Chapter 3: The Zebra and the Blankness
#3 of The Law
There is enough yiffyness I can't quite call it no-yiff(clean), but it is very brief in this chapter. Mostly it's about cops, magic, and a rather interesting zebra...
Till was still half-asleep as he pulled the speed-laces on his large black boots tight. He resisted the urge he felt, seemingly about every 20 seconds, to just get back in bed and think of a suitably pleasant way to wake up the sleeping fox. But then things with Jay would not progress in the controlled manner he wanted. He willed to never again have the guilt of a broken heart on his hands by rushing into something, no matter how much he ached for it. Till had weaknesses like everyone else, but discipline was not one of them.
The early morning light finally roused the fox, who yawned and stretched.
"Morning there fox, " Till said, "about time to ship out, I gotta get to work. Got just enough time to drop you off".
Jay smiled and nodded, noting that if it was at all possible, Till was even cuter in sunlight. He was standing across the room from where Jay lay, wearing black BDUs and boots, and a police belt with all the usual accoutrements(including hand cuffs...). He was leaning over, typing something fast on his computer; Jay just stared in admiration at Till's imposing figure.
It was almost more than he could take. Like a bitch in heat, he just wanted to back up into the big dog and beg for it, whimper and plead until he felt Till's shaft probing under his tail.. felt the dog's hardness begin to stretch him open...
"We really gotta scoot... you ok?" Till asked the fox, who was clearly lost in a daze.
"Uh, yep!" Jay grinned and shook off the fantasy, and went about getting fully dressed.
"Sure we don't have time for breakfast? I'm a pretty good cook..." Jay said smiling.
"Sounds good, but I just don't have much time in the mornings. Say, you want to go out and get some dinner this weekend Jay? There's this new restaurant down by the park they just put in..."
"I'd love to!" Jay chirped.
"Ok, give me your email and I'll send you off an email real quick so you get mine too."
Jay gave Till his email address, and with a brief flurry of key presses and mouse clicks it was done.
He had kept it well hidden, but already Till was rather smitten by the fox. As much as he tried to fight it, to keep from falling prey to it, the emotion had already seized him. There was just no reasoning with it; no telling it to go slow, no telling it to be careful. It just was.
Till sighed silently, put his computer on standby, and they headed out.
In the car, driving in the morning sun on on the freeway, things were a bit surreal for both of them. Neither of them were big talkers, so Till hit the shuffle button on his digital audio system.
He grinned broadly as he recognized the track that came on; "Opened" by Assemblage 23. He often wondered if the shuffle button was somehow sentient; it always seemed to know what track Till most wanted to hear.
They were halfway to Jay's place when a call came over the police radio, muting the stereo.
"All available units in the area, please respond to a possible 211, 27th and Main, Steinmann's Jewelry Hut', shots fired."
A moment later, the dispatcher added: "Seriously."
"Shit, hang on, " Till said to Jay, and clicked on the mic and responded to the dispatcher, "umm, Unit 71 responding Code 3, 4 miles out... ETA... uh... about 2 minutes".
"10-4 71."
Jay's heart began pounding as the lights and siren came on, and Till spun the car around with the emergency brake to catch a gap in the center divider and head the opposite direction back into town.
"A daylight robbery? In Riverbrook?!", Till thought to himself. He wasn't sure if he should just drop Jay off somewhere safe, or if it was more important to get there fast. But when in doubt, driving faster was always his preferred option.
"OK Jay, it's freeway all the way there, and we're gonna be right on the scene about as soon as we get off. There's just no time to drop you off, so when we get there just stay the fuck down below the windows. This car is slightly up-armored, so the body will stop bullets, but the windows not as much... "
Jay just nodded as they sped down the freeway, the 27th avenue exit not more than a mile away. He looked down at his seatbelt release, getting ready to push it and get down when the time came.
Jay tried to remember if there'd ever even been an armed robbery in town, and came up blank. Most violent thing that typically happened around here was fights outside of bars, or the Sixes occasionally working someone over real good for failing to pay a debt or some such.
Presently they pulled off the freeway, drifting a bit on the short off-ramp that led to main street, with the small jewelry store, located in a corner of a strip mall, already in sight. Till cut the lights and siren and skidded to a stop about 20 yards from and off to the side of the store.
Mr. Steinmann, a rotund badger, had been hiding in the bushes nearby. When he saw the cruiser he came running out to talk to them.
"He's still in there!", the Badger exclaimed, "but I'd just go ahead and let him finish if I was you. He has a sword or something, and Barney... he unloaded his Glock into the guy, didn't do a damn thing! That's what all the shots were from. After that we just left... Barney is... well I guess he just took off running somewhere... Anyways, if you want to go after him, he's the zebra in a robe, pointy hat, carrying a big claymore, and uh, is bulletproof. Only one in there I think. Can't miss him. "
Till nodded slowly at the badger. Mr Steinmann was a really nice guy, well liked in town, and always helping people out. Didn't really seem like the type to go trip out on drugs, but Till was beginning to wonder...
"Ok, " Till finally replied, "well you should head to... a safer location I guess. We'll worry about the paperwork for the insurance company a little later..."
"Good luck! Here's my card, call me when it's time to do all that stuff..."
The badger handed him a card, ran off to his car, and quickly drove off.
Till keyed the mic on the radio:
"Spoke with owner, advises suspect is still on the premises, a zebra in a robe, with a pointy hat, wielding a large sword, possibly wearing body armor..."
The radio was silent for a moment as backup arrived.
"Uh, 10-4." the dispatcher finally acknowledged.
Till conferred with his sergeant who'd just arrived, hunkering down behind his open driver's side door.
"Yeah, so we got us a big bulletproof zebra apparently, according to Mr Steinmann. Decked out like some kinda battle-mage or wizard or some shit. So I'm thinking we try to talk him out first..."
The sergeant, a lean mischievous wolf everyone called Buzz, for reasons unknown to the younger officers, noticed Jay hunched over in the car.
"Hey, who ya got in there, Till?" Buzz asked slyly, grinning over at the fox.
"He was, uh, his car broke down, needed a ride," Till mumbled.
Jay just smiled awkwardly.
Buzz gave Till a long, quizzical look, but let it go.
"OK, so we just need to get someone on the megaphone, and..."
Till's sentence was cut off by what sounded like an explosion; one of the double doors to the jewelers had apparently been blown out, flew about 50 feet over their heads, and landed in a drainage ditch on the other side of the street.
Sure enough, a zebra emerged from the smoking doorway slowly, standing about 7 feet tall, exactly as Mr. Steinmann had described, only now his sword was put away in a scabbard behind his back.
"Your selection in this town stinks!" the zebra called out indignantly.
Buzz shouted back, "We have you surrounded, lay down with your hooves behind your back!"
The zebra looked left and right, clearly unimpressed. "Uh, nope. Came for a corundum with certain... properties, found this little shop to be lacking. Not that I'm surprised; in fact, I grow weary of breaking into silly little shops such as these, having people bounce bullets off of me and run away... it's so.. unworthy of my time, hunting around for this one little treasure..."
The zebra gazed at Buzz briefly, then focused on Till.
Till suddenly felt a little dizzy; his forehead tingled.
The zebra then glanced slightly over at the car towards where Jay was huddled, and began to walk calmly towards it.
"Freeze!" Till shouted this time, drawing his Browning Hi-Power pistol. "Don't come any closer!"
"It seems," the Zebra spoke, "that one of you has brought a treasure of your own with you..."
Quietly he closed the gap between them, towards the passenger door of Till's cruiser, and reached for the door. It wasn't clear that he was even walking, it was more like he was floating.
Till hoped for the best and opened fire, desperate to at least get the zebra away from the car, away from Jay...
The zebra paid no attention as the bullets dropped harmlessly out of the air around him. He leaned down, pursed his lips, and blew on the window glass. It immediately turned into a fog and billowed off, enabling him to reach in and grab the fox.
Jay scrambled ineffectually to get away, but the huge zebra held him tight with one arm.
Till dropped his now empty gun and pulled out his club, and ran towards the zebra in a blind rage.
The zebra spun around to face the enraged dog and waved his free hand, quietly muttering something, and suddenly Till was seeing stars and saw himself falling to the pavement. The club had somehow been wrested from his grip and hit him in the forehead fairly hard.
"Now now, lets just calm down a bit," the zebra said, "If you want to see this little treasure of yours again you'll find mine for me. I've other things I'd prefer to attend to for now.
Till struggled to get up, fighting through the pain and haziness of the blow. The zebra dropped a scroll and a small shiny object on him.
"On the scroll is written what I desire; you won't understand it, but your jeweler might. When you've found it, blow the whistle at the stroke of midnight near the summit of Eagle bluffs, about 50 miles south of here, and we shall make an exchange. I assure you no harm will come to this little guy..." He shook Jay lightly for emphasis.
"Or," he sighed, "I suppose you could just email me. My email address is on the scroll as well. Now if you'll excuse me..."
With that, the zebra disappeared in a poof of white smoke... along with Jay.
Till slowly sat up and leaned against his right front tire, cursing loudly.
Buzz ran over to check on Till.
"You OK bud?" he asked.
Till just nodded and looked away, trying to conceal the fact that his eyes were silently filling with tears.
Buzz keyed his radio mic, "all units be advised, suspect appears to have... fled the scene. Code 4."
Then Buzz just sat down next to Till for a few minutes.
"Your... treasure?", Buzz finally asked.
Till sat motionless at first, but eventually nodded yes, trying desperately to wipe the tears out of his eyes.
"Huh, I never imagined you'd...", Buzz caught himself and paused awkwardly.
"Well, your secret's safe with me, Till. And we'll get him back."
Buzz stood up and looked down the road.
"Lets head back to the station and have a look at that scroll there; we'll get this weird shit figured out Till, though I really don't know how we're gonna write this one up... you OK to drive, or is this my lucky day and I get to drive that monster back to the station for ya?"
"I'm OK, " Till said quietly, "I'll meet up with you at the station. Just need a few minutes and I'll be good to go."
"Sure thing bud... hang tough."
With that, Buzz got in his cruiser and drove off.
"Okay, " Till thought to himself, "Zebra wants some kinda gem, I'll get him a gem..."
He gathered up the scroll and whistle, holstered his empty gun, cleaned up his spent brass, and drove uncharacteristically slowly down the street, back towards the station.
"Ooof!"
Jay, released from the grasp of the zebra, had dropped a few feet to the ground. Only it was not dirt or grass or pavement, but rather a white, foam-like substance that squished underneath his paws like an overly soft mattress.
As the zebra watched in amusement, Jay looked around quickly, seeing only more soft white ground in every direction, and the air was filled with a fog that obscured all beyond a hundred feet or so, except in the vicinity of a very, very large Airstream trailer which stood nearby.
"Where... What is this place? Where are we?" Jay asked.
"Ah, how prescient of you to say such a thing... Not a particularly unique one for newcomers, but certainly the most logical."
"This, my little vulpine hostage," the zebra explained, " is the Plane of Elemental Confusion."
"What?!"
"Exactly," the zebra concurred.
The zebra paced slowly around Jay whilst continuing his explanation.
"I must admit that I did not seek this place out deliberately, or even know of its existence, until I stumbled upon it when taking my first portal. I was new at portal spells at the time, and my intended destination was far, far kinkier than this..." the zebra paused, staring out into the blankness.
"Later I would learn that it is not, in fact, possible to deliberately go to this place; one must blunder into it. Fortunately my innate caution prevailed upon me that night, and I traveled back through my portal to reinforce the spell, that I might have more time to explore and study this strange dimension. "
The zebra continued, clearly reveling in his own cleverness, "I discovered a back door; a way to cancel out the confusion in a small area of this place, in order to establish a small fixed frame of reference with respect to the rest of the universe. Now, for reasons you can't begin to understand, it so happened that the material and geometry of Airstream trailers happened to be perfect for establishing this pocket of certainty, so when I decided to live here, the trailer made a nice home as well."
"Why would you want to live here?" Jay asked
"Very simple; the view may not be that great, but it is an entire plane of which I am the only one to have mastered the means of reaching. It is perfectly secure and safe. No one who actually wants to get to me could ever hope of finding me here; even if it were possible for them to deliberately arrive in this plane, they could never locate me in it. Even those skilled in portal spells require my assistance to get here."
"I will keep you here, outside my trailer, until such time as your stud puppy locates my corundum, or I grow tired of seeing you and send you somewhere else. I would advise you to stay within sight of the trailer, by the way. Should you venture far enough away to lose it behind the mist, you will never, ever find your way back to it, or anything else for that matter."
Jay looked around slowly, finally asking, "So... I just have to hang out here and wait?"
"I am not entirely without pity. I will get you a small Airstream trailer of your own; certainly can't have you mucking about in mine. And I'll see to it you won't go hungry or thirsty, and I may perhaps even conjure some baubles for you to frolic with to keep you entertained, should you be a good little fox and not bother me while I'm working."
Jay just sat back numbly on the squishy ground, looked around, and blinked a few times.
"I'll be back in just a few minutes with your trailer; seeing as how they are much easier to obtain than my gem, and I'm totally in with this dealer in Pocatello. Again, please stay in the vicinity; I'd hate to have to send your beau back empty pawed..."
"By the way, " the zebra added, "you may call me Twinkles, as that is how I like to be addressed."
Jay nodded slowly.
With that, Twinkles blinked out of this plane, leaving Jay alone; possibly, he thought, the only living thing in this dimension.
"So what you're saying then, Mr. Steinmann..."
"Please... call me Toby," Mr Steinmann corrected.
"Ah yes sorry.. what you're saying is that it isn't even that valuable?", Buzz asked the badger.
Buzz, Toby, and Till were sitting in Till's office for privacy, as they mulled over how to proceed in this most bizarre of circumstances. Buzz and Toby sat on a black leather couch facing the small window while Till leaned back in his office chair near his computer.
"It is not a configuration of great value, no, but a specimen of this particular configuration..." Toby studied the inscription, "and shape, is simply hard to locate. He may be a powerful creature, but he clearly doesn't know a thing about the practice of jewelry. It's doubtful anyone would even /want/ such a gemstone in a piece of jewelry!"
"So where might we find such a stone. then?" Till asked.
"No one would cut up a raw specimen like this.. you'll need to find a collector. I have some friends in the business who might be able to turn one up; it's certainly a worthy cause."
"Thank you very much Toby," Till said.
"No problem. Now once you find it you'll need someone to cut it. Now this is very important: share the details of this cut with no one. There is only one I would trust to do it, and I can put you into contact with her. Cutting crystals in certain ways sometimes produces effects that are not... expected... by the average person. There's really no way of knowing what this configuration will achieve; what forces it may tune in to or channel. I suspect in this case, something very interesting, and I would not want it to be stolen by a gemologist who may realize what you've had them create."
"Excellent. We can't thank you enough Toby, " Buzz said, "is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?"
Toby did not hesitate.
"Two things. First, can we get someone to fix my shop? At this point I don't even want to try to fill out an insurance report about this. It's just a few bullet holes, some polycarbonate display windows that... vaporized I guess... and of course the door that ended up across the street in the ditch."
"No problem." Buzz nodded.
"Second, my security guard Barney is a bit distraught about this whole affair, and now he won't calm down. Is there something we could get him to chill him out a bit? He keeps pacing around driving me nuts... maybe... we could get him something... from the evidence locker?"
Buzz laughed out loud. "You know that's against the rules!"
"I sort of figured..."
Buzz then walked up close to Toby, and whispered, "meet us by the loading dock at 6 p.m.. Bring Barney with you."
Toby looked back at Buzz, then towards Till. Till winked at Toby and smiled.
Toby grinned widely before saying, "oh well, it's probably better that we go to the doctor. Better that the hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical industry gets our money anyways..."
"Yes, yes of course," Till nodded, trying hard not to laugh. He was happy for the amusement; it was a temporary reprieve from the melancholy he'd been in since the events of the morning.
Meanwhile, in another plane, Jay stared out into the haze. Twinkles the zebra had been true to his word, for only minutes after he blinked out, a small but well furnished Airstream trailer blinked in. Several minutes later, a 20 foot shipping container blinked in beside it, it's left door slightly askew. Twinkles emerged from within carrying a garden gnome and a spool of twine.
"The stuff in there should keep you occupied for awhile, " Twinkles told him, as he walked over to the tow hitch of the new Airstream trailer, and nonchalantly lashed the garden gnome to it with the twine.
"I'm back to my work. If you bother me it had better be important; don't test my patience. I would also encourage you, " the zebra said now with a slight grin and a gleam in his eyes, " to take advantage of the pool..."
Jay looked around... perhaps the pool was in the shipping container?
"Uh, OK..." Jay responded at last.
Twinkles looked at Jay and sighed, "from the looks of things, it would appear you might not be my guest for too long. As I suspected, your puppy is hot on the case, and he seems rather resourceful. And I always honor my bargains, for we are worse than nothing without honor... Good day to you."
With that, Twinkles entered his trailer and shut the door.
"Day...", Jay pondered. He looked up into the white haze, which was not any different than looking across into it. It didn't feel warm, or cold, or bright, or dim. There was ambient light everywhere, but there were no shadows. There was only two trailers and a shipping container, and the prospect of an agonizingly boring and confusing death should he stray too far from them.
For a captor, Jay thought, he could have done far worse than Twinkles. While he didn't seem very friendly, it seemed considerate of him to bring him a trailer and... whatever was in the container.
And Till was trying to get him back... the thought made Jay instantly excited. The big dog was coming to rescue him!
He thought about Till's broad shoulders, his deep, self-assured voice, his long confident stride, and especially, the way his strong, heavy arm had felt laying over his side as they slept last night...
Jay had started pawing off absent-mindedly, imagining Till carrying him off and then laying him down on some soft grass at his first opportunity, to rut into him. Imagining that long, hot, slick member emerging from his sheath, only to be plunged, again and again, into Jay's tight little tail hole...
Jay felt a twinge of self-consciousness. Not that he thought anyone was watching, but it still seemed a little weird to be doing this outside. He walked into his little trailer to finish things up and rest for awhile.
"Damn!" Twinkles muttered to himself, as he watched the fox go inside. He'd really wanted to see him finish, to watch Jay spurt all over himself, and then maybe go offer to lick it off of him...
Twinkles was stroking himself off as well, but his equine implement was far, far larger than the little fox's. He generally avoided all creatures to focus on his magical studies, but this hostage arrangement got him wondering if maybe having an occasional captive around might be fun.
Certainly the fox was enjoyable to look at, but far too small to do too much with. Maybe next time he needed a hostage, he'd find one of more equine proportions...
Twinkles grinned and closed the window, mentally filed away the idea for future reference, and resumed his studies.