[i]"you’re a little on the old side anyway.”[/i]?

"Hmm..." Jack narrowed one eye before entering the car with her. His peripheral sight caught her eyeballing the items of the back seat. He should really learn to put shit away after a night of brooding. Cam had her own shit to deal with, she didn’t need to be reminded of his as well. The girl had class though. She knew when not to pry, as opposed to most people who felt the need to offer support for no other reason but to make themselves look virtuous. There was very little holy in this world. 

Once they had parked, Jack remained behind the wheel for a minute and made a call to an acquaintance that Cam hadn’t yet met. Well, at least he thought she did’t know this person. The call was short, no shooting the breeze, and he soon joined Cam inside. He accepted the beer with a nod then rummaged through a few cabinets until he actually found some Motrin. He didn’t ask permission to go searching for it, but Cam didn’t strike him as a person who really cared for uptight formalities. ‘Help yourself’ the two golden words of prestige in his books. 

The four pills were washed down with half the stubby of beer before he took the chair from the desk, gave it a quick twirl in his fingers, positioned it a comfortable distance from the bed, and then took a seat in it back-to-front, arms propped on the backrest, beer bottle dangling in his fingers. His ribs hurt like hell, but he didn’t let it show. 

To Jack, Cam was the lie-like-a-dog type of girl, for lack of better ways to explain it. That free spirit, not even giving mind to her own sensuality in the many rough and perhaps less than lady-like performances - Swatting her ass in to dust herself off, her unrelenting jests, that cheeky smile, the overall absence of traditional female discretion - yet managed to keep her femininity intact. It was refreshing to watch. Appealing to his base urges. No broomstick up her ass. 

“Look at me and tell me you think it’s a demon we’re dealing with.”  He said, with a shake of his head, and limply dropped back a few more mouthfuls of beer. “We both know it isn’t that. Demons are filthy. Vermin. They don’t give two shits about human values…. They don’t care if some woman lost her son. This situation’s too random. And hey, whatever it is, managed to get my number. Beasts making phone calls... go figure.”  

Jack let his eyes wonder about the apartment for a time, not really thinking about what he was looking at, rather taking a moment to assess his own thoughts on recent events. It was possible that this thing they encountered was a hostile ghost, allowing it more power than your standard spirit. He’d seen it before, enraged souls of the departed summoning more strength than your standard haunts. But this one didn’t quite fit that bill. Too much specified power. 

“I’m waiting on a call.”  He added, lifting his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and tossing it on the bed beside Camilla. “Put it on speaker when she calls and take note of her number. You might need it in the future. Her name's Bobby. She knows you're with me. She does a few jobs for me from time to time. Right now she’s looking into the history of the house. That should help us -” 

Jack winced, grinding his teeth from the pain in his ribs that suddenly decided to give a quick, cold stab through his chest. 

He hung his head and sighed, regretting to let his pain known to Cam, before rolling his eyes back up at hers with an ‘I’m fine’ kind of grin.  

“Fucking monsters….”  

Had Camilla been looking at the right place, she would notice a small spread of blood staining the side of Jack’s t-shirt inside the fall of his jacket. He didn’t even acknowledge the damage himself. While being thrown through the door earlier, a shard of timber had pierced the flesh on the left side of his torso, just a few inches lower than his pectoral cleft.