1803

"Honestly, Jack." Emilia sighed, staring after her partner. There was little use in perusing him--she both cursed and envied his ability to disappear at a moment's notice, it was a valuable skill in their line of work but rather frustrating when he used it to avoid her.

She turned towards the reflective plate. As nonsensical as his warning to stay away from it seemed, Jack was rarely one to react so strongly without reason. In fact, while she had seen him in states of fear and nervousness, she didn't believe she had ever seen him gripped by such a considerable amount of panic.

Even when his life was hanging by a thread, it had only manifested as a trembling hand and jitters.

But there was nothing about it that should have caused it. It was an inanimate object. Highly polished metal. Hardly threatening.

Tilting her chin up, she strode across the lab to look into it. And saw herself, as she was, and the reflection of the lab behind her, slightly out of focus. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly, no lurking monster waiting to strike.

The only difference in the lab from before was Jack's presence, but the idea of him reacting so poorly to his own reflection was absurd. She'd never witnessed him shying away from it in the past. And even with his ego, the sight of a few grey hairs seemed more likely to cause him to whine and mope for the rest of the day than yell warnings of danger.

Though, the hairs themselves were odd, now that she put thought into it. She was perfectly aware of how often Jack had his hair trimmed, and it did not grow fast enough for those hairs to appear overnight, and yet, she was positive she had not noticed them before. That is not to say she spent much time staring at Jack's silky hair and wishing for an excuse to run her fingers through it once more, or that she spent much time staring at him or his body in that finely tailored suit at all. She simply was trained to be observant and should have noticed.

Her eyes trailed across the surface of the metal again and gave her pause. On reconsideration, perhaps her observational skills were slipping. She scratched a fingernail over the thin, two-inch crack running across the surface. She would have sworn that it had not been there this morning, either. Her first thought would've been Jack, except he rarely fooled with her projects, and it couldn't have just happened as he had only used force in moving away from it, not striking against it.

With no answers and more questions than she started, Emilia walked away from the metal, oblivious to the ends of the crack spreading farther across the surface.

 ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰

The figure had turned. Face twisted and sunken. Eyes glazed white. Unidentifiable as male or female. A finger pointed at his chest. "We have found you." The voice echoed in his ears. "No matter where you travel, as long as you live, you will never be rid of us, Ashley."

"Sorry, I think ya got the wrong guy." He took a step back.

"Your soul is Marked. There is no place on this Earth we can not find you."

The world continued to darken around them. The sun was blotted out by unnaturally black clouds. The wind frantically changed directions, whipping at his clothes, pulling at them. His ponytail smacked him in the face, momentarily breaking his concentration.

And the deadite was on him. Knocking him back into the dirt as its hand closed around his throat. He clawed at its fingers one-handed, his right hand gripping its wrist, squeezing, trying to shatter the bone, but the tighter he squeezed, the worse the pain seemed to grow--not in his throat, but somewhere else. He couldn't place it and some part of his mind screamed warnings at that. He eased his grip.

"Palau Palau will become our gateway, and you will usher us into Destiny. We shall live again."

He gasped for breath, eyes slipping shut for a slipt second--

The sun was shining.

His nails clawed ineffectively at his own hand wrapped tightly around his throat.

Releasing himself, he glanced around to meet the mix of bemused stares of the marketgoers.

"Heh." Great. He grit his teeth in an awkward grin.

One of the vendors snorted and made a drinking motion, getting a bit of strained laughter from his patrons. It broke the spell and everyone turned back to what they'd been doing before his little visit. Or vision or... Hell, he didn't even know what it was, exactly. Not like there was anyone he could really ask about it since it only seemed to happen to him. He couldn't even begin to guess how that little episode had looked from the outside.

He stood up, brushing the dirt from his clothes before moving quickly away from the marketplace. It'd probably enter the rumor mill, but he wasn't like he had the greatest reputation on the island in the first place. Worst case, it got back to Em, but after his freak out in the lab, he didn't think that hole could be dug much deeper.

But he had bigger things to worry about than his personal issues--if the Book got its way, there wouldn't be anyone left on the island to gossip, and if he'd had any doubt that it had been found and read from, it was gone now.

Not that there really had been any in his mind, Jack was too good at what he did to get taken out by something normal. Something human. No, he hadn't listened when he'd told him to keep his distance and--

He was going to have to send word back to Jefferson, if it hadn't reached him yet. He didn't know if approval to check out the rumors had come from the president or if he'd been doing it off the books, he wouldn't put it past Jack to have made up some excuse to be sent there without sending off red flags of what might be waiting for him. He'd have to send a message through J.C., the bird was probably chasing tail somewhere.

Or perching at the Drunken Pig.

He'd check there first. If the locals were gonna think he was drunk, he might just oblige them.

By the time he reached the tavern, he had gotten his mind back into the game. Freaking out never helped. A nice, long scream always did wonders for his stress, but now wasn't the time or the place. Maybe he could slip away later to somewhere private.

A quick look around, and he found the parrot pecking at a cocktail.

He slid into the empty barstool. "J.C."

Jean-Claude raised himself up out of the glass. "Jack, have you come to share a drink?" Without waiting for an answer, he flapped his wings and whistled. "Another round for me and my friend! Put it on his tab."

"Gee, thanks." Crossing his arms on the bar top, he leaned over the bird. "I need you to deliver a message."

"No can do, I am--"

"I don't care what you have planned. I don't what you're doing. I don't care if you're drunk." Speaking of, he placed his hand over J.C.'s drink before he could even think about going for more. How the parrot could drink so much without getting alcohol poisoning was a mystery he'd never felt like prying into. "I have an important message for Jefferson." Casting his gaze around, he lowered his voice further, "Remember that Book I talked about?"

"How could I forget? It gave me nightmares."

"Yeah, well, it's surfaced." He paused. There was no going back from here. "Jack's dead."

Jean-Claude stilled.

"He went after it, and he's dead." His voice shook on the last word. Reading it was one thing, something that could be denied, but sending this message, that made it real. Solid. Jack was dead, and it was his fault. He shouldn't have agreed to play secret agent, shouldn't have went along with this whole farce. He should've just kept searching for the Book. It didn't matter that he got to this time period without a single, spendable coin to his name, he would've figured something out. He could've.

Ash never should have let anybody else get involved.