Lewis Fic: Ghost Man (Part 1)
Aug. 27th, 2014 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Ghost Man
Author: Mistress Kat /![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kat_lair
Fandom: Lewis
Pairing: Pre-Hathaway/Lewis
Genre: Dragon!AU, case fic
Rating: R
Warnings: Fairly graphic descriptions of violence and threat of violence (including implied sexual violence)
Word count: 11,438
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: “Do you see now?” the man asks.There’s spittle on his chin and he smells like someone who has spent last week drinking instead of showering but his eye are surprisingly clear and corn-flower blue. “Now that you have it, can you see?”
Author notes: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lewis_challenge Summer Challenge 2014, this is the next instalment of ‘Dream of Dragons’ ‘verse, the previous parts of which can be found via my LJ Fic Masterlist or via AO3. I promise this will make more sense if you read those first. The title is a translation of Cantonese term ‘Gwai Lo’, used in Hong Kong to refer to pale skinned Northern Europeans, derogatory at one time but not considered so any more (or so the Internet tells me…). Please see the end for a further note re language. Finally, many thanks to thesmallhobbit for an excellent and thorough last minute beta without which many a preposition would be wrong.
Chu Min is running. Broken glass crunches under her feet like gravel, debris from the shop fronts turning the streets into an obstacle course. The mob behind her is laughing, caught up in the violence of it more than any real political agenda. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time; talking to a foreman – a known Communist sympathiser – when the factory was attacked.
Chu Min had only wanted to ask about work, had no interest in human economic systems one way or another as long as she could feed herself and her sister, but the pro-Nationalists weren’t inclined to ask questions. She is clearly from the mainland and as such she was free game.
She is also a woman. And everyone knows what happens to women when men fight – whether it is over wealth or land or ideas, it doesn’t matter – women always end up bleeding in the gutters, such is the way of the world. This isn’t Chu Min’s first war.
But it won’t be her last either, not if she has anything to say about it.
“Slow down, Commie whore!” one of the pursuers shouts, his friends laughing. It’s an ugly sound, thick with lust. “We only want our fair share. Isn’t that what you do? Give it up for free?”
The streets are getting narrower, stores making way for homes, though shabby and poor ones. This is not a wealthy district of Kowloon, and the people living here will not rush out to help a leftie-girl about to be taught a lesson.
Chu Min turns a corner, then another corner, wishing she was above the houses, not down here like a rat in a maze. Her hair sticks to her sweaty face, hem of her skirt hampering her movements, making her even slower, making her stumble.
Then, a wrong turn and she’s in a dead end. She whirls around, intent on doubling back but it’s too late. The mob – a group of ten or so young men, most barely out of school but no less threatening for it – crowd the mouth of the alleyway, blocking the exit.
Chu Min exhales shakily and her breath comes out in a curl of smoke. This is what she’d wanted to avoid.
The men walk closer, bold and hungry, all thoughts of politics forgotten.
“Leave,” Chu Min says. Her cloak flutters to the ground. “Go. Now.”
The boys at the front only laugh, calling her names, but she barely hears them, her attention caught by someone else. There’s a man toward the back, older than the others, with slight build and long hair and something about him…
Chu Min gasps, taking an involuntary step back, truly afraid for the first time since the chase began. Because it is now that she realises this is no ordinary mob of Nationalists, hunting out Commies, not when one of their number is a dragon – a dragon with the symbol of clisk’hein tattooed on his forearm.
He’d rolled his sleeve up deliberately, because he’d wanted her to see, to know. To fear.
Chu Min backs away further, hunkering against the wall. Her eyes flit from person to person, reassessing each, but all but one are what they’d first seemed. The group is a tool then, for the clisk’hein, and a blunt one at that; sent after her without even realising it. There had probably been an anonymous tip about the factory, some well-placed incitements about what they should do with a Commie-whore who’d dared to run… What it lacked in finesse, it certainly made up for in effectiveness.
“Go on,” the clisk’hein says, “take her,” and his words are hard and absolute, like the dull silver of his eyes. There’s no emotion in it either; this is pure business, nothing personal about it.
Unfortunately, Chu Min doesn’t have the same luxury of detachment, not when it’s her life that’s on the line.
The first of the boys, the ringleader – or so he thinks – gets brave enough to move from words to actions. With a sneer he steps forward, hand reaching, fingers twisted in greed, like a claw.
Three seconds later he’s screaming and his arm is lying on the ground ten feet away, the hand itself still curled around thin air. Chu Min snaps his neck before he has a chance to draw another breath, her body uncoiling like the serpent she is until she towers above the men, above the shabby houses and the electric wires.
The street is too narrow and she is too big, unable to simply fly away without the room needed to lift off. She turns, no less trapped in this form, no less afraid, as she expects the clisk’hein to change forms too and attack her.
That doesn’t happen. There is nothing but chaos of screaming humans, some crying as they flee, some sinking to their knees, babbling, the calls of ‘lung, lung’ almost prayer-like in their fervour.
Chu Min roars and twists, her long body sweeping the alley clean, men scrambling, crawling out of the way, some too awed to move and dying for it. The clisk’hein stands aside, watching as she writhes like a worm in a fisherman’s hook, killing more than she means to in her panic but unable to regret any of it.
Finally, there is no one left but her and the other dragon, him still looking like a man. He’s moving now though, walking right up to her and shouting: “Ishma, ishma, se’clisk’hein! Ishma-sah, meimei.”
He is kicking of his shoes now, lifting his feet up so that Chu Min can see the soles. And the tattoos on them which make Chu Min pause long enough to actually hear the words. And believe them.
“Why?” she pants a minute later, now back in her human form and shivering – from the shock more than the weather, cool as the October night is.
“I had to see that you were capable of defending yourself,” he says, handing her cloak over. “And the treasure you will carry.” His eyes travel her body from head to toe, but it’s a cool assessment of strength and injuries, of which there are none. “I have gotten it this far, the rest is up to you.”
Chu Min can feel her eyes widen and she’s shaking her head before he’s finished talking. “No, no, dhrie gou, I cannot, I…” She clutches the cloak to her chest like a shield, more afraid of this than she’d been of anything else tonight.
“You must,” the dragon says. He hasn’t offered his name and Chu Min knows he won’t. It is said that if the clisk’hein work in the shadows, then the se’clisk’hein operate under the mountains that cast them.
What no one tells you is how heavy those mountains are.
Chu Min has never felt the weight more than now as a worn leather pouch is pushed into her hands. “Take it,” the dragon says and his eyes are old and black like coal. “The Gwai Lo will need it. Soon. You must get it to him safely.”
“I can’t just leave. My little sister...” But Chu Min sees the truth on his face already.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and for a moment he even looks it. “We got to her already.” He doesn’t apologise or make any excuses for his own involvement. They both know he had no choice. Perversely, Chu Min is almost grateful for that.
He wraps her hands tightly around the pouch for a moment before stepping back. “Kill me,” he says evenly. “It’s the safest way. You must kill me.”
After what he has just told her, it’s easy. Her arms stretch and swell, hands turning into scythe-like claws and she rips him in two, screaming her grief long after he’s dead, until her voice gives in and her chest is hollow like a dry well, nothing left but empty space and a distant hope of water.
Two weeks later Chu Min is on a ship, just one Chinese immigrant among many who are heading toward England and the promise of jobs created by the increasing appetite for exotic cuisine. Unlike the others though, she has more than economic prosperity in mind. Somewhere, in that island so different from the one she’s leaving behind, the Ghost Man is waiting. He may not know it, he may not even be born yet, and perhaps won’t be, not during Chu Min’s lifespan, but he is waiting.
And in an old, soft bag, tied with a hemp string, and secured under Chu Min’s clothes, right next to her skin, is an even older ring of silver – a snake eating its own tail – the Ghost Man is waiting for.
***
Autumn comes over night. One morning in September, James steps out and the air is crisp and pure, smelling of dark earth. His breath comes out in a white plume of steam that dissipates quickly, leaving behind the promise of a new season.
Lewis is waiting for him on the pavement outside his flat, leaning on the car with his head tipped up toward the steel grey sky. He is almost unnaturally still, like carved granite rather than flesh and blood, his profile in sharp relief against the trees and buildings.
Something about it makes Hathaway’s chest feel hollow. He doesn’t understand it until Lewis finally moves, turning to look at him. His eyes are the yellow of fallen birch leaves, broken by the black gash of long vertical pupils, and with a start James realises why the day suddenly tastes like ashes in his mouth.
Lewis doesn’t just look foreign and out of place, like he doesn’t quite belong here on this sleepy Oxford street with some socially awkward, too clever police sergeant. He doesn’t just look like he should be somewhere else, he looks like he already is.
The ring on James’ finger feels cold and he rubs it absentmindedly as he gets into the car, listening with half-an-ear as Lewis talks about their current case, his eyes fully human again. It’s at least partly a replacement activity, James knows, because what he really wants to do is run his hands over Robbie, just to check that he’s there, that he’s real.
It’s an effort not to. With a dawning sense of inevitability Hathaway knows that sometime very soon he won’t be able to stop himself. And that what happens then is entirely out of his control.
That’s what scares him the most.
***
“It’s an uprising! A revolution!” The man is standing on Gloucester Green, dressed in jeans and an old tweed coat, complete with elbow patches. If not for his unkempt appearance and declarations of the apocalypse he could have been a university professor.
On second thought, Hathaway muses, he still could.
“You sir,” the man says, pointing a finger at him as they walk past, “You know what’s coming, don’t you?”
“A lead, hopefully,” James comments under his breath.
Lewis chuckles as they enter the bus station, heading straight toward the ticket office. The victim in their latest case was found with a National Express coach ticket in his pocket and they are hoping to start piecing together his movements between arriving in Oxford and ending up dead in the hotel room.
The conversation with the station manager and National Express staff proves largely unfruitful, but they do have a name of the driver of the bus Travis White had arrived in so that’s something.
Back outside, Hathaway is just about to suggest lunch when the tweed-clad prophet of the revolution suddenly pushes between them.
“Hey! Careful now,” Lewis says, grumpy but not alarmed. This is hardly the first street preacher to have accosted them.
The man ignores him, his whole attention focused on Hathaway. “Do you see it now?” he asks. There’s spittle on his chin and he smells like someone who has spent last week drinking instead of showering but his eye are surprisingly clear and corn-flower blue. “Now that you have it, can you see?”
“Sir,” Hathaway says, taking a careful step back, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.” He tries to move away but the man grasps his arm, fingers like a vice. Behind him he can feel Lewis snap to attention.
The man doesn’t care. He stares at Hathaway’s face intently before his gaze drops down. With a jolt James realises he’s staring at the ring. “You will,” he says then, releasing him before Lewis has a chance to pull out his warrant card and arrest him for accosting a police officer. “You will,” the man repeats and then he laughs.
He laughs and laughs and laughs, doubling over at the waist, tears streaming down, until he’s choking on it, voice hoarse.
“What…?” James is suddenly uneasy, far more alarmed than the situation really calls for.
“Let’s go,” Lewis says, pulling him away. “This is what you get now with the budget cuts. ‘Care in the community’ my arse.”
The man is still laughing as they walk off toward the car. Lewis keeps muttering about the government and the state of the welfare society. It’s an often-hashed rant and James isn’t paying much attention, suspecting that Robbie is a little shaken by the encounter too.
Neither of them says anything about it though and they swiftly move on to discuss the case.
***
It takes two weeks for Lewis to mention the ring. Not to notice it, mind, because Hathaway knows for sure that he’d clocked the heavy silver snake on his finger the first time he’d worn it to work and every day since, but to say something about it.
James thinks… No, he knows he should’ve been the one to bring it up. Considering what had happened not too long ago, he should have been straight on the phone after he got the blasted thing. But he hadn’t.
He still doesn’t know why, so when Robbie casually says: “That’s new,” nodding at the ring, currently resting against the cool pint glass of ale, the only think James can think to say is: “Yeah, it’s… Yeah.”
Robbie looks like he’s about to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, but he resists, instead directing his gaze toward the river which runs in its ancient sedate pace beyond the trees. It’s early evening and they have called it for the day, having spent it hunched over computers gathering information about the late Mr White.
The drinks had been Robbie’s idea and he had not taken a no for an answer. Now James is forced to consider if that had been because he’d been looking for an opportunity to have this conversation.
“An ouroboros,” Lewis observes and why the fact that he knows the terms surprises James, after all this time, is a mystery.
“Yes,” Hathaway says. “A symbol found in ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures, thought to represent cyclicality and eternal return. It had important meaning during the Middle Ages, particularly in alchemy where…” He launches into the explanation, soothed by the certainty of canonical knowledge when so little else offers it any more.
Lewis lets him.
“…one of Loki’s three children in Norse mythology.” Hathaway takes a long drink, drawn into his own narration despite himself. It’s like thinking out loud and he wonders whether to elaborate on the Jörmungandr mythology or divert back to the Gnostic traditions when Robbie does something that startles him into silence.
With an expression that is a mixture of annoyance, determination and, god help them, fondness, he grasps James’ hand in his, bringing it close enough to inspect the ring in detail.
Hathaway blinks, suddenly painfully aware of their intimate position, heads bent together over the table, knees knocking together under it, and now more or less holding hands.
“Where did you get it?” Robbie asks, his thumb rubbing over the ring like he’s checking the polish.
“I… don’t know,” Hathaway admits, stripped of his defences as surely as if he’d been stripped of his clothes. It makes him feel vulnerable, makes him want to run. He pulls his hand away instead.
Robbie looks up sharply, something very unhuman in the questioning tilt of his head, his quiet alertness. Haltingly, reluctantly, James tells him about the envelope, about finding the ring inside. It’s not a long story and after it neither of them talks. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say.
They finish their drinks in silence. Every time Hathaway blinks he’s almost surprised to find Lewis still there when he opens his eyes again. The wind picks up, and despite the lingering sunshine, James feels cold, right down to his bones.
***
“Why the hell would someone who can afford a room at the bloody Malmaison, travel here on a coach?”
Lewis throws the folder onto the desk, huffing in frustration. Their efforts to trace Travis White’s movements prior to arriving in Oxford or the reason for his visit have led exactly nowhere. As far as they can tell, Mr White had been a rather unremarkable young man, renting a bedsit in Hackney and working a dead-end job in a warehouse. Why he had suddenly decided to visit Oxford was a mystery. The Met had rung to say that the interviews with Travis’ workmates had been unfruitful; no one had admitted to knowing about any holiday plans Travis might have had. In fact, it seemed that no one had known Travis all that well to begin with.
“More to the point,” Hathaway adds, “How did Travis afford a room in the Malmaison? He seems like the bloke more likely to end up there before it became a hotel.” The Oxford Malmaison had been a prison in prior life.
They both stare at each other and then sigh. This isn’t the first time they’ve gone in circles around this particular issue.
“Maybe he was dealing drugs?” Lewis suggests, though his expression says he’s not giving much credibility to his own hypothesis. “Stashing up the cash under his mattress until he had enough to leave.”
James is shaking his head. “And what, start a brand new life in Oxford? If you had that kind of money, wouldn’t you rather bugger off to Barcelona?”
“Maybe he was planning on one final score? We could at least check with the drugs unit if—”
Hathaway’s mobile rings and Robbie waves at him to answer it, turning back to the computer, presumably to pull up any drug related intelligence on the system.
The display announces ‘number withheld’ but James answers without hesitation; a lot of places and people a police officer is likely to get calls from do that. It’s probably Laura, calling from somewhere else besides her own office.
“Hathaway,” he says, reaching for a pen.
There’s nothing but silence on the line. He waits for a few seconds before repeating himself: “Hello? This is Sergeant Hathaway.” He’s found that mentioning his rank tends to discourage telemarketers.
Unsurprisingly, the line goes dead.
Lewis glances over, lifting his eyebrows questioningly.
James shrugs. “Probably someone wanting to sell house insulation.” He flexes his hands, stiff from holding pens and phones and from being curled over a keyboard all day.
“You could probably use it.”
“Hey, hey, not all of us are…” James bites his tongue before he calls Robbie cold-blooded, flushing a little. “…as temperature sensitive as you,” he finishes lamely.
His boss smirks at him knowingly, probably guessing what he’d been about to say and Hathaway scowls, uncertain whether to be embarrassed or just amused. The whole dragon thing was still something they didn’t really talk about, despite the ever-present undercurrent it brought to their interactions, not to mention the significant effect it had on their professional lives.
Personal too. The dreams had lessened but not gone away. Thankfully, there had been no repeat of a case like the rogue riek’hal. Presently, James’ nights were full of calming darkness, interspersed with moments of breathless flight and the fleeting impression of wings, spread over the starlit sky.
“…come winter again,” Robbie is saying when James finally tunes back in. He looks over expectantly, a small smile playing on his lips, but when James only blinks at him, it slides off quickly enough. “Were you even listening?” Lewis asks, eyebrows drawn together in evident worry.
“Sorry, sorry,” Hathaway says, shuffling the papers on his desk. “I was just… thinking,” he finishes lamely.
“Well?”
James frowns. “Well what?”
“Well, what were you thinking, man?” Lewis huffs in frustration. “Something about the case?”
That had been the last thing in his mind but Hathaway glances down at the folder anyway, eyes landing on the hotel invoice. “Paid in cash,” he notes and something very much like a viable idea starts to take shape.
“We already know this.”
“Yes, but do we know if it was Travis who handed over…” Hathaway checks the figure and then whistles, “…almost five hundred quid in cash?”
“That…” Lewis starts to grin again, already getting up and gathering his coat, “…is a bloody good point. Let’s go and talk to the receptionists again, shall we?”
James ducks his head, hiding under the pretence of pulling on his own jacket. Even after all these years Lewis’ approval never fails to send a sliver of pleasure through him, warming him from the core. Maybe it’s him who is more dependent on environmental changes, except it has nothing to do with the temperature of the weather and everything to do with Robbie’s moods.
Shaking the thought off because he can’t do anything about it, Hathaway jogs after his boss, trying to focus on the job at hand instead of his increasingly scattered state of mind.
***
The evening is chilly, the wind having suddenly picked up enough to gather leaves and rubbish, throwing them at Hathaway’s feet as he walks back from the chippy, carrying a dinner of fish and chips in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. Luckily, Lewis has left the front door open so he doesn’t have to struggle with the key. There’s a part of him that is almost disappointed about that; the thrill of keeping the key even after he’d returned to his own flat is still there as is the memory of Robbie pressing it into his hand with a gruff ‘when you need it.’
James can hear him talking now as he walks in, the reason for which becomes quickly obvious.
“…take a message if… No, hold on,” Lewis looks up smiling as Hathaway deposits the bags on the kitchen table, “He’s here now, I’ll pass you over.”
James takes the phone which he’d left behind when nipping out for food, silently mouthing ‘who is it?’ but only receiving a shrug in response.
“Hello, Hathaway speaking,” he says, watching as Robbie starts to unpack their dinner.
He’s so absorbed in the task, eyes lingering on the Robbie’s bare forearms, his shirt sleeves rolled up, that he doesn’t register the silence on the line for the longest time. It’s not until Lewis frowns up at him that Hathaway realises neither he nor the person at the other end of the line have spoken a word for a while.
“Hello? Sorry.” He clears his throat, turning around because that seems the only way to tear his focus from the way Robbie’s muscles shift under the still sun-tanned skin, almost similar to the deep gold of his scales and… Christ, what is wrong with him tonight? “Hello, who is it?” James asks again, sharper than he means to, annoyed at himself.
There is still no reply though. The line doesn’t feel abandoned though. If he listens hard enough he can almost hear… Something. A rustle of clothes perhaps, or a distant sound of the wind, as if whoever is calling is doing so standing outside. For some reason Hathaway’s gaze snaps to the window and the rapidly darkening night beyond it.
“I’m going to hang up now,” he says more firmly than he feels. When there is still no answer he does exactly that.
“House insulation again?” Lewis asks. His voice is so carefully neutral that James knows the question must be anything but.
“That or PPI,” he answers, turning back around and discovering the food waiting on the kitchen table. “Maybe an offer of legal representation for that accident I had and for which I’m entitled to compensation,” he adds sarcastically.
Robbie huffs in silent laughter. “You getting a lot of these cold calls?”
They sit at the table and it’s almost ridiculously domestic if not for the folder of crime scene photos waiting on the counter and the way James’ eyes keep straying toward the window. “No, not really.” He doesn’t. Because now that he thinks about he remembers joining the Telephone Preference Register a while back.
He doesn’t relay any of this to Lewis though. It’s his problem, and a trivial one at that. “You heard back from tech support yet?” he asks instead, diverting the conversation back to the case.
Lewis sighs but allows it. “We should have a cleaned security tape to review in the morning.”
“Excellent.” James tucks into his dinner and the conversation moves toward the well-trodden path of Travis White. His earlier idea had proven helpful. Careful questioning of Malmaison receptionists had revealed that the man who had paid for Mr White’s room charges did not in fact bear any resemblance to Mr White at all. They were both hoping that tomorrow would bring the first proper break in the case.
***
It doesn’t look promising the next morning.
“That could have been anyone!” Lewis grumbles as they walk toward the morgue.
James sighs, rubbing at his eyes. He’d gone home last night after the fish and chips, despite Robbie’s invitation to kip on the couch, thinking he’d had a better chance of actually sleeping in his own bed.
He’d been wrong about that. And it wasn’t as if he could even blame the dreams since he’d never really fallen properly asleep, managing only a hazy sort of semi-consciousness, drifting through the small hours like one of the autumn leaves floating in a dirty puddle.
Lewis steps right into it, cursing.
Hathaway looks at the droplets now staining his trouser legs too and chooses not to comment. “You know the quality of an average CCTV recording is not—”
“Save it,” Lewis barks, but then visibly deflates when Hathaway’s mouth snaps shut like he’d been slapped. “Ah lad, I’m sorry,” he says, softer now. “I’m just frustrated and taking it out on you.”
James looks away, busying himself by digging out his warrant card to show at the door security. “Yes, Sir,” he murmurs, reverting to formality as usual when something gets too uncomfortable. “I’m sure the case will start—”
“It’s not just the case,” Lewis comments, voice tight and low as he walks through the door, already heading down the corridor before Hathaway has a chance to do more than blink.
It feels colder inside the building than it was outside, which is weird. Despite the stereotype, morgues or pathology labs are no colder than any other office building – unless you were actually on the slab in the cold storage itself.
James shivers, wrapping the coat tighter around himself. “Chilly,” he comments as they walk down the corridor.
Lewis casts him a curious glance, frowning, but before he has a chance to say anything, they reach the autopsy rooms.
“Gentlemen, just in time,” Laura greets them, sounding way too chipper for someone who has clearly spent her morning inside a corpse.
“Dr Hobson,” James says, unable as so often to be anything but excruciatingly formal around her despite liking her a great deal.
Fortunately, she just smiles in return, taking it in her stride, having seemingly decided that the whole thing is an adorable quirk of his rather than socially awkward or plain rude.
“What is it, Laura?” Lewis asks then, “That you couldn’t convey over the phone? Not that we don’t enjoy these delightful get-togethers over dead people,” he adds drily.
“If I didn’t meet you like this, I’d probably not see you at all.” Hobson flashes them a grin that is two parts affection and one part censure. She is clearly in the mood to rile Lewis up, which Hathaway would approve of in normal circumstances.
“Laura...” Robbie all but whines.
James would find the whole thing amusing if he wasn’t so cold, his fingers numb and stiff as he tries to discreetly flex them inside his jacket pockets. There’s a ringing in his ears too; a distant humming like the sounds of traffic or murmur of a very loud crowd, heard as if from behind a wall. It makes him edgy enough that when Laura suddenly claps her hands, announcing: “Alright, time for show and tell!” he actually jumps.
Both Lewis and Hobson throw him a worried look but Hathaway waves his hand, urging Laura to get on with it. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible.
Lewis narrows his eyes but clearly chooses to focus on more important matters than his even-weirder-than-normal sergeant. “Was there something unusual in the autopsy?” he asks, looking at the body now. “Was he not strangled, after all?”
“Oh, he was strangled alright,” Laura says.
None of them is surprised by the news, considering Mr White had been found sporting a face like an over-ripe plum, the room’s curtain cord still buried in the folds of his neck.
“The cause of death is not why I asked you over,” Hobson continues. “There’s something else I thought you’d like to see for yourselves.” Without further explanation, she pulls off the sheet covering the body of Travis White.
Hathaway sees what she means immediately, or thinks he does anyway.
Travis looks much as expected; a white male in his twenties, reasonably fit thanks to his physically demanding job, and very clearly choked to death even to a lay eye. The only other striking detail about his corpse – apart for the neatly sutured Y-incision marring the smooth expanse of his chest – is the tattoo. Granted, it’s an unusual one; no naked ladies or grinning skulls for Mr White, not even an elaborate cursive of ‘Mum’ or other name.
The tattoo is solid black, looking almost like Chinese characters except James doesn’t think it is, something about it not quite right. It’s on the inside of Travis’ arm and about five inches in length.
“Is this what you wanted to show us?” he asks, bending slightly to take a closer look. “The tattoo? Surely you could have just emailed us the picture? I don’t...” He looks up then, surprised to find Dr Hobson paying no attention either to him or Travis on the table. Instead, her gaze is locked on Lewis, features etched with genuine alarm. James soon realises why.
Robbie is no longer by his side, having backed all the way to the other end of the room, appearing like he would have gladly gone even further if not for the wall stopping him. He looks like he’s seen a ghost; face blank with shock and... yes, with fear, and that more than anything makes Hathaway feel like the very earth under his feet is slipping away. He has never seen Robbie Lewis afraid before, not like this, not when faced with murderers, not in court. He’s a dragon for God’s sake, what does he have to fear?
Apparently, the answer to that lies on the autopsy table in this very room, cold and dead and still capable of changing everything.
“Robbie... What...?”Laura’s question is hesitant and she moves cautiously closer but James is already connecting the dots, his mind humming louder now than his ears.
“The tattoo,” he breathes, “It’s Dragonese, isn’t it?” He doesn’t need the nervous twitch of eyes Lewis sends his way to confirm that. “What does it mean?” he asks.
For a while it looks like Lewis is not going to answer, like maybe he’ll never utter another word at all. his features ripple slightly, his shadow against the wall growing briefly larger, and Laura gasps.
James steps in Robbie’s line of sight, blocking his view of the autopsy table and the tattooed man on it. “Robbie,” he says, and then again louder, letting some of his own fear bleed into the word: “Robbie!”
It seems to do the trick. Lewis’ gaze clears, face settling into fully human again, the yellow of his eyes fading away.
“Threl’lar,” breathes out, then, switching to English: “God, God... I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Laura says. Her voice trembles ever so slightly but she marches to the door determinedly. “Let’s continue this conversation elsewhere, shall we? There’s an emergency bottle in my desk drawer I feel the urge to prescribe.”
Continue to Part 2.
***
Title: Ghost Man
Author: Mistress Kat /
kat_lairFandom: Lewis
Pairing: Pre-Hathaway/Lewis
Genre: Dragon!AU, case fic
Rating: R
Warnings: Fairly graphic descriptions of violence and threat of violence (including implied sexual violence)
Word count: 11,438
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: “Do you see now?” the man asks.There’s spittle on his chin and he smells like someone who has spent last week drinking instead of showering but his eye are surprisingly clear and corn-flower blue. “Now that you have it, can you see?”
Author notes: Written for the
lewis_challenge Summer Challenge 2014, this is the next instalment of ‘Dream of Dragons’ ‘verse, the previous parts of which can be found via my LJ Fic Masterlist or via AO3. I promise this will make more sense if you read those first. The title is a translation of Cantonese term ‘Gwai Lo’, used in Hong Kong to refer to pale skinned Northern Europeans, derogatory at one time but not considered so any more (or so the Internet tells me…). Please see the end for a further note re language. Finally, many thanks to thesmallhobbit for an excellent and thorough last minute beta without which many a preposition would be wrong.Prologue
Kowloon, Hong Kong
October, 1956
Kowloon, Hong Kong
October, 1956
Chu Min is running. Broken glass crunches under her feet like gravel, debris from the shop fronts turning the streets into an obstacle course. The mob behind her is laughing, caught up in the violence of it more than any real political agenda. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time; talking to a foreman – a known Communist sympathiser – when the factory was attacked.
Chu Min had only wanted to ask about work, had no interest in human economic systems one way or another as long as she could feed herself and her sister, but the pro-Nationalists weren’t inclined to ask questions. She is clearly from the mainland and as such she was free game.
She is also a woman. And everyone knows what happens to women when men fight – whether it is over wealth or land or ideas, it doesn’t matter – women always end up bleeding in the gutters, such is the way of the world. This isn’t Chu Min’s first war.
But it won’t be her last either, not if she has anything to say about it.
“Slow down, Commie whore!” one of the pursuers shouts, his friends laughing. It’s an ugly sound, thick with lust. “We only want our fair share. Isn’t that what you do? Give it up for free?”
The streets are getting narrower, stores making way for homes, though shabby and poor ones. This is not a wealthy district of Kowloon, and the people living here will not rush out to help a leftie-girl about to be taught a lesson.
Chu Min turns a corner, then another corner, wishing she was above the houses, not down here like a rat in a maze. Her hair sticks to her sweaty face, hem of her skirt hampering her movements, making her even slower, making her stumble.
Then, a wrong turn and she’s in a dead end. She whirls around, intent on doubling back but it’s too late. The mob – a group of ten or so young men, most barely out of school but no less threatening for it – crowd the mouth of the alleyway, blocking the exit.
Chu Min exhales shakily and her breath comes out in a curl of smoke. This is what she’d wanted to avoid.
The men walk closer, bold and hungry, all thoughts of politics forgotten.
“Leave,” Chu Min says. Her cloak flutters to the ground. “Go. Now.”
The boys at the front only laugh, calling her names, but she barely hears them, her attention caught by someone else. There’s a man toward the back, older than the others, with slight build and long hair and something about him…
Chu Min gasps, taking an involuntary step back, truly afraid for the first time since the chase began. Because it is now that she realises this is no ordinary mob of Nationalists, hunting out Commies, not when one of their number is a dragon – a dragon with the symbol of clisk’hein tattooed on his forearm.
He’d rolled his sleeve up deliberately, because he’d wanted her to see, to know. To fear.
Chu Min backs away further, hunkering against the wall. Her eyes flit from person to person, reassessing each, but all but one are what they’d first seemed. The group is a tool then, for the clisk’hein, and a blunt one at that; sent after her without even realising it. There had probably been an anonymous tip about the factory, some well-placed incitements about what they should do with a Commie-whore who’d dared to run… What it lacked in finesse, it certainly made up for in effectiveness.
“Go on,” the clisk’hein says, “take her,” and his words are hard and absolute, like the dull silver of his eyes. There’s no emotion in it either; this is pure business, nothing personal about it.
Unfortunately, Chu Min doesn’t have the same luxury of detachment, not when it’s her life that’s on the line.
The first of the boys, the ringleader – or so he thinks – gets brave enough to move from words to actions. With a sneer he steps forward, hand reaching, fingers twisted in greed, like a claw.
Three seconds later he’s screaming and his arm is lying on the ground ten feet away, the hand itself still curled around thin air. Chu Min snaps his neck before he has a chance to draw another breath, her body uncoiling like the serpent she is until she towers above the men, above the shabby houses and the electric wires.
The street is too narrow and she is too big, unable to simply fly away without the room needed to lift off. She turns, no less trapped in this form, no less afraid, as she expects the clisk’hein to change forms too and attack her.
That doesn’t happen. There is nothing but chaos of screaming humans, some crying as they flee, some sinking to their knees, babbling, the calls of ‘lung, lung’ almost prayer-like in their fervour.
Chu Min roars and twists, her long body sweeping the alley clean, men scrambling, crawling out of the way, some too awed to move and dying for it. The clisk’hein stands aside, watching as she writhes like a worm in a fisherman’s hook, killing more than she means to in her panic but unable to regret any of it.
Finally, there is no one left but her and the other dragon, him still looking like a man. He’s moving now though, walking right up to her and shouting: “Ishma, ishma, se’clisk’hein! Ishma-sah, meimei.”
He is kicking of his shoes now, lifting his feet up so that Chu Min can see the soles. And the tattoos on them which make Chu Min pause long enough to actually hear the words. And believe them.
“Why?” she pants a minute later, now back in her human form and shivering – from the shock more than the weather, cool as the October night is.
“I had to see that you were capable of defending yourself,” he says, handing her cloak over. “And the treasure you will carry.” His eyes travel her body from head to toe, but it’s a cool assessment of strength and injuries, of which there are none. “I have gotten it this far, the rest is up to you.”
Chu Min can feel her eyes widen and she’s shaking her head before he’s finished talking. “No, no, dhrie gou, I cannot, I…” She clutches the cloak to her chest like a shield, more afraid of this than she’d been of anything else tonight.
“You must,” the dragon says. He hasn’t offered his name and Chu Min knows he won’t. It is said that if the clisk’hein work in the shadows, then the se’clisk’hein operate under the mountains that cast them.
What no one tells you is how heavy those mountains are.
Chu Min has never felt the weight more than now as a worn leather pouch is pushed into her hands. “Take it,” the dragon says and his eyes are old and black like coal. “The Gwai Lo will need it. Soon. You must get it to him safely.”
“I can’t just leave. My little sister...” But Chu Min sees the truth on his face already.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and for a moment he even looks it. “We got to her already.” He doesn’t apologise or make any excuses for his own involvement. They both know he had no choice. Perversely, Chu Min is almost grateful for that.
He wraps her hands tightly around the pouch for a moment before stepping back. “Kill me,” he says evenly. “It’s the safest way. You must kill me.”
After what he has just told her, it’s easy. Her arms stretch and swell, hands turning into scythe-like claws and she rips him in two, screaming her grief long after he’s dead, until her voice gives in and her chest is hollow like a dry well, nothing left but empty space and a distant hope of water.
Two weeks later Chu Min is on a ship, just one Chinese immigrant among many who are heading toward England and the promise of jobs created by the increasing appetite for exotic cuisine. Unlike the others though, she has more than economic prosperity in mind. Somewhere, in that island so different from the one she’s leaving behind, the Ghost Man is waiting. He may not know it, he may not even be born yet, and perhaps won’t be, not during Chu Min’s lifespan, but he is waiting.
And in an old, soft bag, tied with a hemp string, and secured under Chu Min’s clothes, right next to her skin, is an even older ring of silver – a snake eating its own tail – the Ghost Man is waiting for.
***
Oxford, England
Present Day
Present Day
Autumn comes over night. One morning in September, James steps out and the air is crisp and pure, smelling of dark earth. His breath comes out in a white plume of steam that dissipates quickly, leaving behind the promise of a new season.
Lewis is waiting for him on the pavement outside his flat, leaning on the car with his head tipped up toward the steel grey sky. He is almost unnaturally still, like carved granite rather than flesh and blood, his profile in sharp relief against the trees and buildings.
Something about it makes Hathaway’s chest feel hollow. He doesn’t understand it until Lewis finally moves, turning to look at him. His eyes are the yellow of fallen birch leaves, broken by the black gash of long vertical pupils, and with a start James realises why the day suddenly tastes like ashes in his mouth.
Lewis doesn’t just look foreign and out of place, like he doesn’t quite belong here on this sleepy Oxford street with some socially awkward, too clever police sergeant. He doesn’t just look like he should be somewhere else, he looks like he already is.
The ring on James’ finger feels cold and he rubs it absentmindedly as he gets into the car, listening with half-an-ear as Lewis talks about their current case, his eyes fully human again. It’s at least partly a replacement activity, James knows, because what he really wants to do is run his hands over Robbie, just to check that he’s there, that he’s real.
It’s an effort not to. With a dawning sense of inevitability Hathaway knows that sometime very soon he won’t be able to stop himself. And that what happens then is entirely out of his control.
That’s what scares him the most.
***
“It’s an uprising! A revolution!” The man is standing on Gloucester Green, dressed in jeans and an old tweed coat, complete with elbow patches. If not for his unkempt appearance and declarations of the apocalypse he could have been a university professor.
On second thought, Hathaway muses, he still could.
“You sir,” the man says, pointing a finger at him as they walk past, “You know what’s coming, don’t you?”
“A lead, hopefully,” James comments under his breath.
Lewis chuckles as they enter the bus station, heading straight toward the ticket office. The victim in their latest case was found with a National Express coach ticket in his pocket and they are hoping to start piecing together his movements between arriving in Oxford and ending up dead in the hotel room.
The conversation with the station manager and National Express staff proves largely unfruitful, but they do have a name of the driver of the bus Travis White had arrived in so that’s something.
Back outside, Hathaway is just about to suggest lunch when the tweed-clad prophet of the revolution suddenly pushes between them.
“Hey! Careful now,” Lewis says, grumpy but not alarmed. This is hardly the first street preacher to have accosted them.
The man ignores him, his whole attention focused on Hathaway. “Do you see it now?” he asks. There’s spittle on his chin and he smells like someone who has spent last week drinking instead of showering but his eye are surprisingly clear and corn-flower blue. “Now that you have it, can you see?”
“Sir,” Hathaway says, taking a careful step back, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about.” He tries to move away but the man grasps his arm, fingers like a vice. Behind him he can feel Lewis snap to attention.
The man doesn’t care. He stares at Hathaway’s face intently before his gaze drops down. With a jolt James realises he’s staring at the ring. “You will,” he says then, releasing him before Lewis has a chance to pull out his warrant card and arrest him for accosting a police officer. “You will,” the man repeats and then he laughs.
He laughs and laughs and laughs, doubling over at the waist, tears streaming down, until he’s choking on it, voice hoarse.
“What…?” James is suddenly uneasy, far more alarmed than the situation really calls for.
“Let’s go,” Lewis says, pulling him away. “This is what you get now with the budget cuts. ‘Care in the community’ my arse.”
The man is still laughing as they walk off toward the car. Lewis keeps muttering about the government and the state of the welfare society. It’s an often-hashed rant and James isn’t paying much attention, suspecting that Robbie is a little shaken by the encounter too.
Neither of them says anything about it though and they swiftly move on to discuss the case.
***
It takes two weeks for Lewis to mention the ring. Not to notice it, mind, because Hathaway knows for sure that he’d clocked the heavy silver snake on his finger the first time he’d worn it to work and every day since, but to say something about it.
James thinks… No, he knows he should’ve been the one to bring it up. Considering what had happened not too long ago, he should have been straight on the phone after he got the blasted thing. But he hadn’t.
He still doesn’t know why, so when Robbie casually says: “That’s new,” nodding at the ring, currently resting against the cool pint glass of ale, the only think James can think to say is: “Yeah, it’s… Yeah.”
Robbie looks like he’s about to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, but he resists, instead directing his gaze toward the river which runs in its ancient sedate pace beyond the trees. It’s early evening and they have called it for the day, having spent it hunched over computers gathering information about the late Mr White.
The drinks had been Robbie’s idea and he had not taken a no for an answer. Now James is forced to consider if that had been because he’d been looking for an opportunity to have this conversation.
“An ouroboros,” Lewis observes and why the fact that he knows the terms surprises James, after all this time, is a mystery.
“Yes,” Hathaway says. “A symbol found in ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures, thought to represent cyclicality and eternal return. It had important meaning during the Middle Ages, particularly in alchemy where…” He launches into the explanation, soothed by the certainty of canonical knowledge when so little else offers it any more.
Lewis lets him.
“…one of Loki’s three children in Norse mythology.” Hathaway takes a long drink, drawn into his own narration despite himself. It’s like thinking out loud and he wonders whether to elaborate on the Jörmungandr mythology or divert back to the Gnostic traditions when Robbie does something that startles him into silence.
With an expression that is a mixture of annoyance, determination and, god help them, fondness, he grasps James’ hand in his, bringing it close enough to inspect the ring in detail.
Hathaway blinks, suddenly painfully aware of their intimate position, heads bent together over the table, knees knocking together under it, and now more or less holding hands.
“Where did you get it?” Robbie asks, his thumb rubbing over the ring like he’s checking the polish.
“I… don’t know,” Hathaway admits, stripped of his defences as surely as if he’d been stripped of his clothes. It makes him feel vulnerable, makes him want to run. He pulls his hand away instead.
Robbie looks up sharply, something very unhuman in the questioning tilt of his head, his quiet alertness. Haltingly, reluctantly, James tells him about the envelope, about finding the ring inside. It’s not a long story and after it neither of them talks. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say.
They finish their drinks in silence. Every time Hathaway blinks he’s almost surprised to find Lewis still there when he opens his eyes again. The wind picks up, and despite the lingering sunshine, James feels cold, right down to his bones.
***
“Why the hell would someone who can afford a room at the bloody Malmaison, travel here on a coach?”
Lewis throws the folder onto the desk, huffing in frustration. Their efforts to trace Travis White’s movements prior to arriving in Oxford or the reason for his visit have led exactly nowhere. As far as they can tell, Mr White had been a rather unremarkable young man, renting a bedsit in Hackney and working a dead-end job in a warehouse. Why he had suddenly decided to visit Oxford was a mystery. The Met had rung to say that the interviews with Travis’ workmates had been unfruitful; no one had admitted to knowing about any holiday plans Travis might have had. In fact, it seemed that no one had known Travis all that well to begin with.
“More to the point,” Hathaway adds, “How did Travis afford a room in the Malmaison? He seems like the bloke more likely to end up there before it became a hotel.” The Oxford Malmaison had been a prison in prior life.
They both stare at each other and then sigh. This isn’t the first time they’ve gone in circles around this particular issue.
“Maybe he was dealing drugs?” Lewis suggests, though his expression says he’s not giving much credibility to his own hypothesis. “Stashing up the cash under his mattress until he had enough to leave.”
James is shaking his head. “And what, start a brand new life in Oxford? If you had that kind of money, wouldn’t you rather bugger off to Barcelona?”
“Maybe he was planning on one final score? We could at least check with the drugs unit if—”
Hathaway’s mobile rings and Robbie waves at him to answer it, turning back to the computer, presumably to pull up any drug related intelligence on the system.
The display announces ‘number withheld’ but James answers without hesitation; a lot of places and people a police officer is likely to get calls from do that. It’s probably Laura, calling from somewhere else besides her own office.
“Hathaway,” he says, reaching for a pen.
There’s nothing but silence on the line. He waits for a few seconds before repeating himself: “Hello? This is Sergeant Hathaway.” He’s found that mentioning his rank tends to discourage telemarketers.
Unsurprisingly, the line goes dead.
Lewis glances over, lifting his eyebrows questioningly.
James shrugs. “Probably someone wanting to sell house insulation.” He flexes his hands, stiff from holding pens and phones and from being curled over a keyboard all day.
“You could probably use it.”
“Hey, hey, not all of us are…” James bites his tongue before he calls Robbie cold-blooded, flushing a little. “…as temperature sensitive as you,” he finishes lamely.
His boss smirks at him knowingly, probably guessing what he’d been about to say and Hathaway scowls, uncertain whether to be embarrassed or just amused. The whole dragon thing was still something they didn’t really talk about, despite the ever-present undercurrent it brought to their interactions, not to mention the significant effect it had on their professional lives.
Personal too. The dreams had lessened but not gone away. Thankfully, there had been no repeat of a case like the rogue riek’hal. Presently, James’ nights were full of calming darkness, interspersed with moments of breathless flight and the fleeting impression of wings, spread over the starlit sky.
“…come winter again,” Robbie is saying when James finally tunes back in. He looks over expectantly, a small smile playing on his lips, but when James only blinks at him, it slides off quickly enough. “Were you even listening?” Lewis asks, eyebrows drawn together in evident worry.
“Sorry, sorry,” Hathaway says, shuffling the papers on his desk. “I was just… thinking,” he finishes lamely.
“Well?”
James frowns. “Well what?”
“Well, what were you thinking, man?” Lewis huffs in frustration. “Something about the case?”
That had been the last thing in his mind but Hathaway glances down at the folder anyway, eyes landing on the hotel invoice. “Paid in cash,” he notes and something very much like a viable idea starts to take shape.
“We already know this.”
“Yes, but do we know if it was Travis who handed over…” Hathaway checks the figure and then whistles, “…almost five hundred quid in cash?”
“That…” Lewis starts to grin again, already getting up and gathering his coat, “…is a bloody good point. Let’s go and talk to the receptionists again, shall we?”
James ducks his head, hiding under the pretence of pulling on his own jacket. Even after all these years Lewis’ approval never fails to send a sliver of pleasure through him, warming him from the core. Maybe it’s him who is more dependent on environmental changes, except it has nothing to do with the temperature of the weather and everything to do with Robbie’s moods.
Shaking the thought off because he can’t do anything about it, Hathaway jogs after his boss, trying to focus on the job at hand instead of his increasingly scattered state of mind.
***
The evening is chilly, the wind having suddenly picked up enough to gather leaves and rubbish, throwing them at Hathaway’s feet as he walks back from the chippy, carrying a dinner of fish and chips in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. Luckily, Lewis has left the front door open so he doesn’t have to struggle with the key. There’s a part of him that is almost disappointed about that; the thrill of keeping the key even after he’d returned to his own flat is still there as is the memory of Robbie pressing it into his hand with a gruff ‘when you need it.’
James can hear him talking now as he walks in, the reason for which becomes quickly obvious.
“…take a message if… No, hold on,” Lewis looks up smiling as Hathaway deposits the bags on the kitchen table, “He’s here now, I’ll pass you over.”
James takes the phone which he’d left behind when nipping out for food, silently mouthing ‘who is it?’ but only receiving a shrug in response.
“Hello, Hathaway speaking,” he says, watching as Robbie starts to unpack their dinner.
He’s so absorbed in the task, eyes lingering on the Robbie’s bare forearms, his shirt sleeves rolled up, that he doesn’t register the silence on the line for the longest time. It’s not until Lewis frowns up at him that Hathaway realises neither he nor the person at the other end of the line have spoken a word for a while.
“Hello? Sorry.” He clears his throat, turning around because that seems the only way to tear his focus from the way Robbie’s muscles shift under the still sun-tanned skin, almost similar to the deep gold of his scales and… Christ, what is wrong with him tonight? “Hello, who is it?” James asks again, sharper than he means to, annoyed at himself.
There is still no reply though. The line doesn’t feel abandoned though. If he listens hard enough he can almost hear… Something. A rustle of clothes perhaps, or a distant sound of the wind, as if whoever is calling is doing so standing outside. For some reason Hathaway’s gaze snaps to the window and the rapidly darkening night beyond it.
“I’m going to hang up now,” he says more firmly than he feels. When there is still no answer he does exactly that.
“House insulation again?” Lewis asks. His voice is so carefully neutral that James knows the question must be anything but.
“That or PPI,” he answers, turning back around and discovering the food waiting on the kitchen table. “Maybe an offer of legal representation for that accident I had and for which I’m entitled to compensation,” he adds sarcastically.
Robbie huffs in silent laughter. “You getting a lot of these cold calls?”
They sit at the table and it’s almost ridiculously domestic if not for the folder of crime scene photos waiting on the counter and the way James’ eyes keep straying toward the window. “No, not really.” He doesn’t. Because now that he thinks about he remembers joining the Telephone Preference Register a while back.
He doesn’t relay any of this to Lewis though. It’s his problem, and a trivial one at that. “You heard back from tech support yet?” he asks instead, diverting the conversation back to the case.
Lewis sighs but allows it. “We should have a cleaned security tape to review in the morning.”
“Excellent.” James tucks into his dinner and the conversation moves toward the well-trodden path of Travis White. His earlier idea had proven helpful. Careful questioning of Malmaison receptionists had revealed that the man who had paid for Mr White’s room charges did not in fact bear any resemblance to Mr White at all. They were both hoping that tomorrow would bring the first proper break in the case.
***
It doesn’t look promising the next morning.
“That could have been anyone!” Lewis grumbles as they walk toward the morgue.
James sighs, rubbing at his eyes. He’d gone home last night after the fish and chips, despite Robbie’s invitation to kip on the couch, thinking he’d had a better chance of actually sleeping in his own bed.
He’d been wrong about that. And it wasn’t as if he could even blame the dreams since he’d never really fallen properly asleep, managing only a hazy sort of semi-consciousness, drifting through the small hours like one of the autumn leaves floating in a dirty puddle.
Lewis steps right into it, cursing.
Hathaway looks at the droplets now staining his trouser legs too and chooses not to comment. “You know the quality of an average CCTV recording is not—”
“Save it,” Lewis barks, but then visibly deflates when Hathaway’s mouth snaps shut like he’d been slapped. “Ah lad, I’m sorry,” he says, softer now. “I’m just frustrated and taking it out on you.”
James looks away, busying himself by digging out his warrant card to show at the door security. “Yes, Sir,” he murmurs, reverting to formality as usual when something gets too uncomfortable. “I’m sure the case will start—”
“It’s not just the case,” Lewis comments, voice tight and low as he walks through the door, already heading down the corridor before Hathaway has a chance to do more than blink.
It feels colder inside the building than it was outside, which is weird. Despite the stereotype, morgues or pathology labs are no colder than any other office building – unless you were actually on the slab in the cold storage itself.
James shivers, wrapping the coat tighter around himself. “Chilly,” he comments as they walk down the corridor.
Lewis casts him a curious glance, frowning, but before he has a chance to say anything, they reach the autopsy rooms.
“Gentlemen, just in time,” Laura greets them, sounding way too chipper for someone who has clearly spent her morning inside a corpse.
“Dr Hobson,” James says, unable as so often to be anything but excruciatingly formal around her despite liking her a great deal.
Fortunately, she just smiles in return, taking it in her stride, having seemingly decided that the whole thing is an adorable quirk of his rather than socially awkward or plain rude.
“What is it, Laura?” Lewis asks then, “That you couldn’t convey over the phone? Not that we don’t enjoy these delightful get-togethers over dead people,” he adds drily.
“If I didn’t meet you like this, I’d probably not see you at all.” Hobson flashes them a grin that is two parts affection and one part censure. She is clearly in the mood to rile Lewis up, which Hathaway would approve of in normal circumstances.
“Laura...” Robbie all but whines.
James would find the whole thing amusing if he wasn’t so cold, his fingers numb and stiff as he tries to discreetly flex them inside his jacket pockets. There’s a ringing in his ears too; a distant humming like the sounds of traffic or murmur of a very loud crowd, heard as if from behind a wall. It makes him edgy enough that when Laura suddenly claps her hands, announcing: “Alright, time for show and tell!” he actually jumps.
Both Lewis and Hobson throw him a worried look but Hathaway waves his hand, urging Laura to get on with it. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible.
Lewis narrows his eyes but clearly chooses to focus on more important matters than his even-weirder-than-normal sergeant. “Was there something unusual in the autopsy?” he asks, looking at the body now. “Was he not strangled, after all?”
“Oh, he was strangled alright,” Laura says.
None of them is surprised by the news, considering Mr White had been found sporting a face like an over-ripe plum, the room’s curtain cord still buried in the folds of his neck.
“The cause of death is not why I asked you over,” Hobson continues. “There’s something else I thought you’d like to see for yourselves.” Without further explanation, she pulls off the sheet covering the body of Travis White.
Hathaway sees what she means immediately, or thinks he does anyway.
Travis looks much as expected; a white male in his twenties, reasonably fit thanks to his physically demanding job, and very clearly choked to death even to a lay eye. The only other striking detail about his corpse – apart for the neatly sutured Y-incision marring the smooth expanse of his chest – is the tattoo. Granted, it’s an unusual one; no naked ladies or grinning skulls for Mr White, not even an elaborate cursive of ‘Mum’ or other name.
The tattoo is solid black, looking almost like Chinese characters except James doesn’t think it is, something about it not quite right. It’s on the inside of Travis’ arm and about five inches in length.
“Is this what you wanted to show us?” he asks, bending slightly to take a closer look. “The tattoo? Surely you could have just emailed us the picture? I don’t...” He looks up then, surprised to find Dr Hobson paying no attention either to him or Travis on the table. Instead, her gaze is locked on Lewis, features etched with genuine alarm. James soon realises why.
Robbie is no longer by his side, having backed all the way to the other end of the room, appearing like he would have gladly gone even further if not for the wall stopping him. He looks like he’s seen a ghost; face blank with shock and... yes, with fear, and that more than anything makes Hathaway feel like the very earth under his feet is slipping away. He has never seen Robbie Lewis afraid before, not like this, not when faced with murderers, not in court. He’s a dragon for God’s sake, what does he have to fear?
Apparently, the answer to that lies on the autopsy table in this very room, cold and dead and still capable of changing everything.
“Robbie... What...?”Laura’s question is hesitant and she moves cautiously closer but James is already connecting the dots, his mind humming louder now than his ears.
“The tattoo,” he breathes, “It’s Dragonese, isn’t it?” He doesn’t need the nervous twitch of eyes Lewis sends his way to confirm that. “What does it mean?” he asks.
For a while it looks like Lewis is not going to answer, like maybe he’ll never utter another word at all. his features ripple slightly, his shadow against the wall growing briefly larger, and Laura gasps.
James steps in Robbie’s line of sight, blocking his view of the autopsy table and the tattooed man on it. “Robbie,” he says, and then again louder, letting some of his own fear bleed into the word: “Robbie!”
It seems to do the trick. Lewis’ gaze clears, face settling into fully human again, the yellow of his eyes fading away.
“Threl’lar,” breathes out, then, switching to English: “God, God... I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Laura says. Her voice trembles ever so slightly but she marches to the door determinedly. “Let’s continue this conversation elsewhere, shall we? There’s an emergency bottle in my desk drawer I feel the urge to prescribe.”
Continue to Part 2.
***