Division of Worlds

Part One

The chilly autumn had already beaten against the Atlantic City in cased by the wide bay. The lights of the skyscrapers and the apartment buildings that loomed over a hazy fog. Lights like eyes shone through the dark and onto the glassy sea, peering down at the lumbering waves that lazily beat against the shores. However, one building shone out than the most. A tall, outstanding pyramid of glass and metal framework lingered in the middle of the city, the lights coming from long white pillars in the front of it. It was the grandest sight to see to a new comer but it was the work place of one such archaeologist. In the belly of the glass art, a figure sat hunched over with a small brush and pick, clearing away bits of debris and soil from a round disk-like object on a stand which balanced it on a set of stilts for easy access to the bottom of it.

Jocelyn sat back from huddling over the ancient piece, a series of relieving pops and cracks sounding off from sitting in one position for maybe far too long. She released a grunt, reaching back and pulling a large book over that contained the knowledge of the strange symbols on the piece she was working on. Thumbing through it, she couldn’t seem to find the mysterious markings anywhere within its contents.

“It looks Tibetan…Definitely similar to Sanskrit...What the hell is this thing…?”She muttered, tossing the book back to its original place and returning to the piece. Pursing her lips, she carefully cleaned up her workspace then moving the piece with skill to a box lined with straw and cotton to keep it well protected from the elements since that evening there was a light rain. Packing her briefcase with her research papers, her artifact and pepper spray she had for such nights where she had to head home in the dark.

As she left, the lights shut off and lit as she headed out the back door, making sure to lock up and leave without making much noise. Out of the back alley, she stepped out with an open umbrella, her bag held tightly in her hand. The streets were still and chilly, the square very cold and quiet without the fountain in the center of town running with its artistic display of waterworks. Jocelyn paused a moment at the bridge over the park stream she had to cross, looking over the edge of the railing at her frizzy and tired expression.

“Humph…”She scoffed at her freckled, chocolate-colored haired reflection.
Pushing her squared off glasses up her nose, she looked up to see the city but was greeted with a more unfamiliar sight. Someone was b y the stream, bundled up in some odd clothing. The fabric shone in the dim park lighting, revealing the rich greens and reds of the robes and a small Gem that seemed to fasten a flowing cloak. The appearance was unusual not to mention startling.

“Hello? Are you okay?”Jocelyn called out, a head whipping to look at her with sharp hazel eyes catching her gaze. In a blink, the figure seemed to disappear, colors and all. This caused the woman to become startled and continued her way across the bridge to get home. Better to be behind locked doors then the park with strange people about. At home, she made sure to lock away her precious finding and paper in a safe location within her homestead. It was small yet cozy for a single woman of twenty-six. She had all the appliances she needed and then some for her work which involved a very nice computer and a library for reference material.

Jocelyn retreated to her bedroom for a good night’s rest despite the clock showing it was now the witching hour. Midnight. She’d worked a good thirteen hours in that lab cleaning up the artifact and yet she still knew nothing about it. In her bright green plaid pajamas, she flopped down into her sweet mattress heaven, her face smooshed against the pillow. As Jocelyn drifted off to sleep, kept thinking about those eyes in the dark. The moon wasn’t out and there was a light rain…so why did they light up like that? The analysis of just that figure in the dark gave her a migraine, sleep coming that much faster.

The next morning, the alarm was the one to wake her from her dreamful sleep, her routine starting with cleanliness, breakfast and then removing all of her work items from their safe location. The rain outside had thickened quite a bit too almost a torrential pour-down. Jocelyn looked down at her umbrella still slightly damp from the evening before.

‘There’s no way this is going to hold up in a rain storm…I might actually have to drive to work…Phoo....’She pouted, tucking the umbrella under her arm and seeking out her keys from the hook. With a small sweep, she relieved them from their post and headed out, making sure to lock up.

As she turned, her nose caught the smell of something sweet, her head whipping around as a yell emitted from her throat. There was a face so close to hers that their noses were touching. She could feel the cold clammy skin like the person had been standing outside for hours just outside the apartment. Her eyes stared, hazel ones staring back at her. Another blink, they were still there.

“Ah…Ah….Ahhhhh—“She tried to yell, the eyes staring back at her narrowing like they were squinting. “AHHHHHHH!” Jocelyn managed to shout. The person seemed to be startled enough to where he moved back and as she blinked, disappeared again. Looking around, side to side, there was no sign of him. Panting, she clutched her briefcase to her chest and ran for the elevator, bumping the down button with her hip and heading for the open doors. At the back wall, she stood there shivering and panting. Again another surprise. She didn’t need them not at this critical time in her career or her young life. Huffing a bit of hair out of her face, she put a hand to her racing heart, stepping out of the elevator and towards the parking garage quickly as her feet could carry her. She almost wanted to throw her briefcase into it and then hightail it like a stunt scene but with her nervous heart…well…bad idea. Starting up the old Volkswagen, she pulled out without looking back to check if anyone was behind her. Thank goodness.

At the museum which was a five minute drive from home, she got into the office and immediately got to work. A college student, Jonathan, saw her come in and stood to his feet.

“Hey, you clocked out five hours ago, why are you here?”He asked quickly, hovering around her as she removed the artifact from its protective box. Jocelyn brushed him off and set the disc on the stand she had used last evening.

“Because it’s safer here than at home. There’s been someone stalking me since last night and I don’t even know who he is. “Jocelyn said, stepping away to slip into a lab coat with a pair of rubber medical gloves onto her worn out and cut up hands. Sitting down, she looked over her shoulder at him with raised eyebrows. “Stop hovering, it’s giving me goosebumps.”

“Sorry, I’m just as curious as always. Found anything new on the artifact?”Jon asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“That’s the strange thing. None of the markings match the others in the books. This one, despite all our references, is very foreign. “Jocelyn chimed, obviously now excited about her find. “Maybe it’s an unidentified culture or a mix of cultures. This could be a great find…”

“You said that three months ago when you found the thing. You haven’t even let up from it.”Jon said, going back to his station to clean up a piece of pottery. “When are you just going to hand it over or let it rest?”

“Until I figure this thing out.”Jocelyn frowned, going back to cleaning the find, hunching over and keeping remotely silent as she worked. By noon, she was called off for a break from the head of the department, packing up her findings and heading out for something to eat. The rain had lightened some and her umbrella had held up quite nicely from that morning’s downpour. At a small café, she sat down near the back with a cup of coffee and a cheese n’ ham croissant, a stylish magazine plopped down on the table spread to the latest news.

Across the room, eyes watching the woman with the case at her side. His lips pursed as his eyes squinted to try and focus in but having very little luck. The atmosphere of this world was hazing his usually acute vision and not in a good way. He’d been tracking the woman since that strange digging site and now even further each and every day. It was now just getting irritating. Frowning, he craned his head back and leaned thoughtfully against the back wall.

<“Okay…Woman creature can: 1) see me; 2) touch the stone and not be repelled by its magicks…3) doesn’t seem to carry any weapons…Tonight.”>The Stranger mumbled in a foreign tongue. <”No, after she leaves. Need to get it now.”> He corrected himself, turning and seemingly walking through the wall and disappearing all together.

On the other side, he perched himself on a crate, his arms crossed as his eyes wandered up, blurred to the pouring sky. Great. He’d be stuck in the rain for a while until the woman left the restaurant. At every chime of the bell that he heard, he poked his head out of the alleyway to see if it was her. No. Just a bunch of caterwauling women wearing too much war paint and bright colors from what he could sort of see. Thankfully, he could peer close enough to such feminine creatures to even see what they were and they couldn’t even see or smell his breath in the frosty air. Biting the inside of his cheek, he looked to the café window, peering inside and then stepping through the glass and the masonry to get a closer look, hopefully, without the woman seeing him. The stone in her possession was causing much trouble already since she could see him if only for flickering moments. Slinking by, he managed to be unseen until he got close enough to the table.

Jocelyn, as she sipped her coffee could see a long shadow on her table, her eyebrows raising. Putting her cup down slowly, she set it on the saucer, closing the magazine slowly and rolling it up.

“S…ngh...Why are you following me?!”Jocelyn shouted it out, bringing the rolled up paper around and smacking the stranger on the side of the head. The roll collided with something yet there wasn’t the sound that anything fell. Panting, she leaned over to look but found only nothing. Scraping chairs caught her attention and she looked up, flushing and gathering her things to leave.

“Oh, it was just a spider, he, silly things keep bumping into me. Sorry for the disruption.”She said quickly, holding her briefcase to her chest and fleeing the restaurant, trotting past the alley way where the stranger held the side of his head, a small hair-line cut on his eyebrow from where the paper had given him a small knick.
The foreign man growled, pulling a leathery suede brown glove off of his hand to feel for any signs of blood. Only a little drop but it was enough to get him angry. Running through the buildings like they were just a fog, he made his chase, following behind her. Jocelyn, despite the already bustling afternoon felt like the same thing that was following her around was now chasing after her!

She tried pushing through the umbrellas and trench coats, eventually pulling off to an alleyway to hope that she’d lost them. A metallic sound against leather caught her attention and before she knew it, the face from that morning was staring right at her, the pointed end of a dirk aimed too close for comfort to the small knob on her throat.

“Someon--!”She tried to cry before she was cut off by a husky voice from the eyes that peered at her.

“Silence you moron…Do you realize how much trouble you’ve already caused?”The stranger hissed, his hot breath running along her face in a cold puff of air.

“Trouble?! I want to get home and you’re the one holding a letter opener to my neck…”Jocelyn grumbled, holding her briefcase closer to her in protection.

“Caterwauling little woman, you’ve got some nerve. Give me the Minatus Discus…”The stranger hissed again, gesturing to the case that she clutched to closely to her body. Jocelyn swallowed, feeling the blade grind against her skin a little with the motion.

“I don’t have it. What is the Minatus Discus?”She daringly asked, pressing her back further against the wall.

“An artifact that doesn’t belong on this plane…and not to the likes of one such as yourself. Those markings mean nothing to your human tongues.” He snarled, moving the knife away a little but only by a few inches, his face following suit.

Jocelyn got a very good look at the one that had been following her since the previous evening. His hair was long and slinky blonde with random stripes of maroon through it, a pair of ears, definitely not human sticking from them. The right ear had a tube piercing on it, another smaller one on the bottom lobe towards the point. His lips were pale in comparison to her rosy ones and his skin was clammy white, obviously probably having been outside far too long for comfort. His clothing comprised mostly of robes and very rich ones at that. The fabrics shone of silks but the cloak about his shoulders with a Gem of a fastener to keep it about him. It obviously didn’t hold up the cold and not to mention rainy miserable weather the city had been having. Her face scrunched a little as she stared at his eyes which seemed to do the same.

“You can’t see can you?”Jocelyn pointed out blatantly. The Stranger looked a little startled by her question, leaning closer.

“I can see enough to where I know you are holding something in your arms. This plane restricts my sight.”He sneered, his knife slowly lowering but moved to her briefcase, poking at it. “Enough with this give me the discus so I may return home.”

“This ‘Discus’ is an artifact of my world…I found it and I’m cleaning it up for my research. You ‘elf boy’ can go home without it.”Jocelyn said, wriggling along the wall and trying to move away. A force with the feeling of a tall body to it prevented her from moving any further, a chest squishing her against the brick. She could feel the rough surface grind a little aggressively to it; obviously the guy was moving to make sure he could hear her talk.

“Watch your tongue…”He growled close to her ear. Jocelyn inhaled sharply, her bottom lip starting to quiver. This was all going horridly wrong! Craning her head up to look at him, her glasses awry with having been disheveled with the movement.

“I’ll…give…you…the stone…If you teach me about it…and let me finish my research….”She gasped, trying to make a quick compromise. The strange man seemed to back away some, thinking on her offer. His hazel gaze drifted down to her worried and not to mention frightened expression.

Damn he was tall! Well over six feet, she figured.

“Very well…This could be a very unique opportunity. It’s not often our worlds mingle…”He smiled a little slyly, his eyebrows raised a little. “Well little female…where is your dwellings?”

Jocelyn breathed deeply when their bodies separated and she could breathe once more. Looking up to him, her arms still holding the case protectively. “Dwelling?”She frowned.

This guy was really medieval.

“Residence…Place of rest…err…”He seemed to try to list to make things easier.

“How about we call it an ‘apartment’?”Jocelyn said with a small smirk. The new guy seemed to get a bit flustered with his mistake, huffing and sheathing his dagger to his hip.

“Apartment dwelling…Fine…Take me there.”The man said bluntly.

“A name to call you first would be nice…”She mumbled, heading towards the street. A hand on her shoulder slowly slid down to her own hand, lifting it up. As she turned, her eyebrow raised with her cheeks flushing from cold and embarrassment. A tint of rage was thrown in there someone as the strange elf-man kissed her hand in a knightly way.

“Vèspat...”He cooed, running his lips along the skin of the back of her hand before releasing it. “Lead the way.”