So there I was in the restaurant, already freaking the hell out over the thought of getting dragged back into the Council, when things actually got worse.
I could hear Sophie Booth over the police sirens outside, talking to the restaurant staff. I was about to be arrested. I was considered dangerous, and they were calling for backup. Which meant I had maybe two minutes to figure out what to do. Two minutes that could be spent negotiating a deal with fucking Percy, because let's face it, the Council are loaded and a lot of problems go away when you throw money at them, and he'd probably jump at this chance to get me exactly where he wanted me.
Except the thought of handcuffs and a police cell meant any sensible thoughts like that were being drowned out by one thing. Out. I had to get out. Right now. The room we were in had a window. Not big enough for a person, but big enough for a bird. So I smashed it open with whatever high end tableware I could get my hands on, shifted, and fled.
From above I could see more police outside the Mitchester. DS Gunne was in Fiona's face, while she was trying to grab something off him. I could see Topher slamming two police officers' heads together. I should help, I knew that, but my head was still full of handcuffs and my heart was beating so fast I felt like it was going to burst.
Then Gunne screamed, and Topher made a run for Vanessa, carrying Fiona in one arm and her chair in the other. He's a big guy but it's easy forget just how strong he actually is. They were going to escape. Except from up there I could see more police arriving. The backup Sophie had called for me. I was going to have to do something. Wind, lightning, anything. Except the sky was perfectly clear and the air almost unnaturally still.
Then it came to me, the predator instinct breaking through the blind panic. I stooped, snatched a pigeon out of the air, and slammed it into the window of one of the police cars. Vanessa took a bump as Topher turned her around, and I doubt him and Fiona fared much better inside, but then he was flooring it out of there.
I'd stopped one car, now dealing with a mass of feathers and pigeon guts, but there were others after them, and after seeing Topher narrowly evade a road block I realised there was something else I could do to help. I scanned the road for tailing vehicles, and spotted a route that would get Vanessa out of there without running into any more trouble. I figured he'd have the sense to realise a low flying falcon with peacock blue chest stripes was me, and follow my lead.
I hung back once we were clear. Topher seemed to know where he was going, and it wasn't long before Vanessa was pulling into a garage next to a pub in Hartcliffe. I flew in after them, got in the back, and put on the emergency spare clothes. Which unfortunately are some of Topher's old gym clothes, so they're several sizes too big, but it's not like I had a choice.
I didn't know this pub, but I did know the local community garden well enough for the landlord Pavel to know who I am, and Fiona knew him well enough to know he's be OK with us using his place as a bolt hole. We got a warm welcome, bratwurst, and some drink I can't pronounce that tasted like plums and burning.
Pavel offered us his living room for the night. Fiona patched herself up with more Deep Heat than I thought was possible, then finally broke the silence to tell me the one thing I didn't know: why we were on the run from P Division. It was the Sibyl. They'd been found dead, murdered, in the ruins of St Peter's in Castle Park and we were the prime suspects. Shit. And Fiona had ripped another of those talisman chains of Gunne, who was stinking of bitter ash.
Time to backtrack a little. I told them about my evening, and what the Council had hinted at finding. The vault under the Cornubia is the first thing they thought of as well. They'd spent the evening with Gus, and that had been going pretty well, right up until the point where they'd been about to swear a blood oath and Gus had acted like there was something very wrong with the smell of Topher's blood.
Fiona and me looked at Topher, who was looking almost as shifty as he did right after Celia had that vision about him. I'd always figured, super strength, healing impossibly fast, kind of shifty about running water - he was a dhampir, right? Wolves hate those. But no. He hadn't told us about his father. Changeling, Fiona concluded. Topher described how his father had appeared to him, with his head wreathed in flames.
Then I felt it. It was like icy fingers pushing into my brain, trying to push Topher's words right back out again. I'd felt it before. It was the same thing that happened with Celia's phone, when Damian's photo was being hidden from me. It was much harder to stop it this time. I could feel I was fighting against something incredibly powerful, and just holding onto that memory left me drained.
But that's when things started to come together. Everyone knows pyromancers don't exist and there are no fire-aspect fae. Except..maybe the reason we think they don't exist is because any time someone actually learns something about them, the memory gets pushed out of their brain?
We had two leads. Whatever it was the Council had found near the observatory, and the Sibyl themself. If Fiona could get them to talk, we could probably learn a lot about what was going on. Trouble was, Fiona relies a lot on her magical tools for summoning the dead, all of which were at the Mitchester. Which meant for to her have a reasonable chance of contacting the Sibyl's ghost, given that we don't know their full name either, we'd need to be at the site of the murder, or with the body.
There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to go anywhere near the police station in my current state, which as far as I was concerned ruled out the morgue. So it was going to have to be Castle Park and an active crime scene. Shift change at 8am would be our best shot, but even so it was going to be a challenge. At least we had time for some sleep before that. Fiona set an alarm for 6am and we all drifted off to sleep.
Except we all woke up again at 5.30am when Fiona was jolted awake by her alarm wards going off. She'd taken something out of that vault at the Cornubia and someone - probably someone from P Division - had just found it. And from Fiona's expression, that someone was likely in extreme danger.
We got back in Vanessa and drove to Castle Park. There wasn't a big police presence, but it was enough that we certainly weren't going to be walking in without attracting far too much attention. The three of us were rather physically distinctive, after all. We were going to need a distraction. Topher suggested getting their attention and getting them to chase him, but I had another idea.
By then I didn't have it in me to mess with the weather, or even take wing, but one thing about being a shapeshifter is you have to get very cool very quickly about the fact some of your close friends are going to see you naked. So it was only moderately embarrassing to leave my borrowed gym clothes with the others and streak past the police officers. I swear I could almost hear the Benny Hill music as I sprinted through the park. By the time I got back, disguised in a borrowed coat, there were several more naked people running around the park. Enough to keep the police occupied for a while. I could feel the run had done me good as we raced into the church.
The place had been desecrated. Hairline cracks in the altar, charred streaks on the walls, and every trace of plant life scoured from the cracks in the floor. It stank of burning. Fiona called on the Sibyl, and asked who killed them. They said it was us - or rather something that wore our faces. A prince of the seven, the lord of a thousand faces, Maymun. A djinn.
How could we prove our innocence? The djinn was backed by an oathbreaker. Malcolm Roberts. We all knew that name. One of the people on the pub licensing committee. DSI Roberts.
Fiona had one more question. Djinns aren't British fae. What was this one doing so far from its native lands? They come where they are bound, to serve their sovereign.
That was a whole other question in itself, but right then we had to get out of there before the police got back. I got back into my clothes, and dropped the borrowed coat on the edge of the park where its owner could find it. Then it was back into Vanessa. Fiona called a contact at the hospital to check on Gunne, but it seemed he was still unconscious. That talisman had burned him badly.
We needed to find DSI Roberts, and P Division weren't going to be any use at this point. Clan Kielsyn had gone off us a bit after getting a sniff of Topher, it seemed. We were running out of places to turn. Except that nasty little shithead of a fae, Firs, still owed me one. The coin he'd given me...well I knew damn well I'd left it in a drawer at the Mitchester, not in Topher's old sweatpants, but here it was. I didn't know how I was supposed to use it, so I just let loose with every insult for the slimy bastard I could think of, until we rounded a corner and there he was at the side of the road.
He got in the back, insulted my clothes and suggested I needed some lipstick, but he did know where to find Roberts. Except he wanted something else in return, and while normally I'd take time to argue a better deal rather than give him anything, time wasn't on our side. What he wanted was my phone number. I didn't like the idea of him phoning me, but at least for the moment my phone wasn't on me. I gave him the number and he scratched it onto his arm. It wasn't for him, he said. And I had a horrible feeling I knew exactly was making deals with Firs to get hold of my number. Lucien.
We had bigger things to deal with right then though. Firs gave us the address and left the car. We drove to a much swankier part of the city and a house that looked far too expensive even for a DSI's salary, with a Tesla parked outside. While Fiona and me wondered about the best way to get inside, Topher went straight up to the front door and knocked.
A small Filipina woman in a cleaning overall opened the door, and once Topher made it clear he was going in whether she liked it or not, let us all in. The house was unsettling. It was too dark, with too much shadow in between the vases of withered flowers.
We found Roberts at his desk, lounging with a glass of whisky in one hand and the other down his trousers. He turned to face us as we approached, asking if we were going to threaten to break his knees. Fiona asked him about being an oathbreaker. He didn't have much to say. Topher brought up the subject of that nice car he had outside, and I pointed out how those things catch fire really easily. But it was Fiona who finally managed to get a rise out of him, even if it did mostly just seem to wind him up. He pulled out yet another talisman, but all the same, he winced when Fiona mentioned Maymun. He got the point about her being a necromancer, but pointed out that ghosts don't count as witness. He told us they'd infiltrated every possible level, and there was no magic that could stop him testifying that he'd seen us leaving the scene of the crime. Because it was the truth.
The cleaner knocked on the door. Roberts told her to come back tomorrow. Then the door opened, and in the doorway was no cleaner but a creature with its head wreathed in flames. It opened its mouth and a jet of flame shot across the room.
Even as I could feel my skin burning, I was reflexively shifting. If my opponent had been human, I would have blinded it, the way my talons raked through its face. Topher picked up Roberts and threw him at the djinn. He missed, but at least Roberts was out of action for a bit. Fiona was sure that despite its supernatural powers, it wasn't going to be much tougher than a human, but I couldn't pay too much attention to that as I was dropping out of its grasp as it reached up to grab me, and going for its chest. All I got was a beak full of ash, but Topher's punch landed, and the creature somehow dissolved into ash.
We needed some serious words with the now seriously injured Roberts, but we certainly weren't going to be staying at his house any longer. We all bundled into Vanessa. A plume of smoke was already coming from the house as we left.
Oh, and we set fire to the Tesla on the way out. Just, you know, on principle.
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