Blood and Roses

By Chris Mackenzie Fain

Fandom: The Invisible Man

Pairings: m/m, f/f, m/f

Warnings: This is a crossover alternate universe story. This is not heavy slash nor is it typical I-Man fic. Like it's predecessors, NQ and FP, it is about everyone in the story, both slash, het, and non-sexual.

Rating: NC-17, R for sexual talk, sexual innuendo and situations, graphic violence, and language.

Series/Sequel: This is the third in the series "Neon Quicksilver"

Category: Alt-U Fandom Crossover

Disclaimer: The characters of The Invisible Man belong to Sci-Fi and it's affiliates. I have no claim to them. I am making no money on this story. It is for the pure enjoyment of fans. The characters of Harmony and Ciara Mackenzie belong to Echo Fain Hagerman and the novel, The Incompleat Chronicles of a Time Traveler. Anyone else that shows up along the way belong to me and I take full responsibility for their offenses and delights.

Summary: How well do we know our loved ones? Can we trust them out of our sight? What if you found yourself looking at them suddenly and not being sure that they are what you thought they were? What would happen if a top-level agent turned in a resignation the same night a series of brutal killings began that has their fingerprints all over the crime scenes? What does it have in common with Kevin being alive? What happens when Bobby Hobbes starts working up the nerve to talk to Darien about the things that seem to be growing between them and vice versa? How will Darien and Harmony handle Doctor Kevin Fawkes being alive and back in their lives? Will Eberts ever lose the stiffness and scream?

We will have to see.

A fictional Secret Service agent on television once told his partner that things are never what they seem. And considering that I was living real life and it still felt like science fiction---or a really bad dream---I thought I was handling myself fairly well. I mean, I hadn't had a total meltdown yet.

But, just when you think you've got the rules to the game figured out, that little thing called destiny comes out of nowhere and smacks you in the face. That's when you realize that reality doesn't matter and just surviving becomes the reason you go on. Cause that's what we're about. Survival.

Things are never what they seem and I was going to find *that* out in some very interesting ways. For example, if you'd asked me a year ago if I knew what I wanted from love, I'd have had to tell you that Casey was what I wanted. Maybe to someday have a real job and a family life. With things like...kids, you know?

Now, I was sure about where my heart was staying at night, but as of yet, it was something I'd tried to not bring out in the open. I guess fear prompted that. So, I'm a coward in a way. I knew that there was a reason I was still alive.

But it was about time I found out if Liz was right about faster being better.

And the biggest surprise about love is how quickly it can sneak up on you and change everything. Love wears masks that can frighten and alter your perception of what life means.

Beyond that---there's nothing greater than discovering that just when you thought you had a loved one figured out, they turn out to be something completely strange. And all it took was for you to blink one time and in that second, they become a familiar voice and a familiar face with a new mask on.

And the one that gets you is the one that you never see coming. You ever hear that? Well, I was about to find out what it was that drew me to call an assassin my friend and fellow agent, even when I knew she was a very dangerous individual. And with that knowledge would come the fact that Ciara Mackenzie wore the greatest mask I'd ever seen.

While burying the empty casket that was supposed to hold my brother, I thought about how even a mask can be a comfort in the end. If you're seeking answers and dreading the truth, then maybe it's best you don't find what you're looking for.

Some things were meant to remain unknown.

I just didn't know how to talk about that, yet. Not even to my partner. He had chosen me over the Agency and the Official. Bobby Hobbes had already made choices in my favor that showed he trusted me---that he liked me. But how deep did that trust or that friendship go? Would it survive something more intense?

I didn't find Kevin. The body that lay in the shallow, unmarked grave was not that of my older brother. Arnaud lied. But, in the face of having nothing conclusive to prove otherwise, we reburied the casket and went on telling ourselves that Kev was dead and not coming back.

I came to understand that I had a new, closer kind of brother in my partner, Hobbes. That was comforting. He was there for me. He helped me start the process of going on without the answers to explain what had happened to my brother or to me, for that matter. It was important to me---for Bobby Hobbes to be there.

When he was hurt and in the hospital, I seemed to run on adrenaline only. I went from the labs at the Agency, to the hospital, to home, and then start the route over again, never really stopping. The closest I came to getting any real sleep during that time was right by my partner's side, while he rested and healed.

And then I got that phone call. From Home. From our family doctor. And I had been thinking about it ever since. I was sure that time would give me some closure to the pain that left an empty place in me.

I wasn't angry at Kevin anymore. I couldn't be. But, I did feel the emptiness. So did some others who shouldn't have had to endure it---it brought pain and we could only blame Arnaud De Thiel, who'd learned a few new tricks.

That sick bastard used my need to believe in order to get under my skin. I was able to see what he had done---I accepted it and went on. What it did, in the long run, was open some wounds in a friend's heart that I thought might not heal.

But, I've been thinking about it ever since. When it was happening, our Agency was turned upside down for a time. Certain people were kept in the dark for as long as possible, using that old need-to-know line. It didn't work for long. I guess Harmony was born to be an agent, after all, cause she found the truth fast.

While a few could be kept out of the circle of surprised and horrified faces because of their job's location, or because they were overseas, others...who were much closer to the situation...found out quickly after it was over.

The day after we reburied that casket under my brother's headstone, my partner and I drove Harmony home from the labs. The Keeper thought it was too early for her to be alone. But, as she said, only Harmony herself could make the decision of how to handle her still healing body and heart.

And the girl had been very quiet since then. Her partner Ciara Mackenzie, who had been on an assignment during the entire thing and was now home, had been even quieter. We hardly ever saw her at all. She was doing some kind of work for the CIA that took her away from the Agency a lot more often.

Now, I knew what was making Harmony quiet. She was silently mourning something only I had in common with her. Our mutual grief was an unspoken one that brought a lot of understanding with just knowing that there was another person who felt it, too. She asked for privacy---time alone. Not even her partner went back to that apartment to bother her.

The only person who did see her was Claire, who saw her in the lab very early every morning, but whose only comment was that Harmony was fine. Let the young woman have her time alone and she'll come back.

Beyond that, I didn't give it much thought. I was dealing with the issue of how to go on with the next step of trying to get a point across to my partner. I knew Harmony would deal with it and be stronger, but I wondered if she'd be the same girl.

She would tell me to forget about the other stuff; she would want me to get the lead out and tell Hobbes how I was feeling about him. The hug had been good---it had been great, in fact---but it was only a tip of what I knew I had to tell him, show him, and make him understand.

Harmony would applaud. She might even take credit in her mind and I didn't mind that. After all, what she showed me about myself was a valuable lesson…

But, then there was her mysterious partner, who had nothing at all to say about any of it. Instead, she'd managed to get away from the whole thing with one cryptic statement---it was the last thing I heard her say before I found out that she had resigned:

"Things are never what they seem."

@@@

Chapter One:

It had been a long, boring weekend. He'd wanted to do something, anything...but he'd chickened out on the phone. And other than Bobby Hobbes, whom was he going to call and ask? It sounded strange, but with silence from one friend and uncomfortable looks of sympathy from everyone else---Darien had no one but Hobbes to talk to right now.

And he'd bombed his chance on the phone. He'd called to ask his partner to go see a movie or something---anything to break the tediousness. But, when it had come down to actually asking, he'd stuttered and shut up. It was like being a teenager again. And he'd been kicking himself ever since. All weekend.

Monday mornings. He hated the routine. Come to work, check in with the Keeper, and go about the work and the life of an agent who busted some criminals just to keep getting that shot in the arm. Lately, he'd had some real reasons to like the job and it was definitely growing on him. But Monday mornings...they were always the same.

He'd been due a shot this morning. A few extra minutes in the lab spent watching Claire and talking to her about how he felt. Crap. That was how he felt. He'd been feeling like crap. But he didn't really want to talk to her about what was bothering him.

It was still a very taboo subject for him; he couldn't talk about the deeper emotions with her yet. And the person who could listen wasn't talking---wasn't seeing anyone.

Hobbes was what was bothering him. He'd spent a whole weekend thinking of ways to start talking. They'd made so much progress in their partner relationship and it had gone beyond that. They were friends now. He thought they were close enough now that he could trust the guy with his feelings, but he couldn't be sure if what he was feeling was a safe thing to talk about.

So, he walked silent and listened to his partner. Hobbes had met him outside the lab and they'd come up in the elevator together. Right now, there was no job to do and nothing to argue or laugh about. They were partners and sometimes silence was enough. He was quiet and Bobby Hobbes whistled as they moved; some really jazzy tune that seemed to match the shorter man's movements.

But, he wanted to talk. He just didn't know where or how to start.

Darien sipped at the coffee he was carrying and turned the corner at the same time Bobby Hobbes did, still whistling that bouncy tune. They'd been working together long enough now---he'd noticed how they were starting to move the same way at that same pace. It was a good sign but not enough of one for him to go running his mouth about more intimate things.

"Will you look at that." Bobby Hobbes' whistling stopped.

Ahead of them, standing outside his partner's office, Darien could see Eberts standing impatiently. The pale man stood with his arms behind his back and despite his cool exterior, even a complete rookie could have seen that he was agitated over something. His eyes flickered and moved over them as they approached.

Before the attaché could speak, Bobby broke the quiet in the hallway again.

"We're not late." He looked down at his watch, barely tipping his own Styrofoam cup of coffee to do so. "By my watch, we have five minutes."

Darien grinned. Lately, his partner had been standing up more for himself. There was still the air of the yes man in Hobbes, but it was being tempered by a more natural attitude of keeping his freedom in some measure.

"No, actually, the Official sent me to wait for you. He needs to see you immediately." Eberts' eyes moved quickly from Darien to Bobby Hobbes and then back to the taller man. "He said that as soon as you came in, you were to report to his office."

"Uh-oh. Fat Man wants to see us this early?" Hobbes looked sideways and up at his partner. Darien knew that look. Even at this time of the day, Bobby Hobbes was ready for trouble if trouble should come knocking. "This can't be good."

"What's he need to see us at nine for? We still have to do that paper stuff for yesterday." Darien drank from his coffee again and studied Eberts' stiff face. "I thought we weren't supposed to report until eleven today."

"There's been a change. He needs to see you now." With that, Eberts turned around and walked briskly away, back down the hall. Taking a moment to study the retreating back, he wondered if there was any way the guy could be more uptight.

Darien looked at his partner and saw the concern on Hobbes' face. No, it couldn't be good and the thoughts were echoed by the shorter agent's words.

"Sounds like we just bagged a new assignment."

"Looks that way, doesn't it? Well, after you, pal." Darien indicated the path with his free hand and saw the smile that flitted over Hobbes' face. It warmed him inside. Maybe he wasn't ready to start talking, but there were ways to let his partner now that everything was cool between them.

"You know," Bobby Hobbes sipped again at his hot coffee. "You really seem like something's bugging you."

Darien could see, turning as they walked down the hall, that his partner's face showed his real concern. It had been happening more lately. It had been going on since before he'd gone to Cold Springs, but that worry he was seeing had definitely gotten stronger since they'd re-buried the empty casket at the cemetery.

He had an idea that his partner had been giving him that look longer than he'd noticed. It was a cross between sympathy and curiosity. Maybe it wasn't what he wanted, but it was a start.

"I guess I'm saying that I'm here if you need someone to talk to. Partners, right?" When he didn't answer, Hobbes went on. "Is it that kid from yesterday? I know that must have gotten to you. Give it time, you'll get used to seeing that crap."

Darien shook his head. He could've lied and said it hadn't bothered him at all to see a little boy abused that way, but it had cut him to the core to know that he'd ever have to go into a house and see things like that up close. Reading about it in the papers and seeing it on the news...that was one thing.

Busting a kid's parents for abuse like that and seeing the child cry cause his parents were in trouble---now, that was what had really gotten him.

"It got me, but that's not what's wrong."

"Okay, hotshot, you wanna fill me in on the long face?" Hobbes had fallen back on the nearly sarcastic tone that he used when he wanted to hide his own feelings in the situation.

Darien had his own suspicions as to what his partner had been thinking when they'd found that kid, hiding in the bedroom behind a wardrobe. He'd seen how Bobby Hobbes' face had whitened and gone like stone, his eyes like two dark fires that showed his pent-in rage.

He opened his mouth to say something and shut it again, shaking his head. They were nearly to the Official's office. Now wasn't the time to start talking. Not now. Tugging on the loose ends of his red and black shirt, Darien looked down at his partner and smiled wanly.

"Later, man, over lunch. Okay?"

Bobby Hobbes opened the door and before he went through it, he gave Darien a look that told the younger man that his partner wasn't going to forget. He'd be answering some questions over lunch if the older agent had anything to say about it.

"Come in and have a seat, boys." The Official looked up from a folder he'd been perusing. His glasses sat low on his nose. His watery blue eyes seemed to be more tired than usual. If anything, Darien was sure he was seeing worry in the face of the man who played games and politics for a living.

Worry wasn't what he needed to see in that face.

He stood up then and pointed to the table at the back of the office, taking the time to remove the bifocals and lay them on his desk. Darien watched his partner stop in mid-step, turn, and pull out a chair at the oval conference table. He went around the end and took a place opposite Hobbes.

As he was settling in, Eberts came back into the office, his mouth open to speak. He was carrying a sheaf of papers in his hands. Upon seeing that the two agents were there, he shut the words up before they came out. Darien leaned back in his seat and stretched his long legs out under the table, getting comfortable.

He saw his partner settling in as well, crossing one leg over the other. Hobbes smoothed down the front of his olive colored suit coat.

"Gentlemen, I have a question for you." The Official looked worn and rumpled already, despite the early hour. He'd moved to the window. He kept his back to them for a moment before speaking again. As the words came, he turned and Darien saw the concentration in the heavy face.

"When did you last see Agent Mackenzie?"

Darien blinked at the Official and then turned his gaze to watch his partner's eyes widen. The gears were already turning in the older agent's mind. He wouldn't need much information before he'd have a pretty good picture of what this was about. It was something he had grown to know and admire in Bobby Hobbes. He was good and he was fast.

Taking his eyes from his partner's face, he glanced at Eberts, who had picked up the phone, dialed it quickly, and was now speaking quietly to someone on the other end. He couldn't make out what was being said for the way the pasty-faced man held his hand over the receiver while looking down at something on the desk.

His expression said that what he saw was really disturbing to him. His cheeks each had a slight rose blush but the frown he wore wasn't the look of a happy individual. It wasn't like Eberts to get emotional over anything, as far as he could tell.

Hobbes hadn't spoken yet. Darien licked his lower lip and thought about it. It was clear that he was being given the go ahead.

"It's been about a week, actually. I saw her outside." He looked at the boss and frowned. "Why?"

"What was she doing at the moment you saw her last?" The Officials' eyes narrowed like a laser on him. Darien felt uncomfortable under that gaze.

"She was buying ice cream for some kid." He let it roll out in a slow drawl and then straightened up under the sudden shifting glare his boss had for him.

"She was dragging some nasty white guy by handcuffs into the building. He was crying and she didn't look like she was laughing. She had a nosebleed like the perp actually popped her one. He didn't look too healthy himself. Sound familiar?" He folded his hands on the table's top in front of him, letting his fingers lay against the base of the cup he'd brought with him.

"That would have been Tuesday and it was Eddie England she had with her, sir. Remember? The Maxwell smuggling case." Eberts put his hand over the phone and spoke softly, in an informative tone.

"Yes. You're right. Okay, Bobby, how about you?" The Official's upper lip had curled a little at the reminder from Eberts. It was nearly a half-snarling smile. His use of Hobbes' first name made Darien look at him closer.

The Official seemed more than concerned and worried. He was on the edge of anger. Now wouldn't be the time to push him with sarcasm.

"Actually, sir, I saw her on Friday." His partner was nervous. He glanced up from the table and rubbed at his thin hair and temple with two fingers. "I passed her in the hall, near my office."

"And how did she seem at the time?" The Official had turned briefly to look at Eberts, who was still talking on the phone in a murmur. When he swung his large head around again, there was a darker expression on his face.

Hobbes hesitated. He took a drink of his coffee and set it back on the table.

"Agent Hobbes, how did she seem to you?" The anger was in the reddening of their boss' cheeks. He spoke a little louder than he needed to. Eberts, at the desk, looked up in surprise and fear.

"Okay. I mean, she seemed fine, sir." Bobby Hobbes swallowed and managed a weak smile. "She even blew me a kiss---you believe that?"

"Sounds like the Ciara Mackenzie we all know."

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Darien felt like covering his mouth with his fingers as the pale blue eyes found him again.

"And how well do you know her? Enough to guess what she might have been doing this weekend?" It was a quiet question and full of threatening thunder.

"You wanna tell us now why you're asking us about Agent Mackenzie?" Darien picked up his Styrofoam cup, felt how it had cooled, and took a drink of the tepid coffee. He met the Official's gaze head on and tried to not blink now.

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Eberts set the phone down and sigh with the same worry on his pale face. The assistant picked up a folder that lay on the desk and walked quickly back to the table, joining them.

Darien watched as the Official met his subordinate's eyes and the younger man nodded. It was the boss' turn to sigh now. They moved away, to stand by the window and whisper between themselves.

He turned and looked at Hobbes. His partner's eyes were narrowed in thought. He had one finger over his lower lip in a familiar way of concentration. He started to ask the older agent what he was thinking about when the Official's voice broke in again.

"Did either of you happen to see the news on Saturday?"

Shaking his head, Darien felt his curiosity rising. Flicking his eyes to his partner, he saw no response at all to the question.

"So, you know nothing of the Friday night homicides in suburban Lynwood Hills?" The Official stood with his hands in his pockets and the same dark look on his heavy-jowled face.

"Lynwood Hills?" Bobby Hobbes sounded mildly horrified. "You mean that massacre that was all over the radio?"

Both Eberts and the Official nodded together. Darien felt his skin grow taut without understanding why. This was really starting to sound bad. The hair on the back of his neck prickled at his collar.

"Gentlemen, at ten p.m. Friday night, a horrible thing happened out there." As their boss spoke, Eberts laid the folder he had been holding down onto the table between them and opened it. He pulled a set of eight by ten glossy black and whites out and put five of them in front of Hobbes and five of them in front of Darien, spreading them out.

Darien immediately wished the fair-skinned attaché hadn't done it. His eyes went to the first one and his stomach did a flip-flop. It was grisly and very clear in the photo. Murder didn't define what had been done to the person. It was an execution.

A single bullet hole sat in the forehead of a woman young enough to be Harmony. It winked at him, like an obscene third eye, from the black and white as a reminder of how fast death could be. The blood was black in the photo, but it ran down over the girl's lowered face like tears.

Whoever had done this had planned for it. The girl sat in a chair, tied by her waist and shoulders. Her hands were tied in front of her in a prayer position. In her clasped hands, she held a single rose. On her wrists, where she was tied, there were deep cuts. He recognized, with horror, that it wasn't rope around her hands. It was barbed wire.

The rose looked like the blood in the photo. Darien knew it had to be a red rose.

He looked up at their boss and saw the anger and sense of desperation in the man's eyes. Eberts wore a similar expression, seen over the Official's shoulder.

"Whoever he is, he's good. Serial killer?" Hobbes spoke in a husky voice. "All the victims are in the same position. All the wounds are in the same place---exact same place. Hey, hotshot---see those roses?"

Darien looked around at his partner in shock. How could he sound so calm and dismissive of this? Bobby Hobbes had an expression of carefully guarded hard-nosed professionalism on his face. He didn't look up from the pictures.

Glancing back down to the glossies, Darien scanned them. His partner was right. They were all like that. Four people in four pictures, sitting in chairs, tied in the same way. They all held a single rose and they all had a bullet hole in the same place on their foreheads.

His fifth picture was of a door. It was white and seemed, from the look of it, to be the outside door to the house where this monstrous crime had been committed. There was a large, dark circle streaked on the stark surface of the door. It had run, dripped, and dribbled from the strokes that had painted dark blood in a perfect O.

Inside that O was an X. Like a strange target or a railroad crossing sign.

"What's this?" He quelled his stomach's tumbling and tapped the picture of the door.

"We would like to know the same thing. So would the Lynwood Hills PD." The Official had moved to stand behind Hobbes, putting his hands on the back of the agent's chair. "We did some serious work to get our hands on this one, boys; the FBI are already talking serial killer because of the brutality and the extras that you see."

"Serial killer, I said first." Hobbes looked up and over his shoulder at their boss.

Taking a glance at the pictures in front of his partner, Darien saw more dead people. Women and men had been executed. It was the best description he could think of to give it. There could never be any rationalizing such a slaughter, but it had been done in a methodical manner and with such care to grotesque aesthetics.

"The bastard wanted pretty pictures." It came out as a whisper; all he could manage. "He wanted them to send a message."

"Good work, Agent Fawkes." The Official's smile was a slim one. "You're probably hitting close to the truth there."

Darien didn't look back down at the bodies. He looked at the door with its bloody symbol instead. Why did it seem familiar? It was as if he'd seen that mark somewhere before...but where?

"You see the marks on the wrists?" Bobby Hobbes was staring at a picture he'd pulled in front of himself. "They were alive when he tied them up like that. This woman has marks on her wrists like she was fighting when she died. There's more blood on her hands than on the others."

"Barbed wire." Darien didn't look away from the picture of the door. He'd seen too much already. He slid the picture away from himself, towards his partner. "Look at this, Hobbes."

His eyes followed the photo as his fingers moved it, crawling upwards to see the older agent's expression.

"Have you seen that anywhere recently?" Darien Fawkes knew that if it was familiar to his partner that maybe they knew something about the murders that no one else could know...but he didn't know what it was yet. It was very familiar, but he couldn't place it at all.

"Yeh. I have. But, I don't know where." Hobbes looked up at him then and frowned. "You know...this is definitely the first time I remember ever seeing this in a case, though."

Eberts began taking the pictures away, one by one. He put them back in the folder, closed it, and set it to the side on the table. "That, Agent Hobbes, is because you don't have the whole picture. This wasn't the first time it's been seen."

"You mean this really is a serial killer?" Darien stared at the man and then shifted his gaze to include their boss, who was clenching his large fingers around the back of the chair that Bobby Hobbes sat in.

"Eberts, the other part." The Official didn't look away from the closed folder as he said it.

The assistant hurried to the desk, picked up a piece of paper that lay there, and slid a tape in a small tape player. He brought both back with him, his face very grim and stiff.

He set the tape player down on the folder and turned it on. After a few moments, there was a beep that signaled it as being an answering machine tape. Then, a very calm voice began speaking.

Her accent was a thick burr that made a few words nearly unrecognizable as English. Darien knew, from the way she spoke, that the calm was a front. The highland accent was harsh when she was upset, no matter how else she sounded. From her voice, their CIA kite agent, Ciara Mackenzie, had been tired, upset, and serious when she'd called and left this message.

"Charlie, I know I promised ya na trouble an' I'm trouble ta ya now. He’s in town an’ he’s lookin’ fer me, so th’ Agency’s th’ last place I should be. I put me resignation o' th' desk. I won't be troublin' ya na more. I want ya ta ast yer lads ta keep uh eye peeled fer me gel. She's uh good 'un but she needs uh hand now an' den. Giv' 'em all me love, Charlie. Have uh good 'un."

It was like hearing a stranger, but he'd heard her upset before. This was something more. She sounded like she might even have been drinking. This was Ciara scared and worried and so very serious as she worked to hide her emotions.

Darien stared at the tape player and listened as the mechanical voice at the end gave the time and date for the message. Friday night, after midnight; two thirty-seven in the morning to be exact.

Then, Eberts dropped the paper he'd been holding. It landed in front of Bobby Hobbes. Darien watched as his partner read it and looked up in confusion.

"She resigned? Just like that? Why?" The older agent seemed genuinely upset now. This information had gotten him in the gut where the pictures of a brutally slaughtered family hadn't.

"We are waiting for another source to provide us with what might be known about the situation, since there are other factors to consider in this situation. But, as of right now, it looks like Agent Mackenzie has gone rogue."

Eberts sounded so calm. It took Darien a few moments of the following silence to put it together and what he found didn't look good.

"You think she had something to do with that? He pointed at the folder, nearly knocking his forgotten coffee over with the sudden movement of his hand. "That's crazy."

"Not as crazy as you think, kid." The Official was watching him with his blue eyes cold as ice. "She's not above this. And the Lynwood Hills' police report has a witness statement that claims she was seen at the scene after the shots were fired."

"They know it was her? I mean…her name was given?" Bobby Hobbes had laid a finger against his mouth again in thought. His dark eyes were serious and full of speculation.

"Yes, her name was given in the report. She was known by the neighbors as having been at the house many times." The Official's words made Darien's skin feel tight again beneath his shirt. If the report was right, then the agent that he'd staked his life on several times had gone rogue and killed an entire family.

A family she knew, maybe.

He'd called her a friend. He'd trusted her. They'd laughed and shared a few moments of painful revelation about her past where his brother and Harmony were concerned.

But, if those pictures were her handiwork, if the report was right...if the resignation and the message on the answering machine added into the equation---then Ciara Mackenzie was a murderer. More than an assassin for the right cause, it suddenly made him remember what Arnaud De Thiel had warned him about her: She wasn't what Darien thought she was. She was something else completely.

And he didn't want to think about that, but how could he avoid it now? If everything added up against her, then she'd fooled him completely. He'd not been blind to the truth about Ciara as it had been presented. He knew she was a killer who seemed to always land on her feet. He knew that she would kill her young partner---her ex-lover---if it became necessary to protect her employers' interests.

Now, he knew---she had left the Agency and what it looked like was that Ciara Mackenzie had decided to commit ritual executions on a family she knew well enough to visit often.

Darien looked up at his partner and saw the same things going on in Bobby Hobbes' eyes. They were on the same page and it was obvious that the older agent knew what he was thinking, too.

"I'm telling you this now before the new agent arrives so that you realize how serious this is. We want this kept under the hoopa. In house, boys. Understand?" The Official's words brought Darien back to the moment. "The FBI are going to be breathing down our necks for this if it's not resolved fast, since we snatched it out of their hands. I want Ciara brought in for questioning. She may not have had anything to do with these murders, but there is a chance this was done because of her…"

"New agent? We hired someone new?" Bobby Hobbes, distracted, searched the face of their boss with his dark eyes full of surprise.

"Well, she will be working here in the office with me, but yes---" Eberts started and was cut off by a hissing sound from the Official. The rheumy blue eyes held a warning.

Just then, the door opened and Darien looked up, with shock, to see the skinny form of Harmony slip through. As she closed it behind her, she put her cell phone away. She'd been talking to someone.

"Keep says she'll be right up."

The bright-eyed girl looked like she'd not been resting, either. It seemed to be going around. It had been two weeks since he'd seen her and he could see the difference already. And it wasn't a good one.

She'd dropped weight, for one thing, and she hadn't had a lot to lose before. Darien shook that thought free from his mind. He sounded like a mother hen to his own brain. She was her own person and still getting over being so very sick. She had an excuse to look tired.

"Hey, Hobbesy!" With a strange smile, she moved around the table to seat herself at the end, between them. "Guinea Pig---how the heck are ya?"

Darien watched as his partner's eyes grew large and then softened momentarily before looking away from the young woman, muttering his greeting. He knew that look. Bobby Hobbes had heard the falseness of her tone as easily as he had.

She wasn't glad to see them at all. Harmony didn't really want to see her friends.

She'd not only dropped weight, but her eyes had a look to them now that he'd never seen before. Like a permanent sadness had come to stay. They were bright, but the blue and tan didn't hide the shadow that lurked behind them.

Time alone was what she'd demanded, but it hadn't done the trick the Keeper had said it would. And Claire had known that Harmony wasn't doing well...she'd been seeing her every morning. The time alone seemed to have eaten away at Harmony's heart and soul.

It couldn't be the shots. She was still on the gene therapy and the word had come back that it was working. Her body was responding to it. She wasn't going to die anytime soon from a debilitating genetic disorder...but it looked bad anyway.

She'd not needed that time alone for two weeks. It had been the worst thing they could have done for her and Claire had not only allowed it, but had encouraged it. What was that about?

"I'm sure there are more interesting things to look at here besides the newbie, guys. Pass the folder." Harmony didn't smile as she held her slender hand out. He realized that he hadn't been the only one staring. His partner had been staring at her as well in surprise.

"Agent---" Eberts faltered. Darien saw the confusion on the attaché's face.

"Corwin is what the W2 said, right? I did write Corwin, didn't I?" Harmony cocked her head to the side as she stood up. She didn't meet anyone's eyes as she reached down the table for the folder and the tape player. "Let's not break Agency tradition, even if it’s not my name. Corwin I was and Corwin I am."

The Official's chuckle was dry as he lifted a hand to push the folder into her reach. "Agent Corwin it is, for now. Your assistance is required, Agent Corwin."

Darien couldn't believe what he was hearing. She'd decided to work for the Agency again. She'd taken a job that kept her tied even longer to the people who'd brought her into an experiment as an infant. And instead of taking her family name of Rose, she'd kept the Agency's name of Corwin.

Harmony had done things that seemed unlikely before, but this was more than he could understand. He couldn't wait to have a moment alone with her to talk about it.

He met his partner's eyes again and then turned to watch as the young woman flipped the folder open. Bobby Hobbes was holding his breath; Darien could see the anxiety in the older agent's eyes. There was a sense of disbelief in the room.

She was going to be working in the office with Eberts, but she was being allowed access to the files that implicated her ex-lover.

It had been talked at one point that if she chose, when she was ready, that she'd come back to work for the Agency. He knew that. But, it seemed such an impossible thing. Ciara Mackenzie had sworn that it would never happen, if she had anything to do with it.

Now, the woman who was supposed to be her partner was under suspicion of mass murder and the girl had come back to work; this time, in the Agency office.

Darien watched, with everyone else, as she looked at each photo with a blank face and a cold eye. It was as if the pictures showed something other than brutal executions. Harmony Corwin wasn't bothered in the least by the dead people in Lynwood Hills, if her expression was any indicator.

Then he saw her come to the picture of the white door with its odd symbol in streaking blood. He and his partner were both holding their breath now and they weren't disappointed.

Harmony traced the circle with her fingertips. He could see how her blue eyes moved over the lines of the X that was painted in human blood. Her brow came together in a serious expression as she finally looked up at the Official.

"Houston, we have a problem."

@@@

Chapter Two:

"What's with the mouseketeer act she's got going?" He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and strolled along the sidewalk towards the car. Today, they'd be using the vehicle that Darien usually drove. It made for a much more convincing and professional front than the van.

Darien sighed and looked down at him sideways. "I don't know, man, but that's just plain wrong."

Bobby Hobbes could see, in his mind, the look on the young woman's face when she'd met his eyes in greeting. Her smile said she was fine, but her smoky-looking eyes told another story altogether. Harmony Corwin wasn't a happy camper but she was there of her own accord.

Her arrival had been so unexpected that at first, he'd not realized that the kid's native slacker attitude was gone and so were the quirky clothing Harmony had always worn before. She'd shown up wearing a suit.

The governmental agent's look wasn't the kid's style at all, with her looking so sick. She'd conformed to Agency standards, despite her youth. Harmony had said she used to wear suits all the time, but it didn’t seem like they worked for her now.

Hobbes believed he now had a better idea now what she'd look like dead, because that was the only place the young woman should wear clothes like that.

He looked up, as he walked, at the red and black shirt that Darien wore. It was more than nice---it showed off all the muscles and curves that graced the shoulders, back, and chest of his tall partner. Not Agency standard, but it was Darien Fawkes.

It was the opposite for their young friend---their new, temporary co-worker. And that had been his indicator---the young woman normally dressed close to the same way. It was all that college kid and retro-punk fashion that was very popular.

But, she looked Agency now. It didn't seem real. It was the opposite of the person he'd thought she was.

He pushed at the thoughts that this brought and scowled to himself. It wasn't the time or the place to be worrying about her. She was able to take care of herself. She'd just spent two weeks alone and proved that she could survive that.

And now, Darien wore a sour look on his handsome face. One that made Bobby Hobbes wonder if there was more to the picture than he was picking up on.

He had a suspicion that they were going to have to discuss Agent Corwin before they got to business; his partner had made the kid his friend and that counted for something. As a friend, he knew that there was an insight or two he might offer. If Darien would accept them.

Sliding into the passenger seat, Bobby laid the folder on the dashboard. They were going to drive to Lynwood Hills and see what they could dig up at the scene of the crime. It wasn't going to be easy. The police had been over the scene a few times already and that meant that anything left behind might be spoiled or useless.

But it was the only lead that they had to finding out what was going on.

Ciara Mackenzie was a cold-blooded murderer? It could be real. He knew it could be real. She had the mental makings of a serial killer---a lot of serious government agents had the make-up required to do things like that. It came with the territory. And she’d been a member of an elite combat team for an undetermined time…

It had been the mark on the door that had thrown him and then Harmony had cleared it up. He knew he'd seen it recently. He and Darien Fawkes both recognized it.

Ciara had a small round mark that was it's mate. Identical. Harmony had reminded them of it. When they had been preparing to go to the Hotel Rimbaud, she'd worn a low cut dress that showed just the edge of the mark on her nearly flat chest, but they'd both seen it.

It was a slightly raised circle of scar tissue that had a darker brown cast to it. It was a perfect match for what was written in blood on that white door in Lynwood Hills. Bobby didn't think he'd really remembered it until he'd heard Harmony say the words.

She'd looked up from that picture and her response had been negative. It didn't look good. She knew, better than most, what was on Ciara Mackenzie's body. And then, Claire---the Keeper---had backed the information up. Yes, the tall and deadly agent did have that mark on her body; it was right over her heart.

The two women had both gone on to tell them that Ciara also had a ring that bore the same symbol---that she rarely wore it to work, but that it was very important.

For the first time in over a month, Bobby Hobbes saw the two women have a quiet moment of understanding. They seemed to both fear what was going on, but they'd come together to work on this.

He'd seen the lack of trust that had come to pass. If not for Darien Fawkes, the young woman would have refused to allow the Keeper to take care of her at all, even with the therapy she was going through. Darien had convinced Harmony that it was necessary---and the girl had let Claire take care of her.

He watched as his partner started the car and pulled out. The anxiety was still there, on the younger man's face. He was still thinking about the idea that they were tracking a friend. Someone that they'd believed in enough to trust their lives to.

Someone who seemed to have gone rogue...and not for the first time, if her records were accurate.

"We need to talk about this, Fawkes." He opened the window and let the wind fill the car, taking away the hot stuffiness. Damn the air conditioners. They never worked.

"About what, buddy?" Darien didn't look at him. He kept his eyes on the road ahead. Soon, he turned off onto the freeway that led to Lynwood Hills.

"About our little friend back there and what's gonna happen to her if we have to bring Agent Mackenzie down." He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and sighed, settling into the seat more comfortably. Bobby Hobbes could relax for a few minutes. It was really too early to deal with this new turn of events, but hey, he was Agency and that meant being ready all the time.

If only the medicines didn't make it so hard. It was like living in a slightly different skin every day.

"What *about* her? She's only gonna be with us for this case. Then, she's gone. You heard her." Darien's jaw had tightened. His words were casual, but Hobbes could see the look on his face in profile. The younger agent was angry.

"Look, Fawkes. I know you care about her. She's a good kid. But, you're taking this harder than you should." Bobby Hobbes sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, to finish calming himself. If at all possible, he didn't want to have to take any more medicine today. Not in front of his partner, anyway. It made him feel like a schmuck that Darien had to see his weakness.

"Hobbes, you heard her in the hall. She said she's going home when this case is through. The job is temporary." Darien swung the wheel hard and cut a red car off in the lane he switched to.

"But, you don't want her working there, right? It's not right for her, you told me. So, what's the deal of getting upset just cause she wants to go home?" Bobby opened his eyes slowly and looked at his partner. The guy was beautiful and didn't know.

He just had this wonderful way of being loyal and honest that seemed so natural. There was nothing contrived or unbelievable about Darien's devotion to his friends. If the kid believed, then he really and truly would put everything on the line. And it certainly looked like his younger partner had built a real trust relationship with him, but there was a difference between how he acted now.

Darien trusted him the way he trusted Harmony and that wouldn't be so bad---but his partner was angry at Harmony right now for something unexplained.

"Hell no, she shouldn't be working for the Agency! But, if she's gonna go home to Switzerland, then she's going to be alone. Alone ain't good for her---did you *see* her, Hobbes? I mean, did you really *look* at her?"

Darien's voice was full of that same anxiety. He saw the look the younger man flicked at him. The dark eyes that narrowed in concentration and anger.

"Yeh. It looks like the gene therapy ain't helping. Has the Keeper told you anything about that?" Bobby opened the window a little more. The coolness of the breeze made his short, thin hair ruffle up, tickling his scalp.

"Claire said she's gonna be fine. The therapy's working great. She'll still need her monthly shots cause of the built up hormones, but the danger to her life is gone, supposedly. She should be getting better, but---"

"But, I saw. I think maybe someone’s not telling everything. The kid’s sicker than she was when we brought her home." He turned his gaze and looked at Darien in profile as he interrupted. "Besides that…she looks tired. So? She's dealing with a lot of crap now. Right? What with Alan's death and the psyche crap."

"Yeh. The psyche crap. Arnaud did a number on her, Hobbes. She won't talk about it, but you *know* he broke her. I just can’t get her to talk to me about it. I think it’s why she won’t talk to me now." Darien looked at him again, turning his face half away around to show the depth of concern in his dark eyes. "Kinda hard to believe that the boss wants to trust her that way after that creep---."

"I know you're worried for her, but she needs time, Fawkes. Lots of time. You can't be her Keeper, pal."

"Believe me, I don't want the job, but she doesn't need time alone. You didn't see her before. When I started watching her for Ciara---she was like that. What we saw back there, but I kinda think she's doing even worse now."

Darien's eyes found the road again and Hobbes knew that his younger partner was probably right. Whatever she was doing now, Harmony didn't want them to know about it. It could have a lot to do with the way the guy had babysat for her.

His partner had visited her nearly every day while Ciara Mackenzie had been out of the country---they'd built a lot of simpatico between them. If she didn't want to be messed with, her first job would definitely be to cut Darien Fawkes off, which she'd done back in the hallway outside Eberts' office. Bobby recognized the truth behind that and felt bad for his partner. The kid acted like he'd been betrayed by Harmony Corwin's words.

After the briefing, he and Darien had followed her to Eberts' small office, which she would be sharing for the duration of her stay at the Agency. She'd not been nasty, but she'd had little to say. In fact, her words had come out cold and sharp-edged.

She'd walked beside Eberts and told his partner that when it was over, she was going home. She'd turned on the much-taller man at one point, rounding in the hallway and looking up at him with a solid wall of ice for an expression in exchange for his nearly belligerent questions. Even Eberts' had shown his surprise.

Harmony had told Darien that not everything turned out the way it 'ought' to be. It was a fact of life. She had no reason to be in the States, she'd said, and gone on to tell the anxious younger agent that she had things she wanted to do with her life and they weren't getting done sitting in a San Diego suburban bookstore. He had to understand that she wasn't able to sit around and let her life go to waste---she'd wasted too much time already.

And when asked what she'd do---Harmony had looked at Eberts momentarily and smiled in a sad, distant way. Whatever it took, she'd said clearly. Survival cost a pretty penny and she'd already given her soul, right?

Once done, she'd told them that she had work to do; a computer was going to be set up for her to do work on. He had no idea what her work at the Agency might be, but it probably had a lot to do with the pile of maps and folders that the stone-faced young woman had been carrying.

Bobby Hobbes had his suspicions of what going to Switzerland meant. She was going to probably work as an assassin herself, falling right into step behind her ex-partner.

"Well, she does good with other people, right? Maybe the time at the office, being around others will help her."

He mentally crossed his fingers. Bobby Hobbes knew that the two friends had been close. Harmony's refusal to let Darien come see her once she left the labs had to be hurting the younger man. He'd seen what the girl had been through---or at least, he'd seen the evidence of it. And he'd seen how Darien had pulled her through it, both in Australia and in Lab 2, while she began healing.

He wondered how she was dealing with Alan Webster's death. To find out that the man she'd called friend was actually her cousin and that the older government hacker had known it all along...it couldn't have been easy. And it was rougher knowing that her friend/cousin had died in her arms.

No one had been talking much about it. He'd never brought it up himself and it bothered him that not even Darien had really said anything about the man's death. Alan had been full of problems, but he'd been a good guy and he deserved better than to be dismissed as just another dead agent.

"But, back to her home in Switzerland? She won't have anyone near by. She can't do it. How would she get her shots?" Darien's words brought him back to focus on the man's face.

"I'm sure that if she's making plans to do that, she'll make plans for her serum, too." He closed the subject and hoped to make it easier for his upset partner. "Why do I get this really strange idea that something about this case doesn't add up to Ciara Mackenzie? That the boss is right---that it’s someone else?"

He'd been thinking about it since Eberts had started telling about the information they could now share about Agent Mackenzie's activities during her time away from the Agency. During the time she'd been underground, she'd actually been living the life of an assassin-body guard for hire, as they'd suspected.

And the things that were done by her; the things that were confirmed, anyway, suggested a great ability to kill without conscience. She'd worked for Arnaud De Thiel, through a mutual acquaintance, on a number of occasions, but for the most part, her work seemed to have been done as an independent operative for hire.

One set of mysterious deaths, though, seemed to be directly linked to her. They'd taken place in the middle of the last decade, in Edinburgh. Her symbol had never been used before then to mark killings.

It showed up, in the records, has having been painted on the door of a house at the beginning of October 1995. And it had never been seen since. But, an operative for the CIA who'd been in Edinburgh at that time linked her to the deaths, claiming intimate knowledge that she was somehow related to the family killed there. The same kite operative had died a short time after he’d reported this.

The mark on her chest seemed to confirm that both the killings in Edinburgh and the one in Lynwood Hills belonged to the same killer. Not just the mark on the door, but the whole set up had been nearly identical. It was a definite pattern---and it would appear to be connected to Ciara Mackenzie.

It had all the makings of a ritual killing. But, it didn't seem reasonable for her. She would know all about modis operandus and how serial killers were caught. She seemed too bright and too wary to let things slip her notice. And the idea of her having a hidden self---one that was capable of homicidal madness---didn't sit well with Hobbes.

She was an assassin, but was she really a serial killer? One that could wipe out entire houses of people? Whole families, as it would seem?

"I don't get it, Hobbes." Darien spoke again, finally answering the change in subject. "Ciara isn't the type."

"She was identified as being at the scene of the crime and the mark on the door---the kid and your Keeper said that only a close person would know about it. We just have to see what the hell is really going on."

"Well, I just think that there's more to this than what meets the eye." Darien's words mirrored what he'd been thinking.

Bobby Hobbes didn't know what to make of that idea. Sure, he thought his partner was shaping up to be a good agent. But, the way the kid had hugged him in the basement lab---he shoved at that thought and made it go away fast.

Now was not the time for fantasy. It was just in his mind. Sure, maybe Alan had been right when he’d said Fawkes was like that---but the hug meant nothing. Darien had just needed to have a friend at that moment. It had been nothing else.

Or did it? He wouldn't know for sure unless he started asking questions. But the questions he had were probably not going to have easy answers.

@@@

Chapter Three:

He watched as his partner got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk.

There was no one else watching, from what he could see. This was a good thing because he knew that once Darien had a chance, he was going into that house and it was restricted. Just because they had the folder and the access to do what was necessary didn't mean that they couldn't be busted.

Bobby Hobbes smiled nervously as the younger agent quickly faded from view. It always bothered him to see the quicksilver that ran down over and coated Darien Fawkes with a thin sheen of liquid metal.

Now, the kid was out of sight and doing his invisible B&E act. It was time to go to work as the visible agent.

Getting out of the car, he carried the folder with him across the lawn of the house. It was a pretty place. The suburbs here were really nice. Neat clean yards with flower trees and clean-swept sidewalks. It was like the house he'd lived in with Viv; all very above-board and normal.

Not at all like his life nowadays.

The mark was still there. He saw it as he passed the yellow tape barrier. It was blackened now, from two days of exposure to the air. The door was shut and locked, no doubt. He didn't have any question of where Darien was. The guy was probably at a window or a back door, using his talent for lock-picking to enter the scene of the murders.

Next door, though, was where he was going. He needed to talk to the woman who'd made the statement to the police department. Maybe, just maybe, she'd seen things that she'd not talked about or had remembered something that no one had asked the right questions for.

The house next door had a white door, too. All the houses here did, marking them as being middle class and average. He didn't know whether he missed that old life or not, but he knew he remembered how to talk to people who lived behind these doors. It took a certain finesse that not just any agent would have. It took Bobby Hobbes, who'd lived this life once.

And it required that he be as friendly as he could be without losing a smooth front.

Ringing the doorbell of the house, he drew his badge wallet out. Bobby Hobbes was not his partner---he had to be visible and show his government connections. Holding the folder in one hand, he held his hands to the front in an unobtrusive way, in a sign of open friendliness.

The door opened and the wrought-iron screen was all that stood between him and the woman who stood on the other side. She was looking at him in an equally open way, the product of a suburban life, but he saw her questioning gaze take him in.

"Can I help you?" Her voice was typical for her type, cultured and showing a college education that had been wasted by marriage and children. She wasn't the average housewife; probably intelligent and bored with her life behind that door. It was probably not what she'd thought it would be.

Her eyes were a soft green behind her glasses. She had black curly hair that hung loose on her shoulders and fell around her face. This woman was around the same age he was, but time had been more than good to her.

She was beautiful in the way that Viv was beautiful. Age had graced her with a new aspect of female wisdom. With high cheekbones and a long, smiling mouth, the effect was like that of a gentle human lioness. It was startling.

He blinked and cleared the thoughts away. It was not time to think about Viv. He had work to do.

"Yes, I'm Robert Hobbes, with the United States Government, and I'd like to have a word with you about the homicides that were committed here on Friday night." He flipped open the wallet, holding it still so that she could see the ID and the badge clearly. No mistakes and no confusion.

"Oh, okay." She pushed the iron-trellised door open and stepped outside, onto the top step.

Bobby took a step back to allow her some room. He slid his badge back into his pocket and opened the folder while she looked up and down the quiet, tree-shaded street for a moment.

"You're Angelina Hallinger, am I correct?"

"Um, yes. I am." She nodded and smiled in a wavery soft way. She was bothered by his presence. He quickly took in her expression and decided it was because she was probably scared, not guilty of anything.

Not guilty? Everyone was guilty of something. This woman's crimes had never been broadcast or weren't large enough to be of consequence.

"Good. Mrs. Hallinger, I simply want to ask you about the events you say you heard take place on Friday night at around ten." He smiled, letting the woman see that he was no threat to her safety, and watched her visibly relax.

"I don't know where to begin. I--I talked to the police and they said it was probably not going to be necessary to talk again. I gave my, uh...statement." She licked her lips in an anxious way and he watched as her sharp eyes darted sideways to look at the yellow taped barrier of the house that sat next door.

"I know, Mrs. Hallinger. It was a very good statement. I have it here." He tapped the open folder before shutting it again and sliding it under his arm. "I just need to ask you some clarification questions. Can you tell me the name of the person you saw that night?"

"Yes. That was Ciara." Angelina Hallinger nodded, her face darkening. "I saw her come out of the house a little while after the shooting stopped."

"You’re saying that it was---" He looked at her closely, to watch her expression. "Ciara Mackenzie that you think you saw come out of the house. How long have you known Miss Mackenzie?"

Her face didn't lighten but there was a new, curious look in her eyes. "I guess she's been coming here to visit Ben and Shari for as long as I can remember. It didn't used to be so frequently, you know. She'd be gone for months at a time, and a whole year went by once and we never saw her. Is this okay?"

Bobby Hobbes smiled at her again, more openly. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Hallinger, this is fine. You are being very helpful. So, you say that she came to visit Ben and Shari Gordon a lot recently?"

"Oh, yes, she’s been here a lot in the last month. She was related to Ben. The kids all called her Aunt Ellen---but her first name’s Ciara, Shari told me. Why would she do such a thing to her family?" The words caught him off-balance. He really hadn't expected such a piece of information and a blunt, pain-filled question.

"I have no idea, Mrs. Hallinger. It was a senseless act of violence." Bobby disclosed the information, knowing that maybe he'd get further if he let her know he was on the side of the families who'd been slaughtered. "She was a relative of Ben Gordon?"

"Yes. He told Halbie---that's my husband---a few years ago that she’s all the family he had left except for Shari and the kids."

"Ah. I see." Bobby watched her face as she grew anxious and he quickly found a new question to take the danger from the conversation. Related? Agent Mackenzie had been related to some of the victims?

There had been nine victims; two men, two women, and five children between the ages of seventeen and twenty. That was a lot of family for a woman he had thought was alone in the world except for her ties to Harmony Corwin.

Bobby Hobbes knew, from the report, that Ben Gordon and his wife and children had been killed. There had been a family get together of some sort, from what had been found in the house; the second family in the house had been related to the murdered wife. Two whole families had been killed.

He turned his compact body in a new direction, causing her to have to look away from the house next door. This would keep her from being agitatedly reminded of her friends' deaths.

"Tell me---Angelina, you don't mind me calling you Angelina, do you?" At her fast, relieved smile and nod, he went on. "Tell me what you actually heard that night, Angelina."

"Well, I was getting ready for bed when I heard the shots, which weren’t very loud actually. I immediately went to the window and saw nothing going on, but I knew that something was wrong so I called 911. They took forever getting here. I stood in the window here---" She pointed over her shoulder to the window that was set in the front of the house. "Watching. I thought they'd get here faster."

He watched her take a deep breath and her eyes closed for a brief second. Bobby knew what it was; she was recalling what she'd seen.

"And she came out of the house a little bit later. I saw her open the door, walk out and get on that motorcycle of hers and leave."

"How much time passed between the shots and the time you saw her leave?" He jumped on it. It seemed like there might be something of value here and he wasn't disappointed.

"About forty-five minutes. She'd just left when the police arrived. I saw her leave. She didn't seem like she was in a hurry." Angelina Hallinger's face grew solemn. "Mr. Hobbes, she wasn't capable of that, I know. I met her before. She was a friendly, good woman."

Bobby sighed and reached a hand out to pat her on the arm. She was going to fall apart on him if he didn't keep the questions focused on the actual events. "I understand how you feel. Can you tell me how she was dressed, Angelina? Was she carrying a gun?"

"No. She...why? No." There were tears in the woman's eyes and he felt sympathy for her. It was confusing to say the least. He knew more about the government agent than the people who'd known her socially.

"Go on." He urged her quietly, hoping that she wouldn't start crying in earnest.

"She was dressed for work, like always. She works for the government. Ciara was wearing a business suit, like the kind a man wears. She wasn't carrying a gun. She just came out of the house and left."

So, the family that had died knew she was working for the government. What kind of work did they think she was doing for the government?

From the description, she had been wearing the same clothes he'd seen her in on Friday, when she'd passed him in the hall and blew him a kiss. She'd winked in a knowing, cock-eyed way. The tall, skinny woman had told him, in her serious, semi-flirting way---'See you around, Bobby.'

And now, he was investigating deaths that might have been committed by her. It didn't make sense, but it didn't mean it hadn't happened.

"So, she was wearing a man's suit and not carrying a gun. What did she do when she came out the door? Did you see her when she painted that sign?"

Angelina Hallinger's face dropped. "Mr. Hobbes, she didn't paint that door. I saw the door when she came out. That...thing...was already there. I did see her stop and look at it for a moment before she left, though."

"Did you see her arrive yesterday? Had she come for a regular visit?"

The dark, curly head bowed for a moment and then when she looked up at him again, from behind the glasses, he saw her confusion and grief.

"I heard the motorcycle, but I don't think she was there very long. I am so used to hearing it that I never thought to check the time. Do you think that might be important? It's important, isn't it?"

"Was she coming here regularly, Angelina?" Bobby felt the need to pat her arm again and refrained. Instead, he folded his hands in front of himself, keeping as still as he could. If she had been used to hearing the motorcycle, then Ciara had been a very regular visitor…something that might be useful, too.

Casting a look up the street, he realized how unlikely this place was for Ciara Mackenzie. In his mind, he'd never pictured her as being one for shady oaks and children riding on bikes after school. She was more the type to run, like the lone wolf she was, through the darkened streets of the slums and ghettos. It wasn't her nature that told him this about her, but just the idea that she was inwardly tougher than her appearance gave away.

"Mr. Hobbes, she was staying here with Ben, Shari, and the kids." Angelina's words made him turn and look at her closely, in surprise. She was honest. She was telling the truth. "She left the house to go to work on Friday morning, just like every day she's been here, and I don't remember seeing her come home Friday night---but then she was leaving after those shots were fired."

Bobby's mind went to work fast. She'd been staying here with unknown relatives.

"How long had she been staying here? Do you remember hearing the motorcycle come home at all on Friday night? Can you give me an estimate of when it might have been?"

It was paydirt. Ciara had been living here. It opened lots of doors that had been shut in his face before now.

"Oh, I guess---" Angelina Hallinger's green eyes narrowed in thought. "About a month? Yes, I believe it was a month she'd been here. It was the most we'd seen of her in a year. Mr. Hobbes, I remember hearing her come home Friday night, but I can't even begin to tell you when it might have been. Late, I know."

"I know this is hard for you, Angelina. You've been very helpful. Can you tell me if she ever brought anyone here to visit? Maybe a younger woman with brown hair and glasses like yours? A stranger, even? Maybe someone you'd never seen?"

He studied her expression again. This woman wasn't going to lie to him. She believed he was doing his job and so she'd be honest with him. It felt strange to not have to second-guess the words of a witness.

"No." She shook her head, making the curls around her neck move in a slow way. "I don't remember ever seeing her come here with anyone. Ben and Shari said she had other family---farther away, out of state, maybe---but she never brought anyone with her to visit and I can't recall seeing her with anyone ever."

It was emphatic. His suspect had been alone and had never brought Harmony here. There was a chance, if it actually added up, that the younger woman had no idea that the Gordons even existed or were a part of Ciara Mackenzie's life. And the mysterious female agent was more of a mystery than before---she'd had family and lots of it, from the look of it.

"Let me ask you one last question, Angelina, if I could. Then, we'll be finished." He thought of something. Bobby watched her smile, a little more at ease now with his presence. "What kind of government work did Ciara do? Did she ever tell the family? Something that Ben or Shari Gordon would have mentioned?"

Angelina Hallinger's soft eyes widened and her smile was bright as she took a deep breath and answered him. "She was perfect for that diplomatic attaché job, what with her knowing psychology and things like that. I mean, with her culture and brains, she'd be good at anything---but I think our government has a real gem of a Diplomat Corp if they snagged her."

Bobby nodded, smiled, and thanked her. It was over. He could go back to the car and wait for Darien Fawkes to make his reappearance.

"Thank you so much, Angelina. If I need to ask you anything else, I can come back here, can't I?" He offered his hand and accepted her warm, friendly handshake.

There were those you played hardball with---the scum and the weirdoes that you made it an order with. If you needed to be back, then you'd be back and they'd answer whether the witness liked it or not. Then, there were those who responded best to a gentler touch. Mrs. Angelina Hallinger was one of these. She needed to be reassured that they'd do their best to help bring her friends' murderer to justice.

"Oh, yes. Please feel free to come back if you have any more questions."

As he turned away, he saw a small child standing at the open door behind her. The little boy's eyes were large and the same color of green. He was watching Bobby with a suspicious gaze, as if he now knew not to trust strangers.

Bobby Hobbes smiled at him, waved, and put the kid at about four or five years old. The child would've known nothing going on, but with so much going on around him, he probably was afraid to see his mommy or his grandma talking to a stranger.

"Hi, there, fella." He bent beside Angelina's side and grinned bigger at the child. Feeling odd, he knew that this was something his partner would do---taking the extra moment to finesse the personal side of the situation. "Can you tell me your name?"

The boy hid his eyes and ran.

"His name is Tommy, just like Ben and Shari’s son, Thomas. Rebecca Gordon was his babysitter and he's not handling this whole---" Angelina Hallinger's voice faltered again. "He misses Rebecca and Thomas a lot, Mr. Hobbes. He was a constant visitor over there. He really loved them, even if they were high school students..."

Bobby stood up and looked at her. She was only a few inches shorter than him. He tried to find a smile. He understood why the boy would run. It made sense. The child probably had already guessed he was never going to see his friends again. His heart tightened against his ribs, getting larger by the feel of it. It was horrible to even think about dealing with that sort of pain so young.

"Did he know Ciara Mackenzie well, then?"

"Oh, he just loved their Aunt Ellen. She was really good with the children around here." Angelina's eyes filled with tears then. "Mr. Hobbes, she couldn't have done this to Ben and Shari. I just know she couldn't have. You didn't know her---she was a sweet woman and she loved them so much!"

In his soul, Bobby felt the familiar cringe. He hated it when people got overly emotional. But, he knew that this woman had been given more than a shock. It was as if the wolf had shed the wooly sheep suit and broken the door down.

He was still having trouble believing it himself and he knew Ciara Mackenzie better than she did, apparently.

Bobby patted her arm again and smiled sadly at her. "I know. I believe I understand. She seemed very close to them, didn’t she? It just doesn't make sense when these things happen."

"No, Mr. Hobbes, you don't understand." She ran a finger up behind her glasses and captured the stray tears. "Ben Gordon was Ciara's older brother. It doesn't make sense that this would happen at all. Why would someone who loved him do such a brutal---such a horrible thing?"

@@@

Chapter Four:

Darien slipped through the open car window and flipped his legs around, to sit on the seat. It was easier than he'd thought it might be. He had wondered how he'd pull it off when he got back here. Still invisible, he pulled the cell phone out and held it down below the window, to keep it from being seen.

He shook it free of the quicksilver and dialed a number he barely knew. Just as quickly, he made it invisible again and pulled the cold phone up to his ear. Looking up, he watched his partner talking to the attractive woman who had been the only witness to talk to the cops about the events of Friday night.

Watching Bobby Hobbes' easy, friendly smile, he grinned in response and held his hand down out of possible sight and repeated the action of taking the cold quicksilver off. In it, he held the matchbook he'd found in the house. It seemed to be something important, but he had to find out for sure from the only person he knew of for sure who spoke enough French to do a translation.

And since this had nothing to do with her health or why she was acting like he was the enemy or a stranger, maybe Harmony would give him the information he needed.

In his ear, the phone rang six times. Darien was ready to turn it off and try later when a breathless Eberts answered.

"Eberts here."

"Hey, buddy." Darien grinned at the sound of Eberts out of breath, as if he'd just run a marathon. "How's it hanging?"

He couldn't resist the jibe. There was something in his hands right now that looked suspiciously like a clue. There was little that could possibly spoil the little high he'd gotten from making the discovery of the matchbook, even if he didn't know what it meant yet.

He'd gone to the room where the murders had been committed. Things were shuffled around in there, but he'd found this one thing left behind, on the mantle. Upon opening it, he'd known immediately that this was a clue. It was just too unusual to be anything else.

Then, he heard the noises in the background of the lackey's office. Unmistakable, Harmony's voice was just loud enough that he could make out her words over the connection. "Hey, Studmuffin---where do you hide the coffeemaker in here? I'll brew us a cup of liquid shit and we'll get started on those files the boss wants."

Darien chuckled to himself. Harmony sounded more like herself now. No matter what she'd said to him and Hobbes in the hallway before---no matter how she'd acted in the Official's office during the briefing---she was still the girl that would set the world on fire with her infectious irreverence.

"Hold on a moment, Agent Fawkes." Eberts sighed heavily into the phone and then the sounds grew muffled. "Agent Corwin? Would you mind keeping it down a little? I'm trying to talk to---"

He could picture it. Eberts was putting his hand over the receiver in an effort to shield the noise from being beamed over the phone while he solemnly chided the young woman. Darien listened, holding his breath, to the sounds of movement and then a stifled exclamation in the language he'd heard Harmony using more and more since Snake Bay.

"Chier!"

What bothered him was that since she'd come home from Australia, he'd heard her speak more French than he'd heard come out of her mouth in the month before. For two weeks, she'd been confined to the labs. Darien had visited her in Lab 2 almost every day and he'd gotten used to hearing the increasingly frequent use of her second language.

She'd not used it so much before Arnaud had gotten his hands on her---she’d even been able to hide her accent most of the time.

It showed that the damage done wasn't just physical. Arnaud De Thiel had warped her inside---and it showed in her language, her mannerisms, and the way her sense of humor had turned much darker than it had been before.

"Sans déconner!" She went on. It was followed by a loud bang, as if something had been dropped and then her accented voice turned girlishly sweet, despite the tone of her words. "Lèche-moi clito, Monsieur Eberts!"

Eberts' shocked gasp was audible. Apparently, the uptight, pasty-faced man understood gutter French. It was more than he himself knew of the language. Darien heard another series of loud noises, as if someone were turning the office upside down. He could imagine---Eberts' office was immaculate. Everything had its place and it was a reflection of the mind that occupied its space.

Harmony Corwin could do some serious damage in there, if she set her mischievous mind to it. Then, as he shivered in his skin, he heard Eberts’ reply in French to Harmony's implied insult.

"Que tu es emmerdant, l'gouine. Va te faire foutre." The lackey's words were calm and had no accent, as if he were commenting on some point of the situation that was unfolding around him in the office.

A loud shriek of delighted laughter burst from Harmony and was followed by a gasped reply. The two of them were having a good time yelling at each other in the language the young woman had learned as a teen.

"Tu me fais chier, enculé! Je casserai la gueuele ta cul!"

He had no idea what either was saying, but it didn't sound like a conversation for polite company. This was really more than he'd wanted to know about the ex-IRS agent. To know that she was having a good time tormenting Eberts was a quick start to forgetting the cold way she'd stared at both him and Bobby Hobbes during the briefing.

"Um, Eberts? I'm kind of in a hurry."

He hated to interrupt it; it was a chance to hear Harmony being herself, which was more than he'd hoped for after seeing her earlier. She was getting the best of the Official's yes man and Eberts seemed to actually be enjoying himself with the obnoxious-sounding banter.

"Yes." There was a cough and then Eberts was paying attention again. "What can I do for you, Agent Fawkes?"

"Let me talk to Harmony." He turned his head and watched as Bobby Hobbes headed towards the car, looking slightly pleased. Good. In a moment, he could lose the invisibility.

"Gladly." There was a pause and he heard silence for a moment. "Agent Corwin? Darien Fawkes wishes to talk to you."

There was a moment of silence and then her voice spoke quieter, still in the French, but he couldn't make any of it out. It was a much more serious tone and sounded like she was responding to Eberts' words.

"I have no idea. It would be important, I imagine." The man answered her in English. There was another long silence.

Darien watched as Bobby reached the car and opened the passenger side door. He turned his head and studied his partner. Holding very still, he could get a better look at the way the older man looked today. Hobbes looked fit and trim. It was nice to see the slight, self-satisfied smile on his handsome face.

"Agent Corwin here." Her voice was all business now. Darien felt his heart constrict. The happy sound of her conversation with Eberts was gone. She was going to be cold as ice to him again.

Looking around at the street they were sitting on for a moment, he let the quicksilver shiver away from him in rustling waves. Next to him, his partner nearly had heart failure. Bobby Hobbes jumped and whirled, his face going white as he lost the smile.

"Dammit, Fawkes!"

Smiling apologetically to the shorter agent, he spoke into the phone he held in his hand. "What do I have to do to make you treat me like Eberts, Lab Rat?"

Hobbes' eyes went wide in surprise. His mouth dropped open and the effect it gave his whole face made Darien grin bigger, despite the sadness he felt in this moment. He had to clear this up with her before he could ask for help. It didn't feel right to work with her while she was treating him as if he was a creep. They were supposed to be friends, like he and Bobby had become.

Harmony sighed. There was a soft murmur of clothing shifting as she moved in the office. "Quit trying to run me down with that goddamned truckload of brotherly concern you're carrying, Guinea Pig. I'm not a kitten up a tree, okay?"

The analogy made it impossible to stay serious. Between her words and his partner's wonderfully comic expression, Darien had to laugh softly.

"No more Meow-mix. Gotcha." He looked down at the matchbook again. "Hey, your French is good, right?"

Harmony laughed then, answering him. She was already more at ease. "I grew up where and you have no clue?"

"No. But, I found something here at the Gordons' house that the cops didn't see. I think it means something."

His partner leaned over his shoulder and studied the little cardboard fold he held between two fingers. Darien raised his eyes to look at Bobby Hobbes at the same time the older agent glanced up at him.

"Well, it's a matchbook from a club that I've heard about. It's a place down on Kettner and Ash. I was wondering if you knew anything about The Driftwood?"

There was a full minute of silence and then she laughed softly in his ear. "Guinea Pig, you dog. You never told me you knew anything about The Driftwood."

"Kettner and Ash? That's not far from the Harding Building---" Bobby mused quietly as he pulled an ink pen out and made a few notes on a piece of paper that he'd shoved into the case folder. "Is there a number address?"

Taking a second to look at the matchbook, Darien nodded and glanced over at his partner. "486 Kettner. Close to the South Trolley."

Hobbes looked suitably impressed. "That's a real classy part of the downtown district. What kind of club is it?"

He shrugged and answered Harmony, who'd spoken in a low tone into his ear again. "What was that?"

"I said I was amazed at the idea that you'd know about The Driftwood. Have you been there? Ever?" She sounded impressed.

"No, Lab Rat. That's why I'm asking you." Darien rolled his eyes in sarcasm and closed them on the sound of the gently mocking laughter that came through the phone again.

"Boy. I was a little worried for Bobby there for a moment. If I thought for a second that you were out cruising the clubs for a friend, I'd be very disappointed in your claimed resolve to tell him what you're feeling."

Suddenly, her laughter made sense. "You mean it's a---"

"Yes, Guinea Pig. It's mainly a gay club. Singles, couples, and bi welcome. It's a little dressy, though. Why? Thinking of going there to see what's shaking?" Her amusement wasn't fading and he knew that she meant her question both ways; she was asking him both as a man and as an agent.

Darien couldn't believe how easily the whole conversation had turned in her favor again. It seemed that every time he thought he knew where the solid ground was beneath his feet, his mental world shifted again and he found himself face to face with his partner's handsome countenance thanks to Harmony's insinuations and outrageous comments. Two weeks of silence from her hadn't dulled her edge of determination.

For tenacity, she matched Bobby Hobbes and in a way, he loved them both for it.

"Maybe, if I think we might find out what the hell is going on. I thought you could translate something that's written on the inside of this matchbook for me. It might be what we're looking for."

He recognized a date and a time that had been written on it. It was in blue ink, scribbled out in a quick, even hand. The date was for Saturday---the one that had just passed. The rest of the small hand-written words were in red ink and in French.

"Not a problem. Can you try saying it for me?" Harmony was ready to get down to the business of helping decipher the clue he'd found.

Darien looked over at his partner as he thought about it. No, she wasn't meant for Agency service, but she was good at it---she'd been born for this job. She'd been born the child of an agent. She'd been raised in the Agency and taught by a very tough woman about how to take care of herself.

Harmony, his friend, was working temporarily for the Agency. If he wanted to keep her around, he had to convince her to stay with the Agency---to stay in America. Not a great job to have, but it would keep her from becoming a stranger again.

He'd have to talk to Bobby Hobbes about how to do that. The guy seemed to have an insight into the young woman's mind that came from some similar part of their personalities.

"Ready for this? Okay. There are two lines here. 'Premier Avertissement' is what is written here at the top on the inside. That means first something, right?" Darien looked at the scrawled words and hoped he'd read it right. There were two blurry places in the first words that could have easily been other letters.

"Your pronunciation is atrocious, but yes. It means 'First Warning.' Give me something else." Harmony's husky voice was close to his ear and he could see her in his mind. She was moving around the office; he could hear her footsteps on the tiles. Then he heard what sounded like liquid being splashed into a bowl or a cup. Coffee. It had to be the coffee she'd told Eberts she'd make.

"Well, the second line says 'Le Pups du Loup Doré mourra sous son signe.' I don't get that." He frowned.

Turning his head, Darien saw Bobby Hobbes' speculative gaze on him. He stared back in frank acceptance of the watchful expression his partner wore on his handsome face.

"You probably won't. It wasn't meant for your eyes. Could you spell the last four words for me?" Her voice was muffled for a second and then she spoke to Eberts. "Could you lend me a pen, Studmuffin? I'm fresh out of blood to write with."

"Would you like a piece of paper as well?" Eberts could be heard in the background.

"Nah. Thought I'd write on this paper right here." There was a ruffling sound, like papers being scattered. Eberts' protest was cut off by a sound of Harmony's loud sigh. "Ready, Guinea Pig. Give it to me."

Darien spelled the words out for her. When he got done, he heard her groan of comprehension. Apparently, the thing meant more to her than just some sentence off of a matchbook. He flipped the thing closed and looked at the cover. Two shadow figures stood under the crescent moon next to a quiet ocean. The background of the matchbook was pale purple and the writing was silvery gray.

"Is there anything else there, Darien? A name? Initials?" She sounded scared, like the air had been sucked right out of her lungs or she'd been hit in the gut.

"Yeh. How'd you know? It's got a fancy, gothic-looking capital 'D'. Just a letter." He felt the hair on his scalp prickle as he heard her sudden, harsh inhale of breath.

"Oh, crap." It was a hissing whisper in his ear. The sound of her voice made his skin crawl with the emotions that were obvious. She knew what it meant and whatever it might signify, it was not a good thing.

"What does it mean, Harmony? This was left for a reason---but I can't figure out why." Darien opened the purple matchbook again and looked at the red words and the blue inked appointment. Had someone kept the appointment at the Driftwood? Had Ciara been the one to do this? Had it been a member of the Gordon clan?

"On est foutu!" It was a soft whisper now, as if she was afraid to let Eberts hear her. It was incredibly low and husky. Darien strained to hear the French she spoke. "Putain de merde---he's come back for her!"

"Who's back? What does the words mean?" Darien felt his skin tighten in response to the fear he heard in the young woman's voice.

"Daniel The Angel. Merde, no…please don’t let it have come to that. He's come gunning for her this time." Harmony's voice was a little louder and he heard the sound of her moving again.

There was an audible squeak that he couldn't identify. "Guinea Pig---come back to the office. I think I have to show you something before you start making plans to go to that club looking for anyone. Got me? Come back, now."

He could hear Eberts in the background again, farther away. "Agent Corwin, they're on assignment. They can't come back like this unless they have a good reason. You have to explain---"

"Explain? Eberts---mon dieu, Eberts! Do you want them blindfolded as well as fucking dead?" She sounded almost hysterical; it was alien to hear the level of terror in her words. Her voice dropped again and was for his ears only. "'The Golden Wolf's Pups will die under her sign'. That's what the words mean, Darien."

"I don't understand---Harmony, what does that have to do with some guy called Daniel The Angel? How do you know this crap, anyway?" He turned halfway in the seat and glanced at Bobby Hobbes in mutual consternation. None of it had made much sense before and it made less sense now. He felt like he'd gotten caught between disbelief and confusion.

His partner was watching him closely, as if trying to guess what was being said on the other end of the phone. Darien knew he'd have to explain what he'd been told so far and do it before they got back to the office. Using his free hand, he turned the key in the ignition and started the car.

"It means that we are fucked, Guinea Pig. If Daniel The Angel’s had to come gunning for Ciara, then we are all in danger cause of the BDS." Her voice was rising now, steadily, in tones of spiked fear. "Oh…merde…not Daniel. He’s our…no. It can’t be real…"

"Gunning for Ciara? Who would do that? I mean---she's a tough cookie." Darien looked through the rear view mirror and checked the street before pulling out. "I wouldn't exactly want to be caught in a dark alley with her right now if she killed those people."

Hobbes, beside him, wrote something quickly in the file and shut it. The folder was thrown up on the dashboard again and his partner's dark eyes rose to stare at him, waiting for answers.

Darien knew he didn't have the answers the older agent was wanting right now. But, by getting back to the Agency, they would find the answers even if he had to wring Harmony's neck to get her calm enough to tell him what she knew. Right now, she sounded like she'd swallowed a corrosive acid. Her voice was fast and panicked.

"Ciara didn’t kill them, Darien. You can be sure of it now. There are worse things down those dark alleys than Ciara. Believe me---I know. If he’s been brought to kill her, then Ciara’s in trouble. Daniel The Angel is like the monster under the bed when you were ten. Remember that?"

He heard her taking deep breaths, to calm herself. He could imagine her face, white and pinched, blue hazel eyes widened as if in pain as well as fear. When she'd gotten herself under control, she spoke again and ended the conversation.

"Well, what you never knew was that the monster under the bed was really real. His name was Daniel D'Angelin."

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Chapter Five:

"This is Daniel D'Angelin." Her finger traced the figure in the photograph in a slow circle. She didn't quite touch the black and white of the matte, as if she were half afraid to mar the finish or lay a hand to the image of the man she had told them of.

There were four figures in the picture. Two of them were frighteningly familiar to Bobby Hobbes. One was Ciara, dressed in a dark, thinly pinstriped tailored suit. Her hair was a pale shine in the photograph; the light wavy hair was pulled to the nape of her neck in a thick, unbraided queue. It lay in waves and curls across one shoulder and looked like a hazy waterfall that ran down her back, unseen.

The tall, lanky woman wore a serious look that darkened her eyes, even in shades of black, white, and gray. But, the wolfishly cocky smile she gave the camera was nearly enough to make his skin rise in goose flesh. It was Ciara Mackenzie in years past, during her years as an independent operative.

Standing very close beside her was Arnaud De Thiel. Even behind lightly tinted sunglasses, he was as unmistakable as Ciara. He looked younger and somehow even more handsome than he had been when Bobby had seen him last. He was giving the camera the same kind of smile that graced the face of the woman at his side.

"Ciara knew him well, didn't she?" He looked up at Harmony in questioning. "They were friends."

"More than friends, I suspected. I don't know that for sure, though, cause it doesn’t fit either one of them." The look Harmony gave back was a somber one.

Darien, standing on her other side, leaned over her shoulder and his face was quiet as he searched the four people who stood together in the photograph.

"I don't understand. Arnaud said she'd worked with him before---how could she have known what he was and let him betray Kevin?" The younger agent's words were as quiet as his expression was. "I mean---she was Kev's friend, too."

"I don't know. I tell myself that she didn't know what Arnaud was really doing, that she just couldn’t get a good lead on him. That she believed he was helping Kev." Bobby watched as her expression went from solemn to sad.

He turned his head then to take in Eberts, who stood at his back. The pale man's eyes were scanning the picture as well. He could guess what was going on in the lackey's brain. Eberts was filing all the information away for future use. It might not show up soon, but someday, when no one else remembered, the knowledge gained today would come back, repeated nearly word for word.

The man's office was neat and clean. The only addition was a second, smaller desk in the corner, near the window, that held a computer. Beside the monitor sat a coffee mug and the pile of papers and maps that Bobby recalled seeing Harmony Corwin carrying earlier. The monitor was on and a screensaver of constantly shifting geometric patterns in a multitude of colors played in silent thought, waiting for her to come back to the work she'd been doing.

It had been two hours since he and Darien had left Lynwood Hills. Harmony had left the office, gone home to retrieve the picture, and come back here. Lunch had been eaten and then she'd started talking to them.

To see the picture, everyone had stood up, gathering in the center of the small, cramped office. He couldn't believe some of the things he'd already heard---told to him by Darien---but it was starting to make some sense, in a way.

"So, that's Daniel D'Angelin. Daniel The Angel." His partner used his own finger to touch the image of a man that seemed to raise terror in their young female friend.

Who ever he really was, he scared Harmony Corwin to the depths of her soul in some primitive way that made him think she knew this guy really well to be afraid of him coming to town hunting for Ciara. Darien had told him about her reaction to the message after he'd put the cell phone away.

Darien had told him about the conversation on the way back to the Harding Building. The younger agent had told him what the French words were on the inside of the purple and gray matchbook. It certainly looked like there was something much more sinister going on than the defection of Ciara Mackenzie from the Agency.

"Yes. And the other man is Waric Sterling." Harmony smiled now, in what seemed to be a semi-unpleasant pleasant memory. "He taught me how to use my math skills for the computer."

Bobby Hobbes looked closely again at each face and noted some similarities. They, all four, wore nearly identical smiles and were all close to the same height and dressed in much the same kind of clothing. They also seemed to be about the same age, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, with the exception of Sterling, who seemed some years older than his companions.

And they all had ice-cold eyes that shone with a deadly gleam.

"How long ago was this taken?" Eberts spoke up, bringing everyone's attention around to the normally unobtrusive man.

"About five years ago. Why?" Harmony had turned completely around to face Eberts.

"This would have been about the time the murders took place in Edinburgh, correct?"

Bobby turned his gaze from one to the other as he thought about it. The young woman had some kind of fond memories of the man Waric Sterling, but was more than a little terrified of the idea that Daniel D'Angelin might be near.

"Yes. I think this was actually taken at home just a day or two before we went to Scotland. We stayed there for about a year. Then, we went home. We stayed with Waric there, in Edinburgh."

And he knew how she felt for Arnaud. If she should ever cross paths with the Swiss terrorist again, he was willing to bet money on the outcome. Harmony Corwin would kill Arnaud as soon as she laid eyes on him, if the man didn't kill her first.

"The Fohn, The Golden Wolf, The Angel, and..." Darien Fawkes stopped speaking, a question hanging in the air between the two.

Bobby watched as his partner's long finger moved over each person in the picture, calling them by their nom de guerre. The tall agent had bent his head until he was only inches from Harmony, standing close to look at the photograph. They were both focused on the picture that she held in her hand.

"Preacher." Her voice was gentle as she said the nickname. "Waric was known as The Preacher."

"The Preacher?" Eberts moved now, coming around to stand in front of Bobby, nearly blocking his view. The man's face was incredulous. "That's The Preacher?"

"Yes." It was a whisper from her; Harmony kept her head cast downwards.

"Do you know who he is, Agent Corwin?" Bobby listened to the excitement building in Eberts' voice; something he'd never heard before. "He's probably one of the greatest computer hackers who has ever existed. He's one of a kind."

"I know. He taught me---he was Daniel and Ciara’s boss." Her eyes lifted to look at Eberts. They were full of a quiet pride and the tan flecks in the blue shined like gold in the light. "He was my teacher during those times."

"Lab Rat, tell us why you say it was Daniel D'Angelin who left the matchbook in that house in Lynwood Hills." Darien broke the silence that had followed her words.

Bobby Hobbes gently took the picture from her fingers, meeting her eyes for a moment, as she began to talk, a frown on her mouth.

"Daniel, Waric, and Ciara...They were like a wolf pack, I think. You know, I didn't know what Daniel and Ciara really were back then---when I was fifteen?"

He looked up at her in disbelief. How could she have not known what they were? Bobby could see the sense of pain the knowledge caused her. The shadows under her eyes deepened as she looked away, to the side.

"I was kept busy. Learning. I had a passion to learn sciences and even more mathematics...I wanted to be like Kevin. Ciara and Daniel seemed to be shielding me from any knowledge of what was being done. Waric did the same by giving me new programs to work on. I believed what I was told. Like a junkie, I was being kept quiet and subdued as a teenager."

Bobby looked at the picture again. They were all beautiful, dangerous people. Ciara and Arnaud, he knew well on sight. He turned his scrutiny on Daniel D'Angelin.

The man was as tall as Ciara. He had shoulder-length dark hair that was pulled back in the same kind of ponytail that the woman with him wore. He wore a dark, tailored suit and the form under the suit suggested he was a powerhouse, physically.

"You never knew what Daniel and Ciara were really doing there?" Eberts had moved around to sit back down at his desk. Behind Bobby, his voice held the same disbelief that the agent felt.

"Not at the time. But, then I really thought that Arnaud was just a scientist. I believed that Waric was just a computer programmer who taught school, and Daniel was only a wealthy businessman from Rambouillet, France. They never talked a lot of business in front of me, if that's what you mean. I thought they were normal, everyday friends."

Something about her expression didn’t add up. She wasn’t being completely honest, but then he didn’t know the kid the way Fawkes did. Maybe he was just being overly suspicious about her involvement, but it looked like she might be telling some lies mixed in with the truths.

"But they weren't." Darien's voice was soft as he moved away from her side to sit down at her desk. The squeak that came from his weight shifting was a gentle sigh. Bobby saw his partner fold his arms and lean back into the chair, his long legs sprawled out helter-skelter in front of him.

"No. They weren't. I'm sorry, Guinea Pig. If I'd known..."

The face of Daniel D'Angelin was like that of a choirboy. He had a genial, easy-going stance and his cold expression was the only indication of anything being different. He had rounded, soft cheeks and a well-chiseled mouth. He was beautiful in the way that Ciara was beautiful---dangerously so. Like an angel from some Renaissance portrait, he was aptly nicknamed.

"I know. You'd have told Kev. What is making you think that D'Angelin is here and looking for Ciara?" Darien changed the line of questioning, sounding like the agent he was becoming. Feeling a twinge of pride and affection, Bobby looked up at him momentarily and then back down at the black and white picture.

Bobby turned his gaze to Waric Sterling; the man that both Eberts and Harmony called The Preacher. He had a much more fierce form and face. He was just as tall as the other three and wore the same kind of clothing and his face showed the same cold-blooded, knowing smile.

"My brain is telling me that he did this. I mean...anyone could sign that matchbook with the letter 'D'. It could mean anything, I guess, but the thing---the message, I mean, is his style. She told me that Daniel did the murders in Edinburgh. It was her way of explaining what they were."

Harmony's words ran through Bobby like cold water. Sure, Ciara Mackenzie might have been telling her young friend the truth---but it was just as likely to be a lie to cover someone’s tracks; to protect the girl's heart. He knew, no matter what the female agent was, that she did care in some deep way for the young woman she'd helped raise...the daughter of her dead partner.

"According to the information Robert gathered from the witness, Agent Mackenzie was related to the Gordons. Did you know that Ben Gordon was her brother?"

Eberts' use of his first name made him want to cringe. Why couldn't the guy say 'Bobby' like everyone else?

"What? Ciara’s brother?" Harmony's tone sounded fearful, like she'd grown scared again. "God, it's exactly like Edinburgh."

Sterling’s hair was long, like D'Angelin and Agent Mackenzie's, but it hung loose around his shoulders. It seemed to be white-blonde and thick, hanging nearly straight around high, curving cheekbones and a strong-looking, square jaw. His dark eyes gleamed in the photograph.

"What do you mean by that?" Darien swiveled in the chair he sat on at the computer desk. "What does exactly mean?"

Considering what he knew of Ciara's life before going to Switzerland, he found it a shock to find that she looked so young and fresh in the picture. Like a girl just out of college, she was at ease with her three male friends.

"Chier." Harmony whispered, cursing in French.

He looked up to study her face where she stood next to him. In profile, he saw the way her features grew even paler and she seemed to be thinking quickly; putting the pieces together. When she spoke again, it was louder, but in a rush, as if she couldn't bear to hold this information anymore.

"Ciara, Daniel, and I were staying with Waric in Edinburgh when that murder happened. When...when she came home and told me what Arnaud’d done here...she told me she was as guilty as him. That she coulda stopped the stuff from happening in Edinburgh."

"She didn't know, did she? That he was going to betray Kevin?" Darien sounded hopeful. The kid wanted to believe that Ciara Mackenzie had not willingly hurt his brother, who seemed to have been such a close friend.

"I don't think so. She began telling me why she felt responsible. She said she kinda knew what Arnaud was and should've seen it coming---but had paid no attention. She told me about them then...the partnership, the work she did for Sterling. She told me about Daniel killing the family in Edinburgh."

Harmony's pain was in her voice. He could hear the sense of desperation she was feeling when she spoke again. "There was a note left behind at the scene. There was a sign painted in blood on the front door. The victims were killed in the same ways...like a ceremony of some kind."

Her voice choked but there was no hesitation as she finished. "And they were Ciara's family. Family is important to her---it's really the only way to get to her."

Bobby sighed and turned to look at Harmony. She leaned on Eberts' desk, one ankle crossing the other. She looked so out of place in the clothing she wore and the exhaustion was evident in the way she hung her head. A few strands of her reddish brown hair had fallen from the neat, professional bun she'd pulled it back in.

They crossed her forehead and lay in curving ribbons against the lenses of her glasses. For a brief moment, he was reminded of Alan Webster and it brought a little pang of grief. The resemblance, right now, was real. He was surprised, again, to have not noticed it when the man had been alive.

Bobby folded his arms and leaned back against the desk next to her. He knew it was bothering her to talk about this, but she was a witness, in a way, to what had been done before---if Ciara Mackenzie had told her young friend the truth.

"So, saying that Daniel D'Angelin did kill the family in Scotland and that he might have come here to start again---why is he killing Ciara's family? Is he doing this as a form of revenge? Is there a chance that Ciara might be doing this, anyway?" Bobby asked the question, knowing in his gut that she was telling the truth about the missing agent's sense of family loyalty.

The lanky woman he knew as Agent Mackenzie seemed to have a very deep sense of loyalty to her adopted country and to her family. She had never said anything directly to him about it, but from what he'd heard her say to the Keeper when the women thought they were alone---she considered the Agency to be a part of her family. It was the reason she was there, putting up with the aggravation.

"I don't know, Bobby. I really don't. She wouldn't kill her own family. Not Ciara. But, I have no idea why anyone else would, unless it's a grudge being held by an enemy." Her words followed his line of thought and he nodded.

"Or a friend who misses the old days." Darien said.

Bobby Hobbes watched as her blue hazel eyes lifted to meet his partner's gaze where the younger agent still sat in the chair. The two stared at each other in silent understanding.

"It very well could be a serial killer who knows her past very well; someone who knows her family. The killer might be attempting to make contact with her." The voice, coming from behind him, brought up a very good point. It was the next logical step in figuring out the angle that the murderer might be playing with.

He turned his head to the side and saw, behind him, Eberts studying the matchbook that Darien had brought back with him from the crime scene. The ex-IRS agent went on, never raising his head.

"This would seem to be a way of making an appointment. Perhaps the real killer wishes to draw her out in the open. It's pure speculation, but there is a chance that Agent Mackenzie's enemies or friends wish to prove a point to her."

"You think she’s completely innocent of this?" Bobby asked, knowing that if the lackey had put the pieces together from the information at hand, that there was a chance they were all thinking the same things.

"It is just as likely, Agent Hobbes. Innocent or guilty, she might have left the Agency to draw trouble away from here. I do know that she made the Official a promise that she'd keep her past and her other employment requirements away from this building and the employees of the Agency. I didn't know what it meant then, but it is starting to look like this might have been what she was referring to."

"Well, the only thing I can think of now is to go to that club and see if we see any familiar faces. The appointment has passed, but it doesn't mean that we can't ask around." Darien spoke, his voice speculative. "Harmony, do you think if you saw a familiar face---even someone not in that picture---that you could identify them?"

"Yes. I could. Why? You asking me to go stake out The Driftwood with you?" Harmony's eyes were grave as she asked the question.

"I think tonight would be good. We could go in and just fade into the background. See what's shaking, you know?"

Bobby couldn't believe he was hearing this. The two of them were planning to go into a possible hot spot for trouble. They were two kids who were probably going to get killed by their stupidity.

"Wait a second, you two. You have never tried to do something like this before. Yeh, you might fade---right into the bricks when our killer gets a chance to put some holes in you. If it's Ciara, she'll see you as soon as you walk through the door."

"What are you suggesting, Bobby?" Harmony turned to pin him with a serious, dark look. "That Ciara would kill us, if it is really her who murdered the Gordons? I’m telling you---she wouldn’t kill her own family. Daniel might---I know him, too. I know that if he’s been brought here to find her, he might…"

"You need to be careful. You shouldn't go in there alone." Eberts stood up then and handed him the matchbook. The attaché wore a look of concern on his face. "Agent Hobbes should go with you. He has more experience in these matters."

Harmony sighed heavily and he saw her turn her eyes to look at Darien again. "They don't understand, Guinea Pig."

"If it's not Ciara---if it is this guy Daniel The Angel, then we really might need Hobbes there." Darien answered her. "Besides, it might be fun."

Bobby watched the two slowly grinned at each other, as if there were some secret brewing in the air between them. He had no idea what they were amused about. They were going into a situation where they might be killed by a murderer---maybe even a friend.

"Yeh. I think it could be a lot of fun, Lab Rat." Darien said, the sly smile never leaving his gorgeous face. "Tonight? How about we pick you up at nine?"

"Wait---we're doing this tonight?" Bobby turned his eyes back and forth between the two and then looked at Eberts, not sure whether to be amused or not. "They’re really gung-ho about this suddenly, aren't they?"

"It's a sign that they are taking it as seriously as it should be regarded." Eberts sounded mildly pleased with the results of the conference. "The Official is engaged right now in a meeting, but I'll inform him of what you've discovered so far and brief him on your plans for the evening. We will expect your report first thing in the morning."

"Cool. I guess we've got a date, then." Darien said it with a laugh, sounding relieved in a way. "You said they have a dress code, right?"

Harmony nodded, biting her lower lip, eyes narrow in deep thought that had nothing to do with dress codes or reports to the Official. "Yes. They have a dress code there. Business casual should cut it, I think."

She stood up away from the desk then and moved across the short space to the computer. With a few movements of the mouse, she shut it down. Bobby watched her as she turned around. She wore a smile that lit up her tired, pale face.

"You think we could have the rest of the day off, Eberts? I really think we need to take Agent Fawkes shopping for a new jacket and we could use the time to decide on a decent contingency plan for tonight, in case we run into some trouble."

The man nodded, a ghost of a smile crossing his face. "I don't see it being a problem with the Official since you could consider this as being part of preparing for the assignment. Agents Fawkes and Hobbes have done very well today and you have given us as much as you are able with the current information."

"Hey, are we getting paid for the time off?" Bobby uncrossed his arms and stood up from where he'd been leaning on the neatly ordered desk.

"No, I'm afraid you will not be paid for the time off." Eberts was the accountant now. "And before you leave the building, you need to go see The Keeper. Agent Corwin, she called earlier to tell me she needed to talk to you about the last microchip she's acquired for you."

"She's got the estrogen saturation chip already? That's great! Thanks, Studmuffin!" Harmony grinned ear to ear, coming around the desk to stand before Eberts. "You're not gonna regret this, I promise."

"I sincerely hope not. You've already proved yourself valuable to this Agency. If the Official is correct about you, then I trust his decision in hiring you for this assignment. I would not let him down, if I were you."

The young woman looked like she was ready to hop up and down in excitement. Bobby couldn't believe how at ease she was with the Official's yes man. They seemed to have accepted the idea of sharing office space with each other and were even becoming friendly.

Maybe she'd stay. Maybe she'd not leave the Agency. It would be good for her if she stayed. It would be good for everyone. At least, he'd not have to listen to his partner gripe about her going to Switzerland. Darien Fawkes might not like the idea of their young friend working for the government that had created her genetic make-up, but it would be better if she did something with the gifts she'd been given as a child.

The look on her face told him she was already feeling better than she had been when she came in to work this morning. Darien had been right---she didn't do well spending all that time alone. She seemed to need friends around her to keep from neglecting herself. He understood that, too.

"I won't. I got a hot date with two of the government's finest, hottest agents. How lucky can a girl get?"

@@@

Chapter Six:

He looked at the front of the shop and wondered if he should bother going in. She wasn't there, but the store was open. Her motorcycle wasn't outside and he'd checked behind the building. The large black and chrome Harley Davidson wasn't parked there, either. She wasn't home yet. That was to be expected, he knew.

She'd contacted him two days ago---asking him to come home immediately. There had been an address and the warning to be careful---talk to no one he didn't know as a definite friend. There had been no mention of friend or family---just the short message on the answering machine.

Cutting the engine off, he leaned back into the seat and sighed. If she was already gone from this place, then he had no business being here, bothering the new owners or tenants. If someone should recognize him, it could be a travesty he could do without. He wasn't ready to come face to face with his employers yet---not yet.

But, still...he had come because she'd asked him to.

Removing his glasses, he rubbed at his eyes. He'd driven all night and wasn't sure that he would be able to stay awake much longer. It had been thirty-six hours since he'd had any real sleep. He couldn't remember the last real meal he'd eaten---he was sure it had been early morning yesterday, sometime. Just before he left the research he'd been doing and headed home to San Diego.

When he'd left the compound, all he'd taken with him were a few changes of clothing, the papers he'd been working on, money enough to get here, and a toothbrush. Nothing else seemed important and none of the other things were his to claim.

It had been a goal to get to this building---a short-term goal, to be sure, but a goal he'd focused on with all his remaining energy. He was going to need sleep soon. He was going to need something to eat, as well.

But, he had to find out if she was here. Her last communications had been vague; much as they always were. The tall woman never had much to say unless it was necessary, but the message had sounded afraid. Ciara was never afraid. It had actually scared him on a primal level to hear fear in her voice.

Since he'd been gone, the longest, most detailed word he'd received had been completely about their girl, a few days short of a month ago. It had been the single worst thing he could have received---and the woman had done it only to let him know what was going on, as if her strong heart wasn't being shredded by what she'd put on paper and sent to him.

He had no idea how they'd found out their girl was so sick, unless it had simply become too obvious to ignore anymore. He'd never said a thing, but somehow, they had discovered the truth he'd been hiding from them. Arnaud had been the only person who knew anything about it, but would he have told Ciara about it?

Her note had briefly mentioned a run in with their Swiss friend. She'd not gone into detail, but it looked like he'd been completely fooled, on all sides, by Arnaud De Thiel from day one.

But, it certainly sounded like Ciara Mackenzie knew the man really well, now.

Yes. He was sure of it, now. After what had happened at the base, he was positive that De Thiel would've shared the information. The man would've tried to use it, if he could, to twist Ciara to do things that were normally out of her spectrum of action.

He slipped his glasses back on and looked across the street at the bookstore. There was someone within, but he couldn't see who it might possibly be. Sitting here for a few minutes, he'd seen no one coming and going. He thought about how safe it might be to go in and ask for Ciara Mackenzie.

The first communication he'd had from her was a surprise. He'd not known for sure that she would even know where the research compound was. Clearly, he'd underestimated her ability to find anyone she pleased. He knew she was very skilled, having developed her talents to a level that made her valuable to anyone who held her loyalty.

Family. Her real loyalty was to her family. He was pretty sure that she called him a member of her family. It was a relief---if she had considered him an enemy, she wouldn't have communicated with him. He would have looked up one day to find her standing over him with that terrifyingly intense look in her eyes. She'd have found him and put the cold steel muzzle of her gun to his head.

Instead, she'd not come looking for him. She'd left him alone, where he was. He'd have died if she'd not thought of him as family. He'd hurt her and their girl---he'd not meant to, but it had happened anyway. Retribution had yet to fall on his head, but today could be that day, if she had changed her opinion of him.

She'd found him somehow and gotten a message to him. It had been a strange thing to wake in the morning and find her on the anonymous answering machine of the compound. All she'd left was a friendly sounding greeting in that accented voice. 'Bueno dias, Maestro---how's the weather in the mountains?'

There was no one that called him that but the smiling ex-agent---and she'd rarely said it in front of Harmony. He'd known then that he'd been found and she knew exactly where he was.

It had only been a few days after the first message that she'd called again, while he was in the laboratory, late at night. Her voice on the machine had been just as friendly. 'Your brother is fine and with Charlie. I know you don't want to be dead to us. Stay well, my friend.'

He'd known that Ciara was probably upset with him---they were probably all very upset with him. From the Official---Charlie---all the way down to their girl, they thought he was dead. It was not his choice. There were people above the Official who'd made sure he lived despite his wounds. They had reached him quickly after the base was attacked. They'd put him to work on the new project as well as keeping him pretty well secured in the research safe house.

That had been her last phone message until two days ago. Before that, it had been almost a month since he'd seen anyone from his old life.

When the young government operative, allowed to leave the compound himself for the first time since his own arrival, had come back to the mountains, bringing their supplies, an envelope had been stuck down inside with the files he'd requested. The brown paper had crinkled under his fingers as he'd sat down to open it.

There had been a letter in her concise, minute handwriting. He'd recognized it almost immediately. It was Ciara's nature to dispense with pleasantries and get to the point. He knew, though, that her nature also called for a face-to-face dialogue between them before she decided what to do about his crimes.

She'd been very upset, if the coldness of the note were any indication. He'd realized he was possibly reading the death warrant that had been issued in his name. There had been the single page note and a picture---an eight by ten glossy color picture that had hurt him to even look at.

He looked at the passenger seat, where his soft-sided leather briefcase lay. He opened it, pulled the envelope out, and held it again. He'd not read the letter twice. The words written on the cream linen page had been horrible enough the first time. But, he'd looked at the picture a lot, forcing himself to face the truth.

The color photograph had been sharp, focused, and it had become a knife in his heart. It had brought nightmares that had caused him to wake up in a cold sweat, clawing his way out of the bed. He would feverishly wonder if there had ever been a way to change what had happened to the tiniest parts of his young friend.

Sliding the contents out of the envelope, he stared at the picture and thought about what had happened---what had gone so wrong with the experiments done on Harmony. He'd never been given much of a choice about it. She'd been dying; her cells had started working themselves to death in a heightened metabolic phase. Puberty was rough on everyone's metabolism; changes occurred that would never be repeated for the remainder of their life.

Her body had gone into the change at nine years old; so fast that no one had seen it coming. One day, it had started and before a month was over, she'd been very sick. Weight loss and reactionary behavior had been the indicators that had shown the research team what to look for. Sure enough, they'd found the problem and he'd done what he could to help her. He had slowed everything down to a point where she could function at a more normal level.

He'd only momentarily saved her. What he'd done was actually destroy the cellular ability to absorb and metabolize oxygen. It had forced a new, unforeseen frameshift on her DNA. The changes had given a silent, deadly order to her brain's glands to produce a new type of hormone phagotoxin---one that had destroyed the bonding of the introduced hormones.

And the picture had been a silent accusation. It showed the evidence that the note spoke of. It had been the final proof of what he'd done to their girl.

The others might have volunteered, but she'd never been given a choice. Simon Cole had jumped at the chance to be involved; ending in a trial run of the gland that had gone very badly. Darien---well, that was another matter and something he wished he'd never done. Only a baby when it began, just like Aggie, Harmony hadn't asked for any of it. She'd been sacrificed to science, the orphaned child of a man who had been Uncle Peter's friend and a fellow scientist.

And she'd been sacrificed under the knife and the needle for something he'd not really understood. He'd destroyed her life and she'd never blamed him. As a doctor, he'd sworn to never hurt anyone. He'd taken oaths that required him to help heal and safeguard life.

He put the picture behind the letter and read the note again. He had to find out if Ciara was still here. There was the chance that when she saw him face to face, she might kill him, but it was a chance he had to take. He'd been dead once already and had been saved by circumstance and a few scientists---one more time wouldn't hurt. If he had to pay for his crimes, Ciara would make it fast and painless.

'Maestro, you have much to answer for, I think. The preventive surgery you did was a failure. I am told our girl has spontaneously aborted and reabsorbed the embryo she carried. She was shot in the upper arm during a confrontation with Arnaud, who has managed to escape my grasp. He broke her, Maestro. He did what no other could do and took the last real innocence from her heart and soul. She cannot survive the damage done by either of you. I fear for what will become of our girl. You are not God, but he might be the Devil. The formula found must be coming too late and we both know, it will not be enough to save her life. She will thank you for the results. They would both hate you for this, if they could. I wish I could be as forgiving as them. Your friend, C.E. Mackenzie'

Since then, he'd received no word of their girl's condition. In a way, he'd been glad, despite the things he’d intended for what she’d had left of her life. It left the picture to stand for itself. It was a testament to her pain and it was the evidence that he'd never known what he was doing.

She couldn't have survived. The formula took time to create. It took time to work on the DNA and it hadn’t even been complete. Everything he'd ever felt about the experiment's outcome had come true. And if the picture were the truth---and it had to be, coming from the brutal and faithful Ciara Mackenzie---then Harmony had died believing him a failure. She would have known at last what he'd been hiding and she would have hated him with her last breath.

He pulled the picture back into sight and looked at it again. The room it had been taken in was lit brightly by florescent lights that hid nothing. Harmony slept under those lights. At least, he believed she was only sleeping in the photograph. It would have been like the cold-blooded Ciara Mackenzie, though, to take a picture post mortem to give him for his files.

The powder blue of a hospital blanket was pulled up around her shoulders, leaving her bare arms exposed. She had a bandage on one upper arm and every visible part of her was covered in little scratches and bruises that showed she'd been through a nightmare recently.

Her hair was flat and wet looking, as if she'd just been bathed. It left her features exposed and the curve of her cheek, where she had her head turned slightly to the right, was soft and child-like. The bruise on that cheek, dark and forbidding, covered her face from the delicate slant of her eyebrow to nearly reach the swollen curl of her upper lip. It looked like she'd tangled with a much larger predator than she'd ever anticipated having to fight.

There were claw marks on her face and neck. What could she have been doing that would do such damage? She looked like she'd fought with a wild animal. Had she gotten the wounds and scratches in the mentioned confrontation?

Her beautiful face was marred by the marks of her struggles and by the ravages of cellular dysfunction. The hollows beneath her eyes were deep and they were a bruised purple. Her lips of her mouth looked cracked and dry, with only a little color.

The faint bluish tint to her skin suggested to his doctor's mind that the cellular damage had reached the point where her mitochondria had started shutting down. Less oxygen was getting through the blood and it meant that she had reached the final stages of the genetic anomaly's progressive destruction of her body.

She'd been pregnant. He knew how it had happened, in his gut. The crimp he'd used to shut down her ovaries had worked loose somehow. It had been known to happen before in such surgical procedures. It was something that couldn't be helped. The temporary solution had been just that---sadly temporary.

The question he had for Ciara was how Harmony had come to a state where she'd crossed the line between girl and woman. As her lover, the woman had been protective---how had their girl managed to become pregnant?

Logic told him that Harmony had made a few new evolutionary changes during her last months. He wished he'd been close by---to watch her finish growing up.

He hoped that the doctor responsible for her care had given her extra oxygen and kept her sedated. If his suspicions were correct, then it was probably all that could have been done. The formula that he'd worked on for a cure would have been suspect; no good physician would give the girl such an untried, untested therapy. Especially one that came from Arnaud, who'd proved he was never to be trusted.

If only he'd told someone about the necklace---if only he'd told someone about the time limit for Harmony's life.

Flipping it over, he stared hot-eyed, at the words written there. Ciara Mackenzie had put the date on the picture. It was nearly a month ago. She must have taken the picture, catching Harmony looking so weak and vulnerable in the lab's bed, and sent it to him immediately. Before putting it in the envelope, though, she'd written a simple, saddening postscript on the back.

'She woke this morning briefly and spoke. It was not clear, but we believe her words were -Love's the only law-.'

Ciara had underscored the words that Harmony had shared. Love's the only law. It was a simple thing, but what had it meant to the girl he'd cared about? What had brought her to say such a thing in front of her doctor and her lover?

Surely, when Ciara had a chance, she was going to kill him. He'd done this to the girl they'd both cared about. He'd loved Harmony for her spirit---she didn't give up, ever. But she'd been the tall, raw-boned ex-agent's lover. It wouldn't be easy for her to forgive him, even if he was a friend.

Sighing again, he put the picture and the note back in the envelope and slid them back into his briefcase. He’d played with things he hadn't completely comprehended. It was wrong and it was too late. There was nothing he could do about it now but to go on and try to accept that she was gone forever.

His chance at redemption was lost with her passing. If he had been given another chance, he would have made sure she received the treatment she deserved and needed, even if she’d had to die anyway---but that was only part of it.

The emotions he'd been feeling since receiving the photograph and note were best left alone, but he couldn't help himself. It was overwhelming to think that she'd slipped away so easily, so quickly, from his fingers. She'd trusted him without reservation and without thought because he'd been her friend.

Trust had been a thing she'd not shared with just anyone. The girl he'd known and admired had been notorious for her games, but under the little kid exterior, she'd been an unyielding wall when it came to accepting anything on faith. Except with him---she’d always taken his word as law. Proof was something she demanded from everyone else---had required---as part of all her relationships.

And he'd betrayed that trust, just like he'd neglected to give her the truth.

It was time. He had to see if Ciara Mackenzie was at this address. It was a bookstore, but there was a second floor with curtains in the windows. If she didn't live there, maybe the people inside knew where she could be found. Her message two days ago had been frightened and sounded like she was in trouble.

Trouble for Ciara would definitely be more than he could handle, but she'd asked him to come home. Friendship and his guilt had prompted him to leave the compound and make the journey north to see if there was anything he was able to do to help.

He slipped free of the seatbelt and opened the car's door. It was not going to get done if he sat in the car, staying across the street from the store.

Crossing the street, he stepped up on the sidewalk and looked at the glass windows. In blue letters, he could see the name of the bookstore. The Neon Silence. This was followed by a second line that stated that they carried books and music.

The Neon Silence. Lyrical. It had a musical sound to it.

Underneath, in smaller letters, was Harmony's name, listing her as owner. Their girl had been the owner? He smiled to himself. It was perfect. She must have loved coming back to the States---she'd talked of it several times, begging him to take her home. She must have loved being surrounded by books.

He knew that Harmony had only vaguely remembered living in California before she was eleven, before he had taken her to Neuchatel. Most of her young life had been spent in the Agency's basement laboratories, being treated half the time like she was a wild animal and the other half of the time like an adult.

She'd slept on a cot and played in his office, in Lab 2, after he'd been made head of the project. But, the few times he had gotten a chance to take her outside, she'd thrilled to have the wind and sunlight on her skin. He could still remember the sound of her young voice shouting in ecstatic laughter as she'd raced around in circles until she'd gotten dizzy and fallen down under the trees at the Reservoir.

Harmony had been happy to go to the house in Switzerland and he'd been glad to take her there. It was a chance to have sunlight, grass, and wind all the time.

She'd owned this store and now she was gone. The new owners, if Ciara had sold it, hadn't changed the painted sign, yet.

He went in. The interior was cool with the air conditioner blowing over the door. Standing on the rug, he felt the difference immediately. The bell on the door jangled, announcing his entrance.

Adjusting his shirt's collar, he looked around and smiled again. This would have been their girl's home, without a doubt. It was like the bookstores he remembered from when he was a child. The shelves were all jammed full of books, new and old. The whole place smelled of paper and leather bindings. There was the faint scent of sandalwood in the air.

Suddenly, he was homesick for a place he'd never thought of as home before. The house in Neuchatel had always smelled like sandalwood. The bookstore smelled like the home Ciara Mackenzie had made for their girl in Switzerland.

This had been where Harmony would have been the most comfortable. She'd probably spent most of her time right here, learning from books what she could never have had time to learn and experience in the world. Her childhood hunger for knowledge had been insatiable---it wouldn't have changed.

He blinked a few times at the memory of her hunched over a book in the lush green garden, a half-eaten apple held loosely in her hand, as her blue eyes moved behind her glasses. Straightening up, he glanced around and found a boy unobtrusively watching him from the table that sat to his left.

"Hello." He took a deep breath and swallowed the sharp dry sensation of fear that came from the expression the child wore. It was almost as if the boy recognized him. "I was wondering if you knew where I might be able to find Ms. Ciara Mackenzie."

"Mom? There's a man here asking for Ciara." The boy's eyes never left him and he saw then that was a bluish cast over the dark eyes. He was blind.

A voice from the back of the store, from between two shelves, came back. "Tell him to hold on a moment, Remy. I'll be right there."

Sliding his hands into his pockets, he moved away from the door and took a step towards the table. The boy's sandy dark curls were shorn close to his head, creating a little cap of crisp waves. Remy's skin was the color of creamed coffee and he was coltish in the way that children were before reaching adolescence.

"He's not going anywhere, Mom. She'll---well, you heard her." Remy's eyebrows lifted in amusement at his own words as the child's eyes stared straight at him.

A large book lay open on the heavy tabletop. He couldn't see words printed on the white pages, but that didn't matter. It was Braille. The dusky skinned boy could have been any child, but he had the look of a serious reader about him. It made him want ask what Remy was reading.

"Yes. I heard her. What are you reading?"

"Just a book a friend gave me." Remy's smile was quick and fleeting, showing a glimpse of white teeth.

"Is it any good?"

"Yeh, I guess so. I haven't gotten very far. I just started it this morning. It's about some kid with a funny name who loves books." Remy said. Then, the boy's face went very solemn and his brows knit themselves together. "Why are you looking for Ciara? Only trouble looks for trouble."

He felt the blood drain from his face at the words. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he wondered who the boy was. Why wasn't he in school on a Monday? Was he a student at the local visually impaired clinic school?

"Trouble's like a song. It's only good when you can dance to it." He answered without a second thought. It was the proper answer to the little hidden truth Remy had given him in the words. How did the child know the secret codes? Studying the boy closer, he wondered if this heavy reader had been one of Harmony's friends. How else could he have known?

Remy's eyes grew large at his words.

"Ciara Mackenzie is a very good friend of mine. I just need to find her, that's all. Do you know her?" He went on, trying to reassure Remy of his intentions. This boy had to know Ciara. He spoke of her in a familiar way and he knew the code.

It was something Harmony used to say. Only trouble looks for trouble. It had been a piece of that strange wisdom she'd possessed when she was younger. It had been her only verbal opinion about Ciara Mackenzie, who'd later become her lover. He'd just integrated it into the system of codes and secrets that they'd shared.

He'd answered without really thinking about it and now, if the boy knew anything about Harmony's life, then the child named Remy might easily know ‘who’ was standing in front of him.

Who was this boy? He had an oddly appealing look to him, like Harmony had at about the same age. How did he know about Ciara Mackenzie?

"My name is Tabby St. Cloud. Can I help you with something, sir?" The woman coming towards him was small-boned, pretty, young, and slightly darker than her son. Her braids moved on her shoulders in a gentle, swaying motion. Turquoise beads clicked in time with her step.

"I was just looking for an old friend of mine. Ciara Mackenzie." He smiled at her, trying to guess her age. She was old enough to be Remy's mother and she had the same, slender shape and heart-shaped face.

"Ciara's not here right now. I'm sure if you come back tonight, she would be happy to see you." She was studying him closely, looking him up and down in a semi-suspicious way.

He knew he probably looked rough. He'd gone a little shaggy in the last month, since Ciara’s letter had reached him with its photograph. His hair needed a trim, he needed a shave, and the lack of sleep was apparent on his face, even behind his glasses.

"She will be here? She lives here---upstairs?"

"Yes, in the apartment upstairs. Just ring the bell on the front door." Her finger pointed past him, towards the door he'd come through. "Is she expecting you? I could leave a message for her."

Fear shot through him. She lived here---Ciara hadn't left this place yet. She was here and he could find out what had upset her badly enough to call him home. He'd taken a serious risk leaving the safe house. When his employers found out what he'd done, he could be in trouble. He'd been told that his friends and family believed he was dead. Coming back to San Diego meant risking blowing the secret his employers had asked him to keep by not contacting anyone.

"No. That's fine. I'll just come back later. She's expecting me." He felt like he was talking too fast, talking nonsense. It was time to get something to eat and see if he could catch some sleep. He couldn't face her like this---he'd not be of any use to anyone if he made himself sick. "Thank you for helping me, though."

He turned and walked towards the door, looking at the young boy who still watched him. "Enjoy the book, Remy. I'm sure it is a good one."

Back in the car, he sat and held his head in his hands. It was only three in the afternoon. He hadn't asked when she would be back. It meant he had to stay close and watch for her, but he didn't feel safe out in the open like this.

He had to find a place to rest. He could sleep in the car---just put the seat back and lock the doors. It looked like a decent neighborhood; just like Cold Springs, it had a look about it that said people watched out for each other. It meant that staying on the street, sleeping in the car, would draw attention, though.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he thought about it. He could pull around to the back of the store. When he'd come in, he had seen the small alley that ended at a fence behind the store. It had been where he'd looked for Ciara's old motorcycle. The alley was almost unseen from the street, which made it as safe a place as any.

There had been a small diner-type restaurant around the corner, several blocks away. He would go eat and then get some sleep. It was probably going to be hours before Ciara returned. He'd still be rough, but he'd be ready to face her. He'd not seen her since Christmas and she'd only been in Neuchatel for a single day of the little vacation he'd been able to wrangle out of the Official.

Memories of that last week in Switzerland's cold winter climate assailed him. The wind that had come off the nearby lake had kept him in doors, even though Harmony had gone outside to build a snowman in the garden. He'd watched her from the window, enjoying the way she stomped through the deep white snow.

If he'd not insisted on warmer clothing, she would have gone out there dressed in shorts and a shirt with no shoes. It was all she had known how to be. It was delightful at the same time it was frustrating. Her impetuous nature had never been tempered by patience and her child-like attitude had never changed.

At least, it had never changed when and where he could see it.

And Ciara had warned him about letting the girl run wild when she wasn't there, but he'd been unable to stop Harmony, except where her health was concerned. How could he? She had been a total innocent, even at nineteen.

Facing the tall woman would be something he'd have to do. He'd come because she'd asked. He knew his guilt was going to hang in the air between them like heavy smoke. It was not going to be easy to talk to her, knowing that she was probably holding him responsible for what had happened.

Their conversation should be an interesting experience, if she didn't kill him.

@@@

Chapter Seven:

"So, like all great minds, you got your first hangover, you got a second tattoo, and you got a new job." Darien chuckled dryly as he pulled the car into the club's parking lot and turned the engine off. He glanced up at her through the rear-view mirror. "Somehow, I'm not surprised."

"Hey, we all have to grow up someday, right?" She smiled back at him and then dodged a glance at Bobby Hobbes, winking at the older agent who had turned half way around in the seat to look at her in surprise. "Fairy tales don't feed the cat."

Darien groaned. She really had been doing some thinking. Apparently, she'd been listening to Claire again as well, as if the young woman didn't already have a gung-ho attitude about their abilities as Agency experiments. For someone who should loath her boss and her benefactors, she really seemed to believe the Agency was right most of the time.

"You have two tattoos now? I didn't know you had even one until I saw you take your watch off back there in the lab." Bobby Hobbes unbuckled his seat belt and smoothed down the front of his jacket. He looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of a fashion catalogue in the dark cream suit that looked like it had been cut just for the man's body. "What's the other one? A rose? A butterfly?"

Darien answered for her, knowing she wouldn't care. Harmony might even enjoy the chance to observe Hobbes' expression as he heard about it. "The other one is on her lower back and hip, Hobbes. It's like an inspection mark---on a slab of beef."

Bobby Hobbes' smile grew wider with the information.

Darien couldn't help but admire his partner's taste in evening clothing. There was something seductively simple about the way the jacket fit across his back and tapered down to his muscular torso. He got a shiver of reaction from his spine as he took his eyes away from the other agent.

"Well, there's my cue." She winked at Bobby again, getting an answering wink from the shorter man this time, and Darien couldn't help but wonder what had gone on while he was trying on new jackets, out of their earshot. "If you think I've got some great secrets, you ought to find out what Guinea Pig's hiding."

She was being herself and that was a good sign. As cold-blooded as she'd been at the briefing, it had taken next to nothing for her to start talking to them again. Her friendliness had something to do with Eberts, he was sure, but that didn't matter. What counted was that she wasn't spending all her time alone, destroying herself with self-disgust and regret.

"Really. Well, if his secrets are anything like yours, I think I need to be a little wary." Bobby Hobbes' voice brought him to his proverbial knees in his heart. It was said in a humorous way.

"I think Darien's secrets are pretty cool. After all, he knows what it feels like to be invisible." He turned and met her eyes again, as she said it, through the mirror. Her smile was sweet and showed nothing that suggested anything of what she might be aiming at with her words. "Oh, hey---Claire told me that you got to find out what its like to be invisible, too. Did you like the whole quicksilver racket, Bobby?"

He glanced sideways to look at his partner. The older agent was turned, one knee up between them. Bobby Hobbes had his arm cocked up on the back of the seat.

"Yeh. It was really cold, like ice, and shocking. I had no idea---I mean, I had thought it might be weird and it was, but I liked it."

Darien thought about the moment in the hallway outside the holding cell in the Chinese Embassy where they'd taken Bobby Hobbes after trapping him in the net. After getting free, he'd followed the sounds of his partner's shouts and set him free, knocking out the guard.

To turn him invisible only took a hand's touch, but he'd grabbed Bobby around the waist from behind, nearly hugging him to let the quicksilver flow down over his partner. The vocal way the older man had responded had made him nearly lose his own invisibility with excitement.

"I can't imagine. I haven't felt that." Harmony was tucking a strand of her hair into place. She'd not gone home to get ready. She'd asked if she could use his apartment for it, to save time. After the little surgery in the basement lab, they'd gone to buy clothing. She'd gotten her dress and his jacket, adding a tie that matched.

"You don't go invisible like that? How does it work with you, then?" Bobby Hobbes' eyebrows lifted in mild surprise and curiosity. He'd never really seen her in action.

"I go hot. It's like a feverish sweat. Kinda hard to describe---it feels like motor oil sometimes. Or blood. I really don't like it much. And I can't turn other people invisible, like Guinea Pig can." Her sudden bright smile and laughter was electric, like someone had turned on the sun inside her head. Or lit a candle. "I’m lucky if I can turn all my clothing invisible sometimes…"

Darien turned in the seat now to join the conversation. It was time to act like a group of people looking for a good time. This was as good a place as any, getting friendly in the car.

After shopping, Bobby Hobbes had gone to his own place and gotten ready. He'd taken Harmony to his apartment. The girl had surprised him with her advanced knowledge of techniques for tying neckties and then asked him, again, when he intended to stop being a coward.

There was more to her than just a strange, family-like quality. She was, besides Aunt Celia, the closest thing he had left in the world to kin that lived near and she wasn't even related by blood. She'd been like a funny kid sister, talking to him as she'd tied his new tie for him, reminding him of what they were going into tonight.

"Feverish, huh? Like how? I mean, is it like being sick or what?" His partner was getting into the discussion of what it felt like to be invisible from a different perspective. He was sure that if she were able to, Harmony would’ve turned Bobby see-through immediately, just to let him find it out from her point of view.

They had met up with Bobby at Lee's Happy Dragon, just down from the Agency's offices, and she'd bought them all dinner. They'd sat in the restaurant and laughed at each other's imitations of the Official. Even Bobby Hobbes had gotten in on the act, eventually overcoming his nervousness about mocking their boss. And then, she'd gone very reflective and silent as he'd told her what it felt like to be blinded.

Somehow, he'd not been surprised to find out she didn't fear blindness like he did. She'd heard about his deprivation and been very understanding, though. But, then he knew she had her own fears, even if they never were brought to light. He somehow suspected that she'd not come back from that internal dark place that Arnaud had managed to break the doors on.

It would take time to heal, just like Bobby Hobbes had said.

She'd been shredding the paper napkins at the table for what had seemed like forever, at that point. Her fingers had gone on, twisting and quietly tearing away at the wafer-thin white tissues of them, as she'd listened to him.

Harmony laughed at Bobby Hobbes now. "Sick? Yeh, but I always liked going invisible. Phase Four is the worst, though. My blood pressure drops in a big way and then I get cold all over. Going invisible then is actually nice---I get warm and crazy all at the same time. It's down right erotic for me---I almost always cum when I get my invisible hot sweat."

His partner had opened his mouth and quickly shut it in amazement. Bobby's eyes had turned to look at him, seemingly seeking an answer to this. Darien couldn't help but bust out laughing in the quiet of the car's interior.

"You asked, pal." It was all he could manage to get out through his chuckling.

The Harmony Corwin he believed he knew privately had been sitting there in the quiet restaurant, across from them with her tan-flecked blue eyes blinking back emotion clearly seen without her glasses. She'd let Hobbes see the same woman that she'd shown Darien during their long, quiet talks alone.

His partner hadn't gone into that confessional with them at dinner. It had stopped there, with only his fears and Harmony's quiet acceptance laid out with the half-finished plates of vegetable lo mein and pepper steak.

The fortune cookies had been a strange surprise and seemed to remind everyone of what they were facing with the night's scouting of the club's scenery.

At the end of the meal, Harmony had started the ceremony. Every time they'd had shared a meal like this, she'd been the first to take a cookie, break it open, and read the fortune within with excitement in her voice, like a little kid.

Her fortune had announced that familiar faces and new truths were going to change her life forever soon. She'd read it out loud and then looked up at them, eyes wide and worried.

He'd been unable to give her any vocal hope as Hobbes had whistled low.

His own fortune had stated that he was still at the beginning of his journey. He'd shrugged. Nothing new there. Bobby Hobbes' had been nearly funny. The older agent had read it in a disbelieving voice. On his tiny slip of rice paper was printed in red letters the words 'No one can tell you where the wind blows.'

His partner now looked around, studying the parking lot and the club's entrance, eyes moving in a slow, scanning manner.

"Okay, now I have to ask you something---what kind of place is this?" Bobby sounded suspicious. His sharp eyes had been watching people passing all around the car for a few moments and he had to be seeing the same things that Darien had been noticing.

Harmony looked at him and then at his partner, a wicked smile playing on her pouty lips as she drawled in a false southern accent that made him grin. "Why, Bobby Hobbes, whatever do you mean?"

"I mean---well, I mean I'm seeing people going through the door, but they're---" Bobby Hobbes faltered on his own words. Darien saw the click of puzzle pieces falling into place within the dark eyes and a slow fearful expression dawned. "Is this a gay nightclub?"

"Not strictly. But, it does lean towards alternative lifestyles---upper class, of course." Her voice was nonchalant, as she looked right at his partner. "We're okay, trust me. We're gonna go in and scout the place, remember? Just stay near Darien and look for a face we might know."

"Dammit, you could've told me earlier---you didn't have to spring it on me like this." Bobby's eyes were still narrowed as he turned around in the seat and stared angrily at the club's front doors.

Darien watched the girl as she sighed and threw her head against the back seat. Her frustration was evident. "Bobby---Hobbesy, we have to find out if Daniel or Ciara has been here. That means going in. Now, if I went in there with Darien alone, it's not gonna look right. If we go in there without you, it could turn into buh-bye time for Agents Fawkes and Corwin."

She was playing Bobby. And as he turned his head to look at his partner, he saw it working. Harmony had appealed to the man's experience in the field and his need to protect them. If she'd done it to him, Darien knew he would probably have folded immediately.

"Well," she went on, her voice rising in a fake-sounding cheerfulness. "I'm gonna go in and see if I can't pull the wallflower act and ask around for one or two tall, scary-looking assassins. You guys just wait here, okay?"

He studied his partner's face and saw the anger melting into worry that could barely be hidden. Bobby Hobbes knew he was being played, but he couldn't let her do what she was suggesting.

"You would never pull off wallflower, kid. Not in that dress." The older agent's voice was gruff as he continued to stare at the busy entrance of the posh nightclub. "If there's trouble waiting, they'll make you in less than a minute. I guess I should go with you."

Darien felt better already.

"Well, come on then. What are we waiting for? For someone to hit on Guinea Pig?" She'd already gotten out. Standing at the passenger side door, she was peering down into the face of Bobby Hobbes with that same sweet smile that seemed to disarm his partner.

"That'll be the day. Who'd make him as the type?" Bobby didn't smile as he said it.

She stepped back and opened the door, holding it for the man. She was incredibly beautiful tonight, Darien saw. The dress she'd bought was a piece of art. It was something he'd never believed she’d wear. It was less than knee-length and had long sleeves that fit snug against her arms, showing the curve of her muscles.

It was a dark blue velvet with gold dust threads running through the entire thing. The shoulders and collar were cut in the oriental fashion; a high collar that opened only a tiny slit at the throat. He knew that below it, she wore the necklace that Kevin had given her.

The dress's style was vaguely reminiscent of the blue and black outfit she'd worn at Arnaud's safehouse compound in Snake Bay. He tried not to think too hard about the similarities. She'd chosen the dress because it was beautiful and looked great on her; surely not for the clothing she'd worn in Australia, when she'd stood at her enemy's side, prepared to kill her friends.

From the little bag she’d carried, she had put her contacts in and applied make-up that he couldn't recall ever seeing her use before. The effect was scary in its ability to change her attitude. The tired look was gone. The child-like Harmony Corwin had become a siren in his apartment, sitting at his dinette table.

She'd laughed at his shocked, brotherly dismay.

Bobby Hobbes got out of the car and stood by her, looking like a million bucks. They made a handsome pair---his friends.

"I guess this would be your first chance to work in the field, huh?" He listened as his partner gently teased the girl. "Just stay close and let Bobby Hobbes teach you a thing or two about making an assassin."

"I don't think she needs the help, Hobbes. Remember?" Getting out, he locked the car and pocketed his keys. The jacket she'd helped him pick out was light, smooth heather gray in color and weighed next to nothing. It had been kind of embarrassing to come out of changing booths in front of his partner and Harmony, to show them the different styles and colors that they'd chosen for him.

"Goody. My first field trip!" It came out of her mouth in a sly, sardonic way. "Uncle Bobby, can I have a cotton candy?"

"It'll rot your teeth, kid. No cotton candy." His partner smiled now, responding to her cynical attitude.

"Well, are we ready?" He came around the car and tried to find a smile to give them. It was weak and slow in coming. He knew that, even with Bobby Hobbes there, that they could run into trouble.

"As ready as we'll ever be, hotshot." His partner said in a dark way, dropping his smile. "I just can't imagine what we are gonna find in a place like this."

Starting towards the club's entrance, they walked shoulder to shoulder with Harmony Corwin on Bobby Hobbes' other side. She was perfectly at ease, if her expression was any clue, having left her bag in the car.

"Well, if we do find nothing, we can count ourselves lucky. We'll look for clues somewhere else, if this doesn't blow up in our faces. And, besides, we might have fun." Her lips pursed and curved in a little smile that suggested mischief.

The next words out of her mouth made Darien's throat go dry. She managed, once more, to sound just like Kevin with her tone. What she said was as familiar as his brother's face---how many times had he heard those exact words?

"You never know until you try."

@@@

Chapter Eight:

The music wasn't very loud, considering it was a nightclub. He'd been sure that it would be loud enough to shatter eardrums and make brains melt.

"What's wrong? You see something?" His partner looked down at him and frowned, his eyes going fearful. Darien was worrying. Good, the kid had to know he was in trouble here; out of his league. It was the only way to make him understand that this was nothing to play with. Not if some of these people were assassins.

And they looked it. He'd always wondered what kind of company beautiful and deadly assassins would keep. Now he knew.

"I was just thinking---it's awfully quiet in here. I thought clubs like this were louder."

Not that the music wasn't loud. It was. It just wasn't too loud to talk through. It had a funky, techno beat that throbbed with bass. Bobby could feel it in his body. His whole skin vibrated with the arc of the dirty-sounding bass that accented the music pouring from the DJ's room.

"You think this is quiet?" Darien grinned at him. "This is only a Monday night, Hobbes. Believe me, places like this are a lot louder on the weekends."

Loud enough, he bet, to cover the sound of gunfire. He thought it but he kept it to himself. Bobby leaned back on the wall and watched as two sweet-faced kids walked by, arms tangled around each other. It was strange to see so many people enjoying themselves this way. A few men danced on the raised platform, dressed in expensive clothing. Their lithe forms moved in time to that bass rhythm.

So, this was a Monday night in a place like this. He could buy that.

"You think I should buy you a drink?" Bobby turned to see his partner looking down at him, a concerned expression on the younger man's face. "Something to fit?"

He knew what Darien Fawkes was referring to. Fitting into the scene. They had to fade into the background and look for a familiar face. If they were at the bar, he knew, they could see the entire floor better.

Looking up at the balcony where the bar sat, he judged the angles. Yes, from there, they could see the whole floor and everyone that came and went.

"Sure. A beer would be good. Just one, though." Between his medicines and the fact that they were supposed to be staking this place out for Ciara or her old friend, Daniel D'Angelin, he needed to keep his head. He had to stay alert. More than alert, he had to stay focused and ready for anything.

"Well, come on then." Darien wrapped an arm across his shoulders and pulled him from where he had been leaning. He froze up. What was the kid doing?

"What the hell are---" He hissed the words and stared at the little smile that the handsome man gave him in response. There was something disturbing about the smile. His whole body was tensed up, ready for action, but he felt suddenly too warm.

"Just looking the part, pal. Let's go." Darien kept the arm around his shoulder and he let his partner lead him up the winding steps to the balcony section.

"Where's the kid?" He managed to choke it out as they hit the top of the red-railed landing. "Did you see her leave?"

"Yeh---she was with some chick."

Bobby looked up at Darien Fawkes and wondered about what Harmony had said to him. She'd been preparing to tell him something about his partner, but she'd grown quiet when the kid had come back from the changing booth of the men's shop.

"You're probably right. Buy me that beer and we'll look around."

Bobby stood at the rail and watched the little groups of people moving around on the first floor. It was like watching an anthill but there weren't many ants, making it easy to see individuals. He searched for the dark head of the tall, lanky-limbed woman that seemed to have brought trouble down around them.

He watched even closer for the man Harmony had called The Angel. If he were there, in the club, then there would be trouble if they were spotted.

Darien reappeared at his side and handed him a beer, in a glass. It had foam on the top. He stood and held it for a few moments, still scanning the crowd.

"See anything yet?" His partner's voice was low. It was not as noisy up here, on the balcony. The speakers were all on the bottom floor. They could be overheard here, so he answered just as softly.

"No. But, I think this has to be the strangest night I've spent working for the Agency and that's saying a lot, considering." He grinned, suddenly remembering how shocked Darien had been to find out that he had a life outside work---when he'd taken his partner to Chinatown.

"Well, I've been to places like this---not just like this, but this isn't so bad. Did you know that Harmony’s been here before? A lot?" His partner's words made him turn around in surprise again.

"She has? You know what? I think you're right. Do you suppose she came here with Ciara then, or by herself?" Bobby took a sip of the beer and let it roll over his tongue. It was a good, imported beer with a mild flavor. It was milder than he thought it would be. The signs over the bar declared this an international alcohol paradise. Imports were the specialty.

"Well, she told me that since coming back to the States, she's been here a number of times. The way she said it makes me think this might have been a regular place for Ciara and her both." Darien drank from his own beer.

Bobby Hobbes watched him for a moment as the tip of his partner's tongue snaked out to capture a stray sliver of foam from the edge of his upper lip. It was definitely a good thing he didn't drink with the kid if he had to watch him do that very often.

He turned away and went back to moving his eyes over the crowd. Were there people here who knew D'Angelin and Ciara Mackenzie? Were there other assassins among the groups of men and women who acted like they were young demi-gods at play?

Darien's voice went on for a few moments, reminding him of what the girl had said earlier about this club, The Driftwood, and it's patrons. "She said she knew lots of people here and had even helped a few out with the computer stuff."

Harmony had warned them, before disappearing. She'd brought their heads close and shouted it beneath a speaker. This was probably the only place she knew of where expensive killers could be found at any night of the week. They frequented this club mostly during the weekdays. The weekends were mostly for the normal patrons; the yuppie and guppie alternative life style seekers.

Why she'd not said anything about that earlier really made Bobby pause for thought. She'd known it and not said anything until they were already through the door.

"I bet she has." He frowned again, taking another drink of the smooth beer. "False IDs, hacked records for jobs, and money transfers. You know what scares me? She really is on our side. That scares me."

She'd known the bouncer at the double doors by name; Harmony had called him Russ and he'd hugged her in greeting. He'd been a small, powerfully built man who wore his short, spiky hair in a shade of silver that nature had never intended any one's hair to be, no matter how old they were. It had been almost like chrome.

Passing him, Bobby had seen that his eyes were nearly the exact color. The whole thing, matching his silver lame suit had been a rather interesting ensemble to see a muscular bouncer wearing.

A freak, apparently, but a more than friendly one. Russ had given both him and his partner a once over and a thumb's up when Harmony had said she was showing some close friends around.

He looked around the lower floor from where they stood at the rail.

Which ones were which? They couldn't all be killers. There were buyers, sellers, and then there were the hanger-ons, the crowd of weekday drinkers and party-goers. Some might be purely here for entertainment and a drink. Others were here to buy the services of a well-trained assassin.

And then there were the ones, like Ciara, who sold their services in places like this if they had no base of operations. She had probably done such things at one time. She couldn't have always been able to work from her home---not while Harmony was around.

He'd been told Ciara Mackenzie had mainly sold her deadly ability to the contracts that were decent. She killed other killers; despots, tyrants, and people who were evil. Eberts had said her records seemed to show a natural talent for taking out her own kind. She was an assassin of assassins, for the most part.

Bobby turned then, to look at his partner. The kid had his back to the rail and was watching the people around the second floor balcony. He had his elbows thrust backwards, his beer in one hand, as the dark eyes moved from face to face, seeking.

He was nearly obvious, but in a place like this, it wouldn't be unusual to see a man like Darien looking around. He had the look of a hunter right now, with his clean, handsome face seeming so young and hungry.

If anyone noticed at all, they probably thought they were seeing a kid on the make for a friend.

There was a lull in the music. Something softer was playing. He could see couples now dancing close on the platform dance floor below. Cheek to cheek, feminine men held each other close in loverly embraces. There were a few women there, dancing in the same way. It was a really different thing for him---yet, it was something to watch.

Darien had said he'd been to places like this. Did it mean that he was what Alan Webster had said? Was he really bi-sexual and had been hiding it? Had his partner, still a stranger in a lot of ways, been active in a lifestyle like this once?

He'd have to have a talk with Harmony; he'd promised her earlier, in the men's clothing store, that he'd get together with her soon and talk about something that seemed to be bothering her. She'd simply asked him to do her a favor in the meantime---be nice to Darien.

Like he would have a problem with it? Bobby chuckled at the thought. The hotshot kid he'd been given as a new partner had made him nuts, but it was a good kind of nuts. He had a way of getting under a person's skin.

"Uh-oh. Look." Darien's whisper made him turn around to see what his partner had found. There was a scene starting on the other side of the club, at the other stairs that spiraled down to the first floor. A cluster of people stood around in a circle, gathered at the top of the steps, blocking traffic.

An argument could be heard. Bobby strained to hear the voices that seemed to be hostile and angry.

"You think we should go see?" His partner's voice was a murmur. He shook his head.

"No. Stay put. We're here to watch, remember?" He listened, watching the knot of about ten people move as something happened at the center. The argument had started out so low that he couldn't hear what was being said, but it was steadily getting louder. The sudden movements in the cluster of bodies made him think that someone had been hit or shoved.

A shout of gutter French broke the growing tension in the quiet club and overrode the soft music.

"Fermer en haut!" He knew that voice. Bobby felt his skin get hot suddenly in fear. She was involved in the argument that was going on in the center of the tightly packed group of on-lookers.

"Aw, crap. What now?" Darien's voice was louder; no longer was he whispering to hide their conversation.

"Stay still, hotshot. She can handle this. Don't blow it." Bobby put a hand on his partner's arm and watched the kid's face go pale.

It was important that they not lose this opportunity to see the scene here. He had an idea that Darien knew how to talk to these people---to start asking questions. They were only now ready to go to work. All this time, they'd been fading into the walls. No one was paying any attention to their presence, that he could see.

But, Harmony was getting herself in trouble. Damn. It wasn't a good thing, he knew, to let her handle this alone. She had the ability to make this whole thing go up in flames really fast, if she lost her temper. He held his breath and watched in silence, hoping she wasn't going to start hurting the patrons. With assassins in the place, it could get ugly.

"Look, I don't want to. Understand? Back off." Her voice rose again, over the sounds of the crowd talking around her.

Everything had started getting quiet.

He looked around and saw the good-looking bartender in the eye-shattering green shirt watching the scene with the same interest he had been showing it. No one was making a move to stop what was going on.

Suddenly, his attention was turned by a shout from the crowd. The knot of people jumped back, leaving a clear picture of what had been happening at the center.

Harmony had a young man with long, yellow hair by his shirt, her fists wrapped around the silky looking material. She had her back to where they stood, against the rail, a few yards away. Her hair had come loose from the elaborate French twist she'd put it in. It straggled down her neck in red brown curls that rippled as she walked the guy backwards, holding him on his tiptoes.

Harmony was about two or three inches shorter. Her skinny back showed the muscles she was using to lift the punk to his toes as she hurried him against a wall, mindless of the fact that her dress had crept up to expose the curve of her upper thighs with the long strides.

"I said no, enculé. Find another." Harmony's accent was thickened with the emotion he couldn't see on her turned face.

Bobby looked around, wondering where the bouncer she'd called Russ was. Didn't the guy actually work? Why wasn't he here, taking care of this? Any moment now, she was either going to hurt the man who'd bothered her or the punk was going to come off the wall and hurt her.

"But, I thought you---" It came out in a babble. The man had his hands up, in range, trying to take her fingers off his shirt. He was scared. It showed in his face.

"You thought wrong. I don't come so cheaply." It wasn't as loud, but he heard the threat in her words. He realized then that he was tensed, ready to go into a run. Harmony Corwin had the blonde-haired guy at the top of the stairs, against the wall, and he knew she could do anything from there.

She let him go. He slid down onto his feet and slammed his back on the wall, trying to inch farther from the angry woman. Bobby realized what she was doing. It was like watching Ciara Mackenzie. Hadn't the tall woman done the same to him in Snake Bay? Apparently, the girl had learned well from her friend.

He watched as Harmony turned away from the man who'd bothered her. Her eyes were intensely dark in that moment but the fury he saw there faded when she found him watching.

"What the hell was that about?" Darien had moved from his side and taken a step towards her as she reached the rail.

"He was trying to buy me." Her face was calm now, all traces of her rage fading with the flush that was leaving her cheeks. "He believed I was here looking for work."

"What?" Bobby nearly choked on the drink of beer he'd just taken. "As a prostitute or as a hacker?"

"No." She closed her eyes and the corner of her mouth lifted into a cynical smile at the mention of selling her body for sex. When she looked at him again, the smile had become a grin. "He thought I was here to find 'work'."

He heard the difference in the way she said the word. Assassin. The punk kid had thought she was an assassin for hire.

"Well, I think I found a clue or two." Her voice dipped lower, into a softer tone. "Did you see anything? I was busy talking to a girl but I kept an eye out and I saw nothing."

He saw Darien drain his glass of beer and lick away the foam again. Bobby took a deep breath and decided that he needed to have that talk with Harmony really soon.

"Was this purely social---this girl?" He turned his eyes from watching Darien and focused on her face. Harmony had leaned on the red rail and was watching the floor below. All three of them now stood, side by side, looking at the dance floor.

"She's a friend. Well, she’s not really smart, but she's fun..." She brought her eyes around to look at him, a gleam of mischief lurking in the blue depths. In the semi-dim lighting, it was hard to see the truth of her expression. "She was here on Saturday night, looking for me, and she saw some *pretty* interesting things."

@@@

Chapter Nine:

Bobby heard the last words and saw the little smile that played on her mouth. He started to ask her, but she raised a finger and placed it on his mouth to silence him.

"Not here. We'll talk about that when we get in the car." She went on. "I am going to go finish setting things up with Merlyn."

"That's her name, huh? Merlyn? Pretty. That the chick you were talking to earlier?" Darien spoke, his words nearly teasing, in a brotherly way. "Go get her, girl."

Harmony's face didn't blush. She did catch the meaning of what his partner had said, though, and smiled a slow, wicked smile.

"I'm going to start nosing around." Bobby came up from the rail and adjusted his jacket's lapel. "You coming with me, Fawkes?"

He saw Harmony's eyes widen in alarm and she took him by the arm and drew him close enough to whisper at him, her words coming in a rush. "Careful, Bobby. They've been here."

Bobby nodded, getting the gist from her expression of fear. She probably knew what she was talking about. It wouldn't be a good thing to get his head blown off in a place like this.

She was gone then, her body lithely moving across the balcony like a tiger on the hunt. He watched her as she met the pretty little blonde haired girl she'd been talking to earlier, reaching her at the top of the stairs close by. Harmony slipped her arm around the young woman's waist and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek that suggested a friendship that was headed for deeper waters, if not already there.

She raised her fingers and brushed a few strands of the long yellowish blonde hair out of the girl's pale cornflower blue eyes, in a nonchalantly attentive manner. Oh, yes. Harmony had turned out to be a great big surprise. And he could see the girl named Merlyn's face. She would catch Harmony soon, if the dark-haired agent on her arm could be talked into it. Maybe tonight, even.

"Great. She's mixing business with a chance to hook up." Darien shook his head in amusement. "How does she do it?"

"Some of us got it and some of us don't." He couldn't help but rub his partner's nose in it for a moment. Bobby didn't think he could do what he'd just seen Harmony pull off. It was like trying to keep up with a racecar. She'd nearly had to hurt a man to make him go away and then she'd become the agent again. She knew the ins and outs of stake-out procedure better than he’d thought she might.

And then, within a second or two, she'd become the college-aged young woman who was now working her way down the stairs with a shapely blonde beauty who seemed to really like her---the girl named Merlyn was practically hanging from Harmony's arm with a sexy air about her that suggested she would do anything to convince the bookstore owner of her intentions.

"Somehow, I get the feeling we don't know her at all." He sighed, shook his head, and turned to look at Darien. "I mean---did you know she was like that?"

"You mean that she liked women, as well? Oh, yeh. I knew. But that she was dating? No. I haven't seen her for two weeks---remember?" Darien's eyes turned away and went back to watching their friend working her way towards the dance floor.

The music was changing again. A fierce, harsh club beat had begun that was hotly latin, begging to be danced to. Bobby leaned on the rail and watched as Harmony took Merlyn by both wrists, as if capturing her, and began to dance with her in a new, dangerous way.

The blonde girl's waist-length cornsilk hair whipped around her head as she moved to the lusty rhythm, gyrating her whole body from shoulders to ankles, moving her head in the opposite direction.

But Harmony...the girl's eyes moved. They were far enough away that he couldn't make out where she was looking, but she had her attention cut between her partner and the room. She was practically pressed to the body of Merlyn and her face showed desire and enjoyment, but she was really working.

"Do you see what she's doing? I think she has the right idea." His partner spoke low in his ear, standing so close that he was nearly touching Bobby.

Turning his face slightly to the side, he met Darien's wide-eyed, eager look with a sigh. "Come on, let's go talk to the guy behind the bar."

Bobby Hobbes saw that the bartender had seen them coming. His eyes had been following them. When they reached the high bar, he smiled brightly, in a charming way. He was middle-aged, but his body and face suggested he was younger or that he'd taken really good care of what he'd been given. He was thinning on top and his ponytail reached halfway down his back.

"Hi, what can I get for you?" His sleek form was dressed in black jeans and a green shirt so bright that it looked like it might glow in the dark. He wore a name stitched on the front of it. Bobby didn't know if it was the guy's name or not, but he wasn't calling any man 'Buffy'.

Not out loud, anyway.

"Well, actually I thought I might have another beer. Heineken. How about one for the kid, too." He set his nearly empty glass on the bar and slid up onto the bar stool in front of him. It was so high that his feet didn't reach the floor. He let one foot hang off so that his toes scraped at the carpet beneath him.

"Sure thing, Handsome." The bartender moved away, giving him a sweet sideways look. He felt unnerved. The look that 'Buffy' had given him made him want to leave before he'd even started asking questions.

Darien followed his example, staying close. Too close. Since coming into The Driftwood, his partner had been practically on top of him. Several times, he'd used his hands to reaffirm that Bobby was there.

He didn't know what it was about, but it seemed to be the 'fitting in' thing. When the kid did touch him, it was either with a strange, slim smile or a look of anxiety. Darien was trying to do what the girl had accomplished by sliding into place in this club. He was doing a decent job of looking like he belonged, that was for sure.

'Buffy' brought two more glasses of beer and set them down in front of him. Bobby fished his wallet out and handed the bartender a ten. The man thanked him and left again.

"You think she knows what she's doing?" Darien lifted his glass and sipped at the brew, his lips moving as he swallowed the golden liquid.

"Leave Harmony alone and make sure you know what you're doing. Okay?" He didn't mean for it to sound angry, but it came out a little harsh. Bobby immediately saw the hurt in his partner's eyes and tried to do it again. "She's doing fine on her own down there. Just stay with me and try to look the part."

He used the words that the younger man had given him earlier as an excuse for laying that long arm down around his shoulder. The look of gratitude Darien gave him for it was nearly magical. It was as if he had released his partner to relax a little. For a guy who'd been ready to go earlier, the kid was a nervous wreck now.

The younger agent moved his barstool a little closer and leaned in to whisper. "Do you see the guy at the end of the bar? Over my shoulder?"

He flicked a glance over Darien's shoulder. Sure enough, there was a man there, watching them closely, without reservation. He was actively staring, in fact. The guy stuck out like a sore thumb. He didn't look like any of the clubbers Bobby had seen so far tonight. He could be either of the other two categories, though, and that meant he was probably trouble waiting to happen.

He had to be part of the reason why his partner was ready to jump out of his skin.

Getting closer to his ear, Darien whispered again. One long hand came up to touch his shoulder in a friendly way. Damn, the kid was starting to fit the part---he was nearly as convincing as Harmony had been.

"He's been watching us since we came up here. He was really interested when our girl had her little man up on the wall."

"You think he's watching just us or watching us because she came in here with us?" Bobby whispered back. Slowly, he lifted his own hand and touched the bar in front of Darien. His partner's other hand lay there, gently splayed. He laid his fingers down across the longer ones that jerked under his touch once and then went still.

Darien's hand was warm and dry. The fingers that he was touching were slender and the skin felt supple, nearly like a kid's. It had to be the quicksilver, he knew.

His partner's eyes had widened just the tiniest bit again, showing his surprise. Bobby could see him out of the corner of his own eyes; the slant of the younger man's cheek only two inches away radiated heat and he was sure that Darien's breathing had quickened, as well. What the hell?

"Do you think we should ask the bartender that question now? What if that guy is---" Darien's words were a soft breathy whisper against his skin. Bobby's mind screamed at him to stop this before he lost his place and possibly got them killed---if he became distracted now, they could be in more trouble than they could handle.

"He's not our boy, but he's certainly not looking for a good time." Bobby let the remainder of his breath out in a sigh. He felt his partner jerk again in shock. "Sorry. I didn't mean---"

"Mean what? To breathe on my neck like that? S'okay, I guess. I mean---we have to look the part, right?" Darien's answer was accompanied by a sickly looking smile that he could just see. "If she can do it, so can we…but I get the feeling she does this more often. You know?"

"We need to know more about the guy we came here to look for...but I don't know about him." Bobby meant the guy at the end of the bar, who was watching them with a bored expression. Slowly, the stranger who had been staring shifted his eyes and looked elsewhere. "He's not looking at us anymore."

He drew back and settled back on his stool. Picking up his glass, he took a quick, deep swallow and let his breath out in a heavy exhale. Bobby didn't look at his partner, but he felt the kid's quiet reaction of following his example after a moment of staying close.

'Buffy' was back with his change now, still smiling. "So, this is your first time here, huh? What do you think?"

"Of the club?" Bobby tried to smile back and failed. It didn't come out right, wobbling a little. "It's nice. Quiet, though, isn't it?"

"Just right for you and your friend, I would think." 'Buffy' slid the change up on the bar in front of him and stood with his hands on the edge of the other side.

Shock ran through his skin, like someone had just touched battery cables to his toes. The bartender thought they were a couple. They'd been convincing---too convincing. Taking another drink of the beer, he managed to play along.

"Yeh, actually, I think it's just right. Don't you think so?" He turned his eyes to Darien, who had a glazed, caught in the headlights of an on-coming car look in his eye. Was he getting tipsy already? Shit. He'd have to watch how fast the kid drank the beer. He'd not had the second glass yet and he was flushed and pink, as if he had been drinking all night.

"Huh? Oh, y-yeh. It's great." Darien stuttered.

He watched as his partner took a few dollars of the change from in front of him. What was he doing now? Then, he realized that 'Buffy' was waiting for a tip. Darien used one hand to fold the bills together in a quick, deft way.

Bobby saw the bartender's open admiration of his partner. He reached over and took the bills from the kid's hand and held them out in a brisk way. Now wasn't the time. He had a question, but he wondered how he could start the conversation.

"How long have you known the Neon?" 'Buffy' asked, taking the bills and dropping down the front of his shirt in a quick movement. One hand had pulled at the green shirt's collar and the other hand had slipped the money in.

Neon? Who the hell was Neon? He went blank and then remembered. Harmony's handle as a hacker was Neon Blue. It had to be what the guy was talking about.

"Neon? Oh, for a while. She's my friend's sister." Bobby lied through his teeth with a knowing smile and hoped it was convincing. "She thought we might like it here---I think she was right about The Driftwood."

Darien next to him inhaled sharply. He didn't look at the younger agent. He had a lead into the question he wanted to ask. He lifted his beer and looked at it for a moment and took a drink. Lowering it, he saw 'Buffy' cast another long look at the kid at his side. There was definitely some open admiration there. He had to admit---it was understandable.

"What did Neon tell you about The Driftwood?" The bartender looked back at him with the same smile. He was envious and it showed. Bobby decided it was time to play at looking the part some more.

He slid his arm around Darien gently and felt the kid stiffen for a moment. He hoped that 'Buffy' hadn't seen the reaction. It had to be convincing. It had to look real.

"She said this was a good place to meet people. That she wanted to introduce me to a friend of hers, but she said he isn't here tonight."

"Neon is a sweetie---an absolute doll. She's a rare commodity around here." 'Buffy' leaned forward, making the conversation a little more intimate. His black eyes moved from Bobby to Darien Fawkes again and one of the man's eyebrows lifted in sudden surprise.

Bobby didn't dare to look at his partner and see what the man was staring at. He hoped the kid wasn't going into shock or totally tipsy yet. He could feel Darien's heart beating faster though his jacket. It was like a triphammer going crazy.

"Don't I know it." He chuckled softly. "She's very skilled."

'Buffy' nodded in an affirmation and looked back at him, losing the expression of surprise. "Not just anyone can get things taken care of like she can. And who was this friend she wanted to introduce you to? Anyone she knows from here, I probably could tell you about."

The moment had come. It was time to play the ace of spades and see what happened.

"She called him The Angel. It was The Angel, wasn't it?" He turned to look at Darien for confirmation and saw that the kid was in trouble. It had to have been what the bartender had seen that caused him to quirk an eyebrow up nearly to his hairline.

Quicksilver had started running from his scalp. He could see that his partner was working to get it under control. Slowly, the slick-looking silvery liquid was receding from his hair, but it wasn't going fast enough.

What the hell was this about?

"Darrie?" He called Darien back to the moment and saw his partner's brown eyes focus and become serious. The quicksilver disappeared fast. A few flakes fell, but they went unnoticed. "It *was* the The Angel, right?"

Darrie? What was wrong with him? Couldn't he come up with anything better? Crap. It was about the lamest possible pet name he could have found.

He saw the strange smile light up his partner's face, though. Darien thought it was funny and he could feel the heartbeat under his arm slowing down. The kid was starting to get control. Bobby reminded himself to ask about that later---what did the younger man think he was doing letting the quicksilver take over like that in a moment when they were being scrutinized so closely?

"I think it was, Bobby. Neon said his name, but I just remember The Angel. Kind of pretty, actually." Darien smiled at him in a new way, his lips pursing in a sweet way, like their bartender's had.

He turned, trying to not gag on the sugar he heard in Darien's words. The smile was nice, though. Really good touch. He looked at 'Buffy' and suddenly knew that they'd hit a goldmine.

"The Angel, huh?" The bartender's coal-black eyes clouded just a little as he frowned. The flirty attitude was gone. It was business. "And why would Neon want to introduce you to The Angel?"

"She said he likes to work. We were interested in paying, so Darrie asked Neon if she knew anyone." He mentally crossed his fingers and hoped he'd not screwed up.

Looking away for a moment, to look like he was only half-interested in the answer, he glanced down the bar and found the stranger staring again. Uh-oh. Trouble had come back to them. And he didn't dare push Darien any further. He had a suspicion that the heartbeat racing was his fault and the adrenaline rush of being touched was probably the reason why the kid has started to go see-through.

"Well!" 'Buffy' exclaimed softly as he stood back up, his face a mask of serious confusion. His feathery thin hair shifted as he shook his head. "I had no idea Neon was going to start bringing him around here."

Then, he saw the bartender's face change, becoming an ear-to-ear grin. He looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the man's shift from confusion to glee.

Harmony stood there with her arm around the little, voluptuous blonde named Merlyn. Her face was glowing a healthy pink. Her hair was loose now, hanging in soft waves around her shoulders. Her eyes gleamed with mirth. He was puzzled until he realized he still had his arm around Darien.

He slid his hand free and turned on the barstool. "Enjoying yourself?"

She laughed, throwing her head back. The sound trickled like golden sunlight from her throat. When she moved forward, she brought her companion with her. One of Harmony's eyebrows lifted in a knowing look. "Immensely, Bobby. How about you?"

"We're good. Your friend---" He turned his head and indicated the bartender with his hand, realizing he didn't know if the guy's name was really 'Buffy' or not.

"Jimmy." She answered for him. The bartender leaned up over the bar and took her hand as she offered it. "Bobby, this is Jimmy. He has been a very helpful friend since I came to the States."

Jimmy was his name. He was relieved. The guy was obviously gay, but he didn't need a name like 'Buffy'.

"He's been good to us." Bobby nodded to the man who still stood on something out of sight to reach over the bar.

Harmony moved away from her girl companion and stepped onto the ledge under the barstools and hugged the bartender in a friendly, happy way. She chuckled at something he whispered in her ear.

"Jimmy---that's awful! He isn't a piece of meat, you know." Her eyes met Bobby's with a oddly sympathetic glance over the man's arm and then she stepped back from the embrace to land on the floor in a delicate movement.

"Well, I know hot when I see it, baby, and your brother is primo." Jimmy's eyes moved over Darien again, who was now blushing so darkly that he looked like he'd been boiled. "You make a nice couple, you know."

He said this to Bobby, who smiled, trying not to lose his self-control. Reminding himself that it was all part of playing the game of fitting into the scene, he took a deep breath and looked back down the bar at the stranger who was still watching them. In fact, the man's eyes had started taking in Harmony and her friend, as well.

Bobby suspected the guy was memorizing them all. It was definitely time to go now; any longer and he'd either push too far with Darien and embarrass them both or the stranger with the staring problem was going to come looking for an introduction and maybe trouble would follow.

"You guys ready to go home now? I think Merlyn’s starting to get tired."

Merlyn didn't look tired. She looked like Harmony had rung her bell in all the right ways and her face said she was ready for more.

"I think so. How about you?" He looked at Darien and saw the almost imperceptible nod. He'd really unnerved his young partner by trying to work the angle. He'd probably never hear the end of this.

"God, kids---it's only just now eleven, what's the hurry?" Jimmy practically yelped. "The night's still young!"

"Eleven?" Bobby looked down at his watch. Yes. It was a minute until eleven. How had the evening disappeared so fast? He'd not even finished the second beer and two hours had passed before he had realized it. "We really do need to go. Got work tomorrow."

"Ah, yes." Jimmy nodded sagely now. "A slave to the grind, too, I see. Well, not everyone can have a job like mine."

Bobby slid off the stool and offered his hand to the bartender. The green of the man's shirt really did hurt the eyes, even with the subtly dimmed lights. "You have a good one, Jimmy."

"You too, Bobby." Jimmy gave him another startlingly bright smiles and then cast his eyes sideways at his partner with a sly smile. "Goodnight, Darrie."

He turned away from the bar and saw the grin creep up on Harmony's face again as she spoke in a gently mocking voice. It wasn't meant to be sarcastic, but the laughter didn't hide the darkly cynical tone. "Come on, Darrie."

Darien's blush was terrible.

Harmony laced her arm around Merlyn's waist again and held her close as they started down the stairs. Bobby moved to follow. He had to tell her about the stranger before they got outside---so she'd be aware that they could be in trouble now.

Catching up with her, he leaned over her shoulder. "You see the guy at the bar who was staring?"

He almost stepped on Harmony's heels as he hurried behind her. She nodded and looked at him over her shoulder, meeting his gaze. "I saw. We’ll remember him."

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Chapter Ten:

He'd screwed up. The kid was probably ready to ask for a transfer now. How could he have been so stupid to try that crap on Darien without asking him about it first? Darien had slung his arm over his shoulder and had touched him a few times in friendship. And here, in The Driftwood, the kid had been working at fading into the scenery, but Bobby believed now that he'd carried it too far with his partner.

Outside the club, Harmony took a deep breath and let it out. Immediately, she was like a different person. She wasn't the clubber any more. What would her little, quiet girlfriend think of the change?

"Well, thank god that's over." It was all she said as they crossed the street and headed up through the parked cars.

"Do you need us to drop you off anywhere?" Darien had moved up to walk beside the two young women. He was peering down into the blonde Merlyn's face.

"Actually, Guinea Pig." Harmony spoke with a dark look on her face which he could see as she turned her head to look at Darien. "I was wondering if you could take us to the office. I can get us to the store from there. I left my bike there, when we left."

Bobby walked along behind them, his hands in his pockets and hoped no one was watching them. They'd dropped the act so quickly. If someone saw that they were obviously not what they'd showed themselves to be---

Stop worrying, he told himself. He looked around behind them and up both streets. There were a few drunken couples on the sidewalk, coming and going from the nightclub. No one of consequence. But, that didn't mean that some of them weren't really acting the part, too---pretending for the same reasons they'd pulled it off. Could someone be watching them? Any assassin would make them as being agents now, if he didn't keep up the pretense.

Slipping up behind the kid, he walked closely, laying his hand on his partner's arm in a protective manner. Now, after all the jumpy behavior and the quicksilver accident, the younger agent acted like it was fine with him.

Darien's arm came down around his shoulder and he felt the heat coming through the jacket again. Now, they looked the part again.

"I saw that bike---when did you get a motorcycle?" Darien's voice was soft, meant for only their small group. It was obvious from the way things were moving that Harmony was spending the night with her pretty, shapely friend.

"Two weeks ago. Gotta have wheels, you know." Harmony's smile was fast and easy, but the dark look on her face didn't leave.

"You have a motorcycle now? That's so neat, Harmony." Merlyn showed that she was blonde to the core.

"I could always just pick you up in the morning, Lab Rat. We could drop you both off where---" The kid's voice was full of laughter. Apparently, he was enjoying this little moment of companionship between him and the young woman.

Bobby looked up at his partner again and decided that yes, Darien was sober enough to drive home. He was sure that the kid was going to be fine.

He could get in the van at the Agency and drive home to his own, empty apartment and kick himself every step of the way for putting his partner on the high wire like that. What had happened back there at the bar, it had caught Darien off guard and now the younger agent was willingly touching him, but it was all part of the act.

"Don't come knocking on my door in the morning." Her voice held a gentle warning for his partner. "I don't want anyone showing up at my place right now. Understand me, Darien?"

"Gotcha. No interruptions." Darien grinned and winked at the lithe-bodied blonde who grinned back at him, admiringly.

"This is really your brother? He's so tall!" Merlyn's eyes were perfectly round as she looked up at Darien. Bobby wanted to laugh but thought he'd upset Harmony. Then, he saw her eyes find him, at his partner's side. "His boyfriend's cute, too!"

Bobby felt like his skin had caught fire. Someone had dropped napalm on him.

He felt Darien stiffen again, momentarily, and then they were at the car. His partner shifted and took his arm away. Digging around in his pockets, the kid came up with his keys. He unlocked the door and let them all in.

Settling into his seat, Bobby wondered if he was going to be fired when Darien refused to show up tomorrow. If he were the kid, he would be ready to quit, too---or at least, ask for a new partner. Without his partner, he knew he was not going to mean much to the Official anymore. He put his seatbelt on and watched the younger agent doing the same.

"Hey, can we listen to the radio?" Merlyn's sweet voice piped up from the back seat where she was nestled in tight against Harmony's side. He turned and looked at the dark-haired hacker in the dark blue velvet dress who rolled her eyes.

Oh, so that was how it was. She just didn't want to go home and look at an empty apartment.

He understood that better than anyone, he supposed. Lucky her, he thought. At least she had someone to share with now, even if she doesn't have someone to talk to. And it was obvious---there wouldn't be any deep conversations going on. It was a friendly alliance that was gaining information. Bobby couldn't begrudge her that. He envied her, though.

Darien turned on the radio and a hard driving beat started blaring through the speakers. A quick flick of the kid's wrist turned the volume down to a tolerable level.

"So---Merlyn, right?" His partner looked through the rear view mirror, smiling at the girl. "Harmony tells me that you were here on Saturday."

The car pulled out and headed up the street towards the office, which was only a dozen blocks away.

"Yes, I was. I thought for sure that she'd be at the club. I spent the whole night there and she never showed up." She sounded like she was pouting. He didn't turn back around to see for sure.

Already, he hated her voice. Bobby looked at his partner and tried to guess what could be going on in his head at this moment.

From the backseat, he heard Harmony whispering and he focused on her, trying to make out the words she was saying low to herself. She was singing softly with the song on the radio. Turning his head, he looked at her now and realized that she was staring out the window, her eyes shadowy with a different, more serious emotion.

"Did you see Harmony's old roommate there on Saturday?" He didn't call Ciara by name. He needed to see what Merlyn knew.

He turned around from looking at Harmony and caught Darien as the younger agent looked away, taking his gaze back to the street. His partner had been looking at him while he looked at their young friend in the back seat.

"Yeh, I did! She was there on Saturday night after eleven. You can't miss her, you know? Even with the dark short hair and everything, Ciara kind of stands out in a crowd."

Merlyn's words made him want to laugh in relief. "Yes, she does seem to have that certain something, doesn't she? What was she doing there, Merlyn? Did you see her with a friend?"

He heard a soft sound from the backseat, coming from directly behind him, where Harmony was sitting. It was a sigh loud enough to be heard over the engine and the radio. Bobby turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder, facing the window.

"She was there by herself at first and then a guy showed up. They went to one of the back rooms." Merlyn's voice grated his nerves, but he took in what she said.

Behind him, looking out the window, she was now quietly absorbing the music, the questions, and the pain he saw was a desperate darkness that seemed to have swallowed the laughter he'd seen in her eyes at the club. It had been a mask. All of it. Her gleefulness and the glib comments---she'd been faking it all.

"Back rooms? Like a closet or a booth?" Darien's voice came then, sharply jumping into the conversation again.

"Like a little sitting room but with a table and chairs. You know, for talking privately." The blonde girl said and then giggled inanely. "He was cute, the guy she was with, wearing the leather pants and white tank top, kinda like a bad boy. Tall with hair like Harmony's---like some artist, you know? But he wore glasses..."

Passing under a streetlight, he saw Harmony's eyes in the fleeting light that shone into the car. They looked empty, as if nothing lived there anymore. Bobby watched as she blinked a few times and cleared her face of the expression he'd seen that had clouded it. She was back and she was wearing her mask of cynicism.

She was listening intently now---catching everything being said. He turned around and watched the street for a moment as he thought about it. He'd just seen her make a decision of some kind, in her head. It had shown on her face.

"And this artist guy---did you know his name?" Darien's question was gentle, as he probed for more answers. "Did you see them together for very long?"

"He had a funny name---it started with a W. W something, I think. She said it where I could hear it pretty clearly, but the music was so loud and it was really pumping in there." The bubble-headed girl went on talking. "She was there by herself and then this really cute guy with glasses showed up. She went to the room with him and then he left by himself."

Bobby's hope for the conversation went right out the window. Shaking his head, he met his partner's quick glance.

"Tell them what else happened, Merlyn." Harmony's voice was like cold air hitting him in the neck. She'd been so quiet until now. The tone of her words was like Eberts suddenly, as if she'd frozen up inside.

"Oh, yeh!" The girl giggled again. "Ciara was at the bar, talking to Jimmy and this really bad-looking dude showed up. He spoke to her and I didn't understand a word of it except that one word I told Harmony about. It was so loud, but I think he said something like 'Lood Or'."

"Loup D'Or." Harmony corrected her young blonde companion, letting her accent slide over the words in a rounded way. "He was speaking French, most likely."

"Oh, okay!" Merlyn giggled again and Bobby wished this were over with already. His head was pounding. "Well, she turned around---and I've never seen a look like this on her face before. Ciara called him Daniel something. She looked like she could just about murder him! They left the club and I never saw them again, but I went and danced with some friends and---"

"That's what happened?" He couldn't resist interrupting her, knowing that she was through with the important parts. "Ciara met him there and left with him after he spoke to her in French?"

"Loup D'Or is her name, Bobby." Harmony's words were full of the same coldness. "He found her. He set the appointment and she kept it."

"So, what it looks like is she went there and left with him. Why, Lab Rat? Wouldn't she just, you know, right there?" He saw Darien's eyes lift to the mirror again and meet Harmony's in questioning. "Do you think she did it? Or did he get her?"

"I don't know, Guinea Pig. But, I'm sure it's not over. I just have this feeling they are together now, and that means it’s almost to the boiling point..."

Her tone was like that of a snowfield. It was disturbing to hear her ex-partner's attitude coming from her. She'd always been sarcastic, but she hadn't been cold-blooded until she'd come back from Australia.

"Hey, can I ask you guys something?" Merlyn spoke up, interrupting his thoughts again. "How come you call her Lab Rat? Her name is Harmony. She calls you Guinea Pig but Jimmy called you Darrie. Why?"

Harmony started snickering. It was the worst possible sounding thing he could think of at this moment. He turned and met her eyes over the back of the seat. Her humor was evident in her eyes. She was going to tell the lie and not think twice.

"Oh, it's just us, Merlyn. It's a sibling thing, you know?" He watched as her upper lip twisted and turned into a smile that showed a few teeth on one side. "Our parents thought it was a cool thing to play games with us."

Bobby knew exactly what was in the words. He looked at his partner and saw that Darien did, too. She was calling the Agency their 'parents' and the reference to 'playing games' was a poke at the experiments that had changed them both.

"That's so cool! I wish my brother and I got along like that! All we ever did was fight with each other. Did you have any other brothers and sisters? I had one of each." Merlyn sounded like one of those little dolls that chattered stupidly when the string in their back was pulled. For all of her beauty and gorgeous body, she was empty.

Bobby wished Harmony luck in his heart. The time she'd been away, staying to herself, seemed to have done a mountain of damage. Maybe this girl she was taking home could ease some of the lonely look he'd seen in her eyes.

"Only one." Harmony said in a low voice, going on with the lie she was telling the vapid girl. "He's gone now."

"Gone? Where?" There was a moment of silence. "Oh, I'm sorry, Harmony. I didn't know. He's dead, right? That kind of gone? Like the scientist guy you told me about? The one you said you missed---"

Harmony didn't speak.

He could only imagine the look Harmony must have had on her face. From the expression Darien Fawkes wore when he looked through the rear view mirror, it had been horribly unpleasant. His partner's eyes had gone hard, like rocks.

Darien had pulled into the parking lot of the Agency, where Bobby had left the van earlier. Harmony's bike was farther up the lot, at the back. It wasn't very big---but then, he knew she wouldn't have a monster Harley like her ex-partner. She'd settled for a small lightweight crotch-rocket.

She'd bought dinner and she'd paid for the clothing she had helped Darien pick out. How good was the bookstore doing these days? The motorcycle was brand new. He'd not even known she could drive, much less had a driver's license to drive a bike. More surprises from the girl.

Bobby Hobbes unbuckled his seat belt and slid out from under it. He looked at Darien as he opened the door. He tried to apologize and was met with an understanding, worried look. His partner was confused and it showed.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drop Merlyn off somewhere for you, Lab Rat?" Darien asked as the two women opened the doors of the car and started to get out.

Bobby had a momentary flash of his partner driving back to the piers at the south end of the trolley line and tossing the blonde girl in the bay. He could think of a few other places where he would drop her off at, if given a chance.

"No thanks, Guinea Pig. I think I have a game I want to play with Merlyn." The sound of Harmony's chuckle was soft and seductive. "She's like a baby doll, you know?"

So, the girl *had* noticed. It didn't surprise him. He put his hands in his pockets and found his keys for the van.

"A game?" Merlyn smiled big and the simplistic lusty look on her face suggested that she had an idea of what the game could be, if she had her way. "And what kind of games do you want to play tonight, Lab Rat?"

Uh-oh. The stupid woman had crossed the line. Bobby saw it in Harmony's face. No one called her by that name but Darien Fawkes. Her eyes were like chips of blue diamond in the gleam of the streetlight overhead. She had been offended by the use of the private nickname but she went on, trying to be nice.

"Well, I like to paint, you know. You’ve seen some of it. I thought maybe you'd like to be painted. How about that?"

"That sounds cool! You want me to model for a portrait or something like that?" Merlyn flipped her long pale blonde hair over her shoulder happily.

"Or something like that." Harmony's face hadn't lightened, but the smile that crept onto her full mouth made him stare at her before he unlocked the door of the van. It was like Arnaud De Thiel's in a way.

He'd seen agents crack before. Most of them never lasted long afterwards. But, what could be done with an agent that started out that way?

"Good night, Harmony. Play nice." He called to her, as she stepped away from the car and let Darien pull away. His partner waved to them as he left the parking lot.

Darien Fawkes had left, going home. The last look he'd gotten from the kid was a little more encouraging than the one he'd thought he would get. At least, he hoped it was what it had looked like.

"I will, Bobby. I promise." She smiled as she approached now. Coming to his side, she stopped beside the van, on the inside of his open door. Her face was softer now. The dark moment had passed or she'd put the mask back on.

Merlyn danced up the parking lot behind them, headed for the motorcycle. She was singing some song that was popular on the radio right now.

He looked at Harmony and tried to find something to say to her. The news about Ciara had hurt her---he'd seen that.

"You're not really gonna take her home with you." He said it and hoped that she would agree with him.

"I'm not going to hurt her. I saw it your face---you think I'm gonna gut her and hang her skin in my closet." The little grin she gave him made him start shaking with a silent chuckle. "She's not so bad, Bobby. Merlyn can be fun."

"You're gonna paint her picture?" He took a deep breath and studied her face. She was so beautiful in this moment, with her hair down on her shoulders in the light that shone down on them. It was hard to believe that such a girl, so bright and funny, had been hurt so badly by her friends and family.

He knew why Darien felt so protective, now. He was starting to feel that way himself and he wasn't sure if it made him completely comfortable.

"Not really. I'm gonna paint her." She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and grinned again, that sly look coming back to linger. "Maybe if I put some music on and have a painting party, I can finally get some sleep tonight."

"You're not sleeping? Like Alan?" He cringed when he realized that he'd brought the dead agent into this conversation about her own insomnia. Her expression changed drastically and she was serious and sad now, watching him as if she was sure he would disappear any moment.

"I'm not sleeping, no. I find myself horrified at the idea. Like if I fall asleep, someone else I love will die. I can't take it, Bobby. It's more than I want to survive."

Her soul was in her eyes for the first time since she'd been in the car and he'd seen her staring out the window. He could see it rising to the surface. She was afraid to sleep and it was all in her words---she was afraid for Darien and him and the friends she'd claimed at the Agency.

And it had been going on for some time. It hadn't just started today with the news that her ex-partner had been identified at the scene of a crime. She'd been mourning not only Kevin and the situation with Darien's trip back to Cold Springs---there was also Alan Webster and Ciara's apparent abandonment of their life together.

"You can survive this, kid. I have the same problem and I survive it just fine. Just take it a little at a time and remember that we do care."

He said it roughly as he took his suit jacket off and flung it into the van's passenger seat. Bobby said it because he knew it was what Darien would do to make things easier on this girl. Looking up from what he was doing, he saw the haunted look in her face again. She was not buying it.

"I wish you wouldn't. You saw what I nearly did back there---" She didn't have to go any further. He knew what she was talking about.

"Hey---I saw you, remember?" Bobby tried again, realizing what was wrong with her. It was what was really keeping her from resting. It was the reason she'd been hiding for two weeks. She was afraid of herself. "You didn't want to do that, I know."

It was the truth, as far as he could see it. He knew that she would probably never have done it---not to his partner, anyway. Darien was a link to the man she'd trusted with her life. Kevin Fawkes might be dead, but he had a strong hold on both his partner and this girl. He wished, for a moment, he'd gotten to know the doctor who'd both saved and destroyed two lives he'd cared about.

What could he say to a man like Doctor Fawkes?

"Don't be so sure, Bobby. I had my reasons to do what he wanted and they weren't all about the genetic therapy." Her eyes were sad. "Did you know that when I got home from the labs, there was a package waiting for me?"

He startled and opened his mouth to answer her, but she went on; her voice cracking a little, but there were no tears.

"I guess he sent it when he was fucking with Darien's mind. They were Kev's audio notes to himself about the stuff that was going on inside my cells. The note he wrote said I should listen to the voice of betrayal and try to find where the lies began."

"And you've been listening to them, haven't you?" He shook his head. "Haven't you figured out yet that he was fucking with both of you? That bastard. He was lying to you, Harmony."

He was getting angry again. It seemed that the terrorist could reach them even without being near. Arnaud De Thiel had done some serious hurt to both his partner and this girl, who didn't deserve it.

"I wish that were true, Bobby, but he was telling the truth, I think. No matter what else Kev might have been feeling, he didn't tell me the truth like Arnaud did." Still, there were no tears in her eyes. She wasn't cold any more, though. If anything, he would swear that the air around her had heated up at least ten or fifteen degrees.

"That's not important, really. Listen. At least you have your freedom now." He felt like he was speaking for Darien. "Freedom is what you're fighting for---it's what Kevin Fawkes gave you."

Harmony turned and she looked like an angel of sorrow as she walked away with her head down. He sighed, starting to get into the van's driver seat, and then he heard her voice again.

"Bobby?"

She was looking at him. She was yards away. Her eyes were full of tears now. She'd turned to keep him from seeing her cry. But, now, she was trusting him with her pain.

"Yeh?"

She smiled softly, just outside of the light he stood in. She quoted a song at him.

"You know, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

@@@

Chapter Eleven:

He stood on the sidewalk and stared up at the windows, feeling like a complete coward.

After driving for forty-eight hours, the front seat of the car had made a very welcome place to take a nap. What he'd not counted on was taking such a long one. With a good, heavy meal in his stomach, he'd practically gone comatose.

The music had accompanied him awake. It had been nine hours of unbroken rest. He felt rested physically, but inside his head, he was even less ready to face her. What if Ciara's grief was more than he could handle for himself? From the look and sound of things, her world had changed in some drastic ways.

The motorcycle was there; a different one from the big-boned black and silver Harley he remembered her owning for all twelve years of their friendship. Her steel and chrome horse was gone, replaced by a smaller, intensely sleek machine.

It was not even the type of import he had thought she would drive. Funny really, it looked like he might not know Ciara the way he had believed. After all, he would have thought metallic purple and green to be the last choice of colors for her vehicles.

It was parked in front of the bookstore for the whole world to see. He'd walked around to the front and seen it when he'd woken to the sounds of a thumping, driving music pouring from her apartment's windows. Just in the minutes he'd been standing here, he'd heard selections of Beethoven being followed by pieces of what sounded like a hardcore soundtrack---maybe something from a movie like the Matrix.

Kevin stood and watched the white silk curtains billow up and out of the window's frame. It was why he'd been able to hear the music so well. It wasn't really very loud, but with every window open in the apartment, he could hear every note of the constantly changing selection. Classical was followed by hardcore and then was followed by some wailing blues guitar that was more her style.

The curtains moved with a slight breeze from within, as if a fan rotated the air there and made the curtains whirl and dance upwards and out into the open night. There was light and music and as he stood, chin lifted to watch one of the curtains swirl transparently in the air current, he realized that he missed her. Harmony.

If she'd been there, to see this with him, she'd have been happy; really and truly happy. It was light and music she was drawn to---things she had told him she knew she couldn't live without.

His friend Ciara Mackenzie must have been grieving, but she'd not changed the way she lived completely. She'd gone on opening the windows, playing Harmony's music, and filling their home with light.

Looking at his watch, he saw that it was after midnight. The sky was full of stars despite the forecast he'd heard on the radio, calling for rain in the next few days.

Kevin heard the cd change again. This one he recognized with a tightening of his throat in memory. The music of it was unmistakable---how many times had he listened to this song, as Harmony let it blast at nerve-shattering volumes?

It had a primal, sensual sound to it, despite the roughness of the singer's voice. Gravel-voiced Tom Waits roared and crooned his way through the smoky lyrics of an old song made new.

"Come with me, my love, to the sea. The sea of love. I wanna tell you how much I love drowning in a sea of love."

The thumping, tribal-like drums were the rhythm he'd seen the girl dance to, her feet stomping along as her body moved to the sound of the strange guitar music. He could remember seeing her become completely pagan to that song in the lab of the house in Neuchatel, her face taking on the expression of an ecstatic worshipper in some ancient ritual of dance.

"Come with me...to the sea...Oh, yeh...Do you remember the night we met---"

He'd seen her lose herself in this music as she forgot that others watched. This music had a seductive, hot sound to it, and made him remember what she'd looked like dancing to it as she moved around the lab, her slender body moving and bending with the myriad rhythms that were like a jungle.

Each part of the music had a place for her to physically retreat into. She'd danced along the concrete floor, eyes half-closed in divine pleasure as her voice had been raised in a high, demanding descant as she half-cried, half-sobbed the lyrics as a dangerous background to the harsh, sensual song.

Ciara Mackenzie had chosen to remember her the right way. It was different from what he'd heard about her actions when her last lover had died. Perhaps, even she could change, after all. From what he could see, things were very different already. Had Harmony's short life had such an impact on the woman's soul?

Listening to the sound of the music, he knew for sure that he wasn't the only one who'd been changed forever by the young girl's overwhelming spirit. If Ciara was handling her grief this way, it was a direct opposite of what had happened with the deaths of the others. The death of love caused the raw-boned, lanky woman to grow cold and withdraw into her shell. This was far from what he'd expected.

It was like the soul-blistering guitar cried in grief for the whole world, shouting about the child who'd lived in the soul of music. Six months had changed everything, it seemed. He'd missed the most important part of his young friend's life. Six months ago, he could have saved her.

His heart ached with the sound of the weeping scorch of the next song. It was another piece he'd heard in Neuchatel; a sharp reminder that six months had been all that was required to destroy the lives of his loved ones, friends and family.

It was time to stop being a coward. He had to face Ciara Mackenzie and help her in any way he could. The grief he heard in the music filtering down to the sidewalk was more than enough to tell him she was hurting inside.

If she handled Harmony's death like this, then she would probably accept him without a single recrimination. It was a hope he held tightly, wanting to believe she could change---that she'd not retaliate against him the way he feared she might.

The stories he'd heard about the death of her first and last real lover were probably more than true---Ciara was capable of extremes where love was concerned. Considering who Harmony had been, to her, she might commit herself to revenge. He believed those stories in his gut---look at what she’d done in that man’s name.

She was not a person to cross where love was concerned. Every piece of evidence told him that if he were really smart, he'd get back in the car, drive back to the safe house in the mountains in Mexico, and pretend he'd not gotten the message.

Kevin sighed and stretched his back, still feeling the ache of having driven so long and so far.

What was getting to him, making his heart feel like it had grown larger in his chest, was that the music was the sound of their girl's spirit. Closing his eyes, he could almost feel her there---as if she would live forever young in the light and music she had worshipped feverishly. He could almost make himself believe she was still alive, waiting for him to knock on the door.

He looked up and down the sidewalk and realized he'd been standing here for a long time. Pretty soon, someone was going to notice---there had to be a cop that patrolled the quiet neighborhood during the night hours.

It was a nice, clean suburban street. He could believe that the two women would come back here---Ciara might not have fit in so easily, but Harmony would have slid right into place among the other college-aged kids.

Kevin Fawkes looked up again as the music changed to Beethoven. He had to do this before he chickened out. Letting his breath out in a deep sigh, he squared his shoulders and took the last few steps to the door of the bookstore.

The doorbell was a round eye that didn't blink as he put his finger on it, closed his own eyes, and pushed it a few times. Could she hear it upstairs? The music might not be very loud, but if she were busy, Ciara might not hear.

He rang the bell again, feeling braver. It was easier this time. He didn't have to close his eyes in anticipation. His breathing was calmer now. He could do this.

Looking through the slits of the blinds that hung at the door, he saw a light at the back of the store come on, in another room. It didn't show him anything but that she'd heard the doorbell and was now approaching. The moment of truth was coming with her every step, following the sound of the music that played.

Kevin felt awe in this moment of truth. The music actually fit. Didn't that only happen in movies? Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was building to a crescendo over his head, demanding that the whole world hear the pain and horror of beauty's death. He'd always loved the composer's more intense works---and it seemed that even the universe was listening, preparing in mute anticipation of the final movement.

Hands on the other side of the door fumbled with the lock. The wooden door shifted in its frame and swung open. The brass bell over it rang merrily.

Harmony stood, dressed in the over-sized men's button up shirt and nothing else. Her mouth was wide in a smiling greeting that never came. She dropped the hand that held the money to her side in a second, as he saw realization hit like a board had smacked her in the face.

Kevin felt his heart stop beating as he lost his breath.

Her hair fell in soft, dark cedar waves around her face. A few strands were stuck to her curved cheek. There was something on her face and in the streetlight at the corner of the building, he knew what it was---paint.

Red and metallic gold and black paint freckled her. There were flecks of gold in her red brown hair. It was on her face and on her bare forearms where the sleeves of her painting shirt had been rolled up to the elbows. He saw without looking that her bare legs and feet were spattered in red, blood-like droplets and streamers.

He was lost. Harmony was the same. She stood breathing and pink-cheeked before him, as if she'd been dancing in the lab again. Like a child, she was bare-footed and half-dressed, but that was where the child ended and the woman began.

Where had the years really gone? How had he missed this--- gone only six months? No. It had to have been there before and he'd not seen it.

Mute, he stood with his mouth open and watched in shock as the waves of emotion went over her young face like the tide coming in against the rocks. He saw her eyes grow large and vulnerable, looking like two giant blue oceans.

Kevin saw the tremble of her full, reddened lower lip. Shock and fear rippled over her features, becoming pain.

Kevin saw the unbearable hurt in her eyes, on her face, showing starkly in the way her mouth hung open, prepared to speak. The hurt melted and became love---adoration for the man he once had been. Love and friendship for the man she'd trusted.

And then it was gone. He saw her eyes narrow suddenly in anger. The blue of them was like twin scalpels, slicing unmercifully through his last reserve of mental strength without anesthesia. He felt like he couldn't get out from under the ice-cold blue steel. His heart leaped, writhing, into his throat and he choked momentarily, as he saw how alive she was.

She was whole. She was healthy. She gleamed and shone with the pink of her young life. Like she'd never been sick---never been hurt.

Hatred turned her face to chiseled stone; a statue of the girl he'd known stood before him, caught in a whip of lost time. It was eerie, seeing the alien emotion that made her mouth close then as her eyes studied him under the laser-hot microscope of her gaze. Hate paled her cheeks, making her skin nearly translucent in the light.

His breath tore ragged into his lungs, burning, and he felt the shout coming up, from the bottom of his feet where he stood on the welcome mat of the bookstore she owned.

"Harmony---"

Her face twisted and she slammed the door. Kevin took a stuttering step backwards with the force of it. The glass rattled in the frame.

She was alive. She'd gotten better---was still healing, in fact. The chemical compound he'd worked on with Arnaud had worked---Harmony had survived the genetic dysfunction that had been destroying her, even if she looked horribly thin.

The bruises were gone and the gray look of death had disappeared. She was fresh and bright and boldly beautiful, as if she'd never been put under the knife or the needle to be sacrificed in the name of science.

And she hated him. He'd seen her face. The look of dead cold rage that had twisted the affection she'd once had for him. He'd lost her to the betrayal and the unsaid truths. She had the truth in her hands now and it was a sword that proved her strength was mightier than anything he could offer as a regret or an apology.

Science had nearly killed her and it had been done under the name of research. Pure science wasn't holy. Life was holy. The ex-agent had been right and the proof stood on the other side of the door now.

Kevin stepped to the door and peered through the slits of the blinds that lay, still swaying, against the glass. She was dressed only in the white, paint-stained shirt he'd given her all those years ago, standing only inches away.

She'd not fled. She was standing at the door. Through the plastic folds, he could make out her arms folded against her chest and her head bowed low. The long hair fell across her face, shielding him from seeing her expression.

Harmony hated him. He should go---before she was hurt worse. He'd done so much to her already. He deserved that hate. He knew it, as he'd known it when she was only seventeen and he'd found out the depths of his mistakes. The affection she had held for him was obviously gone---lost to the truths she'd found out after she believed him to be dead and gone out of her life.

Laying his forehead on the cool glass, he groaned to himself, pushing his hands against the doorframe. Damn Ciara. She'd written that the girl couldn't possibly survive the damage. Why had she done this? Why had she called him home, sounding so scared on the answering machine, making him fear for his old friend? His guilt and his commitment had brought him and now he'd seen the one thing he had never wanted to know. The girl was alive and she hated him.

Ciara had done this on purpose. It was her revenge.

"Harmony..." It came out as a half-whisper. Kevin said it again, louder, to let her know he'd not gone anywhere. He had to explain. He had to tell her that he was sorry. He would tell her everything and then go away and leave her alone. Somehow, he'd get through this. Somehow, he'd face the hate in her eyes and find the words that would let her know how he felt about the things he had done. He had to tell her how he felt if he could. "Harmony?"

There was no answer. He clenched his hands into fists where they laid on the door and swallowed the dry, sour taste of copper that was in his mouth and throat. It was the taste of fear. If he couldn't tell her---if she wouldn't listen---then he had to leave. But Kevin knew he couldn't leave yet. He had to see her face. He could leave when she'd told him goodbye.

"Open the door, Harmony." He mustered up the will to make the words form. "I need to talk to you."

Suddenly, it was like two and a half years hadn't passed. It could have been early summer again, over two years ago. Kevin looked at the girl who stood on the other side of the door, so close to him and yet so far away.

The last time he'd been on the other side of the door from her like this had been the night he'd given her the necklace, just after her eighteenth birthday. Something had gone wrong that night---he'd never known what she'd been thinking, but she'd shut herself into her bedroom and stood on the other side of the door like this, refusing to let him see or talk to her face to face.

It made his knees weak to see it starting again, like a giant circle. That had been where the change in her had started. He'd been preparing to tell Harmony about her deadly cellular dysfunction. He'd been ready to confess; to tell her he would make it better no matter what it took---but he'd been a coward.

And something had gone wrong with that night. She'd cried on the other side of that door. It had pierced him to hear her soft, sobbing words of child-like affection. Harmony hadn't known what he felt, but she responded for him---crying like her heart had been torn up.

From that night forward, he'd not said anything despite his desire to be honest with her. He'd watched her becoming distant, becoming Ciara's lover, and becoming a stranger who looked at him from a familiarly loved face.

Harmony had turned into a friend who barely tolerated his presence and he had been hurt when she started pushing him away. That had been a loss of the unconditional trust she'd held for him since they'd met when she was a brash, funny child.

"Harmony---open the door." He made his voice work in his sore throat.

There was no answer. Again, she refused to acknowledge him. Kevin closed his eyes and pushed his face harder against the door until his glasses met the surface. He couldn't leave until she said goodbye. He'd go and leave Harmony with her tall, beautiful lover, Ciara Mackenzie.

God, she was just the same.

"Please, I know how this looks. I know how you feel. Let me in. I need to see you."

There was a harsh sound of her cynicism made vocal. Kevin heard her snort and say something under her breath. Her words came in her low, angry French.

"Drôle, oui?" Harmony's voice was ice as she commented on the humor of the situation. "Qu'est-ce que vous savez de comment je me sens? Ne vous savez rien. Rien."

She believed her own words. She didn't believe him at all. She questioned what he knew. And she was right. He knew nothing. He couldn't really know how she felt. He had to try, though.

"Please, Harmony, don't do this. You know I---" Kevin stopped and opened his eyes slowly. She knew he hated this. It was why she was doing it---there could be no other explanation. "Listen to me, Harmony...I am sorry. We're friends, remember? I need to talk to you. Please open the door."

"Vous n'êtes pas mon ami. Vous n'êtes pas mon employeur. Il y a non 'nous'." Her voice was hard as stone, like the hate he had seen on her face. "Vous n'a pas de droite à me dit n'importe quoi plus. Pas vous. Pas plus. Partir."

"I won't go until you talk to me. Please, let me in."

She was negating their friendship and their relationship. Harmony had told him he had no right to talk to her at all anymore. She'd ordered him to leave. She knew he hated it when she refused to speak in her native language, speaking as if he were a foreign stranger she had found distasteful.

He didn't blame her, really. Kevin unclenched his hands and laid them flat on the door. He was as close as he could get and it wasn't nearly enough.

"Songbird..." He pleaded with her.

She shouted in outrage then; a half articulate cry of disbelief as if her soul was ripped in half by the word. "Don't you dare call me that!"

@@@

Chapter Twelve:

Kevin felt the sound of her cry rip through him as if he'd been shot in the chest again. It was a nightmare. Ciara Mackenzie had done this to him---it was the best revenge she could have exacted on a friend who'd betrayed the child they'd both cared about enough to dare so much in her name. The woman had set him up and done this to show him what it was like to really die.

Why would she do this to Harmony? She had to have known what this would do to their girl---why would she do this to the young woman that they'd both loved?

"I know you hate me now. I have no excuses but I'd like to explain." He took a deep breath and held it, listening to the sound of her harsh breathing on the other side of the glass. She was still standing back, as if she couldn't bear to be any closer. Her head was now turned to the side and he saw only the curve her cheek in the half-light.

There was no answer.

"Please, Harmony, if I stand out here much longer, someone's going to call the police. Think about it. I'm not supposed to be here. It would be trouble." He appealed to her sense of logic. No matter what games she played, she loved logic and truth.

"Why did you lie to me, Doctor Fawkes?" The way she said his name sounded nasty, as if it were dirt in her mouth. "You were dead. Please...stay that way."

He heard it. The pain. She might despise him, but he'd hurt her again, by not being here. There was a crack in her heart now that was like a giant, threatening chasm, but she'd opened an emotional door between them.

"I had no choice. Believe me. If not for Ciara..."

Her silence was deadly. Then, he heard it. The soft sound of a sob.

"Ciara told me you were dead, sweetheart---I didn't know. I'm sorry. Let me see you, please." Kevin closed his eyes on her pain, feeling it with her. She was trying to stifle the tears.

"Ciara---Ciara is..." The name came on a half-broken sob. "Go away, Kevin. Please. I can't do this."

"I can't leave. Now that I know...I won't leave." Kevin said it and let his breath out in a sigh, letting the coolness of the glass seep into his skin. Overhead, the music was softer, sad. It was still Beethoven. He could hear the gentle, sorrowful sounds of the piano lamenting the Pathetique Sonata.

"Yes. You can. You have to." Harmony's words were an unforgiving whisper. He held his breath again to hear her. "Just go."

Her resistance was leaving. Would she open the door? He tried once more, knowing he was hurting her again.

"Do you know what I thought? When you opened the door? I thought I was dreaming and after the nightmares--- If I can't call you Songbird, can I call you Rhiannon?"

The answer was a long silence.

He heard, as he held his breath, her moving. The door shifted again and opened. A tiny sliver of a crack lay between them now. She opened the door. In the light, only a few inches showed. Harmony pressed her face to the edge of the door, cutting her features in half with the shadows.

One blue eye gleamed, full of a swirling miasma of emotion that he could identify. Fear. Love. Hate. Her cheek was pale, speckled in gold paint, and he saw the edge of a new, freshly healing scar that ran across the bridge of her nose, mostly hidden by the door. Her mouth held no smile and no words, but he saw the dark circle under that eye. Harmony was tired and hurting. She was giving in. She looked at him with her heart and judged him.

Kevin Fawkes had been found lacking.

"Can I come in? I want to see you." He smiled weakly, feeling it break the dry skin of his lower lip a little. His mouth still held that hot, dry taste of fear that she would shut the door and walk away.

"You have seen me." It was dead ashes coming from her soft voice.

As he watched, she turned around and left. It was only open a crack, but as Harmony walked away, he pushed the door open and the bell overhead rang again, making his nerves stagger with the sudden sound.

At the back of the store, the light shone from a doorway. She was there within a few moments, her bare feet silent on the carpet. Kevin closed the door, turned the deadbolt, and followed her, his mind full of questions, explanations, and confusion.

The room with the light in it was an office. A computer sat on a desk against the right hand side of the small room, it's chair pushed in, out of the way. Ahead, before him, he heard her climbing the stairs. They were darkened, but he pressed on.

"Harmony---I need you to listen. I had no choice. They’re my employers---told me you believed I was dead and that it was going to stay that way." There was no reply from her. He took the landing in a long step and hurried to catch up. The passage was narrow and dark, but there was light ahead.

"Harmony? Please try to see this. I was being kept away---if I had been given a choice, I'd have been here. And then Ciara wrote---the picture---she said you couldn't survive. That we---Arnaud and I---had destroyed you and..." Kevin rushed his half-true words, trying to get it all out before she silenced him.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he came out into a long, open room that was full of light and music. She stood there, arms crossed, facing him with a flat, blank expression. His words faltered at what he saw in her eyes. It was as if she were a stranger.

"You did. You and Arnaud both did. And I want to thank you for that, Kevin."

She turned around again and walked on, moving to the other side of the large room. There was a curtain hanging there, at the other end, made of white silk. She stopped in front of it, picked up a long paintbrush from the table against the wall and put it in the jar of muddied water that sat waiting.

Then, he saw the statue.

Standing at the top of the stairs, he felt his eyes start out of his face from behind his glasses. Kevin put his hand to his mouth and then let it drop again. It was probably the most amazing thing he had ever seen created by human imagination. And it was a living piece of art.

She'd taken her creation skills and learned a new form of self-expression based in pure, raw sensuality.

"Aller nettoyer vous et recevoir habillé, Merlyn." Harmony's voice was gentle now, as she spoke to the statue.

"I don't understand---? Who is he?" The voice of the living art was a plaintive cry. "I thought you said..."

"Please, Merlyn. Not now. Go wash up and put your clothes on, chere." Putting a paint-spattered hand on the face of the statue, Harmony sighed and smiled softly. She bent her head forward and kissed the open, protesting mouth of the slightly shorter woman.

Kevin felt a rush of heat that ran all over him. The kiss was deep, loving, and intense. Artist kissed a goddess in red, gold, and black.

One slender arm had been crooked into an upward, curving sweep and the other had been extended outwards in a straight line, to the side. She was dressed only in the mottling paint. The arms came down slowly, as if the girl under the paint didn't comprehend what was going on.

She was gorgeous. The hairless, smooth curves of her body were delineated in black and accented in red. She had been painted molten gold, as if she were an idol to be put on a pedestal. Kevin couldn't believe what he was seeing. As he stared at the two women, he felt himself flush all over.

The music was a slow, fitting rising of the Ode to Joy.

The goddess had pale blonde hair that had been piled up loosely on her perfectly round head, free of the paint. She was beautiful, full-breasted, and slender. Merlyn. She'd called the girl Merlyn.

Kevin stared at his young friend as she kissed the black lined mouth. Her hands cupped the wet gold and red cheeks in a delicate way, as if she were afraid she would break Merlyn.

This was not just a friend...not just a piece of art. This was a person---painted and loved.

What the hell was going on? Did he dare to ask?

The kiss was sweet, hot, and deep. Harmony made unashamed love to Merlyn's mouth as if he didn't exist. It was more than he could imagine---but he couldn't look away. Kevin blinked and found that his brain had stopped working.

"Now you must go, chere, before I say you must stay." Harmony's sigh as she drew back from the kiss was deep and regretting. He couldn't see her face, but the way she spoke told him everything. This was her lover. Someone she really cared about.

"Okay. I don't understand, but okay." The goddess floated slowly across the room towards him, turning her head as she did. She went through a door, closed it behind her, and then he was alone with Harmony.

She came back across the floor on her bare feet, using a moist-looking towel to wipe the wet paint from her hands. Kevin saw her quiet smile then and knew it wasn't for him or for anything he'd done. It belonged to the girl who was in the bathroom right now. It was an understanding, accepting smile and it was for Merlyn.

Harmony laid the dirty towel on the table beside a red couch and picked up a cordless phone that sat there. Her eyes never left him. She watched him as he stood at the top of the stairs, feeling as if the world had crashed into the surface of the sun.

She dialed a number and spoke to a taxicab dispatcher, giving her business' address and requesting that a car be sent in fifteen minutes.

Holding the phone to her chest then, her expression dark with thought. Kevin watched as her eyes studied him, looking as if she were prepared to say something. Her mouth was a thin line and her jaw was set; clenched like she was gritting her teeth. He didn't think he'd ever seen her concentrate on him in such a hard, forbidding way.

She had the air of cold strength that he'd always felt in Ciara's presence, as if the world couldn't touch the heart of stone they possessed.

Her time with Ciara hadn't been wasted. Harmony had learned well.

Kevin moved, going towards her.

"Please, take a seat." She used the phone to point to the chair. Then, before he could protest or say anything to make the look of cold resolution leave, she'd walked past him. He turned and watched her as she made her way down the stairs.

Standing where he'd stopped moving again, he listened to her dialing a new number. She'd gone to the darkened landing, between the two floors. Kevin strained and heard her begin talking to someone she'd just woken up.

She sounded angry and afraid, like she might cry again. The terrible desperation he heard in her voice made him want to go down the stairs and tell her that it was okay, that he wouldn't hurt her ever again. Ever.

Kevin couldn't make out whom she was speaking to, but they weren't happy about her calling at one in the morning. She pleaded with this person and asked them to hurry. No, she told the other end, don't call Bobby. Just come, please.

It was something he'd never have believed before. Harmony had called a close friend and asked them to come to her apartment. This was someone she trusted in the way she couldn't trust him anymore. He'd never heard her talk this way to Ciara Mackenzie. He knew, as he lowered his head to listen, that she'd never talk to him in such a manner again.

Behind him, the door to the bathroom opened. He turned and watched the pale-eyed Merlyn slip out, a frightened look on her face. She stared at him with her sky colored eyes and slid away from him, staying near the wall. There was still paint all over her, only half swiped at; she'd thrown her clothes on in a hurry.

Harmony came back up the stairs then. She stopped at the banister there and laid the phone on the broad top of the board. Her lover hurried now, getting away from him, and reached his young friend's side. Merlyn's hands reached for and grasped hers.

The scared girl whispered something fast at Harmony. His friend's eyes were on him, quiet and still, as she heard what her lover had to say. A slow smile crossed her face as she turned to look at Merlyn with loving amusement in her eyes.

Harmony nodded and one of her hands came up to cup Merlyn's half-clean cheek carefully. She kissed the girl briefly on the lips, her eyes softened with the emotion, and then brought the blonde head downwards. She pressed her mouth to the smooth forehead that lay behind a few bangs of the silky pale hair.

"Go home, chere, before I can't say no."

The girl hesitated again for a moment and then moved past her, letting the hands of her stronger lover go as she went down the stairs. Her voice came back up as she reached the landing. "Good night, Harmony."

Harmony's eyes had found him again. They were dark and so blue that he was sure the sun was gone forever from them. "Goodnight, Merlyn."

She stood still until the door down stairs had shut. Then, she moved away from the stairs and towards the refrigerator. The music had changed, become a smoking guitar riff that seemed to flow in the same way her steps did.

Opening the door, she took out a bottle of scotch and let the refrigerator door slam shut as she stepped around him. He'd started walking towards her and she passed him as if he weren't there.

Harmony stopped at a wall and leaned on it, cocking one red, paint-streaked foot over the other. In the dirty, paint-stained shirt, she opened the bottle. The cap hit the bare, wooden floor, and bounced.

She drank from the mouth of the bottle, never blinking as she stared back at him with the same speculative, dark look on her face that she'd worn before making the second phone call.

Kevin knew she was waiting. He had no idea what she was waiting for and it made him suddenly nervous. Who had she called?

He rubbed his hand over his face and walked to sit down on the couch, facing her. He felt his shirt ride up a little as he settled onto the dark red velvet cushion. In his rumpled shirt and trousers, he felt naked under her unwavering gaze, despite the fact that he wore more than she did.

How had this happened? She had a silent, deadly strength in her now. It was unnerving.

She drank long and hard from the bottle and swallowed the fiery liquor as if it were water. It was more than unnerving, he knew. It was the end of the child she'd been. Every bit of the pain she'd felt until now no longer existed. It was like she'd killed the little girl who'd believed in him and had done it in the seconds before she'd opened the door to let him in.

He'd called her Rhiannon and now she was a stranger. She'd cried before he'd said it. There were no more tears now.

"If you drink it like that, you'll get sick. You'll get drunk." It came out gentle as he folded one knee over the other.

She said nothing to him. The side of her mouth moved upwards for a second, a subtle response, and she lifted the bottle to her lips again. Before she lowered it, half a finger's worth of scotch had burned down her throat.

Blues guitar roared out of the speakers that sat on either side of a desk. The computer on it was turned on, displaying a liquid metal form that shifted and changed in drastic ways, evolving on screen. The desk and speakers were farther down the wall from where she stood against the bricks.

By her head hung a picture, a painting; it looked like it was her work. He couldn't make out details from the distance he sat at, but it looked like a moment in time where friends had been gathered. Kevin decided he would look at it later, when she wasn't examining him like a specimen under the microscope.

She showed her mood and attitude in the works she did---her mixed mediums showing her differing sides to a startling conclusion. He knew that he could figure out her current state of mind by examining her latest pieces.

Her latest piece of art had walked out and caught a cab five minutes ago.

Another half finger disappeared down her throat. He couldn't believe this. When had she learned to drink hard alcohol like this?

"Would you like a drink?"

It was as if she were offering it to a stranger she'd just met. Kevin looked at her closer. What was she doing? Didn't she see that she was making this worse?

"Yes, I would. Thanks. Harmony...why are you making this so hard?"

A loaded question deserved a shotgun answer. "No, see, you're missing it. I was having a hard time and then you knocked on the door."

@@@

Chapter Thirteen:

Harmony turned the computer's speakers down and then came at him slowly. She held the bottle out, her fingers loosely gripping. Kevin didn't take it. He saw the cold amusement in her eyes that told him that she knew what he was doing.

Her face said it all now as she grinned at him in a toothy way. She dropped the mask she'd been wearing.

It was the first sign of the real Harmony that he'd seen since she'd opened the door. He remembered seeing this grin from her a few times before, through the years. It was an open admittance of her darker emotions.

It was the one she reserved for Arnaud.

"No? Oh, I guess I've lost my appeal as a friend. Je suis désolé." Her accented French was smooth and sharp, like a knife, as she said her apology. Harmony walked away from him, going back to the little kitchen area. She opened a door over the stove and came down with a short, diamond cut glass.

Harmony filled it for him as she stood still by the refrigerator. He watched her in mute worry as she took two cubes out of the freezer and put them into the stout highball glass. Holding the bottle in one hand, she offered the drink to him.

Kevin took it and watched her go back to her brick wall.

The music was so much softer. Jazz, easy blues, and her old crooner favorites, Sinatra and Danny Kaye, played into the room as she leaned against the red bricks and took another drink of the pale golden scotch.

He sipped at the cold alcohol. That was how she could drink it so easily. It was so cold that it slid down the throat like liquid moonlight.

"This is good. It's better warm if you enjoy the flavor." He silently asked her to answer him, say something, even if it was a screaming fit of volcanic proportions. He'd never seen her so silent, as if the quiet of a void resided in her. She'd never thrown a real tantrum in front of him, but she'd had her quiet moments. They always led to violence. Right now, he would take anything over the silence.

"Will you let me explain now?" Kevin took another drink of the smooth scotch. It had to be Ciara's. The only person he'd ever seen drink scotch like water was the ex-agent and she did drink some of the hardest alcohol known to mankind.

"What is there to tell me, Kevin? What do you feel the need to confess? You look really good for a dead man, by the way." The smile was still dark as she lifted the bottle again. This time, it stopped before getting to her open lips. "You're not gonna tell me that you came just to see my grave, are you? That's fucking morbid."

Her twisted, sideways smile was exactly the way she had looked the times he'd seen her speaking to Arnaud De Thiel. A sensation of cold water ran down his back when he realized she was putting him in the same category as the biochemist that had turned traitor during the project's most important phase.

She had barely tolerated Arnaud when she was a teenager---now, Harmony spoke to him again and shoved the knife harder into his soul.

"I could show you yours, you know. We could go have a picnic and everything."

He shuddered at the words and the calm, hopeful way she said it. She drank from the mouth of the bottle and held the liquid in her mouth. Harmony pursed her lips and tilted her head back to rest it on the wall. Slowly, he watched as she let the wet fire run down the inside of her.

"I came because Ciara called me. She sounded like she needed help, Harmony. Where is she? What's going on?"

Harmony laughed then. It sounded raspy, hoarse from her breath. "Not here and I'm not sure if I should be."

"What has happened---is it Arnaud? Ciara told me you had trouble with him."

Kevin watched her as she lowered her head and cocked it to the side gently. "Funny. Sounds like you've talked to her more than I have recently."

"You wanna talk about it?" He watched as she blinked a few times, looked past him, and then met his gaze with her smile gone.

"You wanna hear about it?" Harmony dropped his own vocal intonations, like poison, in his ears. She mimicked his careful tone and then shook her head, smiling in a deprecating manner. "Be careful asking questions like that, Kevin. You don't always get the answers you want to hear. If I told you about Arnaud, you'd walk out of here and not look back."

"Is that what you really want, Harmony?" Kevin drank from the glass again and remained collected. "Do you want me to leave?"

"I don't know yet. When I know, I'll send you a memo."

He watched Harmony as she stepped from the wall again and left, going to the bathroom. He heard water running again and some splashing. She was in the shower.

Kevin got up from the couch, taking his scotch with him. He walked to the computer and looked at the liquid metal form that shifted on a midnight black field. It moved with the music. It danced. It evolved to the sounds coming from the computer's speakers. He laid his hand down on the mouse and the screen changed suddenly.

Under the screensaver, a jukebox ran, cycling through music files. She had thousands of songs on the hard drive, from the look of it. The picture of a cool, lovely lakeside backed by a sun-filled forest had been used to create the monitor's background. He recognized the lake. Sweetwater Reservoir.

Had Harmony been back there? In his mind, for a moment, he saw her as she had been at nine years old. Her hair cropped short, it had stuck out from her head in whorls and spikes. He'd stood and watched her as she ran from the car towards the woods, her hands in the air as if she could fly.

"I'm the wind! I'm the wind! Kevin---look at me, I'm the wind!" It had been a laughing shout of triumphant joy.

She'd danced with the breeze that blew over the deep, cold lake and the trees at the Sweetwater Reservoir. He had looked at her Keeper and smiled. Getting her a chance to go outside, to see what lay outside the lab, had been difficult, but they had managed it. It had been the right thing to do and she'd bloomed under the sky she'd only seen in pictures.

Harmony had not forgotten, either.

He drank the last of the scotch in his glass and set it down on the desk. Kevin could feel the warmth that ran through him now, easing some of the tension. He knew he couldn't have any more; he'd get drunk and stupid.

To the side of the computer monitor, she had a small photograph album. It was antique brown leather, gilt in gold.

Looking behind him to make sure he was still alone, he opened it. Kevin leafed through a few pictures of people he didn't know. Who were they? Were they the friends she'd made here, in San Diego, upon returning from Neuchatel? He saw a picture of the boy Remy St Cloud on one page. On another, he spotted a picture of the girl Merlyn with her bright, pale eyes and light blonde hair.

On another page, he found a familiar face; a man with glasses and dark hair and a smile that lit up his features. The face of a man he’d seen recently.

The agent who had come to the mountain compound and who had started bringing the supplies not too long after being released. The young man who had unnerved him with the questions, the dark looks, the sense of danger that had risen from his skin with every changing emotion.

Who was he to Harmony? How did she know this man?

There was another recent picture that threw him. Claire. Eberts. They stood in his old basement office in the labs at the Agency. Lab 2. Claire looked embarrassed. The stiff-backed man beside her seemed to be ready to say something---his mouth was caught in the act of opening. The two had been face to face; Eberts was handing something to Claire.

He grinned to himself, feeling laughter bubbling up. How had he forgotten Harmony's love of the camera? Did she still own the bulky one she'd used before or did she have a smaller, more compact version now---the better to sneak up on people with?

He let the pages slip from his fingers and closed the photograph album. Moving down the wall, he stopped at the place she'd been standing earlier. Kevin laid his fingers on the wall and felt nothing but cold brick. She'd been gone too long from her post there; her body heat had faded. The picture that hung on the wall next to where her head had leaned was a surreal surprise.

His brother's face was turned in the picture, showing his handsome, smiling profile. Darien had been here. Kevin looked around and saw the way the couch and chair sat. It was the same. His brother had been here and sat in the chair, facing the couch.

Beside him was a shorter man who was leaned on the wooden table, hands in his trouser pockets. He was going bald and had a look of mistrust on his tan face.

Across the coffee table from Darien, on the couch, sat Ciara Mackenzie in her black suit, dressed like a man. Her long hair shone like spun gold in the painting. The cat-like smile she wore was aimed at his younger brother. Beside her sat Claire, blonde, straight-faced, and coolly dressed professionally.

The two women were only a few inches from each other. They looked comfortable. Claire had her hand resting on the head of the girl who sat in the floor. Harmony, eyes closed, had laid her cheek on the bare knee of the Keeper. She looked asleep with a slack, easy look of peace on her face.

In the shadows behind the couch, standing between the Keeper and the ex-agent was a much younger Kevin Fawkes. He looked at himself in the painting and felt a thrill of shock. She'd painted him into the scene, as if he had been there.

He smiled again. She'd not forgotten how he looked when they'd first met. This was an emotionally charged painting that she'd done of a moment in time that meant a lot to her. It was in the way the paint, charcoal, and crayon had been used. Harmony had felt something important that night and she'd put him in the middle of it.

Kevin rubbed his elbow and wondered what she thought of his brother. She probably hated Darien. His younger brother had a way of rubbing people the wrong way; he always had. The people Harmony was used to dealing with---research scientists, government agents, and doctors---were of a different ilk.

His brother was far from stupid---in fact, he was a genius. But he and Harmony were probably not friendly. Kevin was willing to bet that they probably had clashed immediately. They were from two different worlds with very different ideas of life.

"Wishing you'd really been there?"

Her voice was so close to him that he shivered violently as he turned, looking for her. She was not there, despite the fact that she was standing only a foot away. Kevin refrained from putting his hands out to find her invisible form.

"You have grown very quiet---sneaking up on me like that." His heart was beating hard in his chest and he quelled the sudden terror he felt. She was trying to unnerve him. He couldn't let her see that she'd succeeded.

"And you never knew all the times when I was watching you." The sound of her voice was electric as she whispered. He could smell it the musk that rose from her skin in little wisps of heat. Kevin found her without being able to see her body but didn't move to touch her.

The sweat slid from her skin. It was faster than he could remember seeing before. She'd finally learned complete control over her body's secondary functions. Everything he'd taught her had been learned and advanced beyond his ability to teach. In the time since he'd seen her do this last, she'd become a master at it. Harmony was now as quick as her body could be trained to be.

"Impressive." Kevin grinned, trying to put her at ease.

She'd showered and changed clothes; pale striped boxers and a white baby style tee shirt that hugged her ribs and shoulders. Her belly button peeked from the elastic waistband of the shorts. Her hair was wet, hanging in a long ponytail.

From the speakers of the computer started a familiar song. The musical introduction was unmistakable and he saw the horror that crossed her face. She practically sprinted past him to turn it off.

"No---please. Let it play." Kevin turned his head to see her as she looked back at him, her face a frightened, angry mask. Had she grown to hate him so much that she wouldn't even listen to this song anymore? Her silence and hesitation made him brave. He stepped towards her and spoke again, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Please, let it play."

"Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle. See the pyramids along the Nile. Just remember, darling, all the while---You belong to me." The mellow, golden tones of Dean Martin's voice rolled out from the speakers and filled the air between them.

This song had been the one they'd danced to when she was sixteen. The clumsy attempts of a young doctor and his even younger patient knocked a lamp off a table during their first lesson. Ciara Mackenzie had laughed so hard that she'd lost her breath and ended up on her knees in tearful joy.

Harmony's eyes told him she was vulnerable in this moment. He had a chance to rebuild, if she would let him. Her soul, showing in her eyes, said she needed it. She was staring at him in pain, but she hadn't moved from the desk yet. He took a step towards her and smiled, lifting his hand in the offer of a dance.

"Do you remember?" He whispered his request at her, holding his hand out to Harmony, feeling the buzz of the alcohol as it burned through his blood.

Kevin watched as her eyes filled with tears. Her head shook back and forth a moment before she lowered her face and turned away. He sighed and let his hand drop to his side. Dean Martin went on singing as he started moving towards her clean, white-clad back.

Laying his hand on her shoulder, he started to speak when she jerked out from under his grasp. Harmony wheeled around on him, her eyes overly full of tears and a hot rage that made him step back in surprise.

"Don't touch me." Her low voice was hoarse. It rose into a well-modulated roar and she shouted. "Don't you fucking touch me! Ever!"

A sudden, loud buzzer went off and her head whipped around in response to the doorbell downstairs. Kevin shuddered as she disappeared down the stairs. What the hell had just happened? She had been ready to rip his throat out. He'd simply touched her shoulder and she'd acted like he was the worst possible threat to her life.

The computer's music files shut down then, automatically. The song was over. There was no more music. Kevin groaned in the silence of the apartment and rubbed at the back of his neck, where the tension was making the nerve endings itch under the skin. This was so wrong. He shouldn't be here. He ought to have just told her he was sorry and gone back to Mexico.

He ought to go. Leave her alone. Kevin picked up the glass he'd set down on her desk and took it to the sink across the floor, behind the dinette table. He'd go now, leave her to her life of light and music. Harmony had shown him that as long as he wasn't here, she seemed to do fine.

He turned in time to see her hit the top of the stairs. Then, he saw it. The difference. Just a few moments had passed, but while she was gone, she'd erased the horror and hate from her eyes.

Her ponytail swayed on her shoulders wetly as she brought the pizza box to the table and set it down. He saw the necklace then as she walked around the table to go past him. She didn't touch him as she reached up into a cabinet over his head.

Harmony still wore the necklace. It gleamed golden and pure against the skin of her throat, the dove nestling into the hollow there. He'd been so upset that he'd missed it earlier.

He moved away, to let her get into the wooden cabinet. Standing with his back against the refrigerator, he watched as she took down a plate. The hem of her boxer shorts rode high, exposing the curve of her bare hip pressed against the counter.

Rounded, muscular flesh showed that she still ran and exercised---she probably danced a lot, if she hadn't really changed her habits. Her tattoo was visible in the widened gap between her shirt and the shorts she wore. She had lost so much weight. It looked like the malfunction in her cellular bodies had just barely been stopped…how had they found the way to create the second set of therapies?

"You hungry?" Kevin felt his heart ache at the sudden shifting he felt in the room as she turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. It was her apology for screaming at him. It was the only apology he would get now.

"Are you offering to share?" He felt it come out wrong and cringed inwardly. Kevin saw the dawning of a new look on her face. The girl he'd known was gone and the woman before him was unyielding and strange.

"With you?" A little secret smile crept onto her mouth as she looked at him, half-amused, with her scotch-tipsy eyes. "Oh, yes. I'm offering."

Side by side, they sat and ate the still-scorching hot pizza. Her taste in food hadn't changed at least. Kevin watched her as she bit into a slice and the red sauce dripped onto her lip as she chewed thoughtfully. Whatever was on her mind was interesting if the movement of her distant eyes was any indication.

"Wanna share thoughts?" He couldn't resist asking as he reached into the box to get a second slice of pizza. "Looks like you're running a really big program in there. You're not going to crash, are you?"

The code words hit her like a riptide. Kevin saw her half-drunken realization of what he was doing and tried to remain straight-faced as she slid into the game willingly. She was going to let him in, after all.

"Did you know computers let you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history?" Harmony's mouth worked around the piece of crust she was chewing. The words came out partly slurred, but he understood just fine.

How many times had they been here, before? He had forgotten how much fun it was to join her in a few minutes of madness. He'd really missed this---even if it seemed to have a lot to do with the scotch she'd practically inhaled.

"I've heard that, yes." Kevin managed to keep the laughter from his voice. "But, you're a really good code-breaking hacker."

Harmony rubbed her face then, missing the drip of sauce and he grinned despite himself. His fingers clenched momentarily, aching to wipe her slightly cleft chin and remove the evidence.

She looked tired but strong enough to go the length of the night---as long as he wanted to sit here, she would stay by his side and keep him company. It showed in her eyes. She'd missed these things, too. She was ready to forgive him and let him be her friend again. There wouldn't be any more pain. Not if he could help it.

"Code-breaking's boring, Kev. My new ambition is to make even faster mistakes with a really big handgun and some tequila."

The way she said it, with the pizza sauce and a hint of wet grease on her mouth, was morbidly funny. Kevin began laughing and nearly choked on the bite of food. The sound he made caused her to begin laughing and the next thing he knew, it was like nothing had ever been wrong between them.

Harmony gripped his arm convulsively as she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking all over with half-muffled giggles. She laid her head down against his arm and practically snorted. It made his heart swell in happiness to hear the noisy, snuffling laughter that came from her as she tried not to choke. He'd gotten through, using the keys she'd given him years before.

It took a long time for her to calm down at last and then as she looked up at him with the sweet glee still on her face, a quiet joy descended to rest easy between them. Everything that had been left wrong between them was fixed. He'd done it with her help and she'd let him back into her heart and mind.

"So, are you still making cash being a computer outlaw?" Kevin wiped at his mouth and blinked through the tears that had sprung up in his eyes from having lost his breath.

Before she could answer, a sardonic voice broke the happy silence between them.

"Better than that---she works for the government."

@@@

Chapter Fourteen:

She'd sounded like she was falling apart on the phone, like she was in trouble. Darien had immediately visualized a dark, shadowy figure holding a gun on her. He had thought of Daniel The Angel first and Ciara Mackenzie second. He had started to call Bobby anyway, despite her asking him not to. But the idea of taking his partner into real, undefined danger had brought a panic that made his guts twist.

Darien had driven over, fighting late-night traffic on the freeway, with a growing sense of worry. What if she and Merlyn had gone home and there had been someone waiting for them? He knew it was likely---the stranger at the bar had been too interested in what was going on.

Going invisible, he'd unlocked the front door and come up the stairs stealthily, unprepared for what he might find. He carried his keys in his hand, clutching them tightly. He found the voices and within a second, he felt like he'd been floored by a two by four.

Kevin. Alive. Sitting in Harmony's apartment, eating dinner with her. They sat, laughing like two lunatics, at the table. And while he was boggled over the visual truth of it---Kevin was alive, really and truly alive!---he found himself grasping it very quickly. Had Arnaud known about this? Darien knew he might never have the answers to that question.

The girl fell against Kevin's arm weakly, hysterical with laughter. For the first time in the months he'd known her, Darien saw her face shine with an expression of undiluted joy. Harmony had been sarcastic, drollful funny, foul-tempered, angry, and cold as ice for months now.

He'd seen her look about as lost and heartbroken as any person could and more than she deserved. Harmony had cried in his arms over Kevin. She'd cried for hours over a dead man whom she'd adored.

He'd held her together as she'd come to understand and accept the death of her friend, even if Harmony had never completely reached either acceptance or comprehension. While he understood why she might love someone so much, he'd really not grasped that it was Kevin---his brother Kevin---that she practically worshipped. It had seemed unreal. It been unreal until this moment.

"You pick a hell of a way to do a family reunion, Kev."

They were now both staring in his direction, even if they couldn't see him. Darien stared back at his brother and decided there was no mistake this time. This was really Kevin. Harmony wouldn't have let an imposter live a second longer than necessary.

"Darien?" Kevin set the piece of pizza he was eating down and sat back, his face slack with surprise.

Harmony's eyes were soft, unfocused as she smiled in his direction. She was either drugged or drunk. He looked around then and found that they were completely alone. Darien watched as she rose unsteadily from the table, her face still glowing.

"Are you okay, Lab Rat?"

"Guinea Pig---I'm glad to see you decided to come." The grin she wore got bigger as she pushed her chair back and approached, keeping her hands on the table for support. She was drunk. "Were you surprised? I was!"

"Darien?" Kevin spoke from behind her, his voice full of that quiet surprise and Darien imagined he could hear guilt in his brother's tone.

He didn't know what else to say to Kev. A month ago---for months now, he'd thought about what he'd tell his brother if he given a chance. All the words had disappeared when he'd been faced with the loss a second time. It had been a form of closure to bury the empty coffin.

Now, he saw that it was an illusion---that sense of closure. In his gut, he'd been hoping that his brother had been saved somehow. It was real and true. He didn't know how, but the proof sat before him. At least, it seemed like proof.

"How much have you had to drink, Harmony?" He let her approach, remaining still and invisible under his cold quicksilver. Staring at Kevin, he wondered if he could be fooled again. He'd been fooled before because he wanted to believe.

"Not nearly enough." She was weaving gently on her feet, her eyes gleaming with sweet, happy emotion.

"And you're sure about this?" He had to know---did Harmony believe that it was the real Kevin? The brother he'd lost looked towards him, not seeing his invisible body, as if he were ready to go into shock.

"Oh, yeh. I thought he was the pizza guy. I sent Merlyn home." Harmony licked her lips and picked up a piece of pizza from the box and held it in her hand, offering it towards him. "Are you gonna break bread with us or what, Guinea Pig?"

He had to be Kevin. Harmony would probably have already tested that---if she had been sober. Darien decided quickly, he'd find out soon for himself. A few questions would answer everything.

She was holding the piece of pizza out as an offering. He watched as she lowered it; she could sense his apprehension. Harmony laid the pizza back in the box and faced him, her eyes large. It was as if she were questioning his silence, questioning his concern.

"Darien, why don't you join us?" Kevin spoke again, seeming to have gathered his surprise and put it away. Whatever he'd been doing, he had been too busy to look at himself in the mirror recently. Gone were the clean, neat suit and tie. His hair was mussed, falling down over his forehead in an unusual casualness.

"You have pizza sauce on your face, Lab Rat." He started to raise his fingers, to rub it away. She looked so young and alive now---so different from the cold, professional agent she'd been at the start of the day. Harmony had become alive. She'd been living for this---and dying for lack of it.

"Really? Where?" Her hazy blue eyes drifted a little as she started feeling around her mouth, looking down at her fingers for the red tomato proof of it.

"Here." He used his cold, see through fingers to wipe it away. It showed between them; he could see the tiny smear of flavored sauce as it floated on the quicksilver sheath he wore. "See?"

"Thanks, Darien---hey, why don't you grab a beer from the fridge and join us?" Harmony looked at him as if she could really see him.

Was it the alcohol or did she still have that strange intuition she'd shown the first time he'd been in this apartment? She'd known exactly where he'd been then and he still hadn't completely figured out how the girl had done it.

Over her shoulder, he watched as his brother leaned back, tilting his chair up off the floor, and got into the refrigerator as if he thought nothing of it. Did Kevin feel that much at home with the girl he'd scared the hell out of less than an hour ago?

She'd been terrified when she'd called. Maybe at that point, she'd not known for sure who he was. It was obvious now that she did know that this was Kevin---or thought that he was.

His brother got two bottles of the beer out of the fridge and set them on the table. Kevin's eyes narrowed and sought him out, as if holding him responsible for some wrong that had been done.

"You let her drink, Darien?"

"Hey, I'm not her Keeper, you know." He threw it back at his brother with as much force as he could muster. "That was your job, Kevin."

Harmony glanced back at his brother and then at him, a gleeful snort of laughter rising from her throat. "God, it's just like old times!"

"There never were any 'old times’, Harmony, you know that." He said it with some sense of anger and guilt. Darien knew that better than anyone---nothing could have prepared him for coming face to face with this.

She'd picked the piece of pizza again, from the box on the table. Her eyes wore a new light of mischief. "Come on, Darrie, don't be a snot!"

Before he could stop her, she'd jumped on him, taking him to the floor. Harmony had been close enough to feel the cold that came off his body and she'd known exactly where he stood. The fast movement of her coming at him took him by surprise. She shoved the pizza at his face, missing his mouth.

Landing on the wooden floor, he rolled with her. She was laughing, her voice husky with the tipsy sound of the alcoholic bliss she was in. Her face, cast in quicksilver shades of gray and white, was bright.

Through her happy laughter, he heard Kevin stand up and speak. He couldn't make out the words. Darien threw up his hands to protect himself from the pizza, which made another dive for his face. He caught her wrist, rolling her body again. She lay flat on the floor, breathing hard with the force of him leaning on her.

"Harmony," He whispered it at her, hoping she would understand what he was talking about. "Are you sure about this---are you okay?"

She hesitated, her face going still at last as her eyes clouded. Slowly, she shook her head once. She whispered back at him, very softly.

"Not yet, but I will be. Promise. It's him, he called me by that name."

He knew what name she was talking about. Rhiannon. The one that only Kevin and she had known about until he'd found it on her necklace, using a jeweler's loupe. There were still only a few who knew. None of who would betray Harmony.

"Okay." Darien took a deep breath and let it out, shivering the quicksilver free of his skin. "Now, let me have that piece of pizza."

He sat up away from her and she climbed to her feet, the smile back in place. His brother had heard nothing, apparently. Kevin's face was confused; his eyes were narrowed behind his glasses, as if he were trying to fathom what had happened in front of him.

Harmony offered him her free hand and helped him to his own feet. The last of the quicksilver crisped off his body in cold flakes and he took the piece of pizza she held.

"Sit down and crack one open, Guinea Pig. Since Merlyn had to go, I guess we can have a little family get-together and play a game of catch-up."

Darien looked at her, shaking his head as he grinned. He goosed her, at the top of her hip, right where the large, round tattoo showed at the edge of her shorts. "So, tell me what happened---before the intrepid doctor here showed up."

She squealed and jumped sideways, to avoid his long fingers. "Hey!"

He moved around the table and took the seat across from his brother. Reaching out, Darien grabbed one of the beers that sat there and twisted it open. Since bringing her home from the lab, he'd not been here, but Harmony had kept his favorite brand of beer in the fridge. Was it a reminder that she had friends if she got too lonely---that she'd been planning to call him for a visit?

She stalked around the table, eyeing him with a half-disapproving look on her face, her voice doing a credible imitation of him being serious. "You can't do that--- you're too young to drink."

Darien caught it. Lowering the beer from his mouth, he kept his face serious as he answered her. "That's funny."

His brother looked totally confused. It took a moment for Darien to realize what was going on. Kevin had never seen them together---he had no frame of reference for a friendship between the two. His older brother hadn't been here to see the things that he'd witnessed with Harmony Corwin.

She cracked a little smile as she sat down.

"So, tell me---what happened this time with Merlyn, Lab Rat?"

"She fell in love." She sat down and picked up the piece of pizza she'd been working on, a sly smile making her lips purse sideways.

Kevin choked on a drink of his beer.

Darien laughed as he reached out a hand and thumped his brother on the back. It took a moment for the choking to stop.

"You sound awfully sure of yourself there." He bit into the cooling slice he held and chewed on it. Gazing at her with a smile of his own, he saw something flicker in her blue eyes; something close to being a thank-you.

Harmony shrugged nonchalantly and laid the crust down on her plate. "If truth is a crime in this state, then maybe you ought to put the handcuffs on me now."

The look on Kevin's face was priceless. Darien didn't know what to say---she was playing with his older brother's mind. It was the only explanation. She'd told him of arguments, little fights, and moments where she'd embarrassed him so badly that Kev had blushed, but she'd also told him of being horrified at how she felt for the man who'd taken care of her as a child.

And it was obvious from his brother's face. There was embarrassment---Kevin had turned a little red. There were other things there, too. Curiosity and concern laced the surprise that Kev was feeling. It showed in his eyes.

"You know, you had us shook up earlier at the club. I don't know what Bobby was thinking---" He stopped, hearing his partner's first name coming from his mouth. This was something only he and Harmony had shared--- Kevin didn't know anything about the man who'd come to mean so much to him. What would his older brother think about the changes he'd been through?

In a way, it was Kevin who was responsible. If not for the gland, he knew he'd never have met Bobby Hobbes or gone to work at the Agency. He'd never have met Harmony Corwin, one of Kevin's two young friends and project subject---hell, he would never have met either of them, actually---and he'd never have started coming to grips with his own nature.

It didn't make any of this right, though. Sometime soon, he was going to have a talk with his brother about the gland. He had to know the truth about that---how long was it going to be before he would be free of it?

"I know what Bobby was thinking---I saw what he was doing to you back there." Harmony's smirk was a slow, delicious expression of satisfaction. "I told you, Guinea Pig, that if you loosened up, he'd come around. Didn't I tell you?"

"We can talk about this later, Lab Rat..." He looked at Kevin and hoped she would take the hint. Now was definitely not the time to discuss the finer points of his partner or the relationship that was starting to develop there. "Right now, Kev looks like he's about to have a seizure. So, what's up, bro?"

Harmony's eyes squeezed shut in laughter again at his tone. She'd caught the hint and took it. Through her chuckling, she spoke again. "He thought I was dead."

The silence was broken only by the soft, sweet sound of her muttering laughter.

"Where the hell have you been, Kevin? Why didn't you let us know you were okay?" It came out fast. He hadn't realized that he still had a problem with the ideas behind the questions.

"He's not dead. He has risen." Her voice was a whisper as she said it, quoting.

Kevin's eyes were full of pain and defense. "I had no choice. I was being kept away."

"No choice, huh? Okay. I'll buy that." Nodding, he drank from the beer and paused as he swallowed. "Did the Official know about any of this? I swear, if that fat bastard knew, I'll break---"

"No, the Official didn't know. It came from higher up than Charles Borden. I don't know what really happened, Darien. I guess they'll know I've left by now. I'm probably in a lot of trouble." His brother's face had gone pale as he spoke.

"If they don't want a full-scale mutiny on their hands, they won't cause any trouble, believe me. Between me and Harmony---" He tried to offer some comfort for what seemed like absolute terror in his older brother. If they scared levelheaded Kevin this way, then they were a threat.

"There won't be any trouble, Kev." Harmony spoke up now, having grown serious again as she broke in. "Wanna make a bet with me? I've a penny that says nothing is said about you being here."

"You don't understand, Harmony. No one was supposed to know---" Kevin looked at the girl with sympathy and understanding for her need to believe.

"Ciara knew. What makes you think she didn't get it from our superiors?" Harmony arched an eyebrow at him and Darien stared in shock.

"Ciara knew?" He looked from Harmony to Kevin and repeated himself. "Ciara knew? How long did Ciara know you were alive? How did she find you?"

Kevin laughed softly then, interrupting him. "Whoa, big guy. I don't know how she knew. She called me and asked me to come home."

"You got a phone call from her? How did she sound, Kev?" Darien quickly scanned his brother's face, hoping that the answers were there in the dark eyes that blinked at him from behind the gold-rimmed glasses. "When did she call you?"

"Two days ago, she left a message on the machine, asking me to come home. She said she needed my help. As for how she sounded, Darien, she sounded very scared." Kevin looked from him to Harmony with that same expression of concern on his face. "Do you know where she is?"

"No." Darien shook his head, boggled by what he'd just heard. Ciara Mackenzie had known his brother--- Harmony's friend---had been alive. She'd said nothing, letting them go on hurting. "No one has seen her in days."

He knew that no one was really sure about her innocence in the current situation. If the woman knew she wasn't coming home, then she must have called Kev back to San Diego for Harmony's protection.

Harmony was quiet. He looked at her now. Her chin was resting on her chest, hiding the necklace she wore. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing very quietly. She'd fallen asleep when she had stopped moving. He had a suspicion that she'd been overwhelmed. He wished he'd been here when his brother had shown up.

Coming face to face with Kevin Fawkes must have destroyed all the walls she had built around herself in the last two weeks. Her time alone had been spent making her heart and soul ready to face every day living in that loneliness.

Darien knew it had probably crashed and burned around her ears tonight. Every defense she had was gone. Hadn't he stood invisible and watch her rebuild a piece of the bond that had been broken between her and Kevin?

He glanced at Kevin and saw the gentle smile that his brother wore. It wasn't just Harmony who was feeling the strength of that relationship---Kev was experiencing it, too, but the eyes behind the glasses told him that his brother didn't have a clue about the truth.

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Chapter Fifteen:

"Come on, Kev, help me get her up." He started to rise and saw the odd expression on his brother's face. He stopped.

"What's that on her wrist?" Kevin leaned over and used a hand to carefully turn the bare arm over to examine the little tattoo.

Darien settled back into his seat. He finally knew what his brother had been staring at. He'd spotted the moon that graced the inside of Harmony's left wrist, where she'd turned her hands upwards in her lap. "It's a monitor for her hormone output control. At least, that's what she and Claire called it."

"Claire..." His brother's face lifted to look at him, eyes wide with pleasant surprise. Kev glanced back down at the round-faced full moon that contrasted pale lavender and blue against the pale skin of Harmony's wrist. "Trust Claire to think of this."

"She's my Keeper, Kev. When she saw that it worked for me, she designed one for the different hormone levels in Lab---, I mean, in Harmony's body." Darien slipped his watchband back and laid his arm up on the table next to the pizza box.

His brother looked at him for a moment before bending to examine the snake that created a green circle. He went on to explain to Kevin how they worked.

"When the quicksilver rises, the links turn red. On Harmony's, it's supposed work the same, going across the face of the moon."

"What's the thing with the nicknames, Darien?" Kevin asked then, sitting back up straight in the creaking chair. "Lab Rat and Guinea Pig? Darrie?"

Darien felt the skin on his face go up in flames. He owed his partner for that. He understood that Bobby Hobbes had been playing the part in order to fit in with the club patrons, but it had been a shock to hear the tone in the older agent's voice as he said the nickname.

"That's what we are, right? Lab rats? Guinea pigs? Your little basement experiments. You made us family. You ought to be proud."

He saw the wound his words cut into his brother's heart. "Darien..."

Darien looked away, picked up his beer, and used it to point at the sleeping woman who sat at the end of the table. "We ought to put her to bed. That's probably the first time she's really slept in weeks."

"Darien...I never meant for this to happen." Kevin pleaded for understanding.

"No?" He turned then and pinned his older brother on a quiet glare. "Well, it happened and now I've got a gland in my head and I'm stuck working for an under-funded, weird ass agency where I'm shot at pretty regularly. That really pushes the whole help-my-brother-he's-in-trouble-again envelope, Kev."

"I'm sorry." Kevin said it in a whisper. His face showed that he felt miserable under the unbreaking stare and harsh words.

"I'll bet you are." He drained the last of the beer from the bottle, leaving only a rinse of foam at the bottom. "Be sorrier for her, okay? She works there, too. Dammit, Kevin, why didn't you think about that before you did this? I'm your brother, for fuck's sake."

He set the bottle down on the table. It clinked on the wood. Darien reached out and gently touched Harmony's shoulder. "Come on, girlfriend, beddy-bye time."

"Mmmhph?" Her eyes flickered and he saw them open slowly. She wasn't seeing him as she looked up, raising her head.

"Go get in bed, Lab Rat. I'll clean up." He glanced from her to see Kevin watching them with a new, anxious expression.

"Hmm? Oh." He saw the blue eyes clear a little as she jerked and settled under his hand. "Guess I'm burnt, huh?"

"That's a word for it, yeh." Darien laughed under his breath as he watched her yawn and stretch without moving. He had to figure out how she did that---Harmony moved her muscles under her skin without shifting in her seat. "Do you need help?"

"Nah. I'm cool." She used the edge of the table to rise, staggering for a moment as she gained her feet. Before she found her balance, she tumbled against his side. Her slow, drowsy grin was all he needed to see.

He stood then, taking her by the elbow. Harmony looked up at him with the same sleepy smile. "Do you need to pee? Contacts out?"

"Go on, asshole. I'm fine." She laughed, still half-asleep. Harmony was coming back to the surface. He saw her eyes roll as she focused on him a little more. "You're just trying to confuse me so I won't know no better."

"Oh, so you admit I can confuse you." Darien laughed at her as she laid her head on his arm and groaned under her breath in French.

"Je allumé. Merde..."

He couldn't help but laugh. He knew what some of that meant. "You know better. Try that again, in English, okay?"

He cast a glance at his brother, who'd not moved yet. The look on Kevin's face said it all. The scene before the scientist was a sight he hadn't been prepared for.

"You wanna lend me a hand, Kev?"

Before Kevin could get up, Harmony hiccupped and grinned as she muttered at him. "Get the fuck off, Guinea Pig."

He felt her pull free of his supporting arm. Stepping back, Darien watched her take a few steps and steady herself.

A hand moved upwards to pull her hair free of the ponytail, causing the heavy waves to fall damply around her neck and shoulders in a pale chestnut waterfall. She did have a better grasp on it than he'd thought. She was still very drunk, but she was going to be able to get herself to bed, it seemed.

Harmony staggered to the far end of the apartment and disappeared behind the silk curtain that now hid the bed. He started to turn around and look at Kevin again when he heard her coming back. Darien watched as she dragged her beat-up, faded quilt along the floor in one hand. A pillow sagged from her other arm.

Kevin was at his side now. His brother had gotten up and come to stand beside him with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Darien looked at him and then back at Harmony, who had gone to the couch and curled up. She had the pillow smashed under her head and the quilt only half thrown across her body. A large piece of it was wrapped in her arms, like a protection against the touch of the world.

"Night, Darien...Kev. Love you." Her eyes never opened as she whispered in the quiet of the apartment. He felt his brother sigh at his side in response.

Darien went around the room and turned off the lamps. Soon, the only lights left were the small bulb over the stove and the one from the bathroom that cast a long, broad line across Harmony's sleeping form.

"I really should go." Kevin's voice was low. His eyes were distant behind his glasses. "I can get a room. I'll come into the Agency tomorrow."

Looking at his watch, Darien sighed. In a few hours, he'd have to get up and get ready for work. "Look, Kev. She's sleeping on the damned couch. It means she intends for you to take the bed. Go get some sleep."

"I can't take her bed." Kevin's face showed his dismay as he shook his head.

"Take it. She's doing it for a reason, Kev. She's sorry for whatever she did." Darien hadn't been there, but he knew that there had been trouble before he arrived.

He could imagine what Harmony had done. His brother had been lucky to come out alive, if his suspicions were correct. The damage done to the heart of the girl was deep---she had probably cut Kevin's throat with that same coldness she'd used on him in the hallway at the Agency.

In a way, he felt sorry for his brother. He suspected that Kevin was telling the truth. It made sense in the context that he was starting to understand the idea of need-to-know. It wasn't beyond belief that his brother had not been able to come home or let anyone know where he was or even that he was alive.

"She didn't do anything wrong." Kevin spoke quietly in the still of the apartment. "I hurt her, Darien. She had a right to be angry."

His brother turned then to look at him, his brows creasing together as he went on. "How did you know about that, anyway?"

"I know her. I know what she was feeling." He shrugged and tugged on the waistband of his pants, pulling them up

Kevin was quiet for a moment, deep in thought. When he spoke, it was slow and direct. "Tell me where Ciara Mackenzie is. I know something's going on. She's never afraid. Not like that. What's happened, Darien?"

Darien backpedaled to the table and turned around. He knew that Kevin needed to know what was going on, but how much could he say? He closed the pizza box and slid it to the side of the table.

Then, his brother was at his side again. Kevin picked up the two bottles and set them in the sink and then began to wipe the table with the dishcloth that was on the counter. He couldn't help but smile. All this time and it was as if nothing had really changed. Darien put the plates in the sink and then got them both another beer.

Sitting down at the table once more, he rubbed his head. He was tired and he really did need to get some rest before it was time to go to work. He waited until Kevin sat down across from him again before he started talking in a low tone.

"Ciara turned in her resignation and disappeared on Friday. She's been accused of murder, Kevin. She was seen at the crime scene---it was her family. Her brother and his wife and kids."

He looked up as he opened the bottle to see his own brother's face go white. Shock made Kevin's eyes go wide. Darien took a drink of the beer and nodded.

"I know what you're thinking---she couldn't have done that. Right? Well, my partner and I went and checked it out. We found something there that Harmony said was the proof that someone else was involved. Some old assassin friend named Daniel D'Angelin. She called him Daniel The Angel."

"Darien...that's not possible." Kevin shook his head, negating the things he'd just said.

"Well, bro, possible or not---it happened. Harmony's little girlfriend said that Ciara was
at a club on Saturday. She talked to guy who fits our alleged perp's description. That was the last time anyone has seen her." He took another drink, swished the beer around in his mouth, and swallowed.

"You don't understand---Darien, she's not what you think she is." Kev's face had gotten some of its color back and his eyes were dark.

"Funny---that's what Arnaud told me, too." Darien frowned and put the bottle on the table with a loud thump. "What makes you two geniuses keep telling me that?"

"Arnaud told you that?" Kevin's face twisted in a wry grin. "Of course. I should've seen that. They were such good friends."

His brother's face changed slowly as he watched. The hint of anger was gone. Now, there was a sadness that seemed to weigh heavy on Kevin. "Darien, I should talk to Ciara before I start telling you anything about her. It's a promise I made. Okay?"

"I don't get it---she let me save that kid, knowing that it might have been better to let her die." Darien heard the crack in his own voice but didn't care.

"You did the right thing, Darien. Arnaud gave you the formula for the therapy's serum." Kevin lifted the bottle and took a drink. The beer in it swirled golden. "But he got away."

"No…Arnaud didn't help. He fucked with all of us. The necklace was where I found your formula." Darien felt his mouth twitch as he held back a sarcastic grimace. "Thanks for hiding that so well, Kev. You and your damned secrets and puzzles."

He watched as his brother's face grew soft. "Does she know about the necklace?"

Darien made the connection. Kevin wasn't sure of himself here. He'd come in, thinking Harmony was dead and then had been faced by her overwhelmed reaction. His brother had no idea what had happened to the girl he'd taken care of. He'd never told her about the necklace and he felt guilty for it. This was out of his league---he had no business stepping into it.

"Ask her."

"Darien." Kevin's eyes showed his worry, his determination. "I have to know."

"Hey, I'm your brother, but I'm her friend and I say you should ask her." He emphasized the difference in the relationships.

"Darien, what happened with Arnaud?" His brother voice was soft and strangely quiet.

"Which time?" He laughed bitterly; it came out as a bark. "He's fucked with my mind twice now."

"Tell me about it." Kevin's eyes had narrowed, in thought. "If I knew what he did to her, maybe I could fix it."

Darien stopped in mid-drink and looked at his brother. Kev was serious. He was actually talking about trying to heal what had been done to the girl. He believed he had the ability to fix what had happened to Harmony.

"Ask her." He said it again and watched Kevin sigh and hang his head. From the bottom of his heart, he wished he could say something different, but it was all he had to offer. Then, as he stared at his brother, he saw Kev's eyes blink and refocus before he looked up.

"Ciara sent me a picture of Harmony when she was really sick...nearly a month ago. She wrote that we were responsible for it. Arnaud hurt her, didn't he? He---" Kevin's voice faltered. He couldn't believe he was hearing the emotions that twisted under the surface of his older brother.

"I know you thought you were protecting Harmony, Kev. She knows it, too. He got under her skin. Kev, I don't know what he did to her 'cause she won't tell anyone."

It was the truth. She'd not talked about what happened in Snake Bay. Darien knew that it had been bad---he'd been there. He'd seen her injuries, her sickness. He'd stood before her and seen murder in her cold blue hazel eyes. He'd seen her face when he'd told her the truth---her name and what his brother had been hiding.

He also knew that since she'd come home, she'd started a withdrawal that had shut her friends and family out. Harmony had picked up speaking in her second language like a bad habit and he could see a definitive change in her that had to be the work of Arnaud De Thiel.

"She needs help, Darien. I know he hurt her, but if she finds a reason to trust someone, they can be the one who will get her to talk about it. She's not going to heal until she knows she's safe. What he did to her was wrong and if I could---" Kevin had started speaking as her doctor, but he could hear the subtle difference in the tone as his brother stopped in mid-sentence.

"You're right, Kev. He hurt her but I don't know if there's anything that'll fix it. He took something from her that can't be put back. It's not like returning stolen property." He knew it in his gut. Darien had seen the look in her eye when she faced him at the compound in Australia. There was something missing and it hadn't come back. He'd seen a few glimmers of it, but she had a strong mind. It would take something really big to change her opinion; she was going to need proof.

"You're her friend. You could do this, I know. Darien, she needs a friend she can trust. I saw the two of you together. She trusts you---you might be the key to this." Kevin was nodding at him. "You could convince her, Darien."

Darien set his beer down hard again and frowned. "Are you mental? I don't have that kind of medical insurance. That's the job of a Keeper."

"You think she'd be violent?" His brother was deep in thought again. He seemed to be adding the situation up and trying to find the sense behind it. "Anyone who has her trust is safe."

"Hey, Kev." He smiled weakly at his older brother's serious expression. "She's tried to kill me twice and started to do it a third time just because Arnaud told her to. There's no way she'd let me try. I'm not a lion tamer. It's something I don't do."

"Oh, hell, Darien. Think about it. If she wanted you dead, you would be dead. You are her friend, she won't hurt you." It was like Kevin was daring him with the dry, cynical tone of his voice. It wasn't a dare he was prepared to take.

"What if there's nothing anyone can do, Kev? Huh? Stop trying to look at this like it's a science project! That's Harmony you're talking about, not some damned white rat!"

"Ssshh. You're gonna wake her up." Kevin's head swung in the direction of the couch, his glasses catching the glint of light that shone from the covered bulb over the stove.

"Why don't you wake up, huh? She's not some kid who believes that Doctor Kevin Fawkes is God. She's a killer and she's gonna come knocking on your head if you play games with her." He kept it lower; it came out as a hiss from between his teeth.

"She's not a killer, Darien." Kevin frowned at him, his eyes going hard and dark in the dimness of the apartment's kitchen area. "We taught her---"

"You taught her all right." His snort of derision was met with a look cut from stone. "Kev, she's borderline psychotic. Is she everything you dreamed she would be? I hope so, Kevin, cause if you mess around with her, she's gonna do to you what she wants to do to your buddy Arnaud."

The cold angry stare of his brother made him stop. It was time to think about going home. He had to go to bed. Had to get some sleep. He would have to wait to learn more. It couldn't be done in a night---it couldn't be done in weeks.

"It can be done, Darien. She responds to the hand of a friend---someone who cares about her, loves her. I brought her out once before, I know it can be done again."

Darien stood up then and picked up his keys from the banister. They jingled in the quiet apartment. He turned at the top of the stairs and looked at his brother, who sat at the table with his face full of conflicting emotions. He could see so much now, looking at Kevin; things he'd never guessed at before.

"You be that friend, Kev. If it can be done, it would be your job. You would be the only one who could do it." He tried to find a grin. "But, I'm telling you now---you'd better get your chair and whip out, cause it's your lion."

A single sighing chuckle that sounded scared came from his brother. Kevin looked up at him, his eyes still full of worry. "So, you're leaving now. Darien...how come you weren't freaked out by all this?"

Darien knew all the sides of that question. He wasn't just being asked why he had accepted that his brother wasn't dead. He was also being asked why he wasn't shocked by Harmony's existence in all its facets.

"Hell, Kev. I work for the Agency. I see weirder crap than this every day."

Chapter Sixteen:

He laid the phone in its cradle again and muttered a curse. Where the hell were they? Did they think that this job was a joke? It might be Harmony's second day as an agent, but Darien Fawkes should know better by now.

Had something happened? He'd called their apartments and gotten only answering machines. They were nearly two hours late already and he'd heard from Eberts and the Keeper about it. When Darien didn't show up for his morning ritual of a moment's examination by Claire, she'd called his office.

Having just gotten in, he'd nudged the door shut with his foot, set his breakfast down, and answered the phone to the sound of her cool, British voice asking about his partner. When he said Darien wasn't in yet, she'd asked him if he had any idea why Harmony might not be in either. They were both to report to her as soon as possible---she had some very exciting news for them.

He had started to sarcastically tell her that Darien Fawkes was probably hiding from his partner and that Harmony Corwin was probably still sleeping, twined around the body of a gorgeous, blonde bombshell. He'd not said it, but he did tell her that he'd make sure they dropped by the lab before going anywhere else today.

If she was anything of a Keeper, she'd probably already called their numbers and had gone on calling. Soon, there was going to be more drastic actions taken. Eberts had come to the office while he did paperwork, waiting on the two younger agents, asking about them. The attache seemed far more disturbingly calm and quiet than usual and warning bells had gone off in his head. Eberts had looked like the cat who'd swallowed the canary.

Something was going on and he wouldn't know about it until his partner and the girl showed up for the day. When the first hour had passed, he'd gotten phone calls from both Eberts and the Keeper again, asking about Agents Fawkes and Corwin.

That had been when he'd started calling for himself. Now, two hours had passed. He'd finished up the report that detailed the things they'd learned the night before. He'd had too much coffee and his nerves were severely compromised. Something was up.

Bobby Hobbes picked up the phone and prepared to call Eberts and tell him that he was going to Fawkes' apartment to see what was going on. Just as he dialed the extension, he heard voices, raised in argument, coming down the hall.

Eberts spoke into the phone. "Eberts here."

"Never mind. I think they've decided to show up. We'll be right in to see the boss." He hung up before the attaché had a chance to speak again.

Bobby jumped up from his desk, smoothed down his tan jacket, and moved to the door quickly, carrying the report they'd been asked to turn in on the surveillance of last night. He jerked it open, ready to let fire with some choice words he'd been waiting an hour to share with the two tardy agents.

His words died on his lips.

Darien walked along, at a leisurely pace. He was drinking his morning coffee and looking extremely amused, as if there was nothing unusual or wrong about being two hours late. His hair was mussed worse than usual and he looked like he hadn't slept much---he hadn't had time to dress, either. He wore a nearly skin-tight black shirt that looked like it was wrinkled from being stuffed in a hamper. Bobby Hobbes couldn't be sure but it looked like the young, attractive man was wearing the same trousers he'd been wearing the day before.

His partner's amusement was focused on the two people who walked slightly in front of him, arguing as if no one were around to hear it.

"No, I wasn't driving too fast, Kevin. Fifty-five's the speed limit. I wasn't even doing that." Harmony Corwin was frustrated; her mouth wore a frown, as if she were arguing with a brick wall. She was dressed in clothing he was more accustomed to seeing her in and wearing dark glasses.

The girl had donned jeans that were covered in a multitude of brightly covered patches in various shapes and sizes, as if someone had bred denim to a quilt. Her dense white lace shirt barely covered her waistband. She looked like the kid she really was with her hair pulled to the nape of her neck in a flat ponytail.

"For the freeway, Harmony."

Bobby Hobbes stared in astonishment. The person that walked beside the smaller, female agent was a man that he'd never met, but he knew the face immediately.

"I drive just fine. Don't I, Darien?" She looked over her shoulder to his partner, who shrugged.

"I haven't seen you drive yet." The grin on his partner's face was pricelessly beautiful. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

"I should've insisted you allow me to drive us in the car." Kevin Fawkes was moving along beside her, looking as if he were mortified. "I can't believe you own a motorcycle."

"You liked it. Admit it." Her voice was determined.

In his partner's efficiency apartment, this man's picture was in two places that he knew of for sure. In Harmony's place, it was hanging on a brick wall---as a painting he'd seen when they'd taken her home from the lab two weeks ago.

"Harmony---you were driving too fast. I shouldn't have let you convince me---" The man's dark brown eyes behind the glasses were steadily fixed on the hallway they walked down.

"Puh-leeze! I wasn't going that fast. You're exaggerating." Harmony threw her hands up. Her dark sunglasses hid her eyes; he would have sworn she rolled them in disgusted exasperation. Her greeting to him was quick and bright, a sudden change. "Hi, Bobby!"

Kevin Fawkes. A man who was supposed to be dead and buried---but whose body had never been found. The scientist did a better disappearing act than sanity, it seemed.

"Hey, Hobbes. Nice day, huh?" His partner met his stare with a broad grin.

He'd taken his medications. He'd had coffee. He'd had a normal morning, except for the nagging suspicion that something was horribly wrong because his partner was late. The idea that there was more going on---the Keeper and Eberts had both intimated a new development. There had also been the constant thought in his mind that Darien Fawkes had skipped town over last night's events at the club.

Now, he could see the obvious reason why both of the younger agents were running two hours late. They'd been busy, it seemed, dealing with themselves and with the man who'd caused them to become a strange form of family.

He held the report against his side and closed the door behind him. Bobby Hobbes, still stunned, fell into step with his partner and hoped that this wasn't some strange form of punishment from the great beyond for things he'd done in a previous life---or for what he'd said and done last night.

"Harmony, I don't think---" Kevin Fawkes pressed on, his brown hair falling down over his forehead, onto the edge of his glasses. His clothing was clean and neat in comparison to his younger brother's. His navy-colored jacket hung open, showing a pale blue shirt with a tan, patterned tie.

"My head hurts too much to listen to this. Why are you torturing me now?" Her words came out as a soft growl. "Couldn't this wait until after I've had a cup of coffee?"

"If you'd listened to me last night, your head wouldn't hurt." Kevin persisted in a gentle voice.

Harmony gritted her teeth in an audible way. "Tell me this is not my life."

"This isn't your life, Lab Rat." Darien Fawkes muttered, laughing quietly as he drank some of the coffee he was carrying. "If it were the real thing, you'd have been given a better instruction manual."

"Was he like this before he died? How did I miss that?" Her tone was nearly plaintive as she ran a hand over her pale, moist forehead. Bobby Hobbes could hear the way she moaned; the way she seemed to be sweating a little. It was a severe hangover she was nursing and she'd not had coffee yet. He knew about her addiction to coffee. It was something he'd witnessed first hand.

"He came built that way, kid. You told me about how he talked to you, remember? Get used to it." Darien's laughter was gone, but the amusement was still there.

Bobby Hobbes couldn't believe this. He'd not gotten past Kevin's sudden appearance.

"Where did he come from?" He looked up at his partner, trying to stay calm. He could already picture the Official's face. He wasn't going to have a good day.

Darien didn't answer. Instead, he took another drink of his coffee and while he was swallowing it, Harmony answered for him.

"If we knew that, we'd ship him back fourth class book rate post-haste."

"Harmony---that's not funny." Kevin Fawkes looked like he was having a bad morning, too. His face told on him. He had slept, apparently, better than his brother, but there hadn't been much of it to be had.

"I thought it was pretty good, myself." Darien was chuckling under his breath. "How about you, buddy?"

The tall, handsome ex-thief was looking down at him. Bobby saw that he had nothing to worry about. If Darien Fawkes' expression was any indication, everything that had gone down last night was understood and forgiven. He took a deep breath, relieved. His partner spoke again, explaining.

"He showed up at Harmony's last night, looking for Ciara Mackenzie. They scared each other pretty good but I think everything's gonna be fine now. It's back to normal, from what I can tell."

"Who---Ciara and---?" His mind was boggled. This was really too much to take in and digest so fast.

"No, Harmony and Kevin." Darien Fawkes tipped his Styrofoam cup towards the two combatants who were still hurrying along, as if they could be on time now.

"But he's dead!" Bobby Hobbes stared up at his attractive partner, trying to remember what he'd been prepared to say in anger to this man who walked slowly beside him. It was lost now, in the moment's madness.

"He's not dead." Both Darien and Harmony spoke, at the same time; their voices chimed together in stereo.

"He's just stiff." Harmony finished, her head turning to look back at him over her shoulder. She gave him a quick, cock-eyed smirk that had to have been accompanied by a wink, but with the round-framed dark sunglasses, he couldn't be sure.

"Would you stop talking about me as if I'm not here?" The scientist's voice was loud and sharp. He sounded as upset as Bobby felt.

Now, they'd reached the Official's office. Bobby Hobbes slapped the report against his leg and hoped that this was going to start making sense soon. He was beginning to think he should have pretended to be dead, too.

Harmony gripped the doorknob in one slender hand. She wheeled around on her feet, making her tennis shoes squeak very loudly, and faced the man who had been striding along with her down the hall.

"We're not used to you being back yet. Give us better notice next time you wanna commit psuedocide." The smile she gave Kevin Fawkes was a toothy, disarming grin that made her look like she'd never been upset by any of it.

"Maybe you should stay out here a second, huh? Just wait." Darien touched his older brother on the shoulder.

"No, I shouldn't." Kevin Fawkes was calm. "Before it's over with, I'm going to have more explaining to do, so we might as well start now."

"Kevin---please. If you scare our boss to death, we'll be out of jobs and then where will I keep you?" Again, she gave him that shockingly bright smile. "There's no room left in the shoebox where I keep all my other dead friends."

The scientist's head lowered as he stepped back and stood against the wall. "Fine. I'll wait."

Harmony flung the door open, causing it to slam against the back wall, and marched into the Official's office, goosestepping.

His tall partner looked at him in sympathy. "You should have seen them when I got to her place last night. It was the same thing this morning, out in the parking lot."

"Taming of the Shrew type stuff, huh?" Bobby nodded and took a last glance at Kevin Fawkes who opened his mouth and looked like he would answer the remark. Then he closed the door quietly behind them.

Harmony was standing in front of Charles Borden with her hands folded behind her back in a professional manner. He recognized it as an act on her part. He and Darien Fawkes moved to stand beside her, on either side. Bobby stepped forward momentarily to hand Eberts the file he'd been carrying.

"You realize, that while we are very lenient in certain matters, such as our employment requirements, we still have a routine. You are supposed to be here by a designated time and you don't leave until the designated time." The Official was looking directly at him, as if the whole thing was his fault.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure that it will never happen again." Bobby Hobbes answered for them all, trying hard not to stutter. As the oldest agent among them, he was marginally responsible for the conduct of his juniors. The policy had never been pushed before, but there was always a first and he'd known people who'd been fired for this sort of thing.

The Official's face was nearly livid. He only hoped that the downcast look on Eberts' features wasn't the result of a serious reprimand that was due to them as well, because the normally straight-faced lackey seemed positively crestfallen.

On top of the things that had happened the last two days, it looked like today was going to be a bad one.

"Make sure that it doesn't. I'm counting on you, Bobby." The Official's pale blue eyes moved from staring into his soul and found both of the younger agents that stood on either side of him. Bobby Hobbes hoped against hope that they could behave now.

Agent Corwin, you've already had a negative effect on Eberts. It's part of his job that he is constantly prepared for his duties. Please, for the sake of things running smoothly, do not encourage him anymore." The Official's thin smile wasn't pleasant but now it shifted and became as highly amused as Darien's had been in the hallway. His rhuemy blue eyes were like marbles of ice. His heavy face creased into rolls of obese wrinkles as he spoke again.

"He has requested that you be allowed to continue sharing an office during your time here since you are, in his words, 'tidy and efficient'. I agreed to this since there are no more offices to assign you to."

Bobby flicked a glance at Harmony and saw the frail smile that crept onto her mouth. She'd taken her sunglasses off and he could see that she really had hit the bottle since he'd seen her. Her eyes were bloodshot and sore looking. The blue of them were fuzzy, as if her sinuses had swelled.

She was looking at Eberts with some measure of gratitude. Bobby Hobbes knew then that she'd made a real friend out of the impossibly anal assistant. He guessed that later, behind closed doors, she'd thank him vocally, but right now she was silent. He thanked the powers that had smiled on the situation.

Their employer looked at each of them in turn now. He frowned hard, the amusement gone. Bobby Hobbes wondered what he was seeing that was upsetting him. He knew that Harmony Corwin had smiled at Eberts, but what was his partner doing that could cause such a thunderous expression?

He risked a glance, past the woman who was slightly smaller than himself, to look at Darien Fawkes and moaned dejectedly inside. His partner was grinning ear to ear in a very self-satisfied way.

"You want to share with us what you find humorous?"

"That would be our tardy slip, don't you think?" Darien turned his face to look down at the girl who stood at his side. "I think Principal Borden needs to see our tardy slip."

Harmony nodded slowly, wincing slightly with the movement, her blue hazel eyes still on Eberts and their boss. Her smile had become thin and sardonic one.

Bobby Hobbes knew what they were talking about and felt his skin grow chilly, like he'd just been turned invisible by his partner's hand. He stayed still and facing forward as the grinning younger man moved to leave the room.

"Where is he going?" The Official's last nerve was obviously being tried as he spoke to Eberts.

There was a shout of panic from the hallway and he closed his eyes. If anything told him what was going on, that sound was the single thing he recognized now.

"Shut up." Darien hissed at empty air as he opened the door again, pushing at the space in front of him. "It's about time you knew what it feels like."

Harmony, standing beside him, was shaking with the effort of keeping her laughter inside. It was threatening to burst free. Despite her hangover, this was immensely funny to her. She'd not turned around, either. With her hands folded, she looked as solemn as she could considering she was biting her lower lip in tortured silence.

His partner was serious now; his face held no amusement, but Bobby knew it was a good mask. Darien Fawkes thought this was a justification of their lateness. The tall agent shoved at the empty air again and heavy, stumbling footsteps told him where Kevin Fawkes was, being pushed along by his younger brother.

The tall, handsome agent stopped in front of the desk, now holding something in his hand that was unseen. The curve of his fingers and thumb suggested he was gripping something very tightly. Bobby could see the pulse of quicksilver there, between the long fingers and the broad palm.

He could hear harsh breathing being calmed as Darien leaned forward and spoke. "Guess who just had to come visit."

The hand that held Kevin Fawkes by his backwards-bent arm moved violently then and quicksilver shattered and fell in sheets and slivers, becoming tiny dots that hit the floor between them and the desk.

Silence fell like an anvil from the sky as the scientist shook himself free of the last vestiges of the ice-like hardened hormone he'd created. Little pieces of the shiny, silver coating stuck to the suit he wore and to the tips of the disheveled hair that had fallen over his forehead.

The silence was loud. Like a nuclear blast. Kevin wrenched his arm free of his younger brother's grip with a sigh and a faint smile of greeting.

"Hello, Charlie."

Chapter Seventeen:

"Good to have you back, Doctor Fawkes."

Bobby looked at his boss in disbelief. The Official had known about this? How did he manage to be the last one to find these things out?

"After receiving word of your arrival this morning, my superiors gave me permission to use you here. All the work you were doing will be brought to the labs downstairs. You have Lab 2 now." Their employer didn't stand up to shake the hand of the scientist who managed to look completely dumbfounded.

"How did you know? You told me that---" Darien Fawkes, on the other side of Harmony, sounded as if he'd been betrayed.

"If you had been here on time, you would know how we know." Eberts didn't look up from the report he was reading as he spoke. "There were several interesting developments in this case during the night. Now, if you will all take a seat, we can get started."

Bobby Hobbes moved backwards and sat down in the chair behind him. He couldn't help but notice that there were four seats lined up. Kevin Fawkes really had been anticipated. It was no act on the Official's part.

The scientist sat down on the other side of his brother, leaving Harmony between him and his partner. They sat in a row, four people who were in the dark about the thing that Eberts had intimated---and it was a disturbing thought to him that something new, perhaps unforeseen, had happened.

"See, I told you so. You owe me a penny, Kev." Harmony leaned past his partner to whisper at Kevin Fawkes, who shot her a sour, exasperated look. The two of them were obviously still in debate over something.

Bobby looked at their boss and saw the little smile that was quickly hidden. The fat man had known something and was now enjoying the way that the whole scene had come into his favor again. He was holding some big, unknown cards, from the look on his face.

"Early this morning, a man was killed in the alley of the nightclub you visited. We believe that he may be connected to the Lynwood Hills murders."

Eberts laid the report in front of the Official and stepped forward to hand Bobby a black and white crime scene photograph. He looked at it and cringed. It was disturbing in a simple way. It was as if the victim had been sacrificed to some dark, heathen god.

Harmony leaned over his shoulder and muttered an oath in French under her breath. He recognized only the names she used; something about Yancy. He saw her eyes search the picture and find the thing he'd spotted first. The mark that was splashed on the wall behind the body was one Bobby Hobbes was sure he was going to be seeing a lot of. It was the same symbol as the one that had been painted on the clean white door of the Gordons' house in the suburbs.

"The method of the murder is different." He said as he looked up at the Official. "Could it be a different killer?"

"We believe this to be the case, yes. But, of course, you see that the killer has used the same calling card."

Bobby had a moment of cold shivers across the surface of his skin as he recognized the man in the photograph. It was the stranger who had been watching them at the bar, but far from being as whole and alive as he had been the last time he'd seen the man. He had been beheaded. His head sat on his chest with a red mark on his cheek, nearly on the cheekbone itself.

"Do the police know what that stuff on his face is?" Harmony looked up at the Official, her brows knit together.

"Yes. He was kissed by the perp before he was killed." Eberts was passionless as he said it. "That is human blood you are seeing."

"You mean that the killer kissed him with blood?" Darien hadn't seen the photograph; he'd not gotten up to look. His voice sounded disgusted.

"It would seem so. This isn't the first time this has been seen, but the others were mostly political assassinations." The attach' went on. "Agent Corwin, if what you informed us of yesterday is correct, then it would seem you might know something about this murder, as well."

Bobby Hobbes glanced at the pale girl who was looking over his shoulder. Her eyes had slowly widened until they were blue circles of fear. The hangover she was suffering from was momentarily forgotten as she turned her head to look at the Official and Eberts.

"This was done last night. When?"

"At approximately eleven p.m." Eberts looked down at the report that was in front of the Official. When he found what he was seeking, his eyes grew as large as Harmony's and his face turned back to study Bobby.

"Is this absolutely correct, Agent Hobbes? You wrote in the report that Agent Fawkes, Agent Corwin, and yourself left the club with a female witness at the same time."

"Yes, I remember that as being the time. I checked my watch just before we left The Driftwood." It didn't take him but a second to see it. "You mean that the victim was killed at about the same time or just shortly after we left the scene?"

He met Harmony's eyes and she blinked first. "He was gonna follow us. He caught a piece of sharp metal in the neck instead."

Bobby nodded and then looked back at the Official. "There was a guy who was just a little too interested in us. When we left, I watched him. He saw us leave. He must have followed us outside."

"Unlucky for him." The Official's eyes were wintry. "But, despite the brutality of the murder, it was a lucky break for us. We have some new clues. The police found a matchbook there, inside the victim's mouth. They're lost as to what it means, but we believe you might fill us in."

Eberts stepped around the desk again and handed Harmony Corwin the evidence. It had been dusted for fingerprints, from the look of it. The matchbook was identical to the one his partner had found at the crime scene in Lynwood Hills.

Harmony flipped it open and studied it.

"It's in English this time. It says Wednesday witching hour. That would be midnight, sir." She looked up at their boss and narrowed her eyes. "Does that mean we get to go back to the club and watch for Daniel D'Angelin and Ciara?"

"You're not going, Agent Corwin. Agents Hobbes and Fawkes will catch our perp." The Official spoke, his voice quiet. "You're leaving town for the remainder of this case, as was requested by Agent Mackenzie, just as soon as you tell us what you really know about this."

Bobby Hobbes stared at her in shock. Her face had grown suddenly cold and calm as she took in the news. It seemed as if her whole body had become ice next to his. Harmony Corwin was a stranger.

"She called you." Harmony drew in a deep, torn breath. "What did she say?"

"We want to know what you have to say first, Agent Corwin." The Official leaned forward and laid his fingers on the report before him. "Start by telling us how you intended to cover Waric Sterling's tracks in Lynwood Hills."

There was a sound of astonishment from both of the Fawkes brothers.

"You mean Ciara Mackenzie isn't being implicated in this anymore?" Kevin Fawkes sounded relieved. "I didn't think she would kill Ben Gordon."

"That is incorrect, Doctor Fawkes. Ciara is wanted for murder. She is the one who tipped us to the death of Mister Yancy there before the police arrived." Eberts announced. He sounded as if he were mildly pleased to give this information.

The Official shot him a dirty look and the lackey shut his mouth with an audible click. The blue eyes he turned on Harmony had only a shred of sympathy and no mercy. "Tell us why you lied about who you thought was behind the murders in Lynwood Hills, Agent Corwin."

Bobby Hobbes watched as her eyes met their employer's and never blinked. She was in tight control of herself now and there was hidden information passing between the Official and the girl that sat so still and unruffled, with the matchbook between her slender fingers and one leg crossed over the other at the knee.

"The murders were in Daniel D'Angelin's style, so I suspected him when I saw the pictures but said nothing because only Ciara had been mentioned at the crime scene. She could've done it, you know. Then, when Agent Fawkes called the office to ask about the message, I told him about The Angel." She sounded defensive, nearly angry.

"And?" The Official was giving no quarter.

"Then, when I saw the matchbook, I recognized the handwriting. No one else realized that it was actually a jacked-up letter P instead of the letter D. He made a mistake that told on him this time. Preacher did it, not Daniel."

"Why didn't you tell us this yesterday?" Darien looked at her with a look of dawning horror on his face. "You're supposed to be---"

"In the office, at the computer. I'm not supposed to be in the field, right? I went last night to protect you." Harmony didn't look at Darien Fawkes as she spoke in a softer tone. She stared at the matchbook with a strange, darkly intense expression, as if she were trying to comprehend the message.

She lifted her head to look at the boss when she finished speaking to Darien Fawkes, whose face showed serious mistrust now. Her defensive attitude was gone. She was asking for understanding. "I couldn't let Agents Hobbes and Fawkes do something that would show them as feds, sir. I was protecting them, I swear."

"My god...you've seen Waric, haven't you?" Kevin Fawkes spoke low. "Recently. You've seen him recently. No wonder..."

She didn't seem to have heard him. Harmony went on, speaking to the Official, whom she was pleading with quietly. "If they had gone in there asking questions about Daniel, Waric, or Ciara..."

Bobby watched as her face went a little paler and she swallowed hard before she spoke again. "Sir, they'd be dead---but they would've hurt plenty beforehand, believe me. Yancy would have gotten his chance to practice his skill on them. I had to make sure Agents Fawkes and Hobbes were seen with me, so that they wouldn't be touched."

"You weren't gonna tell us that it was your buddy Waric that killed the Gordons?" Bobby Hobbes finally spoke up, tasting gall in the back of his throat. "You were gonna lead us on a wild goose chase for a guy who didn't do it?"

"Let her finish." The Official said it in a quiet voice.

"Boss, listen---I'll tell you everything, but I don't want them to hear this. They shouldn't hear this." It was a soft plea for consideration. Her eyes were large, frightened looking and Bobby felt his throat constrict for her. She was asking that her friends not know about her betrayal.

"Wait, wait---you're not getting out of this, Lab Rat. Start spilling your guts." His partner sounded as upset as he felt by the turn of events.

"He's right, you know." The fat man shook his head. "They stay. I want them to hear this. It's their case."

Bobby watched as her eyes closed to hide her emotions. She started talking, keeping them closed. Two patches of dusky pink rose in her cheeks that seemed to show her conflicting embarrassment and pain.

"Waric did it---he killed the Gordons. He has a grudge against her, sir. From what our witness said, Ciara seems to have talked to Yancy and then left with Daniel when he showed up at the club."

He watched as her eyes moved behind their slightly worn and darkened lids. Leaning past her, he saw that Darien was staring at her in mute trepidation. It was mirrored by his older brother. The scientist knew more about these things---his dark eyes were full of hurt and anger.

"My guess is that when Ciara saw what had happened, she called Daniel into this. He met her there and as far as I've been told, she didn't keep the scheduled appointment. She and Daniel together..." She sighed at last and lowered her head as she left the thought open. One strand of her hair fell free of the ponytail she wore and looped down around her cheekbone as she went on, her voice sounding tired and old beyond her twenty years.

"Waric, Daniel, and Ciara...they're the same kind of people. I can tell you anything you want to know about them and what they might do. It was Arnaud that didn't quite fit in, you know?" Harmony made a whispery grunt of noise that was like a low, animal pain. It was the sound of someone being punched in the guts.

"Ciara brought him into it and she ended up regretting that---she told me she never knew when they made the choice to steal Kevin's work, but that she should've seen it coming. She'd seen Arnaud and Waric do worse." Now, she frowned, the edges of her mouth trembling.

"My god..." Kevin Fawkes seemed just as horrified as his brother as he said it.

"Shh, Kevin. I might as well tell what I know. Anyway, when Kev died---when Arnaud came home to Switzerland, Ciara and Daniel broke up the association because of what Arnaud and Waric had done. She told me about their partnership and what they had been doing all those years."

Bobby couldn't believe the pain he heard in the words. It was as if her heart was broken and yet she managed to speak without her voice cracking. More than that, he couldn't believe what she was telling. It didn't make sense.

"Why didn't Agent Mackenzie kill them? She doesn't condone betrayal---we all know that." He said it, watching her face twist and her eyes clenched shut even tighter.

"Don't you think I know that better than anyone here, Bobby?" It was followed with a bark of sarcastic, desperate laughter. "I don't know why she let them live. Because of me, maybe."

Harmony's exhale was loud in the silence. "Waric left his mark on Ben Gordon as revenge on Ciara. He probably killed everyone else in the house to show her he really meant business this time. I would imagine she walked into that house just as he left. He might have even been hiding there, still. He did it to prove a point to her, sir. She got in their way---his and Arnaud's."

"Arnaud is behind this?" Darien said it through his teeth, the words as sharp as knives. "And you were going to help them? Did you know this before you took the job here, Harmony?"

She ignored his partner as if Darien didn't exist in this moment.

"I didn't know that he was gonna kill Ben Gordon, boss. I do know that when Waric came to pay me a visit, he asked me to go home and work with him." Her eyes opened and Bobby saw that they were now deadly cold as she looked at the Official. "I don't have a future at this Agency and I need a job to pay for the damned shots that keep me alive. I have no other reason to stay in San Diego."

Darien's answering inhale was sharp, as if he were about to speak again. She didn't let him.

"Now, I'm gonna go---I've still got time to catch a flight to Geneva today." Her tone was dark, like blackened ice. "That is, unless you want Bobby to arrest me for protecting my friends."

"You're not going anywhere right now, Agent Corwin." The Official's tones were steel. "You are a unknown liability until we understand your true part in this case."

"Which friends are those---them or us?" Bobby spoke to her and watched as her face turned towards him. "Last night, you seemed like you were on our side, but I kinda think you're still holding something important in your pocket, kid."

Her eyes blinked at him a few times before she smiled. "Yes, but I was there last night to make sure that Yancy didn't cut your throats with that large knife he carries. If Waric's man had thought you were a threat, you'd have died before you could've left the club."

"So, you recognized him when I pointed him out to you?" Bobby thought about the look she'd worn when she said she'd remember the face of the stranger at the bar. She'd known the man and said nothing, for their protection. At least, she was claiming it had been for their protection. He didn't know what to believe in this moment.

"Yes. I did. Apparently, so did Ciara when she spoke to him on Saturday and she killed him last night to stop him from following us, most likely."

He looked down at the photograph he held. "Agent Mackenzie did this?"

"Yes---probably with his own knife. The message she wrote on this matchbook was a warning for me---it's an appointment for me to keep." Harmony held it out to him and he took it from her fingers. The handwriting was Ciara's; small, precise and in dark blue ink. He read it out loud and knew she was right.

"Songbird, P will betray. Remember Australia. Tell me then you want this."

He looked at her again and then saw the truth in her eyes as she met his gaze. No matter what she might say, her eyes couldn't hide what she knew.

An old mentor had offered her a job that would take Harmony away from her dependency on the Agency. He was a computer-wise killer that seemed to have been behind the murders in Lynwood Hills---but she'd not known about it until she had seen that matchbook. Her little girlfriend seeing Ciara and Daniel together at the club on Saturday had either been a cover up or a coincidence that she'd been ready to use to the best advantage.

She probably didn't know how Ciara Mackenzie was involved, but she had suspected Daniel D'Angelin from the time she had seen the crime scene pictures yesterday. The mistaken signature on the matchbook had given her an excuse to pin it on an assassin who hadn't been involved. Harmony had been prepared to let either Daniel or Ciara take the rap for the things Waric Sterling had done.

It was starting to add up to a very nasty and sad picture of the young woman who sat beside him.

"Remember Australia? What does that mean?" Darien Fawkes had calmed down, but his face wore a dark scowl.

"She's right. I know that he'll betray. He did it in Australia and he'd do it again, if it meant getting to Ciara. But, he betrays for my sake. He wouldn't betray me." Harmony was defending the actions of a man she knew was a killer.

"That isn't the truth, Harmony. Tell them the truth about Waric Sterling." Kevin Fawkes had sat forward and was looking at the girl on the other side of his younger brother. His words were calm.

"Not now, Kevin, please." Her voice was nearly as low as his, but full of defensive pleading.

"Tell them what he did that made you leave school." Kevin Fawkes got louder, sounding calm but his eyes narrowed. He was confessing openly to knowing about her life away from the Agency without reservation in order to force Harmony Corwin to tell the whole truth about her mentor and friend.

"Please, Kevin. Don't say any more about it." It came out of her mouth as a hiss now, as she begged him to be silent. She looked at the floor, her eyes searching for something that wasn't there.

"Tell them about what you did when you were fifteen---what he convinced you to do." The man's words seemed to cut into the girl's heart. Her eyes closed in horror and grief under the barrage. "Ciara Mackenzie never knew, did she? You told me but you didn't tell her because you knew she'd kill you both for killing Robbie."


Chapter Eighteen:

Bobby Hobbes felt his heart thumping hard in his chest at the way the scientist spoke to the young woman who sat with her head down and her eyes closed. He'd never met Darien Fawkes' brother but he had no idea that the man could sound so hostile---from everything he'd been told, the guy was practically Marvin Milquetoast. The intense interrogation he was hearing was not what he'd expected of a meek, mild-mannered doctor.

"Hey, boss, do you think I could talk privately to Harmony---I mean, Agent Corwin?" Darien's voice broke the uncomfortable silence that had descended in the room. "Just right outside the office?"

The Official nodded, his pale eyes full of thought. There was no hesitation on his part. Bobby Hobbes didn't blame him. The day was going downhill very fast. Something had to give and soon. It was like a bomb's timeclock was being helplessly watched in the office.

"Come on, Lab Rat. Let's go." Darien stood up and took her by the arm. She jerked free of his hand and stalked away, moving in front of him as if her legs were stiff.

Bobby couldn't believe how remarkably bad this was turning out to be. It looked really ugly. Once the door slammed closed, the Official looked at Kevin Fawkes and frowned.

"Would you mind sharing what you know with us?"

The scientist looked at the windows and nodded, his breathing calming down. "She killed a man named Robbie Phelan in Edinburgh when she was fifteen. Waric Sterling coerced her into doing it, claiming the man was an enemy. She told me after it happened. She didn't know who the man was until it was over with. He was a friend of Ciara Mackenzie's."

Kevin Fawkes rubbed his hands together, the sound a soft rasp in the quiet that had descended. When he went on speaking, his fingers were twined together in his lap.

"More than a friend, he'd been Ciara Mackenzie's lover for several years. Harmony had never met him, though. No one had a reason to want him dead. Waric did it only to gain a foot on her neck, so that he could control her." The dark eyes moved behind the glasses and Bobby Hobbes saw that this confession was difficult for Doctor Kevin Fawkes.

"She saw what it did to Ciara, who completely withdrew emotionally, and it drove her to do several things. One, she seems to have tried to make up for it when she turned eighteen by becoming a surrogate." Kevin Fawkes sighed deep and frowned, making his mouth a thin line as he went on speaking. "Waric Sterling convinced her to leave school by threatening to tell Ciara Mackenzie what she'd done. I was unable to stop this."

"Don't you think Ciara would've understood---why didn't you tell her?" He spoke, turning the matchbook around in his fingers to look closer at it, when the scientist had finished.

Kevin Fawkes eyes turned to meet his in unblinking comprehension. "I was unable to do so. Ciara Mackenzie has had only a few people she valued above all others. This man was one of them. When Harmony told me what she'd done, I told her what the man was---and she understood what it meant. For the sake of Harmony Corwin's life, I said nothing."

The flat fold of cardboard had come from The Driftwood. Ciara Mackenzie had been there last night---she'd seen them there. Somehow, she had been close enough to see and he'd missed her. How had she done it? He knew she was good, but she couldn't possibly be that good. He leaned forward and laid both the photograph and the matchbook on the edge of the desk.

"You think Agent Mackenzie would have killed her?" The Official was speculative as he said it. "She would have more control than that."

"Yes. I think she would have killed Harmony for the death of Robbie Phelan. I'm sure of it." Kevin's smile was a fragile, self-conscious one. "Uncle Peter told me much later of the events that occurred after the deaths of Doctor Rose and his wife. I used that information as my reason for not telling Ciara Mackenzie about what the girl did to Mister Phelan."

The Official and Kevin Fawkes were watching each other, contemplating what they knew about this situation and the silence was deafening.

There was the sudden sound of harsh words from outside the door. His partner was trying to convince Harmony Corwin to tell what she knew---and inside the office, her biggest guilty secret was being aired. She had compromised herself by seeing Waric Sterling and she had hinted at being involved with Arnaud De Thiel.

"You don't know. Merde, Darien, that gland makes you stay---" Harmony sounded desperately hoarse, as if her throat were tightened. "I don't want that anymore."

"That's not why I'm staying now and you know it. You love truth so much---try telling some of it now." His partner was not as hostile as he'd been inside the office. He spoke only a little softer, but his words carried loudly into the quiet room.

"If I tell this, he'll hate me. You'll all hate me for something I couldn't prevent. Just leave it alone, Guinea Pig." Her voice dipped lower, as if she were trying to hide what she was saying to Darien.

Harmony had said that Ciara Mackenzie probably had walked into the Lynwood Hills home moments after the murders. Her supposition was good on that. If Ciara wasn't involved with it directly, then the tall, deadly woman had gone home to her family and had walked into what looked like a ritual slaying of her brother, his wife, and their family as well as Shari Gordon's family.

There was the sound of something thumping hard in the hallway. He looked at the Official, feeling some alarm. Had one of the two younger agents hit the other one? It didn't seem likely, but the noise was a loud, ringing that filled the silence.

"Look, Harmony, the boss knew you weren't ready and he hired you anyway. He wants you to stay. Why not pay back that trust? We can stop this before it goes any further---your buddy Waric is a creep." Darien Fawkes was working on her, using guilt and the fact that the Official had trusted her enough to put her to work with Eberts.

Bobby Hobbes smiled to himself, grimly. The kid was getting better at interrogation all the time.

"You don't know. They worked in Death's art, Darien. I thought what I did was bad, but I never knew what they did when they weren't there. Not until it was over with. I suspected some stuff, but Kev wouldn't let me come home and---"

Bobby turned and saw the look of mute pain that made the scientist's face go soft as he stared at the floor. He felt guilt for what had happened. The conversation outside the office door was ripping Kevin Fawkes up somehow.

The fear and anger that Ciara Mackenzie must have felt over Ben Gordon's death would have been overwhelming to cause her to turn in a resignation and leave a message on the Agency's answering machine that sounded as if she were scared nearly witless.

He could imagine what she would have done, if she weren't directly involved in the murders of her family members. She would have called her old friend, Daniel D'Angelin, accusing him of the death of her brother. The appointment would have been remembered, of course.

"He didn't know---Harmony, he couldn't have. If you didn't know what they were doing, how could Kevin have guessed that you were in danger like that? Why didn't you tell him? He'd have gotten you out of there." His partner's softer words were still loud enough to be understood in the quiet.

Bobby Hobbes considered what he knew about the tall, cynical woman and what she might have been thinking when she made the decision to leave her job and go into what seemed like a form of hiding while she hunted down an assassin who could do this.

"You're wrong, Darien. Kev didn't give a sailing shit about me. Arnaud was right about that---I was nothing but a lab rat and that is all I ever was. The rest of its just bullshit sentimentality. A child. A pet. A freak he helped create." There was fire and ice in her voice as she punctuated the words with what sounded like her fist hitting the wall outside. In the other chair, Kevin Fawkes stiffened and twisted around in his seat to stare at the door with a strangely troubled look on his face.

Ciara Mackenzie might not have recognized the signature initialed on the matchbook, but she would have put it together when she spoke to the dark-haired, beautiful Daniel The Angel. She and Waric Sterling's man, Yancy, would have spoken in the club and she had ended up leaving with Daniel D'Angelin, who probably had come to assist her in tracking down and eliminating their other friend before anyone else could die.

"Okay, shhh. You're not on trial here. We just want to know the truth about your friend Waric Sterling. What happened in Australia, Lab Rat? Why won't you tell me?" Darien's softer tone evoked his face in Bobby's mind. His handsome partner was using his connection to get Harmony Corwin to trust him again. "We're friends. All you need is someone to believe in. I trust you, Harmony. I really do. You can tell me."

Bobby Hobbes put himself in Ciara Mackenzie's shoes and tried to see what she would do now. She'd set an appointment with the girl---asking Harmony to think about what she was doing by working with someone like Waric Sterling. Australia was involved. Arnaud De Thiel came to mind. What had happened to the girl there?

There was silence again. The clock on the wall was the only sound that could be heard as it ticked away the long seconds.

She'd never told them all the details of what she'd witnessed and experienced at the terrorist's compound. The girl had been a hermit for two weeks while she went through the second part of her genetic therapy and Waric had made contact with her during that time. Ciara Mackenzie had seen this---she would've been watching her young friend covertly to make sure she was okay by herself. It was what Bobby Hobbes would have done---he guessed she would be the same. She was very good at her job.

The matchbook in his fingers suggested an appointment. Her initial was bold at the bottom; it was a broad, sweeping C. The Golden Wolf was requesting a meeting between them. She was asking Harmony to remember that Preacher would betray. Australia played a big part in the knowledge that the girl was supposed to be hiding.

Bobby Hobbes noticed that everyone in the office seemed to be breathless now, waiting for the girl to answer the question that had been asked by his partner.

Her phone message had asked that he and Darien Fawkes look after Harmony. She was counting on them to remind the girl who her friends were. And she'd called this morning, it seemed---he couldn't wait to hear what she had to say in her own defense. If Ciara Mackenzie hadn't killed her brother, Ben Gordon, then Waric Sterling had---and maybe she knew how to find him. He hoped she was going to help them stop her old friend from doing more.

"I can't...Darien, you can't be that person." Then, her tone changed to one of genial, false surprise. "Merde! Look at the time! I really should go now. I can still get a seat on the next flight to Geneva, if I hurry."

There was a sudden shout---her voice raised in anger as there was some sharp movement just on the other side of the door. Next to him, Kevin Fawkes rose and moved quickly. The scientist was halfway across the floor when the young woman's loud voice came back, full of pain and rage.

"Stop, Darien---no! I'm not, dammit---Stop!" It ended in a muffled, bitten-off scream of panic.

Bobby jumped up to join Kevin Fawkes as the man headed towards the office door. They were nearly there when Darien's low words reached them.

"I don't care who you think you're really protecting in there. They're gonna put you in a damned rubber room and throw away the key if you don't talk. What did he do to you, huh? You trusted me enough to... Hell, think about it---that takes trust, right?" It was a heated growl that made Darien's voice sound like he'd slipped into quicksilver madness.

Kevin Fawkes jerked on the knob and then Bobby could see what was going on outside, in the hallway.

His partner had Harmony Corwin by her upwards-extended arms, holding her against the wall beside the open door. Darien had yanked her up from her feet; she was on her tiptoes, nearly face to face with the taller, dark-eyed man. The much-larger body of his handsome partner was being used as a shield to prevent her from wiggling free. Darien was fine---no madness---just anger.

Harmony's eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth was a line of pain. She was breathing hard, her nostrils were flared, and her face had started turning red.

"Darien---stop!" Kevin shouted. "You're scaring her!"

"She needs to be scared, Kev. Our little Lab Rat doesn't want to do this, do you?" The dark eyes widened as Darien lowered his head to peer closer into the face of the frightened girl who refused to open her eyes. Harmony had started sweating; tiny beads had sprung to the surface of her face, pearling her skin in moisture. They were both breathing hard and loud. "You're more afraid of Waric, aren't you?"

Kevin took his brother's arm, calming down. "Let her go, Darien. You're just making it worse."

"Fawkes, come on. She can spend some time in the cell downstairs and think about what she wants to tell us. Down, boy." Bobby Hobbes had seen his partner get upset before but he'd never thought it would be used on Harmony to make her talk. It was what his partner was doing---playing good cop, bad cop to try scaring her into saying something that they could use. And it worked.

"Darien, I can't---he told me he'd kill you! That he'd kill you---and---and Bobby and everyone I cared about and I won't let that happen---I can't tell you anything!"

Her eyes had flown open then and he saw how dilated her pupils were. She shifted her gaze from Darien, who was just inches from her face, to look quickly at Kevin Fawkes, and then back at the younger agent who was holding her up off the floor. Bobby was aware of a smoky scent in the air that was like fear and pain made into a bittersweet perfume.

"He's not going to kill me or anyone else, Harmony. You don't have to work with him. Stop protecting him. He's only using you. Waric and Arnaud are working together, aren't they?" Darien Fawkes asked her, his brown eyes searching her blue ones.

"No. I don't think so...He told me Arnaud wouldn't be able to get to me anymore if I went home." Her eyes were still frightened looking. Bobby took a deep breath and inhaled the smell of the sweat---it was her that was making the scent in the air. It was coming from her skin. "He said that I'd be safer at home, where I belong."

"So, you think Waric Sterling is doing this on his own?" He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the doorframe. Bobby looked at his partner and then at the scientist that stood on the other side of Darien Fawkes, his face a mask of worry that made his face pale.

"Y-yes. I think. I think so. Please, Guinea Pig, if you really---" She stopped and her eyes went softer for a moment as she looked at Kevin. "I know I should've told them about this, but I wanted to believe Waric, Kev, I really did. But, you said in there---and I never told you all of it. I couldn't let you think I was a monster. Waric said he'd---if I didn't leave college. He said stuff about leaving your dead body---"

Her eyes watered up as she swallowed hard. Bobby watched her lower her face and hide behind the falling strands of her light reddish brown hair. She closed her eyes again, causing the tears to form in her lashes.

"What made you believe him, Harmony? After what he did to you in Edinburgh, what made you think you could believe anything he said?" Kevin Fawkes' words were gentle, probing for answers from his young friend.

"I didn't have anyone left---after Arnaud, after Australia, and the whispers in the labs. Compromised and a liability to security…isn't that it, Bobby?" Her eyes rose to meet his and Bobby Hobbes saw the grief there and knew that Harmony had heard everything he'd said when they had all believed she was asleep. "You said that. Darien said I couldn't take care of myself---didn't you?"

The blue of her eyes was clear as she met Darien's gaze. He watched as his partner took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly in thought. It was obvious from the ex-thief's expression that he was trying to think about what to say.

"Let me down. I'm not going anywhere. I guess you have to lock me up now."

Bobby took his hands out of his pockets and looked over his shoulder, back into the office. Eberts stood close by the door, hearing everything that was being said with a frown on his bland, pasty face. Even if the Official hadn't been hearing the quiet conversation, he would know about it as soon as the attaché had a chance to spill what he'd overheard.

Darien let her go slowly and stepped back from Harmony as if she might not be steady on her own feet. The girl tugged at the ends of her shirt, pulling the dense white lace material back down across her jeans' waistband. She wasn't meeting anyone's eyes now. Harmony was ready to be confined by the Agency for things she wouldn't share out loud. Any moment now, the boss would tell him to lock her up in the cells downstairs.

"You used to believe me when I told you that I was your friend, Harmony." Kevin Fawkes spoke slowly, in a halting manner. "Believe me. I will not let him hurt you. I won't let Waric take you away. You don't belong to him."

Bobby Hobbes saw her eyes go wide again, showing bright blue in the lightly bloodshot whites. She looked at the scientist who spoke and he could see the shock on her face but she didn't speak.

"No one has the right to make you promise silence and compliance for the lives of your loved ones. I was your Keeper---your doctor---and I am telling you that you're not a monster. You don't need to be one. Harmony is enough." There was a ghost of a smile on Kevin's face as he said it, raising a hand to brush a strand of red brown hair from the young woman's cheek.

Harmony's eyes seemed to waver for a moment with some emotion of disbelief but then she blinked and Bobby Hobbes couldn't believe how much trust and love he saw there. It was as if the scientist had said something magical that turned a key inside the girl's head.

"Do you believe me, Harmony?" Kevin spoke again as he went on, brushing her hair back from her face with his fingertips.

She didn't falter now as she nodded, a little smile on her mouth. There was a hint of laughing sarcasm in her voice, but Bobby Hobbes saw that she was deadly serious. "Yeh, I do. But, so help me, Kev---if you ever lie to me again, you'll wish you'd stayed dead the first time."

He watched her as she passed him, giving him a wink that showed her mask was quickly being put back in place. Bobby knew that she was still hurting, but she was going to do as she'd been asked---she was going to help the Agency she was supposed to be working for.

Stepping around the door, he watched her march through office with her head held high. Harmony moved to the desk and laid her hands on the papers that lay there.

"I'm not as compromised as they say, sir. You and I talked about that before I accepted your invitation to come to work for you---you know what I told you is true, right?"

The Official nodded. His eyes were focused on her. He had been reading something with his bifocals on, but now his attention was brought back to the young female agent who stood before him, her arms straight as she leaned on the desk. Their employer removed the spectacles and studied her with a thin smile on his heavy face.

"Yes, I do believe that Arnaud De Thiel got to you but that you and the Keeper are dealing with it. Do you have anything to add to the claim Agent Mackenzie made about Waric Sterling being in Australia?"

"Yes, sir, I do. She saw him there. Just like I did." Harmony spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Behind him, he felt his partner step close to his side, followed by his slightly shorter brother. Kevin Fawkes seemed to be holding his breath. Bobby Hobbes wondered briefly what it was that had really been shared between the scientist and the girl in the hallway. He'd heard it, but it made little sense. It had to be something from their past.

"Please share with us what you saw Waric Sterling do in Australia---if you tell the truth, you will be exonerated of the suspicion of betrayal of your duties."

The Official had her over a barrel but Bobby didn't see where it was bothering Harmony in the least. He saw her smile as she looked over her shoulder at them, where they still stood in the doorway. She took all of them in, including Eberts, and the smile was a sad, fleeting one. When she spoke, it was in an arctic-bitter voice that made his blood freeze in the veins.

"Waric Sterling killed Alan Webster."

Chapter Nineteen:

It was still rolling around in his head. The two women had seen the person who had really killed Dante Webster. And it made so much sense when he thought about the distance Ciara Mackenzie had put between herself and the girl since Snake Bay. It was as if the tall, dangerous assassin hadn't been able to get away from her young friend fast enough.

He'd thought it was cold-blooded of her. Now, he wondered why the female agent had not done something about it when she saw the killer there. The only explanation had to be that she had wanted to catch Arnaud more, in that moment. She had to be regretting that decision now.

Darien sat on the padded examination table and thought about the phone message that the woman had left for the Official. She'd made two phone calls in the night; one to their boss and one to the Keeper, telling her a few details of what was going on, including the news of Kevin's reappearance.

Claire seemed very glad with it. He'd sat and watched her explaining the monitor system to his brother. Kevin was going to be taking over the Keepership of the girl, so he had received all the medical files on Harmony Corwin. His brother and their young friend had just left, carrying the box of folders, making enigmatic jokes at each other.

It was understood that when she finished in the lab, Harmony had to report back to her office. Eberts had work for her to do and Kevin had some catch-up reading he needed to complete before he could get an accurate picture of what the girl's medical status was.

He was nervous about that. There were things in Harmony's records that Kevin was going to be really upset about.

"And that does it, mate." His Keeper closed up the cabinet and turned to look at him, her eyes studying his face. He knew what she was watching for. Claire wanted to know where he was emotionally about all of the new developments.

"Great---I gotta go with Hobbes and look at the second crime scene from last night. The creep in the alley wasn't the only one who bit the big one. It looks like our perp struck again, this time north of the city." He stepped down and pushed his sleeve back over his wrist. Darien turned to leave, only to be caught by her voice.

"Darien, he was working on the means to remove the gland while he was gone." Her voice was calmative as she spoke of Kevin without saying his name. "It was not why he was being sequestered, but he was working on a way to fix what he did."

"That's great---did Ciara tell you that when she called? Do you know about the message she left for the boss?" He stopped at the door and met her gaze. "She asked that Kevin take Harmony and get the hell out of Dodge til this was over."

"I'm sure that the Official knows what he is doing with this, Darien. If he agrees that Agent Corwin should stay and keep that appointment with you, then there has to be a reason." Claire's voice didn't betray anything. "Agent Mackenzie has let her own strong emotional bond to her friends color her judgment in this matter."

"Geez, Claire, she called the fat man and clarified that the appointment was only for me and Hobbes---that Harmony should be kept out of this because of her connection to the murderer. He changed his mind when the girl suggested the idea of bait." He put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor. "Do you know how crazy that is? Taking her into that club as bait for an assassin?"

"I understand your fear, Darien, but she can take care of herself. There's no one going to be guarding her at home, either, you know." His Keeper cupped her elbows close to her body and approached him slowly, her hazel green eyes showing her sympathy.

"I know that you have been a friend to Harmony Corwin, but you have to let her have a chance to prove that she's good enough for the job." Claire stopped in front of him and cocked her head to the side, causing her loose blonde hair to fall across the shoulder of her blue lab coat. "Since she has been going through the therapy, she's worked on rebuilding herself. It's not been easy for her, Darien, because she doesn't think anyone trusts or cares about her at all."

"She knew we cared, Claire. We could've helped her and she didn't want that help." He tugged the waistband of his pants angrily, pulling them further up on his hips.

"Don't be so sure, Darien. She lost a large part of her trust ability while in Arnaud De Thiel's compound. I'm not surprised that she would allow someone like Waric Sterling access to her. He and your brother have much in common, you see. She may have been transferring her need for a trust relationship onto him, even knowing what he was capable of." Her eyes narrowed in consideration as he watched.

"Why isn't the Official assigning someone to stay with her? I mean, she's alone and that creep could get to her again---then, what? Ciara had a reason for wanting our girl out of the picture. At least, she seems to know what the hell's going on and she said---" He stopped, seeing a slender smile cross her face. "What?"

"Your brother has agreed to stay with her until this situation has been resolved. They have a rather unconventional relationship, but it seems to be what Agent Corwin needs in a Keeper and in a doctor." The smile broadened just a second and then disappeared.

"Kevin?" Darien couldn't help but roll his eyes. "My brother needs someone to protect him. Hey, how's it gonna look when he gets himself killed trying to stop someone from hurting or taking Harmony? Some guard he makes."

"I believe, Darien, that it will be the other way around. Kevin's regained her trust and that means she will not hesitate to protect him. She'd kill for him faster than she would to protect herself."

*****

A half hour later, he was behind the wheel of the car with his partner sitting beside him. They were driving towards Grossmont College, north of the city.

"So, what'd the Keep have to say?" Bobby Hobbes hadn't said much through their late lunch and he'd had a feet-dragging suspicion that his partner might be upset with him for what he'd done in the hallway to their young friend.

"Everything's cool. I'm cool. Harmony's cool. We both should go in this time, just to make sure we don't miss anything." He stepped on the gas and passed an exhaust-spewing car and looked through his rear view mirror to see the elderly woman in the gas-guzzler look at him with a puzzled expression.

"I think you're right, hotshot. Something tells me that the fat man knew what he was saying when he told us to be careful." Bobby was staring out the window with a blank expression on his face. His dark eyes searched the land around the freeway as if looking for something specific.

"You know, I have a feeling that when she catches up with this asshole, Ciara's gonna do some serious damage. We might not have to think about getting enough evidence to put him on trial---she's not gonna let him live to see a courtroom."

"You're probably right there, too---but she has to catch up with him first, kid. That's why we're here. To do our jobs." Bobby Hobbes frowned at something he saw outside the car and then turned to look at him. His partner had a strange expression in his eyes.

"Oh, trust me---she'll get him. Her little killing-buddy Daniel is with her and I don't think either of them are gonna stop until that bastard---what's wrong?" Darien took a glance at the older agent and studied him quickly before putting his eyes back on the road.

"Could you take the next exit? We gotta stop somewhere." His partner's voice sounded thick, as if something were caught in his throat.

"Sure---no problem. Hey, do you reckon Ciara knows about this one, yet?" He'd been wondering about it. It could have been the killer's plan to kill again last night, but it seemed to have come perfectly spaced in time strangely accurate for a continued vendetta.

"If she didn't know about it by dawn, she probably knows about it now. That woman has ice in her veins." Bobby closed his eyes in thought and Darien realized that there was something else bothering the shorter agent.

He pulled the car onto the exit ramp and headed into a valley. "Why are we down here?"

"I wanna stop at the cemetary." Bobby Hobbes didn't look at him. "We're gonna pay Alan a visit."

Darien studied his partner for a moment, sympathy making him want to speak, and drove down the light-dappled lane that ran along the side of a vast, rolling cemetery that was full of monuments, tombs, and simple headstones. It was a beautiful, green place.

"Turn here." Bobby told him, indicating the left side. He did as he was asked, heading down a slight hill.

They were silent for a few moments. Darien knew he had to be the one who would speak first---it wasn't his partner's nature to open up easily. This had to be a hard day. After the loss of his young hacker friend, Bobby had not drawn inwards; instead, he'd come further out of himself, becoming extremely friendly. Whatever Alan had meant to his partner, it was over and gone and buried with the desk jockey that had died in Australia, the victim of a bullet fired by Waric Sterling.

"Go right here." Bobby spoke again without looking at him.

Doing as he was told, Darien Fawkes stayed silent and hoped that this was going to be okay. He had no idea of the truth behind the relationship that had been between the two agents. There were things unspoken---and then there had been the conversation he'd overheard the night before Alan had died.

There were a lot of things he didn't know yet about Bobby Hobbes, but he was sure that there had been more than just Alan Webster's crush on the older agent in Iraq. He just hadn't figured out how much more there had been. Had it been a mutual thing---a love shared and unconsummated? Had it been a one sided affection that had grown into a friendship when it was unreturned?

If that was the case, could he let his own affection for Bobby Hobbes cool down and become the same thing? Darien frowned at the thought and went on driving, being careful to stay on the gravel path. It had been minutes since his partner had spoken, giving him a new heading.

"Stop here." Bobby spoke again, his voice low. Darien killed the engine and sat in the quiet, listening to the ticking of the cooling motor. What now?

After a few moments of silence, his partner looked at him. He met the dark eyes of the older agent and saw the need to speak that wasn't going to be fulfilled by words alone. Whatever was bothering the shorter man had been there since Alan had died in Snake Bay, but it had never been brought up.

"I won't be but a minute or two." Bobby Hobbes undid his seatbelt and opened the car door, getting out.

"You want me to come with you?" Kicking himself mentally, Darien watched his partner look up and away from the open window. Bobby's eyes darkened even further as he searched the horizon over the car's roof. Smooth move, he cursed himself. If the guy had wanted him along, he'd have said so first.

"Yeh. Come on." Bobby nodded and stepped away from the car without looking back at him.

Darien's eyes widened. It was unexpected. He hurried to follow his partner, staying a few steps behind the quickly moving agent. They walked down along a row of simple headstones until they came to one that was pale rose in color and stood out in the field of plain white.

Bobby Hobbes stopped in front of it and shoved his hands in his pockets. He seemed to be lost in the inscription. It was not standard government-issued white. It wasn't like the black marble one that had been put over Kevin's empty grave.

Stopping behind his partner, he stood silent and still, folding his arms against himself. All he had to offer was moral support in this moment of need. Darien read the headstone and wondered who had done the inscription. It seemed more than appropriate---it seemed more likely than any other he'd ever read.

Alan Roy Webster. Underneath it was written in quotation marks, "Dante". It listed his birth year and death year. 1973---he was younger than he'd seemed and that meant he'd been almost too young to go to Desert Storm. He'd been younger when he went to Iraq than his cousin and fellow hacker, Harmony Corwin, was at this moment. His death year, with the triple zeros seemed to be hauntingly like three mouths open in horror or pain.

Beneath all this was a single line that seemed to be taken from some poem. "Too young, too young, heaven's angels weep."

The young man had been only twenty-seven when he'd caught the bullet. Alan had died in his cousin's arms; the last thing in his ears before the agent had stopped breathing had been her screaming for him not to leave. She'd called him Allie. She'd begged Darien to help her stop the bleeding. There had been so much blood.

He could remember the way the red blood had soaked the white shirt under the opened suit jacket. Darien closed his eyes and felt the chill of the air at the bay in Australia again, the way it had felt as he'd knelt by Harmony's side and seen that the government agent was dying and that the young man knew it, too.

Alan Webster hadn't been afraid. He hadn't seemed to notice the pain. He had asked Darien to look after his cousin's wound; she had been shot by Alan's gun and his hand.

The blood on his lips had been bright. He'd bubbled as he tried to talk, to say more. It had been like Kevin's--- Darien Fawkes clenched his teeth to make himself stop thinking about it. Kev wasn't dead. He didn't need to remember---right now, he needed to be here for his partner.

Bobby was silent. His hands were still shoved in his pockets, as if he were waiting for something. Finally, there was a change. The older agent sighed and lowered his balding head.

"You know something---I didn't even know his middle name." It was hoarse. "That's unforgivable. I should've asked him."

Darien stepped forward and put his hand on the shorter man's shoulder. "Don't be so hard on yourself, buddy. You said yourself that you were only friends."

"Oh, we were friends alright. I guess that's something I won't forget. He knew stuff about me that no one else would've---not even Viv." Bobby didn't look up to meet his gaze. Darien couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard tears in the voice of his partner. They weren't on his face, but they were thick in his words. "Alan knew what it was like."

"Wanna talk about it?" He was pushing the edge of their friendship, their partnership. Darien gently pressed fingers into the shoulder he had put his hand on.

Bobby Hobbes shuddered and looked up at the sky, as if gathering his thoughts. "I think I ought to tell you he said stuff about you---but I don't know where to start."

"He talked about me?" Darien couldn't help but smile. He should've known that their conversations would have turned in that way at some, unheard point. "What did he say?"

"Ah, hell, Fawkes---it's not important. Come on. We got things to do." His partner shrugged off the moment of grief and turned away, intending to head back to the dark car.

"It was important to Alan, though, wasn't it?" He pushed the question and saw the older agent's face shadow under the afternoon sun. "He thought it was really important."

Bobby Hobbes looked up at him, his face contemplative. What ever it was that Alan had told him about the younger agent was really deep-water type conversation. It showed in the way his partner's eyes moved over his face, as if judging the safety of the situation by the expression Darien wore.