Bandom fic: A Little Dream of Me

[fannyt]

Cross-posting like whoa.

Characters: Brendon/Ryan
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: General cop show warnings: dead bodies, mentions of violent death
Word count: 10 000
Summary: When Brendon Urie connects a series of apparently unrelated murders and is handed the investigation, he decides to call in a consultant on fey magic. And who better than Ryan Ross, who's already collaborated with the human world's police force? Personal preferences has nothing to do with it.
A/N: Written for saint_vee in bandomstuffsit 2010. Thanks to redorchids for betaing!


Brendon sat back in his chair. It was still early enough that the café was mostly empty, and the waiter brought his two coffees quickly. He let them sit on the table while he ran through the case again in his head, now and again glancing at the clock on the wall. He was just wondering if he ought to make a call-the official proceedings when crossing over from Faerie could sometimes drag out-when he saw Ryan through the window and put his phone back in his pocket.

Ryan entered the café, spotted him and made his way over. He had his collar turned up against the cold and was clutching his hands under his armpits.

“Fucking freezing,” he said, settling into the seat opposite Brendon. “It was sunny back home.”

“You're wearing cut-off gloves,” Brendon pointed out. For himself, he'd chosen heavy gloves, scarf and woolly hat today, and he had felt on his way to the café that this might not have been enough. Just looking at Ryan made him cold.

“Yeah, it's time to upgrade, I guess,” Ryan said. “But Faerie is a bit behind. We haven't even had first frost yet.”

“I ordered your coffee already,” Brendon said, pushing one of the coffee mugs towards him. “No cinnamon for you, right?”

“Right, thanks.” Ryan seized the mug with both hands, clutching it tightly with reddened fingers as he drank. “So you have a fey serial killer?” he asked, once he emerged again.

“Possibly.”

“Possibly fey?”

“Possibly serial killer.” Brendon smiled apologetically and shrugged. “It's a pretty weird case. We've decided to work under the assumption that all the cases in question share the same offender, but we really can't say anything for certain.”

Ryan frowned thoughtfully. “Three murders, right? What-”

“Four, now,” Brendon interrupted. “There was another one called in this morning. So you arrived at the perfect time,” he added glumly. “If it hadn't been for how every new body that turns up only confuses things more.”

“How did you get this case again?” Ryan said, smiling at him. “Did you piss someone off?”

Brendon rolled his eyes. “I was stupid enough to see a connection between the murders, that's all. I didn't exactly ask for it.”

“But you've dragged me into it as well.”

“I needed an expert on different forms of fey behaviour!” Brendon protested. “You're the best one I know.” He saw Ryan's expression and admitted, “All right, fine, the only one I know.”

Ryan shook his head but smiled again. “So,” he said, “that makes four victims in-what?”

“Little over two weeks.”

“And you didn't connect them until now?”

Brendon shrugged. “The victimology is all over the place. Two human, two fey-an elf and a dryad. One engineering student, one waiter, one fire fighter, one unemployed. The victims have been both male and female. Well, as far as that applies,” he added conscientiously. “The dryad had taken male form over here, but of course they're not really-”

“No,” Ryan agreed. “Any of them known before?”

“None of the victims have been in our system, if that's what you mean. But William is pretty cut up about the dryad.”

“Who-oh, right, that Fraud guy. He knew it?” Ryan asked. “Or him, whatever.”

“I think they'd met once or twice,” Brendon said. “The dryads in the city like to keep tabs on each other. But I think it's enough that he was a dryad. You know.”

“Sure.” Ryan regarded his coffee for a while. “Are you sure these cases are linked, then? Like you said, the victims sound wildly different.”

“There are some points that seem to overlap between all the cases. Massive overkill for all the victims-the dryad had been attacked with what looks like a hatchet, several blows, and his arms had been broken. All victims have been found in foetal position. And,” Brendon hesitated, “none of them have any defensive wounds.”

Ryan's eyebrows rose. “None at all?”

“No. I know, it's weird. Because I don't think they were unaware of the attack. There's no sign of the victims having been subdued in any way beforehand. So you're beginning to see why we thought this would be under your jurisdiction?”

“A huldra?” Ryan mused.

“The hatchet,” Brendon reminded. “Hulder don't use tools, right? Besides, I thought they only took men.”

“No, that's a myth. But you're right about the tools.” Ryan frowned, curling his hands tighter around his coffee cup. “So do you have a plan?”

“The fourth victim is only a couple of streets away,” Brendon said. “I thought after that we should look at the other victims, and then the other crime scenes.”

“Sounds good.” Ryan drank the last of the coffee and then stood, buttoning his collar up all the way. He looked back at Brendon and smiled. “You know, it's pretty good to be back here, after all.”

“Yeah?” Brendon said, trying to keep his answering smile from turning too obviously and embarrassingly pleased. “Why?”

Ryan looked out of the window, then at the café's counter, and finally back at Brendon. He grinned.

“Coffee's shit in Faerie, for starters.”

“Victim's name is Carl Summers, aged thirty-four, according to his driver's license. We haven't had formal identification yet, of course, but I think we can work from that supposition for now.” Pope rattled off the facts of the crime scene while packing up one of her cameras, looking completely worn out. The call had come at six thirty. “And I have no idea about cause of death.”

“Puncture wound to the back of the neck, most likely,” said Brendon, who'd stopped for a chat with Dr Way. “Overkill, as with the other victims. Puncture wounds and shallow gashes. You're all done with the area?”

“Go ahead,” Pope said. “We've got all we need.”

Ryan was already kneeling by the body, his hands hovering over the victim's back without touching it. “I would say birds,” he said, “but-”

Pope sighed. “Yeah, I know. I thought so, too-but you never want to be the first person to call Hitchcock, you know?”

Ryan lifted a corner of the victim's shredded jacket carefully. Pope hissed in a breath.

“Gloves-” she began, but Ryan waved away the objection.

“Charmed,” he said, waggling his fingers at her. “Won't contaminate anything, promise. Was the jacket like this when you found him?”

“Yeah.”

“Jacket pulled over the head,” Brendon said. “I'd say remorse, but the problem is that that's a human reaction. All our profiles are built on humans.”

“Really?” Ryan raised an eyebrow at him. “Still?”

“I know.” Brendon rolled his eyes. “I mean, the official recognition of Faerie was in forty-um-seven?”

“Eight, I think.”

“Right. But psychological profiles and perpetrator patterns are still based exclusively on humans. We know a bit about some of the more usual forms of fey attack, of course, but very little about the psychology. You see why we need to work more with you.” He bit off the sentence and blushed slightly, then looked away and busied himself with checking the shoes of the victim.

“Anyway,” Ryan went on, apparently oblivious, “I think he might have done it himself. The jacket. See? If he pulled it up like this,” he demonstrated by pulling his own jacket up over his head, “and then held it in place with his arms like this. Like he was trying to protect himself or something-only he couldn't have done a worse job of it if he tried. But maybe he was so frightened he didn't really know what he was doing.”

Brendon nodded slowly. “It's possible,” he said. “He'd been running, I can tell that much.”

“Isolated place,” Ryan said, standing up again and looking around. “Not much traffic, but close enough to the city centre that someone on the way home from a bar or restaurant might cut through here. And there are plenty of places to lie in wait. A killer's perfect spot.”

“An opportunistic killer would account for the disparity in victims,” Brendon said thoughtfully, then shrugged. “But not in method. And it doesn't get us any closer to establishing any kind of motive. Speaking of which, we should check out the other victims.”

Ryan nodded. “Sure. Thanks, Pope.”

Pope shrugged. “Good luck with this one,” she said unenthusiastically.

“She's like seventeen or something and already jaded,” Brendon muttered to Ryan as they left the crime scene. “You should take the hint and get out while you can.”

Ryan laughed, then tried to hide it by coughing.

The streets had filled up by the time they got to the morgue-another day in full swing already. Brendon led the way down drab corridors and pushed open the door to the morgue with a flourish.

“Meet Dr Way,” he said. “Gerard, this is Ryan Ross. He's helping out with the weird murder case.”

The pathologist was only visible as a bent back over something on a slab, but he raised a hand and waved it vaguely at them. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Be with you in a minute.”

Ryan frowned, looking at Brendon and then back at Dr Way. “Didn't we already meet?” he asked. “Wait. How did you get here so quickly?”

“Huh?” Dr Way straightened up, revealing a head of violently red hair and a face quite different from the one they had seen frowning over Carl Summers' body earlier. “Oh, right, you must mean my brother Mikey. He was called out this morning.”

“You're both employed in the same morgue?” Ryan asked, grinning.

“One less name for us to learn,” Brendon said. “Very practical. Could you roll out the bodies for us, Gerard?”

“Sure, sure.” Dr Way nodded and left whatever he had been doing before (Ryan tried not to look too closely). “Let's have a look.”

He quickly rolled out three stretchers, naming the victims in turn.

“Victim number one is a human, May O'Connor. Victim number two, a dryad-Jack. And number three is Tuva Hollyhock, an elf. As you can see,” he stopped and swept an arm to encompass all three bodies, “the wounds concentrate mainly on the back and shoulders, but also on the back of the arms and legs.”

“Any sexual assault?” Brendon asked. Dr Way shook his head.

“No ligature marks, no signs of any kind of restraint, and no drugs in their system,” he said. “But no defensive wounds, as you noted. I've never seen anything like this.”

“OK for us to take a closer look?”

“Yes, of course. I'll just be over here.”

There wasn't much to see beyond what Dr Way had told them, but they took their time anyway, going over the bodies carefully.

“This looks like claws, big ones,” Ryan said, running his fingers carefully along one of the gashes in May O'Connor's back. “It's not possible that-”

“I had Jon check in with the cats and they said no,” Brendon replied to the unfinished question. “They'd know if there was a big predator loose in the city-they keep track of things like that. I think we can rule out that possibility. Besides, we're still looking at one knifing, one hatchet job and one Hitchcock impersonation.”

“I can't think of what kind of thing would change its methods this much,” Ryan said, turning from the human to frown at a deep cut on Tuva Hollyhock's thigh. “There are still many wild fey, but they all have their specific signature. This is all over the place.”

“Literally,” Brendon agreed. “We've been unable to pin down any kind of geographical profile.”

“Basically, we're working with someone or something that moves all over this town, killing people in extremely disparate ways and with no clear victim pool,” Ryan said dryly. He straightened up and rolled his shoulders. “Thanks, Brendon. This was really the case I needed right before Yule.”

“I thought it could be an early present,” Brendon said lightly. “OK, Gerard, I think we're done.”

“You're always welcome back any time,” Dr Way said, looking up from his own work. “No, just leave them, I'll handle it. You have the autopsy reports?”

“Yes, we're good.”

“Just give a call if something is unclear.”

“Thanks.” Brendon waved at Gerard, then held up the door for Ryan. “How are you settling into police work, anyway?” he asked.

Ryan shrugged. “It's OK. It's good to have something to do. Since Spencer is still off playing with dragons...”

“Yeah, I know.” Brendon made a face. “Jon's being all complicated about it. Have you had any good cases?”

Ryan made an “eh”-noise. “Nothing very interesting. A changeling case and two major robberies, that's about it. Central Grove hasn't ever had consultants in the police force before-I mean, even their police force is still under construction. This is my first murder case. And my first case in this world. Well, you know. Apart from the dragons.”

“Isn't it weird?” Brendon asked, before he could stop himself. “Not being with Spencer, I mean.”

Ryan looked thoughtful. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I've had his back for most of his life. It's strange knowing he's off without any kind of protection. Dragon talkers always tend to attract trouble. But he's a central part to the negotiations, so I'm sure the dragons want to keep him safe. He's neutral in the conflict-for either side to do something to him, or even let something happen to him, would basically be to declare war. And I know they don't want that.” He rolled his eyes. “Besides, it's not as if I had a choice. The dragons only allowed dragon talkers to join the negotiations, and they tend not to make exceptions.”

“It must be an honour, though, right?” Brendon said uncertainly. He had never been entirely clear on all the details in the dragon case. Jon and Cassie had headed that one, and even if all the detectives-Brendon included-had lent a hand, he hadn't been privy to all the decisions. “Being chosen to mediate.”

“Well, yeah,” Ryan said. “I guess. Only in Spencer's case, it was more like no one else wanted to do it. Practically all dragon talkers had gone into hiding. It hurts them when dragons fight. Their words have power, and to stand between two fighting clans is hard. Not because they'll consciously hurt Spencer, but just because they're disagreeing at all.” He grinned briefly. “But Spencer texts regularly, so I know he hasn't gone mad yet.”

Brendon nodded. Jon had said something like that, too-about a voice in his head that wouldn't stay silent. Most creature talkers learned how to shut out the voices of their specific animal at will, but dragons were powerful; too powerful to handle, for many.

“So he knows you're here now?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” Ryan replied. “He told me to say hi and-good luck with the case.” There was something slightly awkward about Ryan when he finished off the sentence, but Brendon chose not to push it.

“OK,” he said. “Back to the office, then.”

“So I'm thinking we'll get settled in the murder room,” Brendon said, “have a quick lunch and then do a tour of the other crime scenes. There's a lot of groundwork to get done now in the beginning,” he said apologetically, “before we can start working properly. We have the families tomorrow, too.”

“No, I know,” Ryan said. “It's best to start out with as much information as possible. This way?”

Brendon had just pointed out the door to the detectives' office when it swung open to give way for Vicky T carrying a heap of folders and looking harassed.

“Hey, Vicky T,” Brendon said, grinning cautiously. She turned a glare on him, which softened into a smile when she recognised him.

“Brendon! Hi,” she said, coming over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry for the temper, I've had a hellish fucking day. Do you know one of the dealers down at Frank Lloyd Close has started pushing fairy dust? Leighton's been with Central Grove all day, but you know what the connection's like and really, I don't know if it'll do any good. But we have to try and find the original supplier over in Faerie quickly before the floodgates really open-oh, hi-Ross?”

“Just Ryan is fine,” Ryan said, giving her an awkward grin. “Now that I seem to be working here and everything...” He smiled at Brendon, then turned back to Vicky T. “Who's Leighton?”

“Leighton Meester,” Vicky T said, shifting the folders and extending a hand for Ryan to shake. “She and I-I'm Victoria Asher, by the way-head the vice squad together.”

Realisation dawned in Ryan's expression. “Meester and Asher,” he said. “Of course-I collaborated with you on a changeling case a month back, right?”

“Oh, that was you?” Vicky T grinned. “Nice work, man.”

“And you,” Ryan said modestly. “You know, I can probably set you up with a more reliable line to Central Grove if you want.”

“Really? That would be fucking awesome, actually.” She turned to Brendon and raised her eyebrows. “Brendon, hang on to this one.”

Brendon opened his mouth, thought better of it and shut it again.

Vicky T glanced at her watch. “I've got to run, but when you've got a moment, Leighton is the blonde swearing at a telephone at desk five in the vice office. Thanks, you're great. See you!”

The detectives' office was huge, noisy and full of people. Jon and Cassie looked up from their desks and waved, but both seemed too occupied to come over and say hello properly.

“This place is busy,” Ryan said, looking around at all the filled desks. “I'm amazed you get any work done here.”

“Eh, so am I sometimes,” Brendon said. “Which is why I'm glad this case is so high profile, they're giving us a separate room to work in. Come on, in here.”

It was more of a glorified cupboard than an actual room, but both Ryan and Brendon drew deep breaths of relief when they stepped into it. The noise from the detectives' office was considerably lessened, and there was even a small window. There was a computer for each of them and the evidence boxes from each murder were stacked against one wall.

“Tech department is down there at the end of the corridor,” Brendon said, pointing out the direction. “The guy in charge is Ryland-he can find just about anything or anyone, which is actually kind of scary, but I'm pretty sure he's more or less a good person. On the left hand side in the same direction is the vice office, if you're serious about helping out with the line to Faerie. You might get hugged to death. Just a fair warning.”

Ryan laughed. “I'll just go ahead and fix that for them immediately,” he said. “Back in fifteen.”

“You'd better. Otherwise you'll have to buy your own lunch.”

“Dire threats. I certainly wouldn't want to navigate your cafeteria alone, that's for sure.”

They grinned at each other, until Ryan cleared his throat and made a vague gesture towards the door.

“So, I should-”

“Oh, yeah, right. Right.”

Brendon waited until Ryan had left before he slapped himself over the head, but he couldn't help grinning, still.

“Any thoughts so far?” Brendon asked. They were having dinner at one of Brendon's favourite Chinese restaurants, having spent the afternoon going from crime scene to crime scene and trying but failing to establish a pattern.

Ryan snorted. “Oh yeah, I've solved the case,” he said. “No, sorry, I'm as much in the dark as you are. I'm thinking possibly one of the fey who feed on anger or vengeance, but most of them tend not to use tools-or they only use tools. Something that uses both claws and a knife-I have no idea.”

“There's no-I don't know, like a magic signature or something?”

Ryan shook his head. “I can tell that the last victim had been around fey lately,” he said. “One elf, one kitsune and a vodník. If your-what is it you call your uniformed police force again?”

“The Alexes,” Brendon said. “They're all called Alex.”

“Oh yeah. I knew it was something weird like that.”

Brendon shrugged uncomfortably. He'd never really thought about it until recently, when reports of magic leaking from Faerie into the human world and vice versa had become general knowledge and lots of everyday occurences and phenomena had suddenly come under scrutiny as possible results of uncontrolled magic.

“OK,” Ryan continued, “so let's say the Alexes could gather a list of suspects seen in the neighbourhood during the murder. In that case I might be able to tell you if any of them matched the signature found on or around the victim, but that's really the best I could do. It's a lot less certain than fingerprints or DNA samples and has to be done quickly. The magic-let's call it a magical fingerprint-on the victim's body will fade eventually. You can't put it in an evidence bag.”

“But that's what you do, otherwise? Compare magical fingerprints? Back home in Faerie, I mean.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I mainly do research at the moment. They're not really sure what to do with me. But that's what I'm supposed to be doing, yeah. And that's what I did on the changeling case Asher and I talked about. The changed child-a troll-was sent back to Faerie, and with the help of the fingerprint on her I could pick out the parents. That was a good one.” He smiled.

Brendon glanced at his right hand. Ryan was twirling little points of lights between his fingers in a distracted sort of way, tiny stars orbiting his hands.

“Sounds like you ought to have a lot to do,” he said and sighed inwardly as Ryan flicked his fingers, vanishing the floating lights.

“Like I said, they don't really know how to use me yet. And in some ways I'm a bit redundant. I'm supposed to be consulting on fey habits and forms of attack as well, but the force is full of fey who-well, I mean, for natural reasons they know even more than me.”

“We need you, though,” Brendon said. “There are lots of fey among us, but there are times we could use an expert. You don't think they'd be willing to lend you out more often?” He grinned, making it a joke, but Ryan only looked thoughtful.

“I wouldn't exactly mind,” he said, then cleared his throat and looked away. “So, what are the fortune cookies like in this place?”

Brendon laughed. “The elf in charge of them here is a flower nut. The cookies only ever predict changes in the parks and public flowerbeds.”

“So it's unlikely we'll find one that says X did it, then.”

“Well, you never know. We might be lucky.”

Brendon's cookie said Black-eyed Susan will replace the marigold on Third Way and Ryan's Centennial Park's west end will receive new roses, which, unless they were extremely cryptic, didn't seem to hint at the identity of the culprit. Brendon dutifully wrote them down in his note book anyway-mostly because it made Ryan laugh.

Talking to friends and family was never easy, Brendon thought, gingerly sipping the coffee Jack's room mate Rona had made him. And since Ryan was currently trying to make himself invisible in Rona's sofa, that just meant Brendon had to talk for both of them.

He sympathised, though. He remembered his first murder case, when he'd kept a tenuous hold on himself during the interview and then broken down completely in the car on the way back to the office.

“He only crossed over this April,” Rona said. She was picking berries out of her hair with a restless and distracted air, rolling them between her fingers and then dropping them onto the carpet. “He was just staying here to get his bearings and make some money. I mean, he liked it here, but it wasn't really his kind of town. Too cold.”

Brendon looked at the picture she had handed him to use in his enquiries, unaware or forgetful of the fact that she had already done so with one of the uniforms who first interviewed her. It was a photo taken that June at a picnic and showed Jack in full bloom, lilac flowers dancing around his laughing face.

“How did you meet?” he asked.

“You know-it was just one of those things. I needed a room mate, and Magnolia from Redfern said she knew a dryad who had just crossed over and wanted some place to stay. She said he was cool, so I met him and we agreed to try sharing for a month. It worked out really well; I liked him. We became good friends.”

“When did you suspect something had happened to him?”

Rona crushed one of the berries between her fingers, but seemed not to notice. “I wish I'd stayed up,” she said, “but I had early class the day after and he often stayed late at the restaurant when it was a busy night. I only knew the next morning when I saw that his jacket was still missing. I knew he couldn't have gone out-after a night shift he always slept late.”

“Did he ever seem nervous or upset about something? Or do you know if there was someone-either here or back home-he was scared of? Did he ever seem worried?”

Rona shook her head slowly. “He was a good guy,” she said. “He got on with people. And he wasn't ever worried or anything. I mean,” she added, “he had nightmares. But that's normal. All dryads have them-I guess all fey who chose to take human form. There's a lot to get used to.”

She plucked another berry from her head, then looked at it as if she had suddenly realised what she was doing. She looked down at the orange and red mess on the carpet and turned away abruptly, covering her mouth with her hand.

“He always gave me grief for how messy I am,” she said indistinctly.

They excused themselves quickly after that.

“I don't think I'll ever get used to this part,” Brendon said as they walked from Rona's apartment back to their car. “Talking to the ones left behind.”

“It doesn't get any easier, then,” Ryan said.

“Sorry, no.”

“Do we have many left?”

Brendon unlocked the car, then shook his head. “It's only Tuva Hollyhock's girlfriend, now.”

“Tuva being the engineering student.”

“Right.”

“Her parents-”

“Back in Faerie.”

“Right.”

The car ride was silent, each of them being busy with their own thoughts. It hadn't been an easy day, going from family to friends to work places trying to piece together a picture of the victims, and Brendon wasn't even sure they had received any new leads. Still, it had to be done. They couldn't head the case with only second-hand information.

Tuva and her girlfriend Carolyn Mangold shared a one-bedroom flat a few blocks away from the university grounds.

“She was in mechanical engineering,” Carolyn said, fussing with a few magazines on the coffee table. “I study biotechnology.”

“What was she doing on the day she died?” Brendon asked.

“She was studying. Had a test that Friday.”

Brendon consulted his notebook. “According to your initial interview you called the police at ten. Did you have any reason to be worried?”

Carolyn nodded, biting her lip. “Tuva texted me when she was leaving for home, so I would know. So that I could call the police if she took too long. Only-only it didn't help her, anyway.”

“I'm sorry,” Brendon said feebly. “Did she have some reason to be worried, then?”

Carolyn shook her head. “She always did that. Texted me. It made her feel safer. She didn't really like walking home by herself at night.”

Brendon saw Ryan make a note, and made a mental one for himself, as well. It was weird-elf magic should have been enough to protect Tuva from most dangers lurking in human streets, and the fey that crossed over were mostly inclined to have each other's back. Even species of fey that were locked in age-old feud back in Faerie treated each other with respect over here. It was hard to see what could have Tuva so worried every night.

Some of his confusion must have shown on his face, because Carolyn elaborated, “She wasn't scared of being robbed or anything. But she was afraid of the dark. It might seem stupid or whatever, but that was just a thing she had. It made her feel better, though, knowing I knew she was on her way. She felt safe.”

“It's weird, right?” Brendon said, after they had said their goodbyes to Carolyn and started on the trip back to the office. Ryan nodded.

“Weird,” he agreed, “but don't know if it's connected. Sometimes people are just scared of the dark.”

“But an elf?”

“Elves, too. I mean, if there was something specific, like a certain person she was afraid of or something, I think Carolyn would have told us.”

“I know.” Brendon sighed. “I would just like some kind of lead, somewhere to start looking.”

Ryan flashed him a smile. “Don't say you were expecting this to be easy.”

The next couple of days were filled with tedious grunt work. They went over every instance of the victims' lives with a fine-toothed comb, searching for any kind of connection between them. Ryland was kept busy, too, running searches on credit card information and security cameras to try and piece together a picture of the victims' last days. It was slow work, but on the Friday after Ryan first arrived, Brendon entered the murder room after a visit to the tech department with a triumphant grin on his face.

“We've got a lead,” he said, waving his notebook at Ryan. “Ryland connected two of the victims-May O'Connor and Carl Summers. They share a therapist.”

“Therapist?” Ryan looked interested. “You think we might be dealing with an angel of mercy?”

Brendon waggled a hand dismissively. “Possible. We'd need to connect him to the other two, but it's a start. I've got us a meeting at one.”

“Finally,” Ryan said, shoving a pile of paperwork away from him. “It's nice to be able to get somewhere at last. At the very least, we should be able to see if there was something that worried both of them.”

“It's good to finally catch a break,” Brendon agreed. “Of course, it depends on the therapist if we can get their records, but I'm sure he'll want to help the investigation.”

“Absolutely not,” Dr Heijbel said.

“Do you understand that this is a murder inquiry, Dr Heijbel?” Brendon asked, adopting the tone of voice he knew usually startled people. They seldom expected sternness from him, with his boyishly open face and silly grin.

Dr Heijbel, however, was proving difficult to convince-stern voice or no.

“Client confidentiality extends past the grave,” he said primly. “If you can present me with sufficient evidence that the answer to my patients' respective murders lie in their sessions with me I will, of course, grant you access to their files, but I cannot allow you this invasion of privacy on the basis of a hunch.”

“This is not a hunch, doctor,” Brendon said. He wanted to punch the man's smug face. “A murder enquiry is about connecting the dots, seeing patterns and finding connections. Since you are one of those very few connections between these victims, we find the therapy sessions they had with you extremely important.”

“I understand what you are saying,” Dr Heijbel said, maddeningly patient. “But unless you come back with a warrant, you're not getting those records.”

“So basically, we're back to square one,” Brendon said. It had been a glum couple of days, after the excitement of finally having some kind of lead and then the disappointment of running flat into a wall of uncooperative legal quibbling. They had taken Sunday off and were now back in the murder room going through the same old clues, feeling like nothing had changed. Brendon in particular had just resigned himself to working through yet another Yule and was feeling extremely dejected. The darkness outside the windows-even though it was only afternoon-wasn't helping. “I mean, I have people working on a warrant, but even if we against all odds should get one it won't be until long after Yule at this pace. So we're back to no leads at all.”

“I don't know,” Ryan said distractedly. He had been very focused for the last half hour or so, working in complete silence and cross-checking facts in several different piles of paperwork. “I-huh, I think I may have something. Possibly.”

“What?” Brendon asked, straightening up.

“Have you thought about the cross-over connection?” Ryan said carefully, as if the lead might fly away if he spoke too quickly.

“Cross-over?”

Ryan pointed to the photo of the first victim. “May O'Connor worked as a fire fighter. Several of her work mates were jinn, like her best friend Kalid.” He pointed to the next two photos. “Jack had crossed over and taken human form, something that some of the reactionary nutheads in the dryad community see as treason to the species. Like him, Tuva Hollyhock had crossed over, and she was even in a relationship with a human. And I've been looking into Carl Summers. Before he lost his job at The Lantern during the general newspaper crisis, he was very vocal about fey rights in the human world and vice versa. That could have upset people.”

Brendon frowned. “You mean like one of the separatist movements? I didn't think any of those would stoop to murder.”

“Some of them have been getting really scary,” Ryan said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I had some mail after I was taken on as a consultant.”

“What? But you're-” Brendon hesitated.

“Still human,” Ryan filled in for him, “even if I was born and raised in Faerie and use magic. They're not logical. And the best part is that the corresponding movements here think I'm a freak too. To them, I'm a fey as bad as any other.” He gave Brendon a wry smile.

“But-how bad is it? I mean, we can trace that kind of thing, we could probably-”

Ryan waved it away. “It's not a big deal. Really. But the point is, I actually think there are some organisations stupid enough to turn to this kind of violence.”

“Fey or human?” Brendon asked, veering back onto professional considerations. Ryan shrugged again.

“Could be either. If it's a human organisation, they've done a good job of making the attacks look fey, so they have to have some resources as well as smarts. We could canvass the bigger and more extreme of the separatists-even if they aren't directly involved, there's a chance a cell could have evolved within one of those organisations. I'll get someone to look into the bigger groups back home, see if there's been any word about them recently that could relate to this.” Ryan started to reach for his phone, then sighed. “Actually, can I use the stationary phone? Cell phones and Faerie, you know...”

“Sure, help yourself.” Brendon nodded to the phone on the wall, then turned to his computer. “I'll see if I can get some names of the more extreme groups over here.”

“Um...”

Brendon looked up. Ryan was blushing awkwardly.

“I need to spell the line,” he said, “if I want to reach anyone today. And, um, it's kind of-”

“Oh, right,” Brendon said, realising and standing up quickly. “No problem. I should probably just take this to Ryland anyway. It'll be a lot quicker.”

“It's not that I don't trust you or anything,” Ryan began, but Brendon interrupted.

“Classified is classified. I get it.”

“You know, just in case someone asks,” Ryan finished, still looking awkward. “It's just for a few minutes, while I actually do the spell.”

“It's really no problem,” Brendon said, smiling at him. “I'll be back in ten.”

It was actually thirty. It was always easy to get chatting with Ryland, and the subject in question now was one that fascinated Brendon. He hadn't been aware of how the separatist movements had been growing lately, something that Ryland remarked archly probably had to do with how Brendon was a completely mundane human with no history of magic in his family.

“Of course you haven't noticed,” he said. “You don't have to display your ears at a job interview.”

“Neither do you,” Brendon said, feeling put upon.

Ryland shrugged. “Nate does. And since he pays half the rent I'm kind of invested in his ability to find work. He applied for a job at a school recently which basically told him straight out that they didn't employ elves.” He rolled his eyes and printed out another sheet of information. “Some of these groups are getting really weird,” he continued. “I think it's because of the magic leaks, and of course the whole thing with the dragons didn't help. It got a lot of media attention. All that stuff has been helping the separatists gain ground. I'm not saying that everyone agrees with everything they're saying-”

“Of course not, they're insane!” Brendon interrupted. “The CBA has been saying that creature talkers should be sent back where they came from, seriously, no one can actually listen to these guys and-”

“A lot of people are starting to think they may have some point, though,” Ryland said, talking over him. “The reports of magic bleeding between the worlds have everyone freaked. And in that kind of situation, people will listen to anyone who seems to have an easy solution.”

Brendon left the tech department reflecting over how out of touch with the world this job could get you. He arrived back to the murder room to find Ryan talking heatedly into the phone.

“I'm not saying go down there and provoke them, I just want you to get a feel for the mood. Seriously, just the Fey Resistance Movement and the FFF should do. I don't think any of the others are big enough to be of interest here. Yes, fine, I'll owe you, whatever.”

“That sounded helpful,” Brendon said, as Ryan put the phone back down with a certain emphasis.

“Dicks,” Ryan responded, running a hand through his hair. “Sometimes it's really difficult to work in that place. But I managed to get a promise to have a look around, see if there are any rumours.”

“What's the FFF?” Brendon asked, putting the information Ryland had given him on his desk and dividing it into two piles.

“Faerie For Fey,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes. “Catchy, isn't it.”

“Charming.” Brendon handed him one of the piles of paper. “There are three major organisations here which might be of interest-they've all been red-flagged for some time now. There are lots of smaller ones as well, of course, all suspected of involvement in fey hate crimes, but none of them are organised enough to pull something as large as these murders off. These three ones could either be directly involved, or just have the offenders in their midst. Ryland is booking us meetings for tomorrow, so this is homework for tonight. We should read up as much as we can before we go there.”

“The Human Democrat Party?” Ryan read off the top page. “Wow, that's subtle.” He hefted his pile of paper, then grinned. “Take-away and a night in? Just you, me and several kilos of paper?”

Brendon laughed, hoping to hell that he wasn't blushing.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

“We do not do anything illegal here,” said the woman introduced as Jenny Anderson, the local head of the Human Democrat Party.

“So you do not encourage your members to,” Brendon paused and tried to recall verbatim the words from the internal web page, “make it clear to them that they are not welcome here?”

“There's nothing illegal about it,” Anderson said, lifting her chin haughtily.

“I think you'll find it comes under the heading of incitement,” Brendon said, but knew at the same time that there was no way anyone could actually get that to stick.

“Well,” Anderson said smugly, “you're welcome to-” She stopped and stared past Brendon's shoulder. He turned and saw Ryan enter the room, pulling off his gloves.

“This is Mr Ross,” he said, “my-”

“Freak!” Anderson spat, taking two steps backwards. Brendon sucked in a breath.

“I'm sorry?” he said. “This is my colleague, Mr Ross. I'll-” Ryan stepped up to him and bumped his shoulder, and he subsided somewhat. “I'll thank you to be respectful,” he finished.

“So what is this?” Anderson said, red in the face. “You've brought in some magician to threaten me or something?”

“We do not want to threaten you,” Brendon said, trying to stay calm. “This is a routine enquiry. Your organisation has come up as something of interest to our current investigation.”

Anderson frowned. “What-”

“Are you aware that four cross-over friendly individuals have been murdered over the past month in this city?” Brendon interrupted, aware as he said it that that could probably have been a lot more subtle.

Anderson blinked. “But-what-what has this to do with-” She stopped and stared at the floor. “You believe someone from this organisation is involved?” she asked eventually.

“We don't know,” Ryan said quietly-and a lot more diplomatically than Brendon would probably have managed. “We're asking if you've seen or heard anything suspicious.”

“I-” Anderson shrugged. “I don't even know what you mean.”

“Someone who not only wants Faerie and the human world to separate,” Ryan said, “but believes Faerie ought to be completely exterminated, as well as all those who associate with fey.”

“We do not encourage violence in this organisation,” Anderson said, which Brendon considered was a bit rich. He saw, however, that Anderson seemed genuinely disturbed by the insinuations.

“The people we are talking about,” he said, quieting down, “if they are indeed from within your organisation, they will have joined it for one reason: to find others with the same beliefs. The kind of offender involved in these crimes is not someone who wants to work alone. But they will not believe in the same things you do, or in the kind of work this organisation does. They are only here to use the network your organisation brings them.” He paused. “We have a profile we'd like you to keep in mind. If you meet or hear of anyone who fits part of that profile, please get in touch. They are highly dangerous to be around at this stage.”

“We believe we might be dealing with a so called “house cleaner”,” Ryan said. “Offenders of this type believe they are doing society a service by murdering certain individuals or groups-in this case fey. The person or people involved in this crime will recently have started talking about fey and cross-over friendly humans with a hatred that borders on mania. They will have made people uncomfortable, regardless of the listeners' personal beliefs. They use words like cleansing. This kind of behaviour doesn't start overnight, so there has been some kind of trigger in their life recently-a traumatic experience, like a close family member's death.”

“New members, especially, are of interest,” Brendon added. “Someone who joined your organisation in the last two months.” He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Anderson. “If you hear anything, any rumour at all, please give us a call,” he said. Ryan put his own card down on Anderson's desk carefully, and Brendon realised he was avoiding the need for Anderson to touch his fingers with hers.

Anderson nodded vaguely. “I'll-I'll do that,” she said, still looking rather trod upon. Brendon almost felt guilty, but then he recalled the way she had recoiled from Ryan and only gave her a short nod of goodbye before turning on his heel and marching out of the room.

“They're really sickening,” Brendon said. Ryan shrugged, reaching out for more soy sauce.

“I don't know,” he said. “I didn't think they seemed very violent.”

Brendon stared at him. “She called you a freak. And she refused to even look at you.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, but she's just scared, I think. There are worse ones. She just wants us to go away-there are those who want us dead.” He paused and chewed his sushi for a while. “Besides, she has magic,” he added.

Brendon started. “What? Really?” He frowned. “How can you tell?”

“You can't tell a person uses magic if you don't have it yourself; not just by looking. Anyone can tell I've lived in Faerie, of course, but only magic recognises magic like that.”

“Why didn't you say something to her?” Brendon asked, intrigued. Ryan shrugged.

“Didn't want to make a scene. Don't think she knows, either. But I left Patrick's number woven into the structure of her desk-he's good with new magic users. She'll find it if she needs it.”

“Anyway,” Brendon said, “Ryland just texted me to say that the surveillance is in place on all the red-flagged groups. They'll be monitored twenty-four seven, so if any of them or any of their members are involved we should find out.”

“And what we do right now is basically just wait for another murder?” Ryan asked archly, but he was smiling. Brendon grinned at him.

“No, we crack this in our own time and get all the credit,” he said. “Without any more murders, too.”

His cell phone rang.

The noise could be heard from several streets away. The fifth victim had been found in a highly populated area and there was no shortage of witnesses. Brendon and Ryan had to elbow their way through a crowd when they arrived, and they found the Alexes holding back the throng of spectators with something just short of physical violence.

“We must have some kind of witness to the crime this time,” Brendon said, nodding to the closest Alex, who moved a barricade to let them through. He spotted a crime scene investigator and waved. “Hey, Iero. Do we have a name?”

Iero nodded. “Dr Gustaf Heijbel-sorry, did I say something?”

Brendon glanced at Ryan. “No, sorry, it's just that we spoke to him only last Friday. He'd come up in our investigation. So what's happening here?”

“I'm here to take photos and gather fibres,” Iero said, grinning good-naturedly. “Don't ask me to explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“No one saw the murder,” said one of the senior Alexes, walking up to them. He nodded at Brendon and shook Ryan's hand. “Suarez, hi.”

“Ryan Ross,” Ryan said. “What, you mean no one?”

“Not a soul. We have plenty of people saying they saw his body, but no one says they saw him die.”

“How is that even possible?” Brendon asked, then caught sight of the younger Way. He was walking back from the body, pulling off his gloves. “Hi, Mikey. Do you have a cause of death?”

“Strangled,” Dr Way said. “Not nice. He wouldn't have gone quickly.”

“Any clue to what he was strangled with?”

Dr Way shrugged. “Scarf?” he suggested. “I don't know. Something that doesn't leave a tell-tale mark. All I can say is that it was a thin, soft and strong material.”

Brendon frowned at Ryan. “Strangling is messy,” he said. “Someone managed to strangle him, in this crowd, without being seen?”

Suarez cleared his throat. “A couple of the more hysterical witnesses said he materialised among them. Out of thin air, apparently. We'd discount it, but-”

Brendon turned to look at Ryan, who held up his hands.

“Oh, no,” he said. “There's not a single fey I know of that has discovered teleportation.”

“So what on earth is this then?” Brendon asked. “Seriously, this case just keeps getting weirder.”

“You can go have a look at him if you want,” Iero said, nodding towards the body. “If Dr Way is finished, of course.”

Dr Way nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “I've already texted Gee. He'll put a rush on the autopsy.”

Unlike the previous four victims, the body of Dr Heijbel was stretched out fully on the ground, but like the others, he had also covered his head with his arms. Ryan and Brendon gave the body a cursory examination, neither finding anything very specific to hold on to.

“There hasn't been any activity from any of the separatist groups?” Ryan asked, a sliver of hope in his voice. Brendon shook his head.

“Nothing reported in, in any case.”

“I suppose it is the same murderer?” Ryan said. “All the other were attacked from the behind, with all wounds concentrating on the back, arms and legs. They were all attacked either with some kind of tool or with something to simulate wounds made by animals. This is different in that no wounds were inflicted and-” he glanced at the body, “the position of the body is different. His head is not curled towards his chest, it's thrust backwards.”

“Yes, but that's because he was strangled,” Brendon said. “The noose came from behind-which is consistent with the other victims-pulling his head backwards. There are no defensive wounds, which is consistent as well. Also, the coincidence is just too great.”

“Yeah, that's true.”

“There's not a lot we can do tonight, though,” Brendon said, straightening up from the body. “There should be a team at Heijbel's office-I'll get onto them and ask them to bring us his records of the O'Connor and Summers sessions. You should head back to your hotel. We'll have an early start tomorrow.” He shook his head. “Seriously. Just keeps getting weirder.”

“Cheer up,” Iero said. He was unscrewing a tripod, looking much too cheerful for Brendon's taste. “It's about to get lighter.”

Brendon glared at him. “If you're about to say something about how it's darkest before dawn, you can-”

“No,” Iero said, “I meant that it's almost solstice. The days will start getting lighter. Nice, right?”

He grinned at them both and walked away, tripod under one arm. Brendon stared after him.

“I can never decide if that guy is just genuinely pleased about life all the time or if he's pulling some sort of joke on all of us,” he said.

They had the records by ten the next morning.

“Feels a bit sordid,” Ryan said, flicking through the files in the O box. “He hasn't even been dead a day yet.”

“The best we can do for him now is find out who killed him,” Brendon said. “Found Summers.” He sat down on the floor, file open across his knees, and started flicking through the pages.

“Anything interesting?” Ryan asked, locating May O'Connor's file.

“Nothing yet,” Brendon replied distractedly, skimming through the words. “There's stuff here about his job, the lay-offs-I'm amazed he could afford this therapy, by the way-”

“Part of some kind of health plan at his job, I think,” Ryan said, immersed in his own file.

“Really? I should have been a journalist.” Brendon paused. Something in the file had rung a bell.

“Found anything?” Ryan asked, noting his still pose.

“There's notes here about nightmares,” Brendon said. “And something about that-”

Ryan looked at him, then back down at his file. “As in a lot of notes?” he asked, starting to count up sheets of his own.

“Yeah, they've devoted like five sessions only to-” Brendon lit up in realisation. “Oh, the dryad, Jack! He had nightmares, too. You know, his room mate told us-”

“May O'Connor had nightmares as well,” Ryan said slowly. “They devoted-oh, at least five, six sessions to it. Wait, there's something here...” He took one sheet from the lot and read it through quickly, his eyes widening as he read.

“May O'Connor,” he said, “that was the one who looked like she'd been mauled by some kind of animal, right?”

“Sure.”

“Her notes talk about a creature that stalks her in her dreams,” Ryan said. “She hasn't seen it clearly, because it's always behind her, but she says it's very dark, and possibly looks a bit like a panther or some other big cat. She's said about it I have to walk, even though I know it's behind me, because the moment I start running it will chase me.”

“Carl Summers was afraid of birds,” Brendon said, flipping through the notes in his file. “Do you really think-”

“Lots of things are crossing over that weren't meant to,” Ryan replied to the unfinished question. “The borders have grown weak, we all know that. Nightmares aren't a very great stretch of imagination.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It fits. They would attack people with strong dreams, strong and recurring. And when possible, they found the next person through their current victim.

“So how do we-it's the border guards, right? They're the ones we should talk to.”

“It should be possible to set up guarding spells for this,” Ryan said. He was thumbing through his cell phone. “I'll get hold of Patrick-he's one of the best at shields. Do you have any other you'd recommend? We should get on this quickly-I don't know how long it will take to set up proper shields and there has been about one murder each week so far.”

“I'll talk to William; get onto all the magicians we have,” Brendon said, stuffing Carl Summers' file back in its box. “I know Greta Salpeter is in town, at least. Don't know how her shield work is in particular, but she's amazing at just about everything.” He hesitated. “Do you think you can do this? I mean, you need to guard every cross-over spot in town, not only the official borders.”

Ryan shrugged, but he was looking quietly excited. “It's impossible to merely strengthen the borders,” he said. “If it was that easy, we'd have done it a long time ago. But we could probably set up blockades for specific crossings. Nightmares aren't meant to cross over and never should, so I don't think we'll have any political trouble over it. And I have a few ideas.” He grinned briefly. “I've actually been hoping for a chance to meet Salpeter. With her and Patrick on board, I'm sure we can do it.”

“How about the dragon country?” Brendon asked, reluctant to bring the subject up but feeling he had no choice. “We have no jurisdiction up there at all.”

Ryan hesitated. “I'll talk to Spencer,” he said. “The dragons have to take care of that themselves-as you say, there's nothing we can do up there, with or without their permission. But I think they will be cooperative. Even if they don't dream in the traditional sense, nightmares should be affecting them, as well.”

They looked at each other for a while.

“It feels sort of anti-climactic,” Brendon said doubtfully. Ryan grinned at him.

“That's because you're not going to be constructing shields for the next couple of days. But if you feel like you're going to be out of work, don't worry. You have a lot of coffee runs to look forward to.”

It was a hectic couple of days. Ryan, Greta and Patrick worked non-stop, with over two dozen magicians helping them cast the spells and guards from both sides helping stabilise the borders. Even Patrick's seagull familiar Pete was uncharacteristically quiet and focused, with none of the loud laughter and inappropriate jokes that usually signalled his presence in any gathering.

But on late Yule Eve, when Brendon arrived at the main cross-over point, the Interway, he found the magicians in a state of tired but extremely pleased celebration.

“I think we did it,” Ryan said, beaming at him. “We've done a test run with magically generated dreams, and it seems to hold. We can't tell for sure, of course, not until the nightmares try to get through and can't, but we've set up a warning system that should tell us if they try, and if they're successful or not. And I just had a message from Spencer-the dragons have agreed to guard their cross-over points.”

“That's amazing!” Brendon said, and he meant it. At the same time, though, he realised the obvious downside-Ryan had nothing more to do on this side of the border. “They should take you a bit more seriously at home now, right? This is a great case to have in your portfolio.” He tried to grin, but was afraid that it didn't come out quite right.

Ryan cleared his throat, looking awkward. “I've actually been talking to Patrick and Greta about that,” he said. “I'm-well, I'm kind of looking at the possibility for a transfer. Maybe.” He paused, then glanced behind him. Pete had fluttered from his usual perch on Patrick's shoulder to Greta's, and was muttering something in her ear. She laughed, and Ryan blushed.

“Could we go outside for a bit?” he asked Brendon quickly. “I've been in this place for two days straight; I'm kind of sick of the surroundings by now.”

“Sure,” Brendon agreed, trying to ignore Pete's snicker.

“Are you serious?” he asked, once they were outside and ambling slowly down the street. The wind was decidedly bitter by now, the threat of snow in the air, but he preferred it to the warm guard room in the Interway station, anyway. Ryan nodded.

“It's seems like I can do better work here,” he said. “In Faerie they don't really know what to do with me, but here I feel like I could really be of use. And I think you're going to need all the magicians you can get in the years to come. The nightmares-that's only one thing; we don't know what else could cross over. And I think most effects of the weakening borders will be shown here, not in Faerie. That's the way it's traditionally been.”

“And you-won't they mind?”

Ryan shrugged, not really looking at him. “I'm pretty sure they'll hardly notice I'm gone,” he said. “I'm more worried about being granted the transfer here.”

“What?” Brendon grinned, bumping Ryan's shoulder with his own. “Don't be ridiculous. They'd pay to have you transfer here. Or at least they ought to.”

Ryan grinned at him then, and he didn't say anything for a while. They walked on in silence, huffing out breaths in puffs of white cloud.

“Shit,” Ryan said eventually, blowing on his fingers. “I can't believe this place.”

“Thought you were going to upgrade,” Brendon said, grinning and glancing at Ryan's gloves-still fingerless.

“I haven't really had time to shop,” Ryan said dryly.

“Wait, here.” Brendon pulled off his much more sensible gloves. “We'll swap for a while.”

“Really?” Ryan grinned at him.

“Sure, come on.”

Ryan laughed, then pulled his own gloves off. He started to hand them over, then stopped with his hand stretched out to Brendon's, staring up into the sky. Brendon looked up as well to see what had caught his eye, and received the first feathery flake on his cheek.

“Oh,” Ryan said softly. “Snow.”

It was probably a stupid thing to do, but Brendon thought about Ryan grinning at him from across the murder room table, of shoulder bumps and nudges and of Pete throwing meaningful glances at them from Greta's shoulder, and he did it anyway. He leaned forward, and when Ryan looked back down at him, puzzled, leaned in still further and met Ryan's lips with his own.

There was a horrible moment when Ryan stood completely still and Brendon thought about all the ways you could read someone wrong, but then Ryan sighed gently and leaned in, and he didn't think about anything else for a while.

“Happy Yule,” Ryan said eventually, pulling back and giving him an extremely silly grin.

“Not for another two hours,” Brendon pointed out.

“I know,” Ryan said, “but anyway. Happy Yule.”

With the snow falling in large flakes around them, turning the world white and silent, and Ryan's lips chill but soft against his, Brendon thought he could perhaps see the charm of working through Yule, after all.