Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9335/fiction.htm

Author's disclaimer and notes can be found in part one.

Past Storm's Touch - part three

Standing back against the wall, Joe watched with interest while Jim Ellison worked the room. The visiting detective had asked that the adults be cleared from the nursery, which had been accomplished with only a few words from Joe, and then Ellison had ducked under the police tape that separated the third of the room closest to the door and crouched low beside the plastic bassinet crib that had held newborn Annie Rose.

On the other side Detective deMari had a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other, at the ready, staring at Ellison intently.

But the most interesting thing, as far as Joe was concerned, was the behavior of Jim's young partner.

With his back to the opposite wall, eyes half-lidded, Blair Sandburg seemed to be talking to himself and completely oblivious to everything going on around him.

Carefully, methodically, Jim ran his hands over every inch of the crib. He opened and closed his eyes seemingly randomly.

"We dusted for prints. of course, but they all belonged to someone who had a reason to be here." DeMari told Jim. He received a grunt as a reply, no more, no less.

The door opened and Joe turned to reprimand whoever was interrupting, but closed his mouth quickly when he saw that it was Diana.

The special investigator looked bothered and dusty, and Joe knew what that meant. But this wasn't the time or place to be asking about it, so he turned his attention back to Ellison.

Who was, it seemed, sniffing, the crib.

Literally sniffing it.

The bedding had been sent to forensics to see if they could lift anything from it, but Jim was bent over and had his face pressed to the tiny plastic-covered mattress.

Beside him Diana shifted, leaning close and whispering in his ear.

"What is he doing?"

"Smelling?" Joe answered just as quietly, with a twist of his lips. "Bennet, if it would get us a lead I'd let him eat the thing and not blink an eye."

Abruptly Ellison straightened. And Sandburg pushed himself off the wall at the same instant.

"This hospital is no-smoking, right?" Jim walked toward them casually, DeMari looking confused and following behind him. With quick footwork Sandburg dodged around DeMari and between several cribs, arriving at Ellison's side without disturbing anything, quite a feat because the rest of the nursery was crowded, they'd moved everything else over to tape off that section.

"Of course." Joe answered. "Did you find something?"

"Do any of the regular nursery staff smoke?"

"We can find out." DeMari spoke up, scribbling now.

"I wouldn't think so." Diana added. "Any exposure to second-hand smoke is supposed to be dangerous to newborns, because of their lungs."

"They could just take smoke breaks." Stopping in front of Joe, Sandburg's sneakers squeaking on the tile, Jim looked pleased.

"But there's a distinct cigarette smell in the air around the crib. It's nearly dissipated and buried beneath all the air fresheners and cleaners, but it's definitely there."

"Can you pick the brand?" Shoving his hands in his pockets, Sandburg seemed ready to bounce with glee.

"No, sorry, Chief. Too much time, too many other scents. But whoever it is smokes menthol, that should narrow it down."

"We'll check personal records." Joe said. "Want to come along, Jim?"

"Yeah, I like to see it come together." Jim said, with an unreadable sideways glance at his partner.

Although he was turning to leave the room, Joe stopped and turned back as his brain registered what it was seeing.

Blair Sandburg was blushing.

Faintly, just a light stain of red highlighting the high cheekbones. But clearly blushing.

Realizing he was staring rudely, although Sandburg, who was watching his partner, wasn't aware of it, Joe jerked his eyes up and met Jim's.

The tall detective met his eyes squarely with a mildly challenging glare.

After a measure pause Joe shrugged and turned away again, leaving Blair to stare at Jim while DeMari walked around him.

Walking through the hospital, needing to go down several floors to reach the records room, where employee files were kept, Blair kept a close eye on Jim, but some distance between them as well. The teasing had hit home, probably harder than the older man realized, and Sandburg was just trying to make sense of it.

There was that new dimension to their relationship since this morning, but he hadn't expected Jim to be so open about it.

Or maybe Jim was just acting the same way he always did, like when he'd called Blair 'baby' when they'd been hunting that priestess.

Jim liked to tease, but Blair was finding that now it made him nervous. It never had before...

Because he used to flirt back.

So why hadn't he done that this time?

He was still pondering that question when they got into the room and DeMari corraled a computer tech to run the search for them, since the hospital files were classified as sensitive and only hospital-authorized people could access them.

It only took a few minutes to locate the number of regular hospital staffers who smoked - it was noted on their records, the ones who had quit since being hired were even identified as such.

"Seems like a lot of fuss about smoking." Jim commented.

"Hospitals like their staffs to promote a healthy image." Diana said.

"We have three people who would have reason to be on that floor that smoke." The staffer said. "A nurse-midwife, an orderly and a phlebotomist."

"Did any of the babies have blood drawn this morning?" Jim asked. Quickly DeMari flipped back in his notebook and read, then shook his head.

"No. They draw blood from the cord after birth for testing and not from the babies."

"Then it's the nurse or the orderly. Were both on duty this morning?"

"Yes." The staffer answered after consulting his screen. Joe looked over his shoulder.

"The kidnapping was noticed a few minutes after the shift change at seven, so either of them could have grabbed the baby and left if they moved fast."

"They must have moved fast." Diana added.

"And both of them are off duty today." the tech added helpfully.

"We'll need printouts of both." Joe said. "We should split up to question them, DeMari, you take Ellison and Sandburg, Diana will go with me."

"I'd like to go with them, Joe." Diana spoke up unexpectedly. She'd been hovering a few feet away, studying Blair with unusual intensity.

Looks were exchanged. Jim stepped closer to Blair seeing something other than case concerns on the faces of the two almost-strangers.

He didn't know what was going on here, but Diana's interest in Blair hadn't gone unnoticed by the Sentinel.

"Sure." Joe said at last, the reluctance of his tone belying the actual word. "Okay. You take Ellison and Sandburg to check out the orderly while DeMari and I check on the midwife." He paused, checking the others with his eyes. "Is that okay with everyone?"

"Fine by me." DeMari spoke up. "You're buying lunch, Maxwell."

The laughter that broke out was more relief than humor, but it was enough to break the increasingly anxious mood.

"Here ya go!" With a flourish the computer technician, who really was the sort of guy you expected to be a computer geek, small and mousey, pushed back his chair and stood, grabbing the stack of papers the printer was spewing fourth and handed with out with some small amount of fanfare. "One for you, and one for you, and one for..."

Within five minutes they all had their information and were on their way out into the city.

The afternoon was pretty much typical cop stuff.

Pounding the pavement, following a thin trail of innuendo and possible sightings of their suspect.

The very fact that he seemed remarkably hard to find, given the fact that it was his day off, and that his only family in town - a sister and her husband, a construction worker who should have been at work - also seemed to have vanished,

it all seemed to add up to make him a very good suspect.

Diana got a data person at the DA's office searching records on all three of them, and, as they were leaving the chinese restaurant they had stopped at for a late lunch-early dinner thing, they got the key piece that tied it all together.

The sister, an Andrea Bottelli, and her husband Patrick, were on waiting lists at adoption agencies all over the state.

Their income put private or overseas adoption out of their reach so they were one of the many families who had been waiting years for a chance at a public agency baby.

As soon as Diana read that Jim began nodding and Blair sighed, already identifying with this couple that wanted a baby that badly.

"So now we know they're probably our kidnappers. He went into the nursery, grabbed the baby, hid her in some linens or something and walked right out." Jim said, motioning them into an alley where they could speak without being overheard.

"But that doesn't give us a clue about where they are."

"The airports have been on notice since it was reported." Diana said. "Anyone carrying a newborn would have been stopped and prevented from boarding a plane."

"Car?" Blair asked.

"They don't have one and their credit card records don't show them renting one today, not the sister or the orderly."

"So where would they go?"

Blair asked, looking from one to the other. He hadn't missed the glances and serious looks Diana had been throwing his way when she thought he wasn't looking.

And her questioning of him had been subtle, couched in 'so tell me about you' terms, but he'd realized quickly that this wasn't the way she usually acted, she seemed to be forcing herself to be outgoing.

Jim was the Sentinel, but Blair read people. But he didn't have anything to hide.

Reading the records again, Diana frowned, and pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket, then frowned at it.

"Damn. Battery's dead. I'm going to use the payphone around the corner."

They watched her walk rather quickly away, and Blair opened his mouth, but Jim shook his head and lay a hand on the short man's arm, and almost-caress.

"Her phone wasn't dead." he said softly, so that Blair had to lean closer to hear him clearly.

"She's gone to the next alley - I heard her boots squish through something wet -"

Cocking his head, he was listening, but then he seemed to notice how close Blair was to him.

With his head tilted up to hear him better and his eyes closed in sympathetic concentration, Blair seemed frozen in the moment.

A stench rose from the weathered pavement beneath their feet.

There was a three-foot high and seven-foot wide pile of garbage bags, some of them bulging at the sides and others split grotesquely, their contents vomited forth to add to the ambience, not two feet away from them.

Jim was aware that he was standing in something wet and gooshy.

But none of that mattered.

The alley, with it's stained brick walls on either side and various disgusting, odiferous contents, was suddenly the only place Jim Ellison wanted to be.

Because he was going to kiss Blair Sandburg here.

Right here, right now.

As soon as he tilted his head that little bit to the right Blair knew what he intended. His blue eyes widened, and then softened, and his lips parted.

He waited.

It wasn't sweet, and it wasn't perfect. Jim misjudged their height difference and bumped Blair's nose with his own, prompting a snicker from the younger man, who then fidgeted nervously.

Jim's hands settled on Blair's shoulders and urged him to stillness and his breath warmed Blair's cheek as he whispered;

"Stand still, Chief, and let me do this."

And then Blair's hands flexed in the air, clutched at it, and finally moved to rest tentatively on Jim's waist, feeling the smooth surface of Jim's nylon jacket, and then Jim was kissing him.

Soft, warm, firm and smooth... his first impressions of Jim's kiss were lost when the older man opened his mouth with a sigh and his tongue invited Blair's in to play.

At first hesitant, after thirty seconds it seemed that some boundary had been crossed, and Jim wrapped his arms tightly around Blair's shoulders and yanked the smaller man up against his body, making a low sound in the back of his throat and increasing the pressure.

The kiss was still gentle, but Jim's body stiffened as he sought to taste every millimeter of Blair's mouth, tongue seeking all the hidden places while Blair hung on for the ride.

Then Jim pulled away, his hands again on Blair's shoulders, supporting the younger man while he regained his balance.

"Here she comes. I didn't hear her talk to anyone, but she banged on some pipes."

"Weird." Blair managed to sputter, unable to change gears as quickly as his partner.

His hands fell to his sides and he licked his lips reflexively.

Jim caught the movement and grinned at him, a wide Cheshire- cat grin, as smug as he could be.

"You taste good." he said, voice dropping low.

Blair's shiver was obvious.

"Yeah...thanks. Um, you too, man."

Saved from further conversation by Diana's return, Blair couldn't keep his eyes off Jim, and he barely restrained is hands.

It had been so typical for them. The all-important first kiss....

in a alley, on a case.

Where else would it have happened?

The thought made him grin and then he felt suddenly light, as if he could just spread his arms and fly away.

But Jim would keep him grounded.

IT was happening.

After all the looks, all the innuendo, all the living together spats and best-friend squabbles, after years of both of them knowing it was going to happen...

It had happened.

"I might have a lead." Diana said. "But I need to see an informant."

The look she gave them didn't even register the slightly stupid grins both men were sporting.

"Privately. He's very private."

"We'll hang back." Jim said firmly.

"NO, that won't work, he'll know you're there and he won't talk." She insisted with more vehemence than Jim thought the situation warranted. So he spread his hands and shrugged, answering grudgingly.

"Well, he's your snitch, you know him better than I do...we'll meet you back at the station."

Suspicious of this sudden agreement, Diana looked at them more closely now.

But she saw nothing more than two men who might have been happier than they should be, but who was she to judge?

Paused for the moment, facing off, however subtly, they all started when the shrill ring of a cellphone cut through the air.

Both men looked at Diana, watching her face as she pulled it from her jacket. Jim saw anger and worry and perhaps some embarrassment, but no surprise, although she tried to bluff through it.

"Stupid thing It's never worked right." She grimaced as she answered it.

Raising an eyebrow Blair exchanged a glance with Jim, but they both stayed silent, Jim's face a bland mask that would have done a mime proud.

"Diana Bennet. Yeah, Joe? Really? Okay. Meet you there." She disconnected quickly.

"Joe got us a lead?" Blair asked cheerfully.

"The manager of a residence hotel called the station, wanting to know if there was a reward being offered. They patched him through to Joe."

"There isn't, is there?" Jim bristled. "No one mentioned one to me."

"No, the parents obviously couldn't afford one. But Joe offered him five hundred bucks and the guy agreed."

Pushing his hair off his face, Blair asked;

"So where's the money going to come from?"

"Out of Joe's pocket." Diana shrugged. "It's worth it if it saves man hours and gets him the case."

"So we're meeting him at the hotel." Jim clarified.

"Let's get a cab." Diana said, moving past him. Shifting out of her way the tall man bumpedinto Blair and steadied him with a hand on his stomach.

"Sorry, Chief."

"It's cool, man." Leaning into the touch, Blair smiled, and they allowed themselves a few seconds to absorb the contact before stepping away from each other and joining Diana just as a cab pulled up.

"Drop us at the corner of E and 92cd." Diana, in the front seat, told the driver after a twenty-minute ride.

"Sure." This was the first thing driver had spoken, as he pulled over to park. "This is on the house, Miss.Bennet."

Diana stared, and then frowned, but the expression cleared quickly.

"Thanks." She got out, followed by a confused Blair and a detective who was getting more suspicious by the moment.

The neighborhood was typical of it's type. Small used car lots, pawns shops and liquor stores were interspersed with flop houses and shabby corner stores. When they turned the corner onto the street the hotel was on Jim observed that the street light at the intersection was dead and there were two cars sitting on blocks right along the curb.

Before they reached the hotel Diana ducked into the recessed doorway of an abandoned building, one of three Jim could see, with boarded-up windows, the grimy brick plastered with 'Keep Out' and 'No Trespassing' signs that were mostly obscured by gang graffiti.

"Joe wants us as backup. It's the 'Pleasant Stay Inn', two buildings up the street."

With a broken neon sign that flickered fitfully, the Pleasant Stay seemed to offer anything but.

"We should split up."

"I can work around to the other side."

Poking her head out of the doorway for a glance, Diana seemed to consider that."

"Joe's ETA is ten minutes. Think you can get into position by then?"

Surprised - he'd been expecting her to object - Jim nodded.

"Then go, but keep out of sight."

"I am a detective." Jim said with mild sarcasm, pulling his weapon from the shoulder-holster and holding it beneath his jacket. "I have done this before."

"So go already." Now she seemed positively eager to have them leave. So Jim nodded at Blair, who frowned but didn't protest when his partner spoke again.

"Sandburg, you stay here, it's a secure location. You'll be safe."

Diana's blue eyes narrowed and she shifted her gun from one hand to the other and back again

"I don't know what kind of cover I'll have on the other side and he's unarmed." Jim told her.

"Nine minutes, Ellison." She snuck another look out. "Go."

With a quick lock for Blair and a brush of his free hand over the smaller man's cheek as he passed, unnoticed by a preoccupied Diana, Jim slipped back the way they had come. Within seconds he turned off into the darkness of an ally and vanished from Blair's watching sight.

Alone with Diana now, waiting for several tense moments, Blair kept his thoughts to himself.

He'd been as quick as Jim to pick up on the oddities of the investigator's behavior. This was why he hadn't objected when Jim left him behind. There was always a quiet hum of anxiety in his soul when he was separated from his Sentinel in a potentially dangerous situation, but Jim had a solid foundation with his abilities now and could work safely without Blair more often than not.

With her back pressed against the wall, gun now held in both hands in front of her chest, slightly crouched, Diana edged over to look around the corner of the alcove again.

"Black Ford, two blocks down. Green Chewy behind it. That's Joe and deMari."

Moving to the other side, Blair looked back the other way.

"Two patrol cars just turned the corner." He reported

"I'll move out when they pass. You stay here."

Ignoring that, Blair continued commenting on the approach of the squad cars.

"They're at the end of this block. Give them one more minute..."

"Joe's coming out of the hotel office." She reported. "He's pointing to the left side of the building."

"Okay, here they come." Blair sank back into the alcove.

As soon as the squad cars, cruising slowly with no lights flashing, passed their hiding place, Diana jogged around the corner and down the cracked and crooked sidewalk. Seeing her coming, Joe waved her past and she went on to take up a position at the far end of the ally that the left side of the hotel building faced.

Bracketed with iron safety ladders and individual doors, it was apparently where people went in and out.

Following behind her, Blair stopped by a dumpster about six feet away from Diana. He noted the rise of Joe's eyebrow as he jogged past and threw a cocky half-wave toward the gregarious DA.

Crouched beside the dumpster, relying on it for protection in case any bullets decided to learn how to fly, Blair put one hand on the ground to steady himself, then grimaced and picked it up again wiping it on his jeans, trying not to think about whatever cold squashy substance he'd placed it in.

Distracted by the effort - and the rotten-sweet scent he could now detect, if not identify - he missed the beginning of the action.

But suddenly there was a man in the middle of the alley, a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms, held high with both hands.

Another man was running toward Jim's end of the alley and a woman was going back the way they had come. Both of them were carrying large gym bags.

Three of the uniformed cops moved to surround the man with the blanket while Joe and DeMari chased the woman.

Jumping up, Blair was ready to follow Diana whichever way she went, and then Jim burst around the corner of the alley and rushed the man fleeing that direction.

And all but fell over himself trying to stop at the last moment, letting the man slip past him while Jim shouted at them over his shoulder.

"He's got the baby! That one has the baby!"

The three cops moved closer to their man while Jim chased after his and, after a second of consideration, Diana chased after Jim, with lair bringing up the rear.

Behind him, as he pelted around a corner and looked own just in time to hop over a big hole in the sidewalk that would have tripped him, he heard the cornered man shouting.

"Back off! I'll drop her, I will!"

Ahead of him Jim was ramming the closed door of an abandoned office building with his shoulder when Diana caught up with him and added her weight to the effort. The doorframe splintered and Jim stumbled through with the redhead hot on his heels.

In the doorway, breathing hard from his sprint, Blair paused.

It was dark inside, no light could squeeze between the boards layered over the windows that were filled with broken glass and brittledry insect corpses.

He heard the running footsteps and briefly wondered how Diana could see anything, then took a deep breath and plunged on, trying to run lightly, on the balls of his feet, which gave him a better chance to recover should he trip or b;under over anything.

They had a good head start, but the building wasn't that big. There was a bang ahead, Blair dashed down a hallway, it was even darker there, following what sounded like a door being thrown open, and then he pulled up short as the sound of the footsteps changed and the air suddenly felt cooler, felt softer...

Stairs!

Skidding to a halt, he risked a shout.

"Jim?!"

"Down here!" A bellow came from below and that was enough for the Guide. With one hand on the wall, wincing when it scraped over a ragged nail head that might've once held a railing, scratching the palm deeply, Blair stumbled down the rickety steps two at a time until Jim shouted at him again.

The older man must have been listening to his progress because this was a warning.

"Slow down before you kill yourself, Sandburg!"

With a grin - totally incongruous under the circumstances - Blair forced himself to relax and slow down, testing each step now before he put his weight on it.

And he was really glad he did when one gave way and he didn't fall through.

"Ellison!" Diana's voice rang out now, and it seemed to echo. Blair wondered just how big the space they were in was.

"Get back, I can take it from here!" The investigator didn't seem to realize the absurdity of her order.

"No, I've got his trail - oh SHIT!"

Jim's roar was quickly followed by the raised voices of several people and the sound of handgun fire.

Terrified, Blair leapt the rest of the way down, falling once and banging his knee hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, and then he was at the bottom and there was pale light - a bare bulb hung from the ceiling? of a cave?? - and he was running toward the guns, running, and there was a roaring sound, not like Jim's human one, but the enraged roar of an animal, some kind of animal.

"JIM!" Blair was sure his voice hadn't hit that note since he turned fourteen and puberty hit with a vengeance

"I'm okay, I'm okay!!!"

Lurching around a corner into a large cavern, one side bricked up, obviously deliberately, Blair stopped cold.

It was clear that this place was being used as a home base of some sort - or even a home - as it was strewn with blankets and boxes and even a couple of camp beds.

There were crates and clothes and cans of food, a firepit surrounded by blackened rocks -

and four men on the ground, three of them bleeding.

And Jim pressed to a wall, without his gun, staring, with something like horror in his eyes, at the huge figure that crouched over the men.

Hooded, with broad shoulders and hands that dripped blood from claws that glinted in the weak light, the man - if man it was - shuddered at Blair's entrance at the exact same instant lair himself felt a wave of dizziness overcome him.

And Diana Bennet was opening the gym bag the suspect had dropped, was lifting out a small, still pale figure, and speaking to the hooded man as he fought against whatever demon held him,t he one he shared with Blair.

"Vincent!" She hissed. "She's sick, she's been drugged, I can't stay, you have to go."

Blair staggered a step forward, one arm wrapped around his rebelling stomach, the other stretching toward this cloaked enigma that drew him.

"Blair..." Jim moved toward him but an ear-shattering roar from the one Diana called Vincent stopped him.

"What... What..?" Blair choked out. The dizziness and disorientation were fading, faster thins time, and Vincent felt it as well, lumbering gracelessly to his feet.

"Go." Diana urged. "I'll take care of things here."

The huge man shook his head and the hood fell free.

Blair saw eyes, blue eyes, in a furred animal's face and he knew those eyes.

"Who are you?" Stronger now, he strode forward without regard for safety.

The blue eyes widened and then closed, just for the time it took to draw a breath, and then the bloodied hands were lifting the hood, hiding the face and the man whirled with uncanny speed and grace and bounded away, down a dimly lit passage behind them.

Without a word Jim sprinted after him, grabbing Blair's shoulder as he passed, and they both chased this stranger, ignoring Diana's increasingly frenzied commands behind them.

"Stop! No,you can't go down there! Ellison! ELLISON! Maxwell is going to kill YOU!!!!"

"Jim?" Blair gasped as they pounded down the rocky tunnel, running painful with his sore knee. "Why are we doing this?"

"I have to know what's going on here, Sandburg." Jim was barely breathing hard. The man Diana called Vincent was already out of sight.

"Okay." Blair agreed.

Realizing that Blair was hurt, Jim slowed to a trot, letting his friend catch his breath, and then they jogged together.

"Are you tracking him?" Blair asked, a hand on Jim's shoulder to follow as they went deeper and it got darker.

"Yeah, he has a very distinctive personal odor." Jim said. "Not unpleasant or anything, just like nothing I've ever smelled before."

"He's sure like nothing I've ever seen before." Blair muttered.

Jim stopped, an arm out to bar Blair's path, his hand resting on the smaller man's stomach.

There was light rising from below them, and a giant circular staircase made of ancient metal curled down into it.

"What - or who - is he, Sandburg?"

"I don't know." Meeting his eyes, Blair chewed on his lip thoughtfully. "But I think... don't laugh here, Jim....

He took a deep breath and said the words calmly.

"I think he's my father."

Jim did a double-take that would have been humorous under any other circumstances.

"Your what?"

"I don't know!" Blair hadn't realized how upset he was until he heard the shout that burst from his own mouth. Waving his hands, descriptive circles growing bigger and bigger, he continued, seeing the concentration on Jim's face that meant he was turning down his hearing even as he listened to Blair's rant. "I saw him and then I knew I was feeling him and this is too damn weird, man! It's like - like - damn Naomi, why doesn't she tell me these things!"

Big hands - warm hands, particularly noticeable here, where the cold of the deep earth was beginning to show - closed on his shoulders and Blair snapped his mouth shut, arms hanging in midair.

Then the big hands slid...slowly...up his neck, a thumb caressing his adam's apple briefly, tangling in his hair at the sides and then cupped his face.

"Chief. Listen to me." The hands tightened and Blair blinked, meeting those bright blue eyes, so serious. Most people thought of Jim as serious, but Blair knew better. There was a class clown hiding in that buff body and it needed little provocation to come out.

But right now they were serious and Blair released the breath he'd been unconsciously holding since those hands touched him.

"Whatever this is, I'm sure your mom meant no harm by it. You said she had a bad experience here when she was young...maybe she was just protecting. Are you sure you want to follow this guy, whatever he is, and dig up this secret?"

Words filled Blair's mouth, smothering his tongue, pushing and shoving and fighting to get out, but only tying it up too tightly to allow speech.

So he just nodded, rapidly, little jerky movements of his head while Jim nodded sympathetically along with him.

"Then we'll track him and we'll ask him. Diana seems to know him, there's something else going on here..."

Looking down again, Jim scented deeply.

"I can follow him."

"What happened back there?" Blair asked as Jim released him with a pat on the cheek and they started down the stairs, their footsteps loud, clattering down into the darkness.

"I think the kidnaper stumbled into a hideout. I could smell coke and speed and those guys that were there had the place pretty well set up. They looked healthy, they weren't junkies - probably dealers."

He quickened his step, jogging down now. There were small lights every few feet, enough for Blair to see by, but Jim didn't need them, of course. So the younger man kept pace and they were trotting along handily.

"I think I can see the bottom." Jim said after a few more minutes.

"I need to work out more." Blair panted. "Can you still hear him?"

"There's a lot of ambient noise. Background noise." Jim said, closing his eyes and slowing as they neared the bottom.

The staircase ended in a rocky room that showed other signs of human habitation, with several tunnels branching off from it.

"I can hear his heartbeat. It's very loud, thunderous. It pounds...I'll bet it's a lot larger than a normal one."

"To serve a body that size it would have to be." Blair stopped and sat on the bottom stair to catch his breath while Jim checked each tunnel carefully before indicating the third one.

"He was at least 6'8"." Jim agreed. "Had to weigh over three hundred."

"It's amazing, to see something like that. Do you think he's intelligent?"

"Bennet seemed to think so." Tugging at Blair's shoulder Jim urged him up and then into a jog again. "I don't want him to get too far ahead, and he's not slowing down."

Sucking in air through his nostrils, remembering everything he'd ever learned about distance running, Blair nodded and kept up.

The ground was rocky beneath their feet. If he hadn't been working so hard at putting one foot in front of the other, Blair would have noticed the marvels they passed; assorted tunnels, large and small, paintings that went on for miles, doors embedded in rock...

many things, wonderful things, remarkable things...

But they ran on. He didn't know how Jim did it. Quickly losing count of the turns they took, the tunnels they tore through, Blair just stuck close to Jim and tried to breath.

Then there was a sound even Blair could hear, above even the ringing and banging of the pipes that wound through this subterranean world.

The rushing roar of the wind, louder than he'd ever heard it, like standing to the side of a hurricane.

Stopping abruptly, he bumped into Jim, who had stopped in front of him, and looked over the taller man's shoulder and down yet another staircase, this one of carved rock, layered, curved, clinging to a sheer cliff face.

All of it worn smooth by the wind that blew with such ferocity that it seemed to be angry with them personally.

"There!" Jim shouted, pointing. Blair looked just in time to see the swirl of cloak going through a large double-door near the foot of the staircase.

"Come on." Pushing past Jim, Blair started down the stairs, only to find that the wind was even stronger than it sounded. It deafened him and yanked at him and tugged, pulling him away from the safety of the wall, trying to drag him over the side, where he would fall to the rocks many feet below.

"Shit!" The words were ripped from his lungs and thrown into the roar and then Jim was behind him, Jim's arms on either side of him and Jim's lips were the only warmth he felt, pressed to his ear as his lover offered his body to support Blair's smaller one.

"I got you, Chief. Go slow and easy."

"Yeah, man." A shiver ran through Blair and he pressed back, just for a minute, feeling Jim's length pressed intimately to his, and then, hands scrabbling at the wind-slicked rock, he carefully went down another step, and then another.

Jim kept pace, used his weight and strength to keep them anchored, and they were descending carefully.

Very carefully, but suddenly not carefully enough.

It wasn't clear what happened, but Jim shouted in shock and then he was gone, bumping down several steps, his head hitting the wall the last thing Blair saw as the wind grabbed him and ripped him from the staircase, tossing him over the side like a wadded-up napkin.

"BLAIR!"

Aware of the pain in his right hand, feeling the numbness in the first two fingers, unable to move them, Jim thought they were broken, but didn't really stop to think about anything as he crawled frantically back up the steps and threw himself down on his stomach to reach over the side and grab for his Guide's falling body.

Nausea made the world swim but his left hand touched hair, closed, and the resulting yank bruised his armpit where it went over the sharp edge of the stone.

But his right hand was still not responding, so all Jim could do was hang on and scream at Blair, begging him to wake up and help.

"Chief! Sandburg! Blair, Blair, wake up, I can't hold you!!!"

Feeling panic rise he struggled to bring Blair up with the one arm he could use, but the smaller man, although indeed smaller than he was, was no lightweight, being stocky and sturdy and solidly built. "I can't - I can't, Chief, you have to -!" Blatantly begging now, feeling the weight of Blair's body starting to slip from his grasp, Jim made a heroic effort and brought the injured hand around, using the three little fingers to hook under the collar of Blair's zipped-up jacket, but it wasn't enough, he knew it wasn't going to be enough, pain flamed through the broken digits...

And then the eye of the hurricane closed around him.

A shadow loomed and the wind itself seemed to be blocked.

Huge hands with long claws, claws that shone, reached over Jim's prone body and closed over Blair's shoulders. Feeling the presence of the huge man straddling his back, Jim sucked in a breath and added his strength, but it wasn't needed. Blair was lifted effortlessly and lay on the stairs beside him. Without thought Jim rolled over and wrapped his arms around the young man, clutching him thankfully, burying his face in the crook of his neck and breathing deeply of his scent, hearing his heart beating steadily.

He allowed himself an unmeasured time to enjoy this most important sound.

And the man - the monster? - sat over them and protected them until Jim was ready to look up and meet his eyes.

Vincent stared down at the men who had been chasing him.

At first he hadn't understood why. Always before police and witnesses had either fled or remained at the scene to care for the injured.

To do the paperwork, Diana called it. The many times Vincent had protected Catherine and the few that Diana had needed his help, he had done his part and left. If anyone considered following,he lost them quickly in the outer tunnels.

The larger man he watched held tightly to the smaller. In pain, frightened despite himself, his face demonstrated a mixture of emotions that Vincent could easily read; fear, anger, curiosity and gratitude.

The wind was worse than usual this time of year and the tunnel protector knew he would not be heard if he spoke.

There was a mystery here, one that had been unfolding since these men arrived in his city, and it was time to solve it once and for all.

Rising from his crouch, he offered a hand tot he police man that stared up at him.

It was ignored as the man turned his attention to the source of Vincent's confusion, the younger man that lay in his arms.

The curly head lolled back, a broad purple bruise swelling on his temple, and a trickle of blood dried on a bitten lower lip.

Watching the man struggle to stand with his own injuries and the inert burden, Vincent decided to take matters into his own hands and control the situation.

Already he knew that he was going to break the rules of the Tunnels, and possibly be censured for it. He hadn't done that in years.

Bending from the waist, he blithely lifted the smaller man from the protective arms of the larger, smiling as best he could, well aware that the expression could be construed as threatening.

It was about time he stirred things up again. Father was getting complacent in his old age.

When those hands took Blair from him, the superior strength mocking his resistance, Jim saw the bestial face twist into what he thought was a snarl, but then, as the huge man cradled Blair with surprising gentleness, he recognized it as a smile.

Frowning, Jim climbed to his feet and the man shouldered him to the wall, offering his bulk as protection against the wind, which Jim accepted. Laying a hand on Blair's leg where it dangled over a sweater-clad arm, he allowed the strange man to lead him down the stairs.

As soon as they passed through the massive doors at the bottom of the stairs, Jim was using his good arm to help wrestle them closed. Silence closed around them, deafening.

The man waited, at ease, for Jim to catch his breath. And soon Jim smelled and heard things. Campfires and the pipes banging again, and voices, of adults and children. Not raised in celebration but engaged in everyday mundane tasks.

Somewhere violins played a duet. A woman's voice read a children's story.

Meeting the richly colored blue eyes, vivid in that oddly almost-human face, Jim swallowed, letting his ears check on Blair again before he spoke.

Blair was fine. Breathing well, heartrate good. Just a bump on the head.

"Where are we?" He asked at last, his voice loud in the echoing chamber, unsure if he would get an answer. Do monsters speak?

"In my world." The voice was deep, and rich, and above all calm - the voice of a man who thought things through, a man not given to impulse.

Waiting expectantly, Jim wasn't particularly surprised when that was all the information he got.

"This way." The stranger said, beginning to walk away, into the looming darkness.

Reluctant, but at the same time feeling a rush of adrenaline - this was like the stories he and Steven had read as children, the adventures where the monsters were the saviors and beneath everything you knew was a world you didn't - he felt like he was walking into a fairy tale.

But then, most fairy tales were pretty...well, grim.

This one was populated by actual people.

They appeared in doorways, in tunnel entrances. the general appearance was similar to the homeless that populated the streets of the city above them, but there were a couple of key differences. Mainly that these people and their clothes were clean, there was no overlay of the rancid scent of the seldomwashed. And, more important in many ways, they looked happy and well fed.

There several wearing what he would call regular clothes. The clothes people wore to work as construction guys or taxi drivers.

Down one wide corridor the chatter of children's voices was loud and small heads of many sizes crowded arched doorways carved into stone, decorated with bas-relief images of dragons and fairies and mythical creatures. Several men and women, everyone there dressed for the chill in the air, tried to keep the children contained and Jim felt suddenly that he had walked into a medieval picture book. Except that the kids looked like kids anywhere. Jeans seemed to be the apparel of choice, just as above.

It was here that Jim first heard the name, muttered, and then shouted happily and curiously by the children, quickly shushed by the adults.

"Vincent!"

"it's Vincent!"

"Who is Vincent carrying?"

"Vincent?"

This passage ended in a very large arched doorway where the man - Jim assumed his name was Vincent, from the nods he gave the children, the way they smiled at him - at the doorway they were met by a smaller man with muscular forearms and a completely bald head. Very short, shorter than Blair's 5'8", which was actually average for a white male, this guy was 5'2" on a tall day.

"Jacob is with Mary." The man said. "Father is waiting in the clinic."

"Thank you, Pasqual." The deep voice rumbled. Beside him Jim looked from one to the other, wanting - needing - an explanation. Who was Jacob? This man Pasqual, what was his relationship to Vincent? Did they share a father?

Or was this one of the many cults that twisted people's needs and encouraged them to give up their real lives and live in communes that sucked their life savings from them?

It wasn't that the people looked mistreated or unhappy, but appearances could be deceiving. And what better symbol for a cult than the half-beast that stood beside him now? Tammy Faye and Jim Baker would make millions off a face like that.

But no more words were spoken. Pasqual, who was unarmed as far as Jim could tell they all were - but who needed guns when you had a walking lion? - fell into step behind them and suddenly, between the two of them, Jim felt threatened. Trapped.

Watched.

Like a prisoner being escorted.

A long stretch of tunnels that sloped downwards, dusty and cold, the pipes running through them vibrating with taps and clicks and bangs. Pasqual stopped briefly, one hand on a large pipe, eyes closed as he seemed to listen.

A beautiful boyish smile spread over his face.

"Diana returned the baby to Jamie. They'll be coming home tomorrow."

"Diana is a loyal friend." Vincent said, but relief was clear in his eyes as well.

"Diana Bennet?" Jim asked, letting his anger show. "Somebody needs to tell me what's going on here."

"I have no answers for you." Vincent looked at him and Jim was struck by the intelligence in those eyes, tinged with a profound sadness. And the voice held an echo of the voice Jim relied on, for his life and his sanity - Blair's.

Bennet had said that Blair reminded her of someone. Now that Jim had heard the man speak, he saw it as well.

That calmed him and gave him the strength to rein in his temper and follow as the short man, Pasqual, gave him a measuring glance. They turned a corner into a brightly lit passageway.

There were only three doors here, two on one side that had actual doors - closed - and one on the other that did not, but Jim could see old-fashioned hospital screens set up just inside it, blocking the interior.

A man sat on a stool to the left of the door. The way he was dressed surprised Jim. Slacks and a suit coat with a dress shirt and tie - he looked like an average businessman.

As they approached he got up and called to someone inside the room.

"Father! He's here and he has the outsiders with him!"

The use of the word 'outsiders' sent a chill through Jim, but his gaze rested on Blair, who was still unconscious in Vincent's arms.

"Father is a doctor." Vincent said, in that quiet way. "He will care for your friend."

There was an emphasis on the word friend that eased Jim's heart. Vincent knew. He knew, somehow, that there was something special between Jim and Blair. He knew and he seemed to approve. Although Jim had to silently question why that mattered to him...

An elderly man with a grizzled short beard - he leaned on a cane and his hands were swollen with arthritis beneath heavy fingerless gloves - moved cautiously to the opening and gestured them forward.

"Vincent. What have you brought this time? Come in, lie him down, let's have a look at him."

He sounded what Jim thought of as crotchety, certainly ill- tempered, but there was kindness in his voice too. Nevertheless, Jim stayed close to Vincent - and Blair - when the big man ducked through the doorway and moved past the screens to lay Blair down on a neatly-made hospital bed. The younger man from the chair joined them, standing beside the elder as he started an examination, taking Blair's pulse with experienced hands.

"He hit his head." Jim spoke up, feeling that he should say something. "Falling off the stairs. On the rock."

"In the Chamber of the Winds." Vincent clarified.

"How did they get there?" The old man muttered indignantly. "They should have never made it through the maze."

"I followed him." Crossing his arms over his chest, Jim stared at Vincent. The strange man seemed only stranger here, in this small space hemmed by white curtains and reeking of hospital sterility and cleanliness.

"Sandburg said he needed to meet him, so I tracked him. He killed three people up there!"

"They threatened my world." Vincent said softly, looking away. In that moment Jim realized he was ashamed of his actions, and not immune to guilt. Yet more contradictions became the man. "They had guns. I had no choice."

Snapping his mouth shut, Jim watched the old man complete what seemed to be a thorough exam.

"Your friend will be fine." He told Jim at last. "He will have a headache and his lip will be sore, but I see no sign of concussion or serious injury."

The younger man in business clothes nodded as he spoke.

"Michael? The older one asked.

"I concur with your diagnosis, Father." Michael grinned, and it made him look younger. "You're still the top doc in the tunnels."

When Jim frowned at the interplay Vincent spoke to ease him.

"Michael grew up here and now he is a doctor Above. He divides his time between that world and this one, as many of our people do."

"And I'm going to be late for rounds." Michael checked his watch. "I'll be back for the concert tonight, Father."

"I remember those days." Father smiled for the first time, revealing healthy teeth. "Go on, you mustn't let the interns get cocky."

With an affectionate pat to Vincent's shoulder as he passed, Michael left.

And Jim stared at the man the others called Father, across Blair's resting form, and wondered what he was supposed to do now.

Father spoke, but not to Jim, and he looked angry.

"Well, Vincent. You've done it. "Why do you persist in bringing strangers into our lives?"

The strange man was calm when he answered, a light in his blue eyes that made even Jim feel the strength of his conviction.

"This is the man I told you about." He answered Father's question, although Jim was still unclear just whose father the man was.

His voice got softer and rougher as he spoke. "He is no stranger, wherever he is from."

"Washington." Jim spoke up. The flickerings of familairity he was seeing grew stronger every time the man spoke. "Cascade, Washington. We're here to testify at a trial."

"The world above is a brutal place." Father said in a measured tone. "Who do you think he is, Vincent? What do you think he is?"

Looking from one to the other and then back to Blair's relaxed face, Jim debated how much longer he should let this go on. These people were strangers to him, living in this weird secret society beneath the city streets - it was like a bad novel.

But it was just strange enough - just weird enough - that he didn't want to assert himself yet. Not until he knew more about what was going on here. He didn't sand a chance against the beast-man, he'd figured that out as soon as he saw him take down the three thugs with guns. And Diana knew them, protected them...

Continued in part four.
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