behind quicksilver frosted eyes. If it wasn't for the quicksilver madness, he really wouldn't have a problem with the situation. In fact, aside from that, he really enjoyed his life now. He liked being one of the good guys.

He found Blair, Bobby and Dr. Beekum sitting on the dock. He assumed that they were doing some sort of test, although he had no idea what it could be. Walking around he stood right behind Dr. Beekum, close enough to make him shiver. Quicksilver was cold. In fact the few times that he had been forced to cover Bobby with the stuff, Bobby had sworn up and down that he needed to check himself for frostbite.

Bobby was nervous, but doing his best not to show it. Dr. Sandburg was being very gentle with him, a situation he found both comforting and unnerving. Doctors weren't supposed to encourage mental patients in their delusions. On the other hand, everyone had been telling him that this man had found scientific proof that some people with delusions similar to his weren't actually crazy. If he wasn't crazy and he passed these tests, then he was a Sentinel, a Sentinel under the command of a man who would not hesitate to use him in ways that he did not want to contemplate.

The good news was that if he was a Sentinel, and he could get free of the Fat Man, then he could very easily go back to the FBI. He was sure that his old bosses would be falling all over themselves to get their hands on an agent with those kinds of abilities. It was a heady kind of fantasy, imagining all of those who dismissed him as a crazy flake who had no business being out in the field falling down on their knees begging him to come back. That in itself was enough to get him to go along with the tests, not that they were all that hard. Right now he was telling Doctor Sandburg how many of the colored sticks he could see across the lake. Each one of the brightly colored markers was planted in a line from the far shore all the way up the hillside in carefully measured increments.

Blair nodded as Hobbes called out each marker and wrote the results down in his file. "Well Agent Hobbes you passed, although I wouldn't call it with flying colors. My guess is that traces of your medications and your natural inhibitions are limiting your responses right now. Time and practice will change that."

Hobbes shivered as a very familiar icy touch registered on the back of his neck. Fawkes was here and letting him know. "What about my mental stability?' he asked.

"Why don't you tell me about your last case with the FBI?" Blair asked. "I figure that everything has gone to trial by now so you can tell me whatever you want to about it." Hobbes sighed and looked nervously over at Dr. Beekum. "Don't worry about Dr. Beekum. The case is no longer classified, which means that we can both hear whatever it is you want to tell us. Remember, he's more concerned about your health than anything else."

Blair didn't bother to mention the precautions that two of the detectives from Major Crimes were taking to make certain that Dr. Beekum couldn't contact Borden after he left the Center. Robert didn't need to know what was going on just yet in that area. Hobbes finally nodded and began talking.

Rant

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:22:41 GMT

I am back! Yea! That's the good news. The bad news?

I got the Season 3 pack for one of my favorite series, Bones for Christmas. Now, you have to understand. I LOVE Bones, and am VERY happy to have gotten this DVD pack from my mom. She's great. But, I am a writer.

I write fanfiction. Therefore, I deal with inconsistencies, ludicrus plot lines, and the warping of reality on a daily basis. (Yes, it may not seem like it but I do write nearly every day, it just doesn't always turn out good enough to post anywhere.) I can understand why an actor, whose character I enjoy, may leave a show or just up and quit and forget about the writers having to come up with a way to deal with it. But what these so called PROFESSIONALS did was so far off the deep end, so out of character, and so far beyond keeping with the story arc that I am left screaming in pure frustration.

For those of you who may follow Bones, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you that don't, Bones is a detective show based on the writen works of a forensic anthropologist. The character Tempi Brenan is one of the world's top forensic anthropologists. She can tell just by looking at a bone a great deal about the person who once had that bone in their body. Naturally, the FBI eagerly uses her and her team to help track down criminals.

In the third season the major story arc was the tracking down of a serial killer they nicknamed 'Gormagon'. Now as the storyline progressed, they were very detailed on who this guy was, where he'd come from, what the cult he belonged to believed, etc as they tracked him down. The set up was beautiful. The little pieces of information that they got throughout the season was great.

Then the actor who played Zack, Tempi's assistant, decided to leave the series. Now, going back to what I said, I do understand this. There are ways to deal with this sort of thing, ones that can, if written correctly, can produce an awful lot of angst, soul searching, and characters doing their own reality checks. I'm assuming that this is what the writers were going for.

BUT! THEY SCREWED UP!!!!! Big time!

Zack was written out as the accomplace of Gormagon. EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!?! They just spent over six months detailing out the profile of who his accomplace would be. Zack did not meet one single solitary item on that list!

He was not a troubled young man. Zack was an accomplished genius who had the backing of not one but two loving families, one by blood and one chosen. At the beginning of the season he had the professional aclaim of literally being irreplaceable in his job. (Tempi went through several assistants while Zack was out of the country.)

Zack was not a 'Widow's Son'. His father was very much alive when his family was last mentioned and in the first season, we got to see him. So if there was a death in his family, (something that should have been at least mentioned! )it had to have happened in the last two seasons, and should have been mentioned with a lot of angst and difficulty on the part of Zack, WHO WAS VERY CLOSE TO HIS PARENTS, ESPECIALLY HIS MOTHER!

While I can believe that Zack could be, if given a logical enough reason, manipulated into providing someone with information that he might not realize was important to an investigation, he helps track down murderers for a living! I can not believe that the minute he found out that this was the man he was helping to track down, THE CANIBAL for crying out loud!!!!, that he would not go to Booth (the FBI Agent) or Tempi to help catch the guy.

Even if this serial killer had managed to minipulate Zack to the point where he was willing to help take a life, something that I do not see as a part of Zack's personality, they knew he was a canibal from the very beginning! Zack was queezy when they figured that part out! The very thought sickened him! So how could he be the accomplace when he knew what was going to happen to the victim? When he knew that eventually he would be required to PARTICIPATE?!?!?!?! Yes, they wrote that he hadn't but! They expected us to believe that eventually he would have!

ARGH!!!!!! This is probably one of the worst examples of brain dead writers that I have ever had to watch. I can live with Zack being physically impaired for life. I can live with him being sent to a mental ward. I can even live with his being responsible for his present situation. But I cannot, will not, deal with him being so far out of character! If I cannot find some fic that fixes this situation, I'm going to write one myself. Because this? Is what fanfic writers are put down for writing, Bad Fan Fiction. It's not even good enough to be called crack.