(come on, Kay, flip your Homicide badge and scare the kid)

Okay, Deb broke me. That moment of Buffy...argh.

But erika's got me bouncing in antici-(say it!)PAtion!

Second drabble: success/failure theme.

Closing Holes

There are holes in the sky.

From this rickety tower, the universe appears to be forcing through cracks. Unspeakable fire, fangs and claws and nightmare - this is the stuff that gave earliest humans their concept, their definition, of fear. Beyond those roiling clouds are monsters and they are here, they are coming, riding every drop of blood that drips to the earth far below, from the wounds of a young girl.

Her sister touches her, kisses her, forces a promise from her. She turns, that sister; she leaps, she flies.

And the bleeding wounds become placid sky once again.

erika, this:

I feel like I'm in good hands till I meet "my" detective. Detective Lockley looks like she graduated from modeling school...what topless beach did they drag her off of, I wonder. "May I help you?" all flat. Jeez, don't strain yourself, huh? I'm not exactly local.

Maybe I'm keeping her from her manicure or a "cleansing mud pack".

made me smile. I love the thought of Kay showing Kate what a real detective is like.

I love the thought of Kay showing Kate what a real detective is like.

Rather than secretaries with guns?

Oh, man, I'm an idiot. Is this Kate the homicide detective from Angel, S.1?

Me too.And maybe they'll find some stuff in common...moms with Hepburn fixations, for instance.Yep, the very same Kate Lockley... but some Kay & Buffy interaction would be pretty fricking priceless...they haven't met yet.

I didn't exactly lie to Detective Lockley. Because that would be wrong and against my professional ethics, right? But I did get kind of...creative, which it's my right to do in an investigation...there've been court decisions about it. Munch knows all the names off the top of his head, you never know when some bar argument might require precedent, huh? But I did spread the blarney...what are you gonna do, call a cop?

"Detective Howard," I say, "Baltimore Homicide. I guess I can level with you...thin pink line, and all that." I flash her the hardware and her eyes get wide, just for a second. "Wow,"she says under her breath, as if she's forgotten I'm here. Damn right, wow. I was getting "investigate this, bitch," while you were picking out prom dresses. No moment since getting the badge itself has given me greater pleasure, I'm ashamed to say. Cause now she's all attentive and interested.

"We have reason to believe that my colleague(women like her love the word colleague but it seems too clean to apply to Munch and me. But I guess friend-brother-thorn-in-the-side-guy-I've-had-unwilling-dirty-thoughts-about would take up too much space on the report. And Investigator Barbie would never go for that) disappeared as a result of an investigation here. I was just going to act like a citizen asking about a missing relative, but I trust you to be discreet."(Yeah, right, he's been investigating some woman's tonsils...I thought. And we? Me, Tim, and the mouse in my pocket, huh? But she seemed to go for it.)

"I would have seen through that right away, Detective Howard. We don't track missing adults this fast...unless he was mentally impaired, or something."

"He has his moments," I say. "Call me Kay."

"Kate." And she offers her hand for me to shake. Which I do, briefly, and with no need of the bonecrunching I give the guys. In this case, I know whose are bigger, huh? Don't have to prove anything.

Ahhh, my erika fix.

More please?

Aw, thanks. Detective Howard gives me SO much dictation...she may not want to be a secretary, but she's just fab with having one, I think. If my characters' voices were that strong, the novel'd be done.

My character went awol. She's not telling me anything right now. I'm glad Kay's talking, anyway.