Chapter Eight
She didn't know when she had finally given in to sleep, but when Devereaux awoke in the holding cell, it was evening. It had been approximately an hour after the prince left that the dwarves had arrived to repair the station's door and those repairs had taken them about ninety minutes. By her estimation, she must have fallen asleep around four or five in the afternoon, but it was definitely evening now. Except for a few emergency lights, the station was dark and she was left in solitary again.
Thirsty, she searched for the bottle of water that had spilled out of the paper bag when she'd angrily shoved it to the floor earlier. She had to get down on her hands and knees to retrieve it from under the cot and as she did, she became very aware that she was being watched. Had the prince–slash-sheriff returned to insult her some more or would she find herself face to face with Sheriff Emma again? Twisting the cap from the bottle, she lifted her head to see a somewhat familiar face, although she couldn't quite determine who it was until he opened his mouth to speak.
"Hello, Captain Sinclair," a deep voice spoke to her as a man stepped out of the shadows and approached the holding cell. "We have a matter of some unfinished business to attend to."
"You look different in this world," Devereaux stated as she recognized his identity. "Slightly less reptilian than the Rumplestiltskin I met in the Enchanted Forest."
"You can call me Mr. Gold here, but our deal still stands and you haven't kept up your end of the bargain."
"Mister Gold?" Devereaux sneered. "Love the irony. At least it makes more sense to me than Hook calling you a crocodile. I've always thought that snake was just a much more fitting adjective."
"You can call me whatever you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you failed to deliver the looking glass you promised."
"It's not my fault that the Queen's curse messed with the timeline. It took me decades to track down the Jolly Roger and when I did, it was in a land I couldn't get to. Do you know how long it took me to find a magic bean I could steal to get here?"
"And did you find what you were looking for?"
"No - but not for lack of trying. I had the mirror and the last place I saw the handle was in Hook's safe in his quarters on the Jolly Roger. I just couldn't get the safe opened. It uses something as its key that I've never encountered before."
"What do you mean you had the mirror? You lost it?"
"I dropped it when Hook surprised me on his ship. Your sheriff has it now and since she certainly has magic, I'm quite sure that she's figured out that it's a magical object."
"So let me get this straight – you let Emma get the looking glass and you don't even know if Hook actually had the handle to it in his safe. From what I can see, I don't think there's a reason for me to keep you around anymore."
Devereaux found herself actually fearing for her life for the first time in a very long time. When she'd stolen the mirror from one of the treasure chests aboard a king's flagship, she hadn't known that the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, had been vying for the same item. It wasn't in her possession for half a day before he'd sought her out – offering to make a deal with her if she could procure the handle. Being young, arrogant and ignorant, she'd agreed, eagerly taking him up on his promise of a potion that would maintain her youth forever.
"I can still get it back. I'm not afraid of your sheriff and I'm certainly not afraid of Hook."
"Considering that you're on that side of those bars, it would appear that you've already underestimated Emma Swan one time too many and I certainly don't think that you're in any position to renegotiate our contract. You failed to get the object you promised – even with specific instructions about what crate it would be in. Hook got the best of you then and I was benevolent enough to grant you more time, but now your time's up, dearie."
In a defiant stance, Devereaux stepped directly up to the bars of the holding cell and stared straight into Gold's eyes.
"You can kill me – rip my heart out, but you don't know what the compact or the handle look like. You'll never find both without my help."
"What you don't understand, Captain, is that your services are no longer needed. I wanted the looking glass to open a portal for me but I have no need for it anymore. Yes, I could rip your heart out and crush it, but since you no longer have anything of value to trade, I think it's more fitting if I just cancel our contract and reverse the potion that has kept your face so pretty for all of these years."
A horrified look crossed Devereaux's face as she realized what he meant. He wasn't going to give her the dignity of a quick death. Hers would be slow and agonizing.
"You can't do this! I've been under the spell of your potion for so long, if you undo it, I'll be an old woman…I'll be more than a century old…"
"I guess we'll see if you age gracefully then. But I'm not counting on it."
Devereaux shuddered as she felt a chill come over her, the life force draining from her body as a grey streak appeared at her temple, standing out in stark contrast to her ebony locks. Suddenly, the cocky, headstrong pirate was gone as she cried out in terror.
Settling onto their vintage burgundy sofa under orders from Emma, Killian found her worry for his welfare both mildly amusing and somewhat overbearing. They hadn't been back home for thirty seconds when she'd sent him to the couch. Physically, he was perfectly fine. All traces of the widowsbane poison and all remnants of the sedatives were gone from his system, a fact that even Whale had confirmed before releasing him, but to some extent, Emma was still treating him as an invalid. At least he had gotten his hook back on the drive home – not that she'd been given a choice in that matter when it had already been laying on the seat of the car as he'd opened the door. He felt completely like himself again, but she was being a tad obsessive.
"Go sit down and I'll find us some breakfast," she'd ordered as the stepped through the front door and she pushed him toward the sofa.
"I'm perfectly capable of getting my own breakfast," he'd replied, but she disagreed and he knew it was an argument he wasn't going to win.
"Just sit. You should probably take it easy for a day or two."
"In case you've forgotten, I've just spent the better part of the last two days sleeping. I would say I've done enough taking it easy for the foreseeable future."
"Don't argue with me," she shouted from the kitchen. "I'll chain you to the sofa if I have to."
"Yes, I suppose you would," he muttered quietly, wanting to express his displeasure out loud, but not really wanting her to hear what he'd said.
"What was that?" she asked, not having heard exactly what he said, but correctly assuming that it had been some sort of snarky, sarcastic commentary. Not really wanting an argument, Killian was actually quite relieved when her cell phone rang. Maybe after a distraction, she'd stop coddling him.
Juggling a frying pan in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other, she found her phone on the kitchen countertop and had to use the knuckle on her pinky finger to answer the call, seeing that it was from her father.
"Hang on," she said to David as she fumbled to find the speaker button so that she didn't have to hold it to her ear. She set the eggs down next to the stove and turned on the phone's hands free speaker. "Okay – got it on speaker. What's up?"
"Emma, I know that you and Hook just got home from the hospital a little bit ago, but I need you to come down to the station immediately."
"Okay," Emma replied, concerned with the urgency in David's voice. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
"I actually need both of you here. Is he feeling up to it?"
"Aye," Killian replied from the kitchen doorway, ignoring Emma's insistence to stay on the couch. "I'm fine. We'll be there in a few minutes."
As she disconnected the call, Emma glared at him, still clutching the handle of the frying pan.
"Unless you're planning to hit me with that, Swan, I suggest you put it down so that we can get going." She just shook her head as he grinned back at her. There was just no arguing with that smart ass smirk.
Mere minutes later, Emma practically burst through the newly repaired station door, unsure of what might be so pressing that David insisted they both needed to be at the station so quickly. His sense of urgency with the call had been reminiscent of her own call for help nearly thirty six hours earlier – short on details but heavy on mystery and emotion. Killian followed Emma through the open door, somewhat more cautiously since his last visit to this building had put him in the hospital. He wasn't taking any unnecessary risk this morning.
David was waiting just inside the door, anticipating their arrival and the expression on his face spoke volumes. He was clearly confused, but maybe a bit more on the dumbfounded side.
"Emma, we've got a problem," David said the moment she'd opened the door.
"Nothing new there," she replied. Problems were usually the minor speed bumps in her life. Question was, would this one lead to a full blown crisis? "What kind of problem?"
"Take a look for yourself," David stated, directing her toward the holding cell. "How do you explain that?"
With a somewhat skeptical glance, she moved closer to the holding cell, spotting exactly what David had been so worried about – lying in the middle of the concrete floor of the cell was a body.
It was clearly a woman's body – slumped over on her knees with her face buried in her hands, but while she was clad in the same black denim jeans and hooded sweatshirt that Devereaux Sinclair had been dressed in at the time Emma had jailed her, this woman couldn't have been Devereaux. This woman had long, brittle grey hair. Had their pirate prisoner somehow switched places with this poor woman whose pose suggested that she had been frightened to death?
"What the hell?" Emma questioned her own sanity for a moment. "I sealed the lock. There was no way that Devereaux could have escaped. How did she manage to change places with this woman?"
"The lock is still sealed," David reminded her. "I couldn't open the cell to check on her when I got here. This isn't making any sense."
"It does if that is actually Devereaux Sinclair," Killian stated as he stared between the bars at the figure on the floor, sensing something familiar about the woman's corpse.
Emma was now mirroring David's dumbfounded expression.
"How could that be Devereaux?" Emma wondered. "We've all seen her. She's only in her thirties at most. That woman in there has to be at least a hundred years old."
"And you're saying that to a three hundred year old pirate," Killian said. "Devereaux wasn't in Neverland for long, but there are other ways out there for someone to cling to eternal youth. There's one thing I know for sure - Captain Devereaux Sinclair has a tattoo on her right forearm of a skull with a dagger piercing it. I highly doubt Devereaux could have escaped and found someone with the same tattoo."
"I guess we need to check for a tattoo then," Emma said as she released the seal on the cell's lock then yanked the heavy barred door open. Kneeling beside the body, it was clear that she hadn't been dead long. Rigor hadn't yet set in so she was able to reposition the dead woman's arm, grimacing as she pushed the sweatshirt sleeve up to reveal a very faded image of a skull pierced by a dagger on the old woman's forearm. "It's her…"
"How does someone age more than half a century in less than twenty four hours?" David wondered.
"I'm sure magic was involved," Emma said as she stood up and stepped out of the cell. "But this wasn't my doing."
"Regina maybe?" David wondered.
"I don't think so," Emma replied. "Regina didn't have a beef with Devereaux. As far as I know, Killian and myself were the only ones here with any type of grudge against her, but I know neither of us left the hospital last night."
"Certainly narrows the suspect pool," David said.
"Call me a bit biased, but this has a crocodile written all over it. Just throwing out a theory that maybe that magical mirror thing and Devereaux's sudden aging might be connected to a Rumplestiltskin deal?"
"You could be right, but at the moment, there isn't enough evidence to support it," Emma stated. "I'm not going down that road until we have a lot more information. For now, we need to come up with an explanation as to how a prisoner died in our custody and find a safe place to stash that looking glass. That thing has caused enough mayhem and heartache for now."
Her focus was immediately drawn to Killian. He'd certainly suffered the most by Devereaux's actions so it was difficult for either of them to harbor any guilt in knowing that Sinclair was dead. But it also certainly didn't mean that Devereaux's death wasn't bothering her. Devereaux had been a loose end for someone who had caused her to die a seemingly horrible death – rapidly aging in the span of only a few hours. In another way though, it was poetic justice. Devereaux had been willing to condemn Killian to a slow, painful death by poison, never knowing that a similar fate awaited her.
And maybe that was all that Emma needed to understand.
What goes around comes around.
"Guess karma's a bitch, wasn't it?" Emma whispered to Devereaux's body as she stepped out of the cell. She slid her arm around Killian's waist as she thought about what to do next with the body and the reports she was going to have to complete. All she knew was that she had what was important.