(xi)
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"Perfume: Any smell that's used to drown a worse one."
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Gibbs gave Ziva the task of putting the fear of...jewish women, Tony supposed, into a variety of more or less shady motel owners, making them swear on everything they held dear that they would call (inconspicuously!) if anyone called Mary Bellows checked in, if anyone called anything similar to Mary Bellows checked in, if any young blonde bombshells with emo boyfriends checked in (although Ziva didn't put it quite like that), and finished with making them promise that if they ever had committed a crime that fell under NCIS jurisdiction, if they ever did commit a crime that fell under NCIS jurisdiction, or if they ever planned to commit a crime that fell under NCIS jurisdiction, they'd call then, too. It was really very impressive, Tony thought.
Gibbs had used his team leader's prerogative to get out of the office, bringing McGee with him, first heading off to interview Amanda Jennings' family, then going back to the park that was the only link they had between any of the victims, (besides the fact that they were all killed by the record, so to speak), to ask around about young blonde bombshells with emo boyfriends (although Tony didn't think Gibbs would put it quite like that).
This meant Tony was left with calling the earlier victims' families and asking them about young blonde bombshells with emo boyfriends, (and he did put it exactly like that, making Ziva glare at him for being unprofessional).
Elizabeth Holliday's relatives didn't know anything, but then he hadn't expected that they would, seeing that she was an only child and her parents were old, retired and living in Florida. The roommate was equally unhelpful, she was completely ditzy and self-absorbed in a way even her generous curves couldn't make up for. "...and as I told Lizzy's mother, it's so inconvenient, Special Agent DiNozzo, having the funeral on a Saturday, I mean, people really have better things to do on Saturdays, don't they? And I look horrible in black, but of course Lizzy's father is so old-fashioned and insists on conservative clothing...I think that's really inconsiderate towards the guests, don't you? And- What? A blonde girl? Nooo...No, I don't remember Lizzy mentioning a blonde girl. Lizzy didn't have many friends. Now, Special Agent DiNozzo, do you think-" When he finally got her off the line, Tony took a deep breath and decided that Petty Officer Holliday deserved to be canonized, because she had to be a saint if she could live full-time with someone like that without cracking and going on a murdering rampage.
Then he picked up the phone and called Joy Fairport's sister-in-law, Anna Fairport. Bingo. She had not only heard Joy talk in passing about the sweet young girl she'd met in the park, who always wished her a nice day and asked how the pregnancy was going, but she'd actually seen both her and the boy who seemed to follow her like a shadow, one day when Joy wanted company on her walk. Tony did a victory dance in his head, then paused and wondered if maybe he'd been spending too much time with Abby lately, and then asked Anna to come and assist in creating a sketch of the suspects.
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Lottie fingered the bottle of scented oil indecisively. The game was fun, but she had to admit she was getting somewhat impatient. Her darling brother seemed to have lost some of his touch. She would never have been able to run circles like this around him, before. She scoffed. What could one expect, when he insisted on living in a place like this and suppressing everything he was?
Maybe it was time to be a little obvious. She still didn't understand why he'd gotten so dreadfully upset with her in the first place – it was only a toy, after all – but the sooner he figured out her present, the sooner he could forgive her, and the sooner she could take him home. The way it was supposed to be.
But...she'd spent so much time and effort on this. She was reluctant to rush it now, now that it was so close to finished. She wanted it to be perfect. Anything less than that would not become her.
Having made up her mind to keep to the plan, Lottie daintily pulled the glass stopper from the bottle, wrinkling her nose at the sweet, cloying perfume. She applied it carefully to the pulse points on her wrists and behind her ears, allowing it to merge with, and subtly mask, her own scent.
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Anna Fairport was short and disarmingly dimpled, even in her grief, Tony noted as he escorted her down to Abby and her imaging software. Anna was an elementary school teacher, and there was a benign strictness in her manner that reminded him of his own Nana Laura, making him wonder if perhaps the care of children really hadn't changed all that much over the centuries.
Entering the lab, he introduced the girls to each other and then faded into the background, breathing deeply, drugging himself with Abby's scent to calm the wolf's agitation over his forced inactivity. It wasn't satisfied with these small abstract advances, anymore, it wanted a real, physical chase, rushing adrenalin and something to bite. He swallowed.
"...like that, or...pointier, like this?" Abby illustrated her question by folding a small paper hat and holding it upside down to her chin, like a cone-shaped pharaonic beard.
"Not quite as pointy as that," Anna smiled.
Tony had thought on it long and hard, and had come to the conclusion that when Abby was in a good mood, she was kind of like a human Mani wheel, sending out waves of happiness and infecting everyone around her with it. The antithesis of a psychic vampire.
"Like this, then?" Abby made some adjustments in the program and then looked inquiringly at Anna. She nodded.
"Better. And then her nose...yes...no, thinner there..."
Tony's phone rang.
"Yeah?" Absently, he watched as the sketch got a mouth.
Ziva's voice was even, but he could hear the underlying tension. "They have checked in."
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The motel could certainly be classified as a 'cheap little place', Tony thought, as he and Ziva got out of the car and made their way to the front desk. It was a neglected two-story building that he guessed had once been white, but now it was more of a nicotine yellow. They got the room number from the manager, who eyed Ziva with no small measure of trepidation. Tony wondered exactly what she'd said to the man over the phone.
"Yeah, so this girl comes in, right? Mousy little thing. Not my regular clientele, know what I mean? Says she wants a room. Pays with a card. Signs the name you said to keep an eye out for." The manager licked his fat lips nervously. "Then I look out the window, and I see her talking to a real knockout..." Obviously visualizing said knockout in his head, he leered salaciously at Ziva, who eyed him coldly. He cleared his throat. "Yeah. They went into her room. Was forty-five minutes ago. Haven't left, far as I know."
Tony exchanged a meaningful glance with Ziva. There was no time to wait for Gibbs and McGee to arrive. They had to move now. They are here, the prey is here, here, here, gracious huntress, wild lady, bless my hunt, give me my prey, they are here, the prey is here, the prey is here...
Not that Tony was complaining. In fact, he'd quite prefer it if Ziva wasn't there either, because then there would be no reliable witnesses if he just...changed...and maybe mauled people, a little... Nobody would believe a couple of ruthless killers if they said the federal agent sent to arrest them changed into a large wolf and chewed on them. Killers were notoriously untrustworthy, after all. Deranged. Insane. Unless they were very, very rich or very, very influential. Then they were merely eccentrics. Or presidents. ...here, the prey is here, how will I thank you? when I eat flesh, I will thank you, when I drink clear water, I will thank you, they are here, the prey is here...
He shook his head to regain focus and dispel the thin veil of yellow-gold that had started descending over his eyes. It was too easy to fall into a shift, when he was feeling so close to the end of such a long and frustrating hunt. Maybe Ziva's presence was a good thing...
"Room 9, you said?"
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Abby pressed Print with a flourish, and sat back in her chair, pleased with herself. Then she froze. Can't see the forest for the trees... She had been so focused on the little details, on getting it exactly right to Anna's specifications, that she hadn't actually looked at the entirety of the face she had created. But now she was looking. And recognizing.
"Oh, you bitch!" she exclaimed. "I knew that dress was too good for you!"
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So close. The scent was hanging in the corridor, thick and sticky and sweet like over-ripe fruit, and Tony was growling almost inaudibly. So close. He and Ziva stood to either side of the faded door with its tarnished brass number 9, guns at the ready. She caught his eye, took a deep breath, and nodded.
Her boot hit the lock at precisely the right angle and she'd applied exactly the right amount of force, making the door fly open but not bounce closed again from hitting the wall. Tony sent a quick mental nod to whoever had trained her. Ziva was good.
"NCIS, freeze!"
Tony took in the scene behind the door in less than a second. The girl, lying on the tasteless polyester bedspread, cuffed to the headboard with tears in her blue eyes. The boy, in the middle of stripping off his long-sleeved black shirt, staring at the unexpected intrusion in shock. The flash of white cloth and long blonde hair disappearing out the open window.
Oh, HELL no.
"Secure him!" he snarled, not bothering to see if Ziva acknowledged his order, already half way across the room in pursuit. He cleared the window effortlessly, landing on the dusty asphalt of the parking lot. Where...? There! And suddenly the wolf was in control of his mind, rushing after the girl into a back alley crowded with dumpsters. He ran silently now, every fiber of his being focused on the fleeing prey. She was very fast, but so was he, and slowly, inexorably, he was catching up to her. He was larger, and stronger, and he could run for hours if he had to. There was only one way for this to end.
When his hand closed on her arm, the wolf howled in triumph in his ears. When he spun her around only to meet a face he hadn't seen in over sixty years, the shock was enough to loosen his grip. She smiled at him fondly, and caressed his cheek.
"Hello, darling brother," she said, and her voice was every bit as clear and lovely as he remembered. "Well. This meeting is a bit inconvenient. You weren't supposed to catch me yet!" She laughed gaily, and then raised an admonishing finger. "So it's your own fault your present isn't finished. You'll just have to make do with it as it is. Now, we shall talk more later, I promise you, but for right now...I'm really very sorry about this, Antonio, but it's necessary."
She freed herself from his grip, gave him another blinding smile, and then tossed the contents of a small plastic container, held tightly in her little hand, straight into his face.
The scent shock sent him to his knees, coughing and choking. The wolf was panicking, lost, its primary sense overloaded. The yellow powder was a billowing cloud in the air, and he scrambled frantically backwards to get away from the stench. Asafoetida. Oh, very clever, little bitch.
By the time he got the coughing under control, she was long gone.
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Abby didn't hear him come in, but she looked up from the test she was preparing, and there he was, staring at the sketch on the screen with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Tony?" She approached cautiously. Gibbs had told her that Tony had lost the female suspect. He wasn't likely to be in a very good mood. "Do you want a hug?"
He managed a half-smile, pulling her close and breathing her deep, but he didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Anna has a good memory," he commented, lightly. "It's flawless. Looks exactly like her."
"How do you know that?" Abby said. "You can't have gotten a very good look at her when you were chasing after her. Unless she was running backwards. But that's not a very suspect-y thing to do, I don't think. Unless-"
"I know her, Abby. Her name is Charlotte."
To be continued.
Author's Chapter Notes:
there is excitement!
Chapter End Notes:
still don't own. still have no money. and thank you for all the kind words. :)