It was Michael who came up with the idea of using magic to find the coin. There was no point driving all the way to Lancaster to visit the vicar at the hospital if the coin was still in Wicker Valley. Fortunately the junkyard had everything I needed: a map of the town, and a weight on a string. Alabaster was complaining about witchcraft, but I ignored him. I set the pendulum swinging and focussed my thoughts on the coin.
Just as I was starting to think it wasn't working, the pendulum suddenly swung almost horizontal. Not in Wicker Valley then, but based on the direction it was in Lancaster. A vision filled my mind. An older man, wearing a sweater vest, collecting the vicar's robes and other effects in a plastic bag. Which meant someone else had got there first. But who? I vaguely recognised him, so I was pretty sure he was a local who'd dropped by the Wicker Stop once or twice, but I couldn't place him.
Adam suggested one of us call the hospital, pretend to be from the diocese and ask to collect the vicar's things, at which point we could hopefully find out who had actually collected them. He suggested I do it, but I was pretty sure Alabaster would do a better job of sounding like he was from the diocese. Soon he had a name for us. Deacon Jones. Michael knew him. His wife was friends with Michael's mum. And that gave us options. Michael had no trouble convincing his mum to invite the deacon and his wife round for dinner, along with himself and a friend. Now the only question was whether the coin would be on him, or if he'd leave it at his own house.
In fact, there were two questions. Why had a black car with two suspicious looking men in it been sitting outside the Deacon's house all this time? It was probably the feds from the church, so a question for Adam. But in the mean time, we had a coin to retrieve.
Robin had had to answer an urgent call from a friend, so it was just the four of us. Alabaster was pretty sure that he could get the coin off the Deacon, so he would go with Michael to the dinner. Adam and me would break into his house. Alabaster seemed unimpressed by my bringing up breaking and entering, which seemed a bit unreasonable for someone about to engage in pickpocketing, but we got in the van and drove off. Thankfully the stone birds seemed to have decided to lay off for a bit, although what we were hearing on the police scanner suggested they were still around town.
We parked up, and Adam and me headed for the Deacon's house, conveniently very close to Michael's mum's house. I was on the look out for upstairs open windows, pretty unlikely at the time of year but you never knew. Except when we tried the front door, it wasn't locked. This was worrying. It suggested that there might still be someone here. We found the bag of the vicar's things, tipped out on the floor and searched through. And then we heard sounds from upstairs.
We ran up the stairs. One person left in one of the rooms, one who'd left rapidly via a window. I followed that one, opening my wings as I left the window to get the best possible view from above, while Adam dealt with whoever was left behind. I figured there were enough reports of giant birds in the area I didn't have to worry too much about being seen after dark. I tracked the running man across several dark gardens, and dropped down ahead of him into some shadows so I could confront him on the ground.
It was one of the feds, unsurprisingly, although not the one Adam knew, and he immediately pulled a gun on me. I stayed calm. He hadn't shot me yet, and I had my voice. I got a few things out of him. He was from an organisation calling themselves the Foundation, and Adam used to be one of them. In fact, he used to do pretty much the same thing this guy did now. I don't know if he expected that to affect my opinion of Adam. He's not the only one with a dark past, after all. He wanted to know what my interest in the coin was, so I just told him that it was causing trouble for people I like.
Anyway, the Foundation wanted the coin, and insisted that it should be brought to him immediately if we found it. I didn't like that idea at all, but it didn't seem like the time to argue, so I took the card he gave me and waited until he was gone, then got back in the van with Adam.
Then I got a message from Alabaster saying he'd got the coin. Time to go. But as he and Michael came out of the house, I saw Michael suddenly look both ways down the street. I followed his gaze. We had company. Big dogs, and when they started to move, the thunk of their feet on the tarmac told us they were made of stone.
They both ran for the van. There was the sound of tearing metal as something I later realised was a stone cat got thrown off the roof. And then we were moving. I felt under the seat for my shotgun and took a shot at the dogs, with a burst of stone chips as my reward. Michael was attempting to use the bottles of battery acid, although I think he did more damage to the van than the dogs. Alabaster...well, I could feel the magic he was slinging at them. Adam's driving was gaining us ground, but one dog was still too close for comfort. I took one more shot, shattering it enough for us to get away and through the wards.
At last we could relax a bit. Adam started up the electric furnace and we took a look at Michael and Alabaster's injuries. Bad, but not life threatening, although it would have been nice to have Robin and his dubious surgery skills there all the same. And Alabaster had given up pretending not to be using magic, to the point of admitting he'd jinxed the coin out of the deacon's pocket. He was keen to try a bit of healing magic on Michael, but on hearing that Alabaster had never tried it before, he wasn't keen on the idea. I did convince Alabaster that he should let me try to heal him rather than using magic on himself. Not that I'd done it before either, but I understood the principle well enough. I just had to do it in reverse. I drew the acid burns out of his hand, giving myself a nosebleed in the process, but I suppressed that well enough.
The furnace was hot. Adam for some reason decided he was going to try to cut the coin in half with bolt cutters, which entirely did not work. Then Alabaster tried to magically damage it, managing to inflict some light scratches on the coin and himself. I didn't think Michael was daft enough to try anything, but all the same I encouraged Adam to get on with melting the thing. Bad enough I had to be in its presence. It quickly melted away.
Then the alarms went off, and I saw the same fed from before on the cameras, trying to get into the junkyard with a pair of boltcutters. The ward was taking care of that. You'd think he'd know better. I went out to talk to him, followed by Alabaster who was still very excited about having finally come out about his magic. The fed wasn't completely stupid though. This time when he pulled his gun, he pointed it at Alabaster.
He knew we had the coin, and was threatening to bring the whole foundation down on us if we didn't hand it over so it could be used for its proper purpose. I liked the idea even less. There was a bit of negotiation (and I think Alabaster wants to learn to do the voice of tempation, which seems like a lot for someone who was accusing me of witchcraft a few hours earlier) and finally we agreed that we had twelve hours to hand it over.
Or as I saw it, twelve hours to make sure nobody could use this thing ever again.
Adam ground down the ingot of metal that the melted coin had now become until it was no more than dust and filings. Then he divided it between four bags. We took one each, and each went out to dispose of it in our own way. I waited until Alabaster had left, and then took to the air. Best to let him deal with accepting who he is before he had to deal with what I am. Scattering the dust into a large body of water like the sea seemed like the way to go.
So now I just have to talk to the fed again. I think I'll tell him the Foundation are welcome to the coin if they can find all the bits. And if he causes trouble for me and my friends again, I will make him regret it.
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