REVENGE OF THE TAXIDERMIST
Revenge of the Taxidermist By Len Rating: PG-13, but there are some Bad Words Spoilers: Occurs, somehow, after 'Call of the Wild', so basically the entire show. Category: humor/action/romance Teaser: What if Fraser wasn't the only Mountie out to save Chicago from the slime of the Universe? Pairing: RayK/New Female Character, Fraser/Meg, References to RayV/Stella. Disclaimer: I can't even begin to tell you how not mine these characters and the whole Due South premise is. Oh, except the new characters. Those, for better or worse, are mine. Feedback: Is sought. The cavernous room was silent except for the desperate, ragged breathing of one of it's occupants. The only light came from a blue neon sign across the street, and filtered through a tiny, dirty window. It wasn't much, but it was enough to cast shadows to hide in. A sudden curse broke the stillness. "Ow! What the hell? I just walked into a wall!" "The secret is not to look directly in the direction you wish to go," another voice replied. "The human eye sees much better in the dark when peripheral vision is—" "Yeah, that's great. Could you just tell me where the suspect is so I can arrest him and go beg forgiveness from my date?" "It's one a.m., Sam. I don't think your date will still be at the restaurant. But as for the whereabouts of our suspect, just follow your ears. He is obviously suffering from smoking-induced asthma, indicating that—" Sam, however, was not listening. She was instead venting her spleen at the entire situation by carrying on a running commentary of the man who was to have been her date for the evening, while simultaneously running into one object after another. "...muscles, but not too many, y'know? Ow! Dammit! And he's got a smile like you wouldn't believe, and he's even got money. Money! D'you know how much money a Chicago cop makes, Em?" While Em admitted that she didn't know what the exact pay scale was for Chicago law enforcement officers, their suspect began to get his breathing under control. When he attempted to creep around a corner, the murky blue light fell on the dome of his bald head. "Hey, why don't you just give up?" Sam yelled, spotting him. "You're out-numbered!" "And," Em added. "You are trapped. This room has only one exit, and Detective Paterson is guarding that. You can't escape. You you'll just come calmly, there is no reason for anyone to get hurt. The bald head disappeared from view. "Fuck you, bitch! I ain't done nothin'!" "Yeah sure, buddy," Sam said. "You 'ain't done nothin', which is why you've got blood all over your toga there, and there's a knife stuck out of that weaver's back in the other room. A knife which I bet dollars to doughnuts has your prints all over it." "Cowl, Sam." "Huh?" "What the man is wearing – it's not a toga. It's actually a cowl." "Toga, cowl, towel, fowl – whatever! The point is, and I'll put this in short words so you'll understand, buddy – you come out now, I don't shoot you in the head." The only reply was a shouted expletive followed by another round of violent coughting. "Gah!" Sam said in exasperation, pausing to lean against another wall she'd run into. Why couldn't these guys ever come quietly? While she was out here chasing this scum-bucket, Rick and his Million Dollar Smile was probably having drinks with some woman who'd picked up when Sam didn't show. Somewhere to her right, Em cleared her throat. "You know, my Grandfather had a saying—" "Oh, Lord," Sam said piously. "—'A wise man knows defeat'." Sam gaped at her in the dark. "That's it? Nothing involving beaver fur or imported French cheese?" "No, Sam. However," the other woman continued, "He told me something else when I was young. At the time, we were camping deep in the woods of British Colombia. A terrible storm had struck and the firewood was soaking wet – it was useless." She crept closer. "The snow was falling in drifts. There was no visibility through it, and I was convinced that my Grandfather and I were going to freeze to death." "Too bad you didn't!" piped up the suspect. "Shaddup!" Sam yelled back. She was beginning to see where Em was going with this. "Be that as it may, Sir...I was just beginning to despair when my Grandfather took me by the shoulders. 'Lass,' he said, 'a man is never truly lost when he has a flashlight." With that, she shone said item straight into the suspect's face, blinding him. Sam jumped up to cuff him. Only to immediately fall and hug the floor when the man's weasley face twitched, and he let off a volley of gunfire. "Oh, Holy hell! The bastard's got a gun!" "I don't imagine he'll be allowed to stay in the Benedictine Order after this," Em commented, somewhat breathlessly. "Why are you talking about eggs?" Sam hissed. "There's a monk with a gun and he's shooting at us!" "Not eggs, Sam – actually, the Benedictine Order was—" "Whatever!" Sam scanned the room and came to a decision. "Right. I go right, and you go left. Right? On three." "A fine idea. One?" "Two—" And Em took off through the middle of the room, dodging tables and what appeared, in the dark anyway, to be an Iron Maiden. "Meg! Dammit!" Sam swore and ran after her. "Freakin' suicidal Mountie! What do they feed you for breakfast, anyway?" She could just barely see her partner's silhouette as she wove from shadow to shadow. Their suspect had stopped shooting, and was now breathing like a grampus. Under this, the sounds of Em's movements were well hidden. But not well hidden enough, it would seem. For just as Em was about to reach from behind him and twist the gun from his hand, the man turned. With one beefy arm, he sent her flying off her feet and into a large, earthenware jug. She lay atop the broken fragments, winded. "Em? You okay?" Sam called, gripping her service weapon more firmly. Her friend coughed. "I'm fine," she managed. "Right." Sam braced herself with her 'It's now or never' shrug and moved in. Something whizzed past her ear, and shattered when it hit the wall behind her. She sighed again. This was getting real old. There was going to be no hot date tonight, that was for sure. She hoped Rick wouldn't be too angry with her. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw Em lift a pot and hurl it at the suspect's head. Smash He ducked. Oh, well, Sam thought. So Rick is gorgeous. But he dances like a Quarterback. No sense of humor. Annoyingly clean... Smash "So let me get this straight," Lieutenant Alvarez said, eyeing the two women in front of him. One was openly bedraggled and exhausted, the other stood straight as an arrow and was covered in a fine layer of dust. "You got a tup that something was going down, and one of McKenna's boys was involved. So without calling it, you two immediately when to investigate this castle...uh..." "Dalriada Castle, sir." "Thank you. You arrived just in time to discover the body of the weaver..." "As yet unidentified." "Are we talking about a singer, here, Paterson?" "No, sir. An actual weaver by trade." "Oh. So you then pursue an epileptic monk to the dungeon of this place..." "I'm fairly confidant that the man is no monk, sir." "We were unaware of the fact that he was epileptic, sir. I'm afraid the resulting seizure was entirely my fault. I never would have—" "Yes, Inspector. I'm sure you wouldn't have. The problem is that Mr. Cole is now charging this department with police brutality, and Dalriada Castle wants eight thousand dollars for the damages inflicted during the shootout." "Brutality?! The creep killed one person and was doing his damndest to kill us! Besides, there were only three shots fired – not much of a shootout. Three shots, sir, and they weren't even mine—" Alvarez leaned forward, his brown eyes hard as rocks. "Ladies, there are no prints on the knife. There is no blood on Cole—" "What? But—" Alvarez held his hand up, ordering silence. "And there is no apparent motive. Unless you're saying this was just a random act of violence, I recommend you find out what a weaver and a fake-monk were doing at a theme park at midnight." Sam nodded briskly. "Absolutely, sir. I'm all over it." "Not yet, you're not." He looked them both over. Paterson had been under his command for three years, and was one of the best cops he had. But when she got started on a case, she was like a particularly stubborn dog with a bone. "You go home, get some sleep, and when you come back I want to hear about possible motives. And Inspector Thatcher?" "Yes, Lieutenant?" "I suggest you go find something Canadian to do. If I were you, I'd steer clear of Dalriada Castle for a while. And both of you – in the future, try to stay out of things that get me out of bed at three in the morning, will you?" Meg relaxed her stiff pose a little and tried to ignore the nagging headache she felt coming on. "Understood."
TBC...
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