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There was no reason for him to pick this place other than he really, truly had no desire to go back to the library.

Not yet, not now.

Jeremiah had come up with this idea and knew that it was likely to not be a good one. Which was why he had not talked it over with Algie. Or Zac. Not yet, not until he knew something. They functioned too much in vacuum. Too many questions, not enough answers. Perhaps this would answer some of them.

He had made his way to where the college was supposed to be but there was a field instead. The drizzle had lessened considerably, just a light sprinkle. It reminded him of the day that everyone had appeared here. When they had all made their way to the forest.

Come and see.

The sickly sweet impression still lingered with him sometimes, just like the impression of that sky and Sunny's fear. For all that he did not talk about emotions, about feelings, they lingered and resonated within him deeply.

Letting out a breath, Jeremiah pushed a thumb against the clasp that held the red leather case closed. Back in Ashdown he had been able to ignore the sensation of something creeping along his neck but as he reached in for them, to pull them out and have a look, he truly had no idea.

Could be nothing but he never expected nothing.

Everything in him told him to run. Jeremiah was not used to that. Flight or fight was a familiar feeling but not of this severity and the flyers weren't even out of the case.

He froze the moment he heard the voice, felt hands on his shoulders gripping hard. This was not a hand along the back of his neck and with everything in him screaming predator for some damn reason, he could not even tell if it was someone his height or not.

It threw off his senses.

And whoever it was knew him.

And whoever it was sounded familiar.

Jeremiah's jaw twitched, fingers clenched hard around the flyers in the case.

"Swell," he found himself responding, snarking back. "I'd give you a better recounting but as I can't remember the last time we've met ... You'll have to live with swell."

That had more weight to it now, if only because of I miss you all the time.

The feeling did not fade, the sense of danger, danger still there and going strong. It was past hair raised on the back on his neck or an uneasy weight in his stomach. Jeremiah was, for the moment, frozen with it. The chill down his back seemed to resonate with it as well.

"Doesn't mean I like that." Jeremiah did not, in the slightest, like the idea that he should have more of an idea about something that he did. That he was missing something obvious.

Also, that bicep squeezes? Totally made Jeremiah's skin crawl. He was quiet for a time, eyes cutting to the side but not able to see because he could not, for the moment, get his body to listen to him.

"Answers," was his response. "Guidance," was gritted out. He did not expect nothing because nothing was ever simple. Not here, not in this place. "Honestly," he added, as he just could not not say it, "I also was a little curious about why IT WALKS." It could have ran. Jeremiah was clearly in a mood.

"Honestly, I would expect it to get a tea and wake up properly like the rest of the masses as opposed to littering the city with flyers and graffiti."

Fifteen hundred years. Jesus.

Jeremiah's eye twitched.

This was not what he expected. Nor what he really wanted to know, what he had come here for.

"If it prefers coffee, we may already be an impasse." Jeremiah could not stand coffee, at all. The reasons for that were long and varied and what they boiled down to ...

Had nothing to do with this moment.

Some of the feeling faded when he was released, but he was still frozen in place. Hand in the red leather case, fingers clenched tight around the flyers.

"... and I suppose, if I ask to know the favor before I make a choice, I am s**t out of luck?" Somewhere, Algie was making a face - probably had indigestion - and Zac ...

Zac knew his father's sense of self-preservation was broken already.

Jeremiah's skin crawled worse at being called dear boy. Made some memory in the back of his mind creep up that he shoved away.

"I could just pass," he replied, still in that mood, but both of them knew he would not. That was not Jeremiah. This was something he wanted to know but on the other hand ...

A trump card would not hurt. There were other avenues of information. He knew Zac was looking, that Algie was looking. Others were looking.

"I'll do this favor," he replied, "in return for one from you." Anything he wanted, any time he wanted. That was open ended but it was enough in his favor that he could run the odds. If he wanted information later then he could have it.

I miss you all the time.

Jeremiah's throat tightened and the red leather case fell away from his hand. The flyers were still clenched in it, his knuckles white. The detective was angry.

... because if he admitted the sadness that just crept in he would not know what to do with himself. Sunny's face was there, the look she had. His heart ached suddenly but he had made this deal and he would uphold it.

The scratch, the p***k of pain, and the blood slowly seeping its way down along his clavicle and then to stain his shirt reminded him of it.

"A high price," he said, his voice tight. This felt too familiar, too much like ... He did not know what but the familiarity of it all - that sense of deja vu - did not set well with him.