Title: The White Horse (15/16)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Jim Kirk was a strange man. A silent man. No one knew much about him or, if they did, were not willing to say what they did know, especially to the town’s newest magical occupant. Not that Leonard McCoy cared. He had an old curse to track down and unravel by the year’s end. Meanwhile a killer was tracking him. AU.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
or at AO3

Buckle in.

Part Fourteen

Chris had been wrong, of course. Matt was an excellent hunter. He wasn’t just haphazardly running after things in the night. He had a sense for what he was hunting. It called to him. It drew him near just to taunt him. Because of that arrogance, he always felt that one day it would make a mistake and he would catch it.

Yes, Christopher Pike had been so, so wrong—and Matt planned to prove it to him.

He lowered his rifle and kicked at the lump on the ground. It didn’t move. Couldn’t. He’d stunned it with his heaviest tranquilizer.

Squatting down, he rolled the dead weight onto its back and pondered its features. It almost looked human; innocent even—like some grungy kid that had taken a tumble through dirt and leaves down a hillside.

But Matt wasn’t fooled in the least. He knew a monster when he saw one. He knew this monster, despite the pale skin it was wearing.

The bearded man pushed back his cap, grabbed one of the bare feet and began the arduous task of dragging his prize through the woodland, feeling good for the first time in years.

He couldn’t wait to show them all!

“What’s the plan?”

Leonard raked a hand through his hair. “Do I look like I know what I’m doing?”

Scotty narrowed his eyes in consideration of his friend. “Not really, but I just got here so you can’t expect me to have the plan.”

Early morning had given way to a noon sun. Looking towards the Kirk house, Leonard felt uneasy. “He’s not back yet.”

“Aye,” murmured the other man. “So where does a were-kelpie hide in the daylight?”

“We’re not calling it a were-kelpie, Scotty.”

Scotty grinned. “Why not? We could’ve made a great discovery here—as important as Bigfoot! And since I saw it first, I get to name it,” he added gleefully.

Leonard reached out and flicked his friend on the forehead. “Bigfoot isn’t real, you dumbass.”

Scotty rubbed his forehead. “Ow—hey, don’t diss the Bigfoot legend. He was spotted recently, you know.”

“Yeah, in Florida,” Leonard retorted. “Unless he was vacationing, I know a hoax when I hear one.”

Scotty pressed his mouth flat but it did nothing to hide his smile.

With an exasperated sigh, Leonard drew a small leather-bound journal from an inner pocket. He’d kept it on him since he had recovered it from Spock. Maybe Scotty could do something with it. He said as much, handing it over to the man.

“Horatio McCoy?” Scotty read from the faded scrawl on the inner flap. “Is that your granddad?”

“Great-grandfather.” He swallowed and considered how he wanted to explain everything.

But Scotty surprised him, looking up with an almost gentle understanding in his eyes. “I didn’t ask ’cause it’s none of my business. You don’t have to tell me now.”

“But I should. It won’t help either of us if you’re hamstringed by what you don’t know.” He took a short breath and went on to say, “My family might be cursed. It’s, well, it’s killing Jo.”

Scotty’s expression tightened for a short moment. “Are you sure?”

“No.” He looked down at his hands, remembering how useless they’ve been. “I don’t have any better ideas though.”

“Sarek was tracking the curse-maker,” Scotty surmised. The man bent his head as if to keep from making eye-contact with Leonard and riffled through a few of the loose pages in the journal.

“Yeah, he was—and it could’ve been the curse that killed him.” Which is partly why his son isn’t willing to forgive me. He didn’t mention that part. Leonard reached over and guided Scotty to the page of the journal where his great-grandfather mentioned the curse. He stayed silent while Scotty read it through. Only when his friend was done did he ask, “What do you think?”

“There’s no name.”

“No,” Leonard agreed. “I’ve read the journal several times but he never identified her by name. Maybe he was afraid to write it down since it was his father who was at fault. I don’t think the rest of the family knew about the affair. Around a year later, there’s a part where he mentions one of his mother’s friends leaving town and how much he hoped she never came back. At first I thought it might be connected, that she was the mistress, but I couldn’t find anything on her even when I checked the records in Georgia.” He rubbed at one of his eyebrows. “My dad says that my grandfather only ever heard my great-grandfather talk about it once, after my grandmother died. All he said was ‘It’s her curse that killed your woman, same as mine.'”

Scotty closed the journal. “They say there’s nothing more frightening than a woman scorned. Is it all right if I hold on to this?”

Leonard nodded, fighting off an abrupt feeling of despondency. To their right, Scotty’s laptop screen flickered. Needing the distraction, he transferred his gaze there. They had given up on trying to identify specifics of the human shape cloaked in white.

When the screen flickered again, Scotty rolled his eyes, said, “Cut it out.”

It took Leonard a second to catch on. “Oh no… Don’t tell me you brought him.”

A music application popped up and started to play AC/DC’s “Back in Black”.

With a curse, Scotty shut his laptop. “You make it sound like I had a choice in the matter. Damned bugger does what he wants.”

Leonard was so glad he wasn’t friends with a poltergeist. “I thought your van was warded.”

“He started trashing the house when I wouldn’t let him ride along on a case. I was okay with that, since I’m not much of a housekeeper anyway, until he set fire to my living room.”

“Fuck.”

“My sentiment exactly. It was kinda hard to explain to the Fire Department that a spirit did it on purpose because he was feeling pissy and left out.”

A discarded glove from the floorboard flew up and smacked Scotty on the side of the head.

Choking on a laugh, Leonard murmured, “Bad Keenser.” Then, “I think it’s time I left.” Already another object started to rattle ominously upon the floor.

“Wait,” Scotty stalled him, “what do you want me to do?”

“Keep watch,” replied Leonard. “But, uh, move this van somewhere else for a while. The neighbors are gonna call the cops on you if you don’t.”

“I have a legal right to be here.”

“Not if you’re driving a child molester van.”

“Oy!” Scotty cried, “Zelda is no such thing!”

Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose and swung open the back door of the van—Zelda, that is—without another word. A hand latched onto his arm.

“Here,” Scotty said, producing an old-style flip phone. “We need to keep in contact.”

Leonard took it with a heartfelt “Thanks.” He pocketed the cell phone.

“Be careful. Watch out for Feds,” his friend warned him.

“You too, Scotty. I’ll be in touch soon.”

With a nod, Scotty let him go.

After a short and tense discussion with Sheriff Pike, Spock was summarily released into Sulu’s custody. Spock had stayed silent while they had collected the agent’s belongings from Evidence and packed into Sulu’s rental for a drive across town. Even now, with the station far behind them, the man said little. Whether he was thinking or purposefully chose to distance himself, Sulu did not know.

Normally silence suited Hikaru fine but at this juncture, his brain was too wound up with possibilities and he wanted to talk them out.

Unfortunately he was not yet certain if the man next to him could be trusted as implicitly as Sulu had trusted him in the past. Sulu didn’t believe that Spock was an example of a good man driven astray by grief. He had always felt that Spock was someone waiting on a trigger to set him off.

It seemed that trigger had come along—or an excuse had.

He started to speak but rejected what he might say for the third time. Flexing his hands on the wheel, he gave his focus to the stretch of highway in front of the car and decided he could be patient for a little while longer.

Agent Spock had always been more perceptive than most. His quiet voice gently broke the silence a few minutes later. “Is there something you wish to say to me, Agent?”

“There are plenty of things,” Sulu replied, “but for both our sakes, we should probably focus on business. Do you believe a word of what Pike said back there?”

“I am undecided.”

“Some of it I believed. The part about Kirk’s uncle, for instance, using the kid as bait.”

“The report states that the boy left the campsite after an argument. The uncle searched for the child but did not locate him until after dawn, at which point James Kirk was discovered on the lakeshore in a nearly catatonic state.”

“Yeah, that’s fishy—especially because no responsible person takes a kid camping out by a crime scene unless it’s on purpose.”

“That I can agree with. The uncle intended for his nephew to catch the interest of the killer. However, James Kirk did not drown and in the end no perpetrator was caught. Most odd.”

“Meaning something probably was accomplished, and no one but Kirk’s uncle knows what. We could go ask him,” Sulu offered.

“You would suggest we interrogate a city councilman about an incident sixteen years old? I highly doubt he would tolerate that.”

“But if he transferred a deputy out of his division for nosing about, then it means he’s guilty of something.”

“Ah,” Spock murmured, “here is where I am undecided.”

Sulu cast a glance at Spock. “What do you mean?”

“Consider Pike’s position at the time. It is true he was a subordinate to Kirk’s uncle—and likely an antagonistic one. But was he not also in love with the man’s sister?”

Sulu hadn’t picked up on that. “You think so?”

“His involvement in the matter, despite no familial ties, is too personal. He makes it so, and it is clear he considers Winona Kirk’s son under his protection. This leads me to believe there was additional motive for Sheriff Davis to remove Christopher Pike from his county, using a tragedy to do so.”

“And yet,” mused Sulu, “Pike and Winona Kirk still ended up in the same town. I’m not a sentimental man but that sounds like fate to me.”

“Or cunning,” inserted the other agent.

Sulu laughed. “This is why I have some respect for you, Spock. You discount no possibility.”

Spock only replied, “Please lend your attention to the road, Mr. Sulu.”

Hikaru did, driven to ask one final question in the process. “Why are we going to Kirk’s house? It sounds like he knows the least of anyone.”

“That may be true… but there is the fact he would have come face-to-face with the killer.”

Sulu was curious. “I’m not disagreeing, but how can you make a mute tell you what he doesn’t remember?”

Spock steepled his fingers. “You force him to remember.”

“I’m cool with that.” He fixed his gaze ahead, waiting a beat. “What about McCoy?”

“Mr. McCoy has proven ineffective in the matter, although we could make use of his services. If offered the return of his voice, Mr. Kirk will be more amenable to our method of investigation.”

So they could kill two birds with one stone. Grief hadn’t ruined Spock’s ability to devise a good plan, at least. He pointed out, just to be certain, “Don’t forget what you promised me.”

“I assure you I have not.”

“Good.” Hikaru flipped on the left turn signal. “It’s only fair that we both get what we want.”

The number on his phone meant trouble. Chris was certain of it. He answered the call anyway. “Hello?”

“Chris!”

Chris’s jaw tightened in agitation. He knew he shouldn’t have released Decker’s mind so soon. The man grew more unstable by the day. Of course, to leave him in stasis could have permanently turned the fool’s brain to mush. There wasn’t a reason yet to destroy Decker that completely.

He responded to the cheerful tone with an unenthusiastic one of his own. “Is this an emergency, Matt? I’m on duty.” He had a thought and added sharply, “Aren’t you in the cabin?”

“Sure I am, boss. I wasn’t gone long.”

A cold sensation slid down Pike’s spine. “I told you to stay put!”

“But it was a hunting night—and, boss, I got ‘im!“

Pike’s dread turned to real fear. “Got who?”

“The bad one, just like I said I would. It was a clean shot.”

Pike dropped the phone into his lap and gripped the wheel with both hands. He jerked the SUV over to the side of the road and shoved it into park, then picked up the phone again.

His voice was as unforgiving as his hold on the phone. “You killed him.”

“Kill it? No,” Decker corrected, “I didn’t kill it. I wanna look it in the eyes when I use my knife.” He sounded pleased with himself, as if he were a child asking a parent, I did good, didn’t I?

Pike ordered, “Wait until I get there, Matt. Don’t touch him—it—until I’m there.”

“Are you coming now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Okay. You can help me. It’ll fight us before the end.”

“Just… wait,” Pike could only emphasize, and hung up the phone.

He stared down at his traitorous hands. The last time they had shaken like this had been when he helped remove Winona’s lifeless body from her car.

She was long gone now. Dead. Jim was… not dead yet. But he would be. Decker would wait, as promised, but only until the second Pike stepped through the cabin door. There would be no convincing the man he had the wrong ‘monster’. Pike wasn’t certain himself if another monster existed.

But that didn’t matter to him. It didn’t matter if Jim had killed the woman Pike had loved for decades, or if Jim was killing others.

It couldn’t matter because Jim was his son.

He wasn’t the son of the young wayfarer he and Winona had befriended one summer, a scruffy, mild-mannered man who called himself George Kirk and who had stolen Winnie from him. No, Jim was the result of a night Pike had let his jealousy during that period drive him to do something awful: to trick Winona into thinking she loved him as much as he loved her.

It was the worst thing he’d ever done in his life. It was unforgivable. He had never trusted himself with her afterwards and let her go back to George. Even when George left her behind months later, once she admitted she was pregnant to her parents and they turned her out, he couldn’t trust himself to take care of her.

She hadn’t wanted him anyway. Now he knew why.

Somehow knowing what he had done, she had chosen to pretend the child wasn’t his because in her eyes Jim needed protection from him, from the monster he was capable of being.

At the time of her confession he’d hated her enough to kill her himself: for lying for years, then for using the truth as a trump card to make him accept that whatever Jim was, it couldn’t be all bad.

“It’s not him, Chris,” she had said. “It’s the thing inside him. Help me, please. Help me get it out!“

Finding her dead days later had brought him no solace and more questions than answers.

There was one fact that Chris clung to, which kept him on the fence about Jim’s guilt and assuaged his own: his son didn’t have memories of hurting anyone. Didn’t that mean there was a chance Jim could be saved?

Chris straightened up and pushed the vehicle back into drive, making his best time to the secluded area where Decker had Jim. Once he was there, he let his SUV idle at the far end of the driveway and considered his options. There weren’t many—and they all had a point-of-no-return.

Decision made, he pulled up towards the cabin, killed the engine and retrieved his gun.

Decker stopped staring down at his prize when he heard the slam of a car door.

Chris was here.

Smiling, he cocked his shotgun.

Chris knocked and let Decker open the door for him. He remembered to say “Good work” before he demanded, “Where is he?”

“It,” insisted Decker, stepping back.

Chris swallowed and nodded, his eyes fixed across the room to the figure curled upon the floor. He started in that direction. If it weren’t for his years of experience, he wouldn’t have reacted at all to the fact that Decker didn’t follow him. Stopping short, he turned back to face the other man.

And found Matt’s shotgun trained on his chest.

“You don’t want it to die,” Chris was accused.

“What are you talking about?”

Decker was smiling but there was nothing friendly in his eyes. “I had a suspicion, Christopher. I had a big one, really, because you let me hunt out here but never when the one thing I wanted to catch was around. Aren’t I right? You knew.”

Chris lifted his eyebrows, sending out a tendril of his magic to judge Decker’s stability. The result surprised him. “And you knew about me?”

“What, that you’ve been fucking with my head? Mindfucker.” Decker bared his teeth in a caricature of a grin. “Sure I did. How else could you pull it off so neatly, making me think I was always so close to catching it? Truth be told, I don’t really hate you for that like I should. Not now. I just want my revenge.”

Decker pulled the trigger.

The impact of the shot knocked Pike backwards, the sound of it reverberating throughout the cabin. Chris didn’t reach for his own gun, just let himself land on his back. He made the gasp of a dying man. The pain up and down his ribcage was no joke.

Decker bent over him and extricated the gun from the holster on his belt to discard, then walked around him towards the unmoving Kirk, saying, “Don’t die too soon. I want you to watch this.”

He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, grateful beyond words that the risk had paid off and Decker hadn’t aimed for his head. He was somewhat certain the bullet-proof vest beneath his jacket had held up admirably well at close firing range. There was still wetness on the skin of his left arm, which meant some of the buckshot had gone wide. All in all, he thought he would survive.

But Decker wasn’t going to.

Chris waited until Matt tucked the shotgun into the crook of his arm, drew out a large, mean-looking knife and squatted over Kirk. Then Chris rolled over and up onto one knee, and said, “Drop it,” taking aim with the small caliber gun he had hidden at the back of his pants.

Matt froze and blinked at him almost stupidly. “Chris?”

“You’re right, Matt. I can’t let you kill him.”

Decker’s eyes flashed beneath his ball cap. “Don’t do this, boss. I need this. This is my revenge!”

“And that’s my boy,” Chris replied evenly, taking the headshot.

Decker fell sideways, beside Jim, and didn’t get up.

Chris lowered the gun and braced himself with a hand to the ground. The remorse he expected to feel didn’t come. The pain from his injury did.

He got somewhat unsteadily to his feet and looked down at his gun still on the floor. Part of him said to pick it up, to wipe away the fingerprints and damning evidence, and another part of him said to leave it. Everything had a price. How long had he been avoiding his?

He went to Jim and knelt down, touching Kirk’s neck. There was a pulse. Decker’s blood had started to pool under him and within inches of reaching them. He lightly patted the young man’s face, calling, “Jim? Jim?”

No response came.

Jim’s legs were dirty, scratched, all of him bare. Decker hadn’t had the decency to cover him up.

For a split second, Pike thought he couldn’t cope but it was the adrenaline rush giving way to shock, he finally convinced himself. He picked Jim up despite the pounding in his ears and protest of his chest and arms and carried the man outside to his vehicle, draping a blanket from an emergency kit over Jim’s body once Jim was situated in the back.

Just by moving him, Jim’s face had changed from starkly pale to a sweaty sheen, much like Chris’s. It implied, Chris thought, that Jim was in serious trouble from whatever Decker had done to him.

Sixteen years ago, Winona sworn she should have never let her son out of her sight. Now Chris understood what she had meant. Assuming Jim would be safe so long as he was kept in the dark and so long as Chris controlled any potential threats… he had been wrong. While the fault for Jim’s accident had not been Winona’s (later he had tried to prove it was Frank’s), this fault was Chris’s. He had not helped Jim at all. Finding Jim in Decker’s grasp was evidence of that, and having eliminated Decker wouldn’t make up for it.

Chris felt sluggish as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He couldn’t take Jim to the hospital, not while Jim’s secret could still be exposed. Pike would lose him to execution or worse—a life with a permanent Mark and a chain inside a government experimentation facility. No, if his son had to be stopped, he would rather destroy Jim himself, knowing that Jim would have no time to hate or fear himself for what he was.

Once again, Christopher Pike considered his options. His hand stopped short of the radio as he hesitated. It withdrew. He pulled out his cell phone instead and dialed a number with a specific person in mind.

The call was picked up on the second ring. “Sir?”

“I need a favor.”

Silence. Then, “Officially or unofficially?”

Uhura never minced words. Chris appreciated that. He shifted in his seat, biting down on his tongue against a spike of pain.

“You don’t need to suit up,” he said after the pain ebbed to a manageable level. “I received a tip on the Fed’s partner. I need someone to pick him up.”

Her cautious tone changed to something closer to demanding. “Where?”

“I’ll text you his last known location.” Chris paused, then added, “And, Nyota? I need him in good condition.”

She huffed over the line. “It won’t be my fault if he runs, sir.”

“He won’t run,” Chris told her with a confidence he didn’t feel, “because you’ll tell him I sent you. Say it’s about Kirk.”

Silence occurred again, longer this time. Chris couldn’t read anything in his deputy’s voice when she finally spoke.

She said, “Fine—but it’s my day off and I never work for free.”

“Understood.”

“Then should we discuss payment?”

“Later. Find him first and bring him to me.”

“Who?”

“McCoy,” he answered. “Leonard McCoy.”

Nyota must have sensed he was about to hang up because she jumped in with “Just tell me one thing. Are the Feds aware of what you’re doing?”

“I’m sure they always are,” her boss replied, and ended the call.

Sulu had followed his order to circle around the back of the house while Spock waited at the front. No one answered their knocking, and Spock sensed no human movement in the house through the earth beneath his feet. He contemplated the possibility that Kirk was at the warehouse, then dismissed it as unlikely and closed his eyes.

The world was reluctant to speak to him. It always had been. He tried to coax it as his father would have. The stones remained unmoved; the tree roots laughed at him. The dirt sifted itself lazily and settled back into the same pattern.

He thought of his anger and let that turn a gentle coaxing into a painful whip of command. The windows in the house rattled. The vibration hit the front door and warped the frame enough to ruin the lock setting. Spock calmed himself and started up the steps. Somewhere farther along the street, a car alarm had gone off from an errant tremor.

He nudged the door with his foot. It creaked open.

Spock stepped just inside the threshold as a projectile came whistling towards his head. He ducked, and the figurine shattered against the wood of the door.

“My apologies,” Spock murmured to the angry spirit of Winona Kirk. “I am seeking your son.”

A book came across the room with the intent of braining him. He neatly sidestepped it.

“Do not be alarmed.”

A voice at his back wanted to know, “Who are you talking to?”

Spock said, “To the deceased mother.”

“Oh.” Sulu eyed the living room but didn’t enter the house. “I think there was a minor earthquake a minute ago. I didn’t know Iowa had them.”

Spock saw no need to reply to that observation. He focused on the direction of the kitchen. “Mr. Kirk is not home, which is unusual given that his transportation is.”

“I guess we could come back.”

“So we could.” He locked his hands behind his back and turned to study the younger agent. “There is a van on the street.”

“I noticed,” replied Sulu quickly.

“Please investigate.”

It seemed Sulu was eager enough about securing a promotion that Spock did not have to order him twice.

Leonard was being followed. His sixth sense, honed through paranoia and plenty of experience in evasion, started nettling him the moment he stepped from the shelter of a convenience store, a fresh pack of cigarettes in one hand. He left the area at a quick, determined pace, skimming the traffic for a taxi along the way.

His phone rang in the middle of his flight. It was Scotty, who sounded excited.

“I think I found something!” he told Leonard.

Leonard stopped walking in order to focus on the call, his attention caught. “What?”

“Do you remember when you said there was a family friend your great-granddad was glad to see the back of?”

“I told you, I checked on her.”

“And it was a dead-end, right? Because she went to Charleston.”

Leonard finished, “And from Charleston she took a boat and never came back.” He waited, and when Scotty didn’t say anything else, he asked, “Okay, what am I missing?”

His friend was a burst of exasperation from the other end of the line. “Leonard, you git, she went overseas.“

His hope flared then died out quickly as common sense took over. Now he wished he had told the man of his suspicion that Sarek’s case had nothing to do with his family curse. “Scotty, I don’t think…”

“Shut up, lad, and let me talk.”

Leonard obliged him.

“So the woman, Miss Isabella Winters—or Miss Bella, am I right, since your great-granddad called her that?—went to Britian. Believe it or not, the records from the turn-of-the-century are a sight better in the UK than they are here. She was married and widowed within a year and then returned to America under her married name in 1920 and settled in New Orleans. But here’s something interesting… there’s a death record for her in Arkansas in 1941. She never had any family so everything she had went to the local charity. The town named a library after her.”

“Good for them,” Leonard murmured. “Listen, Scotty, I still don’t think that this gets us anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a little far-fetched that she brought a waterhorse back from England.”

“I told you, a woman scorned is—”

“What about after her death?” Leonard insisted. “Kids still drowned every seven years!”

“Maybe the kelpie had a transfer of ownership. Death caused by—”

But Leonard was shaking his head, unable to believe any of it. If only Sarek was still living! He was the one person who knew for a fact why he had marked those maps and if they had any true connection to Leonard.

Scotty was still talking. Leonard closed his eyes, frustrated. He opened them again in time to catch a reflection in a nearby shop window which turned his blood cold. “Scotty,” he said in a low voice, “I’m going to have to call you back.”

Scotty quieted immediately. “What is it?”

“I’ll call you back,” Leonard reiterated. Hesitating, he decided to add, “Thanks, and keep digging.” He hung up and tucked the burner phone into his jacket. Too casually, he made for the street intersection up ahead and took the crosswalk to the other side.

His second shadow followed him.

Waiting until a crowd of people came between them, he darted into an alley and pressed into a darkened doorway. The shadow, very feminine in form, paused near the entrance then kept walking.

Leonard waited a full minute before easing out of his hiding spot and retracing his steps, intent on putting as much distance between them as he could. He stepped up to the invisible boundary between alleyway and sidewalk and would have crossed it if an object hadn’t pressed into his back.

“I’m not that easy to fool,” a voice whispered in his ear. “Don’t move unless you want an extra hole in your body.”

“Wallet’s in my back pocket. Take it. It’s yours.”

His assailant tsked and drew him backwards into the alley.

“Look,” Leonard tried again, “I don’t want any trouble. I can’t see your face. Just take the money and go.”

“This isn’t a robbery.”

He knew that, of course, but played dumb. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

When they were out of the public eye, Leonard was turned around. The woman repositioned her gun to point at his gut. He didn’t say anything.

She smiled at him in an unpleasant way. “Mr. McCoy, it seems you’re a wanted man.”

“Who’s McCoy?”

Of all people, how had this particular policewoman found him? And why? He could think of a reason, and he didn’t like it.

Maybe his inattention was upsetting to her. One minute Leonard was upright; the next minute he was face down on the grimy pavement, his cheek smarting and one arm twisted behind him, with a knee digging into his spine.

His hair was grabbed from behind and his head lifted up.

“Are you listening to me now?” the woman snarled into his ear.

“Fuck,” Leonard shot back. “Did she tell you?”

“Who?”

“Your cousin,” Leonard spat to the side.

The knee in his back suddenly disappeared. He thought that was a good thing until the surprisingly strong policewoman hauled him up and slammed him into the side of a dumpster.

“How do you know my cousin?” she snarled louder this time, tucking the muzzle of her gun under his chin.

Shit! “I don’t,” Leonard tried back-pedaling.

Apparently she didn’t believe him. The woman forced his chin up and his head back until his neck muscles ached.

“I’ll shoot you,” she said. “Right here, you bastard, and I’ll walk away from it with a slap on the wrist or a very short period of suspension. And trust me, I think it’ll be worth it!”

Anger flared deep in Leonard’s gut. “What is this… you and Penda playing games with people?” He ignored the cold metal digging into his throat. “Does she fuck with them, and you cover it up? You’re sick, lady—both of you. Hell, maybe your whole fucking family is! I don’t know what kind of supernatural shit you people are into, but leave me out of it. Your damn cousin already let me go!”

He was fairly sure for about two seconds she was going to splatter his brains over the alley wall, but then she stepped back and lowered the gun. He couldn’t see anything beyond the anger in her eyes so he had no idea what she could be thinking until she said, “Penda picked you up… and let you go?”

Leonard just looked at her.

Frowning, the woman took another step away from him and flicked on the safety on her weapon. She tucked into the band of her pants at her back, then flipped her coat over it to conceal it.

“You’re not going to kill me?” Leonard asked, confused. Confusion quickly transformed back into anger. “Then what the hell are you doing!”

She folded her arms. “I’m catching you.”

He nearly threw his hands up but instead lifted one to touch the bruised flesh of his throat. “More like assaulting me. Aren’t you at least obligated to tell me why I’m under arrest?” After eyeing her clothing, he amended, “If I’m under arrest.”

Her mouth tipped up on one side. “Would you like to be?”

Leonard glared at her in response.

As several noisy people passed by the entrance to the alleyway, his attacker looked past the dumpster which partially hid them, her eyes tracking the group. “If you’re done whining, we need to move.”

What? There was no way in hell he was going anywhere with her! “No thanks,” Leonard muttered aloud, the side of the dumpster creaking in relief as he pushed away. “Wherever you’re going is somewhere I’m definitely not.”

She did not stop him but did twist at the waist to call to his retreating back, “Don’t you want to know how I found you, McCoy?”

Leonard stilled but didn’t ask.

She answered anyway. “My boss has you tagged.”

Her boss…? Oh, he thought, Pike. She meant Pike. He wasn’t in the mood for one of Pike’s games. “Tell that son-of-a-bitch I’ve decided I don’t want anything he’s offering.”

“Not even for Kirk’s sake?”

His silence tattled on him. The woman closed the distance between them again.

“Who is Kirk?” she asked him.

He looked at her. “Why would you mention him if you don’t know his name?”

“Because I was told to.” She studied him through narrowed eyes. “But you see, I don’t trust half of the things my boss tells me to do so I am asking: who is Kirk? And why were you with that Fed when you’re clearly not one yourself?” She took his wrist in hand before he could react and twisted it around to expose the Mark. “Are you a traitor to your own kind?”

“My kind?” He held back a snort. “I’m human, lady. Just because people who aren’t magic treat those who are like shit doesn’t make the latter less human.” He paused significantly before tacking on, “But the same can’t be said for the former.”

She released him. “I’m not against you.”

His smile was thin and bitter. “‘Course you aren’t. That would be pretty heartless of you since you’re like me.”

A flash in her eyes, there and gone. But she said evenly, “I’m not magic.”

“No,” he agreed, having felt nothing of the power in her when they touched, “but you’re not ordinary either. There’s a little something in your blood that is unusual.” At her change in expression, he explained, “Consider it part of my talent, knowing such things.”

For a moment, the woman was quiet. Then she said, “I’m not full-blooded like… Penda is.”

“Meaning what?” Leonard pressed, suddenly curious. “You don’t hunt like she does?”

“I don’t have to,” she hedged, then more firmly, “I don’t want to. It’s none of your business, Mr. McCoy.”

He almost disagreed but the truth was that she was right. Sticking his hands into his back pockets, he met her eyes. “Frankly that’s fine with me. I have the Feds on my ass, and your boss too, so I could do without the attention of anyone or anything else. What did he say about Jim?”

“Kirk?”

“Yeah. What did Pike say?”

“Nothing specific. He seems to think that’s all you need to hear to agree to come with me.”

“Fool,” snorted Leonard.

“Maybe, but the word means a lot to him. When Agent Spock—” She stopped talking all of a sudden.

Leonard told her, “I know about Spock. I was in the car with him, remember?”

After a moment she nodded. “Agent Spock used that name as leverage against Pike. I’m sure of it. My partner said they were gone when he arrived at the station this morning.”

Oddly, Leonard’s chest felt tight. “They?” he repeated.

“Spock and another agent. Apparently he already had back up in town. Bastards,” the woman muttered.

Leonard felt betrayed. He knew he shouldn’t—it wasn’t like he had actually believed in Spock for more than half a second at a time—but the feeling was still there. Why had Spock made it sound like they were on their own? Had Spock intended to string him along into a trap since the beginning? But the man had been so adamant about solving the mystery with Kirk!

Kirk.

Leonard’s train of thought halted on that last word.

It always came back to Kirk, didn’t it? Leonard was looking for Kirk, Pike was using Kirk and, hell, so was Spock!

“Does Pike know where the kid is?” he demanded. “I mean, Kirk?”

“I know less than you,” the woman admitted. After giving him a long look, she inquired, “Does this mean you’ll come?”

“I’m beginning to think I never had a choice,” Leonard answered. “So, yeah, let’s go.”

As he followed her to the end of the alley, he wondered if he was making a mistake. He reasoned with himself since he had already made so many other mistakes, it probably didn’t matter.

He had taken a few minutes to stretch his legs; being cooped up in a van could get tedious. Then, while walking back from his aimless stroll, the ground had moved a little and Scotty thought instinctively, That’s not right.

It was even less right that he had somehow missed the entrance of a suited-up government nazi who, with hands locked behind his back, was coming Scotty’s way at a placid pace. He had a familiar face.

Three seconds later, when Scotty’s brain identified the Fed, he panicked and raced for his van, fumbling for the phone in his pants pocket. It rang once as he jerked open the driver-side door then a second time before his call was picked up.

“Leonard!” he hissed. “Leonard, Code Red, Code—”

The unmistakable click of a gun safety had Scotty freezing in place. He peeled the phone from his ear as he turned around, hearing faintly Leonard’s sharp “Scotty? Scotty!” in the background. His thumb dropped to the zero key and he held it down. The phone gave a sizzle and a pop and started to smoke in his hand, having destroyed itself.

The guy in the back of the van with the gun leaned forward and took the smoking phone from him.

“Oops,” Scotty said to him, “I think it broke.”

“I think it did,” his companion agreed and carelessly tossed the ruined device over his shoulder. “And who might you be?”

“Uh, that’s my question? What’re you doing in Zelda—I mean, my van?”

“Admiring your setup. It’s a decent one.”

Scotty protested, “Hey, it’s a great one!”

“Illegal too. Why don’t we have a chat about that?”

“I don’t chat with strangers.”

The guy smirked at him and flipped open a badge like he had had it at the ready. He introduced himself as Hikaru Sulu, Federal Agent, and also Scotty’s would-be arrestor.

Scotty caught a glimpse of the other agent in a side mirror of the van and decided the time for escape was quickly waning. He cleared his throat and said, as politely as possible, “A little help here?”

Sulu’s good humor dispersed almost instantly into suspicion.

Scotty pleaded a little louder, “I said, A little help here?” His voice might have cracked.

When the laptop turned itself on to the tune of a cavalry charge (which Scotty had never, ever downloaded in his life), the agent was shocked enough to divide his attention.

Scotty threw himself back into his seat and screamed, “Go! Go! Go!”

The van came to life without his help, and it went at an ungodly speed. Sulu flew towards the back of the van from the sudden acceleration, and the van spit him out like a child spitting out an unwanted piece of candy. Grabbing the steering wheel, Scotty held onto a slim hope that he was in control of the careening machine and yelled, “Switch back! Keenser, I got it, switch it back!” as he fumbled simultaneously with a seatbelt.

The thing about demons was that while they could be smart, that didn’t necessarily mean they had useful skill sets. The van did a tailspin at an intersection, not knowing what to do, and plunged straight into a perfectly trimmed hedgerow. That caused everything to stop, including Scotty, who chest-planted into a deployed airbag.

“Help ma boab,” he groaned shakily afterwards, listening to the hiss and spit of a dying engine. “You need drivin’ lessons!”

His driver-side door came open on its own.

No, he realized belatedly, not on its own. It was the Fed with the vendetta against McCoy who had pulled at it.

Scotty stared at him, and the man stared back. He had a feeling they were both equally surprised.

Coughing, he voiced a tentative “Hi?”

Leonard pleaded with his escort to pull over at the next gas station. She—Uhura, as she had named herself—did. Leonard thanked her and rushed off with an excuse to pee. He didn’t know why he bothered to lie because she had heard him take Scotty’s frantic call.

He called Scotty three times from a men’s bathroom stall. Each time the call went to voicemail.

He was about to try again when his pants pocket vibrated. It took him a second to recognize it as Spock’s phone, the one he had commandeered and never given back.

He let it ring and tried Scotty again on the burner phone. Spock’s phone quit its dance then started up a second time.

Leonard snatched it out of his pocket and answered with a snarl of “Motherfuck, what?“

“Hang up!” Scotty screeched at him.

Stunned, Leonard dropped the burner phone from his other hand. “Scotty?”

But it wasn’t Scotty who replied back. “Is that his name?”

Leonard pushed out of the stall, went to the bathroom sink and stared at his reflection. “Spock?”

“Yes. Hello, Leonard.”

Spock, Leonard thought mindlessly. Then, Spock has Scotty.

His temper flashed. “What’s going on?”

“Your friend had an accident.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, it is a fact.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“I am not certain but I would conjecture that his automobile is the culprit. It is quite… fascinating.”

“Spock,” Leonard ground out between his teeth, “this isn’t a game. I want you to let him go right now. He’s not a part of any of this.”

Spock’s playfully bland tone changed. “You are in fact correct, Mr. McCoy. None of this is a game. I am with someone of interest to you. You, I believe, are with someone of interest to me. It would behoove us to meet on neutral ground.”

Leonard didn’t understand. “Quit the riddling, you two-faced bastard. I don’t know who you mean.”

“Kirk, Mr. McCoy. Bring me Kirk.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

Spock’s voice turned cold. “Allow me to remind you—”

“You don’t understand,” Leonard interrupted him. “I can’t. He’s under the Sheriff’s watch.”

Silence ensued. In the background, Leonard heard a muffled noise. He feared it was Scotty, trying to say something and being subdued.

Asshole. Assholes, if Spock had reinforcements.

“Thank you for telling me,” Spock finally said, as though Leonard had done him a favor in mentioning the sheriff. “However, it changes nothing. Bring Mr. Kirk. Alone. That is all.”

The line went dead.

Leonard drew the phone from his ear and stared at it, almost uncomprehending. Feeling like he was on thin ice, he carefully put it away and left the bathroom.

Pike’s deputy was waiting beside her car for his return. Leonard kept his expression clear of his inner turmoil.

“Ready?” she asked him.

He nodded wordlessly and climbed into the car.

The house to which they pulled up was moderately sized, well-preserved, and clean. Leonard had the unsettling feeling of all places Uhura could have taken him, it should not have been to this place. He exited the car with caution.

Christopher Pike opened the front door before they reached it. Leonard bumped into Uhura on his way inside and apologized contritely when she shot him a decidedly suspicious glare.

He looked like shit in Leonard’s opinion but Leonard made no comment on it. “What’s this about?” he said once they had the privacy of the house walls about them.

Pike didn’t seem up to arguing or making a scene. He simply said, “I need you to look at Jim.” To Uhura, he ordered, “Sit down.”

She didn’t obey but she didn’t follow them through the house either.

Pike pushed open a bedroom door and motioned for Leonard to proceed him. From Pike’s tone, Leonard had been expecting to find something horrific. All he saw was a sleeping James Kirk under three or four layers of bedcovers.

“He’s cold to the touch,” Pike murmured from behind him. “I can’t get him warm.”

Leonard was momentarily taken aback by the nuance of concern.

“Help him,” Pike urged, gaze hardening as he turned to Leonard.

Leonard blinked and went to the bed. Upon closer inspection of Jim’s features, he decided, “He looks like shit.”

“Can you tell what’s wrong with him?” Pike pressed.

Leonard shook his head at the impatience. “Give me a minute.” He laid a hand across Kirk’s temple and concentrated. “Somebody sedated him,” he heard himself say, “but there’s something else, something…”

His magic touched a strangeness within Kirk that had him physically recoiling; the sensation was akin to dipping his hand into a cold lake. Leonard sat back and massaged his tingling palm.

The sheriff loomed overhead. “What is it, McCoy?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long before the sedative wears off?”

Leonard snapped, “I said I don’t know! How the hell did he get like this anyway?” When Pike didn’t answer, Leonard looked up at him. “You’d better tell me all of it, Sheriff, or I could do him more harm than good.”

Pike ran a hand down his face. “I wish I had something to tell you. I think he’s been unconscious since last night. I can’t be certain. I… don’t know what drug was used on him.”

Fuck. Leonard braced himself and reached for Kirk again, this time to the center of the chest. The moment their skin connected, he forced away the unpleasantness waiting for him and tried to dive for the remnants of the sedative in Kirk’s bloodstream.

It didn’t seem very potent after all. Confused, he searched farther, doing a sweep through the internal organs, fixating on the heart and letting it pump him upwards toward the brain. He paused as he passed through the neck but felt nothing amiss.

At last, he drew back. This time his admission of “I don’t know” was more puzzling than afraid.

“He should be ready to wake up,” Leonard told Pike.

Pike stared down at Jim for a long moment. Then his gaze found McCoy again. “See if you can wake him” is all he said.

“Where are you going?” Leonard wanted to know as the man started to cross the bedroom. “Is this all you wanted me for?”

Pike closed the door on his way out.

Leonard cursed the man’s ancestry and returned his attention to Jim. He shook a bare shoulder. “Kid, I need you to get up.”

Nothing happened.

“Hey, knucklehead! I know you’re aware in there. Wake up! We’re in trouble!”

As Leonard hoped, a slow movement began behind Jim’s eyelids.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Try a little harder now, Jim.”

The eyelids tried to lift. Jim snuffled.

It was like waking a damn princess. Leonard had no intention of playing the part of a prince. He thought, To hell with it, and gave Jim a light slap on the face.

Eyes startled open and stared dazedly at the ceiling. Leonard had a second to think something was off before he heard Pike’s voice in the hallway. He unceremoniously hauled Kirk to his feet and ordered, “Walk,” like an army sergeant.

Jim obeyed, his feet shuffling against the carpet, half-conscious as he was.

Was this kidnapping? Leonard wondered as he locked them in the bathroom and then spent a minute cursing at the window as he nearly broke the lock trying to force it open. When he poked his head out of the window, he judged the distance to the ground unlikely to cause injuries. They were on the ground floor, after all.

The more difficult part came with handling Kirk. Leonard settled for sort of dumping him head-over-heels into the bush below, which caused a very conscious yelp. He swung a leg out just as a knocking occured on the bathroom door.

“Hold on!” Leonard stalled. “He’s puking!” Then he jumped to the ground.

Kidnapping or not, Leonard decided, he was in this mess too deep to back out. Besides, the trade had to be done.

He retrieved the car keys he had pickpocketed off of Uhura earlier and ushered a confused Kirk in boxers out of the bushes and towards her car.

Leonard thrust Jim into the back, letting the man crumple across the seat, at the same time the front door to the house swung wide and someone shouted his name. He dove for the driver’s seat and got them out of the driveway as quickly as he could. Pike came around the side of the house at a run (had he really followed them out the window?), and Uhura bolted down the front steps. She had her gun drawn but did not fire, probably not wanting to shoot out her own tires.

Small favors, really, Leonard told himself, and floored the gas pedal. This time he had no intention of getting caught.

When he was certain he had lost any potential pursuers, he turned out of the maze of the neighborhood and took a highway south. Spock hadn’t sent him directions yet but he figured they would come.

He realized then that there was an eerie silence from the backseat; there had been all along. Not even a sound of scuffling.

Leonard called Jim’s name, questioning, “You haven’t passed out again, have you?”

In the rearview mirror, Jim sat up.

“Thank God,” Leonard said, relieved. “I know this may seem awkward, but I need you to listen to me for a second. I promise I’m not going to hurt you, Jim. I—”

A hand reached around the headrest and covered his mouth and nose. Leonard jerked. He inhaled in surprise but was denied air. Immediately, his hand flew up to grab at Jim’s wrist.

The hand across his face tightened and forced his head back. The face which leaned forward, which caught the rearview mirror and stared back at Leonard, was Jim’s. The mismatched eyes were not.

Leonard saw Sarek’s killer in the green eye. He didn’t know who was left behind in the blue one. Both of them said, You’re going to die.

The car swerved on the road as he let go of the steering wheel to pry the hand off with both of his, and the engine roared as his foot automatically pumped the gas pedal. Horns blared. In his panic, Leonard kept trying to breathe, couldn’t and his panic increased. It was a vicious cycle. He grabbed Jim by the side of the head and yanked hard, feeling strands come loose in his fingers.

Nothing budged the monster: not his muted scream, not his fist, not the sliding of their bodies as the car lurched sideways.

Then a ditch was there, meeting them head-on, and Leonard saw nothing else for a long time.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• The White Horse (18/18) – from May 12, 2014
• The White Horse (17/18) – from May 10, 2014
• The White Horse (16/18) – from May 10, 2014
• The White Horse (14/16) – from March 7, 2014
• The White Horse (13/16) – from February 3, 2014

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