Killing would bring Jack to him. Yes, killing in just the right way, with just enough of the John Hart flare…did he want it that way? Did he want the vengeful Jack?
He flexed his strong hands with their clever long fingers so good at death and thought. He wanted jack to love him again. Jack was far from innocent himself, which, John decided, made him more sensitive to acts of evil.
He grinned like a child and spun on one heel in place. So, no killing, or wait…no unnecessary killing. After all when Gray had held his reins he had exacted a terrible toll on this planet. Still, that didn't mean he had to lie down and die should some earthling creature decide to take it.
"Rule one, no unnecessary murders." He grinned to himself. His wrist band was bleeting and chirping at him. He frowned at it and flipped it open and stretched his mouth in an inhuman caricature of a grin of childish delight.
"Found you." He sang out and typed something in to the wristband then vanished. The cows in the field he had been standing in stared at one another for a long moment then resumed grazing and mulling their cud. The behavior of humanoids was beyond their understanding and thus of little long term interest.
Jack arrived on a vast expanse of cracked and weed infested concrete. He frowned at it then looked to the horizon. To his right was a smear he decided must be a hill of some kind, probably wooded. Ahead was a squat vast lump of gray concrete and steel. It felt decrepit and sad rather than menacing. He raised his head and inhaled deeply.
There, the faintest trace of that beloved scent. Overlaying it were two other scents. He recognized the stink of Jack's infatuation, that loud delightfully vicious woman with the warm lips. But…something else, someone else…
He inhaled again this time with his mouth slightly open tasting the air as he drew it in. The other was Jacklike, but not Jack. Male, adult but not old…and…there the acid taint he had missed in Jack…they were the same. Both immortal.
Rage shot through him, rippling through his muscles and bones filling him with strength and hate. Jack had found another that wasn't him. An immortal.
His jaws snapped shut and eyes opened. He radiated malicious loathing, ached to wipe this new rival from existence. But wait…was he a rival? Couldn't he perhaps be an ally?
The rage crested and settled as logic and cunning kicked in.
Gwen was there, she wouldn't trust him of course. Still, it gave him a place to start.