Chapter 1

Tony walked into the local satellite office of the Burlington County Sheriff, more than a little irritated. Gibbs had called him on his drive back down from a visit to New York, reminded him that his leave 'officially' ended on Friday and it was Sunday, and had sent him to do the preliminary work on a Marine that had been found dead in the woods in Burlington County, Pennsylvania.

The door thunked shut behind him, and he paused to let his eyes adjust. A pretty girl in uniform sat behind a counter. She looked up at him and smiled. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm looking for Deputy Logan," he said. He pulled out his badge. "Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS."

She tilted her head. "A little late, aren't you?" Tony blinked. He'd gotten the call no more than twenty minutes ago. "I'm Sergeant Miller. Your friends have already been to see the body and gone to the crime scene with Deputy Logan."

"My friends?"

"The other FBI agents." She glanced down at the pages in front of her. "Fornell and Sacks."

Tony's eyes narrowed. What the hell were Fornell and Sacks doing horning in on a case that was in clear NCIS jurisdiction? "I'm not FBI," he said. "I'm NCIS. FBI doesn't have jurisdiction on a dead marine."

"He died in a national forest," she replied.

Tony's teeth ground together. "I see," he said as affably as he could. He shrugged. "Well, in about two hours, the NCIS medical examiner will arrive, Dr. Donald Mallard."

"Donald Mallard? Who would name their child something like that?"

"An upper class British lady in the 40s who probably didn't watch much in the way of Disney cartoons."

Miller's eyebrows went up. "An old doctor?" she asked, an odd tone in her voice. "Well, I'll look forward to seeing him."

"So, can you give me directions to the crime scene?" Tony asked.

She wrote down directions rapidly. "Here," she said. "So, is that Agent Fornell married? He's sure a cute one."

"Divorced," Tony said, a little astonished. "With a little girl."

She didn't seem put off in the slightest by this, but evidently she liked old guys. Shaking his head, Tony went back out to his car and drove up into the hills to find the crime scene.

When he arrived, he parked next to a black '67 Impala. Must belong to Sacks or Logan because there was no way it was Fornell's. Tony would know if Fornell had a car that cool. He walked up the path, following the directions Sergeant Miller had given him, and reached a clearing with tumbled boulders. A long, skinny figure was on his knees, the top half of his body hidden behind a large rock. Sacks, no doubt, because Fornell was standing with his back to Tony, his hair astonishingly dark.

"Toby, I see you've taken advantage of Just For Men hair dye," Tony called. "And Slacks, you've done better in the clothing department, I gotta tell you. I'd say you were ruining those pants, but there's not much to ruin."

The standing man turned, revealing himself to be much younger than Tobias Fornell, and his partner sat back on his knees. Definitely not Agent Sacks. Decidedly non-regulation haircut for one thing, and skin so pale that he could pass for a vampire. Tony stared back and forth between them and put his hand on his gun. Before he had a chance to draw it, though, both men had pieces out and pointing at him.

"Get rid of the gun," the short guy said. "Just toss it gently over there."

"Where's Deputy Logan?" Tony demanded.

"He's . . . around," the tall one said, sounding uneasy.

"Around," Tony said. "Great."

The short one shook his head and took a step closer, cocking his pistol. "Look, dude, drop the gun now."

Tony pulled his weapon out and tossed it aside, taking careful note of where it had fallen so he could dive for it if need be.

"I told you," hissed the tall . . . boy. Tony realized abruptly that the kid was younger than McGee. "A real FBI agent was bound to show up sooner or later."

"It doesn't matter, Sacks," snapped the short one. "We've got a job to do."

"Yeah, but . . . FBI. We don't need this."

"As it happens, I'm not FBI," Tony said. "I'm NCIS." He had a second piece on his ankle if he could just get these two distracted.

"Oh," the fake Fornell said, then his brows knit. "Huh?"

The second one glanced sideways. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Dean," he said.

"Good job, Sammy," replied Dean. "Now he's got our names."

"Actually, I just had the one until you said his," Tony pointed out affably. Dean glared at him.

"Whatever, this isn't going like we planned," Sammy said.

Tony cleared his throat. "Could you have this squabble later?" he asked. Ordinarily he'd encourage the arguing, but it didn't seem to be distracting them from their aim in the slightest.

"You keep out of this," Dean replied.

"I just don't really like having the guys holding guns on me bickering like children."

"Then you chose the wrong guys to hold guns on you," Dean retorted, and Tony blinked. "So, you know these guys, huh? Fornell and Sacks?"

Tony nodded. "Oh yeah," he said. "Fornell . . . is old enough to be my dad." He glanced down and saw that Dean was standing in a slight depression in the ground. "He's also shorter than you, gray-haired, and not nearly as good looking." Dean shrugged like that had to be entirely obvious. Tony glanced over at the other guy, Sammy. "Sacks has you beat in the looks department, hands down, and he's black." Dean smirked and Sammy rolled his eyes. Tony shook his head and spread his hands wide. "And what's with the crappy suits, guys? Even the FBI dresses better than that."

"Are you seriously giving the guys with guns a fashion critique?" Dean asked.

Tony shrugged. "So, you planning to add murder of a federal agent to whatever other charges you're racking up?" It might not be wise to bring that up given the circumstances, but Tony had never been one to err on the side of wisdom.

The kid took several impulsive steps forward, his weapon falling to his side. "No, man, we're not going to kill you!" he said earnestly.

"Sammy!" Dean exclaimed, turning. "You can't tell people that!"

Tony squatted instantly and pulled out his back up piece. He came up with the 9mm pointed at Dean's head. At that same moment, Dean turned back and pointed his .45 at Tony's head. All three of them froze and were silent for a long moment. Tony felt sweat beading up at his hairline, but he wasn't shifting.

"Okay," Sammy said. "This is a fun game. Could we not do this, Dean?"

"What do you want me to do, Sammy?" Dean demanded, and truth be told, he sounded almost as unhappy about the situation as Sammy did. That didn't seem to have any effect on where his gun was pointing, however. Tony was having trouble getting a bead on this mess.

"Could we all put the guns away before someone does something truly, appallingly stupid?" Sam exclaimed.

"Too late, boys," Tony said, and both the younger men glared at him. "Now, where is Deputy Logan?" As he spoke, Tony noticed something odd happening behind Dean. A strange mist was coalescing into a concentrated cloud, despite the hot July weather. He supposed it could be an outlet for some kind of underground hot spring, or maybe a sewer vent.

"Put your gun down and maybe we can discuss it," Dean ordered.

Given what he suspected had happened to Deputy Logan at the hands of these enterprising young felons, Tony wasn't giving up any advantage, no matter how slight. "Just answer my question," he said, but his voice faltered as the cloud of mist he could still see over Dean's shoulder morphed from a shapeless cloud into a female figure. Dean started saying something, but Tony didn't take in any words. The woman . . . or girl . . . was plainly visible, though she was still shrouded in mist. Tall and slender, she had the figure of a girl entering womanhood, and her hair was some kind of dark. Tony couldn't tell what color, because she seemed to be appearing in black and white against the bright green backdrop of the trees and underbrush. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Her eyes, as they came into existence, were focused on him, filled with rage and something akin to hate.

"Dean?" said Sammy beside him, his voice filled with dismay. Tony couldn't see him in his peripheral vision, and, though he knew that should disturb him, the angry girl appearing impossibly before him was rapidly seizing his full attention.

"What, Sammy?" Dean demanded irritably.

"Where's the shotgun?"

Tony's heart began to thump in his chest. He wondered what the hell Sammy wanted a shotgun for. Breathing became an effort with the sheer terror filling him. She could not be there. He wanted to yell, to demand what he was seeing, even to run, but he couldn't. He was frozen in place.

"In the car . . ." Dean turned, and his eyes widened. "Crap!"

All of a sudden, the girl shot straight across the clearing towards him, right through Dean, who let out a startled expletive. She moved with alarming speed. Tony felt himself enveloped in freezing, damp air that his labored breathing dragged deep into his lungs. Her anger was hitting him like body blows, making him feel battered and bruised. He shivered in the cold and still could not move.

Hands slid under his arms from either side, lifting him almost off his feet and carrying him backwards out of the cloud of frigid vapor. Hot air hit him again, intensifying his shivers briefly. The girl gave chase, shrieking her fury to the sky. The shriek smashed through Tony's mind and his brain ceased to function.

When he came to himself again, he was wrapped in a blanket in the backseat of a car. Sammy and Dean were in front of him, both sitting sideways on the seat, and they were arguing. "– FBI guys in the 70s weren't affected, so she shouldn't have attacked him." Dean finished this statement with a thumb over his shoulder pointing in Tony's direction.

"I don't know, Dean, law enforcement –"

"We know for a fact that there were FBI agents all over that hill in '78, Sam, and not one of them was attacked. Now, I'm not sure how the military police figures into this, it's not the same thing as the local yokels, but –"

"Cheavers was a cop in Lincoln before he joined up, right after 9/11," Sam said, glancing down at something in his lap. "Logan is a member of the same department whose cops attacked her in the first place. NCIS . . . I'm not sure, he's technically a part of the military law enforcement establishment, so I don't know if that –"

"He's not a cop, Sam. He's a federal agent, and she only goes after cops."

"I used to be a cop," Tony said, and they both turned to stare at him with wide eyes.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean muttered.

Tony felt weak and beaten, and his chest felt like it was weighted with lead. "I was a beat cop in Peoria, vice in Philadelphia and homicide in Baltimore."

"Glad to see you're still with us," Dean said. "So, what's your name, anyway?"

"Tony." His breathing wasn't returning to normal, though his heart no longer felt like it was trying to escape the confines of his ribcage. "What the hell was that?"

"You don't want to know," Dean replied dismissively.

Tony glowered at him. "Rule 47. Never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to. I asked. I want the answer." His voice was growing hoarse, and he recognized the symptoms of incipient chest infection. They were coming on awfully quickly, though. He hadn't felt sick at all till that thing hit him.

"Rule 47?" Dean repeated. "What rules are those?"

"The rules," Tony replied, not wanting to go into detail. "What was that thing?"

"She's a vengeful spirit," Sammy said, and Tony turned to stare at him in shock.

"A vengeful . . ." Tony shook his head. More likely she was an amazing special effect. His body rejected that suggestion, but his brain rejected the idea that she was anything supernatural. "Even assuming that was true, why would she be mad at me?" he asked.

Dean shrugged. "You're a cop." Tony turned raised eyebrows on him. "It's not fair, but what is? A couple cops attacked her in 1959, they raped her and killed her and got away with it. Now she's on a cop-killing frenzy. Just wrong place, wrong time for you, buddy boy."

"And that's what happened to Deputy Logan?" Tony felt surreptitiously for his belt buckle. The knife was still in place.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I mean, we assume so. We were in the woods when it happened."

Tony leaned back in the car seat, gauging his chances of getting out without one of the nut jobs grabbing him. The chances seemed pretty low at the moment, so he figured he'd better bide his time. Besides, he still wasn't altogether sure what was going on. Nothing seemed to make much sense. "Nice car, by the way."

"Thanks," Dean said, glancing around at the interior possessively.

"So, what do you plan to do with me?" Tony asked.

Dean shrugged. "We haven't figured out where she was buried yet. Till we do that, I'm afraid you're staying with us."

"Dean, we can't just keep him," Sammy said in an undertone.

"If we let him go, he's going to bring other feds down on top of us."

"Other feds are already on their way," Tony said. He dug in his pocket for his phone. The screen was cracked, and the buttons didn't even light up. He stared at it in dismay. "I am so dead," he muttered. Gibbs would kill him.

"What do you mean?" Sammy asked.

"Rule 3, never be unreachable," Tony said.

"It's not exactly your fault," Dean pointed out.

"It won't matter," Tony replied, and the guys exchanged a startled look that Tony ignored. "What happened to it, anyway?" he asked, turning it over in his hands. There were crazy cracks all over the back casing.

"Cold damage," Sammy said, taking it and looking closely at it. "I'm surprised you don't have frostbite or something."

Tony took a breath to respond to that bizarre statement, but it caught on some kind of obstruction in his lungs and he started coughing. It felt like pneumonia-level coughing, but it had come on too quickly. It didn't make any sense for him to be this screwed up this fast. One of the guys started pounding him on his back, and he finally managed to stop coughing. Dean had a hand on his shoulder when he looked up, and he was staring at Tony with wide eyes. "I think it's 'or something,' Sam," he said. "Were you sick before?" Tony shook his head. Talking might lead to more coughing.

"She doesn't make people sick, Dean, she kills them."

"Pneumonia kills, Sam, or it can. We got him out of there before she could quick freeze him, but maybe she left something behind."

Tony shook his head. "You guys are nuts," he said, but this pneumonia was coming on even faster than it had when he'd gone into the harbor twice in quick succession and then given artificial respiration to two people till he was ready to collapse himself. Even if he'd breathed in fresh plague virus, he shouldn't be sick this fast.

"I don't think the ghost gave him pneumonia," Sam said.

Tony started coughing again, and this time there was blood on his hand when he stopped.

"Son of a bitch, Sammy, he's really sick," Dean said, lifting Tony's head. "Dude, you've got a fever. Come on, he didn't look like this when he showed up."

"No, he didn't," Sammy said reluctantly.

"We've got to get him to the hospital or he's gonna die, and someone is going to have to stay with him."

Tony was beginning to feel sort of disconnected. "It's probably because of the plague," he muttered, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the seat.

"The plague?" Both voices together cut into a headache that Tony had barely noticed as of yet. He opened his eyes and glared at them. "What plague?" Sammy asked.

Tony blinked at him. "New . . .nem . . . the one that's not spelled how it sounds."

"Pneumonic?" Sammy asked. Tony gave him a thumbs up.

"What's that?" Dean demanded.

"It's the third stage of the Black Death," Sammy said.

"You mean like Middle Ages, rats and things?"

"That's the one," Tony said. "Speaking of rats, what's with the rat pack names?" he asked through a raw throat.

Sammy's brows went up. "Rat pack . . . what?"

Dean smacked him. "I never thought about that," he said. He shrugged. "Dean and Sammy, that's kind of cool. There's no Peter or Frank, though, and the only Jo we know would probably kill us if we tried to call her Joey."

Tony snorted, but the amused sound brought on a coughing fit that had Dean climbing into the back seat to pound on his back.

"What are you doing, Dean?" Sammy demanded. "Leave the poor man alone."

Tony looked up once the fit had passed. "He's breaking up the crap, but there . . . it shouldn't be so . . . so far advanced."

"No, it shouldn't," Dean said. "Sam, get in the driver's seat. We need to get him to the hospital."

Tony shook his head. "Where's my car?"

"Back at the bottom of the hill," Dean said.

"Is it okay? I mean, is she likely to mess with it?"

"I . . . uh . . . I don't think so," Dean said, but the way he said it meant he was lying.

"Oh, man, we gotta go back, then!" Tony exclaimed.

"Back? Are you nuts?"

"It's a '64 Mustang," Tony said, and he could tell that got through to Dean. "My last car exploded, the car before that was stolen and wrecked in a high speed chase. I can't lose another one. My insurance company will never forgive me."

"We are not going back for your car," Sammy said, putting the Impala into gear. "Dean!" he said over a protest. "He probably just wants us to run into those 'other federal agents' he mentioned earlier."

Tony hadn't even thought of that. That wasn't a good sign.

"Hey, that . . ." Dean touched Tony's shoulder. "Are any of your friends like you, former cops?"

Tony shook his head. "Gibbs was an MP, but . . . does one of you have a phone?"

"Yeah, but you can't use it," Dean said. "I do not want my number showing up on some fed's phone."

Tony grimaced and struggled not to give way to the tickle in his throat. Lung-ripping coughing was not his favorite pastime. He slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes. "Gibbs is going to kill me."

"Hey, man, you're sick. You can't work if you're hacking up a lung."

"Gibbs'll be pissed about that, too," Tony muttered.

"Your boss sounds like a prize jerk," Sammy said. Tony opened his eyes and glowered at the back of his head.

"I think you'd better keep your opinion to yourself, Sammy," Dean said.

"What do you mean, Dean? I mean, if he's going to be pissed at him for getting sick, don't you think that –"

Tony leaned forward and started to tell Sammy-boy that he didn't know what he was talking about. Two words in, though, his throat caught, and he started another round of coughing.

"Sam, shut up," Dean said.

After that, they traveled in silence, and Tony drifted off to sleep.

Author's note: Having a crappy day. Please say nice things if you feel them. Thanks.