Toby bounded up the three flights of stairs to his apartment floor with near supernatural speed. His hand trembled as he unlocked his door and his heart raced, though more out of eagerness than physical exertion. Once in his apartment, he darted to his bedroom, more specifically the closet in his bedroom, and swung its door wide. There was the usual assortment of stuff, shirts, pants, shoes, but these articles were inconsequential to him as he flung them out of his way. He dug to the bottom of the right corner of his closet and, underneath a growing pile of dirty laundry he found what he had been searching for. Straightening from his hunched over position, he withdrew an inconspicuous shoebox.

He took his treasure over to his bed and unceremoniously dumped out its contents. Photos from his past spilled over his comforter and he started rummaging through them. There were pictures of family gatherings, school functions, holidays and everyday events; mementos of happier days. Toby quickly passed over these. It was not his intent to relive the good old days. Finally he found the image he was searching for.

He pulled forth a worn photo of his sister taken the night of her school play 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. It was a Polaroid (all the rage back in the day) and Sarah played the lead. She was dressed in a light blue frock, grasping a complimentary bouquet of carnations in her hands, posing in front of the school's auditorium windows, the perfect image of beauty and innocence. It was a late winter day and there was snow on the ground and clinging to the barren trees. The lighting outside was dusky, indicating the approach of nighttime, but he could still clearly make out the objects in the background. The subject of the picture wasn't extraordinary in itself as much as the eerie visitor caught on film in the backdrop that had jarred his memory.

There perched on a branch outside the large glass panes, staring keenly at the aspiring young thespian, was a snow white owl.

Undeniable certainty swept over the young man. He knew it was Jareth hidden inside the snowy white feathers of the owl, oh there was no doubt. He recognized him by the way it stared at his sister, unwavering, calculating, with an undisguisable want. All this projected easily through the photograph. It was the same look he saw in Jareth's eyes the night he took Sarah.

(Sarah, how good it is to see you again…. You know very well what I want…. No matter the cost, no matter how long, I would never rest until I had you by my side….)

Toby pulled in shallow little breaths as he stared at the picture. He could barely suppress the trembling in his fingers. In his hands, he held photographic proof connecting Jareth to the skin walker in Shoshonean myth. The implication was staggering to him. Everything he had read about the Goblin King up to that point was, at best, unconfirmed accounts about him, offering up no real substantiation to their validity. This was irrefutable evidence that these people knew of him and had dealings with him long, long ago. Though he couldn't attest to the credibility of everything else he read between the book's turquoise covers, this bit was a shred of truth into the mystery of the Goblin King, and therefore was a true and accurate source. And if they knew about him transforming into an owl, then what else did they know about him?

Mind reeling with possibilities, Toby wrestled his newly acquired prize out of his bag and flipped to the pages that mentioned the Goblin King/Dzoavits. He reread the entry, focusing on the part about how the divine ones trapped him beneath the earth. It wasn't hard to draw a correlation between the cave in the myth and the underground which Jareth spoke about.

(For centuries I lanquished in that accursed land, bound to it, unable to take vengeance upon my enemies….)

Toby scoured the rest of the text for any other mention of Dzoavits but found nothing more on him. Slightly put off, he tossed the book to the side and examined the picture of Sarah and the white owl again. His discovery that Jareth could change into an owl was a huge revelation, the biggest he had in awhile. It possibly gave him a new source with insight into the Goblin King.

Toby found dependable accounts hard to come by. The last reliable source he had was a professor by the name of James Kearn who was now in a nursing home after suffering a stroke that left him aphasic seven years earlier. On the day of his stroke, Professor Kearn had met with Sarah earlier and divulged some information to her about siabhras in general and the Goblin King in specific and suggested they meet with a shop owner in New Haven that might help them. That night, his neighbor found him lying on his kitchen floor, unconscious from an intracerebral hemorrhage. Though there was no way to prove it, both Toby and Sarah suspected Jareth had a hand in the unfortunate man's condition.

With the professor effectively taken out of the picture, Toby and Sarah had few other means to aid them in their plight. The proprietor of the shop that Professor Kearn suggested they see (a ridiculous woman going by the name Morgaine Darkmyst) was of absolutely no use. She touted healing stones and pigeon feathers and was under the delusion that siabhras were playful little sprites that snacked on fruit and spoiled cow byproducts. She had no idea how dangerous these spiritual beings she advocated on behalf of really were. In the end, she was no more helpful than the scores of fairy tales Toby had come across in the past seven years.

But there was another source with insight into the Goblin King. It was during that same outing that Toby and Sarah ran into their cousin who at that time was dabbling in witchcraft. It was through her that they were introduced to a mystic Kaitlin only ever referred to as her Domina, her actual name was never revealed.

(Because there is power in names….)

She knew about the Goblin King and even more importantly she knew how to ward him off, perhaps even defeat him. She would have the answers. Toby sought her out immediately after Sarah was taken only to find she had gone missing the same time as his sister. When he made the seventy-plus mile drive to her apartment (and with a little brute force he applied to the door) he found it deserted. The apartment was lifeless, devoid of all furnishings and trappings, not even a scrap of paper remained. It was as if the woman that once lived there had never existed. The Domina had disappeared with out a trace. The only thing that alluded to a previous inhabitant was a few words scribbled on the floor where a couch once sat. It was in a language Toby was unfamiliar with and looked as if they were hurriedly scratched out in chalk:

CAVENDUM EST, UT VIGILANS

(Be careful, he is watching)

And that was it. Toby tried enquiring after her identity; asking neighbors and even calling the rental manager. Nobody knew who she was. There was only one person that could possibly help him.

Toby was hesitant to call Kaitlin, worried that his inquiries might arouse suspicion from his cousin about Sarah's disappearance. He had no idea how much she knew about his situation or more poignantly how much she would tell. If he were to start asking her about her mentor and if she were to connect it to Sarah's disappearance, who knew what kind of conclusions she would draw or what kind of assertions she could make. It was an enormous risk but one he would have to take.

Kaitlin seemed surprised when she received his call. She began by offering up reassurances that Sarah was okay and that they would find her any day now. He agreed with her and they bantered a bit about the police search and news coverage. Shortly though, Toby brought up the subject of her Domina and all conversation came to a halt. She sharply replied that she didn't want to talk about that and when he pressed her for a name she insisted that she didn't know it and hung up the phone. Toby tried calling her back but his call went unanswered. Any chance of getting a name was gone now. He had rattled her, and badly. She had responded to his questions with hostility but he heard the fear in her voice. He knew she wouldn't talk to him again.

But that was hardly the end of his interaction with his cousin. Years later he would become reacquainted with her at a family get together to celebrate his college graduation. Toby's Uncle Paul and his family attended, Kaitlin in tow with the rest of them. At first, Toby hardly recognized her. When last he saw her, she was sporting jet black hair with blood red lipstick and lots of eyeliner. Since then, she let her hair grow out in its natural red color and wore makeup more complimentary to her complexion. She even looked like she grew an inch or two. Toby made friendly chatter with her, that she politely reciprocated, but there was a look of guarded distrust in her eyes, the memory of their last call evident. Even though he wanted to pry that name out of her, he deemed it better to find his way back into her good graces before asking again. So he made light conversation with her, speaking easily with her about college and her classes in graphic arts. Unable to sense any ulterior motive, Kaitlin began warming up to her older cousin. By the end of the evening, Toby had forged a new amity between them that he previously thought unattainable.

Their reconciliation wasn't the only unexpected result of his graduation party. During the course of the evening, Toby had introduced Kaitlin to Shane and his long time friend developed an attraction to the pretty redhead. They hit it off famously and after a few months, the two started officially dating. Kaitlin became more firmly integrated into Toby's circle due to her and Shane's relationship and with that integration came camaraderie between the two cousins. The three of them would often go out together and Toby became so fond of her that he even hired her to design his websites.

But despite his affection for his cousin, there was still that unrelenting desire to find her one time Domina festering in his brain.

Toby was so caught up in his thoughts that he unconsciously let the picture drop from his hand. Not wanting to lose it among the others, he quickly snatched it back up, disturbing the pile of photos as he did so. It was then that something curious grabbed his attention.

He reached down and picked up another picture and closely examined it. It was a picture of Sarah (beaming a great smile) that was taken the day she moved into student housing when she first started college. She stood in the center of her room, boxes and bags surrounding her, a chaotic symbol of new found independence. Her dorm was small and its only window was cramped between a meager dresser and desk that the college provided her but it was easily visible in the picture. The objects outside were a bit out of focus, but through colors and shapes, one could suitably deduce what they were. Judging by all the greenery and light dappling, plus the fact that her room was situated on the second floor, Toby assumed it was tree branches outside her window. But what had initially caught his eye was in the right bottom corner almost out of the window's view was a solid patch of white that looked suspiciously like a wing.

Toby's stomach dropped. He immediately started fumbling through the rest of the photos, searching for any with Sarah and the white bird in it. His search left him aghast. In almost every picture of Sarah where there was some access to the outdoors, he was there, watching her. Though not always easily visible in every picture, with further investigation, Toby spotted the telltale white owl. On branches outside her bedroom window when she was sixteen, atop a street sign on Halloween night, 1991, as he and his sister posed outside in their Ninja Turtles costumes. Even in his keychain picture of him and Sarah hugging at his one football game, there perched on the one field goal was an owl.

He pulled out dozens of pictures of Sarah, in different stages of her life, with her supernatural predator keeping a close eye on her. Toby felt violated, not for himself but for his sister. Jareth had been stalking and spying on her for years, shadowing her wherever she went. From her expressions in the pictures, Sarah seemed oblivious to her feathered stalker and for that he was grateful. At least she had some peace and normalcy in her unknowing, but it sickened Toby seeing him haunt her every step.

Yet despite how defiled and appalled he felt on behalf of his sister it in no way prepared him for his next revelation.

Having removed all the photos that had Sarah and the owl/Jareth in them, Toby gathered the rest up in a pile and began putting them back into their cardboard home. It wasn't until he was replacing the lid that he spied a photo he hadn't previously noticed. It wasn't a picture of Sarah, in fact she was nowhere to be seen in the four corners of the photograph. The scene depicted was ordinary enough; it was a picture of a rosy cheeked boy of three, with golden curls, playing in his backyard sandbox on a sunny afternoon. The little cherub in the photo was happily engrossed with his shovel and pail that he never even realized the danger he was in. It was barely discernable amidst the brush and foliage of the hedgerow that served a property line but it was there at the far end of the yard.

Hidden in the undergrowth, behind a set of monstrous teeth was a pair of bulging, lidless eyes watching him from the shadows.

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Author's Note: Here it is, as promised, Chapter 3! Sorry for the long delay, I was in the throes of another story. I shall try to keep the updates a little more consistent from here on out. Anywho, it's up at last and I hope you all enjoy it!