Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 30. Tools of the Trade

The walk to the hospital was quiet.

Reid and Ana were lost in each other’s thoughts; Hotch in his own. Or at least what he hoped were his own. He couldn’t be sure anymore. He hated doubting himself. He believed one of his job requirements was to be decisive, quick, and judicial in his thinking. He wasn’t sure he still retained those qualities.

When the three friends entered the main hospital door, the receptionist flashed them a welcoming smile.

We’ve been expecting you. Mr. Ruiz is in the midst of his preparations, but you can go on back. A lilt of humor rippled through her thoughts. Just follow the sound of his voice. But don’t interrupt; allow him to finish, she hastened to add.

She nodded at Hotch. “Mr. Ruiz is expecting you. I think you’ll be able to find him easily enough.” Her gesture toward the door accessing the hospital’s inner sanctum gave them all tacit permission to enter.

Sure enough, once within the main hallway that lay beyond the lobby, they could hear the deep, sonorous voice of the Palero, chanting the language with which he called his saints. He asked them for guidance, advice, instruction, affirmation. When his need was sincere, they had never failed him. This time was no different.

Reid, Ana, and Hotch paused when they found him. The chanting had ceased. Julio was focused, hands passing over a wide array of beads, feathers, corded strings, and other objects spread across the length of a large, rectangular table. As they watched from the doorway, his eyes closed. Various items moved, separating themselves from the general supply. One or two of the smaller, lighter pieces seemed to jump from their places, eager to let the priest’s fingers include them in whatever charm he was seeking to build.

After a moment, he froze. The head turned. The eyes opened. They fastened on Hotch. The three observers shivered. What looked out of Julio’s eyes wasn’t familiar to them. Reid had the impression of a stranger inhabiting the Palero, using him to see and to manipulate physical objects.

I don’t think that’s Julio, Ana.

I think you’re right. It doesn’t feel like him. But it wants Hotch.

Before Reid could give voice to his suspicion that they were in the presence of one of Julio’s orishas, the man straightened, walking to stand within inches of the Unit Chief. He placed gentle, but commanding, hands on each side of the agent’s shoulders. Hotch raised his chin, giving the man touching him a look that hovered halfway between inquisitive and challenging. Hotch didn’t like being touched in a way that made him feel someone was trying to control him.

“Hello, Mr. Ruiz. Or is it Dr. Ruiz now?”

The thing looking out of Julio responded by moving one of its hands from Hotch’s shoulder to his face, laying the palm along one cheek, holding the man’s head still, making eye contact inevitable. Before Hotch could bristle, preparatory to pulling out of the Palero’s grip, Reid spoke in a soft, cautioning tone.

“That’s not Julio, Hotch.”

Ordinarily, he would have refuted the statement, but, knowing where he was and what they hoped to accomplish, Hotch swallowed, stood his ground, and let whoever or whatever occupied Ruiz’s body examine him. After an uncomfortable thirty seconds that felt twelve times as long to the Unit Chief, the Palero released him. But immediately grabbed his wrist, pulling him further into the room, depositing him beside the table littered with the ingredients of his Palo Mayombe creed.

The last time Julio had exercised his craft, Hotch had been unconscious, unable to witness the phenomenon. This time he watched, chilled with the sense that he was in the presence of yet more forces alien to his normal, workaday world.

Tendons stood out on the backs of Julio’s hands. As one picked a twisted, leather cord from a pile, the other passed over beads and stones. Hotch saw the selected items move of their own volition, jumping onto the cord and sliding into place. He glanced up and saw the priest’s dark, unwavering stare fixed on him, reading…something. He swallowed back a wave of fear-engendered nausea. The process was fast. After the initial calling of orishas and the inspection of the one for whom the charm was intended, creation of the charm itself was a matter of seconds. It was accomplished in a cascading rattle of beads and fetishes hitting each other in a rush of telekinetic movement, a flash of crystalline color.

It was another bracelet when it was complete. As it clattered to the tabletop, the orisha-ridden Julio turned his attention from Hotch to Ana.

Freed from the Palero’s gaze, Hotch stepped backwards, away from the table. He stopped when he encountered a wall. Leaning against it, he watched as Ana took his place.

Again, the lengthy examination. Ruiz tilted his head from side to side, considering his subject. And, again, the clicking, rattling assemblage of charms and amulets. This time a necklace was produced, looking strangely delicate and pastel. Hotch frowned; it reminded him of something. Something he didn’t particularly care for.

Reid was surprised when his turn came. He’d expected Hotch and Ana to be the focus of the procedure based on the comment the old doctor had made about this being the last time Ana would access Hotch’s psyche, and under supervision at that. He realized he had it deep in his mind that this was akin to some sort of birthing process where he would stand by wringing his hands and worrying while his wife endured the actual, strenuous experience. He had mixed feelings about being a participant. Once more, the memory of terror and blindness assailed him. But it ebbed fairly quickly and Reid found he would prefer to be with Ana, to stand side by psychic side with her no matter what happened.

When a second bracelet joined the other pieces he’d created, Ruiz’s gaze went vacant. He gripped the edge of the table and swayed, bowing his head and taking several slow, deep breaths.

He’s back. It’s Julio again.

“Julio?” Reid came to his side. “You alright?”

The Palero nodded, straightening. He looked at the table and fingered the new-made trinkets, a satisfied expression coming over his slightly perspiring face. “I don’t usually make so many at once. My orishas sense urgency. They have worked hard to set all in readiness quickly.”

At the word ‘urgency,’ Ana, Reid, and Hotch exchanged glances. Julio noticed.

“Don’t worry. The doctor and I feel you have a very good chance for success.”

“Chance?” The prospective parents spoke in unison.

“Of course. Nothing is certain.” The Palero’s grin flashed white. “If you are to have a child, you must be ready to embrace uncertainty and surprise. I understand it goes with the territory.” He closed his eyes for several seconds. When he opened them, he looked from face to face, all signs of levity gone.

“I have called the doctor. We begin as soon as he arrives. Ready yourselves.”

xxxxxxx

Carol Bescardi was more than ready.

Once the approval of her work release was official, things moved with surprising speed considering the usual snail’s pace of most procedures relating to inmates and penitentiaries.

It was arranged that five days a week she would stay at a halfway house in Lake Placid under the supervision of officers of the New York State Prison System. Weekends she would return to the facility in which she’d originally been incarcerated. This schedule would begin in two weeks and would remain in effect for the foreseeable future.

Unless prisoner Bescardi blew it.

Unless prisoner Bescardi gave anyone cause to reconsider her work release status.

Unless prisoner Bescardi slipped and anyone found out the driving force behind her pleasant, congenial exterior.

The ex-doctor smiled. She had every intention of toeing the line, of kowtowing to every moronic pseudo-scientist granted the right to lord their freedom and their inferior intellect over her. She was certain to the depth and breadth and length of every superior cell in her body that one day all those who’d wronged her, or considered her less than the luminary she knew herself to be, would be forced to eat their words.

And if they choked on them…all the better.