all the angels

July 1st, 1992

Alicent doesn’t know why she stopped by the church. It was a Wednesday, 9pm, meaning the place would be abandoned. Something about this case was itching at her, begging her to confess—confess to what she did not know. She knew no one would be there, but to be near the altar, to pray in the old leather seats of her ‘87 Cadillac DeVille would be enough. She just needed to not be sitting in her house in New Haven—where her desk was laid with photos of young women, brutalized and slaughtered like cows, where names floated in her mind, names that meant nothing to her, names that did nothing for the case, where photocopies of notes stared up at her, begging to be understood. Her cuticles were raw and bloody at her steering wheel. It was 10pm by the time she got to the church in Litchfield— the church. 

Every body found since March 27th had been a member of this church. Some more regularly than others, some who had not stepped through those doors in years, but they all had this one thing in common. 

Alicent checked her pager again, checking one last time to see if David had tried to call her. This afternoon, he set out to speak to one of the kids named by Father Lawson, but if he found anything, he did not make it known. Chances were he was holed up in his motel room, staring at the same case files she was, too frantic about something discovered to send a call over to Alicent. She liked her partner well enough, but he, like her, had a way of isolating himself at times during cases—needing to put the pieces together so quickly that the entire outside world seems to cease existing. 

Sitting in front of the church, a flicker of something catches her eye—light. From inside. She checks the clock on her dashboard once more—10pm. No one should be here and even if they were, they would not have left the front door open enough that Alicent would be able to see the flickering candles of the altar from across the street. Something is wrong.

She turns off her car, closing the door gently so as not to alert anyone to her presence. Alicent leaves her driver’s side window down—in the event of a chase, reaching in to unlock it is faster than searching through her keys. A hand reaches and finds the comfort of her service revolver in her belt, something she never left the house without while working on a case. 

Litchfield’s catholic church was a beautiful sight—New England architecture that had existed long before any of them hung over her, gothic details giving the building a haunted aura to it, especially in the dead of a sweltering summer night. Alicent cautiously approaches the church, her boot-clad feet careful not to make too much noise as she ascends the stone steps, feeling beads of sweat begin to form on her neck. 

Alicent’s hand remains on her pistol, one hand reaching tentatively for the door hanging ajar. “FBI. If you’re in there, make yourself known.”

No noise comes from inside the church. It’s so quiet, Alicent swears she can hear the flicker of the candles in the summer breeze from out here. She pushes the door further, the centuries-old wood heavy beneath her hand. Something crawls beneath her skin, goosebumps rising along her flesh despite the July heat. Alicent pulls her gun out of its holster, raising it with one hand as she continues to push the door. 

Before she takes her first step into the church she sees it—she doesn’t even have it in her to scream, frozen to the spot. Her mouth open in a silent gasp, Alicent brings a hand to cover, one shaking still holding her pistol.

December 1st, 1992. 

Alicent shoots up in bed, the bloodied image of her dead partner still emblazoned on the inside of her mind. She grips the sheets, grounding herself as much as she can. In her line of work, Alicent rarely goes a day where she doesn’t see some grisly murder—some woman chopped up into pieces, or a boyfriend stabbed dozens and dozens of times. But those were never people she knew. David’s sullen, gawking face, hung from the altar like a toy—flesh mutilated and manipulated for what ? For a point? “Do not be afraid.” The only note to be written in blood. Alicent feels sick. 

Her eyes flick over to her alarm clock. 4:37, the red numbers flash. Her alarm is going off in twenty minutes anyway. 

November 23rd, 1992

“You need me back on this case, Harrold, you know you do,” Alicent called the office the moment she heard about the next body. It had been three months since David and no one else had dropped—no one until now. “I’m fine. I’m as fine as I’m going to be, but no one else is going to be able to help you with this and you know it. I have—I have the background, I have the knowledge, you guys are getting nowhere without me.”

“Hightower,” Harrold sighs. She can practically hear him running a hand over his face through the phone. She tugs absentmindedly on the wire, leaning against the wall with her phone hard-pressed to his ear. “Any one of these guys can skim through the bible—”

“I don’t care. I need this one,” Alicent continues pleading. It’s unlike her to beg, but they’ve never taken her off of a case before. She fought tooth and nail to get out of this one, but since she was the one who discovered the body, they wouldn’t have it. “Harrold. How much progress has been made in the last three months?” 

He goes silent for so long she almost thinks he hangs up the phone. “I’m making you do a psych eval first. Then, maybe.” 

December 1st, 1992 

At 4:35, Alicent climbs out of bed. The water of the shower burns her scarred back and she flexes her muscles beneath the wash, letting a heavy sigh fall from her lips. She spends longer there than she intended—the perks of getting up earlier than she planned. She knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep anyway. Every time she closes her eyes to try, she sees David. Gaunt and lifeless. 

After the body was found, Alicent had lost it a bit. She sped over to Jonathan Leigh’s house, screaming at him to admit what he had done—after all, he was the boy David had been on the way to interview. Leigh swore he had never seen David, that the agent never made it there at all, but Alicent wouldn’t have it. She had lunged at him, she would have clawed his face off if Harrold hadn’t been there to hold her back, dragging her to the floor kicking and screaming. She had been removed from the case the next morning. 

It was a small miracle she passed her psych evaluation. 

Alicent stands in front of her mirror as she pulls on a dark green button-up shirt, pairing it with black slacks and low-heeled boots, tying her long auburn hair into a ponytail as she always does for work. As she reaches for her black blazer, she finds it odd to be getting dressed for work once again. In her three months off, she had reviewed the case. She was convinced that if she could come to Harrold with some kind of breakthrough, something that would make them beg for her to come back, then they would be unable to refuse her. Instead, she found nothing. And another woman was killed. So far, David was the only man. As terrible as it was, this gave Alicent confidence. A break in the pattern implies they were getting close enough for the killer to be afraid. The note in his blood mocks her once more. “Do not be afraid.” It would have been a coy message to anyone else, but given the notes left at every single crime scene, Alicent knew what it was. Luke 2:10. “But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” What a fucking joke. 

It’s six by the time she makes it to the New Haven headquarters for the FBI. She’s greeted by the receptionist, Sienna, with a smile and a wave, eyes widening slightly at Alicent’s return. People expected her to be out for at least six. The death of a partner is not an easy thing to get over, especially one as brutal as David’s. Most times, a death in the FBI is quick. A gunshot to the head in the middle of a chase, a knife to the gut, always, always when they’re close enough to catch something. Alicent views David’s death as no different. They were close. And Alicent was going to be the one to figure it out. 

“Alicent, Alicent, there’s something I should warn you about,” one of the other agents in her unit, Mysaria, comes running up to her as she makes her trek to Harrold’s office. 

“I need to get my gun and my badge back, Mys, I’ll catch up in a moment—”

“No, seriously, you’re going to want to—”

Alicent pushes open the door to Harrold’s office only to find someone else already sitting in one of the chairs across from his desk. It’s someone Alicent doesn’t recognize, which is strange because she’s worked in the New Haven office for seven years. There should not be a face in this building she doesn’t recognize. 

“Alicent,” Harrold stands, looking unprepared for her company. “You’re early—”

“Couldn’t sleep. Who is this? Who are you?” she spits, turning to look at the woman sitting in the chair.

She turns to look at Alicent and she finds herself momentarily stunned—the woman is gorgeous. Her features are strong and angled, her heart-shaped jaw defined nicely against her neck. Her silver-blonde hair stops in a cropped cut at her shoulders, shaggy and unstyled. She manages to get away with it without looking entirely unkempt, but it’s still less professional than Alicent would expect. She’s just wearing the bureau windbreaker over what looks like an ivory button-up and black slacks. The buttons are on the right side and the fabric is a bit stiffer—a man’s shirt. 

“Alicent this is—” Harrold starts to introduce but the woman is already standing up, reaching out a hand to shake Alicent’s. 

“Special Agent Rhaenyra Targaryen,” the woman— Rhaenyra, what a ridiculous name—introduces. Her hand hovers in the air between them, the stale air of the office coming to a standstill. The only movement is the snow falling softly over the New Haven headquarters. Alicent hates December. Though, the sticky heat of summer is an enemy to her now as the build of sweat on the nape of her neck now only reminds her of one thing—one night. Images flicker in her mind—angel wings made of flesh, words penned in blood. She shudders. 

Reality flickers back into focus and Alicent realizes Rhaenyra’s hand is still hanging in between the two of them. Hesitantly, Alicent reaches out and shakes her hand, her grip firm and unrelenting with its single shake before she lets go of her quickly. 

“She’s transferred from New York to help us down here with the case while you were… out,” Harrold explains, a grim expression on his face. 

“I wasn’t taking a fucking vacation, sir, my partner was murdered,” Alicent spits, eyes darting to the woman still standing in front of her and going back to Harrold just as quickly. “I told you I didn’t need any help, that I could figure this out on my own. I’ve been looking over David’s case—”

“You were instructed not to do any work on this case while you were on sabbatical, Alicent.” Harrold’s tone reminds her far too much of her late father in its sternness. He always hated her career choice—partially because it kept her primarily in the states, but largely because he thought his daughter too noble and proper to be digging up bodies all day. “You’re lucky we’re even giving this case back to you, the higher-ups wanted to leave it entirely to Rhaenyra, but thanks to me, the two of you will be working together. It’s this or nothing, Alicent.”

“Last time I worked with someone they got fucking crucified,” Alicent argues further, pushing past Rhaenyra as if she wasn’t even there. Rhaenyra bristles as Alicent’s shoulder bumps into hers, stumbling back slightly before righting herself. She can feel the woman’s eyes boring a  hole into the side of her head, but Alicent can’t be arsed to deal with her right now. Her attention is razor-focused on Harrold. She inhales a deep breath through her nostrils, arms crossed as she stands in front of her boss, keeping her voice as steady as she can. “I know you saw the photos, Harrold, but what this guy did to him—to David, was… it was unlike anything I’d seen. Even if I wanted someone infringing on my months of work—which I don’t—” she turns to spit the last three words at Rhaenyra, “I don’t think it’s responsible to put another agent in that line of danger.” 

“But you’re okay throwing yourself on that sword?” Harrold levels with her, raising a brow. 

Alicent sneers, “Someone has to. This false god wants a lamb to slaughter, fine, he can have me. But I’m going to catch him.”

“You’re so sure it’s a man?” Rhaenyra pipes up, now leaning against the back wall of the office with her hands shoved in her pockets. “There’s no evidence of sexual assault with any of the bodies despite them killing mainly women, I thought there’s a chance our unsub is a woman.”

“It’s not,” Alicent whips around to look at her, Harrold momentarily forgotten. “The overkill—every body, despite the orchestrations and theatrics, shows signs of overkill. Unless we’re dealing with a rabid woman, I believe our unsub to be a young male, someone who has problems with women—maybe they ignore him, maybe they said no when he asked them out one time, who fucking knows.”

“But no assault.”

“He’s religious,” Alicent sighs, biting the inside of her cheek. “Maybe he believes in waiting for marriage.”

Rhaenyra snorts and rolls her eyes, saying, “You can’t be serious.”

“Look at you two, discussing theories already,” Harrold interrupts them, clapping his hands together. “Why don’t you go do it in your own office instead of mine, okay? Alicent, I believe you when you say you can find our guy, but for your safety, I need to give you a partner for this case. I know you’re scared because—”

“I’m not scared,” she cuts him off before he can continue, a sharp, determined look in her eyes. She doesn’t think back to how she woke up shaking in a cold sweat this morning, nothing behind her eyelids save for the image of her partner’s corpse. She doesn’t want to find anything like that ever again. She won’t have to if it’s her this killer is after. “I just don’t want to deal with someone who is coming in late and thinks they know what they’re talking about when they don’t. I’ve been following this case since the beginning, I know it like the back of my hand, I can find this guy. We have to be close or else he wouldn’t have killed David.”

“Alicent,” Harrold’s voice is calm, his expression knowing. He’s been her superior the entire time she’s been at the New Haven office and it shows in the way they speak to each other. Though, right now, she’s beginning to find the familiarity tiring. “I’m afraid the decision has been made. You’re dismissed.” 

Alicent bristles, resisting the urge to argue. Instead, she just says, “Gun and badge.”

He sighs, tossing Alicent her badge. She catches it easily and tucks it into the front inside pocket of her blazer before reaching for her gunbelt on his desk. As she fastens it, he nods to her. “Welcome back, Alicent. You were missed.”

“Likewise,” she relents, though there’s an underlying bitterness to her tone. 

She leaves the office without looking back, though she knows this pest of a new partner will be following her regardless. Something about her rubs Alicent the wrong way—maybe it’s her tone of voice, or the look in her eyes when she first saw Alicent, or the way she seems to think she has this case all figured out. If she did, a body wouldn’t have dropped last week. Alicent holds onto that as she heads for the office they’d turned into a home base for this case. 

Alicent pushes into the room, feeling the presence of a woman behind her as she stops in the doorway, assessing the damage. There are new lines on her board where there shouldn’t be, new photos and names she doesn’t know, and front and center—the photo of David’s crime scene. Before they removed the body. She takes a deep breath and steps into the room, searching for the case files from the most recent victim. 

“What makes you so sure it’s a man? And don’t give me that religious crap,” Rhaenyra, unfortunately, reminds Alicent of her presence as she enters the room, closing the door behind her. The click of the door shutting echoes in Alicent’s chest as she grapples with the fact that she seems to be stuck with this partner. 

“He had to have been strong enough to overpower David, that’s what makes me sure,” Alicent explains, trying to keep her voice steady. Her eyes dart over to the photo— the photo against her will. “David was six feet tall and he trains—trained—every single day. He had signs of bruising around his neck, consistent with a headlock along with scratches on his arms and chest that imply some sort of physical altercation. If he had been stabbed in the back, I could believe he had been caught off guard, but he wasn’t. If you look at the bruising compared to his initial kill wound, the bruising was some time before his actual death.”

“Maybe we’re dealing with a female bodybuilder.”

“Now you’re being obtuse on purpose,” Alicent huffs, shuffling through her papers as she grabs her notes from the last body. Once she has everything in order, she stops, hands braced on the mahogany table as she looks up at Rhaenyra. “Look, I already have the details I need and I’m sure any conclusions you have managed to draw in the last three months are not any better than mine or else you would have brought someone in. There is only one thing I am going to ask you for and that is the transcriptions of Father Lawson’s second interrogation. They wouldn’t let me look at them after I was dismissed.” 

Rhaenyra scoffs, “Yeah, no shit, they told me what you almost did to that kid.”

“Kid,” Alicent hums sarcastically. “Jonathan Leigh is twenty-three-years-old and he fits the kind of build we might be looking for if my theory pertaining to David is correct. Now can you please get me the transcripts from Father Lawson’s second interview? I won’t ask again.” 

Rhaenyra just looks at her, something unreadable in her expression as she heads over to the boxes of case files, rifling through them before pulling out a single folder and tossing it onto the table. It slides across the wood from one side to the other. Alicent looks up at Rhaenyra from across the distance, sucking in a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“You always this pleasant to work with?” she tuts, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll be nicer when there’s not a serial killer on the loose.” 

“There’s always a serial killer on the loose.”

Alicent tilts her head as if to say my point. Rhaenyra just purses her lips and nods softly.

She finally reaches for the file, eyes poring over the new information.

CASE FILE #8099 - LAWSON, MATTHEW. 002. 

July 2nd, 1992

     SA.HARROLD: Father, I’m sure you understand why we’ve brought you in here today. 

     M.L: It is my understanding someone desecrated my church.

     SA.HARROLD: A man was murdered. 

     M.L: I’m unfortunately aware. I’m sorry about your agent. He was… quite kind when he spoke to me last. Not like that other one—the girl. She’s a bit too stiff for me. Though, I understand those who grew up around religion and depart from it tend to be uncomfortable around people like me.

     SA.HARROLD: I’m not here to talk about her, I’m here to talk about how our killer managed to have access to your church. Who has copies of the keys? 

     M.L: Leona oftentimes helped me with organizing events for the community through the church. She must have had the key on her when she was killed. We often spent nights in my offices, long after we locked the doors for the evening, so I had a key made for her.

     SA.HARROLD: What did Leona’s husband have to say about her spending so many nights at the… church? 

     M.L: I’m not sure what this has to do with how a killer managed to overtake one of your agents and string him up inside my church. It is to my understanding most of your killer’s victims were young women, which makes Leona an outlier. He must have killed her for the sake of getting the key. Why am I doing your job for you? 

Alicent slams the transcript shut with a sigh, eyes darting to the photo of Father Lawson sitting on the board. Something isn’t adding up about him, about the way he spoke to her the first time Alicent met him. She’s acutely aware of Rhaenyra’s eyes on her, though she’s trying to acknowledge the other woman as little as humanly possible. 

“The priest was absolutely fucking victim number four, right?” Rhaenyra interrupts her train of thought, voice harsh and grating against the quiet of the room. Alicent pulls the transcript out once more, searching through the case files for his first interview, prior to David’s murder. 

“Her name was Leona, the least you could do is treat them with a little humanity.” Alicent puts her back to her as she sorts through the files, “And yes, they were very obviously having an affair, but that’s not the point. If anything, something like that only puts a target on the Father’s back. Which means there’s no reason for him to be so… flippant. Unless he’s ashamed of the affair, which he should be—it’s an affront to God.”

Rhaenyra settles into one of the chairs in the room, one ankle resting on her thigh. It’s a position so relaxed it makes Alicent’s eye twitch. They’re discussing murder for Christ’s sake and she’s lounging. There’s a pen in her hand, unused for anything but clicking it over and over. “I think an affair between two consenting adults is… well, fine isn’t the right word, but it’s not necessarily sacrilegious.”

“It quite literally is. Thou shall not commit adultery. It’s one of the ten commandments. You’d think being on this case you’d have the brains to pick up a bible,” Alicent sits on the edge of the table, pinching the bridge of her nose. She can feel a vein popping in her forehead the more she has to listen to this woman’s voice. If she lives through this case, she is never going to forgive Harrold for giving her this abysmal partner. 

Alicent has always worked best alone—as a child, her father would simply give her puzzles and leave her in her room all day. She wouldn’t move until they were done. She graduated from jigsaw puzzles to ciphers and boxes and all sorts of gadgets that were begging to be solved. She’s spent the last few months trying to convince Harrold to just lock her in a room with all of the evidence and she could figure it out, but he’s the one that pushed David on her. That convinced her this wasn’t something she’d be able to go at alone. And now David is dead and Alicent is stuck listening to Rhaenyra click her pen over and over and over. 

“Can you please stop that?” Alicent spits, Rhaenyra’s thumb pausing right in the middle of clicking the pen once more. 

Rhaenyra lets go of the pen, placing it on the table and letting it roll slightly away from her. After a moment, she stands, crossing her arms as she stands next to Alicent—so closely, their shoulders almost brush. Alicent resists the urge to jolt away from her. “The thing with this guy is, I think he wants us to think he’s some bible thumper, but I don’t know that he is. I mean—the verses he picks out, they’re completely random, cherry picked sentences that make no sense, they only sound like they do to someone who doesn’t know any better.” 

“So, you think what? That the kills are personal and the verses are a cover-up?” Alicent offers, eyes skirting over the photocopies they have of notes that were left at the crime scenes. “I suppose that’s not a… terrible idea. The only ones that directly apply are the last two—David and the uh…”

“Prostitute?” Rhaenyra asks, eyebrows raised, referring to the last woman they had found. That one was another outlier—the first body in three months and the only one that, as far as they know, was not a member of the church. “He could be over-compensating. I wonder if he knew victim number—I mean, Priscilla. Maybe he didn’t agree with her choices… solicited her only to… you know.”

“If it’s personal, that goes back to my theory about the young women being someone he has a personal vendetta against. They were all within the range of 18-24, went to same schools, same church, all could have crossed paths with our unsub in daily life.”

“Maybe a prom ask goes wrong, he starts planning,” Rhaenyra shrugs, arms crossed as the two of them stand side by side. “Thinks if he has some overarching theme—these offerings, punishments, whatever he wants them to be, then no one will connect the dots between the women. David, we can only assume he was killed because he was getting close, which points to Jonathan Leigh.”

“Jonathan Leigh, who was allegedly with his mother at the time of David’s murder,” Alicent adds on with a sigh. “Leona’s husband. I want to look at him. He was affiliated with the church as well, right?”

Rhaenyra nods. “He runs the teen bible study… gives him access to our younger girls.”

“Maybe he was already targeting the girls, found out about Leona’s affair, and snapped?” Alicent suggests, tilting her head to the right, almost bumping into Rhaenyra. “But if he’s involved with the church, that messes with our theory that our unsub doesn’t actually give a shit about it.”

“Our theory?” Rhaenyra asks, turning to face Alicent with a crooked grin on her face. Standing this close to her, Alicent can see a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. There’s a scar on the bridge of her nose as well, as if it’d been broken before. Alicent is no stranger to scars, though most of hers no one would ever know about. She likes it that way. 

“Don’t let it get to your head,” Alicent huffs, not quite ready to admit defeat as she pushes off of the table and creates some space between the two of them. 

“Not everyone who goes to church is a believer.” Rhaenyra clears her throat, shooting Alicent a sideways glance as if she knows something Alicent doesn’t. “You’d know a thing or two about that, according to our Father Lawson.”

Alicent frowns. Remembering her first interview with the priest. “This isn’t about me. You have a point, but the religious motivation would only further point back to him. And we still need to figure out what the fuck P.S. means. It’s not a post-script, it has to be some sort of signature, but I don’t know what it could stand for if it’s not initials.” 

“This isn’t a killer with an ego, at least not at first,” Rhaenyra hums, stepping closer to the board. “These first two kills are sloppy. This is where the overkill is the worst. But the more he gets away with it, the more confident he gets. It starts with Leona—she’s the first not to be killed inside her own home, the first to be attacked and left outside. Then we escalate to David—where we have not just a note, but the theatrics, the verse gets more specific. Referencing the angels while stringing him up to look like one. And then Priscilla—the note shoved in her throat, he’s playing games now. I don’t know how to profile this guy because he’s evolving with the case.”

Alicent finds her eyes glued to Rhaenyra as she paces around the room, thinking out loud. Her eyes roam the board, not looking at Alicent at all. Eventually, though, she turns, finding Alicent already looking at her. “What?”

She just clears her throat, trying to ignore the fact that she’s been caught staring. “Let’s bring in the husband for questioning. Let’s also get names of some of the girls that attend his teen bible study. I want to know just how well he knew our first three victims.” 

Rhaenyra’s eyes meet hers, tracing over the lines of her face as if seeing Alicent for the first time. After a moment, a slow smile spreads across her face. “Yes, ma’am.” 

***

CASE FILE #8099 - LAWSON, MATTHEW. 001. 

June 18th, 1992

     SA.HIGHTOWER: Father, my condolences, it’s my understanding Leona was an outstanding member of your community.

     M.L: She was. It’ll be tough to replace her. If there’s anything I can do to help your investigation, please, I’ll tell you everything there is to know about my community. Leona was a… good friend of mine.

     SA.HIGHTOWER: We believe our unsub may be a young man, anywhere from the ages of 17-25, though we do think it’ll be on the higher end of that range given that we think he may have had a personal relationship with one or more of the victims—the oldest of which, prior to Leona, was twenty-three. This young man will be lonely, the kind of loneliness that crafts a sense of righteousness. Do you know any young men that may fit that profile? 

     M.L: You grew up in the church didn’t you? You got that look in your eyes like you know a thing or two about false righteousness.

     SA.HIGHTOWER: All due respect, Father, I’d like to focus on the case at hand. Any names you can provide may be fruitful for us. 

     M.L: My dear friend is dead and now I’m sitting in an FBI office. Humor me. 

     SA.HIGHTOWER: I was raised Catholic, yes. I stopped attending service after the death of my father. 

     M.L: Yes, I’ve seen many women with eyes like yours in my day. I cannot say I do not welcome all with open arms, even those who are unwilling. You stopped once your father could no longer force your hand, is that it?

     SA.HIGHTOWER: And what, do tell, is it you see in my eyes, Father?

     M.L: Fear. 

     SA. HIGHTOWER: The names. Now, please.