10x00 - Dreaming from the Waist - Part Three: Thumbed Pages
Episode number: 10x01 of Season 10 Fan Fiction (S10FF)
Title: Dreaming from the Waist
Subtitle: Thumbed Pages
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,537
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language, sexual scenarios
Sam spent an entire day watching the security footage Dodge had given him. After Agent Acevedo, Dodge's partner, arrived, Dodge went out to do fieldwork and left Sam to his own devices. So he got a new motel room and acquired a dozen monitors and screens to watch as much of the security footage as possible all at once.
And he had nothing.
No weird feedback. No reflective shifter eyes. Nothing. Nothing but people moving around on the screen. A few frames captured people running, but Sam couldn't see anything that identified the individuals.
Sam replayed one of the videos. It showed the backs of two women running hard towards the scene of the crime. He couldn't see either of their wrists, which would be branded if they were Amazons. But Amazons had incredible speed. By all accounts, they shouldn't be on camera.
So maybe this wasn't Amazons after all. Or maybe they're playing a new game. Either way, Sam Winchester was stuck in a motel room while his girlfriend was out in the field, putting her life on the line.
He reverted to a frame that caught his eye. Both women were wearing sleeveless shirts, and one of them had a distinctive mark on her left shoulder. It was difficult to make out, since the video footage wasn't high quality, but it looked to be a series of scars. The marks seemed so deliberate, almost like a tattoo, but they didn't form a shape exactly.
"Surgical scars," Sam said out loud before he could stop himself.
First the fighting injuries on the body in the morgue, now one of the assailants had scars from some kind of surgery. It could be nothing, Sam thought to himself. But his instincts were telling him it wasn't nothing.
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
"Hello?" a woman answered.
"Hello, is this Dr. Maureen Rawlings?" Sam asked.
"Yes, who is this?"
"I'm a forensic lab tech. Mathis Quinn," he replied. "I was wondering if we could talk."
"Are you on one of my cases?"
"Actually, yes, and I had a theory I wanted to run by you," he said.
Lander, Wyoming. Castiel and Dean teleported inside of what seemed to be some kind of broom closet.
"Seriously?" Dean asked. "This is why we don't zap around."
"Hush," Cas replied. "Follow me."
No one looked twice as the two men exited the Janitor's Closet. Dean followed the angel as he led him down the hall and outside.
"Why did we just - " Dean began.
"Because if I teleport into an open space, I can be detected," Cas replied.
"Since when?"
Cas spun on his heels and faced Dean, crowding his space. "Since someone or something cast a spell over most of this town."
"Witches?" Dean asked.
"Unlikely. This spell alerts... someone to any kind of teleportation or angelic powers used out in the open."
"How is that not witches?"
Castiel started walking again. "This isn't warding to prevent my powers. It merely sets an alarm."
"So an early warning system for someone," Dean replied. "Why are we here?"
"Because no one would set an early warning system, as you call it, for no reason," the angel replied.
"All that means is someone here is not fond of angels," Dean said. "That's not - "
"This is it," Castiel interrupted.
Dean realized they were stopped outside of a residence. "This is what?"
"Whoever cast the spell is in that house. You should go in and see if you can determine who it is. Then we can abduct the individual and question them."
"What?"
"I believe I was both concise and clear, as you requested repeatedly at the Men of Letters bunker."
"Why am I going in to question a witch about a spell?" Dean asked. "Why aren't you coming with me?"
"Because whoever did this is trying to avoid seraphs. It is likely that a spellcaster this capable will know what I am when they see me."
"I get it, you're mad," Dean said. "But - "
"This is what you call a lead, Dean," Cas interrupted. "You insisted upon finding out more. This is a start."
Dean took a long, hard look at Castiel. It was true; he had been a bit hard on the angel over the past day or so. He had pressed him for information and leads, and this could be a legitimate lead. But he didn't like how little Cas was saying. It made him feel like they were chasing their tails.
"Okay, fine. When I find the witch who did this, what then?"
"You incapacitate whoever it is and call to me to transport us elsewhere," Cas said simply.
"Awesome."
Special Agent Marie Acevedo had been partnered with Dakota 'Dodge' Gage years ago. Somewhere down the line, they became close personal friends. That was how Acevedo knew something was wrong.
They interviewed the witness together. They went over the ME reports for all the victims. They ate lunch and talked about how good it was to be back on duty together.
It was all very proper and official, which was how Dodge was when they were first partnered.
"You okay?" Acevedo asked casually as they got out of the car.
"Me? I'm fine," Dodge replied. "You got the office number for this Anthropologist person?"
"Forensic Anthropologist," she replied. "Rawlings. She's supposed to be excellent. So play nice."
"Kill joy," Dodge joked.
They made their way to the temporary office of one Dr. Maureen Rawlings. She had spread out extensive x-rays of each victim anatomically. It seemed like the room contained five luminescent skeletons.
"Are you the two FBI Agents?" a woman asked. She had dark skin and eyes and a professional, almost cold, demeanor.
"Yes," Marie said simply. "I'm Marie Acevedo. This is my partner Dodge Gage."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Dr. Rawlings, or Maureen," she said quickly.
"You seem to be ready for us," Dodge commented, indicating the x-rays.
"Well, after your smart cookie and I had a conversation, I thought it would be a good thing to show you both what he put me on to," Rawlings replied.
"Sorry, what smart cookie?" Acevedo asked.
Rawlings looked confused, but she regained her composure. "My apologies. I meant Mathis Quinn, the lab technician." She cast a significant glance to Dodge. "From how he spoke about you, I guess I just assumed you two were together."
Acevedo sized Dodge's reaction. It was equal parts annoyance and guilt. Clearly, she had meant to keep her relationship with the 'smart cookie' a secret. Maybe that was why she was so closed off.
"Mathis can be overly familiar," Dodge said in an even tone. "But he does have good ideas. Care to enlighten us?"
Lander, Wyoming. Dean wheedled his way into the house by introducing himself as Agent James, an off duty FBI Agent doing some informal investigation in the Landers area.
Jared Beardsley, the young man who owned the house, let Dean in after checking his badge. By in large, everything was going well. Dean scoped the house and identified a number of witchcraft-related things without arousing suspicion. Jared seemed oddly normal.
"Does anyone else live here?" Dean asked.
"Huh?"
"Ah, not related to my investigation. It's just, this is a big house. I was wondering if you shared it with anyone."
Jared looked at Dean for a few moments before he replied. "Why don't you just tell me what you're after?"
"You seem a little tense there Jared," Dean said.
"You're a hunter," Jared said bluntly. "And I've nothing to hide, in as much as I've done nothing wrong."
"So why do you look so worried?" Dean asked, trying not to be thrown by the word 'hunter' being interjected into the conversation.
"Because some hunters kill for sport," Jared replied.
"If you don't kill people, then you don't have anything to worry about," Dean said.
In the blink of an eye, Dean and Jared were elsewhere, inside an abandoned home. Castiel had a firm grasp on both their arms.
"Dean Winchester, this is one of the nephilim," Castiel said by way of introduction. "What is your name?" the angel demanded.
"Jared Bearsley."
"Your real name!"
"You mean what others called me?" Jared asked, not hiding his anger. "Caenum. That's what they called me. But it is not my name."
"Okay, sensing some tension," Dean said. "I'm guessing angels and nephilim are, what, not on good terms?"
Jared turned his head to Dean, almost pleading. "Nephilim are the offspring of angels and humans. Accepted by neither. That's why the angels called me a fancy version of the word mud. They mean mutt, mutant, dirt."
"Bad blood. Got it," Dean said, coming between Cas and Jared. "Cas, did you know about this guy?"
"Not before we arrived," the angel replied tersely.
"What's up with you?" Dean asked.
"Nephilim are not allowed," Cas said simply.
"Right, like you and me should be talking about what's allowed," Dean muttered. He turned back to Jared. "Look, I thought we were looking for some bad ass witch or something. We're just looking for intel on Jesse Turner."
"Turner, the cambion?" Jared asked. "I felt it."
"Felt it? Is that some kind of weird lingo?" Dean asked.
"The battle within. He fought. I felt it when he died."
"He's dead. You're sure?"
Jared nodded. "I recovered his body from the ruins."
"What did you do with his remains?" Castiel asked.
"I burned his body over the land where his parents lived. Where he burned and buried them."
"Why?" Dean asked. "Gabriel was supposed to be helping him. Why wasn't he - "
"Angels cannot honor the dead," Jared said. "At least not when the dead happens to be a part-demon hybrid. All the angels fled to heaven during that battle. How long would it be before they came down and gave him the burial he deserved?"
"You speak as if you knew Jesse," Castiel said.
"He was part human and part demon. I was part angel and part human. That kind of symmetry is magnetic."
"So you did know him?" Dean asked.
"During the Apocalypse, when he was in hiding. I was too. We helped one another. We kept in psychic contact once he returned home." Jared swallowed hard. "I would like to be returned to my house now."
Castiel turned his head sideways, as if asking Dean if it were a reasonable request.
"You feel like you can go back?" Dean asked. "Even though we dropped in on you?"
Jared nodded.
"We should ask him more questions," Castiel objected. "He is nephilim, he knows more than he is saying."
"Jesse is dead and burned," Dean said baldly. "What else is there?"
With the sound of wings, Castiel took them back to Jared's house. And again the sound rang out as Castiel took them back to the bunker.
"So, what the hell was that?" Dean demanded.
Sam knew something was wrong as soon as Dodge entered the room. She had that kind of calm that took self-convincing and that was never a good sign.
"What's up?" he asked by way of greeting.
"I could say the same," Dodge replied. "See, I just had to explain to my partner why I'm dating - but not really - a lab technician named Mathis Quinn. You'll have to drop that identity and lose the burner you've been using for it, because obviously she'll be running a background check now, if she hasn't already."
"Uh, what?" Sam asked. "I mean, why would you say anything about Mathis? He's - "
"Not suppose to be connect to me?" Dodge prompted. "Because he doesn't exist?"
"Yeah, no one can connect Mathis to you - " Sam began.
"Except for Doctor Maureen Rawlings," Dodge said. "Who brought up your brilliant theory when me and Acevedo were going over forensics with her."
"Oh."
"Oh? That's all you've got? 'Oh'?"
"But I didn't," Sam said. "I didn't say anything about you."
"Apparently you mentioned me at some point, because Rawlings guessed our relationship from the conversation!"
The younger Winchester hadn't had that big of a slip up in a long time, and certainly none that put Dodge in the line of fire. "I'm sorry, I didn't ... I slipped up, Dodge."
"Well, that's a conversation for another day, because we've gotta talk about this case." she said. "Ditch the phone, and drop Mathis Quinn."
"Done."
"How much did Rawlings tell you?"
Sam shrugged, feeling put-off by the sudden change in topic. "I brought up the fact that there were injuries on the bodies that indicated they were all experienced fighters. Callouses on the knuckles. Boxer's fractures in the x-rays. One of the assailants had scars, probably from a surgery on a rotator cuff or something like that. That can happen if you're heavy into the martial arts."
"Rawlings mentioned that. All the victims had common training injuries, and most of the damage to the skeleton happened within the last four months of their lives. She and Acevedo believe we're looking for some kind of fight club gone wrong."
"Fight club?" Sam asked.
Dodge spread out a number of x-rays with yellow markings down the side.
"This is from the second victim, Ellis Zimmer."
"Fracture down the tibia," Sam commented.
"Acevedo and Rawlings couldn't find any medical records for Zimmer, or anyone matching his description, being treated for this fracture. Bone remodeling shows that he had it nine months before he died," Dodge said.
"So they're thinking a fight club with some kind of black market medical ring for treating suspicious injuries?" Sam asked.
"They see this and think that some guy managed to walk around on this without dying. They assume that means he had it set badly, which is why it didn't heal properly."
"What do you see?" Sam asked.
"Each victim had injuries like this. Not just badly set in some back-alley shady medical facility, but completely neglected. As if they couldn't feel it," Dodge said. "Like they were possessed."
He considered this for a moment. "We didn't find any EMF, ecto, or sulfur. Usually that rules out possession."
She nodded. "Right now, the FBI is working the possibility that all these guys were in some kind of extreme fighting. Most of the victims have no violent history or priors, so Acevedo is checking into kidnapping as a possibility. No signs of prolonged restraints and nothing on the tox screens, so if coercion was used, it would've been blackmail of some kind."
Dodge's cell phone began to ring. She checked the name and hit ignore.
Sam had caught on to the wariness in her voice. "Okay, while they're working the fight club angle, I can start on the possession thing."
Dodge pressed on. "There's one more thing. They all died of internal decapitation. In fact, the same detachment, from near-identical strikes to the exact place on the body. Back of the neck. At least, as far as Rawlings can tell."
"So they were all killed in the same way? Definitely sounds like a ghost," Sam said.
"The other angle the FBI is working is a serial killer or even an assassin covering their tracks, making this look like a gang kill," Dodge said. "That was my idea."
Her phone rang again.
"Damn it," she muttered. "It's Acevedo again, I've gotta take this. Don't think we're done with this Mathis Quinn mess."
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Dream Machine
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Cardiac Arrest
Primary Post: 10x00 Dreaming from the Waist
Primary Post: Season 10 Fan Fiction
Title: Dreaming from the Waist
Subtitle: Thumbed Pages
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,537
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language, sexual scenarios
Sam spent an entire day watching the security footage Dodge had given him. After Agent Acevedo, Dodge's partner, arrived, Dodge went out to do fieldwork and left Sam to his own devices. So he got a new motel room and acquired a dozen monitors and screens to watch as much of the security footage as possible all at once.
And he had nothing.
No weird feedback. No reflective shifter eyes. Nothing. Nothing but people moving around on the screen. A few frames captured people running, but Sam couldn't see anything that identified the individuals.
Sam replayed one of the videos. It showed the backs of two women running hard towards the scene of the crime. He couldn't see either of their wrists, which would be branded if they were Amazons. But Amazons had incredible speed. By all accounts, they shouldn't be on camera.
So maybe this wasn't Amazons after all. Or maybe they're playing a new game. Either way, Sam Winchester was stuck in a motel room while his girlfriend was out in the field, putting her life on the line.
He reverted to a frame that caught his eye. Both women were wearing sleeveless shirts, and one of them had a distinctive mark on her left shoulder. It was difficult to make out, since the video footage wasn't high quality, but it looked to be a series of scars. The marks seemed so deliberate, almost like a tattoo, but they didn't form a shape exactly.
"Surgical scars," Sam said out loud before he could stop himself.
First the fighting injuries on the body in the morgue, now one of the assailants had scars from some kind of surgery. It could be nothing, Sam thought to himself. But his instincts were telling him it wasn't nothing.
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
"Hello?" a woman answered.
"Hello, is this Dr. Maureen Rawlings?" Sam asked.
"Yes, who is this?"
"I'm a forensic lab tech. Mathis Quinn," he replied. "I was wondering if we could talk."
"Are you on one of my cases?"
"Actually, yes, and I had a theory I wanted to run by you," he said.
Lander, Wyoming. Castiel and Dean teleported inside of what seemed to be some kind of broom closet.
"Seriously?" Dean asked. "This is why we don't zap around."
"Hush," Cas replied. "Follow me."
No one looked twice as the two men exited the Janitor's Closet. Dean followed the angel as he led him down the hall and outside.
"Why did we just - " Dean began.
"Because if I teleport into an open space, I can be detected," Cas replied.
"Since when?"
Cas spun on his heels and faced Dean, crowding his space. "Since someone or something cast a spell over most of this town."
"Witches?" Dean asked.
"Unlikely. This spell alerts... someone to any kind of teleportation or angelic powers used out in the open."
"How is that not witches?"
Castiel started walking again. "This isn't warding to prevent my powers. It merely sets an alarm."
"So an early warning system for someone," Dean replied. "Why are we here?"
"Because no one would set an early warning system, as you call it, for no reason," the angel replied.
"All that means is someone here is not fond of angels," Dean said. "That's not - "
"This is it," Castiel interrupted.
Dean realized they were stopped outside of a residence. "This is what?"
"Whoever cast the spell is in that house. You should go in and see if you can determine who it is. Then we can abduct the individual and question them."
"What?"
"I believe I was both concise and clear, as you requested repeatedly at the Men of Letters bunker."
"Why am I going in to question a witch about a spell?" Dean asked. "Why aren't you coming with me?"
"Because whoever did this is trying to avoid seraphs. It is likely that a spellcaster this capable will know what I am when they see me."
"I get it, you're mad," Dean said. "But - "
"This is what you call a lead, Dean," Cas interrupted. "You insisted upon finding out more. This is a start."
Dean took a long, hard look at Castiel. It was true; he had been a bit hard on the angel over the past day or so. He had pressed him for information and leads, and this could be a legitimate lead. But he didn't like how little Cas was saying. It made him feel like they were chasing their tails.
"Okay, fine. When I find the witch who did this, what then?"
"You incapacitate whoever it is and call to me to transport us elsewhere," Cas said simply.
"Awesome."
Special Agent Marie Acevedo had been partnered with Dakota 'Dodge' Gage years ago. Somewhere down the line, they became close personal friends. That was how Acevedo knew something was wrong.
They interviewed the witness together. They went over the ME reports for all the victims. They ate lunch and talked about how good it was to be back on duty together.
It was all very proper and official, which was how Dodge was when they were first partnered.
"You okay?" Acevedo asked casually as they got out of the car.
"Me? I'm fine," Dodge replied. "You got the office number for this Anthropologist person?"
"Forensic Anthropologist," she replied. "Rawlings. She's supposed to be excellent. So play nice."
"Kill joy," Dodge joked.
They made their way to the temporary office of one Dr. Maureen Rawlings. She had spread out extensive x-rays of each victim anatomically. It seemed like the room contained five luminescent skeletons.
"Are you the two FBI Agents?" a woman asked. She had dark skin and eyes and a professional, almost cold, demeanor.
"Yes," Marie said simply. "I'm Marie Acevedo. This is my partner Dodge Gage."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Dr. Rawlings, or Maureen," she said quickly.
"You seem to be ready for us," Dodge commented, indicating the x-rays.
"Well, after your smart cookie and I had a conversation, I thought it would be a good thing to show you both what he put me on to," Rawlings replied.
"Sorry, what smart cookie?" Acevedo asked.
Rawlings looked confused, but she regained her composure. "My apologies. I meant Mathis Quinn, the lab technician." She cast a significant glance to Dodge. "From how he spoke about you, I guess I just assumed you two were together."
Acevedo sized Dodge's reaction. It was equal parts annoyance and guilt. Clearly, she had meant to keep her relationship with the 'smart cookie' a secret. Maybe that was why she was so closed off.
"Mathis can be overly familiar," Dodge said in an even tone. "But he does have good ideas. Care to enlighten us?"
Lander, Wyoming. Dean wheedled his way into the house by introducing himself as Agent James, an off duty FBI Agent doing some informal investigation in the Landers area.
Jared Beardsley, the young man who owned the house, let Dean in after checking his badge. By in large, everything was going well. Dean scoped the house and identified a number of witchcraft-related things without arousing suspicion. Jared seemed oddly normal.
"Does anyone else live here?" Dean asked.
"Huh?"
"Ah, not related to my investigation. It's just, this is a big house. I was wondering if you shared it with anyone."
Jared looked at Dean for a few moments before he replied. "Why don't you just tell me what you're after?"
"You seem a little tense there Jared," Dean said.
"You're a hunter," Jared said bluntly. "And I've nothing to hide, in as much as I've done nothing wrong."
"So why do you look so worried?" Dean asked, trying not to be thrown by the word 'hunter' being interjected into the conversation.
"Because some hunters kill for sport," Jared replied.
"If you don't kill people, then you don't have anything to worry about," Dean said.
In the blink of an eye, Dean and Jared were elsewhere, inside an abandoned home. Castiel had a firm grasp on both their arms.
"Dean Winchester, this is one of the nephilim," Castiel said by way of introduction. "What is your name?" the angel demanded.
"Jared Bearsley."
"Your real name!"
"You mean what others called me?" Jared asked, not hiding his anger. "Caenum. That's what they called me. But it is not my name."
"Okay, sensing some tension," Dean said. "I'm guessing angels and nephilim are, what, not on good terms?"
Jared turned his head to Dean, almost pleading. "Nephilim are the offspring of angels and humans. Accepted by neither. That's why the angels called me a fancy version of the word mud. They mean mutt, mutant, dirt."
"Bad blood. Got it," Dean said, coming between Cas and Jared. "Cas, did you know about this guy?"
"Not before we arrived," the angel replied tersely.
"What's up with you?" Dean asked.
"Nephilim are not allowed," Cas said simply.
"Right, like you and me should be talking about what's allowed," Dean muttered. He turned back to Jared. "Look, I thought we were looking for some bad ass witch or something. We're just looking for intel on Jesse Turner."
"Turner, the cambion?" Jared asked. "I felt it."
"Felt it? Is that some kind of weird lingo?" Dean asked.
"The battle within. He fought. I felt it when he died."
"He's dead. You're sure?"
Jared nodded. "I recovered his body from the ruins."
"What did you do with his remains?" Castiel asked.
"I burned his body over the land where his parents lived. Where he burned and buried them."
"Why?" Dean asked. "Gabriel was supposed to be helping him. Why wasn't he - "
"Angels cannot honor the dead," Jared said. "At least not when the dead happens to be a part-demon hybrid. All the angels fled to heaven during that battle. How long would it be before they came down and gave him the burial he deserved?"
"You speak as if you knew Jesse," Castiel said.
"He was part human and part demon. I was part angel and part human. That kind of symmetry is magnetic."
"So you did know him?" Dean asked.
"During the Apocalypse, when he was in hiding. I was too. We helped one another. We kept in psychic contact once he returned home." Jared swallowed hard. "I would like to be returned to my house now."
Castiel turned his head sideways, as if asking Dean if it were a reasonable request.
"You feel like you can go back?" Dean asked. "Even though we dropped in on you?"
Jared nodded.
"We should ask him more questions," Castiel objected. "He is nephilim, he knows more than he is saying."
"Jesse is dead and burned," Dean said baldly. "What else is there?"
With the sound of wings, Castiel took them back to Jared's house. And again the sound rang out as Castiel took them back to the bunker.
"So, what the hell was that?" Dean demanded.
Sam knew something was wrong as soon as Dodge entered the room. She had that kind of calm that took self-convincing and that was never a good sign.
"What's up?" he asked by way of greeting.
"I could say the same," Dodge replied. "See, I just had to explain to my partner why I'm dating - but not really - a lab technician named Mathis Quinn. You'll have to drop that identity and lose the burner you've been using for it, because obviously she'll be running a background check now, if she hasn't already."
"Uh, what?" Sam asked. "I mean, why would you say anything about Mathis? He's - "
"Not suppose to be connect to me?" Dodge prompted. "Because he doesn't exist?"
"Yeah, no one can connect Mathis to you - " Sam began.
"Except for Doctor Maureen Rawlings," Dodge said. "Who brought up your brilliant theory when me and Acevedo were going over forensics with her."
"Oh."
"Oh? That's all you've got? 'Oh'?"
"But I didn't," Sam said. "I didn't say anything about you."
"Apparently you mentioned me at some point, because Rawlings guessed our relationship from the conversation!"
The younger Winchester hadn't had that big of a slip up in a long time, and certainly none that put Dodge in the line of fire. "I'm sorry, I didn't ... I slipped up, Dodge."
"Well, that's a conversation for another day, because we've gotta talk about this case." she said. "Ditch the phone, and drop Mathis Quinn."
"Done."
"How much did Rawlings tell you?"
Sam shrugged, feeling put-off by the sudden change in topic. "I brought up the fact that there were injuries on the bodies that indicated they were all experienced fighters. Callouses on the knuckles. Boxer's fractures in the x-rays. One of the assailants had scars, probably from a surgery on a rotator cuff or something like that. That can happen if you're heavy into the martial arts."
"Rawlings mentioned that. All the victims had common training injuries, and most of the damage to the skeleton happened within the last four months of their lives. She and Acevedo believe we're looking for some kind of fight club gone wrong."
"Fight club?" Sam asked.
Dodge spread out a number of x-rays with yellow markings down the side.
"This is from the second victim, Ellis Zimmer."
"Fracture down the tibia," Sam commented.
"Acevedo and Rawlings couldn't find any medical records for Zimmer, or anyone matching his description, being treated for this fracture. Bone remodeling shows that he had it nine months before he died," Dodge said.
"So they're thinking a fight club with some kind of black market medical ring for treating suspicious injuries?" Sam asked.
"They see this and think that some guy managed to walk around on this without dying. They assume that means he had it set badly, which is why it didn't heal properly."
"What do you see?" Sam asked.
"Each victim had injuries like this. Not just badly set in some back-alley shady medical facility, but completely neglected. As if they couldn't feel it," Dodge said. "Like they were possessed."
He considered this for a moment. "We didn't find any EMF, ecto, or sulfur. Usually that rules out possession."
She nodded. "Right now, the FBI is working the possibility that all these guys were in some kind of extreme fighting. Most of the victims have no violent history or priors, so Acevedo is checking into kidnapping as a possibility. No signs of prolonged restraints and nothing on the tox screens, so if coercion was used, it would've been blackmail of some kind."
Dodge's cell phone began to ring. She checked the name and hit ignore.
Sam had caught on to the wariness in her voice. "Okay, while they're working the fight club angle, I can start on the possession thing."
Dodge pressed on. "There's one more thing. They all died of internal decapitation. In fact, the same detachment, from near-identical strikes to the exact place on the body. Back of the neck. At least, as far as Rawlings can tell."
"So they were all killed in the same way? Definitely sounds like a ghost," Sam said.
"The other angle the FBI is working is a serial killer or even an assassin covering their tracks, making this look like a gang kill," Dodge said. "That was my idea."
Her phone rang again.
"Damn it," she muttered. "It's Acevedo again, I've gotta take this. Don't think we're done with this Mathis Quinn mess."
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Dream Machine
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Cardiac Arrest
Primary Post: 10x00 Dreaming from the Waist
Primary Post: Season 10 Fan Fiction