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.. . . . ]| Crossing the Rubicon |[ . . . ..

Bassett seeks help within the Daemonology shop, frantic and near to tears, haunted by the demonic presence known as Pey. He is desperate for some kind of solace. Little does he know that he is crossing the Rubicon.

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.. . . . ]| Daily Chores |[ . . . ..

Pey harasses his Summoner.

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.. . . . ]| The Last Straw |[ . . . ..

After a particularly unpleasant feeding, Bassett decides to take things into his own hands.

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.. . . . ]| Time's Hammer |[ . . . ..

In effort to help out, Bassett drags along Pey when they bring supplies and gifts to Edward and Odessa at the Daemonology shop. Little do they know that this single visit and exchanging of presents has set Time's Hammer into motion.

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.. . . . ]| Christmas Present |[ . . . ..

Sleep didn't do any good.

Restlessly tossing and turning, the poor servant moaned in the depth of the night well into the morning. The pillow on which he slept was wet with sweat and the sheets felt both freezing and hot at the same time. His legs would stretch at the peak of his pain and his grip would...Tear through fabric?

Bassett awoke to the sound of ripping bedsheets.

Snapping his burning eyes open to the bright pain of a screaming headache, the soldier found himself with his hands tangled in strips of ripped blankets as well as a pile of feathers that stuck to his face and mouth. Twisting himself about and wearily picking himself up from the sweat-soaked hammock, Bassett winced as his head fought for balance on his shoulders. He groaned. The movement seemed to make the pain worse and Bassett fought to spit feathers out of his mouth as he held his head steady in his hands.

What were these feathers from anyway?

Glancing back to where his head was resting moments ago, he found his pillow torn up into a great mess, belching forth guts of feathers and pillow fluff. Dying the feathers, were smears of red...Red like blood. The first thing that went through his mind was that Pey must have fed upon him last night and got more excited than usual. The servant lifted up his wrists and squinted his eyes through the dim darkness of his barely lit room. His skin was unbroken. His wrists remained untouched and healed up from the last time Pey had chose to suck from them. Recently, Pey's favorite place to feast was Bassett's neck because, supposedly so the demon said, he could hear his heart beat better there. He lifted his hands to touch his neck, feel around his jugular for the tell tale half-healed tears in his skin, but his skin was unbroken there as well. He was clean.

So where did the blood come from, Bassett wondered, his thoughts becoming more and more disturbed by the lack of Pey's bite marks. Bassett glanced once more at the pillows, his hands still feeling along the smooth curve of his neck, only to find that there was something more disturbing than the lack of cuts and gashes.

The necklace.

Feeling around with more frenzied movements, the soldier traced all around his neck for the necklace Odessa had given him a little over three days ago. He was sure he had it on when he went to sleep, where was it? Panicked, for he knew it to be important not only to him but to his friend as well, the soldier ripped open his shirt, all too easily (which was very strange) popping the buttons right from their stitches. To his utter shock and terror, he found the necklace...Or rather, what was left of it.

Buried into the skin of his sternum, enveloped by flesh, was the ruby red stone and a few links of steel, winking at him in the dim morning light, reflecting the thin strips of starlight that fell through the blinds of his room. Bassett heard his breathing increase loudly as if he were suddenly lacking in oxygen, and in a crazed frenzy, he scratched at his chest where, within moments, what little ridges of silver chain remained submerged themselves into his heaving chest. The red red stone, like Bassett's sanity, disappeared in seconds underneath his skin and that was when Bassett began to lose it.

Digging frantically at his skin with his nails, he fought to reclaim the stone, unearth it from its alien invasion of his body, but as soon as it nestled itself comfortably within his person, the panicking soldier felt a mind-numbing lightning stab of pain roll through his entire body. He threw his head back and cried out loud, his fingers still digging into his chest as his shoulders jutted forward, as if they wanted to touch one another in front of his chest. Another shock of pain and Bassett threw himself forward onto the sheets, sending his hammock into a wild rocking. He doubled over himself and yelped in blinding agony that rippled through every square inch of skin, every layer, every cell as if he were being forcefully pushed through a meat grinder.

The area where it focused most was his head, his aching head, and Bassett didn't think that he could scream loud enough to express the kind of anguish that he was feeling in his temples. Shaking, trembling hands crawled their way up past Bassett's stretched face, and shook violently over his temples where he felt along the bumps that were there before. They were tracing across something wet and warm...They were smothered in blood. That is where the blood must have come from. Replacing the painful bumps that were there before, were rock hard nubs of something stronger than stone, but living all the same, that slowly pushed themselves out of his torn skin, jutting out like a terrible crown. Four of them, upon the sides of his forehead and above his ears, aching ears that were also shrieking with pain.

Bassett, utterly and completely blinded with terror, writhed upon his hammock as if he were a worm pinched between two fingers, or a wrecked ship pitching back and forth at a stormy sea. He pulled at himself and struggled vainly to bury his fingers into his chest to pry out the terrible necklace that had done this to him. It was no use, for it seemed, now, that it had become a part of him.

This process, to Bassett, seemed to take an agonizing spine-filled eternity, as if he were pressed and locked in the hungry maws of an iron maiden or the crushing mandibles of fallen stalactites and piercing stalagmites. In reality, it took about fifteen minutes before Bassett gained enough sense to think and demand his body to do something.

Edward.

He had to get to Edward! HE would know what was going on! HE would know what to do! HE would have answers! HE could fix this terrible thing!

Without another second to lose, Bassett slid out of the hammock with the gracefulness of one who had lost all the bones in his body and he held himself like a soldier who was trying to keep his entrails from dragging on the ground. Stumbling towards the door, moving like the living dead, tripping as if he were walking on stubs of legs rather than feet, Bassett pitched from side to side. With blood dribbling down his forehead and into his burning eyes, Bassett threw open the portal and stumbled into a headlong run through his master's house until he was outside breathing in the lung freezing morning air. There was only one thought in his mind: Edward, and he was determined to get to the Daemonology shop before the sun rose. He was so focused, so blinded, that he didn't even notice his feet lifting off the ground as he ran, nor the soft white glow that shone through the ripped drapes of his sleeping shirt.

He had to get to Edward.

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