The Librarians Fanfic: By Paths Coincident 11/?
Title: By Paths Coincident 11/?
Author: Honorat
Rating: T
Crossover: Leverage and The Librarians
Characters: Jenkins, Eve Baird, Jacob Stone, Cassandra Cillian, Ezekiel Jones, Parker, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Damian Moreau, Chapman, Lamia, Others TBA as needed.
Pairing: Parker/Hardison, Cassandra/Jake, Cassandra/Eliot, just a touch of Eliot/OC
Disclaimer: Dean Devlin, John Rogers, TNT own these characters.
Description: The Librarians discover Leverage International. Jacob Stone and Eliot Spencer have a family past, but they aren’t the only members of the two teams who’ve met before. Expect whiplash between light and dark. Lots of backstory in this chapter.
Previous chapters HERE.
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By Paths Coincident
* * * * *
Lamia drifted into the lit room as though she were made of the shadows out of which she stepped. Her serpent tattoo seemed to writhe upon her arm.
While Lamia carried only her katana strapped to her back, the three henchmen flanking her spread out to cover the room with semi-automatics. The Serpent Brotherhood was stepping up its game. Everyone in the room ceased moving. Eve took one step forward, but as the cold muzzle of a pistol targeted her, she froze.
Lamia ignored the Guardian, her focus on Eliot Spencer. Eve realized that the assassin had no idea that the man who leaned nonchalantly against a table, his arms folded and one leg crossed over the other, an appreciative smile on his face, was not Jacob Stone, and she had to resist the incongruous urge to laugh.
Spencer looked Lamia up and down in the most insulting manner possible, tilted his head in a sideways nod, and said, “The Serpent Brotherhood. It’s been awhile. My compliments to the recruiters.”
Wait just one damn minute. How did Spencer know about Dulaque’s cult? Was it possible by any stretch of the imagination that Lamia was expecting Spencer instead of Stone?
“So, cowboy.” Lamia’s voice was a caress. “Are you going to come with me without a fight?”
“Darlin’, you know I never go anywhere without a fight.” Spencer straightened up, still not obviously prepared to attack her, but no longer relaxed. “As temptin’ as you make that offer, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to decline.”
Eliot Spencer had the reputation to back up the utter confidence in his voice, but Eve could not imagine how an unarmed man, even one such as he, could hope to best a swordswoman of Lamia’s caliber when he had no element of surprise on his side. Whatever victory he hoped to gain, he must surely know the price would be paid in blood.
The ceiling above the man who had his gun trained on Eve rattled, drawing everyone’s eyes. Eve seized the opportunity and dropped, rolling for cover, and incidentally, giving herself a better location from which to attack the second gunman.
As the first gunman took aim at the grating, it broke loose, hitting him on the head and knocking him to the ground. In the opening above him appeared a blond ponytail followed by the demented upside down smile of Martha.
“Eliot! Sword!” she called, as she thrust a scabbard through the vent.
Spencer did not glance her direction, but he caught the weapon over his shoulder when she threw it to him.
Martha disappeared up the vent, then swung down feet first like a gymnast on parallel bars, driving her boots directly into the face of Lamia’s henchman as he was staggering to his feet. Dropping first to the table top, she leapt to the floor and finished her man with a stomp to his head.
Whirling around, Martha pulled a Taser off her belt, flourishing it with a shrill war cry. The Taser accounted for the third gunman.
Eve used the distraction to launch herself at the man she was stalking. For a moment they wrestled for control of his weapon, but the heel of her hand, striking his jaw with all of her force knocked his head back and allowed her to throw him to the ground. The pistol skittered across the floor.
She had her opponent face down, his arms pinned and her knee in his back when she found a dark hand holding something out to her.
“Zip tie?” Colin asked, as though offering her sugar with her tea.
Who were these crazy people Spencer worked with? Nevertheless, Eve took the strip of plastic and secured her captive. Then, just to be sure he did not get up and interfere again, she coldcocked him. That was cathartic.
The only two combatants remaining were Spencer and Lamia.
Eve was struck by the change in Spencer. His movements were calm, elegant now instead of brutally efficient. The motion of palm and thumb with which he slipped the scabbard off the blade of the katana was formal and precise and had the air of ritual.
Lamia raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. Eve realized that Lamia had never seen Stone fight with a blade, so she might be unsure of his expertise-the rawest of beginners, actually, Eve knew. However, if Lamia were here for Spencer, she must know what she would be up against.
They faced each other, poised for an instant of perfect serenity. Then, as though responding to the same unheard signal, they exploded into a whirlwind of cuts and parries more rapid than thought. The Brew Pub rang with the ancient clash of swords.
Eve watched in awe as Lamia and Spencer wove lightning-flash arcs of steel through footwork that seemed more ballet than battle, the two of them incarnations of beauty and power. If Lamia was all swirling smoke, Spencer was crackling flame. Together they burned the heart.
Just when it seemed the two warriors might circle forever, caught in the intimate and deadly dance of swords, Spencer locked his hilt with Lamia’s guard, switched to a single handed grip, and rotated his wrist, pushing his katana’s hilt between Lamia’s hands. Seizing her forearm with his free hand, he used the leverage of his sword to force her down.
The move was as smooth as the slide of silk, swift and fatal as the stoop of a falcon. It ended with Lamia lying on the floor, her katana immobilized, looking up into Spencer eyes as he crouched over her with his blade across her throat.
“Finish it if you’re going to,” Lamia snarled.
“Why would I wanna do a thing like that, darlin’?” Spencer smiled at her. “Now just hand me that lovely blade of yours, and we’ll call it even.”
If glares could have ignited flesh, Spencer would have been reduced to ash. Lamia resisted for a moment as he took hold of the hilt of her katana, but the slight tensing of her muscles opened a hair-fine red line on her neck, and she subsided.
Martha bounded up to Spencer. “Want me to tase her?” she asked brightly.
Spencer scowled at her then looked thoughtful. Then he shrugged and nodded.
With entirely too much relish the young woman bent over.
“No! Wait . . .” Lamia tried to object.
But Martha just grinned and zapped her. “Nighty night!”
With Lamia no longer a threat, Eve bolted for the bar.
“Stone! Jacob! Are you all right? Jacob!”
“Oh! Oh no! Jake!” Cassandra slipped away from Colin, whose job beyond dispensing zip ties appeared to be keeping the non-combatants non-combatant, and rushed after her.
Stone lay where he had been thrown by the two Serpent Brotherhood thugs. He was stirring, but there was blood on the floor under his head.
Before Eve could make it around the end of the bar, Spencer had vaulted over the top of it.
“Dammit, Jake!”
He knelt beside his cousin, hands holding him down. “Don’t move y’daft fool.”
“’M fine,” Stone insisted blearily. “You know my head is harder than whatever I hit.”
“I know you never had the sense God gave an onion,” Spencer complained, relief mixed with the anger in his voice. “Couldn’t ever resist jumpin’ into a brawl that was none of your business.”
“Onions,” Stone said, “are very sensitive . . . sensible . . . fruits . . . vegetables . . . um, things with roots that grow . . . whatever . . .” he trailed off.
Spencer’s eyes met Eve’s as she dropped to her knees on the other side of Stone, and she thought that if those had been Jacob Stone’s eyes she would have interpreted the emotion in them as guilt.
“Here, let me see that,” Spencer’s voice was rough, but his hands were gentle as he examined Stone’s injury. “That’s a pretty deep cut you got there.”
“Head wounds just bleed a lot,” Stone protested, his voice clearer. “Is all this fuss really necessary?”
He tried to sit up again, but Spencer kept him pinned. “Miss Cillian, would you be willing to hold this idiot’s head? I’m sure if he’s lyin’ in the lap of a beautiful woman, he’ll stay put.”
Stone tried a glare at his cousin and then winced.
“Do as you’re told, Stone,” Eve added her authority. “You’re lucky you don’t have a cervical injury.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Stone said.
“Oh, you’ll listen to her?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Stone asked. “She can kick my ass.”
“I’ll tell you who can kick your ass,” Spencer growled, as he carefully supported Stone’s head while Cassandra slid under him.
“Hey,” she said, giving Stone a tremulous smile.
“Hey, Cassie.” Stone smiled up at her. “Sorry for spoilin’ your dress.”
“It’s okay,” Cassandra said. “Really, it is.”
Eve had to grant that Spencer knew what he was doing. Stone stopped trying to hop up and shake it off and submitted to being fussed over.
“Where’s the . . . ? Oh, there it is.” Spencer said as the bartender trundled up with the first aid kit, one that looked extraordinarily large and well-stocked.
“Thank you Asfar,” Spencer said, opening the top compartment and pulling out a packet of sterile dressings. Opening it without touching the contents, he applied it to the bloody mess on the side of Stone’s head. “Cassandra, if you could keep some pressure on that cut, slow the bleeding?”
“Oh, yes.” Cassandra said, startled but game, taking over holding the dressing.
Fishing in one of the first aid kit pockets, Spencer pulled out a penlight. “Just going to check your eyes,” he informed Stone. “And stop rolling them.”
Eve supposed a man with Spencer’s resume would practically have a paramedic’s experience.
As Spencer checked the responsiveness of his cousin’s pupils, Eve began the standard cognitive questions for the victim of a head injury.
“What year is it, Stone?” she asked.
Spencer snorted. “You can’t check a brain like his with a question like that-Jake, what year did that Danish guy transcribe Cotton Nero A Fifteen?”
“You people are becomin’ annoying,” Stone growled. “For your diagnostic information it is Monday, March 2, 2015. And you’re tryin’ t’ be smart, Eliot. Grimur Jónsson Thorkelin transcribed Cotton MS Vitellius A.XV, not Nero. To answer your question there is some discrepancy in the dates because Thorkelin claimed he began work on the manuscript in 1787, but personal letters recently found at the Rigsarkivet and the Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen indicate his copy was actually made somewhere between 1789 and 1791.”
He seemed prepared to go on indefinitely on the topic, but Spencer interrupted. “Okay, okay. Stop! You’re within your normal parameters of insanity.”
Cassandra gave a little sniffle and smiled with relief, her free hand involuntarily barely brushing at Stone’s hair. Their obstinate art historian melted a little bit, and Spencer eyed them with a funny half-smile like he had confirmed a theory.
“Now, visual acuity,” Spencer said briskly. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“W,” said Stone.
“What?” Eve asked, worried because the answer should have been three.
“It’s sign language,” Spencer explained. “Useful for talking in class right in front of the teacher. All right, Jake, the blocks in your head still seem to be stacked. Let’s sit you up so I can take a better look at that wound. You’ll have to keep the pressure on it yourself.”
Stone’s hand briefly covered Cassandra’s as he took over holding the dressing. She slipped her bloodied fingertips out from under his, folding them into her other hand and twisting them nervously as Eve and Spencer helped him sit up.
“Not so fast!” Eve warned Stone. “Slowly.”
“Owww!” Stone complained. “Damn, have I got the mother lode of all headaches.”
“I bet you do,” Eve said, sliding her shoulder under his arm. “Easy there, cowboy.”
Together she and Spencer assisted Stone upright. Cassandra scrambled to her feet and continued to hover. Her skirt was now rather unsettlingly bloody.
Eve was relieved to find Ezekiel leaned up against the bar, feigning unconcern, and as usual, completely unscathed and full of snark.
“Nice little number you did on that cupboard door, Stone,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be threatening anyone else for a long time.”
It said something about how Stone was feeling that he paid no attention to his pestiferous colleague.
Eve glared at Ezekiel and made throat cutting signs with her free hand. The thief subsided reluctantly, self-preservation being one of his primary talents.
Spencer directed his cousin to a chair in good lighting, and Stone collapsed into it with a pained grimace.
Martha appeared in front of him. Eve was beginning to find the young woman’s uncanny materializations a bit unnerving. “Water!” she held up a glass. “Tylenol!” Her palm cupped two small pills.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a goddess?” Stone asked, taking the glass in one hand and letting her tip the pills into his other. He swallowed the pills with one gulp.
“Yes,” Martha said cheerfully. “H-Colin tells me that all the time when I . . .”
“Martha!” Spencer snapped.
Stone looked like he might choke. Ezekiel looked fascinated. Cassandra looked like she was simply waiting for the sentence to finish and did not understand the problem.
“Oh!” Martha said as though recalling something she had forgotten. “I’ll just go clean up all that blood.”
“You do that.” Spencer shook his head.
Martha trotted off as if dealing with blood were an everyday occupation.
Eve could see that Colin was encouraging the departure of the rest of the Brew Pub clientele. “Everything’s on the house tonight, folks. Sorry for the extra drama. Pick up your coupons for 20 % off on your next visit at the front desk.”
These people had a system for placating customers whose meals were interrupted by violence? Once again, Eve found herself wondering just what kind of mayhem was a regular occurrence here. Certainly no one seemed to be paying any attention to the pile of bound minions of the Serpent Brotherhood. She realized she was actually hearing sirens getting closer. Apparently someone had had the good sense to call the police.
In the next moment, the door to the Brew Pub flew open and four officers with guns drawn burst in. “Portland P.D.! Nobody move!”
“Olivia! Jack!” Martha exclaimed, delighted. “I’m glad it’s you! Thanks for coming so fast.” She waved her hand around, the gesture encompassing all the unconscious or incapacitated bodies. “The ones in the zip ties are the bad guys. Everybody else is good guys.”
The officers relaxed their weapons, apparently completely familiar with the Brew Pub and its personnel. “What happened here?” asked the officer Martha had identified as Olivia.
Slipping her ID out of her pocket, Eve held it out. “Colonel Eve Baird, NATO Counter-terrorism,” she identified herself to the officers. She nodded in the direction of the captives. “Those are the people responsible-they came in armed with knives and three guns. We were able to subdue them, but I’ve got one man injured.”
The officer Martha had identified as Olivia quickly checked Eve’s ID. “I’ll have Officer Bailey take statements, and the rest of us can make the arrests. Are we going to need EMS?”
“Eliot usually damages people a bit, so you might,” Martha shrugged.
“All right, we can take care of that,” the woman said. “You people never leave us much to do except clean up.” She turned and stalked off, talking into her radio.
Apparently, Spencer was operating on the right side of the law so far in Portland. Certainly, the local LEOs appeared on familiar and congenial terms with the Brew Pub crew. Eve had to admit it was going to be amusing to see Dulaque’s crack team of assassins behind bars for armed robbery. At least they were no longer her responsibility.
Eve turned back to the group clustered around Stone.
“Shouldn’t we be getting him to a doctor?” Ezekiel asked. “Not that I care or anything, but Stone’s brain is the only useful part of him.”
The Brew Pub crew looked nonplussed, as though they had forgotten such options existed. Eve herself was so accustomed to patching up hard-headed and hard-drinking recruits that she hadn’t really considered whether the ER was the place for Stone.
Spencer contemplated his cousin. “You’re gonna need a few stitches to hold that gash closed,” he told Stone. “Now I can put ‘em in for you, or your friends here can take you to the hospital. It’s your choice.”
“Not a fan of hospitals,” Stone admitted. “And I doubt you’ve forgotten how. You do it.”
“All right then.”
Spencer set Colin and Ezekiel to pulling up a table where he could lay out a tray with instruments and supplies. Once again, Eve noted that the Brew Pub first aid kit was more like an emergency first response kit. Spencer had all the materials to perform minor surgery should he so choose.
On the tray, wrapped in sterile bubble packs, were syringes, hair-fine curved needles, suture thread, a vial of local anaesthetic, gauze pads, antiseptic wipes, and surgical scissors. A large bottle of betadyne disinfectant sat next to a box of nitrile gloves.
In spite of her theory about Spencer’s proficiency in field medicine, Eve was impressed with his technique. He immediately assumed she would be the logical choice for nurse, and invited her to join him in scrubbing up and donning surgical gloves.
“If you could wipe as much of that blood as possible out of his hair,” Spencer told her, setting out a basin of warm water and a stack of clean restaurant linens, “I can shave the hair away from the edges of that cut.”
“Can I see your licenses as cosmetologists?” Stone complained.
“Come on, Stone. Your manly vanity will survive our amateur hairdressing,” Eve said, dipping a cloth in the water and wringing it out. “I’m going to have to remove that dressing you’re holding,” she warned him. “Hold still.”
The blood drying and matting in his hair had already adhered to the dressing, so Eve had to work it loose. She was careful, but as she gently detached the gauze from the site of the injury, she saw Stone’s hands clench on the sides of the chair and his knuckles go white. He didn’t move, however.
“There,” she said, dropping the gory mess on the table top, hoping that someone at the Brew Pub planned to thoroughly sanitize the place before resuming regular service. The jagged tear Stone had received courtesy of the cupboard door handle still oozed blood sluggishly.
Because she did not want to introduce any more bacteria into the cut than was already there, she avoided getting water too close to the injury, but Stone wasn’t going to be able to wash his hair for a couple of days, so she did her best to reduce the amount of blood that had soaked that side of his head as he had lain in it.
Cassandra stood by, washed and gloved of her own initiative, a little dewy-eyed, but gamely handing Eve cloths as she needed them. The pile of crimson cloths grew on the table, and the water in the basin went from pink to red.
When Spencer’s hands appeared beside hers ready to trim the hair from around the cut, Eve shied away, her mind flashing back to an image of black rather than blue gloves, and a blood-stained knife rather than shiny, sterile scissors. She noticed Stone’s eyes on her and forced her breathing back to normal, trying to make her retreat less obvious.
“Two by two, hands of blue,” Ezekiel commented. “Stone, you’d better make sure your cousin isn’t working for the Alliance.”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you that,” Spencer commented absently as he daubed the area around the wound with generous amounts of betadyne. Apparently he was used to that level of geekery from his association with Colin.
Snips of Stone’s thick dark hair fell to his shoulders and the floor.
“Sorry about the premature baldness.” Spencer’s tone was mocking rather than apologetic as he switched to the razor. Nevertheless, Eve noted that he was careful to clear as little hair around the cut as possible, and that Stone would be able to hide most of the resultant gap with artful combing.
Although his cousin was obviously trying not to hurt him, Stone closed his eyes and his breath hissed through his teeth.
Cassandra winced in sympathy. “Are you okay?” she asked, touching Stone on the shoulder.
He did not open his eyes or answer her but reached up and gripped her hand. Cassandra’s eyes widened then softened into a tender, maternal sort of look as she let him hold her hand.
Eve backed away to keep the area less congested. If it got her further away from Spencer, that was all to the good.
“Jones, why don’t you lift Stone’s keys and go get the pickup, so we don’t have to walk to it,” she suggested. “We shouldn’t have any trouble parking in front of the Brew Pub now.”
“Aye aye, Colonel Baird!” He slipped in beside Spencer, and had the keys out of Stone’s pocket without either of them paying him any attention. Giving Eve a cheeky grin, Ezekiel, hurried off to do as he was bid.
Having finished his work as barber, Spencer picked up a syringe that he must have filled while Eve was cleaning Stone’s hair.
“I’m going to numb the area now,” he told Stone. “You’ll feel a couple of pokes, but everything should improve after that.”
“Numb is good,” Stone said.
As Spencer prepared to inject the first amount of local anaesthetic, he asked, “Remember the first time I ever stitched up a cut?”
Stone laughed. “We were what? Twelve?”
“Something like that,” Spencer said, completing the injections with practiced speed and ease. He’d obviously done this before--frequently. “We were skipping school.”
“You were a bad influence,” Stone commented.
Spencer shrugged. “Your childhood would have been a trackless expanse of boredom without me.”
“We were also trespassing,” Stone said, relaxing as the numbing agent took hold.
Self-consciously, he dropped Cassandra’s hand. Cassandra blushed and withdrew her hand from his shoulder.
Spencer picked up the tiny needle already threaded with suture material. Using a sterile sponge, he dabbed the blood away from the wound so that he could see to stitch. Holding the torn flesh together, he inserted the needle and drew it through both ragged edges, joining them firmly. With a flourish, he tied a knot in the first stitch. “You have to admit the old Bowett place was a great place to play World War II!”
“And t’try to kill ourselves.” Stone frowned.
“There was that.” Spencer sponged away the blood again and set the next stitch.
“They shoulda known better than to tell us never t’go there. Like that was gonna work!”
“Parents. They never learn.” Spencer looked off into the distance briefly, tossing his hair from his eyes.
“Eliot was the Germans, and I was the Allies,” Stone explained to Cassandra and Eve. “The Bowett place was an abandoned 19th century farm house. The doors and ground floor windows were boarded up, but that didn’t stop us from clamberin’ onto the roof and riskin’ our necks breakin’ into a second story window. Man, that was fun!”
“Well, it was until I stepped through some rotten floorboards and ripped up my leg on the nails,” Spencer said dryly.
“Don’t you mean until you were bayoneted and captured?” Stone smirked.
“Right. So you got to practice your skills as a medic and ruin my shirt nearly cutting off my leg with a tourniquet.” Spencer glared at him.
“Then I hauled my prisoner of war back to the POW camp aka Uncle Saul’s place. But there was no way we were gonna admit what we’d done. So we used Uncle Saul’s fish line and Aunt Bernice’s embroidery needles to sew up Eliot’s leg.”
“What’s this ‘we’?” Spencer asked, delicately tying off another knot. “You were too squeamish to stick a needle into me. I had to sew up my own leg.”
“Hey, I knew my limitations,” Stone said. “But you have to admit I did a bang-up job of bandagin’.”
“Yeah. With Aunt B’s scarf! Was she ever hoppin’ mad when she finally got it back.” Spencer took another stitch.
You were lucky you didn’t lose that leg,” Stone said. “Sepsis or gangrene or something. It’s not like we were particularly sterile.”
“Fortunately, my tetanus shots were up to date,” Spencer agreed. “Then you had the bright idea to pour rubbing alcohol over it.”
Stone chuckled. “And after I peeled you off the ceiling . . .”
“That hurt like hell,” Spencer said. “For a long time that was my measure for how bad something could get. Flaming bamboo strips under my fingernails? Piece of cake. Nothing like that rubbing alcohol.”
Stone eyed his cousin as if he were almost sure he was joking. Eve was pretty sure he was not.
“Did your families ever find out what you’d done?” Cassandra asked.
“No,” Stone shook his head. “Eliot limped around for a few days, but that wasn’t so unusual, and nobody asked.”
“I still have a really odd looking scar.” Spencer tied off the last in his series of precise, tiny sutures.
“Wow! I couldn’t have a hangnail without a family emergency meeting,” Cassandra commented. “If I’d ever showed up limping there would have been specialists involved.”
“And there you are.” Spencer set down the needle and thread. “All stitched up. You look like Frankenstein’s monster now.”
“Creature,” Stone corrected. “Frankenstein’s creature. He wasn’t really a monster. In fact he was an innocent until human society taught him cruelty and drove him to kill.”
“He may not have begun life as a monster, but he chose to become one,” Spencer said quietly. “That’s not a choice you can unmake.”
Stone looked searchingly at his cousin, but Spencer did not meet his eyes. Instead, he busied himself peeling off his blood-stained blue gloves.
Eve saw again black gloves with fingertips glistening crimson-with Torbjørn’s blood, with Teresinha’s, with Poptart’s, with her own. The hands of a monster.
Those hands remained deceptively gentle as they applied sterile pads to the wound on Stone’s head.
“You know the drill-any nausea, dizziness, persistent headaches, confusion-and it’s off to the ER for you.” Spencer taped the bandage in place.
“Yes, doctor” Stone said with deceptive humility.
“And no washing your hair for 48 hours. You can get Colonel Baird to remove the stitches in 3 to 5 days,” Spencer said.
Eve nodded at him. “We’d better get you home and lying down, Stone,” she said.
Martha trotted over, bearing an icepack that Stone accepted with gratitude. At least this time Eve had seen her arriving.
“Can someone stay with him overnight?” Spencer asked. “Make sure there’s no damage we’re missing?”
“Certainly,” Eve said. “We’ll take care of him.”
Their departure was delayed by the necessity of providing their contact information to Portland PD. Ezekiel arrived back from bringing the pickup and lied to the police about every circumstance of his existence. Eve was too tired to care. The Library probably did not want him arrested anyway.
The police did not need long statements from them because it turned out that Colin had provided them with surveillance video from every possible angle. Apparently the Brew Pub was an impossible place to attempt anything clandestine.
Finally, they were ready to go. The Brew Pub crew shook hands with the Librarian team. Cassandra added an impulsive hug for Spencer.
“Thank you,” she said. “I had a lovely time-well-before everything else.”
“You’re welcome for the lovely time part,” Spencer said. “I’m sorry the dessert ended up all over the floor and the goons. And I’m sorry for the excessive infestation of goons.”
Cassandra giggled. “But it was pretty spectacular.”
Spencer’s smile at her was wistful.
Stone looked pale and exhausted; however, he stood on his own and refused to lean on anyone. He shook hands with Colin and Martha and turned to bid his cousin farewell.
“Eliot, your food was terrific, but the floor show left a lot to be desired,” he joked, holding out his hand.
“Maybe next time, you’ll remember to stay put when you haven’t been invited to join in and let the professionals do their jobs.” Spencer’s tone was dead serious.
Stone ignored the reproof and clasped Spencer’s hand. “I’m so glad we ran into each other. Let’s do it again before another twenty years pass.”
In response, Spencer pulled him into a fierce hug. Stone looked startled, given his cousin’s first reaction to being hugged, but then pleased.
“It was good to see you, Jake,” Spencer said into his cousin’s neck. “Felt just a bit like goin’ home.”
As Spencer released him and stepped back, Stone looked as if he would have liked to ask his cousin a thousand questions, none of which he could ask.
“See you later, then?” Stone asked hopefully.
The look in Spencer’s eyes was that of a soldier saying good-bye on the docks before shipping out for a tour of duty from which he did not expect to return. “Take care of yourself,” he responded, clapping Stone on the shoulder a last time.
* * * * *
As they exited the Brew Pub, Eve wondered if anyone had noticed that she and Spencer had exchanged no farewells. She felt a small elation that she’d extricated this team alive and mostly in one piece.
Cassandra followed at Stone’s shoulder, their usual positions reversed, ready to support him should he falter. Surprisingly, Ezekiel was hovering a bit, too. Their thief would have to watch himself, or he would start losing his impervious detachment.
They threaded their way through the last of the police cars loaded with Lamia’s crew. Two ambulances were just pulling away with Spencer’s more unlucky victims.
Stone gave a sigh of relief when they reached his pickup. He didn’t even complain when Eve chivalrously assisted him with climbing in. This time Jones and Cassandra had the back seat, since Eve planned to drive so she could drop the others off before taking Stone home.
As Eve finished settling Stone in the front passenger seat, Martha appeared at her shoulder. Eve started. Once again, she had not realized the woman had followed her.
“I’m supposed to give these back to you,” Martha said, handing Eve a sealed plastic bag containing her missing ammunition.
Eve watched as Martha hurried through the rain and saw Eliot Spencer, standing shadowed in the entrance to the Brew Pub.
Quickly and automatically drawing her weapon, Eve inserted the magazine and chambered a round. For the first time that evening, she held a loaded gun.
In those seconds, however, Martha and Spencer had disappeared into the Brew Pub.
A chill slithered up Eve’s spine. The temporary truce was over.
* * * * *
TBC
* * * * *
Notes: In case you didn't recognize their cameo appearances here, the Portland PD officers Olivia and Jack were the law enforcement officers Parker and Amy set up for a date at The Brew Pub in The Broken Wing Job.
Author: Honorat
Rating: T
Crossover: Leverage and The Librarians
Characters: Jenkins, Eve Baird, Jacob Stone, Cassandra Cillian, Ezekiel Jones, Parker, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Damian Moreau, Chapman, Lamia, Others TBA as needed.
Pairing: Parker/Hardison, Cassandra/Jake, Cassandra/Eliot, just a touch of Eliot/OC
Disclaimer: Dean Devlin, John Rogers, TNT own these characters.
Description: The Librarians discover Leverage International. Jacob Stone and Eliot Spencer have a family past, but they aren’t the only members of the two teams who’ve met before. Expect whiplash between light and dark. Lots of backstory in this chapter.
Previous chapters HERE.
* * * * *
By Paths Coincident
* * * * *
Lamia drifted into the lit room as though she were made of the shadows out of which she stepped. Her serpent tattoo seemed to writhe upon her arm.
While Lamia carried only her katana strapped to her back, the three henchmen flanking her spread out to cover the room with semi-automatics. The Serpent Brotherhood was stepping up its game. Everyone in the room ceased moving. Eve took one step forward, but as the cold muzzle of a pistol targeted her, she froze.
Lamia ignored the Guardian, her focus on Eliot Spencer. Eve realized that the assassin had no idea that the man who leaned nonchalantly against a table, his arms folded and one leg crossed over the other, an appreciative smile on his face, was not Jacob Stone, and she had to resist the incongruous urge to laugh.
Spencer looked Lamia up and down in the most insulting manner possible, tilted his head in a sideways nod, and said, “The Serpent Brotherhood. It’s been awhile. My compliments to the recruiters.”
Wait just one damn minute. How did Spencer know about Dulaque’s cult? Was it possible by any stretch of the imagination that Lamia was expecting Spencer instead of Stone?
“So, cowboy.” Lamia’s voice was a caress. “Are you going to come with me without a fight?”
“Darlin’, you know I never go anywhere without a fight.” Spencer straightened up, still not obviously prepared to attack her, but no longer relaxed. “As temptin’ as you make that offer, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to decline.”
Eliot Spencer had the reputation to back up the utter confidence in his voice, but Eve could not imagine how an unarmed man, even one such as he, could hope to best a swordswoman of Lamia’s caliber when he had no element of surprise on his side. Whatever victory he hoped to gain, he must surely know the price would be paid in blood.
The ceiling above the man who had his gun trained on Eve rattled, drawing everyone’s eyes. Eve seized the opportunity and dropped, rolling for cover, and incidentally, giving herself a better location from which to attack the second gunman.
As the first gunman took aim at the grating, it broke loose, hitting him on the head and knocking him to the ground. In the opening above him appeared a blond ponytail followed by the demented upside down smile of Martha.
“Eliot! Sword!” she called, as she thrust a scabbard through the vent.
Spencer did not glance her direction, but he caught the weapon over his shoulder when she threw it to him.
Martha disappeared up the vent, then swung down feet first like a gymnast on parallel bars, driving her boots directly into the face of Lamia’s henchman as he was staggering to his feet. Dropping first to the table top, she leapt to the floor and finished her man with a stomp to his head.
Whirling around, Martha pulled a Taser off her belt, flourishing it with a shrill war cry. The Taser accounted for the third gunman.
Eve used the distraction to launch herself at the man she was stalking. For a moment they wrestled for control of his weapon, but the heel of her hand, striking his jaw with all of her force knocked his head back and allowed her to throw him to the ground. The pistol skittered across the floor.
She had her opponent face down, his arms pinned and her knee in his back when she found a dark hand holding something out to her.
“Zip tie?” Colin asked, as though offering her sugar with her tea.
Who were these crazy people Spencer worked with? Nevertheless, Eve took the strip of plastic and secured her captive. Then, just to be sure he did not get up and interfere again, she coldcocked him. That was cathartic.
The only two combatants remaining were Spencer and Lamia.
Eve was struck by the change in Spencer. His movements were calm, elegant now instead of brutally efficient. The motion of palm and thumb with which he slipped the scabbard off the blade of the katana was formal and precise and had the air of ritual.
Lamia raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. Eve realized that Lamia had never seen Stone fight with a blade, so she might be unsure of his expertise-the rawest of beginners, actually, Eve knew. However, if Lamia were here for Spencer, she must know what she would be up against.
They faced each other, poised for an instant of perfect serenity. Then, as though responding to the same unheard signal, they exploded into a whirlwind of cuts and parries more rapid than thought. The Brew Pub rang with the ancient clash of swords.
Eve watched in awe as Lamia and Spencer wove lightning-flash arcs of steel through footwork that seemed more ballet than battle, the two of them incarnations of beauty and power. If Lamia was all swirling smoke, Spencer was crackling flame. Together they burned the heart.
Just when it seemed the two warriors might circle forever, caught in the intimate and deadly dance of swords, Spencer locked his hilt with Lamia’s guard, switched to a single handed grip, and rotated his wrist, pushing his katana’s hilt between Lamia’s hands. Seizing her forearm with his free hand, he used the leverage of his sword to force her down.
The move was as smooth as the slide of silk, swift and fatal as the stoop of a falcon. It ended with Lamia lying on the floor, her katana immobilized, looking up into Spencer eyes as he crouched over her with his blade across her throat.
“Finish it if you’re going to,” Lamia snarled.
“Why would I wanna do a thing like that, darlin’?” Spencer smiled at her. “Now just hand me that lovely blade of yours, and we’ll call it even.”
If glares could have ignited flesh, Spencer would have been reduced to ash. Lamia resisted for a moment as he took hold of the hilt of her katana, but the slight tensing of her muscles opened a hair-fine red line on her neck, and she subsided.
Martha bounded up to Spencer. “Want me to tase her?” she asked brightly.
Spencer scowled at her then looked thoughtful. Then he shrugged and nodded.
With entirely too much relish the young woman bent over.
“No! Wait . . .” Lamia tried to object.
But Martha just grinned and zapped her. “Nighty night!”
With Lamia no longer a threat, Eve bolted for the bar.
“Stone! Jacob! Are you all right? Jacob!”
“Oh! Oh no! Jake!” Cassandra slipped away from Colin, whose job beyond dispensing zip ties appeared to be keeping the non-combatants non-combatant, and rushed after her.
Stone lay where he had been thrown by the two Serpent Brotherhood thugs. He was stirring, but there was blood on the floor under his head.
Before Eve could make it around the end of the bar, Spencer had vaulted over the top of it.
“Dammit, Jake!”
He knelt beside his cousin, hands holding him down. “Don’t move y’daft fool.”
“’M fine,” Stone insisted blearily. “You know my head is harder than whatever I hit.”
“I know you never had the sense God gave an onion,” Spencer complained, relief mixed with the anger in his voice. “Couldn’t ever resist jumpin’ into a brawl that was none of your business.”
“Onions,” Stone said, “are very sensitive . . . sensible . . . fruits . . . vegetables . . . um, things with roots that grow . . . whatever . . .” he trailed off.
Spencer’s eyes met Eve’s as she dropped to her knees on the other side of Stone, and she thought that if those had been Jacob Stone’s eyes she would have interpreted the emotion in them as guilt.
“Here, let me see that,” Spencer’s voice was rough, but his hands were gentle as he examined Stone’s injury. “That’s a pretty deep cut you got there.”
“Head wounds just bleed a lot,” Stone protested, his voice clearer. “Is all this fuss really necessary?”
He tried to sit up again, but Spencer kept him pinned. “Miss Cillian, would you be willing to hold this idiot’s head? I’m sure if he’s lyin’ in the lap of a beautiful woman, he’ll stay put.”
Stone tried a glare at his cousin and then winced.
“Do as you’re told, Stone,” Eve added her authority. “You’re lucky you don’t have a cervical injury.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Stone said.
“Oh, you’ll listen to her?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Stone asked. “She can kick my ass.”
“I’ll tell you who can kick your ass,” Spencer growled, as he carefully supported Stone’s head while Cassandra slid under him.
“Hey,” she said, giving Stone a tremulous smile.
“Hey, Cassie.” Stone smiled up at her. “Sorry for spoilin’ your dress.”
“It’s okay,” Cassandra said. “Really, it is.”
Eve had to grant that Spencer knew what he was doing. Stone stopped trying to hop up and shake it off and submitted to being fussed over.
“Where’s the . . . ? Oh, there it is.” Spencer said as the bartender trundled up with the first aid kit, one that looked extraordinarily large and well-stocked.
“Thank you Asfar,” Spencer said, opening the top compartment and pulling out a packet of sterile dressings. Opening it without touching the contents, he applied it to the bloody mess on the side of Stone’s head. “Cassandra, if you could keep some pressure on that cut, slow the bleeding?”
“Oh, yes.” Cassandra said, startled but game, taking over holding the dressing.
Fishing in one of the first aid kit pockets, Spencer pulled out a penlight. “Just going to check your eyes,” he informed Stone. “And stop rolling them.”
Eve supposed a man with Spencer’s resume would practically have a paramedic’s experience.
As Spencer checked the responsiveness of his cousin’s pupils, Eve began the standard cognitive questions for the victim of a head injury.
“What year is it, Stone?” she asked.
Spencer snorted. “You can’t check a brain like his with a question like that-Jake, what year did that Danish guy transcribe Cotton Nero A Fifteen?”
“You people are becomin’ annoying,” Stone growled. “For your diagnostic information it is Monday, March 2, 2015. And you’re tryin’ t’ be smart, Eliot. Grimur Jónsson Thorkelin transcribed Cotton MS Vitellius A.XV, not Nero. To answer your question there is some discrepancy in the dates because Thorkelin claimed he began work on the manuscript in 1787, but personal letters recently found at the Rigsarkivet and the Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen indicate his copy was actually made somewhere between 1789 and 1791.”
He seemed prepared to go on indefinitely on the topic, but Spencer interrupted. “Okay, okay. Stop! You’re within your normal parameters of insanity.”
Cassandra gave a little sniffle and smiled with relief, her free hand involuntarily barely brushing at Stone’s hair. Their obstinate art historian melted a little bit, and Spencer eyed them with a funny half-smile like he had confirmed a theory.
“Now, visual acuity,” Spencer said briskly. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“W,” said Stone.
“What?” Eve asked, worried because the answer should have been three.
“It’s sign language,” Spencer explained. “Useful for talking in class right in front of the teacher. All right, Jake, the blocks in your head still seem to be stacked. Let’s sit you up so I can take a better look at that wound. You’ll have to keep the pressure on it yourself.”
Stone’s hand briefly covered Cassandra’s as he took over holding the dressing. She slipped her bloodied fingertips out from under his, folding them into her other hand and twisting them nervously as Eve and Spencer helped him sit up.
“Not so fast!” Eve warned Stone. “Slowly.”
“Owww!” Stone complained. “Damn, have I got the mother lode of all headaches.”
“I bet you do,” Eve said, sliding her shoulder under his arm. “Easy there, cowboy.”
Together she and Spencer assisted Stone upright. Cassandra scrambled to her feet and continued to hover. Her skirt was now rather unsettlingly bloody.
Eve was relieved to find Ezekiel leaned up against the bar, feigning unconcern, and as usual, completely unscathed and full of snark.
“Nice little number you did on that cupboard door, Stone,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be threatening anyone else for a long time.”
It said something about how Stone was feeling that he paid no attention to his pestiferous colleague.
Eve glared at Ezekiel and made throat cutting signs with her free hand. The thief subsided reluctantly, self-preservation being one of his primary talents.
Spencer directed his cousin to a chair in good lighting, and Stone collapsed into it with a pained grimace.
Martha appeared in front of him. Eve was beginning to find the young woman’s uncanny materializations a bit unnerving. “Water!” she held up a glass. “Tylenol!” Her palm cupped two small pills.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a goddess?” Stone asked, taking the glass in one hand and letting her tip the pills into his other. He swallowed the pills with one gulp.
“Yes,” Martha said cheerfully. “H-Colin tells me that all the time when I . . .”
“Martha!” Spencer snapped.
Stone looked like he might choke. Ezekiel looked fascinated. Cassandra looked like she was simply waiting for the sentence to finish and did not understand the problem.
“Oh!” Martha said as though recalling something she had forgotten. “I’ll just go clean up all that blood.”
“You do that.” Spencer shook his head.
Martha trotted off as if dealing with blood were an everyday occupation.
Eve could see that Colin was encouraging the departure of the rest of the Brew Pub clientele. “Everything’s on the house tonight, folks. Sorry for the extra drama. Pick up your coupons for 20 % off on your next visit at the front desk.”
These people had a system for placating customers whose meals were interrupted by violence? Once again, Eve found herself wondering just what kind of mayhem was a regular occurrence here. Certainly no one seemed to be paying any attention to the pile of bound minions of the Serpent Brotherhood. She realized she was actually hearing sirens getting closer. Apparently someone had had the good sense to call the police.
In the next moment, the door to the Brew Pub flew open and four officers with guns drawn burst in. “Portland P.D.! Nobody move!”
“Olivia! Jack!” Martha exclaimed, delighted. “I’m glad it’s you! Thanks for coming so fast.” She waved her hand around, the gesture encompassing all the unconscious or incapacitated bodies. “The ones in the zip ties are the bad guys. Everybody else is good guys.”
The officers relaxed their weapons, apparently completely familiar with the Brew Pub and its personnel. “What happened here?” asked the officer Martha had identified as Olivia.
Slipping her ID out of her pocket, Eve held it out. “Colonel Eve Baird, NATO Counter-terrorism,” she identified herself to the officers. She nodded in the direction of the captives. “Those are the people responsible-they came in armed with knives and three guns. We were able to subdue them, but I’ve got one man injured.”
The officer Martha had identified as Olivia quickly checked Eve’s ID. “I’ll have Officer Bailey take statements, and the rest of us can make the arrests. Are we going to need EMS?”
“Eliot usually damages people a bit, so you might,” Martha shrugged.
“All right, we can take care of that,” the woman said. “You people never leave us much to do except clean up.” She turned and stalked off, talking into her radio.
Apparently, Spencer was operating on the right side of the law so far in Portland. Certainly, the local LEOs appeared on familiar and congenial terms with the Brew Pub crew. Eve had to admit it was going to be amusing to see Dulaque’s crack team of assassins behind bars for armed robbery. At least they were no longer her responsibility.
Eve turned back to the group clustered around Stone.
“Shouldn’t we be getting him to a doctor?” Ezekiel asked. “Not that I care or anything, but Stone’s brain is the only useful part of him.”
The Brew Pub crew looked nonplussed, as though they had forgotten such options existed. Eve herself was so accustomed to patching up hard-headed and hard-drinking recruits that she hadn’t really considered whether the ER was the place for Stone.
Spencer contemplated his cousin. “You’re gonna need a few stitches to hold that gash closed,” he told Stone. “Now I can put ‘em in for you, or your friends here can take you to the hospital. It’s your choice.”
“Not a fan of hospitals,” Stone admitted. “And I doubt you’ve forgotten how. You do it.”
“All right then.”
Spencer set Colin and Ezekiel to pulling up a table where he could lay out a tray with instruments and supplies. Once again, Eve noted that the Brew Pub first aid kit was more like an emergency first response kit. Spencer had all the materials to perform minor surgery should he so choose.
On the tray, wrapped in sterile bubble packs, were syringes, hair-fine curved needles, suture thread, a vial of local anaesthetic, gauze pads, antiseptic wipes, and surgical scissors. A large bottle of betadyne disinfectant sat next to a box of nitrile gloves.
In spite of her theory about Spencer’s proficiency in field medicine, Eve was impressed with his technique. He immediately assumed she would be the logical choice for nurse, and invited her to join him in scrubbing up and donning surgical gloves.
“If you could wipe as much of that blood as possible out of his hair,” Spencer told her, setting out a basin of warm water and a stack of clean restaurant linens, “I can shave the hair away from the edges of that cut.”
“Can I see your licenses as cosmetologists?” Stone complained.
“Come on, Stone. Your manly vanity will survive our amateur hairdressing,” Eve said, dipping a cloth in the water and wringing it out. “I’m going to have to remove that dressing you’re holding,” she warned him. “Hold still.”
The blood drying and matting in his hair had already adhered to the dressing, so Eve had to work it loose. She was careful, but as she gently detached the gauze from the site of the injury, she saw Stone’s hands clench on the sides of the chair and his knuckles go white. He didn’t move, however.
“There,” she said, dropping the gory mess on the table top, hoping that someone at the Brew Pub planned to thoroughly sanitize the place before resuming regular service. The jagged tear Stone had received courtesy of the cupboard door handle still oozed blood sluggishly.
Because she did not want to introduce any more bacteria into the cut than was already there, she avoided getting water too close to the injury, but Stone wasn’t going to be able to wash his hair for a couple of days, so she did her best to reduce the amount of blood that had soaked that side of his head as he had lain in it.
Cassandra stood by, washed and gloved of her own initiative, a little dewy-eyed, but gamely handing Eve cloths as she needed them. The pile of crimson cloths grew on the table, and the water in the basin went from pink to red.
When Spencer’s hands appeared beside hers ready to trim the hair from around the cut, Eve shied away, her mind flashing back to an image of black rather than blue gloves, and a blood-stained knife rather than shiny, sterile scissors. She noticed Stone’s eyes on her and forced her breathing back to normal, trying to make her retreat less obvious.
“Two by two, hands of blue,” Ezekiel commented. “Stone, you’d better make sure your cousin isn’t working for the Alliance.”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you that,” Spencer commented absently as he daubed the area around the wound with generous amounts of betadyne. Apparently he was used to that level of geekery from his association with Colin.
Snips of Stone’s thick dark hair fell to his shoulders and the floor.
“Sorry about the premature baldness.” Spencer’s tone was mocking rather than apologetic as he switched to the razor. Nevertheless, Eve noted that he was careful to clear as little hair around the cut as possible, and that Stone would be able to hide most of the resultant gap with artful combing.
Although his cousin was obviously trying not to hurt him, Stone closed his eyes and his breath hissed through his teeth.
Cassandra winced in sympathy. “Are you okay?” she asked, touching Stone on the shoulder.
He did not open his eyes or answer her but reached up and gripped her hand. Cassandra’s eyes widened then softened into a tender, maternal sort of look as she let him hold her hand.
Eve backed away to keep the area less congested. If it got her further away from Spencer, that was all to the good.
“Jones, why don’t you lift Stone’s keys and go get the pickup, so we don’t have to walk to it,” she suggested. “We shouldn’t have any trouble parking in front of the Brew Pub now.”
“Aye aye, Colonel Baird!” He slipped in beside Spencer, and had the keys out of Stone’s pocket without either of them paying him any attention. Giving Eve a cheeky grin, Ezekiel, hurried off to do as he was bid.
Having finished his work as barber, Spencer picked up a syringe that he must have filled while Eve was cleaning Stone’s hair.
“I’m going to numb the area now,” he told Stone. “You’ll feel a couple of pokes, but everything should improve after that.”
“Numb is good,” Stone said.
As Spencer prepared to inject the first amount of local anaesthetic, he asked, “Remember the first time I ever stitched up a cut?”
Stone laughed. “We were what? Twelve?”
“Something like that,” Spencer said, completing the injections with practiced speed and ease. He’d obviously done this before--frequently. “We were skipping school.”
“You were a bad influence,” Stone commented.
Spencer shrugged. “Your childhood would have been a trackless expanse of boredom without me.”
“We were also trespassing,” Stone said, relaxing as the numbing agent took hold.
Self-consciously, he dropped Cassandra’s hand. Cassandra blushed and withdrew her hand from his shoulder.
Spencer picked up the tiny needle already threaded with suture material. Using a sterile sponge, he dabbed the blood away from the wound so that he could see to stitch. Holding the torn flesh together, he inserted the needle and drew it through both ragged edges, joining them firmly. With a flourish, he tied a knot in the first stitch. “You have to admit the old Bowett place was a great place to play World War II!”
“And t’try to kill ourselves.” Stone frowned.
“There was that.” Spencer sponged away the blood again and set the next stitch.
“They shoulda known better than to tell us never t’go there. Like that was gonna work!”
“Parents. They never learn.” Spencer looked off into the distance briefly, tossing his hair from his eyes.
“Eliot was the Germans, and I was the Allies,” Stone explained to Cassandra and Eve. “The Bowett place was an abandoned 19th century farm house. The doors and ground floor windows were boarded up, but that didn’t stop us from clamberin’ onto the roof and riskin’ our necks breakin’ into a second story window. Man, that was fun!”
“Well, it was until I stepped through some rotten floorboards and ripped up my leg on the nails,” Spencer said dryly.
“Don’t you mean until you were bayoneted and captured?” Stone smirked.
“Right. So you got to practice your skills as a medic and ruin my shirt nearly cutting off my leg with a tourniquet.” Spencer glared at him.
“Then I hauled my prisoner of war back to the POW camp aka Uncle Saul’s place. But there was no way we were gonna admit what we’d done. So we used Uncle Saul’s fish line and Aunt Bernice’s embroidery needles to sew up Eliot’s leg.”
“What’s this ‘we’?” Spencer asked, delicately tying off another knot. “You were too squeamish to stick a needle into me. I had to sew up my own leg.”
“Hey, I knew my limitations,” Stone said. “But you have to admit I did a bang-up job of bandagin’.”
“Yeah. With Aunt B’s scarf! Was she ever hoppin’ mad when she finally got it back.” Spencer took another stitch.
You were lucky you didn’t lose that leg,” Stone said. “Sepsis or gangrene or something. It’s not like we were particularly sterile.”
“Fortunately, my tetanus shots were up to date,” Spencer agreed. “Then you had the bright idea to pour rubbing alcohol over it.”
Stone chuckled. “And after I peeled you off the ceiling . . .”
“That hurt like hell,” Spencer said. “For a long time that was my measure for how bad something could get. Flaming bamboo strips under my fingernails? Piece of cake. Nothing like that rubbing alcohol.”
Stone eyed his cousin as if he were almost sure he was joking. Eve was pretty sure he was not.
“Did your families ever find out what you’d done?” Cassandra asked.
“No,” Stone shook his head. “Eliot limped around for a few days, but that wasn’t so unusual, and nobody asked.”
“I still have a really odd looking scar.” Spencer tied off the last in his series of precise, tiny sutures.
“Wow! I couldn’t have a hangnail without a family emergency meeting,” Cassandra commented. “If I’d ever showed up limping there would have been specialists involved.”
“And there you are.” Spencer set down the needle and thread. “All stitched up. You look like Frankenstein’s monster now.”
“Creature,” Stone corrected. “Frankenstein’s creature. He wasn’t really a monster. In fact he was an innocent until human society taught him cruelty and drove him to kill.”
“He may not have begun life as a monster, but he chose to become one,” Spencer said quietly. “That’s not a choice you can unmake.”
Stone looked searchingly at his cousin, but Spencer did not meet his eyes. Instead, he busied himself peeling off his blood-stained blue gloves.
Eve saw again black gloves with fingertips glistening crimson-with Torbjørn’s blood, with Teresinha’s, with Poptart’s, with her own. The hands of a monster.
Those hands remained deceptively gentle as they applied sterile pads to the wound on Stone’s head.
“You know the drill-any nausea, dizziness, persistent headaches, confusion-and it’s off to the ER for you.” Spencer taped the bandage in place.
“Yes, doctor” Stone said with deceptive humility.
“And no washing your hair for 48 hours. You can get Colonel Baird to remove the stitches in 3 to 5 days,” Spencer said.
Eve nodded at him. “We’d better get you home and lying down, Stone,” she said.
Martha trotted over, bearing an icepack that Stone accepted with gratitude. At least this time Eve had seen her arriving.
“Can someone stay with him overnight?” Spencer asked. “Make sure there’s no damage we’re missing?”
“Certainly,” Eve said. “We’ll take care of him.”
Their departure was delayed by the necessity of providing their contact information to Portland PD. Ezekiel arrived back from bringing the pickup and lied to the police about every circumstance of his existence. Eve was too tired to care. The Library probably did not want him arrested anyway.
The police did not need long statements from them because it turned out that Colin had provided them with surveillance video from every possible angle. Apparently the Brew Pub was an impossible place to attempt anything clandestine.
Finally, they were ready to go. The Brew Pub crew shook hands with the Librarian team. Cassandra added an impulsive hug for Spencer.
“Thank you,” she said. “I had a lovely time-well-before everything else.”
“You’re welcome for the lovely time part,” Spencer said. “I’m sorry the dessert ended up all over the floor and the goons. And I’m sorry for the excessive infestation of goons.”
Cassandra giggled. “But it was pretty spectacular.”
Spencer’s smile at her was wistful.
Stone looked pale and exhausted; however, he stood on his own and refused to lean on anyone. He shook hands with Colin and Martha and turned to bid his cousin farewell.
“Eliot, your food was terrific, but the floor show left a lot to be desired,” he joked, holding out his hand.
“Maybe next time, you’ll remember to stay put when you haven’t been invited to join in and let the professionals do their jobs.” Spencer’s tone was dead serious.
Stone ignored the reproof and clasped Spencer’s hand. “I’m so glad we ran into each other. Let’s do it again before another twenty years pass.”
In response, Spencer pulled him into a fierce hug. Stone looked startled, given his cousin’s first reaction to being hugged, but then pleased.
“It was good to see you, Jake,” Spencer said into his cousin’s neck. “Felt just a bit like goin’ home.”
As Spencer released him and stepped back, Stone looked as if he would have liked to ask his cousin a thousand questions, none of which he could ask.
“See you later, then?” Stone asked hopefully.
The look in Spencer’s eyes was that of a soldier saying good-bye on the docks before shipping out for a tour of duty from which he did not expect to return. “Take care of yourself,” he responded, clapping Stone on the shoulder a last time.
* * * * *
As they exited the Brew Pub, Eve wondered if anyone had noticed that she and Spencer had exchanged no farewells. She felt a small elation that she’d extricated this team alive and mostly in one piece.
Cassandra followed at Stone’s shoulder, their usual positions reversed, ready to support him should he falter. Surprisingly, Ezekiel was hovering a bit, too. Their thief would have to watch himself, or he would start losing his impervious detachment.
They threaded their way through the last of the police cars loaded with Lamia’s crew. Two ambulances were just pulling away with Spencer’s more unlucky victims.
Stone gave a sigh of relief when they reached his pickup. He didn’t even complain when Eve chivalrously assisted him with climbing in. This time Jones and Cassandra had the back seat, since Eve planned to drive so she could drop the others off before taking Stone home.
As Eve finished settling Stone in the front passenger seat, Martha appeared at her shoulder. Eve started. Once again, she had not realized the woman had followed her.
“I’m supposed to give these back to you,” Martha said, handing Eve a sealed plastic bag containing her missing ammunition.
Eve watched as Martha hurried through the rain and saw Eliot Spencer, standing shadowed in the entrance to the Brew Pub.
Quickly and automatically drawing her weapon, Eve inserted the magazine and chambered a round. For the first time that evening, she held a loaded gun.
In those seconds, however, Martha and Spencer had disappeared into the Brew Pub.
A chill slithered up Eve’s spine. The temporary truce was over.
* * * * *
TBC
* * * * *
Notes: In case you didn't recognize their cameo appearances here, the Portland PD officers Olivia and Jack were the law enforcement officers Parker and Amy set up for a date at The Brew Pub in The Broken Wing Job.