Re: [Jester's Court: Cat & Jack]
Glass spindled in thin, prismatic shards and sheared off walls in ugly, jagged pieces. It was noise and anger and anguish and he could see perfectly well that it was as isolated a frenzy as if one of those glass walls had separated them still. Cat's maelstrom was Cat's own: it was fear thick and tangible and clotted and as Cat launched at the wall Jack's own private dispute with the dark was subsumed. He didn't help: he couldn't, actually. Cat had launched and swung, and there was no getting in the way, he'd take a hit with the pipe no doubt.
He could see only the scrabble of fingers at the seam, and the blistering white-out and when Jack fell it was a minute, perhaps more that he landed dustily on dried grass and baked earth, on nothing. He coughed, and he clambered to his feet and the park was silent, steeled hulks and carcasses of fairground rides from way back then. And in the empty space, he could pretty much hear the hyperventilation.
Jack, Jack was calm outward, even if he was picking over the content of the last hour or so, trying to unravel the mystery at the heart of it. And obviously, obviously the first person to ask would have been Eddie. Eddie who showed an interest in weird, Eddie who Jack didn't know half as well as anyone the man himself knew, but who could be relied upon to be an available inquiring mind. Jack shut off the thought of Eddie deliberately, and walked forward to where Cat stood.
"Hold your breath. It's counter-intuitive, but do it. Hold it for a count of four, and then let it go." The remark was bland, and Jack had no idea if Cat would start swinging or bolt, but the pant of panic was the immediate and Jack dealt better with immediate than anything else.