Terrible Friend

34

Jax laughed out loud. The human understanding of Hell was comical to him. "Right. Burning, because that is what happens in hell. You humans and your made up stories. There is no burning in Hell. Unless you are a witch demon hunter that treads where you don't belong. We might burn you..." He shot a look at Beverly. The look on her face told him he was about to lose the brownie points he had scored from guessing her age light. "A hot dog on the grill more than you like it, maybe, but you don't burn there. It's not hot. Quite comfortable actually."

Beverly nodded in agreement. "It was more comfortable there than I expected."

"You have been there?" Albert shot up. The idea of knowing not one, but two people from Hell was exciting.

"I'm not like you Albert. I'm a Phareli. Basically a witch and a demon hunter, as a species if that makes it easier to understand. It's not my job, it's what I am. I can travel between the realms. There is a lot of bureaucratic bullshit to go through to do it, but..."

"Holy Shit!" Things were just getting deeper and deeper and Albert didn't know how to take it all in. His head started spinning. He leaned back in his recliner and thought, quietly, for a long time.

Beverly and Jax knew he needed some time to wrap his head around all of this. They agreed, before he woke up from the coma, that they would answer any of his questions and help him understand the way things really were, but right now, they needed an answer. Beverly was growing weaker by the minute.

Jax spoke up. "Look pal. I know this is a lot to take in right now. We kind of need an answer from you though. Beverly is growing weaker and the longer I stay...exposed...the higher the chances become that another hunter will be busting down the door to take me away."

Albert looked at Beverly more closely. She did look like she was exhausted. He hadn't noticed it before, but she was looking a lot older than she did when they got there. Things were starting to make sense to him. Magic explained a lot of it for him, for the moment. Beverly was using magic to keep Jax in his current form and if it was weakening her, he needed to end it for her. He absolutely did not want Jax back inside him though, whatever the cost, and he believed that Jax felt the same way. "What are the other options? I mean Jax needs to be bound, to something, not specifically me, right?"

Beverly and Jax looked at each other and then back at Albert. A panic spread over Jax's face. Binding to something meant being trapped inside an object for eternity. It would not break when Beverly died, releasing him to go back to Hell. Just trapped inside an object, forever. He hated the thought. Neither of them had an answer forth coming. They expected that the explanation of what would happen to Jax if he didn't agree to take him back would motivate him to just go ahead and say yes and they could get on with it.

Albert looked back and forth between the two of them. "Look. I spent 32 years believing that I was crazy. I don't want to be a jerk here, but the silence inside my head is amazing. I really don't want to just put it right back in there and I highly doubt that he wants to be stuck back inside either. There has to be a way to do it so it's not inside me." Albert stared hard at the necklace around Jax's neck. Then a thought occurred to him. "Does bound absolutely mean inside?"

Jax's face drooped. He had been thinking of maybe it being an option, as soon as he found himself standing before them in the flesh, but it had been a pipe dream. There was no way the magic would go for that. Demons were bound to things to imprison them. Then there was the whole being a human, with flesh, and feelings, and such.

Beverly opened her mouth to speak but a pounding on Albert's front door cut her off.  No one moves.  Suddenly, the door bursts open and Kovach rushes in.  He stops in the middle of the room. There is something in his hands, wrapped in a soft blanket. It's tiny and moving.

He looks  back and forth between Beverly and Albert. He looks nothing like the cop that stared Albert down in the interrogation room just a few days ago. Quite the opposite. His hair is greasy and pressed against his head, except for the piece that is dangling in his face. His clothes are dingy and wrinkled. His eyes are sunken in and he looks like he hasn't slept in days.

"I need your help. Her name is Analisa and I need you to hide her and keep her safe." He hands the wiggling bundle to Beverly. "I have to go. Please. Protect her better than I could."

Kovach left just as quickly as he came.  Jax followed him out the door and watched him get into a car and speed away.