Disclaimer: see Perspective Part 1. This story is #3 in the “Telempathy” Series. PERSPECTIVE PART 3 The proprietors of the Lorelei Hotel were acutely aware that Witt’s End and St. Mary Vale had a number of excellent cafés, diners and restaurants and very sensibly had realised the futility of competing head on with these. They had thus channelled the majority of the catering budget into their area of strength – breakfast. Finally leaving the Bettencourt home, Jim and Blair had come back to the hotel pleased with how their day in Witt’s End had gone. Feeling deliciously indulgent, the pair had decided that rather than eat in the hotel’s dining room next morning, they would treat themselves to the extreme luxury of room service. At exactly half past eight in the morning, a knock had heralded the arrival of two maids and a bellhop, the last having drawn back the curtains to let the sunlight spill into the room while the two maids placed atop the covers of each man’s bed a large tray with long legs, each tray containing an interesting array of covered silver dishes and the morning paper requested by each man, before withdrawing. For a good twenty minutes, Jim and Blair gave the breakfast their full attention, as was it’s due: Jim sighed happily as his sharp knife cut into ham that was ham, not gelatine-enhanced, cornflour-bulked, salt-and-water-added supermarket imitation; likewise the sausage contained pork meat and nothing else; the scrambled eggs had been fluffed with cream and not water; the poached egg taken up just right so the white was firm but not rubbery and the yolk was creamy yellow for dipping without being watery or underdone; the biscuits were large, golden and not in the slightest bit stodgy. The coffee was freshly made and percolated from the highest quality cold-pressed Arabica beans and the cream in the jug was just right to pour into it. The toast was nicely brown without being burned and there was plenty of butter and marmalade. They munched, crunched, chewed and read their papers in companionable silence. Finally about nine o’clock as Blair slathered his last slice of toast with the last bit of marmalade and took an appreciative bite, Jim reached out a hand and picked up the phone, pressing nine for an outside line in the knowledge that either his dad or Stephen or more likely both would be in the office now. Few people knew the direct private line to Stephen Ellison’s office as ECO of Ellison Industries for the simple reason that it circumvented the buffers designed to deter and deflect time wasters. Within five seconds, the receiver was picked up and Jim heard his brother’s voice at the other end of the phone. “Hi, Steve.” He greeted his brother with the genial expansiveness only a Sentinel stuffed full of hearty, meaty breakfast could manage. “Look, I realise this probably sounds like an odd question, but do you know if dad’s still a member of the Washington State Social & Country Club Association?” “Sure. I am too. Why?” Stephen glanced at his desk clock – the LED display read 9:02am, but during his acrimonious divorce and the discovery that his children weren’t his children, he had acquired the habit of a six o’clock start, and consequently had three hours of work under his belt when Jim called. Very, very rarely did Blair Sandburg use that somewhat peremptory tone of command – ninety-five percent of the time any orders that were given issued from the Sentinel, or Detective Ellison, or Jim. Without hesitation, Jim explained the Bettencourts’ situation to Stephen. “Could you fake a managerial job for Tad Bettencourt, just for a couple of weeks until his family leaves town?” “No problem. In fact, I can do better than that, if your Tad Bettencourt is the same one as the Maitre D’ at the Golf Club. Dad and me have been coming to St. Mary Vale for over five years – their golf club is about the best in the country. I’ll drop by next week and have a few “strategy meetings” with Tad at the Golf Club. Mrs Bettencourt’s family should lap that up.” “Thanks bro’, you’re a star.” Jim ended the call then carefully moved the tray off the bed to the floor before regarding Blair – who had used the time to quickly shower and shave and who now sat on the bed pulling on his boots – with a long, level gaze. “Want to expound, Chief?” There was no rancour in his tone; Jim knew Blair didn’t go into I-am-the-Guide-and-I-rule mode without good reason. Indeed, even now Jim was only too well aware of the inferiority complex that surged up and grabbed Blair periodically, a legacy from the days when he had taken Burton’s work on Sentinels as “Gospel” and thus unconsciously absorbed Burton’s mistaken attitude that the “Guide” was little more than a cheerleader to the “Hero” Sentinel. “It’s important to Stephen to feel he’s helpful to you,” Blair said quietly. “Did you ever watch the original Star Trek, Jim?” “Of course?” “In the beginning it was really good, they were a team. But when the scriptwriters started getting lazy and complacent it changed – in the end they were nothing more than a cheerleading squad for the all-conquering hero Captain James T. Kirk.” Blair’s tone was reflective. “Human beings have an inborn need to feel that we are of value to the people we love. That’s why it’s so demoralising to have a friend or relative who has a hero complex. If that person never needs our help, advice, support, encouragement and comfort, we feel that we aren’t contributing anything of importance to the relationship, that we’re superfluous bystanders tolerated with condescending amusement.” Jim winced – until he found Blair floating face down and dead in Rainier University’s fountain courtesy of Alex Barnes, he’d often treated Blair in that manner. To his relief, Blair seemed not to notice his minor guilt-trip detour. “Intellectually, Stephen accepts that I’m your Guide and he accepts me as a friend,” Blair explained as he pulled on his second boot and stood up, “but emotionally he can’t help being jealous of the fact that he will never be as close to you as I am. Both he and your dad need to feel that they’re helping; it makes them feel valued when you ask them for help - they feel they are making a positive contribution and that they’re doing something useful to help you be the Sentinel of the Great City.” Leaving a generous tip as befit the excellence of the repast, they went downstairs where Concierge revealed a message from Bert Martin – he would have analysed their “wax” sample by tomorrow morning if they wanted to drop by. Leaving the Lorelei Hotel they stepped outside into another sunny Witt’s End day. Jim filed Blair’s advice away for future reference. Though reconciled to his father and brother, he acknowledged that sometimes the three Ellison men did tend to tiptoe around each other. In sudden epiphany, Jim realised how good it make him feel - and how important in Blair’s world - that the younger man always turned to him for help. Blair didn’t expect Jim to work miracles on his behalf, but he always turned to Jim first, even before his own mother Naomi. With sudden insight, Jim realised that a large part of the reason he was so negative about Naomi, disparaging about Blair’s girlfriends – including sometimes uncharitable thoughts about Blair’s current burgeoning relationship with Megan Connor - and had reacted so violently to Alex Barnes was because he was jealously guarding his pre-eminence, his accustomed role as the centre of Blair’s world. Of course Stephen and William Ellison would have the same desire to be as important and valued in Jim’s life as he wanted to be in Blair’s. They walked along the marina before veering off to the trunk road, ambling in silent companionship up the gentle slope, having decided to reconnoitre St. Mary Vale and then brave the military installation on the way back. Idly Jim wondered if Rick Valenti knew of its existence. It was hard to imagine someone as savvy as the ex-SEAL not knowing – or at least strongly suspecting. Jim found himself remembering an old Phil Collins song…Another Day in Paradise…the sky was cerulean, the lake water a dappled swirling of turquoise, silver, gold and jade, the trees tall and silent and stately, big, bright agate green leaves bursting with life, a scattering of bright flowers here and there along the roadside, and periodic bursts of birdsong as small thrushes, tits and sparrows whirred from tree top to tree top. The same geological and topographical features that gave the Lorelei its outstanding beauty had helped create an ecosystem within an ecosystem; the area blessed with a more temperate climate and shielded by the Cascade Mountains and dense surrounding forests. Spring was warm and bright, summer warm and long without the heat becoming stifling, fall was cool and clear, winter a picturesque wonderland that you usually only found on postcards, in Hollywood movies or Alpine villages. St. Mary Vale had clearly been based on Witt’s End. The houses were wood, glass and stone, only bigger and even further apart. Unlike the usually geometrically manicured gardens of the American wealthy elite, the Witt’s End fashion of naturally haphazard flowers, shrubs and trees abounded. The main thoroughfare of St. Mary Vale fairly screamed money: exclusive ladies boutiques; a milliner’s; an actual tailor as opposed to a more general Menswear store, which also sold things like briefcases and sporting accessories. Pausing to admire the tailor’s window display, Blair and Jim exchanged wry glances at the Clan Stewart kilt in the window that was retailing at a cool $1,000. Next door was a men’s shoe shop that also sold hiking and camping gear for the super- rich. Various spas, salons, a gym, sports club and famous names like Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Manolo Blahnik were interspersed along the main street with one-off local stores that could equally charge exorbitant prices due to their uniqueness. Several people, mainly exquisitely coiffed and coutured women sporting discreet but exorbitantly expensive jewellery, were lunching at a French style café, served discreetly by immaculately groomed staff who seemed to glide. Jim and Blair continued past. Nothing so vulgar as a menu or a price list was on view anywhere; if you needed to the know the prices, you couldn’t afford to eat there, and if you could, you didn’t need a menu because the place was so expensive you could order whatever you damn well wanted up to and including dragon eggs with a reasonable assurance of getting it. The focus of the place however was the “golf club”, or rather Washington State St. Mary Vale Country Club. Blair could see the pristinely manicured expanse of the precious golf course sweeping away from the clubhouse, while to another side there were tennis courts, a bowling green and a croquet lawn. Jim wondered if it would be worth trying to get inside the grounds in an official capacity – “Damn, can’t we get a break?” Blair growled in exasperation. “Eh?” “A town full of unusual suspects, a secret military base probably packed with Lee Bracket clones the temple and now the must have accessory for the super- rich –” Jim looked at his partner steadily as Blair complained without pausing in one rushing sentence. “What are you going on about?” Blair sighed. “About face, Jim. Two o’clock.” Blinking at Blair’s unexpected use of military terminology, Jim turned his head so his eyes were in the required direction and saw what Blair meant. Flight. The must have accessory of the super-rich be it Lear jet, Cessna, or a helicopter. It was small and it blended with aesthetic pleasantness into its surroundings, but it was nevertheless a fully functional private airfield. Jim stared at the Quonset buildings and the small groups of gleaming Cessnas parked off the landing strip, then said decisively, “Nope.” “Nope?” “Nope,” Confirmed Jim. “If we’re vetoing the random-psychopath-who happened-to-drive-by idea, I’m certainly not going to complicate things again by considering the random-psychopath-with-his-own-private-plane.” “Good point.” “Yep. And Chief…temple?” “Oh.” “How far is it from Witt’s End and St. Mary Vale…and how come I didn’t realise it was there?” Jim asked this almost of himself with a frown. “It’s a Temple of Guides, not Sentinels,” Blair admitted meekly, fancying he could hear the smug yip-yip of a wolf and the pleased growl of a panther. Damn. But it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to play ball. He was already juggling a million plates with his life as it was. “Your 'dream',” Jim made it a statement, not a question. Instead of answering his friend directly, Blair explained, “In Sierra Verde, how did you manage to go straight to the Temple of Sentinels without any map or guide, even though you’d never been there before?” “It was sort of a low-level hum, like you get from a power cable. You know when you walk into an office and all the computer monitors have been switched off but you can hear the hum and you know one’s been left on at the base unit?” “Sure.” “That’s it. I couldn’t hear it, because it wasn’t a noise, but I felt it in my bones. The closer I got to the temple, the louder the hum?” Jim’s voice rose slightly, a clearly questioning inflexion. “The same,” Blair admitted. “I felt this sort of tingling in my bones when we started heading out of Witt’s End towards Edgar Fincham’s cabin - and I’ve had dreams of its exact position.” “Were you going to tell me?” There was no anger In Jim’s tone, just as Blair hadn’t displayed any when Jim confessed to Simon that there was secret underground military base in the local woods. Blair had long ago realised Jim’s resignation from Army Special Forces wasn’t worth the paper it was written on and understood there were things Jim couldn’t discuss. That whole mess with Jim’s ex-CO Colonel Oliver had demonstrated that Jim Ellison worried a lot of people because he knew, literally, where the bodies were buried, but he was allowed to live a fully civilian life instead of being coerced back into the shadow world, or worse ‘eliminated’, because he kept to his end of the bargain, not even revealing anything to his equally a part of Sandburg’s life that Jim was likewise separate from, at least at this stage. “No, just like you wouldn’t have told me about the installation if it hadn’t been necessary. Let’s just say the dream I had was they who think they must be obeyed doling out orders that Blair isn’t going to blindly follow like a good little puppet. My life is complicated enough, thank you very much.” Jim digested this for a moment, but decided against pointing out that when it came to this stuff, sometimes you didn’t have a choice. He knew all too well that stubborn expression Blair had on his face right now. It wasn’t a frequent expression to Sandburg’s face, but Blair was immovable in such a mood. Nor was he going to try and lecture his Guide. After Alexandra Barnes, one of the many changes in their relationship had come about as Jim realised how much he bullied Blair and unconsciously tried to control the younger man’s life in the same way that William Ellison had tried to control him as a child, and look how well that had turned out. “James!” Both men turned at the voice behind them. Blair sized up the man before them. He vaguely resembled Stephen Ellison, even having a facial mole in the same place but was more polished; leonine blond hair was swept back from a perfectly tanned face that was currently highlighting his perfect teeth as he smiled. His excellently tailored suit cost more than Blair’s annual salary and had never been near a chain-store clothing rack in its existence. “Uncle Bill and Steve come here all the time for the golf. I never thought I’d see you in St. Mary Vale, at least not under these circumstances.” A suitably grave expression of concern settled upon the newcomer’s face. “Andrew. We had no idea the case came under our jurisdiction.” Jim shook the other man’s hand even as he explained mentally to Blair, “Andrew this is my partner Dr Blair Sandburg, Blair, this is Andrew Winterbourne, my cousin. Does Aunt Isabelle have a vacation house here in St. Mary Vale?” “No, I live here,” Andrew Winterbourne revealed. “I’m the Mayor of St. Mary Vale.” “Congratulations,” Jim said sincerely and with no surprise. The Winterbournes were like the Ellisons, another old blue-chip stock family with Pilgrim Father antecedents and oodles of cash; but whereas the Ellisons were business magnates, the Winterbournes got all hot-eyed and drooling over politics. “Washington State has a Congresswoman Lydia Winterbourne-Wyatt,” commented Blair again to Jim’s complete lack of surprise, because for all his apparent chattering obliviousness Blair Sandburg was acutely aware of the world around him and what was occurring therein. “There’s an Under-Secretary of Education called Barrett Winterbourne, and I think Hilary Rodham Clinton’s PR spokeswoman is Charis Winterbourne?” “Sister; brother; cousin,” Andrew trilled obligingly. “Please, have a coffee with me?” Nodding assent, Jim and Blair followed Andrew a few yards along St. Mary Vale’s spotlessly clean slate paved high street to an exclusive patisserie café that like most of the other places of business in St. Mary Vale, didn’t have any prices on its menu. Andrew ordered a wine cooler, which Jim refused since he was officially on duty and alcohol was something that the Sentinel approached with extreme caution. He had learned painfully that he could not simply pluck a bottle of white wine or Scotch off a supermarket shelf, nor even stick to the more expensive products than cheaper ones; differing brands of alcohol contained differing chemicals depending on manufacture, so a ten dollar bottle of blended Old Grouse might be safer for him to drink than a hundred dollar bottle of pure malt Blue Label. Blair, a look of bliss on his face, ordered a pot of Silvertip Oolong tea, a choice that clearly impressed the waiter, a Jeeves clone attired in crisply creased black dress pants, snowy shirt and black waistcoat. Blair listened as Jim straightforwardly asked his cousin what his take was on the murder of Edgar Fincham, entirely unsurprised that Jim hadn’t let Andrew in on the reality of Fincham’s suicide. To say the Ellisons weren’t a close family was understating the case massively and Blair knew their blood relationship hadn’t stopped Jim from mentally placing Andrew on his Murderer Presumptive suspects list, just as he hadn’t flinched from considering Stephen Ellison the prime suspect in Ben Prince’s murder. However, Andrew’s response was exactly the same as that of Julia Bettencourt, Zinnia X, and Rick Valenti. Complete bafflement followed by sheepishly confessing thoughts of wondering why anyone would bother murdering the man. “James, at the risk of sounding mercenary, I have a far greater interest in seeing you catch Fincham’s killer than just being a concerned citizen - ” “You mean all these mysterious and very spiteful rumours that have been blowing up out of nowhere over the last few months?” Blair asked, flicking a glance at Jim which told the Sentinel Blair’s empathic ‘scan’ of Andrew had revealed no guilty emotions indicating he was the Murderer Presumptive or an accomplice. “Exactly.” Andrew took a gulp rather than a sip of his wine cooler and heaved a sigh. “I’ll be honest, when St. Mary Vale started out about twelve years ago it was just another country club for America’s elite super-rich with a couple of mansions dotted about, but by the time the town itself was built eight years ago, things had changed somewhat. I can’t really put it into words, but spend any amount of time around here in the Lorelei and you tend to start thinking deeply about where your life is heading and the validity of the choices you’ve made. It’s true we Valers have always been rather condescending in our view of the Witt’s Enders as endearingly quaint, but I swear there was never any real malice in it. Besides, we became like them, not the other way round. Spend a while here and your inner terminally cynical, hard-nosed capitalist becomes a lot mellower.” “Until the whispers started up,” Jim said, nodding. “Yes, and as you’ve probably guessed, both St. Mary vale and Witt’s End are hopelessly unprepared to deal with this level of sophisticated negative manipulation,” Andrew explained grimly. “You can find out easily enough so I’ll tell you, I’m the only Mayor that St. Mary Vale has ever had in the eight years the town proper has been here, and my role is ninety percent purely ceremonial for the simple reason that up until now. St. Mary Vale never needed a Mayor or town counsellors in the traditional way. The citizens of this burg can buy small countries out of their pocket change for God’s sake, like they’re going to be dictated to? Likewise Witt’s End has only ever had three Mayors including the current one since old Nathaniel de Witt and his hippie friends founded the place in the Sixties. For a Mayor of either place to be experienced in doublespeak, spin, duplicitous behaviour and politicking would have been massive overkill - until now,” he finished bitterly. “You’ve no leads on the source?” Jim asked his cousin. “I was caught unawares like everyone else,” Andrew admitted. “James, tell anyone in our family this and I will have to kill you, but just like I’ve never been into the business world like mother’s side of the family, to be honest, I’ve never really hankered to dive into politics like the rest of father’s side of the family. All that intrigue just gives me a headache. Fortunately I’m the youngest and all the older sibs loved either trying to become another Ellison clan CEO or going to Washington D.C. and plunging into all that murky double-dealing, so the pressure’s off me - ” “However, being Mayor of St. Mary Vale with its pool of enormously wealthy and influential voters allows you to give your family the impression you’re making politics just as much your career as your siblings while in actuality allowing you the freedom to do what you want with your life because the position is just that of a figurehead,” Blair put in at this point. Andrew gave him a startled look and Jim bit back a grin, knowing his upper- class cousin had made some typical and erroneous judgements about Blair by dint of his long hair, earrings and eccentric dress sense. “That’s it in a nutshell. I provide a few sound bytes to the radio and photo opportunities to the local press when necessary and that’s all she wrote, folks. What my family fondly imagines is my ‘hobby’ is actually my career. I’m an ornithologist. I write under the name of A.G.E. Winters.” Blair straightened. “The Dr Winters? I was at a World Wildlife Fund eco-system conference a few years back and Dr Winters presented a paper on how common urban bird species like sparrows were far more accurate barometers of global pollution than some computer measuring the hole in the ozone layer. It was an extraordinary paper, generated a lot of controversy!” Andrew was beaming and nodding eagerly. “I came across the initial idea on a vacation to England. Their urban garden sparrow population had plummeted something like sixty percent in thirty years due a mystery virus and the Brit scientists were quietly panicking like crazy because whenever long-term, well- established species’ population suddenly goes into freefall, it’s usually a warning flag of something way nastier -” “- And hey presto!” Blair was also nodding eagerly, “next thing we’ve got half of Asia in a panic over SARS, which turns out to be a mutation of a previously harmless virus found in domestic chickens, like with apes and AIDS.” “Ahem.” Jim cleared his throat noisily as he realised they were gearing up for an afternoon session of scientific theorising. “Sorry, Jim,” Blair said meekly. Andrew looked sheepish and brought it back on track. “Anyway, not being a ‘real’ Mayor and never believing St. Mary Vale would need one, I never ‘kept my finger on the pulse of the electorate’ as it were in order ensure re-election. I’ve been re-elected twice after standing unopposed.” Andrew frowned. “The first rumour was startling only because of its spitefulness, not because anyone believed for a second it was true. But eventually things began appearing in the local papers and details were revealed that only local people knew, which meant this mystery slanderer, libeller I suppose once things started getting into print, had to be local, not the disgruntled tourist everyone had taken comfort in assuming it was.” Andrew looked at them both, his tone harsh, “There’s a very real danger of both St. Mary Vale and Witt’s End being destroyed by this and I’m not talking about the literal buildings.” “Sheriff Valenti said it was like trying to plait fog,” Blair conceded ruefully. “I’ll say,” Andrew agreed dourly. “I’ll admit I was more than surprised when Lily and Kyle Valenti arrived with her hubby in tow and declared he was a retired SEAL and they were here to stay. I would have bet mother’s Tiffany diamonds that he would have been climbing the walls within three days, but the man’s been a godsend. Old Fred Randisi was our sole Sheriff from 1971 and by the time he died three months before the Valentis moved here he was the size of a sumo wrestler and moved slower than tectonic plates,” Andrew told them. “He would have been completely out of his depth. Valenti’s kept a tight grip on the aggravation stirred up by these rumours so far, but there’s only so much damage control even a SEAL can do. The Valenti boy’s a sensible kid - far more mature than most at his age, but he is still a teenager, and of course when rumours started about Lily’s death…” “We heard there was a fight down at the school?” Blair commented encouragingly. Andrew nodded unhappily. “My eldest, Lorna, started there last Fall. She witnessed the fight.” Andrew leaned forward. “At the risk of sounding like I’m running for Governor, the most important people in Witt’s End and St. Mary Vale are our youth; the tourists are all well and good but we need the next generation to come up behind us and take up the reins. Vale End High School is small and it’s funded solely through the local community, but I’d bet on it against some of the Ivy League prep schools any day. Up until these damn rumours started up there has never been any trouble between the kids. The students used to mingle quite freely, nobody noticed and nobody bothered that some of a group of friends were rich kids from St. Mary Vale with Wall Street dads and Congresswoman moms and others were Witt’s End kids with an artist dad in a garret and a waitress mom.” “But now they’re polarising, withdrawing into enemy camps,” Jim said softly in deference to Andrew’s obvious distress; while being Mayor of St. Mary Vale was a ceremonial sophistry, it was nevertheless clear that his cousin cared deeply about this community. “Exactly; the Witt’s End kids are hearing all these rumours about the Valers plotting to destroy their home to build super-malls, and the Valers are hearing all these rumours that the Witt’s End lot are trying to drive out the Valers and snag St Mary Vale for themselves. That fight Kyle had was sorted out pretty quickly because once everyone calmed down it was so easy to see how ridiculous it all was: Rick Valenti murdered his wife because he was having an affair with the school Principal Janet Myers? It’d be easier to believe in the Roswell Greys. Rick Valenti adored his wife; he was beyond devastated when she died.” Blair eyed Andrew perceptively. “But you’re worried because you know that sooner or later our local unfriendly slanderer is going to start instigating rumours that are just a bit too plausible, that will make people look at each other uneasily and say, ‘Well, it is possible.’” “That’s just what I’m afraid of, Dr Sandburg,” Andrew confessed harshly, “and I have no idea how to stop it.” “That’s what we’re here for,” Jim interposed staunchly. “We’ll fix it, Andrew.” Beside him, Blair nodded agreed and murmured his own reassurances. Finishing their drinks, they left Andrew in the café after he insisted on picking up the tab and began the walk back to the main link road between the two towns. Once St. Mary Vale proper was behind them, Jim paused, “Which way to the temple, Chief?” Blair shook his head. “No. Look, okay I’m sticking my head in the sand. I don’t want to go there; I don’t want to deal…Can we leave it for tomorrow, please?” Like Jim Ellison could ever refuse his best friend anything when Sandburg got that haunted, fraught look in his eyes. “Sure, so it’s the installation.” Blair pulled a face but obediently followed Jim into the woods in the direction of Fincham’s cabin. This was a busman’s holiday that was supposed to take a week, no more. Neither man would dream of missing Simon and Leonie's wedding, nor would Cascade criminals have taken a vacation in their absence. However, it seemed to Blair that they were continually dredging up more puzzles and/or problems and no answers - or progress. It was with little surprise that the normally soothing calm of the quiet woods had no effect on Blair as he and Jim made their way through the graceful trees, the young man for once oblivious to the background whisper of leaves and occasional trill of birdsong. The dream he’d had was a pretty heavy ‘get your butt in gear’ instruction that he needed to crank up his development into the ‘Shaman of the Great City’ that Incacha had foisted on him with his dying breath. Blair admitted to himself as he kept a weather eye on Jim that he was scared to death. Not so much of becoming a shaman, because from infancy he’d been in close enough contact to understand their role in the tribe and how they functioned, but of losing himself completely. Up until meeting James Joseph Ellison, Blair had been just an average (if a somewhat klutzy) anthropology lecturer who kept reasonably normal hours like his fellow TAs, with a wide and varied circle of friends. The creation of the telepathic and empathic bond that now existed between himself and his Sentinel had been like being tossed into a bath of ice water. In the days immediately following its sudden creation in the wake of Philip Wilham’s attempts to lure him to South America, Blair had mentally been running around inside his head whimpering in panic; a panic he had had to keep from Jim since Blair could have easily seen without any telepathy just how afraid Jim was that Blair was going to resent and reject the bond, and thus by definition, Jim. Dean Edwards’ spiteful letter rejecting him from that post at Rainier had enabled him to obtain much more fulfilling work at Cascade Community College, true, but her reiteration of just how many times Blair had had to get fellow TAs to cover his classes, been unable to work due to being hospitalised, or cut back on university hours to be at Cascade Central Precinct had been irrefutable. Blair’s acquaintances and girlfriends had begun to drift away after he’d cancelled one lunch-date too many or left halfway through the movie/play’s second act yet again or never actually got there at all; his closer friends doing likewise as he was never around, or else coming to his Artefact Storage Room and severing their connection in often harshly worded outraged diatribes that he’d joined the right-wing enemy in violation of his liberal principles. While he counted the Major Crime gang amongst his closest friends now, the truth was they’d been Jim’s friends first and indeed people he would never have interacted with had James Ellison not been a Sentinel. Blair’s guilty thoughts only increased as he saw the way Jim smiled slightly as the Sentinel dialled up his sense of touch to feel the light breeze on his face, because Blair knew perfectly well that his work with Jim wasn’t in any way, shape or form futile or a waste of his energy and efforts. Alexandra Barnes, now comatose in a Cascade mental institution, was a constant, living illustration in horrific detail of what would have happened to James Ellison without his Guide, if like her Jim had been without anyone to help him control and understand his condition - assuming that Jim hadn’t just gone back to the loft one day and decided to ‘eat his gun’, the harsh cop euphemism for suicide by shooting yourself to death with your own gun. I saved Jim from insanity, and even worse, Blair conceded inside his head, but at the moment it wasn’t enough to disintegrate the stubborn cloud of resentment building in his brain like a storm thunderhead. After he’d woken startled from that dream, Blair had looked back over the past few years and all he had been able to see was how ‘Blair Sandburg’ had been eroded, sublimated and suppressed by the ever-expanding Sentinel universe. All voluntary work for good causes and charity work had gone first, then his teaching of everything other than Anthropology, then at Cascade Community College even that had had to become a part-time role once Joel had discovered their Police Volunteer 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card. If he hadn’t started dating Megan Connor once he’d moved into the apartment below Jim’s, his love life would be DOA and she was someone he had met though work with Jim. Likewise if he didn’t hang out with the MCU members, his general social life would likewise be RIP, for he had little time to interact with his colleagues at CCC except for casual conversations in the staff room between classes. If I obey the dream and try to take up the shaman role, I’ll lose CCC as well, Blair acknowledged resentfully. There’s no way I’d have time to lecture and do this as well. How much of myself am I expected to lose anyway? Why do I have to give up something else I love? There’s already barely nothing of Blair Sandburg the person left, just the Sentinel’s lackey, he brooded silently. “Chief? You okay?” Jim slowed down in case Blair was finding it hard going despite the relatively even terrain, unease prickling along his nerve endings as he saw the unaccustomed coldness in Sandburg’s eyes and the almost angry expression on his face. His friend looked royally pissed off about something. “Fine.” Blair couldn’t prevent himself from answering more curtly that he intended and found himself wincing at the worried widening of Jim’s eyes. He plonked himself down on a flat tree stump in the little clearing they’d reached heedless of nettles, only too aware that if he tried to articulate the ambivalence he was still feeling over his and Jim’s most recent level of bond with each other, Jim’s old fear-based responses would make him leap to the conclusion, unfortunately quite correct, that Blair was in some ways resentful over what happened. But the truth was that Blair did feel that Jim had, however unintentionally, hijacked yet more of his life. “What if someone from this military installation did murder Fincham?” he challenged Jim snippily. “Do you know how psychologically unhealthy a mindset you need to have to be a good secret agent? The ideal ‘spook’ has sociopathic tendencies, an inability to make moral judgements, paranoia, no ethics, and an entire spectrum of more-than-borderline anti-social personality disorders.” Warming to his theme, Blair declared with gloomy relish, “I bet the whole lot of them down there are Lee Brackett clones.” “Not quite, Dr Sandburg.” Despite having not been actively empathically scanning, Blair didn’t jump at the voice emanating from the man who had appeared genie-like on the opposite side of the clearing. He’d seen Jim automatically shift his stance and his attention slightly a good minute-and-a-half before the man materialised, though the fact that was all the warning Jim had was silent testimony to how good he was. What did put Blair on alert was the way Jim’s eyes suddenly went from warm bluebell to pale ice and he didn’t need his friend’s mental growl of to clue him in, having witnessed the reaction very recently when they’d met Julia Bettencourt. Reaching out empathically Blair felt the newcomer’s inner flicker of uncertainty as the man experienced a momentary (and to him bewildering) ‘goose bumps’ effect, that frisson that was the warning sign of two Sentinels in proximity to each other. Aware of his still relative inexperience at empathic scanning, Blair nevertheless tried to go a little deeper. He realised that the man was also an Alpha Sentinel. However, his enhanced senses had been dormant from birth, though Blair could never have described the differences between the newcomer and Jim that led himself to recognise this in any meaningful way. The closest he could get to it was that the new guy’s mind ‘tasted a different colour’. Jim had his I’m-pissed-so-don’t jerk-me-around- face on, his body subtly swelling so he was looming in a way that quite clearly showed he was ready to take someone’s head off, or cut them off at the knees, or both. However, he was calm and not agitated. Despite his current brooding over how he was getting sucked ever deeper into the ‘Sentinel-verse’ Blair could no more stop his innate and insatiable curiosity firing up than he could stop needing air. He believed Jim’s extreme reaction to Alex Barnes had been an anomaly; logically in ancient times when two or more Sentinels had met up in the same place, they couldn’t have kept going off at the deep end like that each time. However, since Alex had killed him, Blair hadn’t had much enthusiasm to test his hypothesis and anyone like Julia with less than five enhanced senses wasn’t a threat to Jim-the-Sentinel so they were ignored once they’d been catalogued. This guy had never been online and was unlikely ever to become so since he was clearly comparable to Jim in age, and was still inferior to Jim in the Sentinel arena. Having a seven year head start in control, experience and utilisation gave Jim an insurmountable lead. As Blair eyed the tall, athletic interloper so deceptively attired as an investment banker to the point you had to look twice to spot the under-arm gun bulge, his thirst for knowledge had him calculating how many dormant Sentinels there were. Jim being online from birth wasn’t that unusual; Blair’s Sentinel research had shown that both Sentinels and empaths tended to fall into either the ‘born online’ group or ‘online at puberty’ group although there were still plenty of adult Sentinels coming online after a period of isolation and empaths after some emotional trauma. As he watched Jim and Mr X silently vying for dominance by waiting and trying to provoke the other into speaking first, Blair took a look at Jim’s smart casual pants, button-down shirt and smart thigh-length jacket and then Mr X’s full double-breasted charcoal suit complete with waistcoat, ivory shirt, perfectly knotted tie and matching gold tiepin-and-cufflinks. Making one of his intuitive leaps, Blair grasped that modern day Sentinels not born online had statistically a much lower probability of ever being in a situation where they would be activated, particularly in the ‘civilised’ Western Hemisphere. Jim himself had functioned quite adequately without the senses from the murder of his mentor Bud Haidasch when he was barely eleven to his helicopter crash in Peru as an Army Ranger and then again for five years from his return from South America to the Switchman case in Cascade. In ancient cultures, with the much lower level of social stability resulting in a much greater likelihood of war, famine, illness or separation from the protecting family/community there would have been plenty of volatile events resulting in the triggering of dormant heightened senses or empathy. As Blair had known he would, Mr X caved first - when in the mood, Jim Ellison could outwait the movement of mountain ranges if he had to. “We eliminated our people within twenty-four hours of Edgar Fincham being ‘killed’.” Though he didn’t move his fingers, Blair could hear the quotation marks Mr X placed around the last word and had no doubt the installation’s personnel were aware that Fincham hadn’t technically been murdered. “And we’re going to have to just accept your, ah, facility’s assurances on that,” Blair put in, “Mister -” “Saxon Ware,” he paused a beat, “National Security Agency. Yes, I’m afraid so.” He concluded with no hint of apology in his tone. “Already thought so,” Jim said slowly, folding his arms. “Of course, you could be the Murderer Presumptive. Can you tell me what percentage of your personnel had solid alibis for the time?” “Ninety percent, including myself,” Ware answered, “though again you’ll -” “Have to take your word for it. Right. Got it.” Blair snorted. Ware gave him an assessing look and then asked silkily, “Do you think I did it, Dr Sandburg?” “No. What I think is that I don’t like how calm you are about the situation,” Blair admitted with a sudden doleful exasperation. For the first time his suave control thrown by this verbal detour, Ware blinked rapidly in the face of Jim’s clearly heard mutter of, “Welcome to the Sandburg Zone,” and instead asked, “You’d rather I was defensive? Or an objectionable hard ass trying to impede your investigation with bellows of National Security every thirty seconds? Doesn’t my being calm show that I have nothing to hide or feel guilty about?” “Yes it does, under normal circumstances,” Blair shot back. “However, I minored in Psychology and your serene unconcern is also one of the markers of a psychopathic anti-social personality disorder. Sociopaths remain emotionally unmoved by the suffering of others.” He paused, “As to what you have to feel guilty about, probably a great deal.” For the first time, fire replaced the slightly condescending amusement of the man ‘handling’ a mere detective and his hippie-reject associate. Satisfied that he given Ware a sharp lesson in exactly who was in command of whom, Blair subsided. Jim smirked and commented casually, “You need to stand up, Chief.” Blair promptly obeyed, instinctively looking down for the poisonous spider or biting ants that Jim had spotted crawling up the stump, but instead the whole thing began to shiver violently and rise up from the forest floor, being tilted back to show that it was really the hatch cover of a vertical shaft. A tall, moustached and lugubrious individual climbed out of it with a sheaf of paper in his hand. Dressed in the same style as Saxon Ware, he had none of the unconscious self-confidence or authority in his bearing but his unremarkable, inconspicuous face made Blair silently bet with himself that he was likewise part of the ‘shadow government’. “Terry Richards,” the man introduced himself, passing over the sheaf of paper. It was a list of three columns. All the names had been blacked out from the left most column, but the middle column had times encompassing the murder period for Edgar Fincham and the last column a typed summary such as: ‘In Lab 6, Sublevel 3, VERIFICATION - Internal Security Cameras 32-34 and 6 eyewitnesses’ - whose names had also been blacked out. Holding the paper down so Blair could stand beside him and see it, Jim perused the list before nodding and handing it back to Richards. “Thanks.” Addressing Ware as well, he said, “I’ll be honest, none of the installation personnel are really on my list of suspects, but I had to check things out.” Ware nodded, clearly willing to throw Cascade PD a bone. “This installation was here before Witt’s End, never mind St. Mary Vale. Edgar Fincham was not and never has been any threat to anyone that we can determine. Why anyone should try to kill him is beyond our psychologists’ theories as well.” Ware admitted with a sidelong glance at Blair. “Does Rick Valenti know you’re here?” Jim asked. “He knows but he doesn’t Know -” “Officially,” supplied Jim. “His SEAL background means he knows how to do absolute discretion,” Ware commented. “He knows our personnel but never interferes.” “What’s your view on the nasty rumour-mongering of late?” Jim queried. Ware smiled “Do you mean did we instigate them? Emphatically no, and we’re as keen as everyone else that they be stopped as soon as possible. We actively want both communities to survive. They’ve been a godsend to our situation here.” “Of course,” Blair said. “They provide your people with total freedom of movement. Every day many vacationers walk up the road into St. Mary Vale or down into Witt’s End and nobody notices when some of these tourists simply walk into the woods and disappear. You’ve got a full range of top-class, vetted R&R facilities in an environment you can control virtually on hand and you can let your people loose en masse when living like moles in an underground submarine with recycled air and MREs starts to make them twitch. Witt’s End’s and St. Mary Vale allow you to remain completely invisible in plain sight.” “Precisely,” Ware agreed to Blair’s analysis with something like respect in his eyes. “Have you ever considered a career with the government, Dr Sandburg?” “No fear!” Blair shuddered dramatically and jerked a thumb at Jim who had instinctively scowled at Ware’s offer. Down Sentinel. “Seven years of keeping one anal retentive spec-warrior in line is quite enough, thank you very much. It’s taken me years of re-training to get him passable. I’m not looking to make it a career.” “I am not anal retentive.” Jim scowled at his Guide. “How much do you want to bet that of the four people standing here, you are the only one who stocks his kitchen cupboards alphabetically?” Jim cranked up the scowl to a full glare. “See? And I won’t even start on colour-coding the leftovers,” Blair added. “Look, Jim and I don’t really see any of your people as the Murderer Presumptive or the Witt’s End Slanderer. Both would be too much like shooting the golden goose and while I’ll confidently accuse you of being amoral and possibly downright psychopathic, none of you got to be a human mole by being stupid.” “Thanks,” Ware retorted acerbically. “Any time,” Jim, not really angry, tossed back with a smirk. “We’ll try to keep you in the loop if we can do so without betraying your position. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if your people would keep a low profile; we’re already dealing with the fact that half of Witt’s End aren’t what they seem to be.” Both Ware and Richards agreed to this request, though neither Jim nor Blair were under any illusions that Ware’s people wouldn’t be monitoring their activities. They walked away, aware of Ware watching them intently. Once very safely out of line of sight and earshot, Blair vented a soft curse. “What’s wrong? You don’t really believe that Saxon Ware or one of his people is the MP?” Jim enquired curiously. “No. It’s the fact that he’s a Sentinel.” Blair sighed gloomily. “You don’t think I could deal with him?” Somehow Jim managed to sound threatening and protective at the same time. Blair reached out and patted Jim’s upper arm. “You could wipe the floor with him. What worries me is if he starts to come online.” “How likely is that?” Jim asked seriously. “Not very, but…” Blair shrugged. “Look, something tells me that Saxon Ware is very good at what he does: ipso facto ruthless and the wrong side of amoral. The man probably breathes ‘plausible deniability’ and ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’, but he’s not stupid.” “I’ve no doubt that quite a lot of people in certain circles strongly suspect how ‘unusual’ I am, Blair,” Jim said quietly. “I know there is a possibility that one day I’ll go to bed and wake up in a secret government lab or get grabbed by some Lee Brackett type.” Blair nodded; sometimes that possibility haunted him too. “My point is that Saxon Ware doubtless had your file memorised before Simon had sent us out of the door of his office to come here. Like I told you once, there are just too many bits of evidence floating around out there like scattered jigsaw pieces that prove you are exactly what Burton claims you are - a Sentinel. Daryl Banks figured it out in under an hour at Rainier University library, so if Ware’s senses begin to activate it’s going to take him and his spooky friends all of five minutes to remember James Ellison’s similar symptoms and five minutes after that they’ll have the answer to life, the universe and everything in front of them.” Since he was only empathically linked to Blair, lacking his Guide’s universal empathy, Jim had never tried to ‘scan’ Blair, letting the younger man initiate such contact. Now he tentatively probed and realised, “You’re afraid that Ware will come after you.” “If he comes online, he’ll be an Alpha Sentinel like you are and Alex Barnes was. An Alpha Sentinel needs a Guide because while he or she’s got more power than a Beta Sentinel; the trade-off is they suffer from zone outs, whereas lesser Sentinels don’t.” Blair looked at Jim. “Alex Barnes was an object lesson in what lack of a Guide or loss of one does to an Alpha Sentinel. She managed to kill me, and she had nowhere near the abilities or resources of Saxon Ware.” There are times when reassurance needs to be just a little bit more. Reaching out, Jim pulled Blair into a loose hug, the younger man not putting his arms around him but nevertheless leaning into the support of his torso. Since the wake-up call of Blair’s murder at Barnes’ hand, Jim knew he and Blair had progressed to an extraordinary degree in their Sentinel-Guide bond, but Blair still had occasional nightmares, as did Jim. A long time after the horror at Rainier’s Hargrove Hall fountain, Blair had managed to regain some scientific detachment with his ‘predestined Guide’ theory, such as a man who hated cold choosing to remain in Cascade as a Teaching Fellow despite being offered positions in warmer climes and hey, Presto! meeting his Sentinel. Barnes had come online during solitary confinement in prison as an adult, and Blair had believed that her psychosis stemmed, at least in part, from the fact that her real Guide was either dead or incapable for some reason. Jim had never admitted it, but he had a suspicion that without Blair’s arrival in his life, and assuming he’d not committed suicide, he would have ended up like Barnes not just in terms of insanity but also in criminality, hunted down and shot by his former friends in MCU. As his mental state deteriorated, his special forces training and the de facto murders he’d committed during covert ops would have combined with his survival instincts to suppress his conscience and moral compass and created a rampaging crime-spree monster. What someone with Saxon Ware’s training and present career path would turn into as a mentally unstable Sentinel heading inexorably for insanity didn’t bear thinking about, especially as it wouldn’t take long for Ware and other extremely smart people in the shadow world to figure out that perfectly sane, rationally functioning Sentinel James Joseph Ellison had a Guide, whereas as catatonic, drooling psycho Alexandra Barnes a.k.a. Alicia Bannister did not. Once they’d firstly read up on the fact that stone-cold killer Lee Brackett not only let Sandburg live but named him Ellison’s Guide and insisted he accompany Ellison to steal the fighter prototype, and followed that up with Alexandra Barnes’ case reports and found that said psycho’s mission priority had been the kidnap of Blair Sandburg, things would really get interesting. “Don’t I just feel special,” Blair mumbled aloud into his shirt and with a start Jim realised that due to their bond Blair had been following his reasoning of the last few minutes. “Let’s not go borrowing trouble,” Jim said finally. “Like you said, at Ware’s age it’s highly unlikely he’ll come online, except barring very improbable circumstances.” “Yeah.” Blair nodded as they began to walk back into Witt’s End. “It’s just…I knew this Englishwoman once, a genealogist, she’d done tonnes of family history research. She said it was great, but one of the few downsides was that she knew all the genetic time bombs in her future. She was twenty-five and knew that arthritis, fibromyalgia and diabetes were all lurking waiting to pounce in her thirties, forties and fifties.” “Not quite there, Chief?” Jim admitted. “I’m in the same position: I know what brickbats are heading my way. I’ve done the research and I am the world’s foremost expert on Sentinels. Did you ever study the Twin Heroes idea at college?” “Briefly.” Jim frowned as he struggled to remember. “In a lot of ancient mythologies there were two heroes, not one? One would be the beefy kick-ass killer and the other would be the spiritual, wise counsellor?” Blair nodded. “When Judaism, Christianity and Islamic faiths began to spread, the spiritual hero fell out of favour due to being usually strongly connected with pagan deities, and it became the Hero and Sidekick, like Holmes & Watson or Raffles & Bunny Manders. Thing is, all myths have truth as their foundation, embellished and exaggerated as they might become later. They have a solid basis in factual events. Things like the biblical great flood weren’t just dreamed up. It’s probable that in some form, a species of bird resembling the phoenix like my tattoo really did exist, and possibly dragons too; remember, a dragon is a giant reptile, and stories about them existed millennia before the first fossils of dinosaurs - giant reptiles, natch - were found. I think that the pre-Christian standard Twin Hero mythology grew out of people observing real Twin Heroes -” “A Sentinel and his or her Guide.” Jim understood. “Yes, I have a long list actually, of historical personages that I believe were unrecognised Sentinel and Guide pairs.” Blair drew in a breath [before continuing], “but my point is that in every case - in every single ballad, legend, story, song, poem and ditty - the death or loss of the Guide had a devastating effect on the Sentinel, and vice versa. I should have recognised that fact the instant Alex Barnes turned up as an Alpha Sentinel sans Guide. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on even tangentially pertaining to Sentinels and Guides from every corner of the world and every single time removal of one of the pair, either the Sentinel or the Guide, resulted in mayhem and usually a bloodbath. Haldur and Baldur, Romulus and Remus, Arthur and Merlin, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroclus, I could go on.” “You’re preaching to the choir, Chief,” Jim pointed out. “Look what happened to my grandfather’s family when his brother’s Guide died of meningitis.” By this time they’d reached the outskirts of Witt’s End proper and it was late afternoon. They decided to try out the town’s main restaurant, and because it was only a little after five o’clock got a prime table on the upper level balcony with a magnificent view across the lake to the Cascades. Jim risked ordering the locally brewed Witty Beer and exchanged a here-goes glance with Blair when the smiling waitress delivered them in two tall glasses with condensation trickling down the outside. A pale gold colour, the beer was chilled, crisp and refreshingly tart. Most importantly, Jim’s taste buds gave him the happy news that the ingredients consisted solely of barley malt, hops, yeast and water, though it had been stored in an oak cask. No chemicals, pesticides, preservatives, taste enhancers et cetera need apply. Despite the fraught scene that just occurred in the woods, Jim couldn’t prevent a smile as he took another sip of his beer, watching Blair lean back and do the same with evident enjoyment, while he dialled up his sense of smell slightly to get the full aroma of the climbing roses, honeysuckle and sweet pea that the restaurateur had planted around the balcony’s trellises. While a large part of his inner Sentinel was growling at the mere thought of Saxon Ware having the temerity to even look at his Guide that Sentinel could also understand and feel a measure of pity for the Barnes woman. Just a few short years ago instead of sitting out on this deck savouring a cold beer and enjoying the sweet floral scent, these same flowers would have had Jim sneezing and choking for air as his whacked-out senses overloaded on the overpowering combination of aromas. The restaurant was getting a steady trickle of customers, but Jim estimated it would be a sardine tin by six-thirty at the latest. He grinned happily to himself as his ears caught the sound of hob burners being lit and a little more dialling up of his nose caught the smell of slow roasting meat and vegetables. He would bet that ‘microwave’ and ‘ready frozen’ were obscenities around here. Blair raised an eyebrow questioningly. “What’s put that smirk on your face?” “I can smell dinner,” Jim sighed. “And it’s red meat, no doubt,” Blair chastised without heat. “All the way, Chief.” Jim turned his attention to more important things. “How about this - first thing tomorrow morning we go see Bert Martin about that wax sample, then we go to your - place - in the woods.” Blair shrugged without enthusiasm. “Sure, works for me.” Jim rolled his eyes. Jim put the question as bluntly as he dared to hopefully 'ixnay' the standard Sandburg obfuscation. Blair sighed aloud as well as telepathically, Blair sighed again, Jim protested with a hint of disappointment in his tone. Before Jim could respond to Blair’s mentally strident tone, the waitress was back, unaware they were intensely conversing. “Can I get your order?” Jim and Blair both nodded. It was nearly six now and from the swell of new customers any great delay in ordering could mean a half-hour wait or more for their dinner. Jim grinned. “I’ll take the Buffalo steak with sauce Béarnaise, fried potatoes and salad; cooked medium rare, please, oh and a side order of cheese-covered garlic bread.” Blair raised his eyes heavenward at this cholesterol extravaganza, but then smiled as he ordered, “I’ll have the capon with four cheese sauce, and Italian fried potatoes, salad and a side order of plain garlic bread.” “Plus another couple of Witty Beers, please,” Jim tagged on. She left and Blair drained the last of his glass. “I’m going to visit the Little Anthropologists’ Room and then make a quick call to the loft to see how Ellie McKinley’s getting on with Dastardly and Muttley.” “Say hi for me,” Jim requested with a grin; he couldn’t blame Daryl for fleeing to D.C. and Ellie McKinley for hiding in the loft when he and Blair had come to Witt’s End in secret delight at having escaped the deadly duo of Simon Banks and Leonie McKinley, increasingly a tetchy twosome as their double wedding with Rhonda Delagardie and Henry Brown approached. That thought brought with it an unpleasant reminder of Detective Bryn Rafe’s apparent dislike of his partner Henri’s wedding to a white woman, something that Jim Ellison had every intention of confronting when he and Blair returned. Automatically he tracked Blair as the younger man left the men’s toilet and headed over to the payphones discreetly tucked in the restaurant lobby, dialling up his hearing so he could get both sides of the conversation. Simon’s soon-to-be-stepdaughter Ellie McKinley picked up the phone in the loft with a cheerful greeting, the pleasure in her voice increasing when she heard Blair. While mature enough not to have a crush on the anthropologist, Ellie was quite happy to let her hormones salute him; he was someone nice and safe to go ‘Phwoar!’ over without worrying that he would make spiteful fun of her, or sleazily try to take advantage of her attraction. In the background he could hear Dastardly mewing as if trying to talk to Sandburg down the phone, while Muttley barked happily at the sound of one of his masters’ voices. Jim winced to himself in wry resignation as he heard the barking. Though still a puppy, Muttley’s ecstatic woofs already had a bass resonance that indicated he would grow large. Considering he was a mongrel of virtually indeterminate parentage (the vet had claimed only “‘Centuries of indiscriminately unbridled crossbreeding’” could account for him), Jim was braced for something the size of the Puget Sound ferry - The scream of the enraged panther caused his fingers to spasm around his beer glass which fortunately had only an inch to fall to the table, even as the howl of a wolf joined the predatory feline’s shriek. Automatically Jim’s senses shot to full stretch as he attempted to determine the threat, even as he mentally called out, Absently monitoring Blair’s rapid but masterful ending of the call so Ellie had no idea anything was wrong, Jim snarled softly in frustration. It was yet another fine evening and the lakeside waterfront abounded with people of all shapes and sizes, locals and vacationers. Nobody stood out from anyone else. There were a couple of people strolling along the lake that were probably Saxon Ware’s people. Over at the bar there was that tall, stocky brunette teenager who looked vaguely familiar for some reason conversing with a couple of friends. He could just see Tad Bettencourt heading home for dinner in the distance; but nothing threatening, alarming, unusual and/or out of place… Blair’s eyes became slightly unfocussed as he empathically reached out to the people around them. A slight frown dinted his forehead, then he blinked and looked at Jim. Blair promised, Deliberately he drawled, Jim growled as his disrespectful Guide ‘sent’ a mental image of a cartoon baby with drool all over its chin. Reluctantly he reduced his sensory input, but whatever enemy was out there had clearly left the vicinity. Was it the Murderer Presumptive or the Witt’s End Slanderer? Were they one and the same person or two separate perps? Jim put aside such ruminations as the waitress bore down on them with two plates of aromatic delight. Jim’s steak was as thick as a tax manual and to his delight practically collapsed when he stuck a fork in it. Plucking a piece of garlic bread from the platter with cheese still bubbling on it, he bit deep and munched happily. Blair grinned in response even as he inhaled the aromas from his own dinner. Jim tilted his head on one side as he looked at Blair’s meal, his senses making sure nothing harmful was present. “What is that, Chief? It’s not chicken.” “Actually it is, but it’s boy chicken.” “‘Boy chicken’?” repeated Jim. Slicing a chunk off the white meat with his knife and spearing it on his fork, Blair popped it into his mouth and sighed blissfully at the tender flesh smothered in real cheese, before explaining to his friend, “It’s a classic case of the usefulness of semantics, the art of verbally splitting hairs. Ancient Rome was packed with chickens. Literally wall to wall with cackling hens, which was fortunate because the Romans couldn’t get enough of chicken, or eggs for that matter. Eventually, however, the Roman Senate found itself with a major problem on its hands.” “I can’t see poultry being that dangerous, Chief?” Jim admitted around a mouthful of buffalo. Likewise pausing to ingest more yummy food, Blair explained, “The problem was that live hens in quantity are noisy and messy and smelly. Hen poop everywhere. Plus, the hens outnumbered Rome’s rat population but only just because of course our least favourite plague carriers had the life of riley amidst all that birdshit with an easy and endless supply of eggs and defenceless baby chicks to snack on, and that was on top of the fact that Rome had already laid out the welcome mat to vermin by burying their dead in bushel-loads in easily- gnawed wooden coffins in the catacombs directly under the city. Every heat wave the stench alone was unbearable, plus the Senate began to worry that at the rate the Romans ate them, poultry would become extinct, enraging the populace. So, the Senate banned hens throughout the entirety of Rome.” “And the capon comes in how?” “Semantics,” Blair chortled. “Have you ever heard of a series of children’s books by a guy called Buckeridge about a boy called -” “Jennings.” Jim grinned fondly. “I loved those when I was a kid.” Blair nodded. “In one of the stories, I forget which, an irate teacher orders Jennings, “‘Go and stick your head under a cold tap!’” When Jennings returns some minutes later, the teacher demands to know why his hair isn’t wet, and Jennings points out that the teacher never told him to turn the tap on. The wily Roman public applied the same rigorous definition to the Senate ruling. The Senate had not banned chickens in Rome, they had banned hens, and since hens were female chickens only, the ban didn’t apply to roosters.” “Very cunning.” “Wasn’t it? But then Roman gourmands realised they had to do something extra to get the scrawny rooster to pass culinary muster, so they experimented. After a while they hit on the winning formula - geld the rooster, keep it somewhere that is as quiet and dimly lit as possible, and fatten it with a diet of milk, cream and flour combined with minimum exercise.” “And the meat is called capon.” Jim nodded. “Exactly,” Blair swiped a piece of cheesy garlic bread. “The irony is that a capon is superior - more meat, more tender and much plumper than the hen. Most of the flesh is white meat and more juicy than the hen.” “See,” drawled a familiar voice nearby. “This is why you need college, to learn interesting stuff like this.” Blair and Jim looked up to see Sheriff Valenti beside their table, smiling, the vaguely-familiar stocky teenager from the bar standing next to him. Up close the teenager proved to be a sherry-brown brunette and to possess a very bright pair of hazel green-brown eyes; in a woman, Blair would have termed such eyes ‘lustrous’ and both now knew what Lillian Valenti had looked like when alive. Only in the more pronounced masculine shape of his jaw and around his nose did Kyle Valenti faintly resemble his father, even his broad, typical teenager- exasperated-with-parent grin did not look like Valenti’s smile. “Are you due to start college?” Blair asked Kyle as Jim invited Rick to sit, so father and son purloined a couple of stools and hutched in close to the table, declining the offer of drinks. “Next Fall, if I decide to go there instead of the Naval Academy.” Kyle wrinkled his nose at his father in a display of affection that was heart-warming for its unconscious spontaneity and lack of concern about the public place. “I’m concentrating on Senior Prom at the moment - assuming it ever happens at all.” Abruptly his mood darkened. “How serious do you think the situation is?” Blair asked, his opinion of the youth rising when instead of launching into a tirade, Kyle folded his arms across his chest and considered the question for a moment. “Bad, and getting worse.” Kyle didn’t need telling to keep his voice low; though he enunciated clearly, his voice somehow didn’t carry beyond the immediate area of their table. “When dad was in the SEALs, me and mom used come here for vacations all the while once we’d found Witt’s End.” He grinned in memory. “Mom couldn’t find her way out of paper sack, honestly. I’d’ve been about six or seven I guess, and I was ten when they started adding to the country club and building St. Mary Vale proper. The school was called Lorelei High then, they changed the name to Vale End when the rich Valers started sending their kids to it. We’d moved here by then, so I came to Vale End as a Sophomore.” “Was there any tension between the two sets of kids?” Blair asked immediately, desiring to divert attention away from the hovering memory of just why Lillian Valenti had brought her husband and son to live in Witt’s End. “Nah, that’s the thing.” Kyle leaned forward earnestly as he tried to explain, “See, thing is St. Mary Vale and Witt’s End is one of those things that shouldn’t work. You put it on paper and go ‘Nuh-uh’: fabulously wealthy, politically elite white folks with their manicured lawns and gated communities’ side-by-side with pot-smoking, artsy-craft-type let-me-cleanse-your aura hippies?” “But somehow it works,” Jim put in. “Yeah,” the boy shrugged. “My view is that they’re just close enough and just far enough apart, y’know? Opposites attract, and I think St. Mary Vale and Witt’s End have just enough in common to be able to relate, and are just enough different from each other that one side views the other as interesting rather than threatening.” “Until now,” Rick chimed in. “That fight you had -” “Was whack, man.” Kyle managed to indignantly hiss a sentence with only one ‘s’ in it. “I’m not saying we went around smiling at each other and showering each other with rose petals, but all these stories flying around, they’re…malevolent is the only word I can think of. That fight I had with Lance Ducharme...afterwards Lance was almost in tears. He was saying about how he’d been on edge all day; he kept getting creeped out by thinking someone was watching him and found himself getting way-over-the-top angry over nothing. It scared the shit out of me because that’s exactly how I’d been feeling all day myself, for no reason I was furious - by last bell I was wound tighter than a drum. We crossed paths, we were both on edge, we started trash talking, next thing I know we’re rolling in the dirt, but…” he shook his head, “the only way I can describe it is like I was watching myself; I was beyond enraged. It was like somebody had put an IV drip in my arm and was pumping homicidal mania directly into my bloodstream. I literally wanted to kill him. I mean really kill him as in really dead, but at the same time, I was horrified - I didn’t want to fight at all. It was bizarre.” “I take it things are even more tense now at school?” Jim enquired. “Oh yeah. We’re not leaders of the pack or anything, but I am considered to be pretty rational by our kids and the Valers view Ducharme as someone who’s got his head screwed on right. Like Nadine Schulitzen said, if the pair of us are fighting with each other, something seriously whack is going on. I go into school now and it’s like segregation must have been back in the Fifties. The Valer kids and the Witt’s End kids don’t mix anymore, anywhere - class, recess, lunch. We look at them and wonder if one of them is going to wig out and start blasting with daddy’s mother-of-pearl-handled 22-carat-gold Smith & Wesson 9mm, they look at us and wonder if one of us is going to take one acid trip too many and run amok trying to skewer them with home-made stiletto paintbrushes. The problem is that the rumours were easy to ignore at first, but now they’re…” Kyle’s voice trailed off helplessly. “Believable?” Blair suggested. The youth nodded. “Right. At first they were so ridiculous. I mean, take Cecily Winn. The girl does not date, never mind sleep around. She’s an okay person, but she’s totally focussed on her Plan: First, or at least Second, Female President of the U.S.A. No way is she going to let a teenage abortion scandal come back and bite her in the ass to derail her presidential ticket twenty years from now. As for Jack Hallam - if he’s a paedophile, I’m Denzel Washington.” “There’s only one Denzel,” chorused the three adult men in unintentional unison. Kyle didn’t mention the rumour that his father had murdered his mother, instead saying, “There’s stuff getting in the papers that only a local person knows, but the point - and problem - is that it’s not ‘could have been overheard in passing’ stuff, it’s a ‘I broke into your house and read through your diary’ deal. Take the latest example: Olivia Lloyd down at Lorelai Marina Bait & Tackle Store? She’s been best friends with Cherice Markland for twenty years or more, that pair are like twin daughters of different mothers. Last month some of Livy’s past was exposed in the Lifted Vale - that’s St. Mary Vale’s newspaper, equivalent of the Witty Chronicle - that she swore only her and Cherice knew about. Cherice swore on the bible that she hadn’t uttered a word about it, but these days they hardly talk to each other, and in a weird way I can understand why.” “Because if Cherice is telling the truth…” Blair began speculatively. “Then that means that somebody is or was stalking Olivia, or at least they put her under some pretty long-term and intensive surveillance to find out those things.” Rick Valenti closed his eyes and swore softly, “I’m a SEAL, why didn’t I think of that before now?” “You never needed to until now,” Blair consoled. “I understand what Kyle’s trying to say. I’ve been stalked more than a couple of times in my life and it is pretty much terrifying. How much more so for a woman? It sounds weird, but psychologically Olivia Lloyd finds it more reassuring to believe that her best friend betrayed her than to have to seriously consider the prospect that some invisible enemy she never even noticed has been watching her every move and listening to her every utterance for God knows how long.” “And said stalker has to be someone local, because not even a stranger could repeatedly get that close unnoticed for any length of time.” Jim acknowledged, “Which breeds fear, worry, stress, mistrust and panic. Your next door neighbour of half a lifetime pops around to borrow your spanner, but is he really the stalker scouting for dirt? Is the other school mom that you’ve had morning coffee with since the dawn of time really a vicious psycho intent on giving you the Single White Female treatment? Like that movie - Whole Nine Yards? - where the next door neighbour turns out to be a hitman?” Blair nodded. “That’s the problem with evil people. They look just like everyone else. Forget American Psycho and all those trash movies. Serial killers can live as completely unremarkable members of the community for years and never be suspected.” Blair consciously stopped himself launching into a detailed psychoanalysis of the sociopath personality, giving a final example, “An aunt and uncle of mine were vacationing in England a few years back when the Wests were exposed. I think their names were Frederick and Rose West. Perfectly ordinary blue-collar types living uneventfully in a typical English suburban street for years and years and then Boom! Suddenly one day it turns out the husband is one of the worst serial-rapists and serial-killers the country has ever seen. They had to demolish the house to recover most of the bodies of his victims, then they had to tear apart the house he lived in before, then they had to start to digging up farmers’ fields. In the end, alone or with his wife’s help, West had raped and/or murdered over a dozen women, including his first wife and daughter. Yet nobody in the town where they lived had ever dreamed anything untoward was going on.” “Olivia Lloyd pretending that Cherice Markland is guilty, even though deep down she knows perfectly well her friend is as innocent as herself, is the only way she can deal with the fear and uncertainty of the situation,” Jim’s regretful sigh emanated from the experience only a long-term detective in a major U.S. City could acquire, “because if she faced up to the reality she’d be too scared to step outside her front door.” “Don’t take this the wrong way, considering technically I’m still the prime suspect for Fincham’s death,” Valenti drawled as he and his son prepared to leave, “but I won’t exactly be complaining if you finding the Witt’s End Slanderer takes priority over catching the Murderer Presumptive.” Jim and Blair watched Valenti and his son leave, noting how they did share the same long stride. In all honesty, Jim shared the Sheriff’s concerns and knew that Blair did too. While Fincham’s ‘murder’ was technically the far more serious crime, in reality the continued freedom of the Slanderer posed a much greater threat to Witt’s End and St. Mary Vale. “We need to get the MP and the Slanderer,” Jim reiterated to Blair in frustration. “There’s no point grabbing the MP if these two towns are disintegrating in front of us. It would be as pointless as paying a grand to upgrade your cabin on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.” “I hear you, man.” Blair looked at his friend grimly. “I hear you.” Despite the superlative excellence of the meal, neither man had any appetite for dessert; aware they were taking up a table when diners were by now queuing, they finished their second beers and left, strolling in silently amicable companionship. Out here, some distance from significant pollution, the night air was cool and clear; the moon hung over the lake, a giant medallion glowing silver to such an extent Jim could almost believe some celestial Sally had come along and polished it into gleaming submission. The stars were more brilliant against an even inkier sky, since Witt’s End’s dearth of streetlamps cut light pollution down. Some seemed so close it was as if you could just stretch up and cup them in your hand. Blair asked in semi-whimsy as they paused at the lakeside and listened to the soft lap of water against the wharf stones and the soft splash of nocturnal fish briefly breaking the surface. Jim eyed the expanse speculatively. Blair admitted persuasively. Calibrating the limits of Jim’s senses had been one of the first things they’d worked on even before the 357’s exploding ice-lab had made Blair Jim’s roommate, only for both men to discover that rather than consistent empirical data, the answer to the range of Jim’s senses seemed to be mostly ‘it depends’. Obviously his sensory range didn’t reach out endlessly into deep space, nor did he have nifty Superman X- ray vision, et cetera. Blair had discovered that Jim’s senses automatically ‘compensated’ for what he could only really label surrounding clutter. Jim had stood on the sidewalk outside 852 Prospect on a clear, sunny day and focussed his sight straight ahead as far as he could, being able to see to a limit of three blocks. But that had been mid-afternoon, after the lunch crowd had gone back to work, and the school moms hadn’t started their runs, meaning there were much fewer than normal people on the sidewalk and fewer cars going past. Repeating the experiment at different times and different areas, it became clear that weather conditions and temperature had less of an effect (unless it was a torrential downpour or blizzard) than how much ‘clutter’ Jim’s eyes had to see, identify, disregard as threatening and so filter out as his brain instructed his eyes to keep going as it were. It did make sense, since the Sentinel trying peer two miles ahead wouldn’t be much good if his eyes didn’t register the hungry lion a hundred yards away. The fewer moving objects in Jim’s line of sight the further he could see, likewise when there were fewer different types of objects. Ask Jim to look into a large, dark copse of trees at William Ellison’s country club on an overcast day to find a lost golf ball, and he could actually see further than looking down Prospect on a sunny day and so on because on the golf course there were virtually no moving objects, and his surroundings were the same things, trees. Having identified the first tree as no threat, Jim’s senses ‘knew’ they could ‘speed-read’ past all the others as it were. Jim mused. Focussing his sight, Jim concentrated on looking up, directly at the trio of twinkling stars that formed Orion’s Belt. For a split second, nothing happened, but then it was as if someone had swapped his eyes for zoom-lens cameras. He could see a rainbow of colours, indescribably beautiful and glowwwwwwwiii… Instantly, Blair was there Jim enthused, though outwardly he remained impassive as they continued walking, none of the many people taking the night air having noticed a thing. Blair gave a little bounce. Jim admitted. Blair rejoined sarcastically. Jim nodded, having no intention of letting Sandburg put off going to the Temple of Guides any longer; besides, he was consumed with curiosity to look at the place. It was actually quite dark when they returned to the hotel; another effect of few street-lights was that night-time meant exactly that. Unlike people in cities, who could spend their entire lives never more than a dozen feet away from an intrusive light-source, the inhabitants of Witt’s End and St. Mary Vale experienced virtually no occurrence of sleep disorders, which the local doctor (Bert Martin) firmly ascribed to them sleeping as God intended. Witt’s End was far from a silent place to Jim even in the middle of the night: the whisper of leaves; the creaking of tree branches; the water and fish in the lake; nocturnal animals and so forth, and yet he found he could tune these sounds out far more easily than he could cars, people, the hum of electricity cables and the myriad other sounds of a city that never really slept. He had never slept as well as he was doing here in Witt’s End without having to dial down his senses to practically zero. Going to their room, Blair went in the bathroom to do his ablutions while Jim clicked the TV on for the late-night news. Each town had a local newspaper, respectively The Lifted Vale and the Witty Chronicle, and a local Radio station, Lorelei 298 FM that was based in Witt’s End. The ‘local’ TV channel, however, was broadcast from Cascade and hadn’t existed until the St Mary Vale population had decided they wanted one and indeed, they subsidised it. However, Jim was impressed by the impartiality of the news anchorwoman and from what he’d gleaned; the TV station was universally popular in Witt’s End as well as St. Mary Vale. Jim also took the opportunity to give Simon a quick ring at home and check that nothing more vital needed him and Blair to return to Cascade. Explaining the situation, Jim freely admitted his and Blair’s desire to stay. Agreeing completely that apprehending the MP was pointless if the Slanderer was left free to wreak psychological havoc on both communities, Simon gave his blessing to their extended presence in the town. Confessing that he had recognised his own tendency to treat Jim & Blair as universal cure-alls for his most awkward cases, Simon cheerfully decreed that he would ‘share the love’ with Joel, Megan, Rafe and Henri who were equally as capable of brilliant detective work if given the opportunity. And they would now have plenty of opportunity; Jim ended the call chuckling at what lay in store for his colleagues. While Jim was in the bathroom, Blair took the opportunity to call Megan, whose cool voice upon answering instantly and gratifyingly warmed at hearing Blair’s voice and he felt himself smile in response. Though he was firmly keeping his feet on the ground, Blair had strong hopes that Megan might be The One. Not only did she possess those qualities he found attractive: intelligence, self- assurance, courage, competence, good humour and the ability to deflate Jim when necessary, but she knew all about, and was happy to make adjusts for, the Sentinel issue, aware that it would always be a massive part of Blair’s life. Finally ringing off, Blair gave a quick call to Washington D.C., greeting Xander who passed the phone to Daryl. Knowing how nerve-wracking being a Freshman could be, Blair couldn’t extend his empathy down the phone line, but Daryl’s cheerfulness certainly didn’t sound strained or faked. “He sounds like he’s settling in well,” Jim commented. “Yeah, Daryl’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Blair agreed before a yawn took him by surprise. “Mm, time for bed.” He stretched and then reached out to pull back the covers. “Don’t.” Jim’s sudden command surprised himself as well as Blair. For several seconds Jim simply stood helplessly, but the sudden, overriding compulsion could not be denied. “Erm…would you mind? Tonight…?” he floundered. Blair gave Jim a searching look, but silently ignored his own bed and got in one side of the other queen-sized bed, for which Jim was enormously grateful as he checked the door lock and closed the curtains, aware of Blair watching him; empathic reassurance brushed against his mind, Blair had no idea what the problem was, but he trusted Jim’s instincts. Jim knew he was still way too embarrassed about the whole bonding issue, but he simply couldn’t articulate well, and he was perpetually glad that Blair kept letting him off the hook without making him say actual words. Nervously he climbed in the other side and without any self-conscious hesitation or demands for an explanation of this sudden neediness, Blair yawned again and promptly cuddled up to Jim, tucking his head under the bigger man’s chin and basking in the heat radiating out of his Sentinel. Jim pulled the covers around them both, and gently patted Blair’s hair, smiling as almost instantly Blair’s bio-rhythms started to slow down into a sleep pattern. Sandburg was always in perpetual motion, staying up to the early hours then bouncing about after four hours sleep and a couple of strong coffees. Even when he went to bed Jim usually heard him fidgeting about as that genius brain churned out ideas by the wagon-load. Except when he and Jim were bonding; just like now, on those occasions Blair was out like a light. At first Jim had been startled, but then, with a happiness that still caused him to have a goofy grin even now, Jim realised that it was security. Blair’s peripatetic childhood in all manner of dangerous places and in company of all manner of dubious people had left the anthropologist with the ingrained habit of sleeping with “one eye open and one ear cocked”. Only with Jim Ellison, his Sentinel, did Blair Sandburg trust enough to collapse immediately into deep slumber, having complete faith that Jim would do his level best to protect him from harm. Within minutes, Blair was indeed sound asleep, using Jim as combination pillow and hot-water bottle. Not quite sleepy but not quite awake enough to be restless, Jim looked around the room with Sentinel eyes that made the gloom nearly as clear as if lit up. He had no idea why he suddenly had this compulsion to keep Blair with him, but he had no intention of doing anything other than abjectly obeying the strange impulse. He’d spent the first three years of his Sentinel life with Blair Sandburg ignoring, deriding and actually actively hating the spirit visions and Sentinel intuitions; his perpetual petulant pique had got Blair Sandburg drowned in Rainier’s fountain by Alexandra Barnes, and Jim Ellison never made the same mistake twice. Message received and understood. Jim frowned even as he consciously relaxed his jaw. He was not a man given to great psychological analyses of any issue, and despite a sharp intellect, Jim in fact often struggled to verbalise what he wanted to express, envying Blair’s easy ability to convey his meanings, but inside his head, it was clear. There was a subtle wrongness to Witt’s End, an artificial saccharine edge that tasted just a bit too sickly sweet. The place was a like a moving Norman Rockwell painting – on the surface all idyllic sunbathed social harmony with 2.4 kids and white picket fence – but underneath it all you just knew that dad was doing his secretary, mom was doing a bottle of gin a day, Junior was dealing crack cocaine behind the bike sheds and Little Miss spent most of her time in a Y-shape on the back seat of the local hoodlum’s car. Witt’s End was slightly off kilter, Jim’s imagination making it seem an almost surrealistic mixture of Children of the Corn and The Stepford Wives – listen for grinding gears instead of beating hearts and watch out for homicidal pre- adolescents with scythes in their hands and bloodlust in their baby eyes. If he visualised Witt’s End as a large glass bowl of clear water, Jim could see the Slanderer’s poison like ink being added, drop by fiendish drop; you watch the ink drop move and spread through the water, contaminating and clouding it. Unless something was done in short order, it would get to the point of no returnnnnn… * * * Simon woke up suddenly, momentarily confused by the lack of another form warmly snuggled next to him before he remembered firstly that Leonie was at her parents’ home in Boston with Callum and Kyler helping them get organised to attend the wedding, and secondly the events of the day just gone. He blearily looked towards the clock, then snorted at his own vain hope as he reached for his spectacles; he was long past the days when even determined squinting would bring objects into focus. The spectacles didn’t really help in that while they turned blurriness into sharpness they also revealed that the LED display read 3:15am. With a groan, Simon dropped his head back onto his pillow, then equally as abruptly tensed and sat up again, his ears straining to hear any alien sounds that would indicate why he’d awoken so unexpectedly, but the night was silent. The previous owners of this wonderfully big house that would be his and Leonie’s home had had the best security system they could afford put in, and since they were at the top of Cascade’s social register, that equalled state-of- the-art, all singing, all dancing, full-on bells and whistles. Having checked the system out as a law enforcement professional, Simon was confident that it would take a pretty sophisticated burglar to circumvent it partially, never mind negate it. Simon had also made sure he got into the nightly habit of activating the entire security system for the house and grounds; unlike some, Simon did not fall into the trap of thinking that because he was a police officer he could ‘handle’ any intruder situation. Simon’s Navy SEAL uncles had instilled in him the belief that resorting to use of a firearm meant something had gone terribly wrong. The whole point was to gain, maintain and retain control of a given ‘situation’ and the instant the lead started flying, that control was instantly lost to whoever happened to have the most ammunition, or the better aim, or the greater firepower, or the best cover, or the best offensive position. Despite his genuinely amicable relationship with William and Stephen Ellison, Simon didn’t for a moment forget that he would be a black man with a white wife living in what had been, up until now, an exclusively wealthy white neighbourhood. Ever on the lookout for positive PR, the city council and outgoing Chief Taylor had waxed lyrical to the local press regarding Simon’s promotion to Cascade’s Chief of Police, the first black person, though not the first non-white, to hold the position. Several articles had devoted paragraphs to the upcoming double wedding of Simon Banks and Dr Leonie McKinley of Cascade Community College and his MCU Detective Henri Brown and Personal Secretary Rhonda Delagardie. The thankfully small number of offensive letters and emails had started virtually the very next day, and though Simon kept them just in case things escalated and he needed evidence, he had certainly not mentioned them to Leonie, or to Jim and Blair, whom he knew would be outraged on his behalf. As a man cheerfully upfront about his Jewish heritage, Blair would know all to well the general content of the bigoted missives, and what Blair knew, Jim would know. Simon certainly wasn’t going to let such scum upset his friends. Speaking of upsetting his friends…Simon was again filled with relief that during their earlier phone conversation, Jim had clearly not picked up on Simon’s heartfelt relief at his request to remain, unaware that Simon had been trying to think up reasons to keep him in Witt’s End for longer as the FBI were being a problem in their intent to open an office in Cascade. Just that very morning, Simon had opened his mail to see a proposal for the FBI to be situated at 252 Pender Street! Simon shuddered at the prospect of an FBI office next door to Cascade Central Precinct. Realising that the clock now read 3:30am, he listened intently one final time and then settled back down again. He’d probably been dreaming or something… * * * Sheeeeeth-haaa, Sheeeeth-haaaa, Sheeeeth-haaa - Jim’s eyes snapped open, for many long seconds they pierced the darkness, a brilliant cobalt blue, until Jim-the-man woke up enough to link with the Sentinel instincts and they warmed slightly. But only slightly. He glanced at the bedside clock: 3:10am. Jim cast out his senses, but the night carried no threatening noises, unless you counted the denizens of the bar in the distance by the waterfront. He frowned; some alien sound had disturbed him, but he couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary now. “’Im? Mmmph.” Blair, lying by Jim’s side having deigned in his sleep to revert to an actual pillow instead of his human one, stirred briefly and began to settle down into deeper sleep. Jim’s own eyes fluttered closed; he’d been dream - sheeeath. There! Where? Jim looked around the room. Nothing. “‘Iii’?” Blair mumbled and shifted, throwing off the cotton wool of sleep as he sensed Jim’s sudden tension beside him. “Sshh!” Jim hissed, concentrating; where on earth… Something made him glance over towards Blair’s bed. Nothing on it…but above…? Propping himself up on his elbows, Jim peered at the ceiling. Not directly over Blair’s bed, but slightly to one side, was a ventilation grille. The owner hadn’t had air conditioning installed until several years after the hotel had been open, and the Witt’s End builder who’d installed it had been rather unorthodox in his approach, even though the system had always worked perfectly, with the result that some rooms had ventilation grilles and radiators in rather odd positions. Was something in the ventilation shaft? Jim’s jaw dropped as one of the metal slats suddenly bent in the middle and then straightened out again, not a property that metal was given to. Blair now sounded fully awake. Carefully Jim reached a hand under his pillow and eased out his gun, as Blair cautiously moved onto his back and then turned his head to look towards the vent grille; with his other hand, Jim plucked Blair’s spectacles off the bedside cabinet and handed them to him. “What the…?” Blair stared as the vent grille suddenly acquired a spherical bulge that expanded - and then dropped to the top of his bedcovers, where it let out a loud, identifying and very angry hiss. “Shit!” who uttered the expletive would never be known but Jim didn’t hesitate. His enhanced sight easily saw the snake on top of Blair’s bed, and aware that some species could lunge half the distance of their own body-length in split-second, he fired without mercy, sending the bullet directly through the serpent’s brain so it instantly collapsed, harmless, on the bed. Both men scrambled frantically out of the bed, Blair warning sharply, “Light!” as he turned on the room’s main ceiling light, his empathy and Jim’s Sentinel senses mutually aware of the disturbances as other guests and staff were yanked from slumber by the loud report of Jim’s gun. Soon people would be banging on the door, but for now, both men fixed their attention solely on the invader. “Oh, man.” Blair shivered as he looked at the dead snake, which was not actually as big as he’d imagined. Jim was glaring at it, his gun ready just in case, though his instinct and his senses both said he’d rendered it harmless with his shot. “It’s not a rattlesnake. A cobra?” “No.” Blair looked at the snake grimly. “I recognise it. That, big guy, is an Australian Taipan, the smallest and deadliest snake in the world.” “I knew something was wrong.” Jim glared down at the offending reptile, adrenaline still pumping. “Yeah,” Blair admitted. “From the second we set foot in Witt’s End I’ve felt like I’ve got an itch that I just can’t reach to scratch. It’s been getting worse ever since I’ve been here. It’s like Spain.” “Spain?” Jim, hearing the rapid approach of multiple feet and the voice of the Night Manager, nevertheless glared at his Guide for his ability to go off on a tangent even in extremis. “Me and Naomi lived in Spain for a few years,” Blair murmured, missing or more likely ignoring the look. “We moved about a bit and spent about 18 months in Old Spain – the Moorish part – where the last Indiana Jones movie was filmed, you know, Last Crusade where Harrison Ford and Sean Connery fly that old biplane into a building?” “Yeah? So?” Jim replied with understandable impatience. “I was able to go and see the set, the plane’s still there,” Blair explained, “but there were other sets. That area of Spain is used to film a lot of the spaghetti Westerns because the scenery is all mesquite scrub, almost identical to Wild West Arizona and Texas, but it only costs a fraction of the money to use. One of the sets was a Wild West town. As you walked up to it, the place looked great, but as you as you got close enough to examine the detail, you could see that it was an illusion. The main street was just a double row of propped up boarding with nothing behind it, and the “Indian Village” that is about fifty miles away in the movie was actually only about ten feet past the Jail House at the end of the row. That’s how Witt’s End feels to me. From a distance it’s the archetypal artistic community, full of kindly old eccentrics and loveable kooky characters, but that’s an illusion. There’s something dark festering here, Jim, something with a much sharper, nastier edge than a bunch of cute craft folk and likeable oddballs…and I can feel it growing.” “You don’t say.” Jim pointedly indicated the dead snake just as the Night Manager began to bang his fist on the door and loudly call his name. “How should we play it?” he enquired as he walked across to unlock the door. “Apologise,” Blair responded promptly as he picked up Jim‘s detective shield from the dresser and tossed it to him, speaking rapidly in the few seconds they had as he shut his empathy down in self-defence against the several frightened, angry, confused and worried minds on the other side of the door. “Pretend that some kid’s pet grass snake got loose in the vent system and unfortunately you reacted like a cop, then get Valenti here stat if he isn’t already on his way. There’s no point terrifying everyone by revealing what it actually is. The manager won’t want to believe you and I think it’s safe to assume that a deadly snake native to a continent the other side of the planet didn’t crawl harmlessly through a good mile’s worth of ventilation system up to the top floor and happen drop on my bed by accident.” Opening the door and grateful for his vacation sleeping attire of vest and sweatpants, Jim found himself chest-to-nose with the Night Manager and a large collection of guests understandably bewildered and vexed at being wrenched from sleep, or the nocturnal activity of their choice, by a gunshot. They recoiled en masse at the sight of the gun in Jim’s left hand, but he held up his shield in his right and apologised, giving the explanation Blair had just outlined, and requesting a large plastic bag for the serpentine corpse and a suitable container to put that in. To Jim’s relief, Blair’s implication that nobody would recognise the Taipan for what it was proved true as the guests, after peering past him at the dead snake on the bed, began to depart back to their rooms with whispered, excited conversations; the incident would to them become nothing more than a vacation anecdote to be retold at parties for several years. To Jim’s further relief, none of the guests had either the knowledge to realise that Jim must have made an ‘impossible’ shot in total darkness to kill the snake, or the observational skills to figure out that Blair clearly had not been in that bed when the snake landed on it. Before Jim could make the request, a familiar figure came striding down the hallway. Similarly clad in sweatpants and a faded Navy sweater, Rick Valenti nevertheless looked wide-awake. The Night Manager immediately began to babble apologies for having called him in panic, but Jim smoothly took over, assuring the man that he would explain everything to the sheriff and then firmly closing the bedroom door in their faces, shutting out everyone save himself, Blair and Valenti. Unlike everyone else, Valenti took one look at the snake and did a classic double-take. “How the hell did a Taipan get here?” “You recognise it?” asked Jim. “Yeah, Kyle got bitten by one when we were on a training op in the outback once, but we’d got the anti-venom.” Valenti cautiously peered at the corpse. Blair and Jim exchanged momentarily confused glances before realising that the sheriff was referring to his late best friend, the SEAL his son was named after, rather than the boy himself. Valenti straightened and slowly turned to regard Blair with an expression that lacked his previous amiability. “So why would someone try to murder you in such an exotic fashion when logically Ellison is the one to get rid of?” “We’ve got an idea,” Blair responded calmly, “but we need to check some things out first.” Valenti gave them both a measuring look, before glancing down at the Taipan. “Check them out fast,” He ordered as he moved past them to the door, leaving and closing it behind him. Blair sank down on the edge of Jim’s bed, blowing out a breath as Jim glared at the door, the detective muttering, “We’re not the suspects, you are, Valenti.” “Easy, Jim,” Blair commented. “We can’t blame him for being upset. He knows just how impossible this attack is, and it’s freaking him out.” “Just how impossible is it?” Jim asked, depositing the plastic bag and container brought by a bellhop next to the snake before moving to sit next to Blair. “Totally. You’ve never been to Australia on an Op?” Blair asked. Again subconsciously noting Blair’s easy use of military terminology, Jim answered, “Yes, but mostly in cities. The Rangers Ops’ I was involved in were all coastal - our briefings were watch out for sharks, alligators and jellyfish. So how long did you live in Australia for?” He asked with resignation. “Three years.” Blair smiled at Jim’s question. “Two-and-a-half years with the Aborigines, three months in Perth, two in Canberra, one month in Sydney, but then we moved to New Zealand ’cause the Social Services started harassing mom about me.” He shook off the memories. “Look, Jim, you know the SEALs didn’t just shove Rick Valenti’s squad out of an airplane into the outback and say, “Have fun!”. They would have researched their environment first, including our slithering friend here. You lived alongside poisonous snakes in Peru with the Chopec, you know just as much as Valenti what’s wrong with this picture.” “Yeah.” Jim did, all too well. Snakes, even a Taipan, would if given a choice avoid humans and small, dark, dry places were their idea of serpentine heaven. When Mr X dumped the Taipan into the hotel’s ventilation system, the snake would have been furious, but within minutes it should have decided that the dark, cool environment was the ideal place to curl up and snooze. In such an ideal environment, it was feasible that the Taipan could have inhabited the vent system for hours or even days before being discovered and/or finding its way out. Under no circumstances Jim could concoct in his imagination would the snake voluntarily keep moving through the ventilation shafts, including the effort of going uphill for some distance, until it reached the grille over Blair’s bed, and even then, it would not have voluntarily left its safe, dark haven to squeeze itself through those narrow metal slats and plummet down to an uncertain landing. “Exactly,” Blair concurred, following Jim’s thoughts accurately. “And Valenti knows that as well as us. Something - someone - was controlling that snake, forcing it to keep moving, hell, even directing it here.” “How? Why?” Jim demanded. “I think I know the answer to both of those questions, but unless Valenti’s very open-minded…” Blair looked down at his hands. “Try me.” Jim didn’t so much ask as order. “You saw the first Crocodile Dundee movie, with Paul Hogan and the water buffalo in the middle of the road?” Blair asked. “Yeah…” “Well, it’s not all fiction.” Blair drew in a breath. “In several different cultures and on several different continents Naomi and I lived with people whose spiritual leader - shaman, medicine man or woman, priest - whatever you want to call him or her, had the ability to communicate and in some cases control animals.” “By ‘control’ you mean…?” “Perhaps that’s too strong a word.” Blair rubbed his eyes wearily. “But I saw them ‘influence’ animals and they could certainly exchange information. When I was in Africa, a tribal priest was led to a missing child by a troupe of monkeys. I don’t know how he did it, but it was the most amazing and scary thing I’ve ever seen.” “Someone in Witt’s End has the same ability,” Jim summarised. “It’s not just the ability, Jim, it’s the power behind it,” Blair replied, grimmer than Jim had ever seen him. “Using your Sentinel senses on high for a protracted period, like on a tough case, exhausts you. Ditto a Shaman. That priest was bedridden for a day after finding that little boy. To continually force the Taipan to ignore its overriding instincts again and again and again while successfully sending it to the right ceiling grille and then to direct it to drop through the grille onto my bed would require mental effort easily the equivalent of you competing in an Olympic Heptathlon.” He bit his lip. “I think we need to go to the Temple as fast as we can tomorrow after seeing Bert Martin, because I’m beginning to get an idea why I was hit with that dream.” Jim looked at Blair for a long moment, but when he spoke his voice was serious and not incredulous, “You’re saying an evil Shaman did this?” “Evil and powerful and very knowledgeable,” Blair looked at the snake again. “Wiccans refuse to curse people because their religion believes that whatever magic they practice will come back to them. Good will rebound on them, increasing the positive effect, but so will bad actions. Whoever did this is steeped up to his - or her - eyeballs in seriously evil magic arts. Even with her perfect choral A, Maria Callas still had to learn how to sing before she could use it to full effect. Likewise, it would take a lot of learning to pull this off. This is no amateur wannabe decorating his bedroom in extreme Goth décor and messing about with an Ouija board with his friends. He’s a real life Voldemort.” “You really believe in magic,” Jim said slowly, his own Blair-centric empathy enabling him to ‘read’ just how serious - and scared - Blair was. “You really believe the whole Harry Potter, good Magician-stroke-evil Magician, wand and spell deal does exist in real life.” “In spades,” Blair confirmed. “I believe in angels. I also believe in demons. I believe in God, whom I worship, and I believe in Satan as an invisible entity who makes Adolf Hitler look like a teddy bear.” “I don’t know if I do.” Jim shook his head, “I mean there are the Sentinel visions and stuff, but…” “Remember Highlander: The Series, Season Six?” Blair responded. “Duncan MacLeod said it for us: the Devil’s greatest con trick was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist. It’s like a burglar or an assassin who suddenly acquires the ability to become invisible at will - you’re virtually defenceless against them.” “I guess…I never thought about it in those terms,” Jim confessed. “Look, Blair, it’s taken me nearly seven years to fully embrace the concept of Spirit Animal Guides, never mind the entire Judeo-Islamic-Christian theology. I mean, I’m a Sentinel. I fight bad guys armed with guns and bombs and knives. How am I supposed to go up against spells and curses and magic?” “You’re not. I am.” Blair stood up and went to stare out of the window, wrapping his arms around himself tightly. “Remember, I told you about the Twin Heroes. One physical, one spiritual. Sentinel and Shaman. Every tribe and kingdom’s universal cure-all, the old one-two whammy. I think the Slanderer and the MP are one and the same, and I think he is also our Evil Shaman.” “Why is he here?” Jim asked, coming to stand behind Blair and laying his hand gently on his Guide’s shoulder. “Power.” Blair stared out into the night. “Imagine him like a mobile phone that needs to keep recharging his battery. Unique people, special people, talented and unconventional people like Zinnia and Valenti, Saxon Ware and Bert Martin, they’ve got just a bit more juice than everyone else, a bit more spark in their eye, a bit more bounce in their stride. Others gravitate towards such personalities, both good and bad others.” “And Witt’s End is an all-you-can-eat buffet of rare, unique people that march to the tune of a…what did Zinnia say…a whole different orchestra?” “He’s plugging into the zeitgeist of Witt’s End, using his slanders to poison and contaminate, sucking the juice out of the town’s heart and soul like someone illegally rigging their motor home’s utility cables up to a power company’s electricity station.” “Are you strong enough to stop him?” Jim asked the million-dollar question. Blair paused, knowing he was probably about to hurt Jim’s feelings. “Power isn’t a problem. I’d…done some things…before we met. Since I died at the fountain, I’ve had more success with that side of things…a figurative death and rebirth symbolise the beginning of a new spiritual life in most cultures; it’s what Christian baptism is all about. I literally died and came back, which…there aren’t words good enough for me to even begin to explain to you the towering spiritual implications of that situation...let’s just say I’m not worried about running out of gas halfway through.” “But you don’t have the knowledge?” Jim knew he sounded sceptical. Blair was a voracious reader and possessed a photographic memory. There was little about anything he didn’t know. “The most accurate answer is that I don’t want to know,” Blair admitted. “Like I told you this afternoon, becoming Shaman of the Great City isn’t something I’d do, it’s something I’d be. But my main problem is that I can’t unlearn the things I choose to take into my brain by reading or watching or listening to them. Eighty years after the end of World War I, survivors still suffer vivid nightmares of their comrades being blown to smithereens in front of them. In the book of Acts Chapter Twenty-Six verse Four the Apostle Paul was told that ‘great learning had driven him mad’ because even a non-believing man like the Roman Governor Festus recognised the tremendous responsibility that knowing things other people don’t lays upon you. The prophet Ezekiel in Chapter Three verse Eighteen recorded how God warned him that if he failed to tell the wicked one of God’s judgement, the wicked one would die for his wickedness but his blood God would demand back from Ezekiel for his failure to warn the evil one and perhaps motivate him to repentance. That’s a tenet of a lot of Evangelical religions, Christian or otherwise, the idea that when God flash-fries the sinners at Judgement Day, none of the wicked can point the finger and use the excuse that nobody warned them what was going to happen.” “So you becoming Shaman of Cascade means you accepting the role of what is essentially a ‘spiritual Sentinel’,” Jim said carefully, aware he was walking through a verbal minefield; he’d never seen Blair this upset about anything, even Alex Barnes who’d murdered him. “Just like Incacha told me that I had to choose to be a literal Sentinel, because I have the responsibility of keeping as many people as I can safe, whether it’s saving the individual from a criminal’s bullet or half of downtown from being flattened by an earthquake.” “Yes.” Blair leaned back against Jim’s chest, feeling unutterably weary. “I…I’m sorry, but I’m not noble enough to do that. I’m losing myself. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I would never swap being your Guide for anything in the world, Jim, but lately all I see, all I feel, is that the man, Blair Sandburg, is disappearing. I look in a mirror and I almost see me fading away. I’m a Guide, a near-as-damn-it cop, a teacher, an anthropologist, Naomi’s son, your best friend. I used to enjoy volunteering in the soup kitchens at Christmas and helping the homeless shelters with supplies, but I haven’t done it in years. I haven’t published an anthropological article in over two years, or been on a dig in over five. My position at the college is already part-time from part-time. I haven’t seen or spoken to several of my lifelong friends for over a year because I’m never around any more. My friends were your friends first. My girlfriend is a cop. There’s barely anything of me left. I loved all those things I did, and I resent the hell out of being expected to give up still yet more of myself to become something I don’t want to be. Which I know sounds whiny and self- pitying and completely selfish…” “Blair, I know, I’ve been there,” Jim reminded him gently, accepting the hurt he felt over Blair’s admission and simply moving past it. Grow up Ellison, not everything is about you. “My childhood remember? My dad did everything he could to get rid of me and turn my body into his clone. No other avenue was even allowed except that I be his heir and next CEO of Ellison Industries. I felt totally swamped by his demands and impossible expectations. I couldn’t ever be myself.” “Have you ever heard of Edward Bulwer-Lytton?” Blair asked suddenly. “No.” “He was a Nineteenth Century writer. He invented the prototype of most of the fiction genres we have today - adventure, murder mystery, thriller, romance, even sci-fi and fantasy. He’s mainly famous for the most renowned opening paragraph in history: It was a dark…” “…and stormy night,” Jim finished automatically. “Yeah. But he also wrote: the pen is mightier than the sword and he was right. There are terrible things in the world, big guy, horrible things that once you learn about them, you can’t ever forget them. You can’t ignore them or pretend that they don’t exist because that makes you just one of the good men that do nothing and so enable evil to win. I don’t want to read those kind of books, I don’t want to learn those things. I already have enough nightmares to last me decades; I don’t need any additions to the list.” “You can choose not to be a shaman,” Jim pointed out softly. “Really? Come on, Jim, we both know it’s just as much a sham as your ‘choice’ of whether or not to be a Sentinel,” Blair replied with an almost savage depth of bitterness. “Incacha knew you were far too honourable to give up something that enabled you to save people’s lives. Incacha knew you couldn’t live with yourself if you gave up an ability that would let you know a high-rise office block with four-hundred people inside had a bomb in the basement that would bring it down like a pack of cards, or that an earthquake in Japan was sending a hundred-foot Tsunami straight for Cascade Bay, but you could save thousands of lives by evacuating. Incacha knew perfectly well that just the same, I could never live with myself if I let this guy - and others like him - destroy innocent people when I had the opportunity to do something to prevent it.” Jim closed his eyes and rested his chin gently on top of Blair’s head as he put both his arms around his Guide and simply held him comfortingly. There was no answer he could give because there was nothing to say. Blair, as both men knew perfectly well, was absolutely right. To be continued in part 4... ? 2004, C. D. Stewart