We made a hasty retreat from Gillian's house. Robin went to change his outfit, in the hope of not getting recognised by Gillian if we ran into her again, and we met up back at the Wicker Stop. I could see he had questions about the wings, but was very politely not asking them. I can see why Adam likes him. Michael was done with trailing her friend and hanging around the construction site, and Adam was out of hospital, so we gave him a quick briefing on events so far and asked for suggestions.
Adam had some night vision goggles which he was itching to try out, so we decided it was time for a nocturnal group visit to the construction site. We parked the van, scoped the place out, and found a single very bored looking security guard on the main entrance. We went around the side, and soon found that the area where the murder happened had been fenced off, but the rest of the site was still pretty open.
There was a central tower building covered in moss, and it looked like a good viewpoint. But as we were heading towards it, we heard a strange sound in the distance. A sort of angry roar. I checked there were no other people around, and then flew up into the air to try to see what had happened. But whatever it was it was too far away for me to see.
We decided to stick with the original plan and figure out what that was later on. But another complication arose when the concrete path leading to the building suddenly vanished as the mud around it boiled up and covered it. Adam found some scaffolding planks and laid them down to make a new path. I was absolutely not intending to walk after what happened in the woods, but in the end it was Robin who got stuck in the mud. Apparently him and Adam think along similiar lines sometimes, and I looked away while he dropped his trousers, but watering the mud didn't help this time.
That's when we heard a horrible buzzing noise and a swarm of mosquitos poured out of the tower, forming into a humanoid form and screaming at us to get out of its swamp. And honestly I thought it made a pretty compelling argument, but we couldn't go anywhere while Robin was still stuck in the mud. Then Adam shot it with his shotgun, which was enough to make it dissipate. It was also very loud, so with Robin finally unstuck from the mud we decided to make a hasty departure.
Michael stumbled across something odd on the way out though. A little bundle of plants, in a shape that reminded us of the CND logo. A small piece of wood that none of us could identify. And blood. I didn't know exactly what I was looking at, but I knew magic when I saw it.
We confirmed that the security guard wasn't dead, and made our escape. Robin was monitoring the police scanners in case of reports of gunshots. But there were none. Just something going on at the plant hire centre. We drove over, but decided all four of us going in together would look a bit weird. So Adam went in to investigate. One of their machines had been squashed completely flat. Adam wasn't able to get much else out of them, although he might have found some more business for his junkyard, dealing with the machine remains. And I don't think any of us were surprised that another of those blood daubed plant totems was at the site.
It was obvious Gillian was up to something and while I was all for confronting her, I was persuaded that we could stand to do a bit more subterfuge first. We got some sleep, and Robin got another change of clothes, and then it was time for more breaking and entering.
Michael and Adam kept watch, and once Gillian had left, Robin and me went back in. This time we went to the upstairs flat, in search of the three missing books. We found two of them, and a few other things beside. Like a list, which started with the plant hire company, and continued with what a bit of googling proved to be people who'd invested in the new construction and similar. Targets. But it was the books that really scared me. Robin held one out to me, and just the presence of the thing made my wings pop out involuntarily. Good thing he wasn't seeing that for the first time.
It was going to give the game away about our intrusion pretty quickly, but we couldn't leave these books in Gillian's hands. Especially not when I flicked through one of them, and found my own family crest drawn in the back.
We got out of there and met up with Adam and Michael again, then headed back to the construction site. We needed to finish our abandoned investigation from the previous night. This time we got into the tower without any mud incidents, although there were two sticks poking out of the ground that hadn't been there before. They were made of petrified wood. Adam didn't like them.
The tower was pretty bare on the inside, except for tendrils of mist rolling in through the unglazed windows. We climbed up to the top floor, and there we found very clear evidence of ritual magic workings. You didn't need to have grown up demonic to know what all these candle stubs were being used for. Meanwhile outside, the mist was rising.
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