It Could Have Happened this Way (alternate version for 'The Beast Within’) by realstone 2002(c)

Derek Rayne stared out his office window into the darkness, just beyond the glass, as if it held the answer to his problem. His problem? Alexandra Moreau. Even though his mind reasoned that she was probably doing as her note had informed them, taking a well-deserved break, his inner sense warned that she needed him. The question was how to find someone who behaved as if they did not want to be found?

Derek turned away from the window to the sheets of paper stacked on the desk. The work had not fulfilled its purpose, to keep his mind off of Alex and how his relationship with her was changing. Their relationship like any living thing had evolved through the years. From student-mentor to employer-coworker and now a more intimate aspect had seeped into their view of each other. Their reaction to this newness was responsible for the growing tension between them and perhaps Alex’s decision to leave. He also had the feeling that part of his anxiety was the fear that she would not return. His dark thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door. "Al.." he cut off the word as Nick Boyle, entered the room.

"Wrong gender."

Derek smiled. "She was on my mind."

"Mine too." Nick leaned against the edge of the desk. "When are we going to stop giving her 'time to think' and go find our errant housemate?"

Derek rose from his chair and with a few steps stood arm to arm with Nick. "She did not deem it necessary to tell us where she was going."

"Did you want to know?" Nick's voice held a touch of accusation.

Derek's features hardened. "No amount of arm twisting or badgering would have prompted her to say or confide in me. Since Rose's death she's been fragile...searching for a place to belong. I'd hoped she would have sought out Rachel's help."

"Alex has always been close to the vest about her feelings. But she should know by now, she belongs here with us."

"I agree, she belongs in the Legacy, but she does not belong to us. Perhaps we...I forget that fact." Derek gave a quick glance around his office. "Working in the Legacy keeps us so isolated from mainstream humanity. All we tend to know is the twisted and dangerous. Rose and Tanya were Alex's anchor to the normal."

Nick looked down at his shoes. Derek's comment raised painful memories he was still healing from.

"Derek, we've all lost family and friends, maybe that is why we cling to each other so tightly."

"Perhaps." Derek thought of his father's death in Peru and his sister Ingrid's kidnapping by the Montreal House precept.

The memory gone Derek focused on Nick. "Perhaps I have failed you all. I've let my own disappointment cloud the group's concept of itself, its purpose. I wanted each of you to understand how deceitful truth in the wrong hands can be." Derek slid his hands deep into his pant's pockets.

Nick looked at the photos of various House members, past and present, lined in parade formation on the bookcase. His glance settled on a heavy gilded frame, containing a picture of their fathers. "The lessons Winston Rayne and Robert Boyle were so good at teaching us," Derek understood the sadness in the younger man's voice, " has tainted all of us."

"Blinding us." Derek spoke softly, the memory of his conversation with Alex as they had worked together on the incident report to the Ruling House about her possession by her ancestor, La Belle filled his mind.

"Denying us," came from Nick as he remembered the resolution of his relationship with his father's ghost.

"No, you haven't failed. Deep down we all understand our reasons for being a part of the Legacy. Now and then we might chafe at your leadership style." A slight smile touched each man's face. "What's going on between you and Alex, well that's more complex. Maybe understanding is not what Alex needed."

Derek met Nick's gaze, "I...we won't know until we get her back."

"Then we know what we have to do," Nick said as he stepped away from Derek's desk.

Alex looked about the slightly darkened room, giving her mind time to clear itself. "It wasn't real," she whispered aloud. The horrible scenes of the mansion burning grew dimmer as her thoughts cleared in the welcomed silence. "It can't be real." Alex hesitantly replayed the scene in her mind again, searching for the correct reality.

"There is no underground passageway. The castle's deepest room is a closet in the cellar." Alex's words sounded strong and sure, rebuilding her shaken confidence.

Blinking away the memory Alex took a deep breath. The smell of spices and decay coated the back of her throat bringing new memories to the surface.

Standing in the lobby, bag at her feet she handed Jonathan the note she had for Nick or Derek. She smiled, remembering the look of concern on the majordomo's face. Outside in the early morning sunlight, the house looked welcoming and the smell of freshly mowed grass and crushed mint filled the air. "That was Friday. I left on Friday."

"How nice, you're awake and ready to start again?" The voice grated against Alex's mind causing moisture to fill her eyes, blurring the matronly figure suddenly appearing in the room. Encased in a tailored suit, the tiny figure with a kindly face surrounded by stylish gray hair belied the evil emanating from it. To Alex the woman’s presence felt like a dirty hand moving inside her mind seeking a place to settle.

"Leave me alone," Alex tried to hold back the plea, but it slipped from her lips as her desperate mind sought peace, "please." But the voice ignored her plea.

"We have much to discuss." Pulling a linen handkerchief from her pocket the woman gently dabbed at her captive's face.

Alex tried to push the hand away, but nothing happened. She looked down at her arms and hands. There were no restraints holding them yet she could not move. "What have you done to me?"

"Only what you allowed me to."

"Allowed...I..."

The old woman proceeded. "You came here to me of your own free will. You left the Legacy because you needed to find the true purpose for your life. You seek truth. I have revealed it to you. 'The Legacy lies.'" Alex looked away from the frigid eyes compelling her to believe the memories and feelings, she could not accept as real. But resisting was so hard, each moment of remembering was so vivid it hurt.

"Rayne continues to conceal his true feelings and intentions from you." The old one leaned closer, her fingers stroking the other woman's cheek.

"The Legacy's influence has corrupted many good souls. Did not Frank Carmack led by his friendship with Rayne lose his soul to the Furies?" Alex flinched slightly as the hand resting on her shoulder grew heavy.

"You mutilate the truth," Alex looked away, beginning to grasp the dark one's attempt. "You will not destroy my faith in..."

"Trying to convince me or yourself?" The older woman interrupted, dismissing the other's words. "It must be difficult not being able to believe your own thoughts, memories."

"Or your twisted version of them," Alex snapped back. "What matters is that, I know where I belong." The Legacy researcher latched onto a different set of memories.

The memories supported and strengthen her resolve. She gasped at the scrape across the top of her arm. The woman leaned closer, her mouth at Alex's ear. "No, my dear, I need you to focus on me"

She continued, pushing at the psychic's mental and emotional barriers, fostering the doubts and fears that would collapse them in spite of the Legacy researcher's resistance. "Open you mind, Alex. See things as they truly are, not as you wish them to be," the woman's grip on Alex's shoulder steadily tightened. She smiled knowingly as the young woman tried to shrug away her hand. "You and I both know that only one side can win. Souls are the things at stake in this war between good and evil, and it’s very important that people choose the correct side, that you, choose the correct side. Do you think Nick’s brother would sacrifice his life again?"

"We offer power, strength and satisfaction in this life; while the Legacy offers a life shrouded in loneliness and constant danger. Which side will you choose?" The old woman dug her fingers deeper into Alex's shoulder bringing more pain and unwanted memories. "Maybe you need to experience, what the wrong choice will mean."

Alex's mouth opened in an unuttered scream as images of the lifeless body of her friend Julia Walker, hanging from a cross, covered in blood and rain, filled her mind. "No," she moaned. "Evil killed Julia...not the Legacy."

Alex forced her mind to see something other than the darkness offered by the dark one's manipulations. An image of Rachel and Derek talking together unfolded, it confused her, but she clung to it seeking solace in her struggle.

The old woman stepped away from Alex, her frustration building at the young woman's continued resistance. Cleaning her fingernails of the young woman's blood with the cloth she had used earlier she started her assault again. "Strange that you would choose that vision. No matter, it proves my point. Even Derek Rayne understands how useless the Legacy is. Why do you continue to fight me? The Legacy continually leaves its best and most faithful without protection. Aren't you tired of being left on your own? How to show...? Ah, yes. Derek's so call test." Taking a corner of the cloth between her fingers, she wiped Alex's lips, coloring them with the blood from her shoulder.

"That argument did not work from the Legacy tribunal and it will not work from you." Alex banked on the old woman hearing the determination in her voice.

"Your attempt to twist and distort will no longer work. You will not use me against the Legacy." Alex's resolve became grounded in a renewed understanding that despite whatever flaws she might perceive in the Legacy; despite the flaws of its various members. Fighting evil and injustice as a part of the Legacy was her fate.

"This…is...not...wor...king," a harsh voice sing sang in the silence. "Rayne has begun to look for his pet and he won't stop until she's found. If you don't turn her soon, we could all be in peril."

"Sleep!" the old woman ordered as she touched Alex’s arm. She turned to face the shadows forming in a corner of the bungalow.

"I did not summon you." The old one moved to a small table. There she poured steaming liquid from a silver teapot into a small delicate cup. Thoughtfully she lifted the cup to her lips, her eyes burning, in answer to the severe gaze of the shadowy figure. Sipping slowly she returned her glance to the young woman under her control. "It will work. I just need a few days more."

"Your concoction of half-truths and hallucinations are not strong enough to break her connection to Rayne or the Legacy."

"Alex's rigid belief in justice is the key to bringing her to our side. Long before this action began we accepted that it would not be easy turning this one. Besides the master understands what you do not. That one with such a zealous spirit will bring down the Legacy quicker than ten legions from the outside."

The vague figure stepped forward. "Heed my words, old one." He nodded in Alex's direction. "This one is too powerful an enemy to leave alive. When she wakes nothing will have changed."

"We will see who is stronger."

"Your only advantage at this point is that the young one does not yet know how powerful she is becoming. Be further warned, we have experienced too many failures of late for your pride to overrule your judgment." A door way of smoke and grayness appeared near the figure. "Heed my warning."

The saucer held by cold fingers shook slightly, her only reaction to the figure's admonishment. Carefully she placed the cup and saucer on the table, waiting until the figure and the doorway disappeared. Near the china her fingers toyed with a small glass vial. For several moments she studied the small object and the unconscious woman across the room. The elixir would give Alexandra Moreau two choices--continue to resist and die or relinquish control to her and live. The syringe slid into the bottle with a soft squeak and with a slight shift of her fingers she withdrew the pinkish fluid it held. Her inner alarms told her that the messenger had spoken correctly, Moreau would not cooperate, and more fluid filled the plastic container.

Standing before Alex, the old one pushed away the stained material of her skirt and with a tight smile swiftly injected the fluid into her inner thigh. After several moments the young woman groaned, her hands clutched at the arms of the chair. Beads of sweat covered her upper lip. Tapping lightly on the damaged shoulder the woman waited for Alex to awaken fully. "It is time to begin again."

Hours later the old one sighed as she picked up the bottle and syringe once more. Alex tired and ill from the drug registered the needle stick with a small groan. "What have you done?"

"I've decided it is time to cut bait and move on. You have lost your opportunity to be an instrument of light in the darkness that the Legacy has become." Grabbing Alex's throat her thumb felt for the pulse beating weakly beneath it. Stepping away from the chair she walked to the door, opening it she stood in the doorway, darkness poured into the room around her. "Such a waste."

Derek stood just inside the control room, uncharacteristically hesitant to join Nick and Rachel. He had never before in his career in the Legacy been so utterly unsure of the path to take, until now. Nick looked up from his computer, forcing him into action.

"Anything yet?"

The somber expressions on Nick and Rachel faces answered his question.

"She has not used her credit card or cell phone." Rachel leaned back in her chair. Her arms reached into the air, stretching tired muscles. "I talked with Tanya and she hasn’t heard from her. She doesn't believe Alex would come home and not call her. Tanya said she would check with several of Alex’s friends in New Orleans."

Nick frowned. "Alex is smarter than this, she would not let herself just fall off the map. I called Frances and there is no one matching Alex’s description in her office. She's going to check with the other coroner offices around the state. And you?"

"I called Joe." Derek looked from Rachel to Nick. "We have all been in bad situations before and each time we’ve found our way home. Alex will too."

"Standard pat answer, Derek. What else do we do besides twiddle our fingers," Rachel snapped. Legacy Precept and psychiatrist stared at the other in a silence battle of wills.

Derek walked over to where Rachel sat; standing next to her his hand touched her shoulder. "All I have is..."

Nick finally spoke up. "Standard search and rescue procedures state that we start with possible threats."

Derek turned to Nick. "I don't think any of the entities we've been up against have done this. But you're right, we should check every possibility."

Rachel leaned forward, her arms resting on the computer console. "At least looking into past cases will give us something to do besides worry." Rachel’s eyes moved back and forth between the two men. When neither answered she decided a prompt was required. "Where do we start?"

"How about our favorite vampires?" Nick’s fingers moved over his keyboard and a list of names with case numbers began to scroll down the screen.

"Phillipe D'Arcy and Marcus," Rachel read from the console.

"Both dust." Nick stabbed at several keys and the two names were highlighted and immediately disappeared from the file. Derek turned toward his young colleague, his eyebrows raised in question.

"A little dramatic, don't you think?"

"No." Nick answered.

"Daniel Euwara," Rachel read again.

"His soul along with the Nkisi cauldron are buried deep within consecrated grounds." The click of computer keys followed Derek's words and Daniel's name disappeared.

"Noah Wilkes, the lighthouse keeper," came from Rachel.

"Wilkes' spirit was dispersed and the lighthouse lamp dismantled and stored." Nick's fingers touched at several keys and the highlighted square holding Wilkes' name left the screen.

"This is leading us no where." Rachel muttered in frustration. "It's too much...too many. I'd finally accepted that being a Legacy member is dangerous. Even more so for those with the gifts that you," Rachel nodded at Derek, "Kat and Alex have. But somehow I've overlooked how often Alex has put herself in danger." Rachel walked over to the computer console where Alex usually worked. By some unspoken agreement none of them had worked there, since her leaving. Placing her hand flat on the top, she spoke the words, that she silently prayed would soon be true. "When she gets back we're going to have a serious discussion about that tendency." Rachel looked seriously at the two men. "I'm going to make it a group session."

Derek and Nick looked at each other with slight smiles on their faces. The smiles disappeared as they looked at the empty seat near Rachel.

Rachel nodded at the large computer screen. "Okay, back to the case list. Where is Tommy, Nick?"

"With the release of his birth sister's psychic hold on him, he's regressed to his original level of autism. The last time I talked with Caroline she had decided to sell their parents' home and move somewhere south with him. He was never a true threat to Alex." Nick stopped talking at the blank stare Derek was giving him. He looked over at Rachel, who shrugged her shoulders.

"Derek? Derek?"

Coming to himself Derek looked from Nick to Rachel. "When you went through Alex's things."

"We found nada. Her journals are next on our list," Nick pointed with his elbow to the leather volumes on the computer workstation.

"Derek, for a moment there you were somewhere else. What did you see?" Rachel moved closer to where he stood.

"Nothing was clear. I felt trapped and angry. There was a smell of...sickness. Also flashes of a building surrounded by fog."

"Maybe the smell and fog represented Alex's physical condition." Rachel looked at Nick for support. "She could be hurt or ill.

"Or some type of weather condition," Nick added.

"Find out." Derek turned to Nick, his features hardened with purpose.

Nick pulled up a map of the U.S on the monitor. "We'll start with a search of weather condition on the west coast for the past week." He glanced at Derek for conformation. After Phillipe's kidnapping of Alex, the precept's connection with her had grown stronger, strong enough to support his belief that Derek could sense if Alex had been taken out of the state. The screen blurred then cleared showing the Pacific coastline from San Francisco to Washington State. The map was overlaid with lines and meteorological symbols. "These areas for four out of seven days have been covered by heavy fog."

"Where do we look?" Rachel glanced over at Derek then at the computer screen.

"Those four areas." Derek's voice held a hint of the uncertainty he had been holding inside.

"A lot of territory to search."

Rachel picked up one of Alex's journals. She began to flip through the pages. "Remember the assignment Alex was involved in about several years ago? Someplace haunted by a ghost."

"When Derek's friend Hitchcock paid us a visit," Nick replied.

Unconsciously, Derek's hand moved to his forehead, where it rubbed at the area once branded by the mark given to Cain for the murder of his brother Abel.

"Yes." Rachel searched through Alex's journals until she found an entry about the event. "All it says here is 'see Incident report, case file 1996-05.'"

"Why do you think she would go there?" Derek looked intrigued.

"I think her interaction with the little boy deeply affected her. She once voiced that it would be a nice place to run away to."

As Derek and Rachel talked, Nick's fingers moving confidently over the keys. Various documents unfolding on his computer screen were echoed on the large wall screen. Closing Alex's journal, Rachel hugged it to her chest as she and Derek concentrated on the pages of information flashing on and off the display. She closed her eyes for a moment to refocus and when she opened them a half page of text filled the screen.

As Rachel read the entry aloud Nick began typing. The address for the Pennywhistle Inn popped up and Derek hurriedly grabbed a pencil and scribbled down the address.

"The helicopter will be quickest, Nick. Have Allison fuel up and get the clearances we'll need." Instructions given, Derek disappeared behind the door of his office. Rachel, following her inner instruction manual, walked to a set of cabinets where she pulled out a black and red-striped backpack. She quickly checked the contents then left the room to join Nick.

Inside the Legacy helicopter Rachel and Nick waited, silent, conversation difficult in the noise filled cabin. Rachel glancing out the window, turned her head at the touch on her arm. Nick gestured for her to put on the headset lying on the back of her seat. "You okay?"

"Yes. I hope that...pray that this is not a dead end." Nick gave her a look of support and pointed out the window at Derek who was trotting down the outside staircase and across the lawn. "He'll find her."

Alex opened her eyes but quickly shut them, the little bit of light causing her head to ache. She wanted to open them again just to make sure the old woman was gone. The persistent ache at her temples made her reluctant, but she forced herself. Looking slowly around the room, her mind refused to accept what her senses were transmitting. There was nothing, absolutely nothing of the room she remembered, nothing but the chair she sat in, years of spider webs, accumulated dust covering the windows and floor, and the ring of heat circling her neck. Her tongue felt coated and swollen and she was thirsty. She closed her eyes and the old woman's words echoed in her mind.

All they will find is my puppet.

"No." She croaked. There will be enough of me left to warn Derek. The growing warmth at her throat became an uncomfortable burning that moved up her chin and into her hairline. Her hands complied this time when she lifted them to wipe away the moisture stinging her eyes. With the movement of her arms Alex's body became unbalanced and she slid from the hard-back chair onto the floor. The coolness of the floor felt good to her burning skin. But her relief was short lived, as the headache grew stronger. I'm a non-functioning contradiction. For a moment she felt like giggling at the fact that parts of her burned with fever, while other parts of her were beginning to feel like icicles. Determined not to die lying on some floor far from home, Alex forced herself upwards. Sitting was agony. She pushed herself upward determined not to give her captor the satisfaction of returning and finding her on the floor.

Nick lowered the helicopter near a group of cars surrounded by some serious looking people. Standing just outside the reach of the slowly revolving helicopter blades, the Ruling House's head of Search and Rescue waited until all three Legacy members reached her position.

"Nick," a small hand tightened around his larger one, "one day we will have to meet when there is not an emergency. Derek," the small petite figure reach passed Nick to shake Derek's hand.

Derek glanced over at Rachel. "Rachel, this is Joellen Stewart. Joe, Rachel Corrigan."

"Good to finally meet you," Joe replied before Rachel could.

Pleasantries over, Joe looked up at Derek, her face serious. "Alex never checked into the Pennywhistle. And just in case the owner lied to my men, I've had someone watching the place since you called. There is another lead I have one of the agents is checking into." Derek, Nick and Rachel in a solemn line followed Joe to her car. As she reached the car, one of the men handed her a piece of paper. She handed it to Derek.

"Might be worth checking out."

Derek handed the paper to Nick, who passed it on to Rachel.

"Let's go." Derek said getting into the front seat of the Lincoln.

"We're seriously going to investigate a burial ground?" Rachel questioned as she settled in beside Nick.

"Perfect joke for the Darkside. To kidnap and hold a Legacy member in a sacred place."

"The perfect trap." The car's driver turned to face the silent passengers.

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