These Endless Days, 14/?
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: The forces of darkness are creeping ever closer to war. Before the team can pick a side, they have to figure out who's actually fighting.
Chapter Fourteen
Some wizards are assholes.
Rossi felt that his opinion has more weight than most, given that he is a wizard. And an asshole. In his case, the two are mutually exclusive, but in a lot of other circumstances, wizards become assholes because they've got more than a little bit of powerlust. They're a little like the vampires in the fact that they'll usually think they're the biggest, baddest motherfucker in the room, regardless of who else is standing by the water-cooler.
But he cultivates connections because he needs to, and yeah, because sometimes it feels nice to talk to another asshole and know you're not alone in the world. Today, he's pulling every ace from his sleeve, every favor he's ever earned. It takes someone with a hell of a lot more power than he has to gain audience with the Odyssean.
'I hope you know what you're doing, Rossi,' Clarissa growls under her breath. If he hadn't known any better, he would have thought her a werewolf. Shoulder-length hair gone prematurely white, she's wearing a black leather jacket with their Order crest embroidered onto the back. Ten years his junior, she could probably fry his ass with even a weak spell.
'Hey, you've seen the signs. You as well as anyone know why we're here.' Every moment that he hadn't spent with the BAU, he'd spent with the Order. The
'If we've seen the signs, he's seen the signs.'
The Odyssean is the closest thing they've got to a leader, except even that word is a misrepresentation. In truth, he's more of a liaison, with a mix of seer thrown in for good measure. He provides guidance, but he doesn't give orders. If anyone can speak as to the mindset of the other Orders, it's him. Of course, if Rossi wants to sway their minds, he'll have to talk to them anyway, but this is a start.
Clarissa gives a slight snort, but she doesn't disagree, which is a good sign. If she'd had a problem with what he's been doing, then she'd never have accompanied him in the first place.
The Order of the Mystic, as far as Rossi is aware, is most fervently against the activities of Anath's Circle. If anyone has any different beliefs, then they haven't expressed them very loudly. It won't, of course, be the same with all of the Orders. Some of them, he knows, would be quite happy to rid the world of all werewolves and vampires, leaving a complete magical domination. As much as they hate to say it, as much as the vampires can be a pain in the ass, as much as the werewolves can wipe out entire cities, the balance keeps things relatively calm. It's the balance that has always been intended.
Without it…
As much as they disdain Lilith - Elizabeth - if she dies, there's a power vacuum. Either way, it will end badly. When an outright apocalypse is a possibility, war seems like the easy option. It's a big picture thing. They all know it, even if they won't admit it.
If that makes him an asshole, well, he already knows that bit.
…
Just as they'd stepped out of the briefing room, Hotch had found himself waylaid by the Section Chief asking for updates. It's a little hard converting "vague ideas about impending doom" into an hour long meeting, but then, Hotch has been a Unit Chief long enough to know how to deal with this kind of situation.
A flash of white light zooms past his ear, taking a tight curve to hover over his shoulder. Generally, Garcia will avoid actually sitting on him. Being a fairy, she sometimes has to be a little looser with boundaries to make her presence known, but with him, she never crosses that line. 'What have you got, Garcia?'
'Well, I mostly just wanted to check that Fitzpatrick didn't try to murder you.'
He understands her concern - even though it's been a couple of months, the Strauss situation is fresh in their minds.
She leads him back to the briefing room, where she and Reid have been working on finding past cases. Garcia might be tiny, but there's no-one else in the world that he trusts more to mine and collate intelligence.
Reid is sitting at the opposite end of the table, scribbling in his notebook. Garcia lands beside him, tapping a few buttons on the mouse of her modified laptop.
'I can tell you know that tiny, fairy keyboards are not designed for fast-paced programming, and unfortunately, they don't exactly have a spell for database-building just yet. Not that I would trust it if they ever did. My boy Spencer was very helpful, but his androidy skills don't quite extend to cyberpathy.'
'Garcia…'
'Right. Sorry, Bossman.' Tiny laser-pointer in hand, Garcia flashes it towards the map that's projected on the screen opposite them. LEDs in a multitude of colors light up from coast to coast, before going dark. 'Okay, so this data has been pulled from like…a gazillion sources. Going back ten years, there are referrals we never took, murders that didn't progress to serial cases, serious assaults, mysterious and unexplained deaths…the list goes on. We have vampire against werewolf cases, sorcerers against vampire, any combination you want, we've got. Funny thing though - in the last two years, can you guess what your two resident geniuses found?'
'An increase in the average amount of cases,' Reid answers. Garcia shoots him a look.
'Spence! We agreed it was more dramatic if Hotch came to that conclusion himself.'
Reid's look turns crestfallen. 'Sorry,' he says, a little sheepishly. Hotch allows himself the briefest moment of amusement. Reid can sometimes be overcome by his eagerness to please, mixed in with a little bit of ego. More than anything, it's human emotion, which is more comforting than anything else.
'As I was saying before Boy Wonder so rudely intervened…' She gives Reid a sprinkle of dust around the shoulders to let him know she isn't exactly serious. 'While he did the statistical computations with the giant brain of his, it's not exactly my forte, so we'll just trust his expert judgement. Anyway…over the last two years, there's a significant increase in your unexplained murders. Not your unsolved murders - though there's an increase in those too - but your murders with lack of motive. Werewolf suddenly decides he doesn't like the vampire that lives in the apartment next door and eviscerates him with a meat cleaver kind of thing. Normal people, that suddenly just snap.'
'You think it's connected.'
'I think that if someone wanted to start a war, the best thing to do would be to sow the seeds early and watch them grow from afar.' Garcia's words are uncharacteristically serious - gathering and assessing intel has made her pretty good at extrapolation.
'If it's subtle enough, nobody would even realize that is was happening,' Reid muses. 'You have to know you're looking for a needle in a haystack if you want to actually find one.'
'Anyway, I will forward you my assessment as soon as I've finished typing it up. I've also pulled together the locations of all of your recent murders, grouping them based on type of scene and other characteristics. You can make it a road trip.'
The laptop gives a short beep, and Garcia hesitates. Immediately, Hotch knows that something is off.
'Garcia…?'
'If Morgan asks, I will never admit to having told you,' she says, which in itself is enough for Hotch to realize what's happening. 'I'm doing some research for him. Research into…into the best ways of killing super-old vampires.'
Hotch feels his lips thinning slightly. It's not an unexpected response, but at this stage, it's not exactly a welcome one, either. As much as he sympathizes with Morgan's situation, Prentiss had made her choice. Even if there is a little uncertainty about how much of it had actually been her choice. Until they have any reason to believe she's in imminent danger, there's not a lot that can be done. He sincerely doubts that Elizabeth Prentiss will be interested in taking his phone calls.
Reid seems to interpret his silence. 'We can't just not do anything,' he says, softly. Hotch doesn't disagree, but at the same time, he's faced with an impossible choice.
'Keep looking,' he tells her. 'Anything we haven't tried, any way of putting a stop to her, I want to know. This has gone on long enough.'