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The House Upon the Hill

Aimee

OTHER WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/4824

DISCLAIMER: Jim, Blair, and all things Sentinel belong to Pet Fly Productions and UPN.  I am rather blatantly infringing on their copyright by writing this story; however, I don't particularly care.

but it's not done yet.  So I'm just posting the two parts I do have done now.  I'll probably get part three up sometime later this evening.

Warning:  This story is about child abuse and incest. It contains nothing graphic; nevertheless, those elements are present in the story. If you don't want to read that sort of thing, you might want to skip this story.

I was working on my auction story, when I got kind of tired of making Blair suffer.  This time, it's Jim's turn in the torture chamber!

 "Shit."  Blair slumped desolately in the driver's seat.  The Corvair was well and truly stalled, and no amount of coaxing was going to get it started again.  He looked around and shivered.  Well, he'd certainly picked a cheerful and picturesque place to break down, he thought wryly.  The road stretched from horizon to horizon, empty of all life.  Dark, brooding trees grew to either side, their branches stretching oppressively overhead.  A pale, sickly moon cast an eerie, unearthly glow over the earth.  And, dominating the scene, a house -- no, a mansion -- loomed on top of a steep, barren hill, derelict and abandoned.  It's like something out of a horror movie.  Or a ghost story.  It's got every cliché in the book.  He squirmed nervously in his seat.  Man, this is, like, so creepy.  Just what I needed to make this evening complete.  He had been on his way to a friend's Halloween party; unfortunately, said friend lived outside the city limits and was horrible at drawing maps.  Blair had gotten lost.  Very lost.
 
Just then, one of the windows of the abandoned house began to glow, as if someone inside had turned on a light.  All right; someone's home!  Maybe they have a phone I can use.  Blair got out of his car and started to walk up the hill.  The closer he got, however, the more uneasy he became.  This house really was spooky.  Beneath the cheesy, B-horror movie surface, something stirred.  Something truly . . . wrong.  Lurking.  Blair shivered in instinctive and unreasoning fear.  His steps slowed.
 
Oh, man.  Get a hold of yourself, Blair.  It's just a house!  And you need help right now, unless you want to walk back to Cascade.  Squashing the desire to turn and run back to his car, he marched firmly up the steps.

 He stood in the shadows, and watched.  Yes, this one would do nicely.  The cycle would continue . . . .  He frowned.  Two, there should be two of them.  Where was the other?  He turned his attention outward, and sent another call.

 Jim was lost.  He scowled.  Damnit, Sandburg, this is all your fault.  He had gone to the station's Halloween party, as usual, while Blair had gone off to a party on his own.  So far so good, but Jim hadn't  been able to enjoy himself this year for some reason.  He'd been restless, wandering from group to group, unable to settle down and have fun.  Everything seemed flat and dull and lifeless.  He missed Blair.
 
He immediately pushed the thought away.  No, that's not it.  Sure, the kid's fun to have around, but I don't need him to have a good time.  The party was just dull this year, that's all.  So he had decided to join Blair at his party, if he could ever find the place!  Whoever drew this map should be shot.

 Jim wasn't in a good mood.

 Suddenly, he stopped and slowly backed the truck up.  Good thing there's no one else on the road.  Yes, there it was, pulled off to one side of the street.  Blair's car.  But no Blair.  Jim cursed and pulled over.  It must have broken down again.  I told him to get it fixed!  He looked around and saw Blair's footprints leading up the hillside to a large, neglected-looking house.  Sighing resignedly, Jim followed the trail.

 He knocked.  No answer.  Frowning, he knocked again.  "Sandburg, you in there?"  Suddenly, the door swung open under his hand, creaking ominously.  He took a step inside.  "Chief?"

 The foyer of the house was large and airy, and, had it been in a state of good repair, it would have been quite a pleasant room.

 As it was, it sent chills up Jim's spine.

 Blair sat hunched in a corner by the door, head resting dejectedly on his knees, unusually still.  At the sound of Jim's voice, however, he burst into action, scrambling up from the floor, hand outstretched.  "No, Jim, don't -- the door!"

 Jim blinked, startled, then whirled around, just as the door shut behind him.  The click of the lock was very loud in the resulting silence.

 "Oh...shit," Blair said.

 "...but when I got here, the house was empty, and there was no sign that anyone had ever been here," Blair was saying.  "No phone, either.  So I tried to leave, but the door was locked and I couldn't get it open.  So I sat down and waited for you to get here."

Jim stared at him, not sure he'd heard right.  "You...what?  But you thought I was still back at the station's party!"

Blair shrugged.  "I knew you'd find you find me."  His words reverberated with trust.

 "Oh."  Jim cleared his throat.  "C'mon, Chief, let's get out of here."  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Simon's number.  Nothing happened.  He frowned at the phone.  "We must be out of range," he said.

 "That's just great, man.  So we're stuck here?"

 "No," Jim said, a bit too forcefully.  Blair looked taken aback and concern crept into his eyes.  Jeez, Jim, get a hold of yourself.  It's really not the kid's fault this time.  He couldn't help feeling edgy, though.  There was something about this house . . . He took a breath.  "I am not spending my Halloween trapped in a decaying mansion.  I don't even like to watch horror movies; I refuse to live one."

 Blair grinned.  "This place is kinda spooky, isn't it."

 Jim didn't answer; he just shot Blair a look as he moved to the door.  "Now, let's see," he murmured as he bent to peer at the lock.  It didn't look too complicated -- simple and rather flimsy, actually.  "You don't happen to have a bobby pin or something on you, do you?" he asked, not too hopefully.

 "No hairpin, man, but...."  Blair fished in his pockets for a moment, then exclaimed in satisfaction.  "Will a paperclip do?"

 "Perfect!"  Jim snatched it out of his hand and straightened it out, then inserted the piece of wire into the lock and started jiggling it.  Blair stood on his tiptoes behind him, watching curiously over his shoulder.  Shortly, they both heard a distinct click.  With an oddly strong sense of relief, Jim straightened and turned to grin triumphantly at Sandburg.

 Blair's answering smile was just as wide.  "All right, you did it!  Let's blow this pop stand!"

 Jim nodded in whole-hearted agreement.  He grabbed the doorknob and turned -- and nothing happened.  "It must be stuck."  Frowning, Jim pushed harder, but the door stayed closed.  He leaned against it, resting his entire body weight on it, and pushed with all his considerable strength.  It refused to budge.

 Suddenly, the unease Jim had been fighting ever since he entered the house exploded into a fierce blaze of pure animal panic.  He rattled the knob frantically, then started pounding on the door, yelling loudly.  "Hey!  Is anyone out there?  Let us out!  Let us OUT of here!  Hey!"  He vaguely heard Sandburg's gasp of surprise, heard him speaking in soothing, concerned tones, but he couldn't spare the time to listen.  He hit, kicked, pounded, yelled, and clawed at the lock, but to no avail.  They were trapped.  No!  No, not here.  Can't . . . help me . . . .  Strange shapes flickered on the edges of his vision, taunting him, and he couldn't . . . get . . . out . . . .

Finally, some shred of rational thought reasserted itself, and he backed up and gave the door a good, solid, running kick, trying to break it down in approved commando style.  The resulting jolt sent a stab of pain running up his leg, but had no other affect.  "Oh, god...."  Exhausted, he slumped to the floor, breathing heavily.

He heard a dull thud as Blair dropped to his knees next to him.  "Jim!  Ohmygod, Jim, are you all right?  What happened?"  Frantic, worried hands reached out to him, patting his back soothingly.

He jerked away.  "Don't touch me!"

"Okay.  It's okay, Jim, I won't touch you.  I want you to take a deep breath and try to calm down.  Can you do that for me?  Good, that's it."  Blair's voice had taken on the artificially peaceful tones of someone trying to talk a jumper down off a ledge.  A small part of Jim was dimly annoyed by this; the rest of him simply responded to it.  He exhaled slowly, and pulled the ragged remnants of his self-control around himself once again.

He opened his eyes.  "It's all right, Sandburg.  I'm okay now."

Blair slumped in relief.  "Thank God.  Man, that was . . . that was really scary.  What happened?"

Jim frowned at him in confusion.  "What do you mean, what happened?  I tried to pick the lock, it didn't work, then I hurt my leg a little trying to break the door down.  No big deal."

Silence.

"Uh, Jim?" Blair said, very carefully.  "That's not what happened.  You totally lost it."  Jim shook his head in denial.  "No, really.  You freaked out in a big way."

"I didn't."

"You did.  I've never seen you like that.  You were screaming and yelling, afraid to let anyone touch you--"

"Shut up!"  He was startled to hear his own voice break; he hadn't thought he was that upset.  His hands were shaking too, he noted in surprise.  "Why is it so cold in here?" he muttered.

"Jim . . ." Blair started.

Just then, they both saw it: a figure, a man, standing in the shadows on the staircase, watching them.  It -- it was impossible to think of it as a he -- raised a hand and beckoned them, urging them to follow it up the stairs.

Then, in front of both their eyes, it disappeared.

 Jim climbed wearily to his feet and started walking towards the stairs.
 
Blair clutched at his arm.  "Uh, Jim?  Maybe we shouldn't go up there.  We don't know what might be waiting for us."  He sounded terrified, even to himself.

Jim calmly detached the smaller man's hand from his arm and continued walking.  "We have to go.  Don't you hear it?"

"You're the sentinel here, not me, remember?  Of course I don't hear it!"

"We have to find him."

"Him who?"  They were on the stairs by now, ascending slowly into the darkness above.  "What do you hear?  Jim, what's going on?  That wasn't really a . . . ghost . . . was it?"

"I hear him.  Crying.  He's alone; we have to help him.  We have to find him."

"Jim . . . I have a really bad feeling about this.  This isn't right.  I don't want to go up there."  But he kept climbing the stairs nonetheless, staying next to his partner's side.

"I have to--"

"Find him, yes, I know.  Jim, are you even in there?  Jim?  Hello?  Oh man."  Blair shivered with a combination of cold and fright.  Jim was moving up the stairs with the mindless relentlessness of a sleepwalker or a, and this was what really made the pit of Blair's stomach drop to his shoes and put a cold chunk of icy dread in its place, a man possessed.  He was clearly not operating on all four cylinders, the lights were on but nobody was home, and he was acting without rational thought, without self-awareness even, and that was so just WRONG, just NOT JIM.  Jim was always hyperaware of his surroundings; it was part and parcel of the whole Sentinel deal.  But he had to believe the incontrovertible evidence of his own eyes: Jim was acting like a fucking zombie.  And that was not like him.  Zombie-like behavior was not Jim.  Neither was freaking out over a locked door.

But if he wasn't Jim, who was he?

The dark and shadows were closing in around them, creeping in with sideways, skittering movements, stealing over them like a smothering hand.  The closer they got to the top of the stairs, the darker it got, until Blair could hardly see.  He took Jim's arm in a firm grasp, relying on him for guidance.  That, and reassurance -- no matter how weirded out Jim became, Blair found his presence comforting.

There was a perfectly logical reason for the darkness, of course.  The electricity wasn't working.   The only reason he hadn't noticed it downstairs was because there was enough ambient brightness in the air from the moonlight streaming in the windows.  No windows upstairs, so no light.

Simple.

So why did he feel like he was walking into Hell itself?  Like the lack of light was symbolically representative of the lack of goodness?  Or, to put it another way, the presence of . . . evil?

Too many horror movies in your youth. That's all, he told himself firmly.  There's no such things as ghosts.

He was fighting a loosing battle.  He was too open-minded, too willing -- eager, even -- to see the incredible and the fantastic in life, to believe in the Sentinels and the psychics; he couldn't take refuge in the wonder-killing scientific rationality that was the trademark and the bane of the twentieth century now.  It was too foreign to him.  That's the kind of thing I rely on Jim for.

But Jim was off in la-la land at the moment.

The blackness suddenly became complete.  Blair couldn't see his hand in front of his face.  His grip on his friend's arm tightened convulsively; Jim was going to have bruises tomorrow.  Sorry, man, he thought vaguely.

They were at the top of the stairs.
 
 

A door opened, and suddenly -- from where, Blair couldn't tell -- there was enough light to see by. They were standing in a child's room -- a boy's room. A typical teenager's room, with comic books and various articles of clothing strewn about the f loor, and dirty dishes stacked haphazardly on the furniture.

Blair nearly fainted at the wave of relief he felt at the sheer, anti-climatic ordinariness of it all.

Suddenly, he was babbling. "Oh, hey man, look at that, it's just some kid's bedroom; you really had me going for a minute there, Jim, but it's just an ordinary room, abandoned like the rest of the house, nobody's here, nobody's crying, but that was j ust part of your gag, right? Man, that was some Halloween prank, trapping me in a haunted house like that; I really thought you were, like, possessed for a minute there, good one, Jim. But can we go now? I'd really like to go now."

"I have to find him," Jim said.

Oh no.

No no no.

"Find who?" he croaked with a suddenly-dry throat. "There's no one here."

But there was.

He was dressed in jeans and a plain white tee-shirt, and was seated at his desk doing homework. Algebra, Blair thought as he caught a glimpse of the open textbook. His writing was neat and precise, and his concentration appeared absolute -- he didn' t seem to notice the tears streaming down his face, smearing his clean, crisp figures into illegibility. He held his left arm oddly against his body, cradling it, as if it hurt him.

Jim moved slowly forward, until he was standing directly behind the boy's chair.

Blair watched him warily. "Jim, what's going on?" he asked softly.

"He has to finish this. We have to get this done before he comes home again."

"Before who comes home?" No answer. "Are you afraid of him?"

"Yes. No! Not any more. We...he was afraid, but not any more. He's safe now. We won't let him hit us again." Jim gestured vaguely towards the bookbag on the floor next to the desk. It was half open; protruding from the folds of the bag was th e handle of a gun.

"Oh shit!" Blair took an involuntary step toward the bag, but stopped after one look at Jim's face.

"We can protect ourselves--"

"JIM!" Blair shouted. "You're Jim Ellison. You're a cop and a sentinel and, and a grown man. You are not that boy!"

"I know that," Jim said irritably. "But don't you see? He can protect himself now."

A pause. Silence filled the room. The boy put his pencil down, and turned around in his chair.

Then, before Blair could figure out what to say to get them out of there, Jim spoke with quiet determination. "I'll protect him." And he met the boy's eyes.

And everything changed.

"Wha--" Blair cleared his throat tentatively. "What just happened?"

The man standing in front of him turned around. Blair gasped when he saw his face.

Jim was gone. Someone -- or something -- else stood in his place.

Oh, he looked the same. Same face; same blue eyes; same lack of hair; same strong, square jaw. But that familiar face was wearing an expression that Blair had never seen his partner use. He looked uncertain, small, terrified, confused, ashamed, det ermined, and very, very young -- all at the same time. But worst of all . . . worst of all . . .

When Blair met his gaze, someone that wasn't Jim Ellison looked back at him through Jim's eyes.

He couldn't say how he knew this; he just did. The knowledge was instinctual, atavistic, and unmistakable. It was just there, in his head, in the room, and he couldn't escape it. It was inexplicable and irrational. But it was also true.

A strange, inarticulate sound wrung itself involuntarily from Blair's throat.

"Who's there?" the stranger wearing Jim's body asked softly, nervously. "Susan? Is that you?"

"Uh...." said Blair.

He -- the not-Jim -- turned away from him and started pacing restlessly around the room. "You shouldn't be here. He's going to come back soon. What if he catches you here?"

Feeling like he was juggling knives with a blindfold on, Blair asked cautiously, "Who?"

"Whadda ya mean, who? My father, of course. I'm not supposed to have friends over."

"Are you grounded or something?"

Jim's mouth frowned. "No. He just doesn't like it when I have friends."

Blair's ears pricked up at this choice of words. Not ‘when I have friends over’, but ‘when I have friends’, period. "That sounds lonely." He inched closer.

"Lonely, yeah . . . I'm so lonely."

"I don't want to leave. I want to stay here with you."

"But..."

Just then, the lights flickered and died. Darkness filled the room.

"Oh, god." Jim's voice rose wildly, spiky with fear. "He's here! Run, Susan! Get out of here!" He dove for the bookbag, fumbling frantically for the gun.

"No, don't! Put that down! Come with me! You can leave, too!"

But it was too late.

A pillar of darkness, more intensely black than the surrounding dimness, coalesced between them, in the center of the room. It hung in the air, formless and undefined, for a moment, before bulging oddly, as if trying to mold itself into shape. It to ok some time before Blair realized that it was taking on the vague outline of a man. It was incomplete, a horrible parody of a human being, but instead of rendering it comical, it just made it all the more frightening.

Whatever this was, it was nothing human. Not anymore.

Not-Jim was facing it, gun held in his trembling hand; he was trying to stand tall in defiance, but he couldn't quite manage to look at it, and his shoulders hunched as if in anticipation of a blow. When it started toward him, he flinched. But he di dn't move away.

"Stay away from me." His voice broke.

The black thing didn't speak -- Blair didn't think it could -- but it somehow managed to communicate its utter contempt nevertheless.

"Stay away," he repeated, but his voice lacked conviction.

Blair didn't know how It could smirk without a face to smirk with, but somehow It did. It slid forward again, and reached out with insubstantial psudeopods towards Jim's body.

And, suddenly, Jim/Not-Jim's fear broke, and was replaced by anger. His trembling stopped, his body straightened out, and his head snapped up so he could glare at It, eyes pouring out hatred and rage. Those hands that had handled the gun with awkwar d unfamiliarity before, now moved with a sure certainty as his body assumed the classic firing stance. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" he roared.

And Blair knew that Jim was back.

He also knew, absolutely, incontrovertibly, what would happen if Jim fired that gun. This Thing, while very real in one sense, was, in another sense, not real at all. It didn't have a body. It was just darkness, and hatred, rage, and evil. But i t wasn't there.

You couldn't shoot something that wasn't physically present.

//If Jim fires that gun, the bullet will go straight through It, and hit me,// Blair thought. //And that's what It wants. Jim would never forgive himself if he killed me. It would destroy him. Two lives for the price of one.//

He couldn't let that happen.

"I said, don't touch me, you molesting bastard," Jim snarled. He cocked the gun.

"JIM!" Blair screamed.

Jim jerked in surprise. "Who's that?"

"It's me, Blair. Whatever you do, don't fire that gun."

"Blair who? I don't know any Blair."

//Oh, shit. What now?// "Yes, you do, Jim. You know me. You can trust me. Please, don't shoot!"

"But you don't know," Jim said, voice strangled. "You don't know what he did to me. And I couldn't stop him!"

"I know, Jim. I know. But it's over now. He can't hurt you anymore."

"That's right. Because I won't let him." His grip on the gun tightened.

Blair winced. "Jim, stop! Please, put the gun down. If you love me, put the gun down." This wasn't working; he had to think of something else. He lowered his voice until he was barely whispering. "You can trust me. You know I won't ever hurt you . Please. Drop your gun."

"But..." Jim started to shake.

And that's when Blair did the bravest thing he ever did in his life. He stepped forward. Through the darkness.

Cold. It was cold, a slimy, oily, corrosive cold. He could feel it freezing him, burning his skin. Seeping into him, staining his soul with its sickness. He wanted, with a singleminded intensity of desire he had never felt before in his life, to g et away from that feeling, but he couldn't. He was caught, immobilized, trapped in his own panic. The cold and the darkness ate away at him; they would devour him until there was nothing left, nothing but this, this . . . horror.

//I'm sorry, Jim. I tried.//

And, with that thought, the darkness began to recede. Warmth tingled in the tips of his fingers and toes, and spread lazily throughout his body. His panic calmed, his heartrate slowed; he felt like he did while he was meditating. Floating. Peaceful .

//Of course,// he thought, and wanted to laugh. //How do you defeat hate? With love. Simple.//

Jim was still there when he came out the other side. "Please, Jim," he whispered, and slowly -- ever so slowly -- he took the gun from Jim's hand.

The sentinel looked lost and confused. "Blair?" he whispered.

"Yes, Jim. I'm here." Blair caught Jim when he collapsed, sobbing, into his arms, and he held him in a loving embrace.

Two Weeks Later
The Loft

Blair sat on the couch, slowly reading over the sheaf of papers in his hand. He'd spent the last few weeks doing research, and it had eventually paid off. He'd managed to dig up information on the former owners of the house through a friend of his wh o worked for a real estate agency -- he felt a little guilty about flirting so shamelessly with her when he had no intention of following through, but not too much; he needed those answers too badly -- and from there it had been easy. A name and a date w as all he needed. After all, if there was one thing the grad student knew, it was how to do research.

He spread his findings out on the cushion in front of him. Newspaper clippings, hospital records, even a police report he had used his observer credentials to obtain: together, they painted a sad and ugly picture, indeed. But one that didn't complete ly add up . . . He was missing something, something obvious; he could feel it staring him right in the face but he couldn't quite see it.

Just then he heard the door open and Jim call out, "Sandburg, I'm home!"

//Ooops! Busted!// He made a sudden movement to sweep the papers out of sight, but managed to stop himself. //No. We should talk about this.//

They hadn't, yet. That night, after Jim had pulled himself together, all he had said was, "Let's get the hell out of here" -- a sentiment Blair was in wholehearted agreement with. They had gotten to their feet and staggered down the stair to the fron t door, which miraculously was standing partway open. Then they had piled into the Corvair -- Jim was in no shape to drive -- and had pulled out of there like a bat out of hell. They'd left the truck to pick up later. In the daylight.

A few days later, when they'd come back for it, the house had been gone. There'd been nothing but a ramshackle old wreck, a dead skeleton of a house, sitting on an empty lot. A lot which, according to Blair's friend in real estate, simply would not s ell: no one wanted to buy it, not even developers. When asked, they couldn't articulate a reason for their reluctance to purchase it. They just didn't.

Blair had a feeling it wouldn't be so hard to sell, now.

"What's wrong?" Jim asked as he walked over to stand next to the couch. "Your heartrate spiked when I came through the door." He gazed curiously at the mess surrounding his friend. "What's all this?"

Sandburg swept the papers up into a stack and moved them to the coffee table. "Jim, sit down. We need to talk."

The detective sat. "About what?" The tone of his voice was poised midway between concerned and suspicious, ready to move in either direction, depending on the course the conversation took. "Are you in trouble?"

"No, I'm fine. We need to talk about . . . about Halloween."

"Oh." Jim deflated slightly, subsiding against the couch. "Yeah, I knew it was too good to be true."

"What was?" Blair asked, surprised.

"You putting a situation behind us without talking it to death first," Jim replied somewhat sourly.

"Yeah, ha ha, man, but I really need to talk about this, to process it, you know?"

"I know." He sighed resignedly. "Okay, shoot."

"Okay." The grad student sifted through the stack for a moment, then found the paper he wanted and pulled it out. "I did a little digging, and I found out some background information about the people who owned that house last -- quite a bit of inform ation, actually. The man's name was Robert Davidson, according to the deed." He waved the slip of copier paper around. "He owned the house in the fifties. He was married to a woman named Elizabeth, and they had a son named Michael." He pointed to a m arriage certificate and a birth certificate in turn.

"So far so good," Jim said.

"Yeah, well, the next part's not so good," Blair mumbled in response to the unvoiced ‘what about the haunting?' that hovered in the air between them. He pulled a thick file from the bottom of the stack and handed it to his partner.

Jim opened it and began to skim its contents. "Hospital records," he said. "Hmmm. A broken arm, broken ribs, a concussion, a deep gash that needed, let's see, thirteen stitches . . . I'd say Mrs. Davidson either was supernaturally accident-prone or- -"

"Or her husband was beating her. Wanna bet which one it was?"

"No, I never bet on a sure thing."

Blair handed Jim a death certificate and a newspaper clipping. "She died a few years later."

The police detective read the newspaper article and snorted. "Fell down the stairs, my ass. Pushed is more like it."

"There are hospital records for the son, too," he continued. "Michael ends up in the hospital more and more often after that. She must have tried to protect him as best she could while she lived."

Jim shook his head sharply. "If she really wanted to protect him, she'd have left the bastard and taken him with her!"

"Jim . . . it was the fifties, and he was a wealthy man of good standing in the community. She probably didn't think anyone would have believed her if she told them what was going on."

"Doesn't matter. She still should have left."

"Yes, she probably should have," Blair said softly. He sighed, then handed Jim yet another folder. "Here's the police report for the night of Michael's death."

Jim grabbed it. "A murder/suicide?!" he asked, astounded. "Don't tell me that monster killed himself in remorse!"

Blair cleared his throat. "Look at it more closely." He got up and went into the kitchen as Jim complied -- ostensibly to grab a beer out of the fridge, but actually because he couldn't bear to see the other man's face as he discovered what had happe ned to Michael Davidson.

He procrastinated in the kitchen as long as he could, then headed back to the couch. Jim's expression was as bad as he'd feared; the only word he could think to describe it was shell-shocked.

Blair handed him a beer in a gesture of wordless sympathy.

The sentinel took it automatically, dazed. "Wha--? But--? I don't under--"

Blair almost cried at the bewildered look in Jim's eyes. "He was running away," he said. "If not that night, then soon. The police found his duffel bag in his closet, packed and ready to go. But he was also scared, absolutely terrified of his fathe r."

"So he bought a gun," Jim said slowly, his eyes unfocused as if he were remembering.

Blair nodded. "I don't think he really knew how to use it, but just having it probably made him feel safer."

"That's a really bad combination," his roommate said, sounding a little more like himself. "Kids and guns. Especially scared, nervous kids who don't know what they're doing and guns."

"Amen to that," Blair muttered fervently, then picked up the thread of his narrative once again. "Michael's best friend -- and as far as I can tell, his only friend -- was one Susan Green. They went to school together. The police interviewe d her friends, afterwards. According to them, she was worried about Michael."

"So she went to see him," Jim interrupted.

"Yeah." Blair took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "We'll never know exactly what happened, but we can guess."

"The father found out and tried to 'punish' Michael for breaking the rules and having a friend over, and he finally broke and pulled out the gun he'd bought. She probably tried to intervene . . . "

". . . and got caught in the middle, shot by accident. Friendly fire."

"And then he killed himself," Jim finished, and exhaled abruptly. "Good God. No wonder the place was haunted."

"Robert Davidson was never charged in connection with any of this. He never went to prison. He lived happily for twenty more years, before dying of a heart attack in 1976. It just makes you sick, doesn't it."

Jim closed the police report sharply, and then slammed the file on the coffee table with a bang. "I hope the bastard rots in hell," he growled. He stood, ready to stalk out of the room.

"But there's something I still don't understand," Blair mused. "Some of the things you -- he -- said while you were, uh, y'know, possessed, seemed to indicate that he'd been molested, but there's no evidence here of any sexual abuse, not even in the autopsy report. Physical abuse, sure, but not sexual. And, anyway, I don't know why he picked you to possess in the first place. I mean, you're not really a very psychically open person, y'know. You don't believe in all that mumbo-jumbo. So you must have had some kind of connection between you, some kind of resonance, otherwise the two of you wouldn't have fit, but I can't think what that . . . would . . . be . . . ." He trailed off as he realized that Jim was frozen in pla ce.

Then understanding came, in a single, blinding flare of illumination, and Blair wished he were ignorant again.

Obvious! It had been so obvious, but he had never seen it, never understood it until now. A million thoughts, tiny pieces of evidence, flashed through his head: Jim's incredibly well-developed talent for repression, both the Ellison children's dysfun ctional relationship with their father, the manipulative head games said father played with his sons, Jim's inability to have a healthy, lasting relationship.

The rage in his voice when he spoke of a mother's duty to protect her children, and how Elizabeth Davidson hadn't. (How Grace Ellison hadn't?)

The way he'd flinched from a simple touch in the house on a hill, that Halloween evening.

The way the sentinel was refusing to meet his eyes right now.

Oh. Oh my god.

Oh, Jim.

Somehow, he found his voice. "Oh, well, I'm no expert on ghosts. Maybe I'm wrong." He couldn't confront Jim with this, couldn't push him on it, not when he looked as if he'd break into a thousand pieces at a touch. "Or maybe being a sentinel makes you more sensitive to this sort of thing. Your sixth sense could be heightened too!" Maybe later, when he wasn't so emotionally fragile. "Or, I don't know, maybe the Ellisons and the Davidsons are distantly related or something." No. Not about this. He'd wait until Jim was ready to talk about it on his own; he'd wait until Jim came to him. And if that day never came, so be it.

But one thing was certain: he'd stop encouraging Jim to go visit his father.

He didn't think he could restrain himself from strangling the son-of-a-bitch if he ever saw him again.

In the meantime . . .

"Go on, Jim. You look tired. Why don't you go upstairs to bed, and I'll bring you up some tea. Okay?"

"Okay." Jim turned towards the stairs, but hesitated with his foot on the first step. "Chief?" he called.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

In the meantime, he'd take care of his sentinel as best he could.

THE END