Haunted Minds 2/?
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
~ Oscar Wilde
Reid rises early. He wakes at half past six and the remnants of nightmares cling to him like cobwebs. He dresses and heads down to the motel lobby for a vending machine cup of coffee. The coffee is bitter and has the color and consistency of yesterday's mud puddles. Reid adds four packets of Sweet and Low and sips at it anyway because mud or no, it's still caffeine.
Back in his room, Reid paces. He spreads his copious notes over the (freshly made) bedspread and pokes crescent moons into the Styrofoam cup with his thumbnail.
According to www.Ghosttowns.com there are ninety-eight documented ghost towns in South Dakota. Cold Oak is one of the lesser-known towns, and a dubious website called www.hellhoundslair.com describes Cold Oak as "so haunted every single resident fled." Reid doesn't believe in ghosts, but if a town ever had reason to be haunted, Cold Oak does. Cold Oak is located in Fall River County, which, in turn, is considered the gateway to the Black Hills. Fall River consists of a handful of small townships--Ardmore, Argentine, Edgement, Oelrichs--and the cities of Hot Springs and Provo. The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI as of 2006 was three, none of which were murder or homicide. The violent crime rate is 0.7 per 1,000 people.
Until now.
Now there are twenty-nine murders. Twenty-nine. No similar crimes have been reported in Fall River or any of South Dakota's other sixty-five counties. There haven't been any body dumps or spree killings, and no serial murders since Robert Leroy Anderson. And Anderson's MO was completely dissimilar. The killings in Cold Oak aren't sexually motivated. Reid thinks of Andy Gallagher's bloody chest and wonders if he should reconsider.
A soft knock on the door interrupts Reid's thoughts. He glances at the clock: it's almost 7:30, still early. They aren't leaving for Sheriff Townsend's office until after 8:00. Spencer walks to the door and peers through the peep hole. Derek stands in the hallway, fingers beating a tattoo against the front of his black slacks. Reid frowns. He doesn't want to let him in. But his hand has a will of its own because the door opens and Morgan's fingers stops tapping. He looks sincere and worried and a little bit…Reid searches for the right word. Annoyed. No, not quite. The more accurate description is pissed off.
"What?" Reid demands, one hand still on the door. He's a world away from his usual amicable self, but it's early and he's tired and he's not feeling particularly charitable toward Morgan just now.
"Look man," Morgan says. "I just wanted to say…" Derek trails off, runs a hand over his closely shaved head. "Okay, here's the thing," he says, and brushes past Reid and into the room.
Reid huffs in irritation and he's about to say come in, why don't you when the words die in his throat. He swallows and shuts the door much more quietly than he originally intended. He turns to face Morgan.
"I'm just worried about you. And you can be mad at me for that. You can be mad at me for butting in when you don't want me to and trying to get you to talk. But just because you can be mad doesn't mean you should. You're a good agent Reid, but you're a better friend. And just because I think you're a geek with a giant brain doesn't mean I don't care about you."
Reid stands frozen against the door, coffee cup still in his hand.
"Maybe I misunderstood what I saw last night," Morgan continues, shrugging. "But I don't think so." He holds up a hand, as if he's afraid Reid is going to argue, but Reid is mute, his tongue is lead. "But let's say, for the sake of argument, I was wrong." Morgan crosses the room back to Reid in three steps and stands in front of him, dark eyes on Reid's face. "And if I was wrong, Reid? Then I'm sorry, okay? I don't want you being pissed at me. I just want to…" he waves his hands vaguely, "help. I know you don’t want to talk about what happened to you, but if you change your mind, I'm here to listen, all right? I'm here to listen and not judge." Morgan exhales and some of the tension drains from his face. "That's all I wanted to say. So if you want to throw me out, fine. I said what I had to."
Reid stares down at the plastic top of the Styrofoam cup. "I. I uh, don't want to throw you out." His mouth twists into a faint smile. As if he could. Reid's pretty sure Morgan could bench press him. With one hand.
"Good." Morgan's smile is brilliant. "Cuz I'm solid muscle, kid, and you wouldn't have a chance in hell."
Reid chuckles weakly and sets the coffee on the desk. "I was just thinking the same thing." He pulls a chair out and gestures to Morgan, pulls another one out for himself and sits. He rests his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. "Morgan." Reid says the name softly, like he's testing it out.
Morgan drops into the seat beside him. "Yeah?"
"I'm not," Reid struggles to get the words out. "I'm not okay."
Morgan nods, tips his head toward Reid to indicate he's not just listening, he's hearing. "I know."
Reid pokes at the coffee cup a few more times. He waits for Morgan to say something else, or maybe make fun of him for picking at the cup, but Morgan stays silent. He sits and waits. Reid is grateful. His fingernail pokes through the cup and coffee bubbles out over his hand and onto the table. "Oh! Crap. Ouch." He snatches his hand away and shakes it, embarrassed. Why does he always do these things?
Morgan picks up the coffee and drops the Styrofoam cup unceremoniously into the garbage. "You know damn well that stuff's acid. Would've eaten through the container anyway if you hadn't have helped it along."
Reid looks down at the table and sniffs. He rubs his nose. There's a two-inch oblong coffee spill. It looks like a tree. Or a wine glass. Reid studies the spill and says "Morgan?" It comes out a question.
Morgan's expression doesn't change, he's still waiting. (Profiling.) "Yeah?"
"This is…this is what I did to Elle."
Morgan's brows dip and his forehead wrinkles. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember when I told you I went to see her? When we were tracking William Lee, that serial rapist? Only we didn't know it was Lee yet and-"
"I remember, Reid," Morgan says gently.
"She--she didn't want to talk to me," Reid admits softly and his fingers flutter against the table. "So I just barged into her room. I didn't-I didn't care that she didn't want to talk because I knew she should. I knew she needed to."
Morgan's watching him and Reid looks past Morgan's head, remembers how closed Elle had been, how hidden. "And I said," Spencer swallows, because now his words feel so empty and callous and useless he's ashamed they ever came from his mouth. "I said, 'he's dead and you're alive.' I said, 'you won'." Reid shakes his head, mouth twisting in misery. "But now I understand that's not what it's like. And if I had said something different, if I had just…just-" he rubs at his eyes and shakes his head, miserable.
"Reid." Morgan's voice is sharp and pulls Spencer out of the past. "I told you then and I’m telling you now, there's nothing you could have done. Let's say you decide to walk out of here and shoot the next UnSub we catch. That doesn't make what you do my fault. That decision's on you just like it was Elle's choice to shoot Lee."
Reid's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "What? I wouldn’t do that." But he sees himself point the gun at Hankel--there's only one bullet in there, boy--and pull the trigger.
"I’m not saying you would," Morgan says, smiling slightly. "I’m just saying it doesn't make sense for you to blame yourself." Off Reid's look he adds, "I said it didn't make sense. I didn't say I didn't understand."
Reid shakes his head, bites his lips. His fingers pluck a loose thread on the sleeve of his striped shirt and he says "Because…the truth is, Tobias is dead and I'm still alive." Reid looks up and meets Derek's gaze. "And I don't feel like I won. I don't feel that way at all."
Morgan's head bobs, his face tight. "I know. And I’m sorry."
Reid sighs and looks away. He wants to tell Morgan what (who) he saw back at Cold Oak, but he's afraid to say the words aloud. He's afraid of the look on Morgan's face.
Morgan taps the table to get Reid's attention. He jerks a thumb toward the bed. "So. What's all this?"
Reid sniffs and his fingers seek out his tie. He smoothes it, accidentally pulls it crooked. "I was working on the geographic profile last night."
Morgan lifts an eyebrow in a silent and?
Reid smiles. "And this morning. I've learned quite a bit about Fall River County, but I'm not sure any of it is particularly useful to this case. For instance, Fall River County has a land area of 1,739.86 square miles and the 2006 census estimated 7,304 people. And there hasn't been a murder in this county since 1989 and that was manslaughter. However, Fall River is extremely popular with the hunting and fishing crowd."
"Hunting, huh?" Morgan's eyes narrow. "You think this might be something similar to what the Mulford brothers were up to?"
Reid rubs his fingers together, contemplating. "The central problem with that theory is, so far at least, we know where the victims' vehicles are. The UnSub doesn't appear to be transporting the victims here; it's almost like…like they came on their own." Reid leans forward, gesticulating. "I can't isolate his area of control, there's no way to triangulate a feasible area because we know where he kills, but not where-or if-he abducts. And there's another dichotomy between this UnSub and the Mulfords," Reid points out. "Johnny and Paul never touched their victims directly, but this UnSub did."
"You could say that," Morgan says dryly.
Reid steeples his fingers under his chin. "What about you guys? Did you or Emily or Garcia come up with anything useful?"
Derek grins. "I found out Gallagher drove a van with a gigantic picture of a Viking queen straddling a polar bear on the side."
Reid blinks. "He-really?"
"Really. Probably lived in it too, from the looks of it."
Now Reid asks a silent question with a tilt of his head. You mean--?
"Yeah. The van's back in Guthrie," Morgan confirms.
Reid shakes his head. "This case is weird, man."
"You got that right. I feel like I fell down the rabbit hole on this one."
Reid's cell rings and he reaches for it. He flips it open to see JJ CALLING. He mouths JJ to Morgan and answers, "Reid."
"Hey, Reid. Sorry if I woke you, but we need to step up this morning's time table."
Reid moves to the bed and starts organizing the yellow legal sheets into a stack. "Is everything okay?"
"Last night Jackson County authorities discovered the body of a man in a small abandoned cemetery about seventy miles from here."
"Okay," Reid says, waiting for the essential details.
"He was shot seven times and dressed in army fatigues. I don't know if he's connected to what happened at Cold Oak, but Hotch wants to check out the crime scene. The preliminary medical examination puts time of death at about thirty hours after Ava Wilson and Andy Gallagher."
"Does Hotch think he could be our UnSub, or another victim? You said he was shot seven times? Now there's some rage."
"Let's just say today's one of those days I'm glad you have your job and I have mine. Oh, and there's more: one of Townsend's deputies found some kind of hide-out inside the Cold Oak hotel early this morning."
"The UnSub was living there?" Reid thinks a nest.
"It looks like it. Hotch wants you and Morgan to take a look. From what I gather, the deputy's pretty freaked out."
Reid's forehead creases. "How come?"
"I guess that's what you're going to find out. Lucky you. One second." JJ's voice is momentarily muffled, then returns. "You've got five minutes to get ready. Townsend has a car on the way. See you out front."
"Okay. Bye." Reid snaps the phone shut.
"What?" Morgan's pacing around the table. "Another victim?"
Reid nods and reaches for his messenger bag. "Could be."
"Great," Morgan mutters. "Like we don't have enough already."
ooooo
Cold Oak feels even more foreboding beneath the thin shawl of sunlight than it did in the rainy gloom. Reid slips on his sunglasses and follows Morgan and Deputy Hank Jacoby to the decrepit hotel. There are markedly fewer State troopers here today. The bodies have been transported to two area morgues and the evidence collected. Jacoby describes the items that have been bagged and sent back to the Hot Springs station as they walk.
Jacoby is a big man, muscular, with a blond buzz cut and glasses that look too small for his square face. He has a habit of tacking "okay" to the end of every other sentence. "So we got a piece of steel rebar with two sets of fingerprints. One set's smudged, but the other, we got a couple of good partials, okay? I'm hoping we get some hits off of that. And we got a knife."
Reid instantly thinks of Andy and the other victims who were eviscerated.
Jacoby catches Reid's look and shakes his head. "Nah. I don't think it's what did Gallagher in. It's old and rusty. But there is blood on it, along with more fingerprints. Everything else we found came from the victims or looks like it's been here for decades, okay?" Hank squints and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Except for what we found at the hotel."
"And what's that?" Morgan asks.
"I'm just gonna let you see for yourself," Jacoby says.
Reid and Morgan exchange a look. Morgan's eyebrows jump. What's that supposed to mean?
Reid shrugs. Guess we'll find out.
The hotel is three stories of warped wood, peeling paint and broken windows. A handful of crime scene technicians are taking photos of the various rooms, dusting for prints, taking samples of anything deemed significant. Reid studies the shadows, the trees, the empty windows for a sign of a black leather jacket or gray sweatshirt. There's nothing. Satisfied, Reid moves from the doorway and into the hotel proper.
Faded script above an archway reads Cold Oak Hotel. Below the words is a stencil of a large bell. The front desk is overturned, a broken chair lies beside it. Small seed-like animal droppings bead the floor, the smell of mold and dust is so thick it's almost visible. Jacoby points to the wide staircase. "It's right up there."
"One of the rooms?" Morgan asks.
Jacoby snorts. "Not exactly."
The Deputy leads them to the second floor where several cramped rooms branch off from a dingy hallway. Water-stained wallpaper hangs off the wall in long strips. The carpet is stained. Dead flies speckle the window ledges. Two troopers stand in front of a narrow door while a technician takes photos. "This is it," Hank says. "You almost done?" he asks the tech.
"Hell yeah," the tech says, gripping the camera and backing out of the room. "I can't wait to get out of place. Gives me the fucking creeps." He offers a two-fingered salute and heads toward the stairs.
Reid looks from the troopers flanking the narrow door to the hotel room directly across the corridor. "You mean the UnSub wasn't staying in one of the actual rooms?" A quick look inside the room reveals an ancient stained mattress on a scuffed hardwood floor. There's a cracked bowl and pitcher beside a listing table. A broken frame lies at the base of one wall, face down. A door decorated with a crooked plaque that reads lavatory stands beside a sagging wardrobe.
"Okay." Reid backs out of the room and pulls on a pair of blue latex gloves. "Let's see what's behind door number two," he says and opens the opposite door.
The room is dark and narrow. In fact, it's barely a room. The long narrow space has a low ceiling and resembles a storage cupboard or linen closet. "Oh." Reid knows three languages and thousands of words but the single syllable is all he can muster.
Morgan looks past Reid's shoulder and manages a stunned "What the hell?"
The walls might have been white at one time, but now they're gray. Scrawling loops of writing cover the paint from floor to ceiling. Help me. I can't stop. I'm sorry. I don't want to kill them. I will not kill. I will not kill. I will kill them all. Strange symbols and markings are painted over the floor and one wall, in what looks like blood. Reid pushes the door open further to reveal the wood is covered with myriad carvings. There are dozens of scratches gouged into the wood as well as hundreds of circles. The circles come in pairs, like wheels. Or eyes. Upon closer inspection Reid can make out shaky awkward letters scored into the wood. the yellow eyes are everywhere I obey his eyes are gold and light and love.
There's a neatly folded blanket in the far corner, along with a lumpy pillow. Beside the blanket is a wooden bowl of teeth. The entrance to the room is lined with a white powdery substance. Morgan points at it with his shoe. "What is that?"
Reid steps carefully over the line and into the room. He has to duck his head to avoid hitting it against the doorjamb. Spiders hang from the narrow wooden ledge above the door. Spencer looks closer and realizes he's not looking at arachnids after all; he's looking at six tangled locks of hair nailed to the wood. The hair is matted and dark with blood. Reid swallows, grimacing in distaste.
"We have a sample going to the lab, okay?" Jacoby says. "But it looks like salt."
Reid bends down and touches the white powder with one finger. A few of the crystals stick to his glove and he sniffs them.
"Reid," Morgan chides, "don't do that, man."
"It's perfectly safe," Reid says, and touches his index finger to the tip of his tongue.
Morgan stares, aghast. "Hey!"
Reid grins. "It's sodium chloride." Off the Deputy's look Reid adds, "Salt." He stands and dusts off his hand. "Did you know there are thirty-five verses in the English translation of the King James Bible that reference salt? The earliest is the story of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back upon the wicked city of Sodom. In the New Testament the apostle Paul also encouraged Christians to 'let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.'
"Salt has been tied to religious beliefs and traditions for centuries. For example, salt is mandatory in the rite of the Tridentine Mass and is also used in certain exorcism rituals. The rite of Holy Water in the Roman Catholic Church has been known to include salt as well. And salt has significance in other religions, not just Christianity." His words come faster and his hands fly like birds as he talks, as if his fingers need to keep pace with his mind. "In the Japanese religion Shinto, salt is used for ritual purification of locations and people. In Aztec mythology, Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who presided over salt and salt water."
Lecture over, Reid stops in the middle of the room to find Morgan, Jacoby and both state troopers staring at him. Reid sighs and gestures at the floor. "It's for protection. The UnSub was using salt as a kind of…of guard."
Jacoby nods. "Against what? The devil? Look at those symbols on the walls. It looks like we're dealing with some kind of devil worshipping freak."
Reid frowns and examines one of the circular designs on the wall. "No, not devil worship," he says, intrigued. "Most of these markings…they appear to be protective sigils."
"Signals?" Hank asks.
"Sigils," Reid corrects. "The word derives from the Latin sigilum meaning 'seal.' In medieval ceremonial magic, the term was used to refer to occult symbols or signs representing the various angels or demons a magician might summon. Magical instruction books, called Grimoires, often listed pages of these sigils. The most infamous Grimoire is widely considered to be Goetia, in the Lesser Key of Solomon."
"Ceremonial magic?" Morgan asks, arching an eyebrow. He puts a hand up. "On second thought, I don't wanna know. I'm not even gonna bother asking how you know this stuff, Reid. I'm just gonna ask why."
"Magic." Reid waves his fingers mysteriously and draws the word out. Morgan laughs, the Deputy looks confused. "I've read a lot of books about magic over the years," Spencer explains. "I like to do sleight of hand, card tricks." He shrugs. "Physics…magic."
"Yeah, that's great, Reid but do you recognize any of these…sigils?"
Reid studies the wall, arms folded, brow furrowed in concentration. The sigil he's most interested in is a long line with two open-ended triangles drawn across it. The line and triangles are both capped with small circles. "I've seen this one before," Reid says slowly, "but I can't think where." He bends down and inspects the folded blanket, waiting for his brain to find the information. "It'll come to me."
"So we are dealing with a satanic killer?"
"It's extremely unlikely," Morgan tells Jacoby. "This," he gestures to the room, "could be for show. Even if it's not, there's no sign of pentagrams or the usual satanic graffiti."
Jacoby seems unconvinced. "Maybe this is some kind of new satanic cult, okay? Who knows what these symbols really mean."
"There's no such thing as satanic cult killings," Reid explains absently. "The so-called Satanic Panic of the eighties was simply a kind of mass hysteria that left a legacy of misconceptions, misinformation, and myths." Reid's about to quote from his favorite book debunking satanic cults when he spies an old fashioned composition book beneath the blanket. He picks it up with one gloved hand and turns it over. The cover is marbled white and black cardboard. A smear of blood forms a dark red comma below the word 'Composition.'
"What is it?" Morgan asks, looking over Reid's shoulder.
Hank lifts his hands. "We left everything as it was in here, okay? We just took the pictures so far." He pokes his head out the door and directs one of the troopers to bring evidence bags.
Reid flips through the lined pages. It's a journal. "Guys," he says, "listen to this." He reads the first entry aloud. "'Where am I and how did I get here? He says I can't leave. I want Brady.'"
"Brady," Morgan repeats, face blank.
"Ava Wilson's fiancé." Reid blinks at the journal, then back at the walls. The room feels oppressive, claustrophobic. Like a cell. "I guess we know who 'he' refers to," Reid muses and flips another page.
Morgan looks at Reid, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Our UnSub."
Spencer rubs his forehead. "At first I thought this was where the UnSub stayed to keep control over his victims, but this isn't a nest. It's a…a prison." He tries to imagine being trapped in this room for weeks on end. I'm gonna bury you alive and let you think about what you done. Reid squares his shoulders and pushes the memory away. He reads the next entry and feels sick to his stomach. "Morgan," he says softly. "There's more. 'Three arrived last night. One's like Sam and me. One can move things with her mind. The third won't stop crying. He says if I kill them all I can go home. He says I have to want to kill them. I can't. I can't." Reid's voice trembles on the final word and he feels a slow rage bubble inside his chest.
"He's making her choose," Morgan says softly. He sounds stunned. "The bastard." He looks at Reid. "Like those three girls in Pennsylvania."
The words blur before Reid's eyes. Choose one to die. Save a life.
"'One can move stuff with her mind'?" Hank asks. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It's possible Ava was delusional. Or the UnSub might have brainwashed her."
"Or she realized sharing his delusion could keep her alive," Reid says softly. He shakes his head in disgust. "Only it didn't."
Morgan and Reid spend another ten minutes in the cramped room overseeing the collection of evidence. The techs bag the various items in the room: teeth, bowl, hair, blanket, pillow, composition book. One of the technicians takes scrapings from the symbols on the walls.
"I need to get this stuff back to the Sheriff and the lab, okay?" Jacoby tells them as they head back into daylight. "You two about done out here or do you need more time?"
Morgan glances down the road and lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. "I think I'm good."
"Yeah, me-oh. One second." Reid holds up a finger. "I just need to check something quick." He jogs down the street toward the small house where Wilson and Gallagher were found. "I'll meet you at the car," Reid calls over his shoulder. "This'll only take a minute."
The small room where Ava slept sparked a memory and he needs to check and see if he's right. The cabin is empty today, the bodies removed, but the blood remains. Spencer carefully walks around the dark stains to the window. There, along the sill, is a line of white. Salt. There's a gap in the line, as if someone drew a finger through it. Reid studies the other windows and sure enough, each sill is coated with a thin line of salt. Ava-or someone-was looking for protection. From the UnSub? Or someone else?
"She did that."
Reid spins at the sound of a voice. His bag smacks against the window with a dull thunk and the floor seems to ripple below his feet. He grips a window frame for support and stares at Andy Gallagher. "What?" He doesn't mean to say anything, doesn't mean to respond, but the word is out, between them, before he can stop it.
Andy's face is gray, his hair matted. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy. "She brushed the salt away right there to let the demon in."
Reid presses himself against the wall and tells himself this isn't real this isn't real.
Andy moves closer. He walks hunched, like an old man, arms clasped tightly around himself, as if he's cold. "Did you find Sam?"
Reid slides his gaze away from Andy. He tries to shut Andy out (away) and concentrate on his surroundings, his symptoms. Okay. Think. This isn't a tactile hallucination, because there's no tingling or burning sensation. It's not a somatic hallucination because there are no unusual sensations inside his body (except overwhelming panic and that's no longer unusual). Reid sniffs and there's nothing out of the ordinary, no smoke, no almonds, no stench of burning fish. The hallucination is strictly visual (symptoms may produce vague perceptions of colors or clouds or distinct visions of people or objects).
Reid closes his eyes and puts his hands to his face, rubs at his eyes as if he can scrub Andy's image away. He wills the chemicals in his brain to correct themselves, for his synapses to realign.
"Hey. What's…what's wrong?" Andy's voice sounds like dry wood.
Reid speaks through his hands. "You're dead." He's talking to himself.
Andy makes a choked huffing noise. "I know," he shouts. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
Reid lowers his hands and peers at Andy over his fingers. "No. You're not real." He swallows. "Go away. I'm just imagining you."
Andy stares at Reid for a long moment. Then he unfolds one arm and rubs the back of his head. "Okay. I get it. You think you're crazy or something. Cuz you're the only one who can see me, is that it?"
Reid takes a step toward the door.
"You're not crazy." Andy grimaces, waves his hands. "I mean, you could be crazy, I have no idea. But seeing me? That's not crazy. I'm dead. I'm, like, a ghost. Or…something."
Reid takes another step.
Andy's face falls. "You said you'd help me. You promised."
"That's before I realized you weren't real," Reid whispers.
"Stop saying that," Andy says, voice rising. "I'm plenty real. I can make you see me." He starts pacing. "You're the only one. I don't know why. It's all I have left, the whole Jedi mind trick thing is gone. I can't even do the gay porn, which sucks." Gallagher wipes a sleeve across his face. "Of course, being dead sucks way more."
Reid wants to run. He wants to outrun the hallucination, his mind, the future. But he's frozen in place, rooted to the spot, because he has nowhere to go. He wonders if this was what it was like for his mother and a wave of nausea rolls through his stomach.
"Go away," Reid says again, more insistent (desperate).
"I. Can't," Andy clenches his fists on other side of his head. "I need to find Sam. Help me find him, and then I'll go away." He hesitates. "I hope."
Reid turns his back on Andy and walks out the door. Gallagher follows him. "Aren't you with the FBI, Spencer? Spence? Isn't that your job, to find people? So find Sam Winchester for me."
Reid keeps walking. Morgan's leaning against the hood of the car, and he nods a greeting. Reid's face feels numb but he maintains eye contact and nods back stiffly. He tries to smile. He tries to project everything is fine. Spencer has no salt to protect himself with so he reaches for his sunglasses and puts them on.
Andy follows him, voice raised. "I think he's going to die, Spencer. If I don't warn him he's going to die and that's going to be your fault."
Reid keeps his hands still, his head high. "Ready, man?" Morgan asks. Reid's head moves up and down and he folds himself into the back seat. Morgan climbs in the front and Jacoby starts the car. Reid looks out the window and Andy's still coming. He won't go.
"Please," Andy shouts above the engine. "Please. I need your help. You promised." Andy slaps his hands against the glass and Reid jumps because he heard the sound, can see the smudges Andy's fingers leave behind. Neither Jacoby nor Morgan notice.
Andy peers in at Reid, despair and frustration warring across his face. "I'm real," he screams. "Help me, please!" The car moves forward and Reid watches as Andy grows small in the rear view mirror. Reid closes his eyes, counts to ten. When he opens them Andy's gone.
"What were you doing?" Morgan asks, his eyes finding Reid's in the mirror.
Reid sits up straight, fists clenched. His fingernails dig into his palms, his skin is Styrofoam. "W-what?"
"What did you check?"
Reid squints out the window, watches trees blur past in flashes of green and brown. "I-I remembered seeing sod-uh, salt on the windows-window sills where we found Ava and Andy."
"This case gets weirder by the second," Morgan mutters.
Reid concentrates on the drone of the tires, the burble of static from Jacoby's radio, and the rhythm of Morgan and Hank's conversation. But beneath the white blanket of noise he can still hear Andy's panicked cry.
~ Oscar Wilde
Reid rises early. He wakes at half past six and the remnants of nightmares cling to him like cobwebs. He dresses and heads down to the motel lobby for a vending machine cup of coffee. The coffee is bitter and has the color and consistency of yesterday's mud puddles. Reid adds four packets of Sweet and Low and sips at it anyway because mud or no, it's still caffeine.
Back in his room, Reid paces. He spreads his copious notes over the (freshly made) bedspread and pokes crescent moons into the Styrofoam cup with his thumbnail.
According to www.Ghosttowns.com there are ninety-eight documented ghost towns in South Dakota. Cold Oak is one of the lesser-known towns, and a dubious website called www.hellhoundslair.com describes Cold Oak as "so haunted every single resident fled." Reid doesn't believe in ghosts, but if a town ever had reason to be haunted, Cold Oak does. Cold Oak is located in Fall River County, which, in turn, is considered the gateway to the Black Hills. Fall River consists of a handful of small townships--Ardmore, Argentine, Edgement, Oelrichs--and the cities of Hot Springs and Provo. The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI as of 2006 was three, none of which were murder or homicide. The violent crime rate is 0.7 per 1,000 people.
Until now.
Now there are twenty-nine murders. Twenty-nine. No similar crimes have been reported in Fall River or any of South Dakota's other sixty-five counties. There haven't been any body dumps or spree killings, and no serial murders since Robert Leroy Anderson. And Anderson's MO was completely dissimilar. The killings in Cold Oak aren't sexually motivated. Reid thinks of Andy Gallagher's bloody chest and wonders if he should reconsider.
A soft knock on the door interrupts Reid's thoughts. He glances at the clock: it's almost 7:30, still early. They aren't leaving for Sheriff Townsend's office until after 8:00. Spencer walks to the door and peers through the peep hole. Derek stands in the hallway, fingers beating a tattoo against the front of his black slacks. Reid frowns. He doesn't want to let him in. But his hand has a will of its own because the door opens and Morgan's fingers stops tapping. He looks sincere and worried and a little bit…Reid searches for the right word. Annoyed. No, not quite. The more accurate description is pissed off.
"What?" Reid demands, one hand still on the door. He's a world away from his usual amicable self, but it's early and he's tired and he's not feeling particularly charitable toward Morgan just now.
"Look man," Morgan says. "I just wanted to say…" Derek trails off, runs a hand over his closely shaved head. "Okay, here's the thing," he says, and brushes past Reid and into the room.
Reid huffs in irritation and he's about to say come in, why don't you when the words die in his throat. He swallows and shuts the door much more quietly than he originally intended. He turns to face Morgan.
"I'm just worried about you. And you can be mad at me for that. You can be mad at me for butting in when you don't want me to and trying to get you to talk. But just because you can be mad doesn't mean you should. You're a good agent Reid, but you're a better friend. And just because I think you're a geek with a giant brain doesn't mean I don't care about you."
Reid stands frozen against the door, coffee cup still in his hand.
"Maybe I misunderstood what I saw last night," Morgan continues, shrugging. "But I don't think so." He holds up a hand, as if he's afraid Reid is going to argue, but Reid is mute, his tongue is lead. "But let's say, for the sake of argument, I was wrong." Morgan crosses the room back to Reid in three steps and stands in front of him, dark eyes on Reid's face. "And if I was wrong, Reid? Then I'm sorry, okay? I don't want you being pissed at me. I just want to…" he waves his hands vaguely, "help. I know you don’t want to talk about what happened to you, but if you change your mind, I'm here to listen, all right? I'm here to listen and not judge." Morgan exhales and some of the tension drains from his face. "That's all I wanted to say. So if you want to throw me out, fine. I said what I had to."
Reid stares down at the plastic top of the Styrofoam cup. "I. I uh, don't want to throw you out." His mouth twists into a faint smile. As if he could. Reid's pretty sure Morgan could bench press him. With one hand.
"Good." Morgan's smile is brilliant. "Cuz I'm solid muscle, kid, and you wouldn't have a chance in hell."
Reid chuckles weakly and sets the coffee on the desk. "I was just thinking the same thing." He pulls a chair out and gestures to Morgan, pulls another one out for himself and sits. He rests his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. "Morgan." Reid says the name softly, like he's testing it out.
Morgan drops into the seat beside him. "Yeah?"
"I'm not," Reid struggles to get the words out. "I'm not okay."
Morgan nods, tips his head toward Reid to indicate he's not just listening, he's hearing. "I know."
Reid pokes at the coffee cup a few more times. He waits for Morgan to say something else, or maybe make fun of him for picking at the cup, but Morgan stays silent. He sits and waits. Reid is grateful. His fingernail pokes through the cup and coffee bubbles out over his hand and onto the table. "Oh! Crap. Ouch." He snatches his hand away and shakes it, embarrassed. Why does he always do these things?
Morgan picks up the coffee and drops the Styrofoam cup unceremoniously into the garbage. "You know damn well that stuff's acid. Would've eaten through the container anyway if you hadn't have helped it along."
Reid looks down at the table and sniffs. He rubs his nose. There's a two-inch oblong coffee spill. It looks like a tree. Or a wine glass. Reid studies the spill and says "Morgan?" It comes out a question.
Morgan's expression doesn't change, he's still waiting. (Profiling.) "Yeah?"
"This is…this is what I did to Elle."
Morgan's brows dip and his forehead wrinkles. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember when I told you I went to see her? When we were tracking William Lee, that serial rapist? Only we didn't know it was Lee yet and-"
"I remember, Reid," Morgan says gently.
"She--she didn't want to talk to me," Reid admits softly and his fingers flutter against the table. "So I just barged into her room. I didn't-I didn't care that she didn't want to talk because I knew she should. I knew she needed to."
Morgan's watching him and Reid looks past Morgan's head, remembers how closed Elle had been, how hidden. "And I said," Spencer swallows, because now his words feel so empty and callous and useless he's ashamed they ever came from his mouth. "I said, 'he's dead and you're alive.' I said, 'you won'." Reid shakes his head, mouth twisting in misery. "But now I understand that's not what it's like. And if I had said something different, if I had just…just-" he rubs at his eyes and shakes his head, miserable.
"Reid." Morgan's voice is sharp and pulls Spencer out of the past. "I told you then and I’m telling you now, there's nothing you could have done. Let's say you decide to walk out of here and shoot the next UnSub we catch. That doesn't make what you do my fault. That decision's on you just like it was Elle's choice to shoot Lee."
Reid's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "What? I wouldn’t do that." But he sees himself point the gun at Hankel--there's only one bullet in there, boy--and pull the trigger.
"I’m not saying you would," Morgan says, smiling slightly. "I’m just saying it doesn't make sense for you to blame yourself." Off Reid's look he adds, "I said it didn't make sense. I didn't say I didn't understand."
Reid shakes his head, bites his lips. His fingers pluck a loose thread on the sleeve of his striped shirt and he says "Because…the truth is, Tobias is dead and I'm still alive." Reid looks up and meets Derek's gaze. "And I don't feel like I won. I don't feel that way at all."
Morgan's head bobs, his face tight. "I know. And I’m sorry."
Reid sighs and looks away. He wants to tell Morgan what (who) he saw back at Cold Oak, but he's afraid to say the words aloud. He's afraid of the look on Morgan's face.
Morgan taps the table to get Reid's attention. He jerks a thumb toward the bed. "So. What's all this?"
Reid sniffs and his fingers seek out his tie. He smoothes it, accidentally pulls it crooked. "I was working on the geographic profile last night."
Morgan lifts an eyebrow in a silent and?
Reid smiles. "And this morning. I've learned quite a bit about Fall River County, but I'm not sure any of it is particularly useful to this case. For instance, Fall River County has a land area of 1,739.86 square miles and the 2006 census estimated 7,304 people. And there hasn't been a murder in this county since 1989 and that was manslaughter. However, Fall River is extremely popular with the hunting and fishing crowd."
"Hunting, huh?" Morgan's eyes narrow. "You think this might be something similar to what the Mulford brothers were up to?"
Reid rubs his fingers together, contemplating. "The central problem with that theory is, so far at least, we know where the victims' vehicles are. The UnSub doesn't appear to be transporting the victims here; it's almost like…like they came on their own." Reid leans forward, gesticulating. "I can't isolate his area of control, there's no way to triangulate a feasible area because we know where he kills, but not where-or if-he abducts. And there's another dichotomy between this UnSub and the Mulfords," Reid points out. "Johnny and Paul never touched their victims directly, but this UnSub did."
"You could say that," Morgan says dryly.
Reid steeples his fingers under his chin. "What about you guys? Did you or Emily or Garcia come up with anything useful?"
Derek grins. "I found out Gallagher drove a van with a gigantic picture of a Viking queen straddling a polar bear on the side."
Reid blinks. "He-really?"
"Really. Probably lived in it too, from the looks of it."
Now Reid asks a silent question with a tilt of his head. You mean--?
"Yeah. The van's back in Guthrie," Morgan confirms.
Reid shakes his head. "This case is weird, man."
"You got that right. I feel like I fell down the rabbit hole on this one."
Reid's cell rings and he reaches for it. He flips it open to see JJ CALLING. He mouths JJ to Morgan and answers, "Reid."
"Hey, Reid. Sorry if I woke you, but we need to step up this morning's time table."
Reid moves to the bed and starts organizing the yellow legal sheets into a stack. "Is everything okay?"
"Last night Jackson County authorities discovered the body of a man in a small abandoned cemetery about seventy miles from here."
"Okay," Reid says, waiting for the essential details.
"He was shot seven times and dressed in army fatigues. I don't know if he's connected to what happened at Cold Oak, but Hotch wants to check out the crime scene. The preliminary medical examination puts time of death at about thirty hours after Ava Wilson and Andy Gallagher."
"Does Hotch think he could be our UnSub, or another victim? You said he was shot seven times? Now there's some rage."
"Let's just say today's one of those days I'm glad you have your job and I have mine. Oh, and there's more: one of Townsend's deputies found some kind of hide-out inside the Cold Oak hotel early this morning."
"The UnSub was living there?" Reid thinks a nest.
"It looks like it. Hotch wants you and Morgan to take a look. From what I gather, the deputy's pretty freaked out."
Reid's forehead creases. "How come?"
"I guess that's what you're going to find out. Lucky you. One second." JJ's voice is momentarily muffled, then returns. "You've got five minutes to get ready. Townsend has a car on the way. See you out front."
"Okay. Bye." Reid snaps the phone shut.
"What?" Morgan's pacing around the table. "Another victim?"
Reid nods and reaches for his messenger bag. "Could be."
"Great," Morgan mutters. "Like we don't have enough already."
ooooo
Cold Oak feels even more foreboding beneath the thin shawl of sunlight than it did in the rainy gloom. Reid slips on his sunglasses and follows Morgan and Deputy Hank Jacoby to the decrepit hotel. There are markedly fewer State troopers here today. The bodies have been transported to two area morgues and the evidence collected. Jacoby describes the items that have been bagged and sent back to the Hot Springs station as they walk.
Jacoby is a big man, muscular, with a blond buzz cut and glasses that look too small for his square face. He has a habit of tacking "okay" to the end of every other sentence. "So we got a piece of steel rebar with two sets of fingerprints. One set's smudged, but the other, we got a couple of good partials, okay? I'm hoping we get some hits off of that. And we got a knife."
Reid instantly thinks of Andy and the other victims who were eviscerated.
Jacoby catches Reid's look and shakes his head. "Nah. I don't think it's what did Gallagher in. It's old and rusty. But there is blood on it, along with more fingerprints. Everything else we found came from the victims or looks like it's been here for decades, okay?" Hank squints and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Except for what we found at the hotel."
"And what's that?" Morgan asks.
"I'm just gonna let you see for yourself," Jacoby says.
Reid and Morgan exchange a look. Morgan's eyebrows jump. What's that supposed to mean?
Reid shrugs. Guess we'll find out.
The hotel is three stories of warped wood, peeling paint and broken windows. A handful of crime scene technicians are taking photos of the various rooms, dusting for prints, taking samples of anything deemed significant. Reid studies the shadows, the trees, the empty windows for a sign of a black leather jacket or gray sweatshirt. There's nothing. Satisfied, Reid moves from the doorway and into the hotel proper.
Faded script above an archway reads Cold Oak Hotel. Below the words is a stencil of a large bell. The front desk is overturned, a broken chair lies beside it. Small seed-like animal droppings bead the floor, the smell of mold and dust is so thick it's almost visible. Jacoby points to the wide staircase. "It's right up there."
"One of the rooms?" Morgan asks.
Jacoby snorts. "Not exactly."
The Deputy leads them to the second floor where several cramped rooms branch off from a dingy hallway. Water-stained wallpaper hangs off the wall in long strips. The carpet is stained. Dead flies speckle the window ledges. Two troopers stand in front of a narrow door while a technician takes photos. "This is it," Hank says. "You almost done?" he asks the tech.
"Hell yeah," the tech says, gripping the camera and backing out of the room. "I can't wait to get out of place. Gives me the fucking creeps." He offers a two-fingered salute and heads toward the stairs.
Reid looks from the troopers flanking the narrow door to the hotel room directly across the corridor. "You mean the UnSub wasn't staying in one of the actual rooms?" A quick look inside the room reveals an ancient stained mattress on a scuffed hardwood floor. There's a cracked bowl and pitcher beside a listing table. A broken frame lies at the base of one wall, face down. A door decorated with a crooked plaque that reads lavatory stands beside a sagging wardrobe.
"Okay." Reid backs out of the room and pulls on a pair of blue latex gloves. "Let's see what's behind door number two," he says and opens the opposite door.
The room is dark and narrow. In fact, it's barely a room. The long narrow space has a low ceiling and resembles a storage cupboard or linen closet. "Oh." Reid knows three languages and thousands of words but the single syllable is all he can muster.
Morgan looks past Reid's shoulder and manages a stunned "What the hell?"
The walls might have been white at one time, but now they're gray. Scrawling loops of writing cover the paint from floor to ceiling. Help me. I can't stop. I'm sorry. I don't want to kill them. I will not kill. I will not kill. I will kill them all. Strange symbols and markings are painted over the floor and one wall, in what looks like blood. Reid pushes the door open further to reveal the wood is covered with myriad carvings. There are dozens of scratches gouged into the wood as well as hundreds of circles. The circles come in pairs, like wheels. Or eyes. Upon closer inspection Reid can make out shaky awkward letters scored into the wood. the yellow eyes are everywhere I obey his eyes are gold and light and love.
There's a neatly folded blanket in the far corner, along with a lumpy pillow. Beside the blanket is a wooden bowl of teeth. The entrance to the room is lined with a white powdery substance. Morgan points at it with his shoe. "What is that?"
Reid steps carefully over the line and into the room. He has to duck his head to avoid hitting it against the doorjamb. Spiders hang from the narrow wooden ledge above the door. Spencer looks closer and realizes he's not looking at arachnids after all; he's looking at six tangled locks of hair nailed to the wood. The hair is matted and dark with blood. Reid swallows, grimacing in distaste.
"We have a sample going to the lab, okay?" Jacoby says. "But it looks like salt."
Reid bends down and touches the white powder with one finger. A few of the crystals stick to his glove and he sniffs them.
"Reid," Morgan chides, "don't do that, man."
"It's perfectly safe," Reid says, and touches his index finger to the tip of his tongue.
Morgan stares, aghast. "Hey!"
Reid grins. "It's sodium chloride." Off the Deputy's look Reid adds, "Salt." He stands and dusts off his hand. "Did you know there are thirty-five verses in the English translation of the King James Bible that reference salt? The earliest is the story of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back upon the wicked city of Sodom. In the New Testament the apostle Paul also encouraged Christians to 'let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.'
"Salt has been tied to religious beliefs and traditions for centuries. For example, salt is mandatory in the rite of the Tridentine Mass and is also used in certain exorcism rituals. The rite of Holy Water in the Roman Catholic Church has been known to include salt as well. And salt has significance in other religions, not just Christianity." His words come faster and his hands fly like birds as he talks, as if his fingers need to keep pace with his mind. "In the Japanese religion Shinto, salt is used for ritual purification of locations and people. In Aztec mythology, Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who presided over salt and salt water."
Lecture over, Reid stops in the middle of the room to find Morgan, Jacoby and both state troopers staring at him. Reid sighs and gestures at the floor. "It's for protection. The UnSub was using salt as a kind of…of guard."
Jacoby nods. "Against what? The devil? Look at those symbols on the walls. It looks like we're dealing with some kind of devil worshipping freak."
Reid frowns and examines one of the circular designs on the wall. "No, not devil worship," he says, intrigued. "Most of these markings…they appear to be protective sigils."
"Signals?" Hank asks.
"Sigils," Reid corrects. "The word derives from the Latin sigilum meaning 'seal.' In medieval ceremonial magic, the term was used to refer to occult symbols or signs representing the various angels or demons a magician might summon. Magical instruction books, called Grimoires, often listed pages of these sigils. The most infamous Grimoire is widely considered to be Goetia, in the Lesser Key of Solomon."
"Ceremonial magic?" Morgan asks, arching an eyebrow. He puts a hand up. "On second thought, I don't wanna know. I'm not even gonna bother asking how you know this stuff, Reid. I'm just gonna ask why."
"Magic." Reid waves his fingers mysteriously and draws the word out. Morgan laughs, the Deputy looks confused. "I've read a lot of books about magic over the years," Spencer explains. "I like to do sleight of hand, card tricks." He shrugs. "Physics…magic."
"Yeah, that's great, Reid but do you recognize any of these…sigils?"
Reid studies the wall, arms folded, brow furrowed in concentration. The sigil he's most interested in is a long line with two open-ended triangles drawn across it. The line and triangles are both capped with small circles. "I've seen this one before," Reid says slowly, "but I can't think where." He bends down and inspects the folded blanket, waiting for his brain to find the information. "It'll come to me."
"So we are dealing with a satanic killer?"
"It's extremely unlikely," Morgan tells Jacoby. "This," he gestures to the room, "could be for show. Even if it's not, there's no sign of pentagrams or the usual satanic graffiti."
Jacoby seems unconvinced. "Maybe this is some kind of new satanic cult, okay? Who knows what these symbols really mean."
"There's no such thing as satanic cult killings," Reid explains absently. "The so-called Satanic Panic of the eighties was simply a kind of mass hysteria that left a legacy of misconceptions, misinformation, and myths." Reid's about to quote from his favorite book debunking satanic cults when he spies an old fashioned composition book beneath the blanket. He picks it up with one gloved hand and turns it over. The cover is marbled white and black cardboard. A smear of blood forms a dark red comma below the word 'Composition.'
"What is it?" Morgan asks, looking over Reid's shoulder.
Hank lifts his hands. "We left everything as it was in here, okay? We just took the pictures so far." He pokes his head out the door and directs one of the troopers to bring evidence bags.
Reid flips through the lined pages. It's a journal. "Guys," he says, "listen to this." He reads the first entry aloud. "'Where am I and how did I get here? He says I can't leave. I want Brady.'"
"Brady," Morgan repeats, face blank.
"Ava Wilson's fiancé." Reid blinks at the journal, then back at the walls. The room feels oppressive, claustrophobic. Like a cell. "I guess we know who 'he' refers to," Reid muses and flips another page.
Morgan looks at Reid, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Our UnSub."
Spencer rubs his forehead. "At first I thought this was where the UnSub stayed to keep control over his victims, but this isn't a nest. It's a…a prison." He tries to imagine being trapped in this room for weeks on end. I'm gonna bury you alive and let you think about what you done. Reid squares his shoulders and pushes the memory away. He reads the next entry and feels sick to his stomach. "Morgan," he says softly. "There's more. 'Three arrived last night. One's like Sam and me. One can move things with her mind. The third won't stop crying. He says if I kill them all I can go home. He says I have to want to kill them. I can't. I can't." Reid's voice trembles on the final word and he feels a slow rage bubble inside his chest.
"He's making her choose," Morgan says softly. He sounds stunned. "The bastard." He looks at Reid. "Like those three girls in Pennsylvania."
The words blur before Reid's eyes. Choose one to die. Save a life.
"'One can move stuff with her mind'?" Hank asks. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It's possible Ava was delusional. Or the UnSub might have brainwashed her."
"Or she realized sharing his delusion could keep her alive," Reid says softly. He shakes his head in disgust. "Only it didn't."
Morgan and Reid spend another ten minutes in the cramped room overseeing the collection of evidence. The techs bag the various items in the room: teeth, bowl, hair, blanket, pillow, composition book. One of the technicians takes scrapings from the symbols on the walls.
"I need to get this stuff back to the Sheriff and the lab, okay?" Jacoby tells them as they head back into daylight. "You two about done out here or do you need more time?"
Morgan glances down the road and lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. "I think I'm good."
"Yeah, me-oh. One second." Reid holds up a finger. "I just need to check something quick." He jogs down the street toward the small house where Wilson and Gallagher were found. "I'll meet you at the car," Reid calls over his shoulder. "This'll only take a minute."
The small room where Ava slept sparked a memory and he needs to check and see if he's right. The cabin is empty today, the bodies removed, but the blood remains. Spencer carefully walks around the dark stains to the window. There, along the sill, is a line of white. Salt. There's a gap in the line, as if someone drew a finger through it. Reid studies the other windows and sure enough, each sill is coated with a thin line of salt. Ava-or someone-was looking for protection. From the UnSub? Or someone else?
"She did that."
Reid spins at the sound of a voice. His bag smacks against the window with a dull thunk and the floor seems to ripple below his feet. He grips a window frame for support and stares at Andy Gallagher. "What?" He doesn't mean to say anything, doesn't mean to respond, but the word is out, between them, before he can stop it.
Andy's face is gray, his hair matted. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy. "She brushed the salt away right there to let the demon in."
Reid presses himself against the wall and tells himself this isn't real this isn't real.
Andy moves closer. He walks hunched, like an old man, arms clasped tightly around himself, as if he's cold. "Did you find Sam?"
Reid slides his gaze away from Andy. He tries to shut Andy out (away) and concentrate on his surroundings, his symptoms. Okay. Think. This isn't a tactile hallucination, because there's no tingling or burning sensation. It's not a somatic hallucination because there are no unusual sensations inside his body (except overwhelming panic and that's no longer unusual). Reid sniffs and there's nothing out of the ordinary, no smoke, no almonds, no stench of burning fish. The hallucination is strictly visual (symptoms may produce vague perceptions of colors or clouds or distinct visions of people or objects).
Reid closes his eyes and puts his hands to his face, rubs at his eyes as if he can scrub Andy's image away. He wills the chemicals in his brain to correct themselves, for his synapses to realign.
"Hey. What's…what's wrong?" Andy's voice sounds like dry wood.
Reid speaks through his hands. "You're dead." He's talking to himself.
Andy makes a choked huffing noise. "I know," he shouts. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
Reid lowers his hands and peers at Andy over his fingers. "No. You're not real." He swallows. "Go away. I'm just imagining you."
Andy stares at Reid for a long moment. Then he unfolds one arm and rubs the back of his head. "Okay. I get it. You think you're crazy or something. Cuz you're the only one who can see me, is that it?"
Reid takes a step toward the door.
"You're not crazy." Andy grimaces, waves his hands. "I mean, you could be crazy, I have no idea. But seeing me? That's not crazy. I'm dead. I'm, like, a ghost. Or…something."
Reid takes another step.
Andy's face falls. "You said you'd help me. You promised."
"That's before I realized you weren't real," Reid whispers.
"Stop saying that," Andy says, voice rising. "I'm plenty real. I can make you see me." He starts pacing. "You're the only one. I don't know why. It's all I have left, the whole Jedi mind trick thing is gone. I can't even do the gay porn, which sucks." Gallagher wipes a sleeve across his face. "Of course, being dead sucks way more."
Reid wants to run. He wants to outrun the hallucination, his mind, the future. But he's frozen in place, rooted to the spot, because he has nowhere to go. He wonders if this was what it was like for his mother and a wave of nausea rolls through his stomach.
"Go away," Reid says again, more insistent (desperate).
"I. Can't," Andy clenches his fists on other side of his head. "I need to find Sam. Help me find him, and then I'll go away." He hesitates. "I hope."
Reid turns his back on Andy and walks out the door. Gallagher follows him. "Aren't you with the FBI, Spencer? Spence? Isn't that your job, to find people? So find Sam Winchester for me."
Reid keeps walking. Morgan's leaning against the hood of the car, and he nods a greeting. Reid's face feels numb but he maintains eye contact and nods back stiffly. He tries to smile. He tries to project everything is fine. Spencer has no salt to protect himself with so he reaches for his sunglasses and puts them on.
Andy follows him, voice raised. "I think he's going to die, Spencer. If I don't warn him he's going to die and that's going to be your fault."
Reid keeps his hands still, his head high. "Ready, man?" Morgan asks. Reid's head moves up and down and he folds himself into the back seat. Morgan climbs in the front and Jacoby starts the car. Reid looks out the window and Andy's still coming. He won't go.
"Please," Andy shouts above the engine. "Please. I need your help. You promised." Andy slaps his hands against the glass and Reid jumps because he heard the sound, can see the smudges Andy's fingers leave behind. Neither Jacoby nor Morgan notice.
Andy peers in at Reid, despair and frustration warring across his face. "I'm real," he screams. "Help me, please!" The car moves forward and Reid watches as Andy grows small in the rear view mirror. Reid closes his eyes, counts to ten. When he opens them Andy's gone.
"What were you doing?" Morgan asks, his eyes finding Reid's in the mirror.
Reid sits up straight, fists clenched. His fingernails dig into his palms, his skin is Styrofoam. "W-what?"
"What did you check?"
Reid squints out the window, watches trees blur past in flashes of green and brown. "I-I remembered seeing sod-uh, salt on the windows-window sills where we found Ava and Andy."
"This case gets weirder by the second," Morgan mutters.
Reid concentrates on the drone of the tires, the burble of static from Jacoby's radio, and the rhythm of Morgan and Hank's conversation. But beneath the white blanket of noise he can still hear Andy's panicked cry.