Krystal was sliding various accessories either in her pockets or on her body as she walked. Looking up to see Jack was the person Zoey was talking to she just froze. It was hard to say if she'd gone paler than normal.

Krystal just waved to Jack with her own sheepish gesture, "Yeee-ah. We've met."


"Interesting is one word for it." She looked over at Zoey after slipping on her sunglasses making her expression unreadable. After a moment she turned back to Jack. "Cursed. Cursed is a good word too." Then looking the sky she gritted her teeth and pointed a scolding finger to the powers that be.


Krystal's head rolled when she found out Tom had sent a text. "Typical. Just typical." she moved to get in behind the driver's seat and continue her rant until they met up with Tom;
"If I could go back in time and be 15 again I would have never stuck that rock in my mouth. Nothing but trouble ever since. Just once I'd like to go just a week without ending up in these oddball coincidences. It's like every Tuesday the powers that be get together and go 'Oh! What dance can we make the monkey do now? Dance, Monkey! Dance!'. I know for a fact I qualified for a scholarship to NYSU? They're in the WOLD'S top 10 as far as Drama schools go, but no. I have to fight demons between modeling gigs. Find cursed antiques on movie sets and meet talking cats in the woods. I don't even know what normal dreams are anymore. I think if I had a dream about being on vacation with Brangelina I'd wake up worried I'd would run into them only to save them from a Fyral Demon and with my luck Angelina would think Brad did all the work. 'Boy I sure am glad Brad was here.' That's probably what the dog on Inspector Gadget feels like. At least he gets a blonde side kick. I get David Tennant's Las Vegas Impersonator. Not that I'm complaining, but there are times..."

Zoey listened to every bit of Krystal's rant, despite some of her confusion she felt it was probably best to not ask for any clarifications. She simply shrugged and looked at Jack next to her, "We really only just met" she shook her head as she smiled and continued to listen to Krystal go on all the way till they reached Tabu.

"...go to Tabu. Have a few drinks." she was clearly reaching her wind down point. "It's never that easy. Can't even make new friends with out some kind of catch." she folded her arms and sat back for half a breath. "Oh! We're here?"

Despite the earlier protest, business seemed good at Tabú. There were a handful of people in front of both the club, and Belladonna's home next door, wearing shirts with the word "Security" in bold letters. Some of them were watching the crowd as it came and went from within the club, while a couple of others were having a staring contest with a pair of cops in a police car that was parked across the street. Things were peaceful with no signs of protesters or troublemakers.

She may seem quiet at first, but push her button and watch her go off! Jack thought, referring to Krystal. He parked the car, got out and surveyed the scene.

“I don’t know if your protest advanced your cause Zoey, but it seems to have employed the muscle-bound male demographic here in Chicago.” Jack insured his tools of the reporter trade were on him and  locked up the car. “Do you see Tom anywhere Krystal? We may have beaten him here.”

Ah, there he is. Tom saw Jack leaving the car, and retreated into the nearest shadows to change: there was no point in spending energy to remain in human form when it wasn't needed.

The moment Jack was looking elsewhere, Tom abandoned his cover: "Jack? Over here."

He looked at the other two: "Hey Krys... I've been looking for you."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:47, Fri 15 Nov 2013.

"Look harder Jack, it doesn't take just the male demographic to protect people" Zoey stated snarkily as she gestured to a few female security personnel. She walked over with the rest of the group when Tom called, "Hey, you must be Tom, I'm Zoey" she said as she extended her hand for a friendly greeting. "So what exactly are we all doing here?"

"Nice to meet you Zoey." He shot an interrogative glance at Jack,  then continued: "I called Jack because I have some information about what happened yesterday. Or rather, I will in a few minutes."

He pulled his new glasses out of his pocket and put them on. He looked at the others (taking a moment to memorize each aura) and said: "These glasses are a fair bit than they seem. Combined with the appropriate spell, they let me see back in time. Only the auras of the people involved, but that should be more than enough to figure out exactly what happened. There was a magical signature here, somebody did something, and I may be able to figure out what, and then, eventually who."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:06, Tue 19 Nov 2013.

"I was... detained, earlier."

She took a moment to explain to Zoey, "Tom and I were here when this girl collapsed. We met Jack when he started writing a story about it. Then I meet you and you just happen to know Jack. This is the part where someone goes; What are the chances of that? And I'm like; Happens to me all the time." she gestures to Tom, "Met this one under oddly similar circumstances and now we're roommates, so you can see where some of this frustration can come from."

Then to get back on topic she turned to Tom, "So, is this like psychometric-vision? Instead of feeling auras and impressions left behind on an object you're seeing them?" Her tone was that of a scholar discussing a new theory all of a sudden.

Zoey tried to take in all of the information as quickly as possible. She listened carefully with a quizzical look, she un-zoned suddenly and explained as she pointed at Jack, "Oh yeah, Jack is my uncle actually. And trust me that was just as much a surprise to us as it was to you guys" She giggled briefly before she realized that that made less sense and required a lot more explanation now, instead she chose to change subjects back to the main topic as well.

"This is awesome, I'm always up for a good sleuthing, I just wish I could be helpful. What do you see? Are we just these big colorful blobs? Ooh, what color am I?" Zoey stopped hoping she didn't sound too weird, especially to outside observers. She then turned to Jack and added, "Your job is so much cooler than mine"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:06, Wed 20 Nov 2013.

The men and women wearing the black "Security" shirts watched Jack, Tom, Krys and Zoey as they chatted on the sidewalk. Two of them slowly moved closer to the foursome.

"Now all we need is for Zoey and Tom to have met before to bring us full circle. Like they were buddies in a previous life, like that is even possible." Jack said. It does seem odd that in one way or the other, we have all been brought into this."

Jack spotted the security duo's approach. "I got this one." Jack stepped toward the security team as he produced his Press ID. "Good evening, boys. Jack Jennings, INS. My associates and I we'll need to go inside, look around for a bit, maybe talk to some of the staff. Belladonna assured me that you would be expecting us."

"Well, if you mean that as an abstract tool to conceptualize the end result, then yes, you could look at it that way. However, I am led to believe that the underlying mechanics are quite different. Psychometry reads leftover residue from psychic activity, so a single object can 'witness' different events in different times. This spell, on the other hand, focuses on a specific time, at the place where it is cast, which leads me to believe-" He noticed the blank expression on Jack and Zoey's face: "-that we can probably finish the discussion when we get home. I don't think our friends took Occultism 401 as an elective."



"You know Jack, now that you mention it, Zoey does look vaguely familiar... Did you work at an animal shelter or something like that?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:29, Thu 21 Nov 2013.

Zoey gave a smile in Tom's direction. "Not that I remember, these days I doubt my parrot would appreciate me coming home smelling like cats and dogs anyway."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:23, Thu 21 Nov 2013.

A tall woman, with short blonde hair, grabbed the ID out of Jack's hand. "You've got crappy eyesight for an investigator." The man standing next to her didn't say anything. She looked at the ID, and then glared at the rest of the group. "Who are they supposed to be, your seeing-eye-dogs?"

"Please excuse me. I don't see too well in the dark and I was focused on your uniforms. A simple mistake, I assure you. I am only human." Jack held out his hand with slight trepidation has he awaited the return of his credentials.

"My associates are here to assist me in this matter. Invariably, I alone may miss details, but collectively we will get to the truth. That is the result Belladonna has requested I uncover."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:37, Thu 21 Nov 2013.

"Human." The woman spat the word out like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "Might as well rent a blind bloodhound that's lost its sense of smell." She aggressively shoved Jack's ID back at him. "The house is off limits." She gestured to the sister mansion next to Tabú that was Belladonna's home. "Stick to the public areas of the club. You need anything else, you come see me first." She looked the group over one more time, and then returned her attention to Jack. "We'll be watching you. Don't disturb the customers, or you and I will have a problem. Understand?"

Jack pocketed the ID. "As you wish," he said with ever so slightly a nod of his head. He turned away from the security team and addressed Tom, Krystal, and Zoey. "You all heard our limits. Tom, you were telling us about some glasses you have?"

Zoey tried to smile as politely as possible but mostly decided to stand back and let Jack keep talking, after all there was no sense in making her hate all of them. As they started to depart the security she uttered some mostly unintelligible thing that was supposed to sound encouraging about them behaving but not too surprisingly the woman walked away without any further acknowledgment. "Smooth Jack, so glad you handled all that" Zoey said as she shook her head, "Yes, Tom, please show us how these work before someone changes their mind and we're asked to leave"

He led them to the garden on the rear where he and Krys had been the previous evening, moved to a place where he could see both that place and the exit, and focused on the spell.

"Here goes nothing..." He muttered as the spell took place, and then proceeded to describe the scene for the others' benefit.

"I see myself, Krys, and our friend Mr. Bond, at least I assume it was him, from the position of his aura. I can't see faces when I use this spell, just the auras. They aren't exactly blobs of light, either: they have a unique pattern, and you can tell them apart with relative ease if you pay attention."

A few seconds went by.

"There we go. I'm human again, and this means... There. Two people exiting the club. One of them has... Something... Distorting her aura... OK, that has to be some sort of spell, and it's dissipating quickly. Whatever it was, it happened before she left the club, or just on the door."

He watched the scene unfold, as he kept describing it, and saw the effects of his own power take hold: a little bit of luck, but he wasn't sure if it helped at all, in the end.

"And I guess the abulance will arrive in a few minutes, but I'm, not sure the spell will last that long, and we probably learned everything we can from  this particular vantage point. By the way, how's Ashley? I can't tell if my blessing helped at all, there."

Jack looked directly at Tom. "I'm sorry. Ashley didn't make it. She died this morning. I believe your blessing helped keep her around long enough until her family was able to be with her. So that's something." Jack hated being the bearer of bad news directly to people. He much preferred the detached way to telling the story via the internet.

"When we are all done here, we should really get to know each other over a beer, or stronger. I know just the place and the first round is on me."

He took a deep breath and blew it out to refocus. "Shall we go inside? I have never been in. I hear this is a hot place and I'm just dyin' ... can't wait to see it."

Tom froze.

Just for a moment, something in his eyes became different, and not quite human.

Then Jack managed to get his foot (a few toes, anyway) in his mouth again, and Tom seemed to relax just a fraction.

"Y'know Jack, I didn't really know Ashley. In fact, I knew just about two things about her: she was cute, and she was a good person. In my book, that's enough to make whoever killed her a bad person. Yes, let's get inside, I need to see the scene from a difference point."

Zoey kept her head low in silence, trying her best to not look as awkward as she felt. She didn't know any of the people involved in all of this and she was starting to feel a bit out of place as the bad news was passed on. Two seconds ago she was excited by the thrill of the case but she'd forgotten in the excitement that a real person who had probably touched many lives had lost her life in this 'story'. The more she thought about it the more she guessed she would hate Jack's job. She opened her mouth part way but no sound came out so instead she just nodded in agreement and followed the rest of them inside.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:00, Tue 26 Nov 2013.

Jack did a quick double take  in Tom's direction. That was twice. The first time might have been a slip of the tongue. But the eyes shifted. Mental Note: Tom appears to be more than human. Not now, maybe later over a beer, he thought. "Okay gang. Follow me." Jack headed up the few steps and through the doors into the club.