Holiday Business Trip
After she passed through the metal detector and retrieved her purse from the security guard, Kathleen went straight to the elevators. A handsome man in a dark suit and a travel mug in his hand had already pressed for the lift. She glanced at him, and noticed through his open suit jacket that he was armed with a gun in a brown leather holster on his belt.

“Good morning,” he greeted after he caught her looking at him.

“Good morning,” she replied. It was technically morning, but it was much closer to being noon. Ding. The elevator arrived empty.

“After you,” he insisted, and she obliged. She was not going to argue with a man that carried a gun. Inside the elevator she quickly pressed the 3rd floor button, and the man in the suit followed. “Hey, I’m on the third floor, too.” The doors closed and the man leaned back against the wall as the elevator started up. “Here to visit someone?”

He was friendly, she thought. “Yeah, an FBI agent,” she replied looking up at the taller man.

“Well, I don’t have any appointments, so you must be meeting with the Special Agent from the Chicago office. Dr. Kathleen Forbes?” He said with a smile as if he knew everything that went on in his jurisdiction.

“That’s me. So you’re an FBI agent too, then?” the elevator stopped and the door began to open. “I should have known, gun, dark suit, coffee mug,” she smirked.

“Damn the coffee mug always gives me away,” he grinned and lifted up his travel mug. “Special Agent Chris Rogers,” he nodded. “I’ll walk you over to where Andersen is at.”

When the FBI told Jill she was to fly all the way out to the field office in Helena, Montana to interview Kathleen, they didn't exactly burden her with an abundance of details. In spite of her TC/SCI clearance, the Bureau argued this was a Need-To-Know case, and until she spoke with Dr. Forbes, there was only so much she needed to know. The problem with that was, naturally, the fact that Jill had no idea what sorts of questions she was supposed to ask. At this point, all Jill knew was that someone or something invaded Kathleen's lab and destroyed it, all the while leaving a message.

She didn't even get to see the security video feed, even though both she and Maureen requested it. The FBI shot back with some bogus excuse about trying to identify the one responsible, and they would release the video feed afterward. Jill had argued that she might be able to help with identification, given her decade-plus with Wolfram & Hart, but the Bureau simply wouldn't bite.

Just when she'd managed to make them helpful in researching Lincoln Park, they pulled this crap.

Jill set her coffee mug on the table to her left, rising to her feet when Kathleen and another agent entered the room. She gave them both a smile, nodding in the direction of the man. "Thank you, Agent Rogers," she said. "I think I can take it from here."

Shaking Kathleen's hand, Jill's smile turned warm. Kathleen was a friend, as well as a colleague on occasion, and she was always glad to see her -- even when things had gone horribly awry and she needed to investigate something. The vampire case was at a dead end, but maybe this would bear more fruit.

"How ya doing?" she asked, returning to the chair in which she'd been sitting. "I'm afraid I don't know much."

Kathleen thanked and said goodbye to the local field agent before he left them. She sat in a chair opposite of Jill, and placed her purse on the floor next to her chair. “I know less than you, Jill.” She sighed looking at her friend. "And I'm doing okay," she nodded. It was the truth; being home with the support and love from her parents was very helpful.

“I was surprised to get your call this morning telling me you were here in Helena. I can’t believe you came all this way.” She paused, “I don’t know what you need from me. I hadn’t heard from anyone about the lab.” She tensed up a little thinking of what had happened. “Except for an email that I was to fully cooperate with the FBI.”

"I was shocked too," Jill admitted. "I mean, I knew something had happened to your lab, but I figured it was just an Army matter. I didn't think they'd get the feds involved. Then again, I'm the girl they shove all the 'weird' cases on, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to see the file on my desk the morning after Christmas."

Not having a long period of time off for the holiday hadn't really bothered Jill; she didn't have any family to celebrate with, and this time around Christmas just felt like another day. Even with her newfound faith, Jill was uncomfortable celebrating the religious aspect of the holiday -- again because she was largely alone in that. Her social life had been largely DOA since arriving in Chicago, which for the most part the agent didn't mind.

"How was your Christmas?" she asked, deciding the hard questions could wait a few minutes.
She was not completely surprised that the Army would have deferred the investigation to another agency. The threat was directed toward her and not the military in general. She had told her mother that someone had vandalized her lab, but failed to mention the video and the personal threat directed at her. It was bad enough that she had nearly cried for two whole days, unable to break from the gloom till Christmas.

“It was wonderful, I felt so much better when the day came. My aunt and cousin came up from Boise that afternoon, and stayed with us overnight. Then we went skiing the next day, it was great,” she seemed to cheer up thinking of the day. “How was your Christmas? Did you and the Lieutenant hook up?” She smirked, knowing she had encouraged the shy infantry officer to give Jill a call, but she had not been there to follow up.

Jill couldn't help but laugh in spite of herself, shaking her head. "No, I didn't," she confessed. "Mine was real quiet, just me. The only family I have left doesn't speak to me, so ..."

Her eyes averted for a moment, but the agent took a deep breath to push the thought away and she gave Kathleen a small grin. "But enough about that," she mused. "I, uhh, read the report -- what little there actually was -- but ... I wanna hear what you saw. In your words."

She found that very sad when Jill mentioned what was left of her family did not speak to her, but did not say anything. It was unfortunate that family members could not get along, even for the holidays, but it was not so usual. Kathleen then tilted her head, and then rubbed the back of her neck after the next question.

A moment later, “I don’t know what to say. It’s something that I don’t have a lot experience with … I guess I’ve been lucky, but I can never recall having an enemy before this,” She swallowed, her eyes casted downward. “I think … I don’t know.” She now gazed at Jill.

“This sounds crazy, but I think made one of those demons very upset.” She then let out a nervous snicker. “It’s strange, but after Midnight Christmas Mass, I felt this peace, because I know I did nothing wrong.” She was not as upset as before, but she was still afraid.

If nothing else, Kathleen appeared to be coping well, for which Jill was glad. She remembered how hard a time the doctor had after the vampire attack, so it was reassuring to see her holding up as well as she was. In some way, that made this interrogation a bit easier.

"What'd you do that could upset a demon?" the agent asked.

“I …” she shrugged her shoulders and then shook her head. It bothered Kathleen more than she realized at the moment. She had always been good at keeping a low profile and avoiding battles with others, but this was – eye-opening. “I don’t know.” There was a great deal she wanted to say, but was afraid of the ramifications, because some where in the back of her mind she believed it had something to do with Avery.

"It's okay," Jill said, leaning forward and resting her hand on Kathleen's. "You can be honest with me."

Somehow, Jill got the impression there were things Kathleen would tell her that she wouldn't have told to any other agent. That level of trust was intrinsic of their friendship, and Jill was glad for it on a number of levels. Still somewhat of a hermit in Chicago, the doctor was probably the only friend she had. Regardless of where this case took her, Jill was glad she was the one they called on, if for no other reason than to show Kathleen that she could be trusted and things would be alright.

"They haven't let me see the security video," the agent added. "Have you seen it?"

Kathleen turned her hand to grab hold of the hand Jill had rested on hers. Jill’s hand was much softer than her own, which have been wore and dried out by the constant washing with antibacterial soap in the hospital, and the dry cold weather helped none. She let Jill know that she appreciated her by giving her hand a gentle squeeze. It was good that she was the one the FBI sent to interview her.

She nodded and the sighed. “I saw it,” she paused for a beat. “It’s hard to describe, there was lots of distortion.” Her eyes gazed to look at the wall, “It had a whirlwind effect, with brief moments of human, no multiple human forms, but nothing clearly defined, sort of an orgy of forms. The creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, even more so than the mutants in Lincoln Park."

The agent frowned, thinking there was something vaguely familiar about what Kathleen described. She jotted down a few notes to herself, things to possibly follow up on later, before returning her attention to the doctor and clearing her throat. The change in weather conditions from Chicago to Montana was playing some havoc with her sinuses, and she knew that had it not been for the medication she took after landing, her head would be aching right about now.

"Whirlwind," she repeated, chewing on the end of her pen as she thought that through. "Was it black? The human form vaguely female?"

Jill hoped she was wrong; really, she did. But if this was what she thought it was, then Kathleen wasn't safe, no matter what she did or where she went. As much as vampires had thrown Kathleen's world into upheaval, there was no telling what Elfleda could do.

Kathleen thought for a moment while she looked up toward the ceiling, and then fixed her eyes on Jill. “Now that you mention it, there was something vaguely female and hideous. It would show itself from time to time in the fray of the orgy.” She blinked. “Why? Do you know what did this?”

Did she really want to know what sent her the message? Part of her wanted to forget everything, and start over somewhere else. Another part wanted to know the answer as to why it picked her lab, and wrote her name. Either way, not knowing would haunt her more in the end, because she could never simply forget it.

A dread washed over Jill, and she could've sworn she could feel her face go pale -- well, paler than it already was. Her pen slipped out from her fingers, falling to the carpet at her feet. Jill shook her head and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose and taking a deep breath to stave off a wave of nausea. Her suspicion was looking to be more and more correct, and even though the agent still didn't have anything definitive, her intuition was screaming at her.

She needed to see that security tape. Even if it meant laying eyes once more upon the Corruptress.

"I don't know for sure," she said in a hushed tone, something resembling fear in her eyes. "But there's a being that fits your description, a Corrupter named Elfleda. She's not human -- I actually don't know what she is -- but she's powerful and more influential than I think a lot of people would like to admit. She approached me a few times when I was at Wolfram & Hart.

"My guess? You're either close to discovering something she doesn't want you to know, or you did something to cross her. Can you think of anything?"

Kathleen was stunned to see the fear in Jill’s eyes, a woman that she had grown to admire as a strong woman in law enforcement. If Jill was spooked by the description alone, then this was even worse than she had imaged. She listened closely as the agent spoke.

After Jill was finished, Kathleen had to fight the impulse to get up and flee. Now she was afraid again. “What? Uh, who? I never met her … What did I … why?” She muttered, her own words stumbled on top of each other.

She sat back straight against her chair and then brought her hands together on her chest, near the cross under her shirt. “Oh my God!” Kathleen could not think. If this unnerved Jill, who had seen and done some terrible things in her life, Kathleen was not sure how she could manage this herself.

The doctor took a moment to collect her thoughts, and remembered what she learned in medical school and as an intern about not panicking in the face of an emergency. This was one of those moments, her life was not in immediate danger, No Elfleda was inside the office, so that was all good. Next step, take a breath, and then assess the patient, she thought to herself, and with that, she grabbed her own wrist and counted the beats of her pulse. Elevated but normal.

Jill's frowned deepened, and she leaned forward in her chair again. "What?" she asked. "What is it, Kathleen?"

“I never seen you go pale like that, I freaked out, Jill.” She let go of her own hands and leaned forward. “You’re telling me this Elfleda, this all-powerful corrupter is responsible, and you met her. I can’t think what I did …” She reached out for Jill’s hand. “She’s been playing games with me. She was the prom queen!” She remembered laughing at Elfeda when the paint splashed on her dress when she was being crown.

Jill furrowed her brow, not having any idea what Kathleen was talking about. Elfleda was many things, this much the agent knew, but prom queen wasn't one of them. Though she guessed that in some weird alternate world, should Elfleda had been human, she might've had the personality traits needed to be the stereotypical prom queen. Still, though, that was highly unlikely -- and Jill figured this even with knowing the most off-the-wall, unbelievable explanation was often the truth.

"Prom queen?" the agent wondered aloud. "I'm sorry, I ... I don't follow."

“Oh … you don’t know,” she said. Kathleen had not gone around telling everyone what had happened there except for a handful of people. “I was at Water Tower Place last month, something happened that took everyone inside at the time to an alternate reality. It sounds crazy, I know, but I ended up in a 1980’s teen movie that took place in a high school. I was a biology teacher that had … ah, that was attracted to a student.” She bit down on her lower lip and then smirked. “I told you, it was insane.”

Her smirk disappeared as she continued. “Anyway, I have these false memories, and I remember Elfleda, she was a conniving bitch.” That association actually helped her visualize the human Elfleda as a student and as a teacher in that reality, Kathleen was not under corrupter’s influence like the other students. Perhaps, that had been the gift Kathleen gained from that experience. At least, she would hang on to that image in her mind. “Wow, she must have hated biology class.” The stress inside her released as a small laugh.

Jill shared in the laugh, shaking her head. Absurd as the whole thing was, she had a feeling Elfleda's reasoning for doing what she did to Kathleen's lab -- if it was in fact Elfleda -- was a little deeper than some mystical high school thing. She noted the incident at Water Tower Place anyway, thinking maybe she could find out something on it that may or may not have any bearing on this case. Implausible as it might sound, Jill knew she lived in a world where the implausible was often the case.

"Elfleda's not quite that petty," she offered with a good-natured smile to show Kathleen she wasn't completely dismissing her. "The day your lab was destroyed, who all did you speak with?"

“Probably not,” she said in regards to the Elfleda comment. No matter what had been written on the walls of her lab, she reached out for hope of any kind. It’s what her patients sometimes only had left. Her work in medicine and faith shaped her perspective on life.

“That morning I met with a former Watcher who owns a magic shop, Thoth’s Library on Wabash. We actually spoke about Water Tower, he was student reporter in that reality, he had a girlfriend,” She scratched her head. “I don’t remember who she was, maybe she was in band. I don’t remember people unless I meet them again for real or they happened to be the student …”

She paused to look at Jill for a second. The agent knew about her sexuality. “Unless that student shared a kiss with me, yeah, I know, it’s awful, but you wouldn’t understand unless you kissed her lips.” Kathleen still wondered what Purity was like in this reality.

"What was his name?" Jill asked, jotting down everything -- including the bit about Purity. "The former Watcher?"

The agent had heard of the store, having driven by it a few times and seen ads in the Tribune. She'd meant to go in, but never had; maybe this was the excuse she needed to finally go in and see what the place had to offer. Such stores weren't anything new -- if memory served, there was one in Searchlight -- but Jill was interested to see how one was received now that everyone knew what was out there.

"Did you talk to or see anyone else?"

Kathleen’s eyes looked up as if she was trying the read his name written somewhere inside her head. “Logan, it spelled like the fruit guava. Yeah, Guevara! He was very kind, and it’s a relief it wasn’t him. The investigator who spoke to me was very interested in his place and I think he suspected something.”

The answer to the next question was a little bit harder to explain, but this was Jill who slept with a vampire. “I haven’t told this to anyone, but I meet a vampire later that day at St. Mary of Angels. He swapped bodies with someone, and yeah, there is more about him. He was one of my students too, someone that everyone picked on.”

Jill's gaze narrowed a little, making note to talk to Logan Guevera at the earliest opportunity. The thought of a vampire in a church was a little out of the ordinary, which was why it piqued the agent's curiosity, perhaps more so than the whole 1980s high school incident. More notes were jotted onto the pad, Jill's pen scribbling furiously over the legal pad.

"What was the vampire's name?"

“Avery Adams, I am not really sure about the last name.” She waited for Jill to write the name on the yellow legal pad, before she continued. She felt very talkative at the moment. “I would not have hesitated to get away from him, if I’d met him in his own vampire body. Except he was in the body of a young man I’ve met twice before, whose name is Connor. I don’t have a clue of his last name.” She waited for Jill to catch up, and thought it might have been easier if the agent carried a recorder, and then decided it must be a lawyer thing.

“I might as well quickly tell you what I know of Connor,” she explained that she first met him late last summer eating a candy bar, and then a couple of months later when he brought a vampire victim to the hospital, and then assured the agent those were the only times she actually spoke with him in person.

“Anyway, Avery claimed he doesn’t hunt or feed on human blood, at least not anymore, and I believed him,” she wondered if that was a gross misjudgment. “Now, I don’t know what to believe. He seem so much like that boy I remember in high school, that I felt sorry for him. You could tell he wanted another chance at life.” She remembered those borrowed eyes of his, and how they seem to beg for her help. “My heart went out to him, and in a way he reminded me of you. How you had come to turn your life around and search out for a greater truth. It something in which I dearly admire of you.” The warm smile she flashed was sincere for her friend. An understanding of how it was not an easy path to follow.

“So, I told Avery, that he should consider that day a gift, and I offered to help him. I don’t know how I can exactly, but there is a chance he’s mutated, an evolutionary change in the vampire species. If only I can have a sample of his blood, and look at his hematopoiesis structure under a microscope. It could be a breakthrough we need, and it offers hope …”

Again, Jill dropped her pen. She knew who Kathleen was talking about, and everything regarding Avery suddenly made perfect sense. How skittish he had been the night the agent questioned him about a case, eyeing the cross around her neck. How easily he dispatched of that demon that tried to attack Jill a few weeks prior, not to mention how he just lifted the corpse by himself without so much as a grunt.

Of course, the whole not eating humans part didn't make sense. Unless ...

"I know Avery," she said once she'd written down his name. "He saved me from a demon not that long ago."

Eyes staring at the pad and the name scribbled on the sheet, Jill let several seemingly random thoughts fill her mind. Regarding Kathleen again, the agent cleared her throat. "If Avery doesn't feed and kill humans, maybe that's what Elfleda went after you for. She works with corruption, treats it as a close, personal friend -- maybe she either had something planned for him or she didn't appreciate you trying to help him."

It was hard to tell at this point; everything Jill was saying now was pure theory.

"He might have a soul," Jill mused. "Vampires don't have them, as a general rule, but there have been exceptions. How did he take your suggestion?"

Kathleen sat there looking back at Jill, amazed that the FBI agent had met the vampire too, and that he had saved her life. The doubt she had about Avery's sincerity after today was now erased; Avery was that boy she remembered in those faux memories.

“He said he had no soul, that's what makes him so unique. It makes sense. It explains why this Corrupter wanted to deter me. ‘No hope,’ she wrote,” she nodded slowly. “I understand. Wow, this is huge. Hope, is one of the three virtues to attain God’s grace. Faith, charity, and hope.” Kathleen fell back against the back rest of her chair. “What should I do now?”

A hint of dread fell upon her.

If Avery had no soul, then Jill was right back to the whole things not making sense part. What was it that made him the way he was, then? Jill had never heard of a vampire without a soul who wasn't automatically a cold-blooded monster. Then again, if that was the case, then it only lent credence to her theory that Avery was the catalyst for whatever it was Elfleda had planned. The thought made the agent's stomach churn a little.

"I, uhh ... I'm not sure," Jill admitted, pocketing her pen with a sigh. "I'll need to speak with Mr. Guevera and Avery before I do anything else. I'll file a request again to view the security feed again, just to confirm my suspicions regarding Elfleda."

The agent stood, straightening her midnight blue blouse and leveling a serious gaze Kathleen's way. "You holding up okay?"

“I am little scared, but I feel better now,” she got up from her chair and walked over the window to take a moment. The view out the window was of the snow-covered hill next to the building across the street. “You know, I’d seriously thought of not going back to Chicago?” She said from near the window, her eyes watched as snow was blown off the crest of the hill in a gust of wind. “The Army offers many training opportunities, and before all this stuff about the supernatural, I was just getting started in a new fellowship at Walter Reed in Infectious Dieases. Do you know how hard it is to get a fellowship in that field outside in a civilian hospital? It’s hard.”

She turned to look back at Jill. “Then all this happens, and the Army reassigns me to Ft. Detrick to learn about monster biology,” It was not the exact description of the training, but demons and all their types were basically all monsters in her opinion. “I thought it was cool, but now I’m caught in some strange new world. Now something corrupt thinks I’m a threat,” she walked back toward the desk. “I’m only a physician, Jill.”

"Obviously, you were closing in on something," Jill mused, taking in the same view as the doctor, her arms folded over her chest. "What I know of Elfleda? If this is her? Nothing's random; there's always a reason. You're a threat because she thinks you're a threat."

“I never thought this would happen to me. The last few months, I’ve learned more about myself than anything else. I feel more confident, a little bit braver.” She had wondered if she was being called to a greater cause. “All these things that have happened to me and the people I’ve met in the last few months are connected in some strange way. It makes me wonder what 2014 will bring. All I am sure about now is that I’m going skiing on the first.” She smiled, the bit of drama was a little too much for her to maintain.

“Are you staying overnight? You don’t have to go to work on New Year’s Day, do you?” Kathleen wondered if Jill knew how to ski.

"I can stay the night," the agent said. "Considering how I've bust my ass of late, I'm sure the FBI will understand if I take a day longer than expected."

That brought a big smile to Kathleen’s face. “Good! You’re my guest.” She went to grab Jill’s hand. “This makes me so happy. You’ll get to see parents, and my hometown, and then tonight we’ll go to the ski area, and stay at my friend’s place. We can go skiing at sunrise! You’ll love it.”

Jill's eyes went wide and she gave off a nervous chuckle. "Skiing," she repeated. "As in ... those thin blades on my feet and trying to stay balanced going really fast down a tree-lined hill?" She laughed again, shaking her head. "Hope you can dial 9-1-1 while laughing your ass off."

Taking a deep breath to regain a bit of composure, the agent glanced at her watch. "That sounds nice, though," she added. "Be nice to have an actual Christmas -- even if it's a week after."