Double Or Nothing: A Coin Flip Away

Firelight's Fraternity

2 Years Ago...

"So you really stole his boots just like that?" "Couldn't have been easier than that! The best part is, he left his credentials in his boot, so we tracked the rest of his boys down pretty quickly." Flames crackled in the bed of dry pine needles surrounding the blazing ring of light, bringing the outlines of the rangers into focus. Jules sat across from the fire pit, her dark chocolate hair tied back into a tail beneath her hat and her eyes fixated on the snapping, twisting frame of the fire. Jack, opposite his protege, held a mug of whiskey in his knitted gloves. The fire crackled while an orchestra of crickets echoed in the canyon night.

Jules, seated on a fallen log, cracked her spine and knuckles with a grin. "Thanks for taking care of me the last two months. I wasn't sure about this training thing before, but you've brought me around on it." Jack exhaled softly, sipping from his mug. "My pleasure, kid. Your mom and I thought you'd need some self defense, regardless of where you go next." Jack's expression clouded with thunderous silence. "You'll need it when you leave Western Ridge..." Jules sat forward, puzzled by the sudden shift in tone. "W-what do you mean?" But Jack pushed his irritation away before Jules could ask further.

"Nothing. Sorry for giving you a scare." Jules crossed her hands between her legs, leaning forward with narrowed eyes. "See, you say that, but I've heard mom's stories before, Jack." Jack tilted his brim to the night sky, eyes worn and scarred by battle gazing into Jules' soul. "Really now. And what kind of stories did she tell you? About me? About her?" Jules broke away, fidgeting on her spot on the log. "Well, she told me about your real job. You...were a detective, right?" Jack chuckled, grabbing a toothpick from his armrest. Sliding the thin rod between his teeth, his back stretched out with a crack. "I did detective things, if that's it."

The detective's protege shrugged, pursing her lips. "Well, and-and that wasn't all mom told me, though." Jack set his mug by the leg of his chair, sitting upright. "Hmm. I presume she told you about a lot of things when you got older, didn't she?" Jules tapped her boots on the stone circle of the fire pit, avoiding eye contact with a man she now feared more than respected. "Mom told me about your adventures. Adventures that took you beyond the grave and back. But, uh," Jules stammered, waving her hands, "her words, not mine!" Jack had paused, lifeless as the wooden tapestry outside his front porch, a carving of a wolf devouring an eagle.

Jules took a slide across the log further away from her mentor, but when Jack rose to move around the fire pit to Jules, the teenager froze with her arms tingling. Jack reached for his right sleeve, sliding the rough denim back to reveal something burned into his wrist. It depicted a circle with the moon and several blood droplets surrounding it. Jules sucked in her breath, surprised by what she saw. "That symbol," Jack inhaled, "is a guilty man's mark. Because of this, my skin burns with a Sinner's regrets." Jules chewed at her lip. "Whoa. And does mom have that too? A Sinner's mark?"

Jack paused, his eyes flickering in the embers of the golden fire. "No." Jules stopped herself, puzzled by Jack's response. "She's not? Then what-" "She's a rare case," Jack cut in, shaking his head. The large beige bandana draped across his shoulders cloaked the ranger's face as Jack moved around the fire, his gloves clenching and unclenching. "Back where I was, before your mom and I returned to the Living World, your mom was no Sinner. She didn't act like one, at least not for the time I knew her." Jack hesitated at the field's edge, his gloves folded behind his back. "She was...scared, afraid of what could happen if...if..."

Jules rose from the fireplace, cracking her knuckles. "No, Jack, don't. You don't have to finish that. I see how much trouble it's stirring on your shoulders." The ranger's protege stopped, turning to face Jules with a smile. "You're too much like her." Jules chuckled, crossing her sleeves. "And never enough like my dad," she smirked. Although Jack laughed with Jules, something about her words pierced his mind, causing the detective to freeze. 'That dirty bastard,' Jack held back, clenching his fist. In the end, it seemed like Jules was Asmodeus' spiteful parting gift from their duel.

Jack turned with worn and weary eyes, watching Jules beside him, her eyes filled with the blazing embers of the fire pit and the cosmic void of the stars above. As the wind drifted through the field, fluttering in rippled patterns across the sea of tall grass, Jack placed a hand on his brooch, a silver badge with a falcon and a wolf's fangs carved into the emblem. "Julie, there's something I think ought to be said. About all this." Jules chewed at her lip, turning to her mentor. "It's about me, isn't it? I'm...I mean, I'm your kid, aren't I?" Jack pursed his lips, smirking through a thin growth of stubble.

"I couldn't work up the courage to tell you, kid. I don't even think your dad knows about it." Jules swayed to and fro in the breeze, clutching the brim of her fedora. "I mean," she paused, slowly drawing a breath, "when I first met you after my brother's play, I knew something was off. We're too much alike to be a coincidence." Jack nodded, placing a warm leather glove on his protege's shoulder. "I guess that's the case after all." The rangers stood in eternal silence, watching the embers fade as the stars grew brighter above.

"You can't tell anyone what we've discussed tonight." Jules placed her hand on her biological father's coarse gray poncho. "Agreed. It's not worth discussing further." Jack nodded, flicking a grain of wheat from the field in his teeth. Jules turned with stars in her eyes. "That said...is that why you chose to bring me out here?" Jack turned with a calm, silent stare, then drifted back toward the stars above the field with hardly a shrug. "Maybe."