These Endless Days, 10?
Title: These Endless Days
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Creatures of the Night (Part Three)
Characters/Pairing: JJ/Hotch; Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Supernatural/Drama
Summary: There's a war coming.
Chapter Ten
Emily can't help the cry of pain as she's thrown backwards into the wall. It's made of stone, rather than plaster, and with a pitching arm like her mother's, it's enough force to break a few bones. She heals quickly, but not quickly enough to get her back in fighting shape so quickly.
One good thing about living the life that she's lived, though, is that after a while, you learn how to work through the pain. Her ribs groan as she gets to her feet, and the right arm still stings from the fireball she'd set off in the hallway. The stake is somewhere on the other side of the room now, but that's not how she's going to win this fight.
Her ability to kill her mother had been contingent on the element of surprise. Now that's gone, the best she can really hope for is momentarily stunning the matriarch vampire, and making a hurried escape.
She has one spellband left, and it might hurt Emily as much as it hurts her mother, but at the very least, it will give her a chance to run. Her hand moves to brush against the band, but before she's even made it partway, she's slammed against the wall once more, fingers closing around her throat.
'You would really seek to kill your own mother?' Her voice drips with the power of persuasion that has swayed countless vampires and humans alive. There's a reason that the Prentiss clan is so powerful, after all.
'I do what I have to do,' Emily spits, her own fingers clawing at her mother's hand, trying to pull it away. She has the vaguest idea that she is nothing more than a fly - at worst, an annoyance.
Elizabeth takes the stake in hand - if it even has the slightest effect on her, she doesn't show it. 'I could kill you right now, and it would be a satisfaction. Even as a child, you were nothing more than a burden.'
'I'd rather be a burden than a psychopathic bitch,' Emily manages to choke out. The fingers tightened again, blocking off her windpipe. Strictly speaking, she doesn't need to breathe as much as a human might, but it's still an uncomfortable feeling that sends her survival instincts into overdrive. She struggles, to no avail.
Then, without warning, Elizabeth loosens her grip on Emily's neck, and grabs her hand instead. Before Emily can figure out what the hell is going on, there's burning white flash of pain.
She doesn't even realize that she's screaming until the sound hits her ears - it's the sound of sheer agony. The sound that wolves make when they're hit with silver or fire.
Legs no longer willing to support her, Emily falls to her knees, sending another shockwave of pain across her body. She's not quite sure what had happened until she looks to the side, and sees the stake protruding from her left palm. The skin around it is already blackened, the disfigurement creeping its way up her arm. If the stake stays in, it will slowly shut her body down, like some kind of flesh eating disease. Once it reaches the heart...
If the stake is pulled out...well, she's not really expecting that to happen, so it's a moot point. But then it does happen. Her mother - Elizabeth, she corrects herself, even in her weakened state - rips the stake out, and tosses it aside.
'Killing you would be too easy, Emmeline.' The voice is harsh, and cold. The same way it always has been. 'No.' The way her hand strokes Emily's chin is almost affectionate, but Emily knows this woman far too well to ever expect any real emotion. 'Soon enough, you'll love me the way you always should have.'
...
A dozen cups of coffee, two different kinds of pizza, a Virile Vikings takeout pack, and three cartons of Chinese later, they're still searching.
With so many victims, it's hard to find objectively clear links; the ones they do find, are tenuous at best.
'All of these victims seem to follow the same sort of pattern,' Morgan says, flipping through the next page of his file. 'Pretty powerful sorcerers that end up dead. No ties that link them to Anath's Circle, but at the same time, they're mostly fairly neutral. Nobody that a group of fundamentalist sorcerers would take objection to recruiting?'
'You think they're trying to build up an army?' Hotch asks, frowning. 'It seems a little far-fetched.'
'Hey, I'm not the one that said there was a war coming,' Morgan shoots back, finding himself more than a little pissed at Hotch. After he'd returned from the castle, the team had brought him up to speed on events. After everything that had happened, the thought of a war was not particularly surprising. 'You don't think they'd want to build up their forces?'
'I'm not suggesting that they wouldn't,' Hotch says evenly. 'But I do think that it's a bit of a stretch to go straight from "dead sorcerers" to "recruiting an army." In any case - it's not just sorcerers.'
'Who is this war supposed to be against, anyway?' Garcia asks, jumping from the top of her monitor down onto the table. 'Is it a war on fashion, because I've seen what some of those sorcerers wear...'
'Then maybe this "war" has already started,' Morgan continues. 'A bunch of dead 'wolves and vampires killed by magic? My first thought is power grab.'
'It's all been a power grab so far,' Rossi comments. 'Humans frame vampires to take the blame for werewolf deaths. Sorcerers kidnapping FBI agents and then letting them go. There's something much bigger going on here, even if we don't want to admit it. I don't think anything that's happened so far has been a coincidence.' He looks towards Morgan. 'She's there to kill her mother, isn't she?'
There's an almost awkward silence.
'That doesn't make sense,' Reid says, frowning.
'Have you met her mother?' Garcia asks, hovering a few inches above the table. 'She is like...the ultimate evil. If this was a video game, she'd be the big bad boss you fight at the very end.'
'Why now, though? They've been at odds for centuries? What's changed that Emily has suddenly decided that it's the right time to do the impossible?'
Hotch gives Rossi a look. 'You think that Anath's Circle had something to do with it?'
'All I know is that their leader took her aside, wiped her memory, and then let us all go. Then suddenly she goes off with the intention of killing one of the Fallen? That's no coincidence. And we all know who headed up the original Anath's Circle.'
Gwydion
'Let's not jump to conclusions,' Hotch says, but Morgan can tell that he's starting to come around on the idea. 'But assuming that the events are connected, the consequences...'
He doesn't even need to say the words, because they all know what he's thinking. Fallen against Fallen?
That's not a war.
It's a freaking apocalypse.