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“Vanquishing the bad is the job of cops and good witches.” - Roarke to Henry MacDermit after their rescue, Taken in Death[1]

Plot Summary[]

The evil witch killed Darcia. Henry knew it because he’d seen Darcia on the floor, and all the blood. Everything felt funny and sleepy and wrong. He knew he was under a spell. The evil witch’s magic spell.

When twins Henry and Gala are kidnapped and their nanny killed, Lieutenant Eve Dallas steps in to take control. But video footage shows what appears to be their mother arriving and leaving with the obviously drugged seven-year-olds. Something is wrong, and Eve, her husband Roarke and her brilliant team are ready to work round the clock to get the children back alive...

Spoiler warning!
This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode.

Timeline[]

Approximate Story Start Date: late November or early December 2060[2]

Day 1 (around midnight)[]

Prologue[]

  • The evil witch killed Darcia. Henry knew it because he’d seen Darcia on the floor, and all the blood. Everything felt funny and sleepy and wrong. He knew he was under a spell. The evil witch’s magic spell.
  • The evil witch made Henry and his twin, Gala, wait while she packed bags for them, and then they went to the car. She made the children lie down on the back seat and sleep, telling them they’re going to live in a special place made of sugar plums and chocolate icing, but Henry doesn’t believe her. Since Henry and Gala are twins and this is a magic story, they communicate silently through their minds that they will protect each other. Henry has to be brave because the evil witch looked like his mother, and they need to find their way home again.

Day 2[]

Chapter 1[]

  • Lieutenant Eve Dallas is in the MacDermit home, looking at Darcia. The 9-1-1 caller is another nanny, a friend of Darcia, who was worried when Darcia and the kids were no-shows that morning. Darcia has multiple stab wounds and a small pentagram carved just above her heart. Eve has an Amber Alert put out immediately while Peabody searches the residence for the children in case they are hiding.
  • There is no sign of a burglary, and when Eve watches the security disc she sees a woman getting out of a car and crossing the sidewalk to the entrance. She rings the bell and slashes out with her knife when the door is answered, probably catching the occupant’s throat. Eve can picture the rest of the scene: cutting the hand, the arm, the shoulder, and then the throat again for the kill, ending by carving the pentagram with the tip of the knife.
  • The next scene is of the woman leading two children with glazed eyes out of the house, carrying a bag over each arm. As the kids climb into the back seat, swaying toward each other like miniature drunks, she stows the totes in the trunk and slides behind the wheel, throws her head back and laughs, then pulls away.
  • The vehicle is registered to the children’s parents, Ross and Tosha MacDermit, and the woman is Tosha, according to the officer. The parents are supposed to be on vacation.
  • Eve interviews the other nanny, Elena Cortez, who tells them she was worried when Darcia and the kids didn’t meet them to walk to school together, so after she dropped her charges off at school she came back to the house, where she found the door unlocked and walked in and saw Darcia lying on the floor, dead. She shut the door and called 9-1-1. Just as she’s telling Eve and Peabody about the parents, a car pulls up and she says, "they’re home."
  • The couple rushes out of the car, and Tosha asks Eve what’s going on and where are her babies.

Chapter 2[]

  • Eve tells the MacDermits that Tosha came home around midnight, stabbed Darcia to death, drugged her children, put them in the car, and took them to another location. She explains that she saw all this on the security footage. Ross insists that they were in New Zealand, so that’s impossible, and Tosha realizes that her twin, Maj, is the one who killed Darcia and kidnapped their children.
  • While Peabody checks their alibi, Tosha explains that she had Maj legally removed from her records after she killed their father and tried to kill her, when they were twelve. She tells Eve that they are nearly identical, but for a small pentagram Maj has between her left breast and shoulder. Maj has darkness in her, and has hated Tosha since they were in the womb together, for being part of her, for preventing her from being the only, the One.
  • Tosha begs Eve to find the children before Maj hurts them, which she will do because she’s evil, and knows it will hurt Tosha. She explains to Eve that their mother died in childbirth, and Maj blamed her for that. After Maj killed their father, she was committed. Maj had tried to kill Tosha because their father had punished her for stealing Tosha’s doll and burning it; he took Maj’s doll away and she was confined to her room for a week. Tosha sensed Maj trying to find and kill her, so she made her mind quiet and still, and instead, Maj killed their father in his sleep, stabbing his heart and cutting his throat, before carving a pentagram on him and drinking his blood.
  • She and Ross came home a day early to surprise Darcia and the kids. She tells Eve Darcia was her true sister. Also, Henry and Gala don’t know about Maj.
  • Henry and Gala wake up in a bedroom with no windows and a locked door. The table has a tea set with cupcakes, gumdrops, and frosted cookies. They know they shouldn’t eat or drink anything but they’re so thirsty, so they drink some cherry fizzies from the teapot and gobble up the treats. Henry convinces Gala that the evil witch is not their mother, that she cast a spell to look like her. He says their parents will send a good witch to fight the bad witch and take them home.
  • Henry telepathically tells Gala that he took the Jamboree to bed with him and it’s in his secret pocket. He says he will send messages to the good witch to help her find them, but they can’t let the bad witch know or she’ll take it away. Maj comes in and tells the kids this is their new home, and they’ll soon be fat enough to eat. “Yum. Yum. Yum.”

Chapter 3[]

  • Eve has the MacDermits moved to a safe house while Peabody gets all the available info on Maj Borgstrom. Eve calls Dr. Mira and asks her to talk to the medical staff in charge of Maj while she was committed, and then calls Roarke, who happens to know the prime minister of Sweden. She puts Jenkinson and Reineke on protection detail and brings in EDD to set up a phone tap. Eve calls Whitney and they justify calling Agent Teasdale of the HSO, since it’s an international incident if Maj entered the U.S. illegally.
  • Eve and Peabody go to the garage where the MacDermits store their car, finding out that Maj tricked her way into gaining access by pretending to be Tosha and saying she forgot her swipe and couldn’t remember her code. The owner, Bing Francis, belatedly realizes that it wasn’t Tosha since there was an accent and she laughed differently. Eve finds a disc with a monkey in a bathing suit tucked in the backseat, and Peabody tells her it’s for a kind of PPC that has games and limited communication. Francis says it’s for a Jamboree, that he’s seen Henry with that and he has one upstairs that he uses with his grandson.
  • They play the disc, see the evening’s events up to bedtime, and then Henry whispers that the evil witch has Gala and him, that she killed Darcia, and “Tell Daddy to come get us. I don’t feel good. We had to drink it. It says second. Tell the good witch to come and bring Daddy. Please. We’re scared. Tell-“ before cutting out.

Chapter 4[]

  • Eve calls Feeney to ask him what he knows about the Jamboree, and asks if he can boost the range on one (he can). Peabody finds Gala’s Jamboree, but Eve warns her not to use it in case Maj is in the same room and hears it; they need to wait until Henry contacts them.
  • Eve finds out that the last two doctors who treated Maj are dead, with the second one, Dr. Filip Edquist (son of the first one, Dr. Dolph Edquist) killed while Maj had been escaped from a halfway house for about a week. Dr. Filip had withdrawn $350,000 in cash two days before his murder, and had arranged for a private shuttle for two to Argentina. Also missing: $85,000 in jewelry and other easily portable valuables and the secondary false id for the woman (i.e., Maj).
  • Mira calls to tell Eve that the senior doc died of a cardiac arrest 30 minutes after a session with Maj, who had been spending a lot of time in the infirmary, learning about alternative medicine. There were two other suspicious deaths during her stay, a patient who was stabbed, and a medical. Mira tells Eve Maj is paranoid delusional, and believes her sister’s very existence threatens her.
  • Baxter, Trueheart, and members of EDD arrive at the MacDermits’ house, where they are setting up HQ.

Chapter 5[]

  • Henry and Gala are playing when Maj comes in, and she grabs the doll from Gala’s hands, threatening to cut her head off. Then when Henry jumps to his feet, she threatens to cut Gala’s head off, slit her throat like she did with their nanny. She asks what Henry’s doing, and he tells her he built a fort. Maj then kicks it down and tells him it doesn’t look like a fort, that he doesn’t know how to build anything and he’s stupid. She asks him if he wants to play with her knife. When Henry tells her they’re not allowed to play with knives, she says she is and proceeds to cut his arm and then lick the blood off the knife. After Maj leaves, Gala tends Henry’s wound.
  • EDD is working on boosting the range of the toy, and they figure the kids are within a few blocks based on how long the car was gone. Feeney lets Eve know that the toy is manufactured by one of Roarke’s companies.
  • Teasdale arrives, bringing an FBI agent with her. They agree to take the parents, moving them to a safe house closer to their townhouse. Teasdale and Eve agree that Maj won’t want to keep the kids long since they’re a lot of work, that she’ll most likely kill one so they can send proof of life and death to Tosha, bringing grief, panic, and a desperation to save the remaining child.
  • Henry has been reaching out with no reply, and is now worried that the evil witch is also a vampire.

Chapter 6[]

  • Eve is trying to figure out where Maj is keeping the children, ruling out an apartment or condo. She decides it’s going to be a locked windowless room inside a detached unit, and she probably didn’t restrain the kids. Since Henry said second, she thinks Second Avenue. Callendar gets a weak communication from Henry: “a knife…licked blood…make us vampires…hurry.” Eve has Trueheart reply to him, and he does, asking for more information on the location. “A room…two beds, no windows…make us eat cookies. Cake. Cut me. Hurts. Send good witch, hurry…” They think that Henry’s toy probably has a low battery by now.
  • Roarke arrives with coffee and the promise of pizza. He comforts Eve, who is worried that she’s not giving Darcia any time, instead focusing on the missing children. They agree that Maj didn’t have to kill Darcia to take the children, but she likes to kill and wants to hurt Tosha as much as possible. They discuss the toy, and Eve picks up that it can take photos and transmit them, so that’s the plan for the next time Henry contacts them.
  • Meanwhile, Peabody is working on a map or the area, eliminating high-rise buildings and focusing on single homes or smaller buildings with basements. Eve sends Feeney and Callendar out for fizzies and to canvass the neighborhood.
  • Mira calls to update Eve on Maj’s poor behavior during her asylum stay, including biting off the tip of a man’s penis and eating it. They were alerted when they heard the medical screaming, and came in to find her, face smeared with blood, laughing. She claimed self-defense, the man was fired, her meds were increased, and when she threatened to sue, they closed down the investigation. Eve says, “I don’t want to tell these parents the lunatic sister killed their kids and ate them for breakfast.

Chapter 7[]

  • Reading through Mira’s data, Eve determines that Maj is batshit crazy, "with the seriously dicey element of cannibalistic tendencies." Looking at her work history at the institute, Eve thinks maybe she’s working in a wiccan shop, and Roarke suggests maybe the knife she’s been using is a ritual knife, purchased locally. Eve has Trueheart look for occult retail in the area that are open this late. Eve thinks maybe she’s an LC, and Feeney searches IRCCA for like crimes.
  • Eve admits to Roarke that although she doesn’t think Maj will kill the children that night, “you can do a lot to the human mind and body without destroying it. We both know just how much you can hurt a kid without killing.” Eve thinks Maj will contact Tosha to hear her anguish, and then get some sleep after drugging the kids again.
  • Henry reaches out again, and when Feeney answers he tells him he’s not the good witch, so Feeney puts Eve on. She asks him to take pictures of the door and the bathroom, with Gala next to the door. He describes the room a little bit and the trip there. Roarke instructs Henry on shutting down some of the other functions to preserve battery life before he transmits the photos to Eve’s ’link. Before Henry can send the photos, Maj returns and he shuts down the toy.
  • Baxter and Trueheart head to an occult shop that’s open until 2 a.m. McNab has narrowed down the area to between 61st and 72nd Streets and between Second and Fifth Avenues. There’s a synagogue on 68th, between Third and Lexington, that Henry described passing (two towers and a star), so they focus on that area.
  • Roarke and Peabody compare it to Hansel and Gretel: two lost kids, evil witch, bread crumbs. Roarke tells Eve the end, that the children outwitted the witch and she ended up in the oven, burned alive. Apparently in Peabody’s Free-Ager version, the children escape, coming back with their parents, bringing healthy food to the witch. Their kindness transformed the witch and she opened a bakery.
  • Teasdale contacts Eve to let her know Maj is calling Tosha. Tosha begs Maj not to harm the children and she tells her that she’s already sampled Henry’s blood, which she finds lacking, just like Tosha’s. She plays a video of the children screaming for their mother to come, to help them. She demands five million dollars and to choose one of the children to live and the other to die, or else she will kill them both.
  • They traced the ’link to where she ditched the phone, at Madison and 65th. Eve figures Maj will kill them both, but it will have destroyed Tosha to have chosen one.
  • Baxter and Trueheart found the store where Maj bought the knife. The shop owner said that Maj is a regular, and just purchased some herbs, a sleep aid, and candles two days ago, paying cash, as usual.

Chapter 8[]

  • Maj returns home and takes off the wig, clothing, and makeup that made her look like a plump, poor, slightly hunchbacked old woman. She reflects on how Tosha is responsible for the death of their mother, how if she had lived, she would have smothered the weak, pale copy in her crib and lavished love, attention, and power on her true and only daughter. Tosha also caused their father’s death, by corrupting him and turning him against her.
  • She unlocks the (reinforced) door to the basement, musing about how she purchased this building more than six months ago, and thinking of the potion she’d mixed into the fizzies she made the children drink. She could poison them but preferred to slit their throats and drink their blood instead. Then, after their youth, their energy, and the power they didn’t yet understand was inside her, she would spill her sister’s blood and drink of it. She decides that whichever child Tosha chooses to live, she will kill first.
  • Eve sends Feeney, Jenkinson, and Reineke to her home for three and a half hours of sleep, saying she and Roarke will follow after they stop by where Teasdale has the parents, and then when they come back at 0500, the others can take a break.
  • Teasdale tells Eve Ross got Tosha to take a mild soother, and they’re finally sleeping. Before that Tosha was able to provide some bits of their childhood to try to figure out what Maj liked (dolls, sneaking on makeup, baking cookies and tarts, listening to music), but Maj also enjoyed putting bugs in Tosha’s bed, locking her in the basement, and once killing the neighbor’s pet rabbit and cooking it. Tosha never told their father because Maj threatened that if she did, she would kill and cook her next. Maj thinks her birthmark is a sign of her power and legitimacy. Teasdale also knows that Maj plans to kill them both after Tosha tells her which one to save, and of course Tosha hasn’t chosen one. They agree to hit the streets again at first light.

Day 3[]

Chapter 8 (continued)[]

  • Eve dreams about the room in Dallas, except Henry and Gala are in it, sitting at a table full of cookies and cakes and bubbling drinks, watching her with frightened eyes. She tells them, “Don't eat any of that,” but they tell her “she makes us. She'll make you eat, too, before she eats you.” Eve tells them she’s going to get them out, but she can’t break the door down because she’s only eight, and cold, hungry, and scared. Gala tells her they have to have a tea party, and if they “don’t eat it all she'll make us sorry. She made Darcia sorry. She made her dead. See?” The nanny lay on the floor, soaked in her own blood. Darcia says, “She's not paying any attention to me. I'm not important enough.” Eve says “That's not true. But I can't help you until I help them.” Eve says she’s trying to help but “pigeons must've eaten the bread crumbs.” Darcia tells her “You only have to look in the right place.” And the kids say “The good witch is supposed to fight the bad witch and win. We're supposed to go home to Mommy and Daddy and live happily ever after. You're supposed to protect us.” Something banged on the door and the kids stuffed their mouths with cakes and cookies, telling Eve she “has to eat or she'll hurt us.” Eve can’t figure out which monster is at the door, hers or theirs, and if that even matters, since both bring death. But she tries to shield the other children. She wakes up shivering, saying "It's cold in the room. I can never get warm."
  • Roarke warms her up with sex and then they discuss the information Henry gave them, determining that the children are being held in a basement (since the walls and floor are concrete).

Chapter 9[]

  • Back at HQ (the MacDermit home), Callendar and McNab have been working on locating the toy, so Roarke helps with that, although it will only work when the toy is on. Peabody has narrowed down the area to between 66th and 68th, Lexington or Third and Trueheart says they’ve eliminated some of the buildings. Eve sends Baxter to the mansion for sleep, saying Peabody and Trueheart will be relieved as soon as Jenkinson and Reineke get in, and either Callendar or McNab can leave, with McNab winning rock, paper, scissors to stay. She asks Callendar to come back at 7:30. The food Roarke ordered is here, so she has Peabody and Trueheart eat before they leave to return at 8:30.
  • Feeney found an IRCCA hit – a guy in Paris was killed eight months ago, sliced and diced, and his liver and heart were missing, with evidence to show it was sautéed in wine and the woman of interest wasn’t found. He was a big-deal pastry chef who withdrew half a million in cash the day he was killed. He was marked with a pentagram just over his heart, post-mortem. Based on that, Eve has Reineke narrow the location search to units purchased or rented in the last eight months.
  • Eve and Roarke go for a walk. Eve realizes that since Maj is making cakes and cookies, they should be looking for a bakery. Roarke finds two in the neighborhood, one regular and one called Magic Sweets that’s just pastries. Henry sends the photos, which show a tiny, cheaply built but new bathroom and a new, reinforced door. He tells Eve Gala is sick and won’t get up. They head toward the pastry shop, having Henry keep talking until the battery dies, while Roarke gets the pastry shop info to the rest of the team, including the feds. There’s a sign on the door saying it’s closed for remodeling, but they can see light coming from the back of the shop.

Chapter 10[]

  • Roarke disables the alarm and cams, and since they don’t know Gala’s status, they go in without waiting for backup. Roarke belatedly realizes that when they break through the door, Maj sees them on the internal camera and slams the door between the kitchen and the showroom shut. Since that door is reinforced, Roarke has to finesse the locks. They go through that door, and then the one to where Henry and Gala are being held, only to see Maj holding a knife to Gala’s throat, with her arm clamped around Henry.
  • Maj says she will trade both children for Tosha, and Eve asks her why Gala, trying to distract her so she can take a shot. Maj says because girls are more tender. “Sugar and spice and blood. Snakes and snails for him.” Eve asks, “Don’t you want to know which one she chose?” Maj does want to know, and as the knife shifts a little bit, both children clamp down with their teeth on her forearms. When Maj jerks away, the knife nicks Gala’s throat and Eve stuns Maj. She yells at the kids to drop and then plows her fist into Maj’s face, grabbing the knife hand until the knife falls.
  • Roarke is comforting the children, and takes them out of the room. Eve tells him to have Peabody contact their parents and Baxter comes in to cuff Maj. She sends everybody home, as soon as Maj is booked at Central. She sees that the room is different than the one in Dallas, but has the same purpose: “Terrorize, torture, and confine.
  • Henry asks if Maj is dead, and Eve tells him no, but she’ll be locked up and won’t be able to hurt them anymore. Gala tells Eve she’s the good witch. She tells her she’s a cop, and Gala insists that she saved them. Eve tells her they saved themselves, that they were smarter than Maj and really tough. Henry asks who their mom chose, and Eve tells him she didn’t, that she lied. Their mother didn’t choose, and never would. When they introduce each other, Henry calls her the Good Witch Dallas.
  • As they’re wrapped around Eve, hugging her and making her uncomfortable, their parents race up in a car, and gather them up in a family hug. The parents thank Eve, and Roarke tells them “Vanquishing the bad is the job of cops and good witches.” Tosha tells Eve that every day, for the rest of her life, she will say a prayer for Eve’s safety and her happiness.
  • Roarke drives Eve to the morgue to visit Darcia, where she tells her the children are safe, they’re home, and Eve will do everything she can to make sure Maj lives out the rest of her crazy life in a cage. She tells Darcia she didn’t forget her, she just had to put the children first. She and Roarke head out, with Eve kissing him (after first making sure nobody was around to see).

Character List[]

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Recurring Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]

Footnotes[]

  1. Taken in Death, Chapter 10
  2. The story takes place after Thankless in Death (November 22-25, 2060), but exact dates are not specified.
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