False Mirrors

  Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer applies.

  Author's Notes:

  A little background... well, over a year ago, I accepted a challenge from Carolyn to write a Jim nightmare story. She's waited a long time for the result -- quite patiently, I might add. This piece follows events from a previous story -- Out of Harm's Way -- although it is not a direct sequel and stands on its own merits (hopefully). Per the show's timeframe, this would take place within the third season. No Sentinel Too references.

  Be warned! Some rough language, angst, confusion and violence -- both implied and real -- ahead. My thanks to Carolyn for her beta efforts -- she makes me look so good! -- and to Chris and everyone else who's written with encouragement.

  False Mirrors

  by

  K. Ryn

  kdkm@aol.com

  .

  Human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling in its own nature with it. -- Sir Francis Bacon, Aphorisms

  ... reflections... fragments... dark... cold... the smell of mildew and stale beer... an ancient face glimpsed only for a fraction of a second... a bony, gnarled hand clenching a sliver of deadly brilliance... the panicked beating of a heart... the knife-edged echo of a scream...

  Jim Ellison woke with the scream and the pounding of his own heartbeat reverberating in his ears. Pale blue eyes stared upward through the skylight, desperately searching the sky which matched them. He flinched, startled by the thump of a small bird ricocheting off the glass pane and stared at the flock that streamed past unharmed.

  Damn, what a way to wake up!

  He shook his head to clear the last vestiges of the sleepy fog. Surrounded by the comfortable familiarity of his own bedroom, the disturbing images of the dream slipped away as he relaxed back into the pillows.

  He jerked upright as the high-pitched squeal of a band saw cut the morning air.

  Jim groaned and muttered one of his partner's more inventive curses when he realized it was the construction crew working on the building next door which had aged him another five years. He glanced over at the clock, fully prepared to have someone's head for violating the early morning peace. The plastic cover over the LED readout on his clock glimmered strangely. He shifted positions so the reflections bouncing down from the skylight no longer interfered with reading the numbers.

  9:00 a.m.

  Shit!

  Jim shoved back the covers and scrambled out of bed, hastily pulling on his robe as he descended the stairs. Halfway down, something caught his eye and he glanced toward the balcony. He winced and blinked as a ray of sunlight bounced off the metal strip on the door frame and seared his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut and held them that way for a moment, while the glowing lightning bolt streaked across the inside of his eyelids.

  Man, that was bright. No rain in Cascade today, obviously, he grimaced.

  Shaking off the painful aftereffects, he blinked open his eyes and glanced toward the living room. Blair Sandburg was calmly sitting on the couch, reading from a thick, battered book and drinking a cup of coffee. The urgent reason for the trip down the stairs suddenly clamored in Jim's mind, reminding him of the alarm that hadn't gone off on schedule. He stalked down the remaining steps, targeted on the younger man who still had his nose buried in the ancient tome, and who seemed completely unaware he was about to have an irritated Sentinel breathing down his neck.

  "SANDBURG!"

  "Good morning to you, too, Jim," Blair answered. Unfazed by the annoyance in the older man's tone, he carefully marked his place and slid the book into the backpack that was resting on the floor next to him. He slipped the glasses off his face and into his pocket before looking up to meet his partner's glare. "Sleep well?"

  "I slept fine," the Sentinel rumbled. "Just too long. We were due at the station an hour ago. Why didn't you wake me?"

  "You didn't hear the phone?" Blair asked in surprise. "Simon called around 6:30. The briefing's been postponed until 1:00 p.m. He said since we're probably going to be working late tonight that we should wait until then to come in."

  Jim ran the fingers of one hand through his close-cropped hair. "So you let me sleep..."

  "Yeah, you looked beat. You must have really been tired, if you didn't hear the phone or me puttering around down here. You okay?"

  The sound of the saw screeched through the apartment. The noise set the Sentinel's teeth on edge and sent disturbing visions from the dream flashing across his mind once more.

  "Everything okay with you, Jim?"

  Preoccupied with his own thoughts and discomfort, the Sentinel missed the concern in his Guide's voice. "I'm fine. Just wish the three little pigs out there would finish their house at a more reasonable hour. They've woken me up every morning for the past week with their racket."

  "Guess they don't know about the house rules," Blair grinned. "You hungry? I can start breakfast."

  The loud 'thwack' of hammers pounding in a ragged, distracting beat joined the wail of the saw.

  "Sounds like the pigs have helpers today," Blair chuckled. "Maybe Tom Thumb or the Billy Goats Three decided to lend a hand."

  "If they're not finished by tonight, they're going to get a reminder about what happened to the house that was built out of wood," the Sentinel grumbled. "As a matter of fact, ham and eggs sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Let me grab a shower and we'll catch something down the street. Where it's quieter."

  "Sounds good to me."

  Stepping out of the diner into the bright mid-morning sunlight, Jim winced and fumbled in his pocket for his sunglasses.

  "You know, man, for someone who was ready to have diced construction workers for breakfast a little while ago, you didn't eat much," Blair observed quietly, settling his backpack on his shoulder.

  "Guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought," Jim answered, reluctant to admit that his appetite had soured because of the headache that was pounding at the inside of his skull.

  The annoying ache had started with a minute tightness between his eyes and had moved up to a Richter scale intensity level of at least seven. He'd thought that food might help, but things had simply grown worse the longer they'd been in the brightly lit diner. Between the sunlight streaming in through the windows and the overhead fluorescent lights, the reflections bouncing off the gleaming metal appliances and spotless counters had made his stomach roll queasily. He had wound up pushing the food around his plate, waiting for Blair to finish his own meal.

  Jim blinked several times and felt the strained tightness of his furrowed forehead. Even his eyebrows hurt.

  Never thought I'd find myself yearning for Cascade's usually leaden skies, he thought ruefully.

  He took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. The relaxation exercise didn't seem to have much effect. With a small shake of his head, he slid the glasses into place. The polarizing lenses helped dampen the worst of the glare, but the headache had already taken hold and his gut still churned.

  Maybe some exercise would help.

  "Let's take the long way back," Jim suggested. Placing a hand on his partner's shoulder he steered the younger man to the right, away from the loft. "We've been sitting too many stakeouts lately. If you keep eating breakfasts like that you're gonna lose your girlish figure, Chief."

  "No way, man. Not the way you run my ass off chasing the bad guys. I'm in better shape than I've ever been, thanks to trying to keep up with you," Blair grinned.

  They ambled along the sidewalk, absently checking out the window displays of the shops that were wedged wall to wall along the familiar street. Blair shifted easily into his normal 'talk a mile a minute' mode, hands flying gracefully in punctuation of each thought and observation. The rambling words
and gentle tones of his Guide ebbed and flowed around the Sentinel like a soothing tide and he started to relax.

  While Blair paused to peer into the windows of a new art gallery, exclaiming excitedly over the items on display, Jim nodded a greeting to one of the storekeepers who was cranking down an old-fashioned striped canvas awning. The high-pitched squeal of metal grinding on metal sent a shiver down the Sentinel's spine.

  "Let's go, Michaelangelo," Jim muttered, snagging Blair's arm and towing him along at a faster pace. His headache had returned with a vengeance and he wanted to get back to the loft for some aspirin.

  "Okay, okay... Remind me never to let you sleep late and miss your regularly scheduled 6:30 a.m. feeding. You're a bear when your blood sugar is low," Blair grumbled in response, lengthening his stride to keep up with the older man. "Maybe we should detour over to the bakery and get you a dozen of those artery clogging glazed donuts that you like."

  Despite his discomfort, Ellison grinned. "Now that sounds like a plan. Too bad they only had pineapple-filled croissants left at the diner."

  "Early bird gets the worm, Jim... and the cherry Danish," Blair teased.

  "First it's fairy tales now it's fables... what is it with you, Sandburg?" Jim growled in mock annoyance. "Real life not exciting enough for you that you've suddenly developed a passion for the Brother's Grimm? Is that what's in the book you've had your nose buried in for the last few days?"

  The detective took a few more steps and abruptly realized that his partner was no longer by his side. He turned to find Blair standing motionless, an uneasy, troubled expression filling the younger man's eyes, his hand gripping the strap of his pack tightly. Frowning, Jim started to ask what was wrong when he caught a glimpse of movement from his left.

  Danger.

  Someone lunging toward his Guide.

  Someone with a knife.

  The fractured elements of the dream came back full force and Jim reacted instinctively. The Sentinel pushed his Guide out of the way, planting himself in the path of the attacker, gun already drawn and rising to fire.

  For a moment the world shifted, spinning drunkenly under his feet. He felt himself falling, pitched into a place that was dark and frightening, filled with a high-pitched-scream; the rank smells of decay and death. No sight, no sound except for a rhythmic thudding which was getting closer...

  Pressure on his arm and warmth on his back drew him out of the darkness. The real world reasserted itself. Tearing off his sunglasses, he found himself standing in front of a plate glass window. Inside, the frightened shop keeper stood frozen in fear, white knuckled hands gripping a printed poster which he'd started to tape to the window.

  "Jim... Jim come on! Put the gun away..."

  Dazed, the detective looked down at his hands, trembling when he saw the drawn weapon.

  "Jim, please, you're scaring me, here. And Mr. Donnello doesn't look too good either. Put the gun away, man. There's no danger. There's nothing wrong. It's safe..."

  Reacting more to the soothing tones than the words, the Sentinel swiveled his head toward his Guide. Anxious blue eyes stared up into his.

  ... you're scaring me...

  "Chief..."

  He felt his knees start to give way.

  Blair lunged forward and caught Jim around the waist. With a massive tug, he managed to drag the bigger man backward several steps to lean against the side of a car parked at the curb.

  "Lean forward... head down... breathe..." Blair commanded tersely.

  Ignoring the panic that was gibbering at the edges of his own mind, he dropped the tone of his voice down several notches and began murmuring a soothing litany of support and reassurance. The Sentinel's body shook with tremors. Blair held the older man's left arm in a bruising grip to keep him from keeling over while gently massaging Jim's shoulders.

  "That's right... just breathe through it, man... focus on my voice and my touch..." When the worst of the shaking started to subside, Blair released his hold on Jim's arm. Still whispering softly in the Sentinel's ear, his Guide gently pried the weapon from the older man's grasp. He flipped the safety into place with his thumb and shoved the weapon into the back waistband of his jeans. The weight of the firearm resting against his spine was far from reassuring.

  "You're doing great, Jim... just keep it up..." Blair urged. He fought to keep his voice and breathing steady, but it was all he could do to keep from screaming in fear himself.

  What the hell's going on? This isn't a zone-out... at least not like anything he's had before... God, he's still shaking like a leaf... He's scared!

  That concept was enough to rock the anthropologist's world. Something had pushed Jim Ellison -- ex-ranger, ex-covert ops, ace detective and Sentinel of the Great City -- off center and into a blind fear/panic reaction. Blair recognized the look and the body language -- he'd seen that flash of terror reflected back in the mirror far too many times in the last few years to mistake it for anything other than what it was.

  But Jim... terrified to the point of drawing his gun without reason... it was almost too much to grasp.

  Well you'd better find a way to 'grasp' it, Sandburg, he told himself grimly. And a way to fix it. That's your job.

  Taking a deep breath, Blair pushed his own panic and uncertainties to the back of his mind. Jim's breathing was evening out and the shaking was nearly gone. In just a few moments, the older man would be raising his head, searching his Guide's face with those confused sky-blue eyes -- looking for answers.

  Looking to me for answers I don't have...

  "Is Detective Ellison all right?"

  Blair lifted his head to meet the worried gaze of the shopkeeper Jim had frightened. Anthony Donnello -- Uncle 'T' to his friends and those regulars he had adopted as surrogate family -- was a wizened little man, barely five feet tall. He had the whitest hair Blair had ever seen and wore it styled in an old-fashioned pompadour. A pencil-thin mustache and goatee of the same color decorated a face etched with over seventy years of life's experiences. His normally warm and smiling brown eyes were filled with concern.

  "I think so," Blair answered softly, still rubbing Jim's shoulders.

  "Perhaps this will help," Donnello suggested, handing Blair a bottle of water he'd brought from the store.

  "Thank you," Blair replied warmly. He took the bottle and unscrewed the cap. Leaning forward, he whispered to the detective, urging him to take the proffered drink.

  After a moment's hesitation, Ellison nodded and trembling fingers wrapped around the bottle. Blair felt the tightening of muscles across the older man's shoulders and knew that his partner was valiantly trying to pull himself together. As Jim slowly straightened, the Guide kept his hand on his Sentinel's back, the light pressure intended to reassure and comfort.

  Blair assumed his best 'things are going to be fine' expression and met the bewildered gaze he'd been expecting. The detective's eyes held the anthropologist's questioningly for a few seconds before his gaze flickered to the shopkeeper. A flash of embarrassment and guilt flickered across Ellison's face. Jim immediately began to apologize for his actions.

  "Mr. Donnello, I'm..."

  "There is no need to apologize, Detective Ellison," the old man interrupted with a wave of his hands. "There was no harm done."

  Blair watched the muscles in Jim's jaw clench and felt the shudder ripple through his friend's body. "There could have been," Ellison muttered, shaking his head. "There's no excuse..."

  Blair gritted his teeth in frustration. It was clear Jim was not going to readily accept the shopkeeper's reassurances. He knew his partner too well. Jim would continue to beat himself up over what he perceived as a blatant mistake -- a loss of control -- until they got to the bottom of what had happened.

  "Take a drink, Jim," Blair ordered, nudging the arm that held the bottle of water.

  Ellison graced the younger man with an annoyed glance, but Blair ignored it and turned to Donnello.

  "What do I owe you for the water, Uncle 'T'?" he a
sked, digging in his pocket for his wallet.

  "Nothing," the old man answered, folding his arms across his chest. "You two have done more favors for me and for this neighborhood than we can ever repay. I remember what it was like before the punks realized that we had a resident guardian. It's been a long time since I've had to look over my shoulder every time I lock up at night and it's not the security system that Detective Ellison suggested which is responsible for that. And as for you, young man," Donnello turned to Blair and patted him on the shoulder. "Stella said to remind you to stop by and get your reward."

  "I told her she didn't owe me anything," Blair objected.

  "Stella?" Jim asked.

  Donnello glanced up at Jim and smiled. "Didn't Blair tell you what happened when he helped Mrs. Slavowitz clear out the extra storeroom in her shop?"

  "No, he didn't."

  Blair found himself the object of his partner's intense, suspicious scrutiny and shrugged. "I came across some old books and helped her sell them, that's all."

  "Rare books, Detective. First editions," Donnello explained. "Worth a small fortune. Enough so that Stella will have sufficient money to keep the store and her apartment. If Blair hadn't recognized their value, she probably would have donated them to a resale shop. It's fortunate for her and for us that he has such a sharp eye, yes?"

  Blair saw Jim start to grin and then the detective froze as if the old man's words had triggered something.

  "What is it, Jim?" Blair asked quietly.

  "That's why..." the Sentinel's voice was almost a whisper and his bewildered gaze sought his Guide's. "I thought I saw something... out of the corner of my eye..."

  "You did see something," Donnello remarked. "You saw me. I was just about to hang a poster for the St. Delvan Festival in the store window. I'd promised them I'd post it last week, but I'd misplaced it until this morning. The festival starts tomorrow so I was eager to get it hung up."

  Seeing Jim's frown, the old man shook his head. "It was my fault, Detective. I was rushing toward the window. Trying to do twelve things at once as usual. I must have startled you and you simply responded as you have been trained to do."