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Colin made his way to the hospital to check on the witches and see what he could learn.

"Good morning. I was told Jane Spofford was admitted here. Could I see her? She's... well she's a good friend of mine."

Last time it worked. Colin hopes it will work this time too.

The nurse smiles, like some kind of magic is in the air.  In a few moments Colin has directions to Jane's room.

Jane's parents don't even acknowledge he's there.  For all Colin knows, they may not be aware of his presence.  One glance at Jane with his Ghost Site and Colin is convinced she's not faking.  She has no aura.  It's like the flame of life is gone.

Perhaps Meno did take the cost of the power they called forth from the witches.  They're certainly not with their bodies.  It's possible that if the boy releases the opwer they will recover, since death was not the price.  It's uncertain though.

Colin touches Jane's hand very softly.

"I'm sorry." he whispers to her. "I didn't want this. I'll see what I could do."

Then he gets out of the room, and walks away quickly.

I guess this isn't something I can heal. I'm not even sure the spirits would like to help me heal them. But is there a way to talk with Meno and ask him? If Meno is the one who did this to them, would Rob know? I cannot ask him to give back this power if I'm not sure. This is probably like a dream come true to him.

Good. Then some research is in order. Unless you have any suggestions about such a place, that is.

Colin gets out of the hospital and cycles to the nearest station. He's got several questions for Chris and Blaire, and maybe some answers as well.

As the train brings him into the city, his hands play absentmindedly with his lighter, and the phoenix embroidered on it.

At the PCD station, he asks to the receptionist "I'd like to talk with detective O'Brian, please."

Perhaps where the ceremony took place.

They give Colin a visitor's pass and send him up to the office where the PCD works.

"Hey kid, what's up?"  Kevin says as Colin comes into the office.  It's an open floor with five desks and windows that look out onto the city.  There is a hustle of people moving about, phones ringing and a general sense of things happeneing.

"Colin?"  Chriss says, "Everything okay?"

"Good morning, Inspector Kiernan." Colin nods to Kevin, then he notices Chris.

"I'm fine, but I had better days." he says, shaking his head.

"I think I know what happened to those girls. I'm not sure if anything can be done about it, but I'll try to find out more. Of course, if they wake up, you guys should have a nice talk with them. They're responsible of so many things I can hardly count them, and we're lucky we're all alive."

He lets himself fall on the chair in front of Chris' desk.

"Have you got some good news for me? I mean, have those boys been all arrested? Did you find out who's the third girl?"

"No luck on the third girl.  No one we talked to knew her name, and the guys can only describe her and they can't do that too well.  We've arrested them.  We found some emails on Leland's computer to the others where they talk about the attacks, and some of them had chat sessions where they bragged about the rapes.  They're going to have a hard time shaking this.  The DA is going ahead with charges and he's going to try to get the courts to approve charging them as adults due to the severity and cruelty of the crimes."

Colin thinks for a while.

"Did they tell where they abused her though? Maybe if I'll go there I'll pick up something."


He fidgets for a while before asking the next question.

"Did you find anything about the book Leland used?"

"They could only tell us it was at one of those abandoned building raves, so no luck there."  Chriss says.  He gets up and goes to the fridge, coming back with a couple of bottles of water.  "Here, you look like you could use it."  he says, handing Colin one of the bottles.  "The book is the one bought by Vandross, but we couldn't find any links to Leland and Vandross.  Not that it's a suprise, since Vandross is nothing but a huge whole where aliases and shell corporations vanish.  Whoever set up the identity has access to some pretty serious hacker talent.  Our guys can't get anything useful, Vandross is more ghost then paper trail."

"Thank you." he says as he takes some long gulps of water.

"Can you point me to some of those buildings? School is out for the week, I could check them out."

Colin drinks some more water, then he frowns.

"So this guy, or those guys, know enough about computers to leave no data trail, and enough about magic to leave no trail there either."

Do I really want to do this?

Colin seems thoughtful for a moment.

Yes, I do.

"Chris, I want to touch that book. There must be something I can do. Two boys died already, and those three girls.... He, or they, must be stopped. Let me help you find them."

"Sure."  Chris says, taking a sheet of paper from a file on his desk and sliding over to the copier.  He hands Coline the copy, which has several addresses on it.  "Just be careful.  If you don't want to go alone, I could come with."


"That's about the size of it.  We've started to think it has to be some sort of organized effort and not a single person."


Chris' eyes go wide with surpise, "Ah, no."  he says shaking his head.  "Aside from it being really bad mojo, so bad in fact that Blaire wont touch it without gloves, I don't think that the department should let you handle any evidence found in the Palmer kids room.  It could look bad, and we need to be careful here."

Colin looks a little sad.

"Well, after what happened at the building Darla burned... I think I'd better go alone. But I will be careful, I promise."


He frowns, and scratches his head, trying to think of something else, but finding nothing.

"Is there anything else I could do? I hate to feel this powerless, like I'm waiting for them to kill someone else."

"Ok.  Well, the offer stands if you change your mind.  So, you have plans for your long weekend.  They say the school should be open for business again on Monday, so you have some extra time."

Colin gets one of his maps out of his schoolbag, and circles with a red marker the addresses of the list.

"I hope we'll be able to find her soon, so this whole story will finally be over."

As he's done he puts his stuff back in the bag.

"Sarah's coming for dinner this evening. Do you think you'll be around?"

"I can be."  he says, "I'm looking forward to it."

This finally gets a little smile out of Colin.

"Ok. See you later then."

Colin politely says goodbye to everyone on his way out, and begins planning his inspections of the abandoned buildings.

He starts from the one nearest to the one Darla burned down.

Colin spends some time making the rounds of the addresses on the list.  He doesn't get anything about the rape at any of the locations.