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Ianto sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose as he turned to leave the room but he slammed into Jack who was entering, the force of his desired departure sending both men into the doorframe.

"Aw! Shit!" Jack clutched at the back of his head as Ianto cursed as well, pulling Jack away from the framework to check his scalp and he sighed as Jack's fingers came away bloody, shoving the hand away to spread the hair apart himself.

"Aw, barely a scratch ya baby" Ianto scoffed, then leaned in to blow on it, his lips pressing against Jack's forehead before pulling back and smiling apologetically.

"You OK?" Owen asked and Ianto turned to him.

"Sorry, it's the smell. I can't stand the smell of sulphur" Ianto admitted an Owen saw for the first time how pale Ianto had become so he motioned them from the room and they stumbled into the back yard of the small semidetached they had been bagging the body in.

"OK, spill!" Owen demanded, his eyes almost shining as he clutched at Ianto's coat and then he stepped back with a yelp as Ianto did exactly that, leaning forward and vomiting his breakfast into the little ornamental garden by the back steps. Owen had never seen Ianto react to a crime scene like that before, even if it was a Lestil attack. Ianto usually was the calm one picking up bits of what was once a person and commenting on the drapes.

"Sorry" Ianto said again, taking beep lung-fulls of air "The smell. Sulphur."

"Yeah, they pee all over their food source, you know that's why it will be so pissed when it comes back and finds it gone" Owen said as he reached out to pat Ianto's' shoulder, "That's why we need to clean up and get ready for a shit storm show down."

"Shit storm show down" Ianto repeated, "Good one."

Owen waited as he watched Jack return for the house with a glass of water that Ianto gratefully accepted, then he looked at Owen and sighed "OK, we have time once we finish bagging OK? You two go back on and finish while I get my breath back and then I will tell you the story, yeah?"

Owen lit up "Cool!"

Ianto leaned back against the coal bin and thought back to the memory hidden so deep he had almost forgotten it. So many deaths, so many hurts and he wondered why this one had been pushed so deep.

"OK" Ianto said once they were settled in the SUV "We have time for one."

"Yes!" Owen punched the air and the jiggled in the seat to get comfortable, reminding Ianto of an unruly little beast.

"It was …1680 something. God, end of a tumultuous century and there had been little to crow about with all the unrest and civil disobedience, add to that the distrust in your own neighbour it was only a matter of time before my little act got found out." Ianto sighed as he closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the seat, his hair longer now as it curled around his collar and Jack knew soon it would be long enough for a tail like most Highlanders wore, "So he came to town looking to trade with a local antiques dealer and saw me walking along with the current one of my lust filled dreams. God, he was pretty. Little, lithe and could bend over and touch his toes if ya know what I mean."

Jack snorted as Owen canted his head not understanding then he frowned, "Bastard. Cheeky bastard, go on!"

"Right. So anyway, he saw me and immediately told the person next to him that he had known someone who looked exactly like me when he was a young child, of course he was an elderly man and when he stepped into the street and called my name I turned. Fuck, it had been almost fifty years since I had heard the Lord Flannery title but I turned." Ianto snouted as he shook his head sagely, "Of course the entire town knew within a matter of minutes as I stood in the street completely undone with an elderly man ranting as he pointed a bony finger at me."

"Witch" Jack hissed, "Shit, I barely got out a couple of times, yeah. They loved the old witch …shit. Sulphur."

"Yeah"

Owen's head was whipping back and forth, "Huh?"

"You see Owen, when they burn you at the stake for the heresy of being witch they build a huge pyre around the stake they placed in the town square of preferred burning field. They leave a path so they can lead the witch to the stake and tie them to it, stand them on a chair. You see the thing is, they soak the gown or shirt in sulphur so it burns nicely. Some places, they gave you bags of gunpowder to put under your arms and between your legs so you would die quickly but those who were cruel simply burned you as you were, you would writhe in pain for a long time, screaming as you felt your skin slough off. In this particular case it was sulphur. A common one. A rope around my neck, sulphur in my nose and …woosh!"

Owen was still, his eyes wide.

"Some places hung male witches, some were hung drawn and quartered but I had to pick one where they burned them. Lucky really, being quartered might have been awkward" Ianto sighed softly, "It was one of those things where I knew I was going to die so I thought I would be stoic and give them a show. In the end I screamed like everyone does."

"How long did it take?" Owen asked.

"Long enough for me to have discovered I would rather not do that one again little one" Ianto smiled, "But I got my own back."

"Yeah?" Owen looked up with interest.

"I waited for a couple of years until I was no longer so…burnt up about it" Ianto waggled his eyebrows and watched Owen snigger at the use of words he knew would tickle his weird sense of humour, "Then I went back to the town the old man lived in."

"Why?"

"Dark, moody and I tried to always make sure there was mist. It took about three months to scare the bastard, stalking him and whispering his name, spooking his horse from behind the bush as I ran across the road up ahead … Then one night I stood in his orange grove and I screamed like a wild banshee." Ianto laughed as Jack suddenly realised what he had done and slapped at him, "Yeah. Heart attack, they say he died of fright."

"Epic" Owen said with glee.

Ianto smiled and then his hand shot out the window of the SUV with a speed that made Owen jump with surprise, the gargled noise as the creature his blade had just slid into the only sound apart from the splatter of its blood hitting the road.

Owen peered out his window down as the convulsing thing on the ground and repeated, "Epic!"

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You can thank redro32244 for this one. xxxx