Content Warning – Vomit, descriptions of torture, rape ideation

Jackboots

"My husband."

My answer is so automatic it takes me several seconds before I wonder how he knew to ask me that. I've been thinking of Frank since Jack entered the room, yes, but I haven't said Frank's name out loud, have I?

Have I?

If I haven't, then how is Jack reading my mind?

And then I remember. The only word that I said to him before was "Frank".

Right before he hit me. . .

"Does he know you're here?"

"No."

His eyes narrow suspiciously, "I should warn you – I can smell lies."

I roll my eyes, "I'm a widow."

"Ah," he says, flatly, "And I may safely assume he looked something like me?"

"You bear a superficial resemblance. That is all."

"Mm."

It is an entirely noncommittal noise, and far more disconcerting than any such quiet, wordless vocalization has any right to be.

"Are you aware that your. . . friend. . . Candidate MacKenzie is downstairs getting blind drunk at eight in the morning?"

"Is he? Well, it doesn't surprise me."

I have to get some measure of this man. Let's see if that does it.

"It doesn't?" he sounds genuinely surprised.

"Well, you know how Scots are – if they aren't drunk, they're hoping to be."

It's a popular stereotype, but he looks as though he's never heard it before.

"Curious. That has not been my experience at all."

I very nearly ask him what his experience has been. . . then I stop myself. There was a subtle, distant gleam in his eye just then. . .

My heart rate kicks up for a moment, before I can control it. I must control it. It's been years since I've encountered anyone as adept at mind games as this. He got me curious, got me talking, and almost got me to open up, in the guise of letting me get him to open up.

He almost got a hook into me.

My stomach coils into a tense knot of stubborn, resentful pride. How dare he!

I control this too. There is no room for personal feelings. No room, and no time. Only complete awareness and precision will get me though this now. I haven't sparred with anyone on this level in ages, and judging by the sharp gleam in his eyes when he realizes his first thrust failed, it is possible I haven't sparred with anyone on this level, ever.

"I get the feeling, Captain, that your experiences have been somewhat. . . precisely curated."

"Oh, indeed. The life of a Peace Agent is not easy, Mistress Beauchamp."

"A policeman's lot is not a happy one", in fact?"

"Taking one consideration with another, yes."

Thrust. Parry.

Nil all.

"Do you think the commander will let us run the checkpoint soon?"

Bland and businesslike. Perhaps that will make a dent.

"He told me he was going to open the scanning station just as he left the room."

Nope.

He stands up then, and saunters over to the window. He clasps his hands behind him and looks out, impassively.

It is absurd, but the only thing about him I can focus on is his boots. They are meticulously, almost ridiculously well polished, black and well cut, fine, good, sturdy boots. The rest of him is so slap-dash, so untidy, it clashes with this part of him. His boots are so. . . so. . .

Deliberate.

And then I know – his appearance is deliberate too. Did he choose this specific way of putting me off-kilter, or is this the way he treats all interrogations of this type?

Best to assume the former. Don't take anything for granted.

"Well then, they ought to be ready to go by the time we're done here, at least."

He makes eye contact with me through his reflection in the window.

"He asked for it, you know."

"Excuse me?"

Cold-burning acid rises in my chest, and my heart clutches. The fire of seduction gleams in his eyes now, and a tiny, come-hither smirk plays around his lips.

He turns, and leans on the table, thrusting his head at me, "Fraser. When I had him on the table, stripped to the skin and shivering, I offered him a way out, but he refused, and asked for it. Every sweet, screaming stripe of it. Like he wanted the pain. Like he craved my expertise."

I recall the first time I saw Jamie's scars, and the evil I saw pouring off them.

Well, here it is, burning bright, and as repulsive as Jamie is wonderful.

"What are you talking about?"

His eyes close, and he inhales deeply, as though savouring the scent of the entire room, but of me especially. Then he stands up straight again, and looks me in the eyes,

"You," he smiles tightly, "Are a beautiful liar."

He sits back down with a swagger, slightly breathless, and a little flushed, almost as though. . .

As though. . .

There is only one context when I ever saw Frank look like that, and. . .

The smile Jack gives me is the same one Frank used to use on mornings after we made love. . .

"Have you ever imagined it?"

It is playing his game, on his chosen ground, but I am so put off by him at the moment, I cannot think of a reasonable deflection. I have to give him the response he wants. I just have to hope he'll overplay the advantage. . .

"Imagined what?"

"The pure ecstasy of controlling someone," he runs a finger along his lower lip, "Their pain, their pleasure. Their blood. Their breath. When they eat. When they shit. Have you ever imagined complete. . . harmony? The total joining of a soul to yours – for eternity?" Glittering passion rises in his eyes, "Fraser was the first perfect subject I ever had. He was magnificent."

The word cuts though my rising, churning disgust.

Magnificent.

There is something in the way he says that. . . some tone, some flavour. . .

Sandringham!

I don't know how or why – yet – but there is a connection between Sandringham and Jack.

And that means. . .

He knows.

Jack knows.

Jamie is here with us, and I know where he's hiding.

And Jack knows I know.

So now he's. . .

Playing with me. Getting in my head, rummaging around in my emotions, finding anything he can pull on, anything he can hurt, or slice open, or poison. . .

No. It's worse than that. He's trying to seduce me. Trying to get a hold upon me by any line he can control, be it hatred, anger, spite, malice, or fear.

If he has me by one heartstring, he has me by all of them.

And then. . .

He can consume me.

"I never considered myself an artist until he came along, you know. That back of his was my first masterpiece. I can't think of it without-"

I don't know how it happens, but I somehow manage to slip into the dry, bleak place inside my soul, and a veil of silence is drawn between us. I watch his lips move, and see the flashes of things in his eyes, with perfect, unheeding detachment. I can feel his words reaching my ears, but they do not enter my mind.

Suddenly, in the quiet, I look into the soul before me. He is no longer a man, just as I am no longer a woman – we are mere collections of stardust, with images projected upon them. I see the warm reds and golds of my own soul surrounding me, with a core of Stygian Blue at my heart, and am not surprised.

In this place, in this time, there is no surprise.

I expect to see blood, or fire, or something else horrible when I look into Jack.

Instead, I see nothing.

There is a thin wisp of dust, and inside it, there is nothing.

He's. . . empty.

Entirely. Utterly. Devoid of substance. Devoid of a soul.

Whatever there is to see of him in the real world isn't even truly alive – it is lairing in his space for a while, before being released back into oblivion.

He is more barren than all the desolation in my heart has ever been, put together, doubled, trebled, and doubled again. I merely am trapped here sometimes. He lives here.

Not only is he empty – he has never known anything else.

He was born in this dark place which I am forever trying to escape. And not only that, he is comfortable here.

Suddenly I can feel sympathy, even pity, for a soul this lost, for a mind so bereft, for a life so entirely worthless.

There but for the grace of gods go I. . .

". . . and I suppose you think that makes me a monster."

With a snap, I coalesce back into reality.

Slowly, he looks at me again, voluptuous, hungry malice in his eyes. He practically licks his lips, thinking he knows what he's going to see in me, eager to feast upon whatever it is.

He's expecting horror, disbelief, terror, shock, perhaps even nausea or pain. Certainly more disgust.

He's expecting to be feared.

He is not at all expecting to be known.

When our eyes meet, it takes a moment. Then, it hits him like a supernova. He stills with utter shock as his heart and bones and mind tremble under the sudden weight of a single point of cleansing fire, as it expands outward, reaching into every dark place and lighting it ablaze. He didn't know he'd let me in so deep, certainly didn't know I spoke the language of his soul, and would never have believed I could burn him to ashes like this even if he had.

Deep in his eyes, I see it happen, like the swirling gasses of a distant galaxy exploding before they pull into darkness. I watch as his emptiness collapses into itself, leaving the vast waste of his soul exposed, cold and fruitless and void. He's bare before me, and worse – of no account. There is some power behind him still, but his control is as blank as the space between stars. He's nothing. Less than nothing. As seductive as a maggot. As dead as an unmemorable dream.

He's dull. He's unimportant. He's forgettable.

He can still hurt me – give me pain, make me suffer, torture me – hell, he might even kill me – but I have still defeated him, here and now, and there is nothing he can do to erase that victory.

No matter what he says, or does, or inflicts on me from now on, he's lost any hold he had on my spirit, and he knows it.

"No," I say into the infinite silence, "Monsters are human."

With one smooth, utterly unavoidable motion, he buries his fist in my solar plexus.

The air rushes out of me with a great choking sigh. A hard clap on the ear knocks me out of my chair, and leaves me groaning and writhing on the floor, gasping for air, dizzy with pain.

The hard, cold toe of his boot presses hard underneath my chin, and he pushes my head back as far as it will stretch.

"Lexy!" he calls urgently, "Lexy! Get in here!"

I hear light, quick footsteps, and manage to open my eyes enough to see the face of the young, sweet Frank, come and stand next to the older, defiled one.

"This woman has confessed to being a traitor, Lexy."

Young Frank looks at me, concerned and unsure.

"Kick her, Lexy."

"But, Jacky. . ."

"It will be good for her soul, and good for yours. Kick her."

As I watch young Frank's foot go slowly back, there is an enormous stumbling crash from the doorway, the sound of smashing glass, and a huge, slurring roar -

"Ahh'l thh-ank ye ta tek yer boots off'n mah Shashenack!"

I am in no condition to be impressed at the moment, but later I come to appreciate just how much courage it took for Dougal to charge into the room just then, playing up his drunkenness to perfection, armed with nothing but an empty beer bottle and his bare hands, knowing only that Black Jack was here, and that I needed rescuing.

Baws, as they say, are not always of such high quality brass.

He slashes at the two Franks with the beer bottle, getting them to back off, as with his other hand he yanks me upright.

My head and stomach whirl, my throat slides up, and I vomit my breakfast all over Black Jack. The horrible, acid red of the beets stain his shirt like blood.

Dougal throws the broken bottle at them, and scoops me up, his gait magically steadying, his expression instantly hardening back into his usual cold sneer.

The final, and most lingering images I have of that room are the grim, intense face of Dougal as he carries me away, the shocked and horrified faces of the Randall brothers, and the disgusting red of my sick, dripping all over the pristine surface of Black Jack's boots.