Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Chapter 4 - So It Goes

Martin gets into an argument. Jon contemplates. An extremely poignant conversation is avoided.

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“You know, this would be a loteasier if you’d just answer my questions instead of being cryptic all the time … .”

“I understand you’re skeptical, Martin, but that’s the point of this. It’ll be far more convincing for you to come to your own conclusions than it would be for me to try and persuade you. Besides, you know how I feel about protracted conversations.”

Half-hidden beside a filing cabinet, Jon watched the argument progress. Peter had appeared a few minutes ago – literallyappeared, taking Jon by surprise and leaving him no time to think of hiding. His approach so far had been to keep still and hope he simply wouldn’t be noticed. It was a difficult task, when his irritation with the man increased with every passing moment.

“Anyway,” Peter continued, “I’ve kept to my end of the bargain, haven’t I?”

“Have you? You said you’d keep the others safe, but from where I’m standing you’ve been as much of a threat as anything else.”

“This isn’t about those irritating young people from research, I hope.”

“You vanished them! No one can even remember Dylan, I only know he existed because his name is still on file. Did we know each other? Probably not, but I have no idea!”

“Really, Martin. I’m under the impression that it’s common for new management to reduce the staff a little. Keeps people on their toes. Besides, you specifically asked me to ensure the safety of your friends in the archive. I don’t remember all this concern for the regular employees coming up back then.”

Martin sighed through his teeth.

“And they have been safe.” Peter insisted. "Unwanted deliveries aside, there’ve been no more attacks. In fact from what I’ve seen, your little archive has been downright quiet lately. Especially now, with those former officers out of town.”

“With - wait, Basira and Daisy? They left?”

“Headed to Ny-Alesund, I believe, something to do with the People’s Church. Probably sent there by your Archivist.”

“Ny-Alesund? In Norway? The place with the ritual site?! ”

“I wouldn’t worry. They’re quite capable of handling themselves, after all. Both of them survived an encounter with a creature of the Dark already, I’d say they’re far more likely than not to come back alive.”

“I mean, maybe,but–” Martin sighed. “Fine. It’s not – can’t do anything about it now, I suppose. And Jon stayed behind?”

“I watched the two of them leave and he definitely wasn’t accompanying them. Too involved in his own projects, I’d imagine. The man’s so easily preoccupied, I really don’t know what Elias sees in him.”

Jon took all this in from the corner. The archive had been quiet lately, but it hadn’t occurred to him that this was why. Ny-Alesund … so they’d left without him in the end. Before his change, the three of them had discussed going there, planning for the near future. He supposed that after he’d turned up missing they decided not to wait and took matters into their own hands. He wondered if they had already reached the ritual site. If there were active members of the People’s Church there, or something worse, something that couldn’t be stopped by firearms.

Daisy hadn’t been planning to go, not originally. She’d worried that if things went badly, if there was danger and a need to fight the pull of the Hunt would be too hard to resist. It must have been a hard choice, between facing that risk and letting Basira go into danger alone. He hoped they were all right.

“… So. What’s this about?”

Peter had finally noticed Jon, or maybe he’d known he was there the whole time and was only now acknowledging him.

“It’s a cat.” Martin said blandly. Peter raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Really, Martin. A pet?” He pronounced the word like it was a particularly distasteful fetish.

“That’s a bit far. It comes by sometimes, goes on its own terms,” he turned back towards the desk, as if moving on from the topic. “Never liked cats, personally. More of a dog person. Cats always feel like they’re judging you, you know?”

For a moment Jon felt slighted by the sentiment. It took him an embarrassingly long minute to realize that it didn’t line up with things Martin had already mentioned, and that he was likely saying what he thought Peter wanted to hear. For his part, Peter was looking critically at Jon. He reached forward as if making to pick him up, and Jon growled warningly. 

“I wouldn’t,” Martin advised. “It’s not very social. First time I tried putting it outside it nearly took my hand off.”

Peter frowned and drew back, still eyeing him. Jon kept his own eyes narrowed to slits, hoping any uncanny quality they had wouldn’t be visible.

“A bit odd for a cat to show up down here, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that. Can you tell if it’s, y'know … spooky?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I’ve said before, I’m not Elias. I can’t just Knowthings like that.”

“Well I don’t know! I thought maybe you had some sort of … avatar-to-avatar sense?”

“Afraid not. Not something that falls under my abilities.”

“Seems like there’s not much you’re able to do,” Martin muttered, quiet, but not so quiet that he couldn’t be easily heard, “when I’m actually asking for it … .”

“If you’re concerned, Martin, I can spare a moment to get rid of it.” Peter smiled, and Jon felt a chill down his back. “I’m sure there’s an overcrowded shelter nearby that would be willing to put the poor thing down.”

“It’s fine,” Martin’s tone was carefully neutral. “It’s not even here that often. I’d rather just leave it alone.”

“Really, it wouldn’t be a bother.” Peter replied, his voice light and amiable. “I’d hate to have it disturbing your work. We need to have all pistons firing, especially now.” He paused. “Of course, if you’ve gotten attached to the mangy old thing, that’s understandable. But that poses a problem of its own, doesn’t it?”

"Congratulations Peter, you caught me. I don’t want you to kill a cat, even an annoying one. But I doubt I can stop you if you’re determined, and if I argue you’ll probably decide I’m getting too friendly with it or something, so it’s kind of a catch-22? So –” Martin gestured to them both. “I’d like you to leave it alone. But do whatever you’re going to do. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, I wasn’t kidding about it almost taking off my hand.”

The threat of being lightly mauled by cat claws seemed to be enough to make Peter hesitate. If he reached for him again, Jon fully intended to make him bleed. But he knew there was only so much that he could do. His size left him vulnerable, and a grown man could easily overpower him if he was willing to put up with a few scratches. More to the point … if this man in particular wanted to get rid of him, he wouldn’t have to touch him to do it. He could just send him away. Vanish him into the Lonely.

Maybe he believed what Martin had said about not liking cats, or maybe he couldsense something about Jon, some aura of the Lonely that the book had left him with. Whatever his reasons, Peter shrugged.

“I suppose it’s harmless enough,” he glanced back at Martin, a predator’s smile on his face. “Might even serve as a reminder, given our surroundings. Curiosity killed the cat, eh?”

“Great. So if we’re done with that,” Martin turned back to the desk, opening a drawer. “As long as you’re here, I could use your signature on … these … ." 

He was gone by the time Martin looked up again. 

”… Of course.“

Martin turned back to his desk, sighing tiredly. A cold, numbing sensation still lingered in the air, and it made Jon wary. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Martin seemed to sense it too – he didn’t so much as glance back until several long minutes had passed, and the air began to clear.

"Don’t like Elias, and don’t like Peter,” he smirked. “At least you’re a good judge of character.”

Jon took that as a cue to emerge from his hiding spot, walking over. Martin held a hand near the ground, and he rubbed his face against it a little, like a greeting.

“You like me, though,” he said, voice filled with the smug satisfaction one naturally feels over being preferred by an animal. “So that’s something. Not saying I trust you or anything, but I’m starting to appreciate your taste.”

He returned to his work, and Jon curled up beside his desk, listening to the sound of him typing. The tension from Peter’s visit dispelled as the afternoon ticked by, with Martin working and Jon dozing on and off. His body demanded sleep from him so often now. He didn’t like how easy it was for him to nod off and be suddenly defenseless, hated how much time he lost to it. Even so, he could almost enjoy the time he spent napping beside Martin’s desk, his quiet presence just a few feet away. Occasionally he would drift awake and see Martin looking down with a hint of a smile. It wasn’t for him, not really – just a smile at the sight of a drowsy cat. It was still a nice thing to wake up to, sometimes.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor pulled him from his half-doze. He blinked slowly as Martin stood gathering his things – clearly preparing to leave for the evening. Just before walking out, he glanced back at Jon who was getting to his feet, stiff and only half-awake.

“Good night then, you.”

Martin left the door ajar as he went. It had become his habit, and it meant Jon didn’t need to dash out on his heels to avoid being trapped inside. Instead he took a long moment to stretch and shake himself out, get his bearings. It was night time, time to get to work.

He started by raiding the wastepaper basket beside the desk, one of few he could easily get at after the fridge incident. The sandwich Martin had for lunch had been made with a day-old roll, and he’d tossed a good quarter of the stale bread away. At one point Jon would have balked at the indignity of fishing someone else’s table scraps out of the garbage, but his options were limited and there was no one but the Beholding to see him now. 

Plain bread wasn’t very nourishing for cats, but he felt full after eating it, and the little meal gave him some energy. Newly invigorated, he headed into the archive proper. If Daisy and Basira were away, and Melanie was presumably still leaving at five, he’d have several hours without any risk of interruption. And there was something down there that he very much wanted to investigate. 

He hadn’t yet managed a proper search of that dead spot in document storage, the one his attention kept sliding off of. It was hard to put a finger on the source of his reluctance. It was clear the Beholding was steering him away from it – he could tell that much by how suddenly anxious he became around it, how heavily the feeling of being watched, the fear of being discovered at his task weighed on the idea. But under that there was a fear that he suspected was entirely his own. What could be so awful that the embodiment of terrible and forbidden knowledge wanted to keep it hidden?

But seeing Jess Tyrell had gotten him thinking – about the Eye, about himself. What he was becoming. About the way it had felt, taking her statement from her. He’d known it wasn’t right, but it had felt right. It felt right because he’d been giving in to the pull of the Beholding, following the direction it led. And his searches through document storage, they’d always followed a similar pattern. Reach towards his patron until he was pulled in a particular direction, then follow what felt right to him. Lately, he’d been thinking about doing something that felt wrong. Something that hurt. It would take a great deal of determination, but determination was about all he had left.

Pushing through the resistance, he crawled onto the back shelf where he found a box of thin wood, distinctly different from the standard file boxes that crowded the other shelves. He could have sworn he’d seen it somewhere before, perhaps Elias’s office? He couldn’t tell, and the Eye certainly wasn’t giving him any information. He took the edge of it in his teeth and dragged it off the shelf, dumping its contents onto the floor.

It was filled with tapes, mostly unlabelled. He felt a tick of excitement run through him, a tremor of curiosity that for once he could say was all his own. Tapes were good . Wrangling a tape into a recorder on his own would be a challenge, but he could actually do something with these. He began to sort through them, paying particular attention to any he felt an impulse to ignore and moving them off to the side. He was halfway through the box when he reached for one and found himself jerking back on reflex.

He paused, staring at the unlabelled cassette that his paw had just refused to touch. He tried again, batting at it experimentally until his body rebelled and he found himself scrabbling backwards. He stood there a moment, fur bristling, until his heartbeat settled down.

Well. He couldn’t very well ignore that.

A shudder of lethargy went through him at the thought of investigating further, but he was used to working when he was tired, and he could be a verystubborn creature. He’d seen a tape recorder on Melanie’s desk earlier. All he had to do was get the tape that far. He was able to push it down the aisle a foot or two at a time by smacking it with his paws, until it occurred to him how easy it would be to lose it this way – to damage it, or send it sliding under a cabinet. He tried picking it up in his mouth, but only managed to walk a few paces before his jaw went slack and it fell to the floor. Undeterred, he picked it up again and continued in this fashion, carrying it a little distance at a time, determinedly moving forward even as his jaw went numb and he began drooling. 

By the time he made it to the bullpen, his whole body ached with effort and he’d considered giving up four times. It had taken what felt like hours to travel what couldn’t have been more than fifty feet, and he was thirsty, tired and hungry again. He eyeballed the tape recorder above him. Just a jump to the chair, then from there onto Melanie’s desk. He’d managed higher leaps than that in this body before. He could do it. 

His legs wobbling under him, he launched himself weakly upwards and crashed into Melanie’s chair, knocking it down. The tape flew out of his mouth, landing under the desk somewhere while helanded a foot or so away. He stumbled, trying to keep his legs under him, and made it three steps before collapsing onto the floor. The room was spinning. 

That was … it was all right. First attempt failed, but he could try again. He’d have a bit of a rest first then make another attempt. Rest sounded nice. And his eyes were definitely drifting closed, like it or not.

When he opened them again, it was to the sound of footsteps coming down the archive stairs. All other goals forgotten, Jon got to his feet and put all his remaining energy into fleeing to the tunnels, leaving the tape and the mess he’d made behind.

* * *

It was hard to tell date and time anymore, but Jon suspected that he’d been a cat for a few weeks. 

At one point, it struck him how long it had been since he’d actively looked for a way out of his situation. He’d been putting so much of his energy into surviving in his current form, and what was left he spent looking for something that might assist Martin – when he wasn’t just lurking around his office like the pitiful shadow he’d become. At some point, any efforts to reverse his condition seemed to have fallen by the wayside. It was as if he’d given up already.

It wasn’t that he wanted to stay a cat. But as limiting, isolating and maddening as the experience was, he found he was getting used to it. Not comfortable with it, lord no, and certainly not content, just used to it. Already he’d lived with it long enough for it to gain a strange near-normalcy. The panic, the sense of immediate danger had given way to a low sort of dread. Like Joshua Gillespie learning to live around a box of nightmares. Fear becoming as routine as hunger.

Had every change he’d undergone in these past few years been like this? Faintly, he could still remember the horror he’d felt when he first realized he needed to read statements to survive. How long had it taken for him to lose that particular shock? To think of recording a statement as a matter of habit – sometimes inconvenient, sometimes unpleasant, but not very different from any other basic need. How long after that before the paper statements began to look innocent by comparison, an alternative to prying someone’s traumas from them by force? A person can get used to anything, even things they really, reallyshouldn’t get used to. 

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking like this. He couldn’t just accept his situation, he had to at least try to break the Leitner’s hold on him, to get back to himself. 

Doubtful that there was very much to get back to, of course … at least as a cat, he could see Martin. That would certainly change if he found a way out of this. And he doubted the others would be glad to see him either, after learning about Jess Tyrell. 

Maybe this was better, in the end. The others wouldn’t have to worry about him being a danger. And whatever Elias was planning for him, he doubted he’d be able to carry it out now. He didn’t dream anymore, and he wasn’t going to be taking any live statements. Maybe he should be glad some other power had gripped him tightly enough to arrest his development as a creature of the Eye. At least it hadn’t been the Buried. 

He could stay this way, resign himself to never again speaking to another human being, to never being seen as one. Continue to mope around Martin’s office until he took enough pity on him to take him home and hide him from his landlord. Keep him as a pet, something he’d never see as an equal or a friend, but at least Jon would be close to him and cared for and could see him every day. And then after a while he’d probably just keel over and die, consumed from within because he’d stopped feeding statements to the Watcher. At least he’d be able to spite Elias.

Jon sighed. This … self pity wasn’t helping anything. For better or for worse, he wasn’t ready to give up and die. The others were still trapped here, Martin was still circling Lukas, he couldn’t abandon them all. He had to at least try to stay alive. 

At the moment, he was lying sulkily on the floor beneath Martin’s chair as he read out the gruesome and inevitable death of Doctor Nikos Anastos. Martin leaned forward when he read statements, just slightly. As if concerned that the tape recorder wouldn’t pick up his voice, or as if pulled forward, tugged by a gravity that started somewhere behind the eyes. His voice filled the room with the humidity of the jungle, the scent of acid rain and rotten plastic, and the sharp, satisfying taste of fear. Jon didn’t have it in him anymore to feel disturbed by how much listening to it soothed him, how the aches and dizziness troubled him less as he listened to Martin feed the Beholding, taking some part himself by simply witnessing it.

It wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t enough. He was getting weaker in a way that he probably shouldn’t be ignoring – he’d gone from sleeping half the day to a good majority of it, and any mildly strenuous activity tired him out. Since Martin was the only one recording statements anymore, it made for a good excuse. A reason for Jon to linger under his chair or sat on top of his desk, in case he’d be reading one that day. But he didn’t bother pretending that was why he kept coming back. 

There were surely healthier ways to deal with one’s feelings for someone than spending half the afternoon curled around their ankles. He just didn’t know what the healthy option was in his situation.

“ … There’s something in there and I don’t know which scares me more,” Martin intoned above him. “The thought that it’s more than just the things we left behind. Or that that’s all it is, and we can’t escape the ruins of our own future.”

A sense of relief, of lessening pressure filled the room as the statement concluded and a terrible gaze withdrew. Martin’s voice left the deep, rhythmic register of reading as it was returned to him, and he spoke more casually as he recorded the follow up. Jon closed his eyes and listened as he speculated on the Extinction and Adelard Dekkar, wondered aloud about Peter’s absence.

“Could be worse. Peaceful at least. I don’t miss all the shouting, even if it would –” Martin stopped suddenly, going stiff. Jon cocked his head, he’d heard it as well. Someone was moving around outside. “… Wait.”

Martin slid his chair back abruptly, and Jon had to jump to avoid catching his paws under it. As he got his bearings, Martin hurried to open the door.

“Excuse me –” he called. “Excuse me, this area is off-limits to the public.”

Jon was a moment too late to slip after him – an oddly familiar scent pushed in from the hall as the door closed behind Martin, clicking shut and trapping him inside. He growled in frustration, pawing at the sealed exit before trying a different tactic. With a few well-aimed leaps, he got on top of a filing cabinet near the door, just high enough for him to peek through the ventilation window.

It was a shock to see Georgie standing there. She turned as Martin approached, blinking with confusion, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing.

“Oh … Sorry, um, Melanie told me to wait for her here.”

“Oh, you –” Martin stopped up short. “You’re here for Melanie?”

“Yeah.” Georgie smiled politely. “… Georgie." 

She held out a hand to shake and Martin subtly stepped backwards. Awkwardly, she lowered her hand and nodded instead. 

"I’m sorry – sorry, I didn’t realize.” Martin stepped back again, keeping a little space between them. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

“… You must be Martin.”

“Yeah. Has Melanie been talking about me?”

“Oh, um…” her face fell slightly. “Jon used to go on about you a lot.”

“Oh. Oh, wait – wait, I thought Melanie-Georgie and Jon-Georgie were…”

“Same – same Georgie,” she said softly. She hesitated a moment, then spoke again. “I’m sorry. About – about Jon.”

“… About Jon?”

“Melanie told me. Things got … complicated between the two of us. But I still –” she shook her head. “A-anyway, it seemed like the two of you were –”

“Sorry,” Martin interrupted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about?" 

Georgie’s posture went suddenly rigid. She had the look of someone who’d only just realized they’d made a very significant mistake, too late to undo it. 

"Has no one told you?” she asked.

“I ah, haven’t really been showing up at meetings?” Martin laughed mirthlessly. “Kind of out of the loop over here.”

“Oh.” Georgie paused, eyes wide. After a deeply awkward silence, she coughed and continued. “Right. Well. Jon’s gone missing.”

“Missing? He’s – No. No, of course he has.” Martin sighed, frustration edging into his voice. “Do we know he’s missing missing? He kind of just runsoffsometimes.”

“Seems like it. He didn’t say anything about leaving, and he’s not answering calls. Apparently Basira made him promise recently that he wouldn’t go on any more trips without leaving some word, so they wouldn’t think he’d been, y'know, kidnapped.”

“Great. Just great. Meaning he probably has been kidnapped. Again.”

“Maybe … ." 

Georgie didn’t sound very convinced. She shifted on her feet, and there was something in her body language that maddened Jon in his inability to unpack it, but Martin seemed to catch on. 

”… But you don’t think he is?“

"I’m not sure of anything. But no, I don’t think so,” she said. “I used to have dreams about him. I mean, real dreams. Supernatural ones.”

“You gave him a statement?” Martin sounded surprised.

“I suppose.” Georgie said. “They weren’t every night, but they happened often enough. I’d see him and – it’s hard to explain, but I just knew it was him? Not a dream-image or a memory, he was there. Even when he went missing before, the dreams meant I knew that he was still alive. It’s why I was sure that he was still inthere through the coma, even if he never woke up again. But they’ve stopped now.”

“Stopped?”

“Stopped cold. According to Melanie, the last time anyone saw him was the first of the month, and as far as I can tell they stopped when he disappeared.” She paused to allow that to sink in. “I suppose I can’t say for surewhat that means for him. But I have a guess.”

From his perch above them, Jon took a moment to absorb that. Martin had gone very still, and with his back to the door he couldn’t see his face. Georgie continued.

“Melanie says they’re going to assume he’s alive until they know otherwise, but I can’t say I have any hope. I … I think that this was coming for a while.” she said gently. 

A soft huff of air came from Martin. He turned back towards the door, a hand over his mouth.

“I am so sorry.” Georgie said. “I thought you knew.”

“I –” Martin laughed shakily. “I told him to stop finding me.”

He looked up, then. Although he couldn’t possibly have seen Jon from that angle, for just a moment, it seemed as if their eyes met. There was a terrible rushing sound, like the ocean, or the wind in a dizzying fall. And then Martin was just gone.

* * *

Panicked yowling and scrabbling at the door was enough to catch Georgie’s attention as she stood, staring at the space where a man had vanished before her eyes. Jon barely glanced at her as she opened the door for him, darting past her ankles and running out into the archive. Frantically, he reached for the Eye, pressing against the door and damning any cuatuion left in him. It returned nothing. Whether due to his weakened state, or Martin being somewhere beyond the Watcher’s sight, his power to See was useless now.

So he looked with his mundane eyes, small as limited as they were. He went through the archive, the small offices and side rooms – even taking a detour into the tunnels, as if he had ever found answers there. Only when he’d begun retracing his steps did it occur to him he hadn’t checked inside his own office. 

Heart still pounding, he nosed open the door. It looked empty at first, but there was a pronounced chill to the air, and a shadow in the corner that didn’t look right. He crept closer to it. 

Martin was there. Or, the shape of him was. Something vaguely present, hard to see in the dim light of the room.

“Not sure how I got here,” he muttered. His voice was dull, distant. “Did I wantto be here? Why? He’s gone, there’s no point in looking here now.”

Even up close it was hard to make his form out. He seemed faded, the color of the wall was bleeding though him and his veins were visible through his skin – as if different parts of him were vanishing at different rates. Jon pawed at his leg, meowing, and Martin’s gaze moved towards him sluggishly. He frowned.

“Guess you would be the one to find me,” he said, half-heartedly pushing Jon off of him. “You here to watch me suffer? That seems like an Eye thing. Suppose you want a statement before I’m gone.”

He meowed again in protest – Jon was going to lose his mind. Martin was mourning him and he was standing inchesaway.There had to be some way he could make him understand … .

But that thought wasn’t one the book would allow him to hold. Its influence came over him just as it had every time he’d tried to communicate with someone and his mind went blank. The terror remained, his thoughts scattered and confused, still certain something was horribly wrong but no longer able to understand whatorwhy.

"He kept finding me,” Martin spoke, and Jon fixed his attention on him, trying to hold onto what he was saying. “After he got back. I guess he was worried about losing more people. Or just … wanted to keep an eye on everyone. Maybe he was lonely.”

Movement caught Jon’s eye – he was drumming his fingers against his knee. As he watched, the delicate outlines of phalanges began to appear.

“It’s funny. For a minute I actually felt guilty, because I kept thinking – what if he needed my help? But that’s stupid, really. He never needed me before.”

He let out a long, slow breath. It hung in front of his face, obscuring his features. When it dispersed, Jon couldn’t see his eyes anymore.

“Guess I already knew that. Still told myself I was doing this for him, after he came back. Keeping Peter’s attention off him, but …” The figure shook its head. “Think I can admit now that it wasn’t about that, not really. Clinging to the fog was just easier by then.”

The figure’s breaths were coming out in clouds, like that of someone speaking on a cold day. They blurred its form, eroding parts of it with every word spoken. The face was entirely gone now, faded into a blur of shadow and fog, veins and arteries floating within it, shadows of bones just visible as it all faded to nothing. And Jon could barely move . He had to do something, he was sure, but the harder he tried to focus the slower and hazier he felt. Struggling against it only sapped his strength, and he felt his legs give out on him. He lay helpless on the floor, trying to keep his gaze on something that was nearly not there.

“Suppose it doesn’t matter what happened. One way or another, everyone leaves.” A voice… someone’s voice? It was so faint. “At least this way there’s nobody … who might be … diminished … .”

It was impossible to see where the voice was coming from now, every part of it seemed to be dissolving. Jon couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, but he lunged forward on pure instinct. No plan or  goal in mind, only the sudden conviction that he had to grab hold of whatever was left before it disappeared.

His mouth closed around something cold and damp but just barely solid. He bit down. Hard. 

Emotion returned to Martin’s voice as he cried out in pain and surprise. He tried to jerk his hand back, but Jon was clamped down tightly and wasn’t letting go. Grunting, he pressed two fingers into Jon’s cheeks, prying his jaw open just enough to pull him loose. A moment later he was being lifted into the air, hands cupped under his front legs, back legs dangling. 

“What the hell,” Martin rasped – his voice retained a distant, echoing quality. “What’s the matter with you?”

He was holding Jon at arm’s length, just far away enough that he couldn’t reach him if he struggled. Jon didn’t struggle, he kept still and stared. Martin’s form had regained some solidity, if only enough to hold a cat in place. But his face was an insubstantial smear, his outlines weak. Any moment now, he’d start slipping back into the nothing that was waiting for him. Jon couldn’t allow that to happen – he reached into himself and Lookedas hard as he could at the memory of Martin’s face, willing it to return.

I’m here, Martin, he thought. See me, see me, see me,SEE ME.

At long last he felt something terrible move through him, and a vast and seeking gaze reached out. It found two eyes lost in the miasma and pulled them out to look back into his. A familiar nose followed, a brow ridge, creased skin and messy hair. Light returned to the eyes and they widened, still looking back.

Martin’s face had reappeared. His form was opaque – truly, entirely solid again. He stared back in total disbelief.

“Oh my God…” he gaped, voice rising in shock. “Jon?!”