When the all-too-familiar white light faded, Jon's eyes were met by the sight of a cramped, dimly-lit store. Some distance away from him, Jon saw people bustling around, taking objects off the store shelves and carrying them to a door in the back of the store and tossing them into what looked like a metal barrel. Black smoke billowed from the barrel, and an eerie orange glow emanated from its mouth.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the poorly-lit store, but when they did, Jon realized that he knew the people who were moving around in front of him. The one in the orange jumpsuit with the bandages and blood on her face Jon recognized easily; it was a somewhat dazed Karyn, holding two jars of odd-colored liquid in her hands. Another of the people, the one dressed in very conservative women's clothing, was one of Zoe's friends... Rachel something. It took Jon a moment to recognize the third person, but when he did, he was a little shocked. It was his sister Zoe, but she looked surprisingly little like the Zoe he knew. Her hair was its natural sandy blonde color instead of the black it usually was; her dark makeup and piercings were missing; and she was dressed in a startlingly skimpy and feminine outfit. She looked like a trashy caricature of someone like Sarah McMillan, and it was surprising to see her dressed that way.
Surprising enough, in fact, that he found himself blurting, inadvertently, "Zoe?"
Several things happened in the next moment. Zoe turned to Jon, apparently unfazed, and said, "Yeah, Athena?" Rachel turned, too... and her eyes shot wide open. She mouthed something that looked a lot like "Jon?"... but that was impossible, wasn't it? How could she recognize him? Karyn, for her part, looked at Jon with a knowing glance... then her expression turned to fear.
It was the voice behind Jon, though, that caught his attention, as well as the attention of everyone else in the room. "Quiet, witch, or I blow your cursed head off!" a loud male voice roared.. and the point was emphasized by what felt a lot like the barrel of a gun poking into the back of his head. Jon's whole body siezed up in panic. And it was at that moment that he happened to look down and notice his own body. Jon ignored the black dress, the tight corset, and the opera gloves he was wearing, and instead he focused on the ropes that held him tightly to the chair beneath him.
He was tied up.
Again.
Seriously, how many times could a guy end up tied to a chair at gunpoint in one day?
"Do what he says, J--Athena," Rachel said, still staring at Jon in a bit of surprise. "Keep still and quiet... we don't want our friend with the shotgun to shoot you. But don't worry.. if we do what the man asks and be patient, I'm sure he'll let you go." Then she turned to Karyn. "And Scarlet, as long as you help us destroy all the items in this shop, your friend will be safe."
"What are you, the exposition?" Zoe asked, raising an eyebrow. But Jon had gotten the message. He didn't know how Rachel recognized him, but she recognized him, and she wanted him to sit and wait. He could do that. And in any case, patience would save Jon's life, since he and Karyn would be jumping out of here in a few minutes. That would leave Zoe and the others here with the nut with the gun, though, and Jon couldn't allow that...
"Get back to work, sinners," the man behind Jon growled. "Your time is counting down."
Rachel and Zoe resumed their work, gathering items from the shelves around the room and tossing them into the flaming dumpster in back. After a moment's hesitation, and an uncomfortable glance in Jon's direction, Karyn did the same.
Jon looked around the room, searching for a clue, or an escape route, or something he could use to distract his captor... anything that might be of help. A cursory glance didn't turn up anything useful, but Jon's eyes did fall over a full-length mirror with an incredibly ornate frame... like something out of a fairy tale. In the glass, Jon saw himself, or rather the girl whose shape he currently inhabited. She was a teenage girl, pleasant-looking if a little plain, wearing a dress and corset that didn't fit her quite right. In her eyes, Jon saw an exhaustion and a frustration, a confusion and a heavy burden of guilt that perfectly mirrored his own tumultuous feelings.
Behind his own reflection, Jon saw that of another teenage girl... but the other girl looked anything but uncertain. She was an attractive blonde girl in a halter top and skirt... and she wore a knife and handgun around her waist, which stood in stark contrast to her delicate, feminine appearance. More distressingly, she had in her hands a very large, very dangerous-looking shotgun, and it was pointed directly at Jon's head. And her expression... she wore an angry, fervent expression, a look of pure and absolute conviction, that made the gun in her hands all the more frightening.
And yet the girl's eyes--or, rather, the man's eyes, considering his very masculine voice--were on Karyn, Zoe, and Rachel, not on Jon. Certainly not on Jon's wrists. That gave Jon some opportunity. Keeping his eyes firmly on the mirror, watching for any movement from the man, any change in his expression, Jon quickly but gently worked at the ropes that bound his hands together. A moment later, though, Jon gave up. The knots were sound... nothing like the sloppy knots of the man who had held him in the dorm room a few hours ago. It wouldn't be as easy to escape this time around. That left little for Jon to do but wait, and hope.
Jon watched Karyn and the others as they cleared off the store shelves. He watched Rachel in particular... the woman's behavior when she had spotted Jon had been curious to say the least. After a moment, Jon noticed something odd... as Rachel took a collection of colorful crystals off the shelf, one of the crystals seemed to vanish from her hands... the rose-colored crystal. Jon watched as Rachel carried the other crystals over to the barrel, watched as she tossed them in (they wouldn't burn like most of the other items in the store, of course, but if that bothered the man with the gun, he didn't say anything about it). Jon expected to see the rose crystal fall from Rachel's hands with the other crystals--after all, maybe the crystal had simply gotten mixed up with the other crystals--but he didn't see it. A moment later, though, he saw Rachel yawn dramatically, reaching a hand to her mouth and then stretching it out above her headas thought she were stretching... while at the same time she slipped her other hand into the pocket of her long skirt. For a second--just a second, and he wouldn't have noticed it had he not been watching so closely--Jon thought he saw a flash of pink. Suddenly Jon realized what Rachel had done. He'd done it himself, many times, when he'd been younger and had spent hours on end practicing stage magic. Rachel must have tucked the rose crystal up her sleeve while she'd been gathering up the other crystals, then pocketed it during her "yawn." Was Rachel simply so attached to that crystal, for some reason, that she wanted to salvage it from her shop? Or was there something more going on here?
In any case, glancing at the mirror again, Jon saw, with some relief, that his captor's expression had not changed. He must not have detected anything strange in Rachel's theatrics. Neither, Jon noted, had Zoe or Karyn. Jon was the only one in the room who seemed to know that Rachel had a plan... and Jon wanted to do what he could to keep it that way.
"Excuse me... miss?" Jon said, turning his head as far back as he could and trying to look the man with the gun in the face.
"That's 'sir'," the man growled.
"Oh... oh, I'm sorry," Jon said. "It's so hard to tell today, y'know? With everyone looking like everyone else... I'm not really the girl I look like either, you know? My real name is. um..." Jon stumbled for a second. "Athena. My name is Athena. I'm actually--"
"Do you want something, or are you just trying to annoy me?" the man asked with a scowl.
"Oh, sorry," Jon said. "I need to use the restroom. I don't suppose there's any way you could let me go... just for a minute?"
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, please... it's urgent. Maybe you could come with me? I promise, I won't try anything."
"Forget it. You need to go, your friends had better just hurry." The man snorted. He looked as though he had spoken his last word on the subject.
"Please," Jon said, "I don't think I can wait that long."
"Then you can just soil yourself," the man said. "Live in filth. I don't care. You pagans are so dirty already it won't make a bit of difference."
Jon bit his lip. He wasn't getting anywhere. Which was fine... he was keeping the man distracted, which was what he wanted.
"What's your name?" Jon asked, deciding to try a different route.
"What?" the man said. "Why do you care?"
"I want to know," Jon said. "If you're going to hold me like this, I'd at least like to know what to call you."
"My name's Joshua Ryder," the man said. "I'm a good Christian man."
Jon nodded. "Why are you doing this, Joshua? Why are you holding us captive here?"
"I thought I made that clear," Joshua growled. "You people, you pagans, you're sinners. God cursed this town by making us all switch bodies... it's a sign that he's angry with us. My pastor, Reverend Foster, he told us so. I'm just doing God's work... cleansing this city of filthy disgusting witches and whores like you."
Jon's stomach sank. Reverand Foster... the man who Jon had met at the very start of the day, the one who had thought Jon was an angel. The day had come back full circle, hadn't it?
"Look," Jon said, "what if I told you th--"
"Shut up," Joshua said. "Just shut up." Joshua slammed his gun roughly into Jon's head, making Jon reel a little. "I don't talk to satanists," Joshua went on. "Especially not satanist who were named after pagan goddesses. Got that, Athena?"
"Got it," Jon said, wearily.
The next few moments passed in silence, as Karyn and the others busied themselves with clearing out the room, and Joshua kept his vigil, and Jon tried to fight off his newfound headache. Suddenly, though, Rachel--who had still been grabbing items from around the room--spun. Shouting a short phrase in a language Jon didn't understand, she pulled the rose crystal from her hand and tossed it to the ground. The crystal shattered... and suddenly the room was swallowed in a blaze of red light.
A moment later the light cleared, and Jon saw that he was still in the magic shop... but things had changed. Or, more specifically, the people had changed...
At the back of the store, standing in the same spot where Rachel had been a moment before, and wearing the same conservative blouse and long skirt Rachel ahd been wearing, Jon saw a very confused Zoe. Looking to where Zoe had been, Jon saw Karyn, dressed in the same tiny halter top and skirt Zoe had been wearing. Where Karyn had been, Jon saw a large, clean-cut man, looking incredibly dazed.
That left two people unaccounted for. Looking down, Jon saw a woman tied to a chair in front of him, dressed in a long black dress and opera gloves. The woman turned her head as far as she could, and Jon saw the face of Rachel Harris looking up at him. "Jon, dear," she said, quite calmly, "could you please point that gun somewhere else?"
And at last, with that, Jon looked down at himself. He was dressed in a pink halter top and a short skirt, in flip-flops and a pair of weapon belts... and in his hand, he carried a very intimidating-looking shotgun.
But Jon couldn't spend much time looking himself over, because a moment later, the man in the orange prison jumpsuit--Joshua Ryder--roared, "What did you demons do to me?" And a second later, he was charging at Jon. Jon fumbled uncertainly with the shotgun in his hand for a moment... then, making his decision, he grabbed onto the barrel of the gun with both hands and pulled it behind his head. He swung the gun out, like a baseball bat, and connected with heavy flesh. A moment later, Joshua was on the ground... alive, breathing, and unconscious.
Jon, Karyn, Zoe, and Rachel looked at each other, and at the unconscious figure on the floor, in stunned silence. It was Rachel who spoke at last. "Could someone untie me? These ropes are starting to chafe, and I really think they'd be better around our friend here."
And with that, Jon shook off his confusion, put down his gun, took the ropes around Rachel in his hands, and got to work.
