There was a deathly silence before pandemonium broke out on the floor. Thankfully Master Gin came forward and took control of the situation.

“Honoured guests, it appears that an accident has happened and we apologize for this disruption. Please return to your seats and in a moment the staff will arrive to take care of this. We hope that this will not destroy the rest of your evening but we understand if you wish to leave. For your safety’s sake, please wait a moment for our staff to escort you to your exits but take note that tonight’s drinks are on us.” Master Gin’s calm but powerful voice put everyone at ease while Scarlet had already moved to the stage and started singing a slow jazz number with Ciel accompanying her on the piano. There were still murmurs amongst the patrons but they were slowly subsiding as everyone went back to their seats, gossiping quietly about what had happened.

The very efficient staff members started to clean the area and were bringing out drinks to serve the guests. Having calmed the crowd, Master Gin went to the alcove where Jurogumo’s companions were huddled together, eyes wide in fright while two security staff stood quietly outside.

“Ladies, it must have been a scare for you. How about you follow me to my office and we try and find out what happened exactly.” While Master Gin had worded it like a question, it was more of a command. As the master of Sanctuary, his word was the law. So the four remaining women were escorted to Master Gin’s office. Master Gin waved a hand and there was a hiss as two spiders in the room suddenly turned to dust.

“Now, please tell me what happened.”

There was silence as none of them wanted to say anything. Master Gin’s courteous face was beginning to turn gloomy. The pressure he was exuding was slowly becoming heavier and beads of sweat could be seen on their refined faces. Finally, one of the fox demons cracked.

“All we know is that Juro said that she wanted to come and she wanted us to accompany her.”

“She seemed like she was heading towards the exit.”

“She was very distracted after we were led to our seats. She suddenly said she wanted to leave.”

“What was she planning to do?”

“We don’t know! She’s been secretive of late mentioning about shadows and-” The fox demon stopped, her eyes widening in horror. She raised her hands and Gin could see that they were turning black and disintegrating before his eyes.

“No! I didn’t mean to! Help me!” Gin saw a mark in the shape of a spider on her face as she screamed in agony and turned into black dust that soon disappeared, leaving no trace of the demon at all.

Master Gin could see the mute horror on the remaining demon women. They looked at him pleadingly and he sighed. He could not force them to their death by making them speak.

“Stay here. If you’re innocent, we will get to the bottom of this and I’ll have Scarlet remove the curse. If you are part of the conspiracy then do not blame me for being merciless. Nobody threatens the safety of Sanctuary.”

He walked out of the office and cast another barrier on the door, telling the two guards to keep an eye on the women and to alert him if anything happens. Master Gin then returned to the lounge. Scarlet’s singing had effectively calmed the crowd and his capable staff had already cleaned Jurogumo’s remains. There was almost no trace of the earlier ruckus except for the livelier than usual chattering. He saw George and the rest of the security team return.

“I heard the SOS transmission earlier. What happened?” he asked, approaching them.

George sighed. “Jurogumo sent two spiders to attack an array point. When Bei and I went there to investigate, she attacked us using spiderlings.” George showed a face of disgust as he remembered what happened. “While we were trying to handle those, we also got attacked by dread hyenas.”

“Are the others OK?”

“They’re fine. I’m the only one that got injured.” Now that he thought about it, George was a little disgruntled over that. “I’ve sent them to debrief Fionn and to plan our next course of action. More and more dread hyenas are appearing so both day and night security need to be on standby now.”

“All right.” Master Gin looked at George’s battered appearance. “You look terrible. Take a break after this.”

“After we settle this. What about Jurogumo?”

“She’s dead. She seemed to have put a curse on her companions as well. They can’t tell me what happened. One of them tried and she disintegrated in front of me.”

George sucked in a breath. He never thought that she would be so ruthless to even place a curse on her own friends. But now that the main perpetrator was dead, how were they going to find out what’s going on?

“Where’s Anansi?” he remembered the injured spider trickster.

Master Gin frowned as if suddenly remembering that they had one more lead to follow. The both of them went to the second floor and stopped outside Anansi’s room. Master Gin knocked on the door before entering. He froze, hand still on the doorknob. On the ground in the living room lay Gawain, knocked out cold. His face was pale and he was deathly still.

“What’s wro-” George peered over Master Gin’s shoulders and saw what had happened. He immediately pulled his walkie-talkie out. “This is George. I need a healer in Anansi’s room, NOW!” He pushed Master Gin into the room and crouched down to check on Gawain. He could feel a faint pulse and breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at his sickly pallor and sweaty face, George suspected that he had been poisoned. Sure enough he found a small wound on his ankle.

“He’s not in his room.” Master Gin exited the bedroom, his face thunderous. “How is he?”

“He’s most likely been poisoned. We need to-” before he could finish, the angel that healed Anansi the night before arrived. With a prayer, Gawain was also engulfed in a golden light and both George and Master Gin could see that Gawain was looking better, his breathing stronger and his face a little less pale.

“Take him to the sick bay. We’ll see him later when wakes up.” Master Gin instructed the angel. The angel nodded and turned to gently pick Gawain up. He then proceeded to throw him over his shoulders like a sack of grain and walked away. Master Gin and George watched in silence.

“I can see why he was sent away from heaven to learn…” George said weakly.

“Three hundred years later and he still hasn’t learned a thing. I sometimes wonder if he’s doing it on purpose…” Master Gin grumbled.

Maybe. George remembered seeing this angel in the human world during his day off before. He had been at an amusement park, wearing animal ears while eating cotton candy and carrying a stuffed toy. Perhaps heaven is a place on earth after all. Now was not the time to speculate though. Anansi was missing and the guard they had assigned to watch over him had been poisoned.

“The problem with having mythical guests is that they don’t appreciate having their privacy breached, since some of them don’t want to reveal their true forms. Thanks to this, we don’t have any surveillance systems. Besides, they tend to disrupt human technology anyway.” Master Gin knew what George was thinking.

“We’ll have to go to each entrance and see if the staff noticed anything. Not that it will help… the incident that happened with Jurogumo is the perfect distraction. What happened to her remains anyway?”

“Staff should have brought it to the incinerator.”

“If she could turn into spiders, do you think Anansi can do the same?”

“It’s possible. Damn. That means we might have to look out for spiders instead.”

“And that means he could be anywhere.”

The two men looked at each other, black clouds gathering.

“This is more serious than I imagined. Let’s go see Fionn and the rest.”

They left after Master Gin sealed the room. With an enemy as wily as Anansi, it would be better if they could seal all his exit routes. They went to see the rest of the security staff for another discussion and plan their next course of action. Staff were told to be extra vigilant of guests that were leaving and at the same time look out for spiders. This was a tall order but they had no choice. Without any surveillance system, they had no idea where Anansi had gone or even what form he was in for that matter. This time, every room had to be carefully inspected and George could not do it alone. In the meantime, they would have to leave the matter about the weakened barrier and attacked array points to the next day; security of Sanctuary had to be prioritized.

After some discussions, Dominic and a few other mages managed to come up with a spell that would enable them to detect foreign magic signals. This meant that any magic that did not belong to sanctuary would cause an alert. This would save them time when inspecting empty rooms. However, the magic would also target all the guests at the club, but it was only a minor inconvenience in comparison. Guest who weren’t happy were more than welcome to take their grievances to Master Gin, the staff were just doing their duties after all.

Once everyone were assigned into groups with a mage, they left to sweep the club. George went to the entrances to check on the guards there as well as to see how many guests had decided to leave because of the uproar. There were a few but these guests were regulars that did not make it a habit to stay over or linger at Sanctuary until closing hours so they were not suspicious. It was however better to be extra vigilant so George took note of them. Very soon, all the teams returned and reported nothing out of the ordinary. Somehow, against all odds, Anansi had managed to either sneak out of the club or conceal his whereabouts. George sighed and sent most of the staff back to rest. It was going to be a very long night.