I got myself cleaned up, which didn't take too long. One of the benefits of being shapeshifted was not getting blood on my clothes when fighting. My phone was full of messages, mostly from Amelia. I sent a reply, apologising for being incredibly late, then gave her a call. I wasn't really in the best condition to deal with her, and I think my explanation of having been on a rescue mission came out a bit garbled, but I got through that there was a reason for my absence and promised to get on the bus right away. I would have driven, but there was no sign of Topher and Vanessa.
The bus journey was worse than usual. It seemed like the whole of Bristol was out on the streets, and the first bus was so full it went straight past me. When I finally did get on a bus, some girl accused me of staring at her man. I wasn't in the mood for an argument, so I just pushed my sunglasses up my nose to make sure I wasn't accidentally showing my eyes and muttered something about not looking at anyone.
It was a relief to get off and out of the crowds, but then I had to deal with the Council of Merlin's doorman, in his sash, white gloves and ridiculous beard, who clearly didn't think much of my clothes or appearance. He refused to let me in, and in the end I had to resort to pulling out the signet ring to show him. I didn't put it on, and I hated having to show it at all, but it got me through the door. The doorman was practically falling over himself to apologise once he realised I was connected to Percy. Maybe at a different time I'd have reassured him, or had a word about judging by appearances, but this time all I could do was laugh.
I made my way through the Halls of Merlin. I didn't get as far inside last time, with Percy dragging me off to look at that vault. This time I got to see the council chamber, with a massive wooden table made of a single slab of oak. A nice place for them all to sit down and pretend they're all equal. I didn't stick around in there. I gave the floating crystal chandeliers a brief glance and moved on.
I found Amelia in a reading nook, still wearing those earrings I gave her. That was reassuring. She asked where I'd been, and I gave her a longer and slightly more coherent account of our fight through the vampire mansion. I tried to make light of things, and not leave her asking questions like why wasn't I in a hospital right now, but failed. All the same, she did accept that I was telling the truth and had a good reason for not joining her in the morning.
She talked me through what she'd found so far. She'd been reading up on Celtic mythology, and had come to the conclusion that a lot of it seemed to have sprung up overnight, a couple of millennia ago. We went through some of the books together, and she was right. There were no proto-forms of deities. It was like older versions of these myths had been deleted. And more questions arose, given that this was all Welsh stuff and we were in Bristol. What was a vault covered in carvings of the Tuatha doing here? The conclusion we were coming to was that the Tuatha and the Djinn had been affected by the same thing.
It was getting late. I invited Amelia to the pub for dinner so we could talk somewhere more comfortable, but then Rose Spencer Howard showed up along with Priti, neither of whom looked any friendlier than when I last saw them. Rose insulted me at length, which might have hurt if I didn't care even less about her opinion of me than Percy's. I apologised for raising the tone of the establishment, but that didn't phase her. She added a few more insults regarding my parentage, which I let go because Amelia was obviously upset and I didn't want to make things any worse for her.
Rose went on her way but Priti stuck around to talk to me. Alone. And I figured out she was a djinn even before her eyes turned to black coals. She wanted to know how I did it. Did what, she didn't say, and I was far too tired to deal with people being vague. Still, there was a bruise on her face and she knew about what we did in the mansion and what happened to Carolina. I didn't feel the need to elaborate. Especially not to someone who was telling me they were going to meet me outside in fifteen minutes and kill me.
Leaving via a different exit seemed like a good option at this point. I found Amelia again, and told her that Priti was going to kill me in fifteen minutes, which she didn't believe as Priti isn't exactly a fighter. So I told her Priti had been possessed, which wasn't quite true but seemed like an explanation that would get through quicker than trying to explain that she was a shapeshifter who couldn't be detected even with the Sight. And she believed me, thank god. She knew another way out of the observatory, so I followed her. I'd have felt better about it if Priti hadn't spotted us passing by.
Of course the other way out had to involve narrow passages carved into the rock. I could feel panic setting in, but pushed it down, trying very hard not to think about the massive weight of rock around me. And Priti was following us, taunting me. Taunts weren't going to hurt me. So she moved on to what could hurt me.
Amelia told me she could feel Priti pressing on her mind. I knew what would come next, and told her to fight back. And I did my best to encourage her. She'd managed to handle this bunch of stuck up arseholes at the Council for way longer than I had. She was stronger than me. She could do this. And she did.
We'd made it out of the tunnels and into a natural cavern on the edge of the river when Priti caught up with us. She wanted me to fight her, and if I'd had Topher at my side I'd have done it, but here with nobody but Amelia and nothing left in me, it wasn't going to happen. She breathed a huge gout of flame at us, and I flung myself and Amelia into the water as the flames singed my back.
I ignored the pain and swam out into the gorge. Amelia was alongside me, and I dragged us both out onto the bank. Cold, wet and bedraggled, but at the same time I felt better. I was out in nature and I was in my element. But Priti was out too, walking across the water with it boiling under her feet. I concentrated on my surroundings, and called up a mere shred of power. But it was enough to reach up into the sky and feel the energy in the clouds. I called for lightning, and with my hair standing on end and my eyes full of electricity, I brought it down on Priti.
Except I'd made a mistake, I realised, as electricity crackled and forked around the three of us, and my vision turned white.
As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I was vaguely aware of a red sun rising over the city, and fires burning. Bristol was doing what it does best. Rioting.
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