Time, Running Out

((This is something of a first attempt to dip my toes into the scalding water which is the main CoH board. I've written quite a bit in the way of character fiction, but none of it has gotten posted here. I've been fnally convinced to give it a try, so I present this story for your delectation. I am always enthusiastic about getting critique, both positive and negative.

I will forewarn that, due to a somewhat busy schedule, the progression of the story will be rather dispersed across a certain amount of time, with unpredictable breaks in between.

Enjoy.))

Chapter 1 - Something... Odd

The tall arches of the Midnight Squad meeting hall crowned the artistic austerity of the stone walls with seamless, graceful tastefulness, creating in the round chamber a sensation of vast space, almost as though the round table with its surrounding banners, as well as the thin, elegant columns, were a shrine, or a throne room. Within the arches, light scattered into mellow grayness, dissipating into nonexistence in the corners and underneath the vaulted ceiling, providing the illusion of a limitless, boundless space; too large for the place containing it, constrained only by the corridors flowing from it.

Underneath the dome, in the perfect stillness of the empty room, a shape was hunched over the round table, its gaze directed at the spread of manuscripts and books laid out for its perusal. The tomes and scrolls covered almost a half of the large slab of ornate stone; mingled among the old pages were pieces of paper scribbled over with habitually neat cursive.

Unsteady, orange light from a single torch held up in a scone upon one of the pillars, flared momentarily as a gust of wind infused it with oxygen, revealing the profile of a man of indeterminable age. The white hair and almost-ancient eyes quite belied the rest of his features, and, in the flickering, dancing shadows, he could be taken just as easily for a man in his late twenties as for an octogenarian. He had taken off his long, black coat, and unbuttoned his shirt collar, underneath a gray vest. Between his fingers he was absently twirling an old-fashioned fountain pen.

The torch flickered once again, and the absolute silence was broken by the click of heels upon the marble floor. Although the intruder was obviously soft-stepping, the perfect acoustics of the majestic dome amplified the tap of shoe upon stone to almost unbearable levels, as though an old pendulum clock were ticking away some dramatic final minutes before the end of the world. Despite the noise, the man did not budge.

The footsteps, regardless of their lightness, drew near rapidly, and within moments the silhouette of a short, small woman clutching a pile of papers in her arms stood framed amid the arches. The torch gleamed red off her light hair and almost ghostly pale skin, and charitably lent handsomeness to the otherwise mismatched features; the high forehead, the prominent cheekbones and the jutting, stubborn chin. She paused momentarily, adjusting the collar of her shirt with a free hand, waiting for the man to notice her presence.

When he did not, she advanced quietly but not stealthily towards the table, and dropped her papers gently onto the already impressive pile.

“My dear man,” she said easily. Her voice, somehow, managed not to echo.

The sitting figure jerked, but – obviously recognizing the voice and the mode of address – quieted almost immediately. “Ah, madam. I must have been daydreaming.”

“Perhaps it’s senility catching up with you after a century and a half,” she smiled affectionately. The torch grew noticeably brighter all of a sudden and, this time, remained so.

“Alas, madam,” the man said dryly, “I am quite sane. Wishes and rumours to the contrary notwithstanding. To what do I owe this immense pleasure?”

She grinned mischievously, pushing a disordered pile of documents away from the edge of the table with a finger. The papers fluttered and slid, but remained stacked – if that was, indeed, the correct word to use for the position which they presented themselves in – regardless. “Perhaps it is that I simply enjoy making you jump?”

The man smiled crookedly at this apparently unsuccessful attempt at a joke, and the woman’s face grew serious. “It’s one o’clock,” she told him informatively. “My teaching duties for the day are done; I’m simply punching my card at my second job, so to speak. Have you had lunch?”

“I don’t think I had dinner.”

“That explains a great deal.” She rummaged in a tattered shoulder bag, swinging it from her shoulder onto the back of an empty chair, extracting items wrapped in paper and a pile of slightly crumpled paper napkins. With the lumps of probably-sandwich still in her hand, she gestured at the scattered piles. “What’s all this?”

Helpfully, the man pushed an armful of books and scrolls, clearing off a patch of table for a more mundane use. With considerable caution, he covered the priceless ancient papers with a large sheet of plastic. Only then did the woman deposit the food onto the cleared space, and sat down herself. “You always do ask the difficult questions, madam. I have been asking myself ‘what’s al this?’ for quite a while now. Presumably that is what became of my dinner.”

“Rats,” the woman said mildly, gazing at the protective sheet as though it contained a profoundly irritated cobra. “Perhaps you should begin at the beginning,” she suggested, pushing a wrapped sandwich in her friend’s general direction. “While you eat your long overdue dinner, of course.”

“The beginning. Quite.” He took the sandwich with the same absentmindedness, discovered he was still holding his pen, and put it down, unwrapping the sandwich without looking at it at the same time.

“Our employer called me yesterday afternoon – as it turns out, since I don’t believe time’s gone backwards quite yet – asking me to see if I could make sense of some odd things he couldn’t quite put together…”

“Coming from Montague Castanella, and you, the word ‘odd’ fills me with dread,” the woman said in an amused tone that did not match her suddenly concerned eyes. “Pray continue.”

“I intend to, madam, if you’d save your remarks for when I am finished,” he said suggestively. In response, the woman waved her sandwich in a gesture of acquiescence and bit into it, presumably to occupy her mouth with something other than sarcasm. “Mr. Castanella, with his fascinating talent, informed me that someone has been tampering with the time stream, and although we certainly have enough organizations and people capable of such a thing, he said it ‘didn’t feel familiar’. His exact words,” he added pointedly.

“I don’t…” the woman swallowed quickly. “Doubt your eidetic memory for a moment. Go on.”

“Indeed, and so, it appears, Mr. Castanella was not wrong. Something is altering the time stream. All these,” he tilted his head towards the table,” have been changed. Some of them subtly; some – quite profoundly. If it hadn’t been for my eidetic memory, I would never have noticed many of the changes – they are that small – but nonetheless, changed they are.”

“Rats,” the woman said again, involuntarily, tapping her fingers nervously on the tabletop.

“The trouble is that I am not entirely certain of the common motif. I have been taking notes of the changes – they are scattered in there, somewhere – but I have had no time to compile them yet. It seems that much of this information has to do with magical artifacts, and certain magical sites throughout the world, but that is not the only information so altered.”

“’You don’t think time’s gone backwards’…” the woman quoted, quite precisely, suggesting that her own memory was nothing short of remarkable. “’Yet.’ Is this something we should worry about?”

“Possibly.” Both grimaced in evident dislike.

“So,” the woman shook her head, biting into her lower lip in perplexity. “I don’t understand. Someone is planning a magical invasion from the past? Manipulating our knowledge and our minds?”

In response, the man opened a hand, not entirely certain himself. “Not wholly magical, I think, madam, and most likely not from the past, but that is the gist of it, yes.”

The two stared at the table with oddly expressionless faces. The woman held her sandwich in one hand, completely forgotten. The man was consuming his mechanically, paying no attention either to the flavour, or to the precise placement of the wrapping as he ate. It was quite clearly only the absence of previous day’s dinner which stimulated the current display of appetite. Just as obviously his mind, too, was elsewhere. The plastic sheet covering the table rustled occasionally in the uncomfortable, perturbed silence which reasserted itself. Neither of the two reached out to remove the cover or straighten it when the wind lifted up a corner and twisted it away, allowing potential crumbs to blow onto the antique parchment peeking underneath.

At length the woman said, “Do they expect us – all of us – to deal with this… conundrum?”

“In this case, I believe they wish for us to ‘backseat drive’. I was informed they would send a more qualified person to work under our supervision.”

“More qualified?” An almost invisible, pale eyebrow shot up in surprise. “I thought the work we did in Rome was rather on the good side, not to mention everything else…”

“Are you disappointed for missing out on the adventure, madam?”

“To tell you the truth, no,” the woman raised the sandwich clutching hand to rub her eyes, caught herself at the last moment, and bit into the bread with an expression on her face as though she were tortured. “I simply can’t think of whom they would send ins—“

“Hello?”

The new voice emerging from the dim shadows belonged to a woman. A slightly lower female voice than that of the sitting woman’s light soprano, this one carried in it a hesitation which the already present failed to display. In fact, the only feature this new voice had in common with the already present ones was the precise, educated British accent.

“Convenient timing,” the man murmured under his breath.

Both seated people’s heads turned together, away from the table and towards a slightly taller than average figure, moving with the awkward gawkiness of someone who was either not entirely confident in their body or embarrassed to the core for apparently intruding on what was clearly a private lunch. The newcomer was clearly young, and, just as clearly, nervous and deeply intimidated. Her hand jerked up, and came down, clutching a wide brimmed hat much too big for her; a man’s brown, old duster with signs of profound wear and two carefully but noticeably sewn tears. In her hands the young woman carried a long, carved staff which she hastily leaned onto a column, as though ashamed to be caught with it – in this place, or at all, was not clear.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t think… I was told to see a Mr. Mondavi,” she read the name off a piece of paper in her hand, but did not appear to hesitate on the pronunciation.

“And what is your impression of him?” The man sounded superficially amused.

“You are Mondavi?” The young woman was visibly dismayed.

“No, obviously that would be me,” the older woman said, deadpan, the mockery evident only in the slight widening of her eyes. “You are the ‘better qualified person’.”

The newcomer bristled. “I’ve seen you before. At the university, also, when I’ve been there to enroll. And here. I didn’t realize you were… you were…”

“In charge?” suggested the blond sadist sweetly.

Unaccustomedly speechless, the newcomer spluttered.

“Since you ladies are done,” Mondavi pointed to one of the empty chairs on the opposite side of the table, “Sit down, miss. Consider this an introductory interview, if you would. Has Mr. Castanella told you anything?”

“He said he’d told me everything he knows, barring your reports... sir.” The girl sat down, reluctantly, and deposited her hat onto the tabletop, next to a similar duster already resting there. The latter, however, was dark gray, and much better preserved. Black hair blew into her face, and she swiped it back impatiently.

“Then no repetitions will be necessary. And you are…?”

“Elizabeth Ravenwood. Everybody calls me Liz. I am an archaeologist. And a mage,” she added defiantly.

“Yes, we do see that,” the older woman murmured, unimpressed. “The hat and the staff are something of a giveaway. All you needed was a dirty old shovel. I can lend you one of mine, if you’d like.”

She was nobly ignored. “I was told I was to get instructions from you, if you have any.”

“Not at present, Miss Ravenwood. Perhaps in the near future. In fact, if you don’t mind, now that we know who we all are,” Ravenwood’s head turned momentarily to the other woman, as yet unintroduced, but she did not volunteer the anticipated information, and the man did not prompt her. “You will understand if we return to… parsing through this.”

“How will I find you?”

“You won’t. We will find you. Although, no,” the woman stopped herself mid-sentence, “We need a more reliable means of contact that would not arouse suspicion.” She extracted a piece of as yet unused paper from her tattered bag, and wrote a short string of words, using the fountain pen expertly, blowing on the ink to dry it up. Then she reached out and slid the note across the table. “You will kindly take this class. One hopes you will find it sufficiently complicated for our purposes.”

The young Miss Ravenwood picked it up by the tips of her fingers, as though it were about to bite, and left, not looking either at the note, or back.

Alone again, the irony ran out of the woman’s eyes, as though washed away by a rapid current. “This is a joke,” she said in a voice that was much too even. Mindlessly, she began systematically disassembling the fountain pen, neatly laying the parts out. “What are they thinking?”

“She is an archaeologist, madam, and a qualified mage,” Mondavi reiterated, blandly.

“She is an inexperienced child who thinks she is a qualified mage, or at least qualified for this. Don Lorenzo! This will eat her alive.”

“Perhaps,” the man frowned thoughtfully. “We must hope not, madam. We have to work with the tools we are given.”

“Do we?” The woman breathed.

His mouth twitched in the mere ghost of a smile. “Up to a point.”

“I still can’t understand why they wouldn’t send the three of us, together or separately. Each one would have handled this better.”

“Perhaps the Midnighters don’t wish to waste their heavy cannon on a matter that seems trivial?” the man suggested, looking down at the pieces of his fountain pen gloomily.

“And perhaps,” the woman said grimly, beginning to put the gutted instrument together again, “this is the Midnight Squad’s idea of a sacrificial lamb.”

Chapter 2 - Shadow and Dust

The room was dark, and the air in it was stale. It smelled of pigeons and mould, a distinct smell which would unerringly point to the poorest, most dilapidated neighbourhoods, the oldest houses, the smallest rooms right underneath the tarred roofs, or right above the basement, where sewage ran undisturbed. The small window let in bright sunlight, and it illuminated dust motes in the air.

The door cracked open a fraction; just enough to admit a tall, long figure dressed in drab colours. The door closed behind its back again, with a squeal of old, rusty, tormented hinges. The figure blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. A hand swept dust away from a pair of eyes that were a little too bright; the newcomer reacted to the polluted air by tearing slightly.

The deeper shadows by the window rustled and an old, female voice said, “Come here.” From among the dark shapes that filled the other end of the room there came the silver glimmer of a well-cared for handgun. “Hold yer hands where we can see ‘em.”

“I am expected,” the entering man’s voice as, if anything, slightly surprised. It had a slight, but noticeable, Russian accent, the r’s pronounced with the tip of the tongue, and the vowels unaccustomedly flat.

“Yes,” the figure that rose from its concealed seat by the window. “Show yer hands, an’ come here. Slowly.”

The man did as he was asked. In the spare dusty light of the window, his face was mottled gray. He wore a knit hat pulled low over his ears, and sunglasses that did nothing to disguise his prominent nose. He held his hands, palms out.

“You bring it?”

“I brought what you want.” With one foot, the man shoved forward small briefcase. The gun jerked, then quieted. “My payment?”

A choking laughter, raspy and almost inaudible, filled the corner. It was not the woman’s voice that laughed, but it was she who said; “We shoot ya. S’how we pay ya.”

“That,” the man’s voice was as even as before, “would be a bad idea. If I die, the stuff will go with me. I made sure. And your boss, he needs these, doesn’t he?”

“You mess with us? You crazy,” the old woman seemed staggered, amused and impressed, all at the same time. The man shrugged his shoulders slightly, an almost unnoticeable motion in the poor light, and tapped his briefcase, in silent eloquence. “Okay. We pay you. You want money? How much?”

“No, I do not want money; I want a different payment method.”

The old woman was silent. From the corner there came a low, almost inaudible, almost incomprehensible rasp. “The boss want to know what ya want.”

“Two things. Very simple things. They will cost you almost nothing, and will be very little effort.”

A long, bony finger crooked in the sunlight. The woman’s voice said “Come here,” again. Slowly, the tall man picked up his suitcase, just as slowly, he moved across the room, stepping over the creaking, groaning floorboards carefully. Deliberately, he stopped within the square of sunlight, and put his briefcase down again. Then he looked straight into the darkest corner of the room.

The person in the armchair looked like a caricature of death, but he was, very clearly still alive. Though the liveliest, and the only mobile, part of his were the eyes. They sparkled, black, full of intelligence, cunning and a touch of desperate maliciousness. One could not tell what there was more of – maliciousness or despair. His skin was practically glued to his bones, paper-tin and splotched with brown spots, like aged parchment, folding and thin. The standing man gave a slight bow, an acknowledgment more than respect.

The man – for such he was, despite the fact that the light, and the disfigurements, made this hard to determine – sitting down pointed a finger at the briefcase his lips barely moving in a whisper: “Open that.”

The newcomer smiled, and the briefcase fell open underneath his fingers after a short, simple manipulation. The interior revealed ampoules, gleaming glass full of liquid, and the sharp needle-points of syringes. Slowly, the man lifted a glass tube into the light. “It is quite real.”

“Yes…”

“Would you like…?” The man gestured to a spiraling IV tube that was strung from the man’s arm up to a pack of unidentifiable liquids, as dusty s the rest of the room. The woman, after receiving a nod from the skeleton in the armchair, unplugged the IV, digging dirty, broken fingernails into the man’s hand. Deftly, though with obvious inexperience, the tall man uncapped an ampoule, and drew the liquid from it with a syringe. Rapidly he bent down, and slid the tip into the IV junction, emptying the full dosage.

A tense silence filled the room, lasting several long minutes; none of the three figures moved. The woman stood with the gun aimed at the tall man’ back; the invalid slumped in his armchair, as though dead; the third man, still with syringe in hand, stood still, face unconcerned, the only testimony to the gun pointing at him the occasional twitching of his shoulders.

Then the man in the armchair exhaled, a sigh of pure, unadulterated relief, and the tension relaxed.

The woman, smiling with a toothless mouth, offered the standing man a tripod stool, which he took, perching on it, looking like a slightly stooped heron. “What ya want, scientist-fellow? You made ‘im happy; we pay for that.”

“I do so enjoy honourable criminals,” the man murmured.

“What ya want?”

“It’s simple. Firstly, I would like you to arrange…. A conversation, with a young lady. If you know what I mean.” Slowly, hands demonstratively in view, the man extracted a photograph out of his pocket. “Her.”

The woman cackled harshly. “She a ‘friend’, boy?”

“Does it matter?” The scientist shifted the photograph, to show it to the man in the armchair, who summoned him closer with another crooking finger. He stared at the picture from underneath hooded eyes.

“How we find your friend, eh?” The woman picked between her teeth with a fingernail.

“It’s not difficult. She has a routine. She goes to the Croatoa campus daily, through the forest. You can catch her there.” The scientist hesitated. “She also goes to Steel Canyon, sometimes. But I prefer if this is done quietly.”

“Got Talents?” The capital ‘T’ was audible.

“Not that I am aware of,” the voice was bland.

“And,” the man in the chair breathed, “the other thing?”

The scientist was no longer looking at the woman. His gaze found, and help, the lidded, pained eyes. “I want you to arrange a meeting for me, with this gentleman.” He slid a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and put it almost gently on the old man’s lap. The eyes gazed down, then widened with shock.

“Do you know…”

“Who this is? Yes. I do. I can’t contact this man, for reasons of my own. But you can, for my sake. I have something he wants. He has something I want. It seems like a good idea on all sides, doesn’t it?”

“You are brave. Or stupid.” The old man coughed with the effort of so much speech. With surprising compassion, the scientist supported him until the fit passed. “What should I tell him?”

“Tell him… Tell him a scientist wants to trade.”

The tall man got up. He nodded to the woman, courteously, and patted the old man’s limp hand. Then, moving just as deliberately as before, he walked out, shutting the door carefully behind his back.

Chapter 3 - Winds in Forest

The light of Croatoa was always a muted, gray affair, scattered among mists and clouds. The land was glum, covered with occasionally, pitiful haystacks in which horned monsters scavenged for leftover pieces of human garbage. The people in Salamanca were as gray as their sky and their land, faded and colourless, as though they had become so like the ghosts haunting their village while still alive that distinctions were no longer important, or wanted.

Within the forest, the light was gray-green; sliding through the leaves like drops of oil through water, oozing down onto the brown, end-of-summer, grass. The tall trees, branches spread out and touching, intertwining, latching onto each other, curled about in a cavalcade of dexterous shapes.

The Croatoa forest was full of hazards; horned beasts, tall as two men, roamed the clearings, and malicious dwarves with long, curved daggers, hid among the branches, jumping innocent passers0by. Even the sylphs, granting life force to every each and sundry coming by their little, glowing bodies, were not to be considered benevolent; they would as soon revitalize your enemy, and disappear before your eyes just as you, exhausted from the pursuit, ran up in search of vain hopes.

Light breeze tugged on Elizabeth's hat, and tossed dark hair into her eyes. She walked among the trees, a slim figure in a tailored suit, bending underneath low branches, deftly avoiding little pools of mud. Her face wore the absented look of one who had taken this path many times before, and her steps crunched surely on the almost-invisible walkway, buried underneath a layer of brown, dead leaves. Occasionally her eyes changed from a dreamy, abstracted expression into a focused pinpoint, and she cast a glance at a slim gold wristwatch.

The trees rustled restlessly; something heavy was treading upon the shrubbery, bending bushes and trampling weeds in its way. A bird took off of a tree limb with a frightened screech and fluttered away, chirping indignantly. Elizabeth stood in place, looking about, scanning the woods with a faintly worried expression on her face. After a few minutes she shrugged slightly, and went on, stepping a touch faster than before.

The rustle and crackle increased in intensity, followed by panting and heavy breathing; the panting of multiple beings. Turning her head this way then that, Elizabeth stared wide-eyed into the oblique darkness of the trees. The space between the trees we silent and unmoving, breathing the slow, cold breath of the forest. Frowning, her forehead creased with long, concerned gashes, she held on to her hat and began to run.

The three men pounced her from behind.

A blow was delivered to her head. She gasped, rolled and ended on her knees, with her nose almost to the pungent soil, smells of rot and blood filling her stomach. Her hat, struck off with the fall, rolled away like an obscene, severed, second head, bouncing on little creases in the ground. A second leg, booted, gleaming rubber, delivered a well-aimed kick to her ribcage, and she squealed involuntarily with pain and anger.

Wordlessly, a pair of male, rough hands began hauling her to her feet, pulling on the collar of her light jacket, strong enough to tear the fabric out altogether. The buttons on her chest creaked ominously, but held, and she followed the rising hands slowly, wobbling woozily as she was stood up. “Huh...”

A fist to her jaw stopped the inquiry.

The three men were dressed for rough country walking; rubber boots, raincoats with hoods pulled over their heads, hiding everything but a pair of eyes and a nose each. Their chins and cheeks were as well-covered by the thin fabric, drawn by strings, as their foreheads and hair. They wore no gloves, and one of the men was sucking at bleeding, scraped knuckles, swearing nastily. The other man, a slightly shorter version of the same model, was drawing his hand back again, intending to deliver a second fist-blow to Elizabeth's swollen face.

“Fiat flabra!” She threw her hands forward, fingers spread out. The air grew momentarily thicker, then burst forward in a gale of wind, carrying torn leaves and blades of grass as well as flying dirt in its wake. She stood, hair rippling in the furious wind, while the three men were jerked back, flailing and cursing, thrown to the ground like matchstick figures.

“She has powers!” One of the men, who had managed to remain on his knees rather than being flattened on his back, cried out.

Pandemonium ensued, as the three thugs attempted to extract protective talismans, advanced weaponry or other means of countering powerful opponents. Despite the strength of the wind, the men were slowly making their way to their knees and then, staggering, to their feet.

Silently, Elizabeth flattened her hands, palms down. The three froze, limbs still in awkward positions, as though an invisible cube of ice engulfed them in its stiff embrace.

“Who are you?” Elizabeth's voice was harsh and angry. “What do you want?”

“Please,” the shorter man croaked. “We got tol' to come do this to you! S'not personal!”

“Not personal?” Elizabeth's mouth twisted with scorn. She touched the large bruise on the side of her face gingerly. “This is not personal? Who sent you? Tell me!”

“We don' know... was our boss told us to”

“Who is your boss?” The men cringed, but said nothing.

“Who is your boss?!” Elizabeth's voice rose to a scream, the fury hiding behind it a note of faint hysteria. Something bright and incandescent began twisting around her feet, almost a sort of involuntary defensive creature twirling around its mistress. The thugs merely shoo their heads mutely, mouths closed into a firm line.

“Do you know what I can do to you? I can tear your souls out!” she raged. “I can send you to hell alive! Who is he?”

“We don' talk, Lady,” the speaker said obstinately. “Better you than 'im.”

For a long moment, silence reigned in the clearing. A small bird broke it with a soft trill, and something began rustling – softly this time – in the high grass. Elizabeth stood with her arms upraised, extended forward, eyes blazing with furious, helpless hatred. The men, still huddled in their disguising raincoats, seemed to wilt and shrink before her gaze even in their inability to move a muscle.

“This is how I judge, then,” Elizabeth said, voice suddenly cool and measured. Her fists clenched, then unclenched, tossing something invisible out. Light flared, and tendrils of incredible, intolerable brightness reached out to embrace the men, settling on their foreheads.

“You will never touch another man. Never.”

She turned on her heel, mouth twisted with disgust – at the men or at herself, it was impossible to tell – and marched off the clearing, limping and holding onto her side head held high.

Chapter 4 - Smoke and Sweat

It was perhaps a few hours after noon, and the sun shone redly upon a polluted, glistening sea. The tall man tapped the handle of his sunglasses lightly upon the wing of his prominent nose, gazing out at the breaking ridges of foam. The fingers of his free hand rubbed against each other, as though trying to rub the saltiness out of the air. Standing still behind the stone parapet he watched the boats come and go for several minutes, before turning away from the sea, and walking briskly along the marina towards a short, stubby building sheltered on both sides by larger, brighter versions that loomed over it like bodyguards over an Eastern monarch.

The building’s façade, as gray and worn as its silhouette has suggested from afar, was partly covered by an unobtrusive billboard sign, featuring the name of an establishment in blocky, irregular letters. For a moment the tall man hesitated then, straightening his knit cap with a decisive motion, tugged at the creaky door and went inside.

Cigarette smoke and the odour of human sweat puffed in his face in a vast cloud of warmth. The low, monotone rumble of voices was contained, barely, by the poor acoustics of the place as a few dozen people’s conversations drifted from the little, cheap plastic tables scattered in the brightly lit room.

The tall man coughed, waved a hand in front of his face in irritation and scanned the room for a server.

One, a small, bald man in a slightly grubby white shirt and shoes shined to be almost reflective, bore down upon him almost instantly, waving a large, fluffy towel like a white flag of parley. He hovered anxiously. The tall man rummaged in his pocket, extracting a rumpled business card. “Table for two,” he said, and turned his palm outward, displaying the card’s face to the waiter. The bald servitor blinked, then peered at the tangle of lines on the proffered card. He bowed slightly, pressing an invisible button under the reception counter with a blunt, clip-nailed finger.

Another moment of absolute silence in the smoky, hazy room, with the murmur of voices as faint background, and a second waiter – a younger, slightly leaner version of the first, though his hair, too, was receding, and the features indicated a certain inclination to fat under the white, stiff collar – appeared from an almost invisible doorway in the back of the room. The tall man, still squinting from the smoke and occasionally rubbing his nose, smiled patiently. A brief murmur and he was invited with the wave of a hand to follow the second man inside.

They maneuvered through the crowded space, dodging chairs and little plastic tables. Almost every table had two or three people – exclusively men – hunched over it, protectively screening their faces with bent elbows or shaded, even in this warm interior, by the brims of wide, low-drawn hats. Low music wafted from one of the doorways; a saxophone tinged with a metallic scrape that made the tall man wince momentarily before he straightened his features out with an effort of will.

The waiter turned, discreetly pointing to an alcove which was already occupied. The occupant was half-sprawled upon the padded corner couch, the brown leather creased and wrinkled beneath his weight. His long legs were stretched out into the empty passage; in his hand, he held a glass full of murky, transparent liquid. A pair of purple sunglasses rested beside a half-full ashtray and the man’s slightly greasy, shoulder-length hair threaded upon his shoulders. The waiter coughed behind a hand, and the man opened his eyes languidly. The tall man blinked, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly under the eerie, amber glow of the eyes now staring at him. The occupant of the padded couch stretched languidly, and held up two fingers in a gesture of order and dismissal, both.

The waiter bowed, and withdrew with satisfactory alacrity.

The tall man sat down without invitation, resting his tan jacket on the back of his chair. Deliberately, the slouching man opposite retrieved his sunglasses, hiding the odd glow of his amber eyes. The two scrutinized each other in silence, waiting. The young man with thinning hair returned, half-running through the maze of chairs and people, and set before the two men a second set of glasses, full with the same unidentifiable liquid. The tall man stared at his glass dubiously.

The glasses were emptied in a gulp. The man with the purple sunglasses leaned back with an expression of bliss. The tall man put the glass down on the table with a thump, grimacing.

“A Russian who doesn’t drink?” The other man smiled underneath his sunglasses.

The tall man’s lips twisted down with surprise. “I prefer clean living.”

“You were a fool to come here,” the man wiped beads of moisture from his chin. “A fool to drink with me.”

“I thought you are a businessman.”

“There is nothing your kind can sell me,” he replied with light derisiveness.

“Really?” The tall man raised an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”

“At the behest of a partner.” The man’s hand jerked up, liquid spilling on the table, and he downed the remainder in one gulp.

The scientist leaned forward, smiling earnestly. “You know, Mr. Wade, I think there is something you want from me. The only coin that has value; the only coin that matters. Information.” He leaned back, satisfied. “Which I have, and you want.”

It was Wade’s turn for a display of surprise. His hands, resting casually curled, straightened flat on the table in an involuntary, sudden gesture. “And what is your price?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. You know, Mr. Wade, I always want to get philosophical at this hour of the afternoon…” The scientist winked. “And my philosophy tells me that you didn’t do a smart thing, cutting yourself off from the Midnighters so completely. Severing your own source of information. Whereas I sometimes get…” He carefully took out a piece of folded paper from his pocket. “The most surprising things…”

Again, Wade’s hands moved as though they were living things, the fingers curling into talons, trembling slightly as he reached for the folded paper. The scientist yielded the paper up without a struggle. Wade’s face was uncharacteristically avid as he swallowed the written text. “How did you get this?”

“I have... an inside source.”

“Really?” Wade frowned. “Why did you come to me?”

“Those of us who have a vested interest in ruling the world,” the tall man said carefully, “should always look out for those… candidates with superior ability. It seems to me someone’s trying to steal your world from underneath you, Mr. Wade. Wouldn’t you like to find out who it is?”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“Why, an opponent removed, of course. And my library preserved. I have a very nice library.”

“This is pointless,” Wade’s hand spasmed, crumpling the paper, tossing it away from him and beyond the table. The crumpled page landed at the feet of a tray-carrying woman, and the scientist grimaced, fretfully. “Castanella will never cooperate with me. Or catch up to this… person.” He waved the waitress over, motioning angrily. She offered him the piece of paper diffidently, holding it by the tips of her fingers.

“Castanella is not leading this investigation. Give your old nemesis credit; he knows his limits. And I believe I can… convince… the people to cooperate with you. Provided, of course, you wish it.”

“Your inside source, again?” Wade inquired sourly.

“Precisely.”

“And your reward?”

“You – and of course, the hapless Midnighters – do the work for me.” The scientist smiled. “If you decide, do contact me. I will wait. But not a very long time.”

Chapter 5 – Blood and Metal

Elizabeth staggered into the Croatoa University campus in the grayish constant light of an indeterminable time of day. Her hands were bloody, and slid on the brass doorknobs of the large front doors, leaving behind a trace of brown half-gelled substance mixed with darker browns of dirt and tree bark.

The large, front hall was meant to impress and inspire. The creators of the Croatoa campus were one and all men and women of the Old School; modernity, in their view of the world, should stop at the threshold of any decent institution of learning. The wood paneling was thick, laid out in oak and cherry, creating a gentle contrast of colours that gave the hall the appearance – and the fragrance – of a museum. The two tall columns which supported the door from the outside also bulged into the interior of the room, the pink-veined marble streaming off into the high ceiling.

Elizabeth, hiding her bruised and battered face under the brim of her hat, slid along the walls. She dodged cautiously between two ordinary-looking people – a young man with a shack of curly brown hair and a slightly older one in an ostentatious neon tie – and veered off into the bathrooms.

Standing in front of the mirror, she pressed her hand cautiously to her face, feeling about the purple-black bruise on her cheek with her fingertips, then examining her broken lip in the same manner. The lip had swollen to almost twice its size, puffing out grotesquely, a thick red bulge in the midst of a pale face. The jaw line, also, was slowly losing its firm outline under the pressure of minuscule burst blood vessels. Elizabeth snarled, then winced in pain as the snarl curled her lip a fraction of an inch too far.

Below her chin, everything was shambles. She straightened her collar, the colour of which changed from white to dusty grey after several rolls in the dust, and pulled her coat tighter. The nondescript gray of its suede served as an almost perfect backdrop, and, except for a few darker spots of drying blood it seemed merely slightly worn.

Scowling as much as she could with her lip raw and still bleeding, Elizabeth cranked open the faucet, letting the water flow in a loud torrent of ice. She washed her face once, twice, thrice, letting the grime swirl down into the drain until the water came clear. Then, weakening the flow of water slightly, she cupped some in the palm of her hand, holding her fingers as close as possible to prevent the water from escaping. Squinting, she muttered rapidly under her breath, and tossed the handful of frigid liquid onto her face, disregarding the splashing drops that fell all about her, drenching her collar and wetting the floor.

The thick lip seemed to shrink rapidly; the large, vivid bruises faded off into a slight tint on her cheek and under her eyes.

Snarling at the mirror, Elizabeth held out her hands, swiping her knuckles with the tips of her fingers, hard enough to peel skin. She shook her hands rapidly over the marble sink, and swiped the surface with her other hand. Then she turned and stalked out of the room.

Outside, the corridors have emptied out almost entirely; the large Roman clock in the hall indicated that period has begun. She walked quietly past doors behind which bursts of speech and the clanking of chalk could be heard, wearing a considering expression on her face. Turning off into a smaller passage, she pulled her hand out of her dirty jacket pocket and dropped to her knees, spreading something on the floor. The grey tiles seemed as empty as before, but the focused look on the young woman’s face intensified. Her eyes bored into the spot where her hand had rested. Soon, the tiles began to glow softly and motes stated swirling in mid-air.

Slowly, the face of a man formed over the glowing tiles, then the face of another. The first was like wrinkled paper, pale white and with paunchy eyes, so heavily lidded their colour was impossible to make out in the transparent facsimile floating over the gray floor. The second wore a low-drawn black stocking-cap and wide sunglasses over a large nose and hollow cheeks. Elizabeth swore softly, and gestured. The translucent images disappeared.

She rose stiffly to the sound of receding footsteps. Grabbing her hat in one hand, she swept a look about, heading first to one end, then another end, of the corridor. A long shadow streaked between a column and an elevator shaft, reflecting darkly off of a white wall.

“Hey!” Elizabeth hurried across, heels rapping the floor loudly. “Who are you? Why are you spying on me?”

The shadow darted to the sides in confusion, or panic. Elizabeth thrust out her hand and something bright flashed off of it. The shadow lurched, jumped and disappeared. The corridors were, once again, completely empty.

She strode after the undetected visitor, shadow sliding with equal brevity on the white wall of the elevator shaft, then quickly merging into the darker patterns and vanishing into the obscured corridor. Eyes narrowed grimly, she sped across the campus, out into the back where the spotless wood paneling and gray granite floors have transformed into whitewashed walls and utilitarian doors of shabby wood, nicked and chipped in places and smeared with spots. The white walls sported the imprints of someone’s shoes, dark and vivid, and the view from the windows showed, between the spurts of dust and grime, an overgrown garden where hoses and pieces of machinery were scattered.

She stopped before a low, beaten door and pressed her hand against the small, almost unreadable number etched in it. Then she spoke a sentence in a voice that was almost inaudible; just loud enough to escape as the shred of movement past her almost-still lips, and pressed the handle.

She passed on into a softly lit library, ducking a large suit of armour which returned her a tiny, almost imagined bow. The library was almost entirely empty, the books sitting quietly on their shelves. Only one or two people were sitting sedately in comfortable chairs, under low, warm halos of light from standing light. One had his face obscured in shadow, with the light glancing off a large tomewhich was held on his knees. The other was snoring peacefully under the warmth of the lamp and the shade of a newspaper. Elizabeth breathed heavily, staring around. A small form with a shack of glowing, light hair, rose from a back corner, coughing slightly.

“You were looking for me,” it said, busily fiddling with a large stack of literature which it replaced.

“You!” The cry was incongruously loud, and the snoring man stammered, gulped several times, shedding the newspaper from his eyes, and sat up. “Do you know what—“

“I told you,” the blonde woman hissed, stepping out into the revealing light, “we contact you; you do not contact us.”

“I have…”

“I could care less, Miss Ravenwood. Your coming here is risky. Go somewhere else.”

Elizabeth moved her lips several times, staring at the much shorter woman with an expression of mounting anger which transferred into ironic cunning. “Someone’s been following me.”

“All the more the reason not to have come here.”

“I should have thought you’d have wanted to know.”

“I would,” the woman bit off. “At the time I’ve given you on the card. Or have you lost it?”

“I have not!” Elizabeth spat indignantly.

“Then I would have liked to know.” The woman brushed an imaginary mote of dust off her very fine jacket. “Now, not so much.”

“How dare you!” Elizabeth loomed over the small woman. “I was beaten up. I was followed. You—you won’t even give me your name, for heaven’s sake! Just who do you think—“

“Not here.”

“What--!”

“Not here!” The woman seized Elizabeth’s elbow, grimacing in distaste as she violently brushed off grime and dust off the grubby coat. She twirled the unbalanced archaeologist around with surprising ease, and propelled her, sputtering objections, out into the internal corridors of the Midnighters’ club. The heavy door almost slammed on the hem of her skirt, and the woman yanked it free with an expression of annoyance, holding the door off with the tip of a black shoe. “I have no time to waste on histrionics. And now I am late. To a meeting.”

“You can’t just leave me like that!”

“No, I suppose not. You will have to come with me.”

“What do you mean, come with you? Come with you where?”

“To my meeting, of course” They raced along the stone corridors, rapping through the echoing dome of the central round-table room. The blonde woman constantly picked up tempo, turning corners at dangerous speeds and narrowly avoiding columns and walls, dragging Elizabeth by the elbow implacably. She kicked her skirt as she walked, and it flared, tripping the befuddled young woman several times. Then she opened another door, into what seemed exactly the place they left, and headed straight for the armour suit in front of the door.

The suit moved to block her path. “It is forbidden.” Its voice was very hollow, and came from a point that was impossible to define in the general vicinity of the suit.

“It is permitted to me,” the woman said, stressing the last word lightly.

“No one may…”

“Check your lists, you hollow moron. I am busy.”

“I must inqui—“

“Shut up,” said the woman succinctly, giving the suit a light shove in its chest with two fingers. Then she reached out, and pressed the handle.

Chapter 6 - Grass and Paper

The humid air hit them hard. It clung to their faces and arms, and tiny beads of perspirations sprung out on both women's faces. They had crossed from shadow to sun almost too rapidly, and wisps of almost invisible water steam lifted off of Elizabeth's jacket.

The sky had changed into a glaring blue, and the light harshly reflected off of large pipes, crawling along the side of a tall mountain which had consumed the entirety of the landscape behind the building they had just exited. It had rained recently, which made the heat, as often was the case in oceanic climes, only more unbearable. The ground sank beneath the women's shoes into a muddy slush underneath tufts of yellow grass.

The blonde woman, stepping from one grass root to another, traversed what could not rightfully be called a 'green' without a single spot clinging to her shoes. Elizabeth sloshed behind her slowly to where the building joined another at an angle, and shadows mercifully left a few green blades struggling out of the dirt. A dark form detached itself from the wall, and Elizabeth threw her hand up uncertainly.

“Madam.” Mondavi seemed completely unaffected by the noon heat or by the threatening gesture as he sketched a salute towards the brim of his hat. “You're late.”

“I apologize.” An eyebrow rose ironically, not quite pointing, but definitely implying, in Elizabeth's direction. “I had some complications.”

“And what's this?” His chin lifted slightly in the general direction where Elizabeth was wiping her forehead clandestinely.

“An unwelcome addition,” the woman said aridly. Elizabeth bristled.

“I see. Everything is arranged. I think it should be adequate for what we need. I shall put the young lady to use, since she is already here,” he tugged upon his tie thoughtfully.

“Just where is 'here'?” Elizabeth was turning her head around, looking from the long, dirty pipes over the distant sea.

“Perhaps you would tell us?” the woman smiled slightly, extracting a loose ring of keys which she proceeded to twirl 'round her finger.

“Oh, great. Just who do you think you are, Holmes?”

“Indeed no,” Mondavi was deadpan. “Holmes lacked far too much abstract thinking.” There was an oddly ironic look about his face, the corner of his lip pulling back in a smile he was not entirely certain he was pleased with. “But in this case, there is no requirement to be Holmes in order for you to know that the place you've come from has only four exits. Three of them you should recognize on sight. By simple, basic elimination, this would be the fourth.”

“This is Cap au Diable?” Elizabeth stared at the pipes with new intensity, as though trying to drill a hole through the lead, the ground and the stone to what lay underneath. “Then--”

“There is,” the woman said, staring at Elizabeth unblinkingly, “a demon under that hill. Will you dig for it now?”

“Great. Just bloody great.” Elizabeth grabbed for her hat so hard that it could almost be said to have tumbled from her head. She crumpled the brim mercilessly with white-knuckled fingers. “The Midnighters gave me over to two crazies who half the time think they're better than Sherlock Holmes, and half the time pretend to be oh-so-amusing. What are you, a stage comedian?” she almost spat into the woman's face. “You do accents for fun.”

The woman grabbed her wet, streaked collar and pulled her down with what was surprising strength for someone so small and nondescript. Elizabeth tumbled forward only to be stopped by a very strong male hand gripping her elbow with iron fingers. The woman, on tiptoe, was nose to nose with the bent archaeologist, staring her in the eye from centimeters away. Elizabeth's eyes rapidly lost their focus, and she began leaking tears, born both of rage and of the induced myopia.

“Be quiet!” The woman hissed almost inaudibly, but the whisper exploded as a roar in sufficiently close proximity. “Do you think we are playing games? Does this,” she used Elizabeth's collar to turn her head around, “seem like an appropriate game board?”

She pushed Elizabeth off lightly, and she staggered back.

“Listen carefully, now. You will not mention anything secret outside of where it is safe. This is the first rule of operation; learn to distinguish when it is safe, and when it is not. Second rule of operation is; we know what we are doing, and we do not play games.”

Elizabeth finally gathered her wits, and her wind, long enough to shriek, “let me go!”

The woman sighed. “I was never holding you in the first place. I am not strong enough to restrain you. Everything you've done, or allowed us to do, Miss Ravenwood, you've done to yourself.”

“You won't tell me anything!”

“The better for you.” The woman tucked away an escaped strand of hair and took a step back, peering down to inspect herself critically. Finding no apparent flaw with her attire she swung around, keys jingling in hand, and headed briskly towards the parking lot. Mondavi walked off after her, limping slightly, abandoning Elizabeth, still standing completely immobile in the middle of the grass.

“But...” she stared at the small rental car as though it were about to open its maw and consume her entirely. “Your name...”

“Have you even looked at the paper I gave you?” the woman's tone was exasperatedly patient, as though she had just finished explaining something very old and very simple to a particularly incapable student for about the tenth time. She walked over, and sprang a large padlock that hung off of a chain in the car's door, connected to a sign that said 'Take it apart. Go ahead. Try it.’ and dangled, completely untouched, off of the driver side window. The chain and sign dropped, and the car's alarm was deactivated with a beep. The woman busied herself depositing the chain and padlock in the back seat. Mondavi, smiling and shaking his head, muttering something about popcorn under his breath, took the passenger-side front seat.

Elizabeth fumbled in her coat pocket, extracting the much worn piece of paper. Unfolded, it said in rapid, not especially neat handwriting; 'Dr. Sofia Rabinovich; History and Philosophy of Linguistic Mysticism. Thu. 10:30-12:00'.

“And, by the way,” Rabinovich said, pulling her skirt in to the driver's seat and firing the ignition. “I don't 'do' accents. I'm a linguist. I change accents.” She sighed. “Now get in the car.”

Chapter 7 -Light and Darkness

There was the slow, measured creaking of a half-rotted stairwell as the heavy tread of feet overwhelmed old, treacherous wood. A pair of hard-soled shoes halted in its tread, and a well-oiled handle clicked softly as a door swung on its quietly squeaking hinges. For a moment, a rectangle of light lay across a black interior, spilling a bucked of white paint onto the brown of wooden floorboard. Beyond the door, the air was still, waves of heat rising from the warmed brick, congealing in the middle of the room into an almost palpable core of shimmering clouds. The room burned with invisible heat.

A single slit admitting in a shaft of yellow revealed the presence of thick, solid curtains, stretched taut across what windows the room may have had, plunging it into an abyss of almost absolute, impenetrable blackness. The dark was filled with sounds of shuffling and scuttles of dozes of small feet, and the smell of thick laundry detergent and chlorine. Where the shaft of sunlight lay along an unpainted wall, the colour could have been the gray of layers of dust, or the brown of grimy earth.

With the same quiet, unobtrusive squeak, the door closed, consuming the rectangle of light as it went. A brief, hollow thud of wood upon wood, and the rush of thick, clotted air, and the dark reigned again.

“Sit down, Mr. Wade.” The female voice was carefully modulated into bland melodiousness. There was a soft click, and a pool of yellow light illuminated a pale hand reaching out for the stalk of a low, dim lamp. The hand retreated, leaving the bright circle to shine upon a dark wooden surface, reflecting glimmers onto the corner of a silver mirror. The corner glittered with the tantalizing flame of curved gilt.

Cautious footsteps landed heavily upon a parquet floor, the soles shuffling slowly across the room, edging into the spotlight. The light framed the form of a human torso, delicately scattering soft gold and silver across the nondescript gray of his attire. For a moment, it reflected off of a skull-shaped belt-buckle, gleaming brilliant white, then wooden feet scraped hollowly, and the towering form folded itself gracelessly into the pool of yellow.

In the illumination, the newcomer’s face was sallow under the gray goatee, and twin lamps shone clearly off his large, round sunglasses, turning his eyes into feline pinpricks. “I am expected?”

“Yes.” The pale hand reached out again, adjusting the tilt of the lamp. Light spilled onto a woman’s face, etching her features with shadow. The man thrust his face forward, as though peering nearsightedly, chin jutting out eagerly.

“You.” His lip drooped with disdain. The chair scraped back as the newcomer unfolded slowly to his feet, appendages straightening out like an awkward daddy-long-legs. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Sit down, Mr. Wade.” The male voice from behind was equally calm, the stress in it almost inaudible to the inattentive listener. The visitor, clearly attentive, caught it, and his eyes widened in alarm as he crashed down to his chair, feet and arms splayed and dangling. Another person, until now unheard, moved towards the brightness, uneven footsteps treading lightly, accompanied by the soft whisper of wool.

“And you,” the visitor spat. “I should have known.”

“Indeed.”

“Really, Mr. Wade,” the plain female face reflected a glimmer of amusement, “You were the one to request this meeting. You must stop acting like a frightened maniac; people might think it is a genuine emotion.”

“My… source told me there is basis for cooperation,” the newcomer’s voice was stiff.

“There is, if we find your presentation adequate.” A long-fingered hand reached out to beyond the circle of light, and in the darkness paper whispered softly. It returned, holding a brown, tattered envelope. The envelope slid to the middle of the table with the flick of a bitten nail. “Here are your stakes.”

The visitor’s ands jerked nervously, fingers fanning out onto the tabletop, pressing themselves into the waxed wood mere millimeters from the edge of the envelope. The fingertips trembled slightly. “The list.”

“In its entirety. For your cooperation, of course.”

Wade stared at the brown paper hungrily. “Someone is altering history.”

“Really, Mr. Wade?” The man in the woolen coat produced a devastating, deadpan sarcasm. “We would never have guessed it ourselves. Everybody,” he said precisely, “is altering history. Every petty criminal who wants exclusive control of a boutique. Such events create squalls in the fashion industry, of course, but do not concern us.”

“Well, this might concern you. That,” his finger shook nervously as he taped the brown envelope’s edge, “tells you the obvious; they are altering philosophy. Who would know enough to play with people’s minds?”

There was a sharp chuckle. “No one insignificant.”

“Here is what else is interesting. Your Midnighters are a veritable island of information. Nothing goes down that pipe; nothing goes up that pipe, either. If it weren’t for this,” Wade’s fingers caressed the paper container, “no one would ever know.”

“How curious,” the woman swept the envelope a little closer to her side of the table with an almost invisible gesture. “And the aforementioned minds?”

“Are already changing. Soon all the opinions we know and love will become completely unrecognizable. And then… something happens.” The visitor’s face was almost dreamy. Thoughtfully, he lifted the handle of the wide sunglasses he still wore, and the table was further illuminated by a soft, amber glow. “When you know what happens, the story is over. But,” the almost feline eyes blinked once, twice,, “what is the story?”

“Propaganda,” the man in the woolen coat said precisely, the cold, clearly cut statement concealing an odd, intense familiarity, “is an effective weapon. The most effective. One may steal as many books and artifacts as one can possibly store, but if one steals the minds of the mob, success is guaranteed.”

“But as for me…”

“Is this a story you want to read, Mr. Wade?” The woman’s voice was very soft, barely above a whisper, a thread of delicately woven sound, ingratiating and penetrating, silky-smooth and as pointed as a thin, long needle. “You do not seem the sort of man who enjoys anyone’s stories but your own.”

The light flickered across the three absorbed, intent faces. The sallow one of the visitor burned with a glow that was not the result of the lamp’s reflecting, and its sharp contours became even sharper as he thought. The man and woman on the other side of the table wore smooth masks of ivory, revealing nothing. “I will bring you the story, if there is one. The list is the warranty of my cooperation. And… my fee?”

“Your fee,” said the other man softly, “is to have sat in the same room with us, and walked out alive, Mr. Wade.”

Wade tensed. Almost imperceptibly, his shoulders hunched, and arms gathered inward. Beads of sweat sprang up on his forehead for the first time in the humid, sweltering room. The smell of sweat and fear filled the small, enclosed space. He spread his fingers, fanning them out, and stared intently, not at the older man, but at the woman. She smiled in a flash of teeth. The man made a slow, almost negligent gesture, and the visitor folded almost double, struggling for breath in his chair, grasping the back with trembling, boneless hands. He raised his bowed head slowly, locking eyes with the other mage.

“I know who you are, and what you’re doing,” he almost hissed. “I even know why you work with her. Though, in my opinion, the cooperation isn’t worth it.”

“Do you, now?” the man in the wool coat breathed, a thin thread of menace sliding through the amusement. “No, Mr. Wade, I don’t believe you know. I don’t believe you know at all.”

Chapter 8 - Drops of Rain

“But this is... this is Darrin Wade! The thief!”

“And so?”

“This is Wade the traitor! How can you condone working with him?”

“But we do not work with Darrin Wade the traitor, Miss Ravenwood. We work with Darrin Wade, the information broker. A much more useful persona.”

“It is unconscionable!”

“It is necessary.”

“'Necessary' is a lousy standard for heroes to act upon.”

“We never said we were heroes, Miss Ravenwood. For heaven's sake, Don Lorenzo, pull the curtain or we will all suffocate in here.”

There was a rustle of thick, opaque cloth, and light and air flooded into the stuffy room in torrents of liquid brightness. The gilt mirror flared to life, transforming from just another rectangle of blackness into a flaring silver basin of reflections. In it, a drab room, striving for a sort of decadent splendour swam into view, objects springing into focus incongruously from amidst the odd, dusty ornaments. The gleaming wooden tale flared into sharp relief, genuine and striking among the fakery, and the people behind it; intense, drawn, eyes on fire in absurdly calm faces.

Elizabeth, hat crumpled into a wad of brown cloth, fingers curled about the thick material, paced vigorously from one dusty corner to another, measuring the cracked, wooden boards of the floor with long steps. The fingers held to the hat adamantly, as though it were her last refuge, and wide dark splotches of sweat stained the thin and aging felt.

“I’d thought,” she licked her lips nervously, stopping for a second by a shabby and rather wobbling wooden bureau, “this was some sort of ploy.” The occupied corner behind the table was silent and collectively immobile.

“Damn you, your intelligence agents, and your Sherlock Holmes pretence, anyway, go smoke a pipe!” A small, balled fist landed on top of the wooden cabinet with a profound smack, and the wood squeaked indignantly under the assault, teetering from leg to slightly shorter leg fiercely. The young woman’s face registered satisfaction, s though the limping, cracked, ugly piece of furniture had filled its role as a sufficient substitute for her indignation.

There was dead, heavy silence.

“Please don't break the furniture, Miss Ravenwood,” the female voice was tinged with a slight undertone of almost inaudible sarcastic drawl; “we have it only on loan.”

“I'll find my own way back, thanks so much.” The snarled comment was followed immediately by the rush of angry footsteps, culminating in a rapidly receding crescendo of shoes falling upon stairs. The door swung on its hinges for a few seconds, then slammed against the doorframe hollowly and remained there, moving only slightly with the occasional gust of wind.

In the room's sole open window, clouds raced across a quickly graying sky, rolling with unshed moisture. The sun receded into uneasy hiding, then revealed itself again with almost all its former vigour, and the light upon the floor boards turning them in one instant from oak into cherry. Slowly, drops splattered on the windowsill, and the air became cooler with a tang of beaten-down dust and rain.

The door swung open unobtrusively, and a third shape stalked in warily. The sound of pouring water absorbed its footsteps and the shifting light obscured the features. The two figures behind the table were, each in their own little world, preoccupied almost entirely by the slow, majestic torrents of rain. The newcomer cleared his throat.

“How did you find us?” The question was sharp, a rapier-thrust in the small confined space that found its mark in the newcomer's rapidly shifting eyes.

“Mr. Mondavi. Dr. Rabinovich.” He ran an awkward hand through his gray hair, the cowlick of his forelock standing almost stiffly as he lowered his hand. “I--”

“How did you find us?”

“I followed you from the Club. You were unobtrusive, but not actually cautious.” The hawkish face looked even more wary, as if expecting an outburst of temper from an unlikely source. An outburst which would be staggering in proportion.

“I trust you were more discreet than I,” the woman said aridly, fingers rubbing her temples reflexively.

The other man in the room stirred. “Please, have a seat, Mr. Castanella. I assume you did not simply appear here out of curiousity.”

“No--” The newcomer hesitated, busying himself with drawing the chair Wade vacated. It was a structure of solid wood, bare of embellishments, surprisingly stark in the fake glamour of the room. One could almost envision the potential for violence the chair exhibited when he put his arms neatly aligned along the firm wooden armrests. “I'm here... The Inner Circle wanted...” he finished in a rush. “The Inner Circle would not approve of what you are doing.”

“The Inner Circle,” the woman said evenly, with only a thin thread of anger in her voice, “knows we act independently. And frankly don’t give a damn.”

“It wants you off the investigation.” His face wrinkled in discomfort. “It’s a waste of your time.”

“That would not be prudent, Mr. Castanella.” The man seemed unfazed.

“Young Ravenwood can deal with what's left.”

“She can?” There was a slight flutter of eyebrows, not exactly rising and settling into their places faster than the eyes could detect. A shadow of a movement. “Young Miss Ravenwood is, as you say, very young.”

The visitor winced. “She's reliable.”

“You mean predictable.” the woman's voice was now pure acid.

He shifted uncomfortably, hands fidgeting on the edge of the chair, feet scuffing on the floor. “They were very insistent.”

“Does the Inner Circle want us to give them our badges, besides?” The woman was devastatingly deadpan.

He stared at the both of them with a dully unamused look, mouth twisting, waiting for the sarcasm to bury itself in shame. The two people seemed unrepentant.

“And if we were to say no?” The question was curiousity embodied.

The man lowered his eyes, shame colouring his face dark red. “I can’t give you what you want.”

There was another slow, heavy silence that covered the room like a thick blanket. Drop of rain slapped idly on the windowsill. In the stiff quiet, the visitor slowly got up and reluctantly, as though held back by a chain of regret as strong as steel, dragged his heels to the door. It closed behind the slouching, uncomfortable back with finality. Mechanically, pulled by the departing presence, the man by the wall gathered his long coat and leaned out the window, staring at the sidewalk underneath.

“We should opt for more secure locations in the future,” he said, dryly, watching the tall, slightly bent figure shuffle off slowly, hands in the pockets of its jacket and the rain sloshing down on it.

The woman unfolded herself from her seat slowly, almost painfully, moving stiff muscles as though for the first time in days. She wobbled for a moment, supporting herself on the edge of the table, eyes closed, then came over to the window, gasping the wooden bar with white-knuckled fingers on which drops of rain immediately coalesced, running in streamlets to the groves of her clenched hands.

“We are allowed to stop, you know,” she said. “No one would think the less of us.”

“Madam...”

“I know, I know,” she shook droplets off her palm, “we will think the less of us. We are our own worst enemies, my friend.”

“All people of our ilk are that.” He smiled a small, almost nonexistent ghost of amusement. “That is why we keep our eyes open.”

“I'll tell you what,” her voice was decisive. “Come to us. We'll take an evening off; have tea, talk about good books...”

“That is a tempting offer...”

“And perhaps we should invite young Miss Ravenwood to dinner.”

Elizabeth has become something of a punching bag, hasn't she? Between the physical assaults of the villains and the verbal assaults of Mondavi and Rabinovich, she's been taking a heck of a beating.

I like the characters of Mondavi and Rabinovich. It'll be interesting to see what it is that they're up to.

I'm starting to think that the two older magicians are the real stars and that Elizabeth is just the foil for their wit.

Well, you're right that Liz isn't the main star of the story; she plays Watson to two old, crusty and rather formidable Holmses... Though, on a more serious note, while the two old, annoying folks are certainly part of the main cast, I tried very hard to not center the storytelling "camera" behind a single shoulder, so much as hang it up in the corner of a room, so to speak.

I will say that things improve for her, inasmuch as being the target of so many arrows goes. For example, she doesn't get poisoned at the aforementioned dinner.

Chapter 9 – Sun and Glass

Cold afternoon light shone upon dank, murky puddles. The sun shattered in the splattered water, and broke into a thousand pieces in dusty, blocked windows, reflecting sharp-edged and gleaming off broken shards of glass. After the rain, the smell of the air was dusty, with a tang of seeping sewage.

A worn, brown shoe landed in the exact middle of a puddle’s tranquil surface, letting fly a tsunami of little droplets, banishing the sun vengefully from its little abode on the face of the earth. A million minuscule suns flew for a second upwards, striving to reach their maker, then settled in a shower of gold to ripple mindlessly. The owner of the boot hissed softly, and wiped droplets from his tan jacket. His dark sunglasses shone dully, reflecting the image in the water.

The man moved rapidly, swinging long, dangling arms in a wide arch, long legs stepping without discrimination on dry, cracked concrete and wet mud, spluttering dirty water as he half-ran on. The neighbourhood about him was poor. Dilapidated houses struggled t maintain a shard of dignity by standing very straight, their bricks covered with layers of grime, enough to completely disguise their original colour and turn the entire area a uniform, dark, drab gray.

The house the man selected was equally gray, and equally straight and seemed even older than the rest of its neighbours, somehow radiating tiredness with its dark, blocked off windows, and the heaps of gray dirt piled in the yard; a soil where nothing, not even tufts of yellow, stubborn grass, managed to take hold and grow. A flock of gray and black pigeons took off, squealing in indignation, as he tromped through their midst, paying no heed to the birds’ fervent irritation at the intrusion. The flock rose as one, and fluttered into the half barricaded, half busted windows, beating their wings against the carton and wood plank.

He ascended the staircase; all the way up, in the lined gloom, where the air simmered with heat and dust even after a fresh rain, and the smell of tar blew from the roof to settle on half-ruined steps. For a moment, he hesitated, then pushed on the old, wooden door.

There was darkness, and swirling motes of dust dancing in the sudden gust of wind.

Then there was the loud crack of a gunshot.

Plaster rained from the ceiling in white flecks; snow to the day's intermittent rain. The smell of asbestos and paint joined the stench of tar and pigeons. The tall man threw his hands up, placating.

“You stupid scientist!” the woman’s harsh, raspy voice was loud, but after the gunshot even it failed to impress. “Next time, I don't miss.”

“The point,” the man said wryly, still holding his hands in front of him as though they were a shield, “is aptly demonstrated. As an excuse I present to you that I came here at great personal risk.”

“To be increased when you were shot?” the whisper was amused, though barely audible. “You have a great deal of temerity; you cost me three good men.”

The scientist made a small, negating gesture with his hand, then held it up again. “Please, I cost you no such thing. I cost you three very mediocre thugs. The girl is competent, but conscientious; she would not have killed them, they lost their heads from surprise and fear.”

“Nevertheless, they will do no more work for me.”

“That’s right,” the scientist, shrugged slightly. “So I am here to repay their price.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“By saving your neck. I told you the girl is competent, I know this, now that I am better informed. She is coming here.” He opened his hands, no longer paying attention to their position. “Hence the personal risk.”

There was a dismayed rumble, and a hissing, choked cackle. “People like you have no business doing favours to people like me.”

“The car,” said the scientist dryly, “is waiting downstairs.”

There was a crash, louder than the gun shot, and more discordant, outside on the stares. Something exploded and the building trembled slightly. More paint and plaster showered from the ceiling, littering the floor with flecks of dirty gray. From the dusty, dark corner, there was an outburst of raspy curses, and a female, gnarled shape scooted out of the protective shadows, shedding layers of dirty rags as it went.

The light benefited the crone not at all. She was arrayed in so many clothes and shreds of clothes that her shape could hardly be discerned through the tatters and drab colours. She fluttered as she went. She scooted, crab-like, behind the scientist's back, edging the door with a thin hand which shook with nervousness, and burst into more curses mingled with raspy coughs. From the corner with its single ray f light and dark, ghostly shapes, there was only a soft sight of resignation, and perhaps a sort of wry amusement.

The scientist bent suddenly sideways, and swept a hand to push the woman aside. The shove was surprisingly strong; she rocked back, stunned into silent, harsh breaths, and slid slowly backwards to where the back wall met its fellow in a clutter of cobwebs and dirt. He moved quickly, long stride covering the room in a second and, as the door behind his back slammed open, swept the long, cadaverous form in the armchair into his arms as easily as though it were a hollow doll. The glass of the window shattered noisily, spraying small shards of glass around, and the room sank for a moment into blue light.

The light receded slowly, leaving behind an afterglow of inverted shadows and hazy shapes. The woman crone crouched defensively in her corner, as though wishing to wrap cobwebs around her shoulders and scuttle up towards the ceiling. Her spidery, glowing eyes, darting back and forth with fear. The tall form enclosed by the rectangle of light from the door, stooping low, frowned and rubbed her eyes furtively, mouth clenched on the pain of the glare. It growled, a low grow that bounced about, and threw out a hand.

Light flooded the room for what must have been the first time in years. It shone on dusty, scattered vials, and shattered furniture and shabby cloth, on the gleaming, new tubes of chemicals and bottles of medications. On a deep, dirty, empty armchair, and the brightly lit, shattered window.

Brown trenchcoat billowing, and wide hat askew, almost falling off of the head, thrust forward in dismay as it was – the woman darted across the room towards the broken window. She pressed her palm against the sill, and a sharp, hidden shard of glass embedded itself in her palm. Red droplets of blood slid slowly off her hand and traced a thin crimson line, coursing along the side of her palm and onto the remaining glass, dimming the shine in it, a thick sunspot upon a tiny sun. Hissing with frustration and fury, the young woman peered out the window then, brushing off sprinkles of glass with the sleeve of her coat, climbed onto the windowsill.

The wind whistled around her as she fell down, fluttering her coat upwards, sweeping it past her waist. It snagged at her shirt, and whipped at her hir, but could not quite take hold. With a sweeping motion, as though sketching a semicircle, the young woman swept the wind away, and drifted slowly in the stillness of the afternoon air, touching the pavement as softly as a leaf.

The tall man, still carrying the old, thin person in his arms, leaning forward to deposit him in the back seat of a car, half-turned around and the fluttering sound. There was a brief impression that his eyes, invisible behind the sunglasses, shadowed further by his woolen cap, met the young woman's, and help her there. Without turning away, he deposited the older man inside the car completely, and reached a long, spindly arm to slam shut the door. The car roared to life, breaking the odd hypnosis, and the scientist straightened just as the young woman moved towards him, face red with rage.

“You! Now I will have you!” She raised a hand again, and tentacles sprouted from the concrete, bracing the man's feet.

He shook his head slowly, and reached into his pocket. There was a flash of purple, and the tentacles were writhing about an empty patch of dirty, broken asphalt with a muddy puddle reflecting the sun.

((No, I have not forgotten about this.

Yes, I have been otherwise occupied with various things.

What things, I hope you will see soon enough, and, I hope, they will be as good a read. Yes, I do intend to take this thread back up in the near future and bring it to a conclusion, though I can't promise specific dates.

End of public announcement here.))