Post-series fic, so spoilers through everything. Written in an hour in IRC,
with Tina egging me on. *points at Chicago* Her fault! All her fault!
Thanks to the Horsechicks for beta'ing. I don't own any of these people, and
neither does Kenneth Irons, no matter *how* hard he tries.
And oh yeah, do not take seriously a'tall.
When Coroners Attack! (Film at 11)
by C. L. Kamnikar
copyright 2002
"Well!" Vicky Po, NYPD medical examiner and coroner, clapped her hands
together joyfully, making the five people in the morgue all want to take a
step back. Whenever Vic got that happy, something gross was usually going
on. "I bet you all wonder why I asked you to be here today."
"You're announcing your candidacy for President?" Jake smart-mouthed,
leaning against a dissection table.
"You just won Publisher's Clearinghouse, and you're going to share with your
friends?" Danny suggested with a grin. "Lee and I could use the money with
the baby coming and all..."
"You're quitting this lousy job and moving to Bimini?" Sara offered.
"You're going to confess that you're the real murderer?" Everyone *looked*
at Gabriel, who shrugged. "What? It could happen."
"As you can all guess... no. No, no, and no. I *knew* you wouldn't get it.
No one takes the cliches seriously, even when they should. In fact, I
counted on it!" Vicky suddenly whipped a .38 Special out of the back
waistband, and backed away so she had Danny, Jake, Sara and Gabriel in her
sights. The three cops and one appalled civilian all watched her with the
deer-in-headlights expressions of those who can't believe a geek got the
drop on them.
"Vic, what are you--"
"Po--"
"Calm down, Dr. Po. There's no need for violence," Jake said, taking a step
toward her, making calming motions with his hands. "Why don't you just give
that to me--"
"Shut up! Who are you? You're a rookie! Don't talk to me like I'm a
lunatic!" Vicky shrieked, cocking the gun. Four people gulped audibly, and
one held his breath. "It's got to stop! There's too much mystery, and it's
completely unravelling my ability to cope with this job, not to mention
reality as we know it! I have six years in this lab, and I. Want. Answers!
Starting with: who are you kidding with that hair, McCartney? And that
attitude? If you're a new cop, I'm Jennifer Lopez!"
Vicky swung the gun on Sara. "And you! I thought we were friends! And you
bring me dead bodies with knife and sword wounds, and tell me that they were
dead when you got there! Do I *look* stupid?!"
Danny blinked, then turned to Sara. "You know, Pez, she's got a point."
"Et tu, Wu?"
Jake frowned, hooking his fingers in his belt. "I'm going with Danny here,
Pez. What's up with that?"
"I thought I told you to shut it, McCartney! Especially since you still
haven't come clean! If you're not going to confess, hush up!" Vicky then
pointed the gun menacingly at Gabriel, who tried to curl up in his chair and
become invisible. "And you. Geek Boy. What's up with the glove? What are you
hiding?"
"Hunh?" Gabriel tried to squish himself into a smaller ball, since he really
didn't like being threatened by psychos with guns, and it didn't look like
Pez was going to step up and stab her friend any time soon.
"The leather glove you wear on only one hand! Do you think you're the
reincarnation of Michael Jackson?" Vicky demanded.
"Uh, Vic, he's not dead--" Pez said patiently.
"Are you trying to tell a coroner who's dead and who isn't? Pony up, Hair
boy!" Incensed at his refusal to strip, Vicky reached over and pulled the glove
off Gabriel's fingers, to reveal -- the entwined symbol of the Witchblade!
And a really cheesy knockoff stick-on tattoo of the Olympic Rings!
"You!" Sara staggered back in shock. Jake and Danny looked merely puzzled.
"Ugly scar, man. What's that about?"
Gabriel's face morphed evilly, like something out of the Matrix, but without
the sound effects, and then he spoke in a truly affected accent: "Alas, Miss
Po. Not the reincarnation of the sterling Mr. Jackson. But the
reincarnation of the iron Kenneth Irons!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere (well, okay, from the bank of overhanging lights,
where he'd been lurking like the huge loser he is), Ian jumped down and hit
Gabriel right between the shoulder blades, smacking him into the floor with
way too much melodrama.
Jake and Danny stood there and blinked again, rather overwhelmed, then
remembered that they were cops, and pulled their pieces, training them on
Ian, who sneered at them, and also Vicky, who looked apoplectic.
Meanwhile, Sara raised an eyebrow, had a flashback, had a flash-forward,
figured out a course of action, and wondered if she should get another hole
pierced in her ears.
"No one is answering my questions! So what if he's Kenneth Irons, why was he
wearing the stupid glove!"
Ian was staring at Sara, though he spoke to Vicki. "Sweet lady, I fear
that only the Divine Sara may answer your prayers. Tell us, mi dama,
how you could possibly miss the changes in your angel-faced friend?"
"Hey!" Sounding like himself again, Gabriel tried to rear up and nearly
dislodged Ian, who kept his balance like he was on a jack-in-the-box lid.
"What changes? What the hell is going on?"
"You're possessed," Sara sighed. "I should've known."
"You really should have, Sara." The fruity voice was back, only it was less
impressive with Gabriel's face pressed into the floor.
"Shut up, Irons." Sara yawned.
"Okay, I'm with Vicky now," Danny said, moving to stand next to her. "I want
some answers, and I want them now! Or the next person to freak me out gets
shot or kicked in the face!"
"Fine." Sara said, long-sufferingly. "Danny, you used to be dead. Vicky? You
used to have a drinking problem, and I don't know what happened with that,
'cause you're fine now, and it's definitely not because of any rips in the
space -time continuum. Jake? No one's buying the innocent act. Drop it,
it's old. He works for the FBI, on a taskforce trying to bring down the
White Bulls, who are probably a lot harder to find since they're not
currently stalking me because of Irons' orders. And this is Ian, he's just a
freak. Get off of Gabriel, will you? Jeez."
"And you know all this-- how?" Danny asked skeptically.
"Well, I'd think the freak thing was obvious--"
"No, the rest of it, Pez. C'mon, give!"
"What he said," Jake agreed, looking put out that no one was buying his
innocent-young-schmuck routine. Being thought just a schmuck was a lot
worse, even if it *was* in a good cause.
Suddenly there was a noise like someone mixing silverware in the blender,
and then Sara was holding a big ol' sword coming out of a gauntlet on her fist.
"Coooooool," Jake said, temporarily forgetting he wasn't a surfer anymore,
and reverting to his roots.
"Whoa," Danny said quietly, trying to hide being weirded out behind being
monosyllabic.
"What the hell...? *That's* what cut those guys up!" Vicky exclaimed in glee
as Danny gaped. "Yes! I knew you knew what was going on!"
"Finish him, Sara," Ian purred, rubbing his hands together and looming over
the still-kneeling Gabriel, whose face was morphing back and forth from evil
joy to total bewilderment. "The Witchblade commands it. Despite the fact
that I loathe him, and love him, and will naturally hate you for it.You will
never be free of him until---"
*WHONK*
Ian fell like a sack of dark-garbed cement from the blow to the back of his head,
and Sara breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, I've been wanting to do that for
two lifetimes."
She turned to the crouched Gabriel/Irons combination. "Right. Irons? You
suck. And you're history. You have three seconds to vacate the premises -
and my friend - for whatever skeezy afterlife is waiting for you, before I
dust you. Figuratively speaking."
"You can't kill me with the Blade, Sara. I already proved that," Irons told
her smugly.
"No, but I can look away while Vicky shoots you, then claim that it was
accidental. And that way, when he wakes up, Ian will be pissed at her and
not me, this time." Sara looked thoughtful. "And then maybe he'll stalk
someone else. Cool."
"Ms. Po---" Irons tried to look appealing, and only succeeded in resembling
Charles Manson wearing the face of a Backstreet Boy.
"Shut up. I don't like your attitude."
"One."
"Pez, I don't think this is a good idea-- think of the paperwork."
"I don't know, McCartney. If it gets rid of most of the weirdness, it might
be worth it----"
"Two."
"Sara, please - consider the fate of your friend, young Gabriel--"
"He had a good life. I'm sure he'll be reincarnated as something nice."
"Dude, you've got options. There's a lot of corpses in here, pick one...."
"Three!"
As Vicky raised her gun and sighted along the barrel, Gabriel/Irons made a
shrieking, squeaky noise, similar to the death throes of a mouse caught in a
Cuisinart, and then Gabriel did a passable imitation of St.Vitus's Dance.
When the seizures stopped, he had a dazed smile on his face. "Whoa."
Sara smiled back, and the blade suddenly retracted into the Gauntlet, much
to Danny and Jake's fascination. "Gabriel?"
"Sara?" He blinked endearingly, looking as fuzzy and harmless as Thumper.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine. Fine. I'm ... good. Just fine."
Sara thought about that, tilted her head, then hit him across the jaw with
the Witchblade. HARD. Because *no one* could come out of having Kenneth
Irons in their head feeling 'fine.' Gabriel's eyes rolled up until the
whites showed, and he went down like another sack of wet cement-- then was
enveloped in a silvery light that rose, hovered over him, gave a Bronx cheer
in Sara's direction, and headed for the nearest air shaft.
Sara's eyes narrowed. "Unh-uh. You don't get off that easy, Irons." Reaching
out with her Gauntleted hand, she *grabbed* the silvery light-mist-fog-junk,
which immediately began to squeal. Ignoring this, she pulled it over to one
of Vicky's specimen jars, stuck it in there, and screwed on the top. It
began to bang itself against the walls, then huddled in a sullen, bruised
and whimpering mass of glowing fog on the bottom of the jar.
"Dad never did buy me those sea monkeys I wanted...." Sara smiled at the
sulking spirit-light happily.
"Owwwwwwww...." groaned one of the masses on the floor.
"Sorry, Gabriel. How do you feel?"
"Like crap, how do you think? Thanks for the exorcism."
"No problem."
"Are either of you guys following this any more?" Jake whispered to Danny
and Vicky.
Danny shrugged. "Evil badness defeated. What do you think, Vic?"
"Good call. And don't talk to me, Fed Boy. I'm still mad about you
pretending to be a rookie. I hate being left out of the loop."
Ian suddenly sprang straight up, regaining consciousness in a ninja
nanosecond, his eyes wild. "What?" Sara pointed to the jar. "How?" She held
up the Blade. "Why?"
"Why do you think? He was pissing me off. If he's not gonna stay dead, he
should stay out of my hair." She snorted. "Not unlike someone else I can
mention."
"Ahhh. I see." Ian looked contemplative, which bore a strong resemblance to
anyone else being stoned out of their mind. "Congratulations, my lady. If
you'll give me the jar--"
"No WAY. Ian. I'm gonna say this once: Get over it. Get over your Oedipus
complex, your Galahad syndrome, your lack of childhood, your total
cluelessness about real life, and while you're at it, get over me. *Please.*
You're creeping me out, Norman."
"How--"
"I'm thinking a world cruise, a good therapist, a lot of Peyote, possibly
some windsurfing. Talk to Jake about that part of it. As far as you're
concerned, though, this jar does not exist."
"You can't--" He got to his feet to loom, then found all the guns trained
on him.
"I so can. Me and three police specials pointed at your head say so. Don't
make me hit you again, Nottingham."
Ian brooded for a moment, much like Quasimodo with a hangover and a
lobotomy, then sighed. "Can we do lunch? After I get back?"
Sara considered, then shook her head. "Maybe coffee." Especially since it's
the non-relationship drink of choice, she thought.
"I hear that's good."
"It really is." Sara smiled brightly. "Say good-bye, Ian."
"Farewell, my fair one... until we meet again... If not in this life, then
in the next...." Ian sort of wafted out the door as everyone stared after
him, and the little light tried to find a way out of the lid of the jar.
Then they all breathed noticeably easier.
"What a freak," Vicky muttered. "A *built* freak, but still a freak."
"Told you."
"So is that... everything?" Danny asked tentatively. "Gabriel was
possessed-- and that little mark's gone, I'm gonna assume that's good--
Jake's a undercover Fed. Nottingham is a huge freak, and Sara--"
"And Sara's got a mondo cool accessory. Can I borrow that for my next date,
Pez?" Vicky asked, holstering her gun.
"Sure. If you don't mind slaughtering demons after the movie. Thanks for
your help in straightening all this out."
Danny did a double-take. "What? You set this up?"
"Well, duh, to quote Buffy. As a Chosen One, I couldn't reveal the truth
unless everyone I loved was in danger, and since none of the bad guys I've
met so far were good enough to pull that off, I figured I had to do it
myself." Sara rolled her eyes. "Thank God that's over. Gabriel, honey, get
off the floor, you're getting dusty."
"Will you buy me a beer? I was possessed. I deserve sympathy." He batted his
eyelashes at her and grinned, already mostly recovered.
"*I'll* buy you a beer," Vicky said decisively. "Why didn't you tell me he
was so cute, Pez?"
"It's not the kind of thing I feel comfortable noticing. Otherwise I'd have
to jump too many of my acquaintances, and some of them are related." Sara
checked her watch. "You guys go on to the bar. I've got an errand to run,
Conchobar and I will catch up," she said as she breezed out the door.
"Conchobar?" Vicky asked, helping Gabriel to his feet, and doing a bit of
eye-flirting with him as he checked her out.
"Coma Man. I'm guessing she went to pull him out of unconsciousness. After a
possession, that should be a piece of cake for her," Gabriel said. Turning
to Jake, he grinned. "Dude. You're FBI? Can I see your badge? And do you
know where I can get some J. Edgar Hoover souvenirs?"
"Nobody tells me anything," Vicky sighed. "You two knew about this guy of
hers, hunh?" she asked, glaring at Sara's partners.
"Kinda."
"Sorta."
"So, dish. I'll drive. I want the 411 on this Con guy before we get to the
bar, or I'm pulling out the gun again."
Danny frowned. "Hey. She never explained the Chosen One thing. I can't
believe we let her skate on that!"
Gabriel opened the door for Vicky, and secretly grinned at the possibilities
in dating an older woman who *wasn't* a force for cosmic weirdness. "No big.
I'll explain on the way to the bar. That way we won't have to waste time
thinking about it again until we're drunk enough to deal."
"Um, what are we gonna do with the Creepy Tinkerbell from Hell?" Jake asked,
gesturing to the jar.
Danny smiled evilly. "I have an idea."
Danny's niece Meija loved her new nightlight; it was such a comfort, after
everything she'd been through. It didn't need to be fed, or anything, but it always
reacted when she played her *NSync CD's, going practically nuts with joy.
And they all lived
(say it with me)
Happily
Ever
Almost
After
(At least until they had to go after Dante and his goons again, but that's another story.)
- the end (kinda) -
with Tina egging me on. *points at Chicago* Her fault! All her fault!
Thanks to the Horsechicks for beta'ing. I don't own any of these people, and
neither does Kenneth Irons, no matter *how* hard he tries.
And oh yeah, do not take seriously a'tall.
When Coroners Attack! (Film at 11)
by C. L. Kamnikar
copyright 2002
"Well!" Vicky Po, NYPD medical examiner and coroner, clapped her hands
together joyfully, making the five people in the morgue all want to take a
step back. Whenever Vic got that happy, something gross was usually going
on. "I bet you all wonder why I asked you to be here today."
"You're announcing your candidacy for President?" Jake smart-mouthed,
leaning against a dissection table.
"You just won Publisher's Clearinghouse, and you're going to share with your
friends?" Danny suggested with a grin. "Lee and I could use the money with
the baby coming and all..."
"You're quitting this lousy job and moving to Bimini?" Sara offered.
"You're going to confess that you're the real murderer?" Everyone *looked*
at Gabriel, who shrugged. "What? It could happen."
"As you can all guess... no. No, no, and no. I *knew* you wouldn't get it.
No one takes the cliches seriously, even when they should. In fact, I
counted on it!" Vicky suddenly whipped a .38 Special out of the back
waistband, and backed away so she had Danny, Jake, Sara and Gabriel in her
sights. The three cops and one appalled civilian all watched her with the
deer-in-headlights expressions of those who can't believe a geek got the
drop on them.
"Vic, what are you--"
"Po--"
"Calm down, Dr. Po. There's no need for violence," Jake said, taking a step
toward her, making calming motions with his hands. "Why don't you just give
that to me--"
"Shut up! Who are you? You're a rookie! Don't talk to me like I'm a
lunatic!" Vicky shrieked, cocking the gun. Four people gulped audibly, and
one held his breath. "It's got to stop! There's too much mystery, and it's
completely unravelling my ability to cope with this job, not to mention
reality as we know it! I have six years in this lab, and I. Want. Answers!
Starting with: who are you kidding with that hair, McCartney? And that
attitude? If you're a new cop, I'm Jennifer Lopez!"
Vicky swung the gun on Sara. "And you! I thought we were friends! And you
bring me dead bodies with knife and sword wounds, and tell me that they were
dead when you got there! Do I *look* stupid?!"
Danny blinked, then turned to Sara. "You know, Pez, she's got a point."
"Et tu, Wu?"
Jake frowned, hooking his fingers in his belt. "I'm going with Danny here,
Pez. What's up with that?"
"I thought I told you to shut it, McCartney! Especially since you still
haven't come clean! If you're not going to confess, hush up!" Vicky then
pointed the gun menacingly at Gabriel, who tried to curl up in his chair and
become invisible. "And you. Geek Boy. What's up with the glove? What are you
hiding?"
"Hunh?" Gabriel tried to squish himself into a smaller ball, since he really
didn't like being threatened by psychos with guns, and it didn't look like
Pez was going to step up and stab her friend any time soon.
"The leather glove you wear on only one hand! Do you think you're the
reincarnation of Michael Jackson?" Vicky demanded.
"Uh, Vic, he's not dead--" Pez said patiently.
"Are you trying to tell a coroner who's dead and who isn't? Pony up, Hair
boy!" Incensed at his refusal to strip, Vicky reached over and pulled the glove
off Gabriel's fingers, to reveal -- the entwined symbol of the Witchblade!
And a really cheesy knockoff stick-on tattoo of the Olympic Rings!
"You!" Sara staggered back in shock. Jake and Danny looked merely puzzled.
"Ugly scar, man. What's that about?"
Gabriel's face morphed evilly, like something out of the Matrix, but without
the sound effects, and then he spoke in a truly affected accent: "Alas, Miss
Po. Not the reincarnation of the sterling Mr. Jackson. But the
reincarnation of the iron Kenneth Irons!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere (well, okay, from the bank of overhanging lights,
where he'd been lurking like the huge loser he is), Ian jumped down and hit
Gabriel right between the shoulder blades, smacking him into the floor with
way too much melodrama.
Jake and Danny stood there and blinked again, rather overwhelmed, then
remembered that they were cops, and pulled their pieces, training them on
Ian, who sneered at them, and also Vicky, who looked apoplectic.
Meanwhile, Sara raised an eyebrow, had a flashback, had a flash-forward,
figured out a course of action, and wondered if she should get another hole
pierced in her ears.
"No one is answering my questions! So what if he's Kenneth Irons, why was he
wearing the stupid glove!"
Ian was staring at Sara, though he spoke to Vicki. "Sweet lady, I fear
that only the Divine Sara may answer your prayers. Tell us, mi dama,
how you could possibly miss the changes in your angel-faced friend?"
"Hey!" Sounding like himself again, Gabriel tried to rear up and nearly
dislodged Ian, who kept his balance like he was on a jack-in-the-box lid.
"What changes? What the hell is going on?"
"You're possessed," Sara sighed. "I should've known."
"You really should have, Sara." The fruity voice was back, only it was less
impressive with Gabriel's face pressed into the floor.
"Shut up, Irons." Sara yawned.
"Okay, I'm with Vicky now," Danny said, moving to stand next to her. "I want
some answers, and I want them now! Or the next person to freak me out gets
shot or kicked in the face!"
"Fine." Sara said, long-sufferingly. "Danny, you used to be dead. Vicky? You
used to have a drinking problem, and I don't know what happened with that,
'cause you're fine now, and it's definitely not because of any rips in the
space -time continuum. Jake? No one's buying the innocent act. Drop it,
it's old. He works for the FBI, on a taskforce trying to bring down the
White Bulls, who are probably a lot harder to find since they're not
currently stalking me because of Irons' orders. And this is Ian, he's just a
freak. Get off of Gabriel, will you? Jeez."
"And you know all this-- how?" Danny asked skeptically.
"Well, I'd think the freak thing was obvious--"
"No, the rest of it, Pez. C'mon, give!"
"What he said," Jake agreed, looking put out that no one was buying his
innocent-young-schmuck routine. Being thought just a schmuck was a lot
worse, even if it *was* in a good cause.
Suddenly there was a noise like someone mixing silverware in the blender,
and then Sara was holding a big ol' sword coming out of a gauntlet on her fist.
"Coooooool," Jake said, temporarily forgetting he wasn't a surfer anymore,
and reverting to his roots.
"Whoa," Danny said quietly, trying to hide being weirded out behind being
monosyllabic.
"What the hell...? *That's* what cut those guys up!" Vicky exclaimed in glee
as Danny gaped. "Yes! I knew you knew what was going on!"
"Finish him, Sara," Ian purred, rubbing his hands together and looming over
the still-kneeling Gabriel, whose face was morphing back and forth from evil
joy to total bewilderment. "The Witchblade commands it. Despite the fact
that I loathe him, and love him, and will naturally hate you for it.You will
never be free of him until---"
*WHONK*
Ian fell like a sack of dark-garbed cement from the blow to the back of his head,
and Sara breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, I've been wanting to do that for
two lifetimes."
She turned to the crouched Gabriel/Irons combination. "Right. Irons? You
suck. And you're history. You have three seconds to vacate the premises -
and my friend - for whatever skeezy afterlife is waiting for you, before I
dust you. Figuratively speaking."
"You can't kill me with the Blade, Sara. I already proved that," Irons told
her smugly.
"No, but I can look away while Vicky shoots you, then claim that it was
accidental. And that way, when he wakes up, Ian will be pissed at her and
not me, this time." Sara looked thoughtful. "And then maybe he'll stalk
someone else. Cool."
"Ms. Po---" Irons tried to look appealing, and only succeeded in resembling
Charles Manson wearing the face of a Backstreet Boy.
"Shut up. I don't like your attitude."
"One."
"Pez, I don't think this is a good idea-- think of the paperwork."
"I don't know, McCartney. If it gets rid of most of the weirdness, it might
be worth it----"
"Two."
"Sara, please - consider the fate of your friend, young Gabriel--"
"He had a good life. I'm sure he'll be reincarnated as something nice."
"Dude, you've got options. There's a lot of corpses in here, pick one...."
"Three!"
As Vicky raised her gun and sighted along the barrel, Gabriel/Irons made a
shrieking, squeaky noise, similar to the death throes of a mouse caught in a
Cuisinart, and then Gabriel did a passable imitation of St.Vitus's Dance.
When the seizures stopped, he had a dazed smile on his face. "Whoa."
Sara smiled back, and the blade suddenly retracted into the Gauntlet, much
to Danny and Jake's fascination. "Gabriel?"
"Sara?" He blinked endearingly, looking as fuzzy and harmless as Thumper.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine. Fine. I'm ... good. Just fine."
Sara thought about that, tilted her head, then hit him across the jaw with
the Witchblade. HARD. Because *no one* could come out of having Kenneth
Irons in their head feeling 'fine.' Gabriel's eyes rolled up until the
whites showed, and he went down like another sack of wet cement-- then was
enveloped in a silvery light that rose, hovered over him, gave a Bronx cheer
in Sara's direction, and headed for the nearest air shaft.
Sara's eyes narrowed. "Unh-uh. You don't get off that easy, Irons." Reaching
out with her Gauntleted hand, she *grabbed* the silvery light-mist-fog-junk,
which immediately began to squeal. Ignoring this, she pulled it over to one
of Vicky's specimen jars, stuck it in there, and screwed on the top. It
began to bang itself against the walls, then huddled in a sullen, bruised
and whimpering mass of glowing fog on the bottom of the jar.
"Dad never did buy me those sea monkeys I wanted...." Sara smiled at the
sulking spirit-light happily.
"Owwwwwwww...." groaned one of the masses on the floor.
"Sorry, Gabriel. How do you feel?"
"Like crap, how do you think? Thanks for the exorcism."
"No problem."
"Are either of you guys following this any more?" Jake whispered to Danny
and Vicky.
Danny shrugged. "Evil badness defeated. What do you think, Vic?"
"Good call. And don't talk to me, Fed Boy. I'm still mad about you
pretending to be a rookie. I hate being left out of the loop."
Ian suddenly sprang straight up, regaining consciousness in a ninja
nanosecond, his eyes wild. "What?" Sara pointed to the jar. "How?" She held
up the Blade. "Why?"
"Why do you think? He was pissing me off. If he's not gonna stay dead, he
should stay out of my hair." She snorted. "Not unlike someone else I can
mention."
"Ahhh. I see." Ian looked contemplative, which bore a strong resemblance to
anyone else being stoned out of their mind. "Congratulations, my lady. If
you'll give me the jar--"
"No WAY. Ian. I'm gonna say this once: Get over it. Get over your Oedipus
complex, your Galahad syndrome, your lack of childhood, your total
cluelessness about real life, and while you're at it, get over me. *Please.*
You're creeping me out, Norman."
"How--"
"I'm thinking a world cruise, a good therapist, a lot of Peyote, possibly
some windsurfing. Talk to Jake about that part of it. As far as you're
concerned, though, this jar does not exist."
"You can't--" He got to his feet to loom, then found all the guns trained
on him.
"I so can. Me and three police specials pointed at your head say so. Don't
make me hit you again, Nottingham."
Ian brooded for a moment, much like Quasimodo with a hangover and a
lobotomy, then sighed. "Can we do lunch? After I get back?"
Sara considered, then shook her head. "Maybe coffee." Especially since it's
the non-relationship drink of choice, she thought.
"I hear that's good."
"It really is." Sara smiled brightly. "Say good-bye, Ian."
"Farewell, my fair one... until we meet again... If not in this life, then
in the next...." Ian sort of wafted out the door as everyone stared after
him, and the little light tried to find a way out of the lid of the jar.
Then they all breathed noticeably easier.
"What a freak," Vicky muttered. "A *built* freak, but still a freak."
"Told you."
"So is that... everything?" Danny asked tentatively. "Gabriel was
possessed-- and that little mark's gone, I'm gonna assume that's good--
Jake's a undercover Fed. Nottingham is a huge freak, and Sara--"
"And Sara's got a mondo cool accessory. Can I borrow that for my next date,
Pez?" Vicky asked, holstering her gun.
"Sure. If you don't mind slaughtering demons after the movie. Thanks for
your help in straightening all this out."
Danny did a double-take. "What? You set this up?"
"Well, duh, to quote Buffy. As a Chosen One, I couldn't reveal the truth
unless everyone I loved was in danger, and since none of the bad guys I've
met so far were good enough to pull that off, I figured I had to do it
myself." Sara rolled her eyes. "Thank God that's over. Gabriel, honey, get
off the floor, you're getting dusty."
"Will you buy me a beer? I was possessed. I deserve sympathy." He batted his
eyelashes at her and grinned, already mostly recovered.
"*I'll* buy you a beer," Vicky said decisively. "Why didn't you tell me he
was so cute, Pez?"
"It's not the kind of thing I feel comfortable noticing. Otherwise I'd have
to jump too many of my acquaintances, and some of them are related." Sara
checked her watch. "You guys go on to the bar. I've got an errand to run,
Conchobar and I will catch up," she said as she breezed out the door.
"Conchobar?" Vicky asked, helping Gabriel to his feet, and doing a bit of
eye-flirting with him as he checked her out.
"Coma Man. I'm guessing she went to pull him out of unconsciousness. After a
possession, that should be a piece of cake for her," Gabriel said. Turning
to Jake, he grinned. "Dude. You're FBI? Can I see your badge? And do you
know where I can get some J. Edgar Hoover souvenirs?"
"Nobody tells me anything," Vicky sighed. "You two knew about this guy of
hers, hunh?" she asked, glaring at Sara's partners.
"Kinda."
"Sorta."
"So, dish. I'll drive. I want the 411 on this Con guy before we get to the
bar, or I'm pulling out the gun again."
Danny frowned. "Hey. She never explained the Chosen One thing. I can't
believe we let her skate on that!"
Gabriel opened the door for Vicky, and secretly grinned at the possibilities
in dating an older woman who *wasn't* a force for cosmic weirdness. "No big.
I'll explain on the way to the bar. That way we won't have to waste time
thinking about it again until we're drunk enough to deal."
"Um, what are we gonna do with the Creepy Tinkerbell from Hell?" Jake asked,
gesturing to the jar.
Danny smiled evilly. "I have an idea."
Danny's niece Meija loved her new nightlight; it was such a comfort, after
everything she'd been through. It didn't need to be fed, or anything, but it always
reacted when she played her *NSync CD's, going practically nuts with joy.
And they all lived
(say it with me)
Happily
Ever
Almost
After
(At least until they had to go after Dante and his goons again, but that's another story.)
- the end (kinda) -