Oracle

Part 27

Jaspar was in a forest, which considering the city had no real woods in them suggested he was outside of the city. It was dark and he could hear the wind moving through the leaves gently. A calm night but because of the trees, Jaspar couldn't see the sky to tell if the moon was there or not. There was no sign of the warden however which made him frown.

"We need to get you some gloves," Elison's voice commented from far away, Jaspar still able to feel Elison hugging him to his chest. Jaspar almost laughed as he watched the scene waiting for what he was meant to see to happen. Skin contact made sense as a trigger but they hadn't actually realised that yet. Calder had even hinted at it.

Suddenly there was a loud noise of a car driving at full speed down a dirt road, a creature chasing it. The trees and plants moving to try to stop the car. Whoever was being attacked, was being attacked by someone powerful in the fae world, someone powerful enough to be able to control the spirits of the land.

The car flipped and the smell of gasoline covered him. People ran from the car, some Jaspar couldn't see but a woman and a man headed towards where he was standing. Both with black scales on their cheeks and wings starting to sprout from their backs. The car blew up behind them and the Jaspar could feel the heat against his skin. The people fell down, covering their heads. The creature howled as the flames started to burn the trees, the smell of wood burning not quite overpowering the scent of gasoline burning. As wood began to crack from the heat, there was a huge gust of wind which blew the flames out on the plant life out, though the car itself was still on fire.

"Run!" Maria's voice yelled through the night and the sound of the wind, vines crawling around her to pin her down. "Tim, run!" she screamed through the forest, fighting against the vines which were trying to pin her down.

The vines weren't trying to pin the man, instead, the monster was walking towards him slowly and with purpose. A purpose which was dark and full of anger. The man scrambled to his feet and try to run again from the beast. Though Jaspar was unable to get a good look at the beast's face, he was suddenly aware of the beast grinning. A fallen branch lifted in the air and wood shaved off it slowly to shape it into a spear. The creature shifted and the projectile flew towards Tim.

Maria slashed the vines around her, diving towards the man. She pushed the man out of the way just in time, but not in time to get out of the way herself. The sound was sickening as a sharp wooden spear slammed in her torso. There was utter silence as she collapsed, another gut wrenching sound as her head hit the ground hard. Tim just sat there on the ground, looking at the sight in horror. The only sound, the sound of flames burning.

"Maria!" Tim screamed as the horror of the situation hit him but the vines wrapped around him before he could move to help her. The creature loomed towards Maria, a wooden hand reaching down towards her broken body before whipping around to snarl at Tim, the hand transforming into spikes.

"You will pay," a dark and unfamiliar voice echoed through the forest.

"Jaspar," Elison whispered into his ear. "Come back to us."

The vision faded with the words, not revealing what the creature had done to Maria and Tim after that but the sickness Jaspar felt in his stomach didn't. An overwhelming feeling of guilt. The smell of burning filling his nose, though the smell of burning the two warden's had brought into the Rook had faded a while ago. He frowned unhappily as he felt a mixture of sickness and fear, hugging his arms close to himself. Jaspar realised as well that he was aware of more than just the vision.

"Jaspar?" Elison murmured gently into his ear, able to feel that Jaspar had relaxed slightly from the vision.

"Gloves, definitely need to get gloves," Jaspar panted. "At least that time didn't hurt as much as the others," he joked, collapsing into Elison's hold. One of the joys with how tactile Elison was with Jaspar was that when he needed to collapse and rest against someone, he could.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise," Maria commented, sounding genuinely upset with having caused Jaspar to have a vision.

"It's fine," Jaspar smiled weakly, waving it off. He and Elison had only just figured out then that it was skin contact which triggered the personal future divinations. It wasn't like Maria to know.

"Pup's tougher than just a vision," Donny chuckled from the side. The men in the room joining in the laugh in an attempt to relax the cold air which was currently in the room.

"I saw two things, but more pressingly, I saw who was chasing you," Jaspar admitted softly. While he had been in the vision, the backwards foresight thing which had happened with Calder had also happened with the warden and he was suddenly aware of a detail that the two of them hadn't noticed.

"That so?" Maria said sounding a little surprised, moving backwards logically to go finish patching up Tim who was panting heavily in pain.

"Yeah. New gift apparently because of all this," Jaspar gestured to his eyes casually. "There weren't many clues but they had a crest on their uniform. It had a black background with a purple flaming set of horns, with a white skull about it." He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eye sockets. Sometimes his eyes still itched, it was a similar thing to phantom pain syndrome according to Doctor Green who had seen him the day before.

Several people whistled around him, a mixture of impressed and horrified. Elison picked Jaspar up and held him bridal style as the bodyguard moved them somewhere before sitting down with Jaspar in his lap. A glass of water was pressed into his hands as always when Jaspar went through an episode and he dutifully drank it as the others in the room considered the implications of this.

"Someone must have taken out a hit," Maria cursed viciously with some words mixed in that Jaspar hadn't realised could be used as swear words. "We are going to have to get you to Lita's. She'll put you up for a few days while you are healing, hopefully."

"I'm not hiding!" Tim growled, sounding angry at the very suggestion, before hissing as Maria must have tucked painfully at whatever injury she was patching up.

"Stronger and stupider men have hidden for less," Elison commented darkly, taking the glass from Jaspar when he was finished. The words rumbled through Jaspar from where he was leaning against Elison's chest. His knees were curled to the side and he was in the crook of Elison's arm, his head against Elison's shoulder. Jaspar felt tired and Elison was nice and warm. "The ram skulls are some of the best assassins in the city. They aren't an easy organisation to get free off once you have been marked." Elison added.

"Also you are not hiding, you are healing and putting in a p701 form to your supervisor. It is illegal to put out a hit on a Warden and if you file the form and managed to survive for a few days, it will be dealt with," Maria said firmly.

"It's that easy?" Elison said sounding genuinely surprised by the idea that might just be a form to fill in in order to get assassins 'dealt' with.

"I had the red arrows after me once. My supervisors said they would deal with it and well," Maria commented idly, "I'm still here, aren't I?" There was silence after those words as no one could deny that fact. Jaspar shivered at the tone of her voice. Scarily honest and truthful. Jaspar wondered who the warden's superiors were to be able to get rid of assassins.

The silence was broken by the sound of a door swinging open and a very tired and sleepy voice asking, "What's going on?" It was Justice, having been woken up by all the noise. "Wardens?" he added almost politely through the grouchiness in his voice revealed he wasn't too happy at being woken up so early in the day.