Special Note: This chapter is aimed at moving the plot along so there is no Chase and Claudia, but rest assured they will be back next update. I've decided to give Kate a bigger part then first intended, and I've also decided to do a little more with Reid's character as well. He's pretty much going to have his own story arch as will Tyler which should be fun to write. And thanks to everyone for being patient between updates. I really appreciate everyone who's stuck with me all this time.

This Is Absolution

Card 16: Seven of Cups

Kate managed to keep her composure and avoid looking like a crazy person until she was faced to face with Gorman on a secluded patch of land at the north end of the Danvers formal gardens.

"I think Sarah is being haunted!!" she exclaimed breathlessly as she pushed shiny, brown strands of hair out of her face, and let her defenses down to show how frightened really she was.

Kate had shown up at the Danvers main house unexpectedly on a bright, but bitterly cold Saturday morning. She'd stood at the front door and demanded to see Gorman who was just finishing his morning bowl of fiber laden oatmeal in the kitchen. She'd been so "forceful" that he'd heard her on his own, despite the size of the gothic mansion, and knew that if she was begging to see him so early in the morning, it must have been an emergency.

So there they were, standing in the frost after a good trek down the gravel walkway that split the garden into tow equal parts with their breath dissipating before their faces, and Gorman's eyes wide at Kate's accusation.

"You think Sarah is haunted?"

"Yes!" Kate exclaimed again, nodding her head frantically. "It all started when I walked in on her having a nightmare a couple of days ago. I mean, since the whole thing with Collins went down she's had trouble sleeping, but not like this, this is scary, this I don't know how to handle!!"

She was going a mile a minute, barely pausing between sentences.

Gorman grabbed her firmly with both hands and shook her gently to snap her out of it. "You're going too fast. Calm down. I'll help you, Kate, but you have to slow down. Why haven't you told Higgins about this?"

Kate shook her head again, "I can't. I was going to, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a bad idea. I just don't know what he's planning. This could hurt me so I don't want to tell him, not until I know where he stands… he's acting weird."

"You don't trust him? Why not?" Gorman was shocked by this. Higgins and Tunney had been partners since she was a child just transferred to Spenser. He was like a father to her and now she was questioning him?

She started to tear up, "He hasn't told The Community about Chase. He's holding onto the info and I don't know why. He hasn't told me anything. Higgins is a company man, why wouldn't he tell them right away? And why wouldn't he tell me what he's up to? I wouldn't betray him. I may not choose to go with him, but I would never betray him."

She was rambling on again and Gorman shushed her. "Okay, forget about Higgins for now. We'll deal with that later; what about Sarah? Why do you think she's being haunted?"

"I told you it started with the nightmares."

"Everyone has nightmares, Kate. That doesn't mean they're haunted."

Kate was frustrated and ran her fingers through her hair roughly, "I know that! Sarah's are different. At first they were run of the mill, but they've gotten progressively worse, and then last night… last night it got out of control. There was something in the room with us… a presence, I could feel it, and it was torturing the fuck out of Sarah. Like physically hurting her, and when I tried to wake her up, you know, to stop it, that's when it turned on me. The fucking thing threw me across the room and then it stopped. It left, but it'll be back. I know it will. It's targeting her."

"And you're sure it's not Chase Collins. You're positive about that?"

"Yes! This was not Chase. His Deus is unique, but this… it didn't feel like Deus at all. IT was old as fuck and dark… like a bottomless bit or a black hole. I've never felt anything like it."

Gorman stepped away from her and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his heavy coat. He turned his face up to the winter sun and closed his eyes as he tried to think.

Sarah being haunted… It just didn't make sense to him, but then again this was Ipswich. It had a long history and its fair share of ghosts just like the other New England Colonies. But most of the ghosts where harmless; lost souls trapped in time, reliving events from their past lives and completely oblivious to the changing, "mortal" world around them. There had maybe been one or two violent or aggressive hauntings that he could remember and those were linked to the Revolutionary War. People with money would buy historical homes and attempt to fix them up only to disturb the spirits that still lingered there. Spencer, however, was built by The Five Sons to educate their wealthy progeny and certain precautions had been taken to avoid this very thing. It was unlikely that Spencer was harboring a spirit. So maybe what Kate was sensing wasn't a spirit at all, or at least not the spirit of someone who was already dead.

Gorman turned back to Kate, "I'm having a hard time believing that it's a ghost you're dealing with, but I know that you wouldn't come to me if you could handle this yourself. And if it is a spirit of the dead, then it isn't your regular old poltergeist. You were right to ask for help… However, Higgins is the headmaster of Spencer. He should be told about this."

Kate shook her head. "No, not yet. Help me find out what it is and what to do about it and then we can tell Higgins. I want to get this resolved before the Torrances get here after the New Year. I don't want to have to deal with them."

"You're going to have to deal with them, Kate. It's unavoidable."

Kate shook her head again and crossed her arms against her chest defiantly. "Whatever, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But right now I have to deal with Sarah and this thing that's fucking with her. That is my priority right now."

"Okay," Gorman said softly as if he understood. "I'm going to give you a spell and ingredients to a talisman to put under Sarah's bed. It will create a protection barrier and if done right, will send any negative energy she's receiving back to the source. You'll have to go to Boston to get the stuff though. I know a guy who runs a shop. He'll have everything you'll need."

"Great, write it down. I can drive there today," Kate said and extended her hand to shake his. "Thank you for your help. I appreciate it. I won't forget this."

Reid's face collapsed into a frown as he stared into the face of one Kylie Burke.

She'd been pretty with chocolate brown hair and green eyes… or so the police report description had said, which was all he could go on considering her eye sockets were now void of any optical flesh.

He let his own eyes glide over her naked torso which was grey from decomposition. Medical sutures crisscrossed crudely, protruding from her skin post autopsy. And she seemed hollowed out, as her skin began to sink and sag in places internal organs had once been.

"Looks a bit like Frankenstein's monster," he said softly.

The fluorescent lights flickered above as the intern peered over his shoulder. "Yeah, they don't bother making it look pretty. It's not like the "patients" that come here are going to notice."

Reid rolled his eyes as the intern's matter-of-fact tone and then quickly tossed the sheet back over Kylie's head to cover up the grotesque display.

"Do they have an idea as to why the killer only took the eyes?" he asked as he peeled away the latex gloves he'd snatched from the supply cabinet.

The intern shrugged, "They didn't just take the eyes. They took the heart, liver and stomach too. She was empty when she got here, just like the other ones."

Reid raised an eyebrow, "So internal organs were taken from all the girls?"

The intern smiled, "I take it you haven't seen the coroner's reports."

"No, just the police reports," Reid admitted.

"Well," the intern smiled slyly, "That is going to cost you extra."

"Of course it is," Reid sighed as he tossed the gloves into the trash can beside the gurney. "Why don't you wheel her back into the fridge and then get those reports for me, okay?"

The intern nodded, "As you wish, Mr. Garwin. It's always a pleasure doing business."

Reid was bitter about having to dip into his savings account to bribe a few local authorities, but he had to admit that it was better than trying to get the information by using on his own. Besides, Caleb and the others had already flaked on him, and something as complicated as digging up a grave or breaking into a morgue was more than he could handle alone. Their powers were always strongest when they used together. Otherwise he'd be taking too much of a risk.

But he was okay.

He'd made great strides in his investigation of the murders at Ipswich, no thanks to his covenant brothers, and he was feeling pretty confident about his theory as to what was going on.

It was obvious that the killer was collecting organs, but why was still baffling him, and why go on a killing spree in Ipswich? Ipswich was small with few places to hide. Wasn't the killer worried about being exposed in such a sleepy town where everyone pretty much knew everyone else?

The logical conclusion would be that the killer was a local, but that didn't seem to fit. The killer had outlander written all over them. Ipswich was not a town to them; it was purely a hunting ground. Some place they could stalk and kill.

So where did that leave him?

The killer was an outsider. They preyed on attractive girls under 25 who worked the nightshift at minimum wage jobs. They were collecting the victims organs with what looked like surgical precision and they hadn't gone after a Spenser girl yet, although they'd come pretty close as the first victim was killed in the Spenser border woods just feet from the campus. Coincidence? Possibly, or maybe the killer was staying away from Spenser for a reason… Like maybe the killer was from Spenser and didn't want to be tracked back to their home base.

Reid scratched his head and exhaled as he struggled with coming to that conclusion. It didn't necessarily conflict with his theory about the killer not being a local. Most of the students and faculty at Spenser were from out of state or out of country. Spenser was an elite boarding school after all, but still… someone from Spenser being a serial killer? Setting aside Chase Collins (who surprisingly enough wasn't a suspect), didn't sit well with Reid at all.

Reid took a sip of his orange juice as he flipped through the purchased autopsy reports. Half the stuff written in them he didn't understand, so he'd stopped by the Spenser library before heading to Ipswich Corner Diner and picked up a medical dictionary. That helped a little, but not very much although he was getting the gist of what had happened to the victims and how they had been killed.

It was pretty gruesome and had put him off his pancake breakfast which was now sitting at the corner edge of the booth getting cold.

He sighed as he flipped pages and was assaulted by an autopsy picture that had one of the girls torso spread out and gaping open to document her missing organs.

How delightful.

He quickly flipped past, read something he'd recognized from a previous report and dug through the piles of papers to locate said report and cross reference.

That is when he heard the bell on the Diner door jingle as it swung open and then slammed shut against the cold. He looked up from his research and an annoying feeling thumped in his chest as he saw her; the Native American chick from the western states tucked snuggly into a pair of jeans and a winter coat.

Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail accentuating her high cheek bones and browned skin. She hadn't bothered to take off her heavy sunglasses as she'd entered the Diner, and she had on mid-calf combat boots secured rigidly over her jeans with red lipstick painted careful on her lips… as usual.

Apparently this was her causal look as she'd chosen jeans over her usual well tailored dark suits. However, there was still something straight laced and official about her that wasn't going to change with an exchange of clothes. Maybe it was the way she stood broad stance and erect at the counter register as she paid for her take-out and grabbed the two plastic bags packed with Styrofoam boxes.

As if she felt his eyes on her, she spun around on her heel, looked at him for what seemed like an eternity and then turned away, exiting the same way she'd come.

What the fuck, Reid thought as the door closed shut behind her.

He slid across the banquet of the booth he occupied and peered out of the window to watched her cross Main Street to the motel located directly adjacent the Diner. He narrowed his eyes with disdain and confusion as he watched her enter her room.

He could still feel her eyes on him, piercing into him despite those dark glasses. She'd looked him up and down like she'd done before, contemplated who he was and what he was doing for only a second, and then dismissed him just as quickly. As if he hadn't existed at all.

How fucking annoying.

Reid set back in the booth and stewed. He was determined to find out whom that woman and her partner were and what they were doing in Ipswich. He knew they were some sort of law enforcement, but from which agency?

It didn't matter. He was going to find out eventually just like he was going to find out who was stalking young girls and stealing their organs.

He let a smile touch his lips at how focused and studious he was being.

This time he would be the hero and the savior. Caleb Danvers could kiss his ass.