The Sin Hunter: Double or Nothing

A Psychoanalyst

As Jack stirred from his rest, eyes fluttering as he groaned, rolling across the mattress, the sound of a pistol clicking drew his ears back the other way. As Jack rolled over, facing the pistol barrel, he was alarmed to find Jules sitting beside the bed, her revolver raised to meet the Sin Hunter. Jack seized a pillow in fight or flight, holding the shield in front of his face. "Whoa, hey! Cut that out!" He shouted. Jules lowered the revolver, adjusting her fedora. "So you're awake. How are you feeling?" Jack rolled over, clutching his forehead. "Ugh...yeah, I'm not doing so hot. I feel like something ran into my throat and exploded." Jules chuckled softly, sitting back in her chair.

"About that. Jack...we need to discuss what happened yesterday." Jack raised his head from the pillow, puzzled. "What happened yesterday? Are we talking about after we got the documents and then left the way we got in?" Jules paused, eyes widened while she kept both hands on her revolver. Jack pushed himself, realizing that something he had said was bothering her. "What?" He asked, "is something wrong?" Jules cleared throat, turning away from the bed while she reached for the door handle. "Uh, yeah. No, everything's okay, Jack, really. I'm going to get mom, maybe she'll have a better idea of what's going on.

"My best advice for you is to just sit back and relax for a bit. You've been sleeping all afternoon." Jack nodded, resting a hand on his fedora to slide the hat over his head. "Suit yourself." Once Jules had left the room, closing the door behind her, she hurried across the room of the hotel to Cynthia, who was sitting at the table inspecting the documents from the morgue. "Okay, so we have a very big problem," she exhaled, sliding into a chair across from her mother. Cynthia lifted her glasses from her work. "Sorry, honey, what's up?" Jules crossed her hands, grimacing. "Jack doesn't remember what he did last night."

Cynthia gave her daughter an unnaturally surprised look. "He doesn't? How strange..." Jules nodded, sliding from her chair to pace back and forth around the room. "Jack's exploded like this before. Never in this extremity, but I've seen him do it. It's like some alternative personality takes over him." Cynthia crossed her arms, glaring at the paperwork on the table. "Well, if he's erupting like this around you at Western Ridge, I may reconsider sending you there over the summer." Jules shook her head, facing the door into Jack's bedroom. "I...I'm worried, mom. What if there really is something wrong with him?"

Cynthia placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder, giving her a warm hug. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'm sure that whatever Jack's dealing with, he'll figure out a way to get through it." Mother and daughter then focused their attention upon the large pile of papers and documents on the table, bathing in the warm yellow light from a lamp above. "In the meantime," Cynthia concluded, fixing her deep red glasses, "we need to get to the bottom of sorting this mess and finding everything we can on Liana." Jules nodded, suddenly brightening in the dim hotel room. "Oh! You know who I could call for just this occasion?"

Cynthia exchanged a puzzled look with her daughter. "Well, who did you have in mind?" Jules snapped open her phone, dialing a number from her International Folder. "She'll know what to do. An expert in the fields of psychology and handling stuff that Jack went through." Putting the receiver to her ear, Jules smiled when the line clicked open. After a moment of silence, Jules responded. "Hi, Lena! How are you doing, bestie?" On the other end of the line, in the rural countryside of France at Blackwell Manor, Elena Blackwell had been polishing off her fingerprints kit when she got the phone call from her most trusted American friend.

"I'm great! What's going on?" She asked. Jules stepped around a stack of papers, crossing her arms while she talked. "Yeah, so listen. You remember all those cool adventures we had dealing with threats from Hell and Heaven a few months back?" Elena nodded, fiddling with the lens of a microscope. "How could I forget? I almost died in that crazy power plant crash!" Jules nodded, turning to face Jack's bedroom door. "Yeah, so listen. Hell spat one of its Sinners out, and I think he really needs your help now more than ever." Elena rose from her seat, walking across her office space to a wine cabinet beside a stack of medical documents and notes.

"A Sinner? Who would Hell not want to drag into its fleshy, dark mess?" Jules sucked in a deep breath, then explained why Hell wouldn't want her mentor. There was an astonished silence from Elena when she heard the name, causing the Blackwell heir to collapse into her seat, combing a hand through her long, dark chocolate hair. It had, truthfully, been close to a decade since Elena had last met the man who set her on the path of psychology and mastery of detective work. "Wow. After all of these years...I never expected him to be back." Jules felt her eyebrows raising in relieved excitement.

"Wait, you believe me?" Eleanor kicked her boots onto the ledge of her desk. "Of course I do! Please, Julie, we've been through more adventures than, ah, what's a good American expression to use for this?" Jules laughed, sitting beside the table as if across the desk from her earpiece professor. "I get it, I get it! And don't worry, American expressions aren't worth a dime compared to what we've been through." Elena nodded, tilting her head back as she found her coat and hat sitting on the rack by the door. "Should I prepare a plane trip to America, or do you need me elsewhere?"

Jules chewed her lip, bringing her mother into the phone call as her finger tapped the Speaker button. The conversation swirled open into the room as if Lady Blackwell herself resided in the room. "About that. Elena, we need you to stay in France for the time being." Elena nodded, fixing her hair in a mirror beside a family portrait. "I see. Well, I'll be here if you need cover for anything. And remember, Sin Hunter, France is always open to your service if you need it." Jules nodded, hovering her finger over the End Call button. "And your work is always appreciated in America, Miss Blackwell. Thanks for your help, Lena!" "I'd do it any day, Julie!" The two exchanged goodbyes, then Jules hung the phone up, sitting back in her seat.

Cynthia folded her hands in patience, sliding down into her seat. "And that helped us how?" Jules turned with a grin, exchanging the messages she had swapped with Elena. "We organized special conversations regarding code words. The bit about Jack was genuine, but Elena gave me some advice on how we might be able to calm him down." Cynthia nodded, pushing her seat back while she faced the Sin Hunter's door. "I don't suppose we intend to give it a shot?" She asked. Jules cracked her knuckles, facing the blind-pulled window of the hotel room. "After what we just encountered, I don't think we have Jack to be worried about. It's keeping those demons out of our way."