Topher drove us out of the city, dodging police cars and ANPR cameras as he went, until we reached an abandoned warehouse in an old industrial estate. For all her good qualities, Vanessa is a very distinctive vehicle, and while they hadn't brought the helicopters out yet, we needed to get her out of sight. Topher tried to force the door open, overdid it a bit and broke the door. But we were in, and could get Vanessa under cover.
We weren't alone. Celia was there, not looking at all pleased to see us. Understandable, under the circumstances. She had worked for the Sibyl, after all. And now her visions were getting worse - full on prophet type stuff - and seemed to involve us. There was a house we needed to visit after dark, along with Roberts. She was clearly holding something back though, and after some prodding, she described how there was a black bird sitting on Fiona's shoulder, wearing the death mask of a child.
Naturally we were concerned for Celia's safety. None of us said it out loud, but it was obvious we were all thinking the same thing. With the Sibyl dead, someone might have to take their place, and it was looking a lot like that someone was going to be Celia. She told us not to worry about her, but even if we were all wrong about her becoming the Sibyl, it still seemed like a dangerous time to be a diviner, particularly one who'd just unexpectedly got a lot better at it. As she was leaving I told her that I was still going to worry about her. That wasn't negotiable. She gave me a hug.
Left alone, we sat the unconscious Roberts on an old chair, and Topher went out to check on the perimeter. Shortly afterwards we heard the sound of him running. Then I heard a voice talking about how fast Topher was, and complaining about him not being able to understand. I'd heard voices like that before. Animal communication doesn't quite work the same way as talking, but my brain still interprets it the same way. It seemed only polite to go out and have a chat with the fox that had just apparently been racing Topher.
He seemed a friendly sort, obviously impressed with Topher's physical prowess. He was also hungry, unsurprisingly, so I asked Topher if he could find us anything to eat. With Topher out of the way, the fox lowered his voice - hardly necessary given that Topher couldn't understand him anyway - and told me that Topher was one of Them, and that he was basically a ticking time bomb who could turn on me at any moment. Which was pretty damn unsettling, but I wasn't entirely convinced. Topher seemed as distressed by the knowledge of who his father was as any of us. Anyway, Topher came back then with a stale pasty he'd found in Vanessa, which we shared between the three of us, although I couldn't help noticing the fox didn't touch his share until he'd seen me eating mine.
The fox went on his way, and I went back into the warehouse. Topher wanted to know about the conversation, but I just told him the fox was being a drama queen, which was probably the truth. It was quiet in there. Too quiet. Somewhere like this I'd expect to hear the sounds of animals and birds, particularly the kind of thing that triggers all my predator instincts, but there was nothing. I lit a fire, but found myself shivering in spite of it.
Eventually the dickhead woke up. With several hours before we needed to follow Celia's guidance, we figured we might as well talk to him, and took the tape off his mouth. Topher tried to wind him up, but that just resulted in a long string of insults that could have come straight from a 1970s cop show. Eventually Topher gave up, got out a book of philosophy, and started reading it to him, which didn't seem to improve his mood.
With Topher having taken a rather unorthodox approach to playing bad cop, I thought I'd have a shot at being good cop. Unfortunately I couldn't think of much to talk to him about other than his car. I really tried. I didn't actually mention that we'd set fire to his Tesla, only that I'd heard they caught fire a lot, but he leapt to conclusions. I pointed out that a lot of things had been on fire when we left, and things like that happened when you had a djinn in your house. That got a response, even if it was mostly him laughing at us for having missed something, and a bit more prodding from Topher got him to tell us that the djinn aren't fairies, but angels, or gods.
He did have a point in that the thing in his house had been shapeshifted but neither Topher nor me had noticed that, which is definitely out of the ordinary. We were all pretty sick of him by this point though, and Topher asked if anyone had a feather he could use to tickle Roberts' feet with.
I always have a feather.
Between the three of us, we were definitely getting to him. I suggested that the more he talked, the less annoying we would be, and that got a little more out of him - that he wanted his talisman back, and that he could heal himself with it. And that the goal had been to get both the Sibyl and us out of the way, so they could move into the endgame.
At last, darkness was approaching. We taped up Roberts' mouth again, and rolled him in a carpet, pointing out that he'd brought all of this on himself. Topher drove us to the address Celia gave us. A random middle class suburban house? It matched the picture. There had been an attempt to plant roses in the front garden. I felt a strong urge to redo it properly, but all the same, I appreciated the attempt.
Stealth was kind of pointless at this point. Either we had to drive our large, conspicuous car up to the house, or walk down the street carrying a man wrapped in a carpet, and the former seemed less likely to get people immediately calling the police. The front door was answered by DCI Myers. Obviously she wanted to call her colleagues immediately, when faced with three accused murderers, but I told her if she wanted to know what her boss had been up to, she needed to hear us out.
She understandably didn't want the smelly old carpet we'd brought with us in the house, so Topher put it, and Roberts, in the garage while Fiona and me went into the house. It was about as thoroughly middle of the road as Myers herself. I noticed the photos on the wall were all of her. Which made sense for the graduation photo, but otherwise seemed odd. I couldn't place what was bothering me though.
I thought a direct approach was our best shot at getting Myers to listen, so I came straight out with it. Her boss was in league with an evil god and was framing us for murder. And she did listen. I guess you don't make it to the head of P Division without an understanding of crime, and she noted that while there had been an abundance of DNA evidence, we didn't actually have any motive. It did look like a stitch-up, but maybe it looked a bit too much like a stitch-up? Why should she trust us? I pointed out how unlikely it was for us to have committed a crime like this. After all, we're just three people who run a pub.
Not just three people who run a pub, she countered, given Topher's strength, Fiona's magic, and my abilities which she described as 'miraculous'. But I reminded her that while what I can do might be impressive, it's not exactly murder skills. Not unless there's a rabbit you particularly don't like.
That got a smile, and then things got much weirder when her accent suddenly changed and she spoke a few words into a glass paperweight, and a few moments later, Klaus came down the stairs. Why was it, everywhere he went, he ran into us? Probably the geomantic node, Fiona suggested. Myers was wiping off her makeup. Underneath it her skin was darker, and she bore a resemblance to Klaus. "Call me Jules," she told us. So she was the third leader of Clan Kielsyn that Damian had told us about.
Turns out wolves are as bad as foxes when it comes to being drama queens, because once again it was 'oh no, Topher is half djinn, he's totally going to turn on us at any moment.' Fiona reminding them that changelings don't have to take after their parents didn't seem to carry any weight. I'd had enough of it. I told them that I trusted Topher, despite having thought that he was a dhampir until yesterday, and it's not like I exactly had a good track record with dhampirs. How much of my shameful past Klaus actually knew I don't know, but that made him laugh.
Just having Myers - Jules - won over wasn't going to be enough to get the police off our backs though. We needed some actual solid evidence of Roberts framing us, and given that we still had him tied up in the garage, it was worth trying to get a confession on record. Jules gave me her glass paperweight and assured us they'd be able to hear everything.
Roberts was a gloater, we knew that, so letting him think he was winning would probably get him to talk. Fiona, being the most convincing liar, went in with a story about someone having got to our contact. I tried to add a little extra plausibility by hanging back, looking distressed, and talking about how I couldn't go to prison. Not exactly a difficult act, given that I'd spent the last twenty-four hours or so with that thought hanging over my head.
It took a while, but he talked. And then in came Myers/Jules, and she arrested him for so many different things I lost track. She assured us that in a few hours they'd have everything sorted and we'd be free. That's when my tears stopped being an act and started flowing for real.
The others gave me some space and after a couple of hours of sleep on the floor of some unfurnished rooms in the house, Jules woke us up to let us know it was over, and we could go home. Topher drove us back to the Mitchester Arms. The police had ransacked the place, and the smell of bitter ash was everywhere, but I was home.
There was a parcel in my room, which as I hoped, contained my clothes and shoes that I'd worn to the restaurant. My only good pair of shoes, so I was glad to get them back. It also contained my phone, and a ring box. I already knew what I was going to find in the ring box but opened it up anyway to glare at the cursed thing. Except there was something else in there too. A slip of paper.
OBSRVTRY COMPRMSD//P.-PRT=/=SOURCE//SOS DAISY!!
The observatory - and presumably the vault they'd found under it - was compromised. Percy was involved, if not responsible. And worst of all, Amelia was in trouble. I reached for my phone. Over twenty missed calls, as many text messages, and one voicemail. Well, whatever Lucien wanted it was going to have to wait. I needed a shower and to sleep in my own bed.
The next morning there was a sign on Topher's door making it clear he had no intention of waking up any time soon. That meant I'd be making my own breakfast, so I headed for the kitchen. Everything was in the wrong place after the police had been through it, but that didn't bother me too much. Putting everything back where it belonged was a nice normal mundane problem to fix. I started putting things away and was about to play the voicemail on my phone when I realised that I probably shouldn't be holding anything breakable while it was playing.
It wasn't Lucien. It was some kind of river fae asking for help with something. I picked the phone up and started looking through the texts. Nothing from Lucien. Just a lot more fae all wanting help. One of them was actually from the boggarts, saying that they didn't know that I was so nice, and they'd like me to come and visit them now I was the new fae nanny.
Fuck Firs. Fuck that slimy dickhead bastard fae.
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