“Fane’s bad news, big man,” Lucy said. 

They were sitting at the table, discussing things after Callum’s talk with Shahey.  Lucy hadn’t made any comment while Callum was getting news from the dragonblooded, but she’d still been listening closely and heard it all.  “A right bastard, in fact.  I’ve heard rumors of some real bloody stuff out of the Fane household.  Like, even Gayle was complaining about Fane’s people acting like complete jerks, and she’s a Hargrave!”

“Have to say I’m not really impressed by any of the mages I’ve run into,” Callum said dryly, then shook his head.  “Well, that’s not entirely true.  Some of them have seemed like fine people, but GAR actively enables abuse.  Anyway,” he shrugged, not wanting to delve into the topic.  “Guess we might as well see what Fane wants.”

“Sure that’s a good idea?”  Lucy looked uncertain, and Callum chuckled.  It was odd for her to be more cautious than him.

“Well, dealing with Fane directly is obviously a terrible idea.  But I might be able to stall his subordinates or get some idea of what we’re up against.  I operate in the dark so much it’d be nice to actually know what’s going on for a change.  Problem is, how do I deal with him if he can kill me just by vis contact?”

“Hmm.”  Lucy tapped her forefinger against her lips thoughtfully.  “You know, we’re already transmitting through the drone.  Could strap a speaker and mic to it, or just dump some A/V equipment through with a teleport, and control it from here.”

“How long would it take to set that up?”  Callum asked, glad that Lucy had the expertise to just do that sort of thing.  He could probably have thought of it and maybe even done it himself, but it would have been a serious chore.  “No way we’re dealing with Fane’s people without that.”

“Not long.  Pretty sure I know some comms stuff that’ll work out of the box.”

“Great.”

Researching and then going out to buy something appropriate didn’t take more than forty minutes, most of it travel time.  The solution they settled on was basically just a high-powered walkie-talkie system, though once they had time Lucy wanted to build something more appropriate from scratch.  For the moment, cheap and simple worked well enough.

“Alright, big man.  Where’s that house?”

Callum hardly needed a map to find the way to the old pseudo-mansion off the town square.  He knew Tanner like the back of his hand.  He hadn’t ever navigated it with his perceptions, but it didn’t take much adjustment.  It wasn’t very far, only a couple minutes of drone piloting to get within range.

There was a ward up around the building, though it was one of the less complex types like he’d seen with the vampires.  He could pretty much breeze through that sort with no effort, counting six mages and fourteen normal folk inside the big house.  It didn’t take a master of analysis to see that the normal types were servants to the mages, but that was the kind of thing he almost expected at this point.  Since he couldn’t pick out Sen from bubbles alone, Callum simply teleported a walkie into the front room, with the volume cranked up.

“Well, Sen, you wanted to talk to me,” Callum said into the handset.

The startlement inside the house was gratifying.  He was a little surprised they hadn’t sensed the teleport, but all the mages were in different rooms and he knew his magic was generally subtle.  Active vis senses raked through the house, and bubbles flew through doors and even windows as the mages converged on the front room.  He wished he could see their expressions.

“Callum Wells.”  A voice came over the walkie, and while Callum couldn’t swear it was Sen’s, it probably was.  “Show yourself.”

“I don’t think so,” Callum said, while Lucy shook her head at the sheer stupidity of the demand.  “If you want to talk, we can do so this way.  If you’d rather not talk, I wonder what the hell you’re doing in Tanner.”

“Very well,” Sen said after a moment, and two of the mage bubbles left, flying into the air and starting to circle out from the house.  Looking for Callum.  Apparently they didn’t even notice the drone sitting by the chimney of the house across the street.  They swept with their vis senses but probably were not looking for the tiny signature of the portal anchor hiding behind a bunch of metal and plastic.

“Patriarch Fane graciously extends you the chance to join House Fane,” Sen said, almost sneering.  “He has been favorably impressed by your expertise and is willing to offer you the shelter and protection of the most powerful House of all.”

“How generous,” Callum said dryly.  “For what reason would I accept that offer?”

“You think you can hide from GAR and the BSE forever?  You may have had some successes, but I nearly had you in France,” Sen said, voice waspish over the walkie.  “It’s only a matter of time before someone catches up with you.”

“You were the one who attacked me in the café?”  Callum asked, flexing his fingers as his body thrummed from a sudden burst of adrenaline.

“Like I said, I almost had you.  Good as I am, I’m not an archmage or even a BSE agent,” Sen said.  “The moment one of them finds you, you’re done.  Unless you have someone like Archmage Fane protecting you.”

Callum was glad that the walkie was push to talk, because otherwise Sen would have heard the several choice words Callum had to say after the admission.  The man clearly hadn’t been held to account for killing people, and he needed to be.  Eventually.  As much as Callum wanted to do something right then, that would sacrifice any opportunity to deal with the actual source of the issue.

Shahey’s advice about focusing on the source of the problem was more immediate than Callum had thought.

“That’s mostly threats,” he said instead, as Lucy shook her head.  Whether at him or at Sen, Callum wasn’t sure.  “Is there any carrot to go with the stick?”

“It’s House Fane,” Sen said, disbelief evident in his voice.  “There is nothing you could possibly want that they cannot provide.”  Callum bit back a choice reply.  The more he thought about it, the more horrifying that statement was.  There were all kinds of appetites that should never be indulged.

“So what happens if I decline?”  Callum asked, doing his best to sound firm and in control.  “Are you going to leave Tanner?”

“Why would we do that?”  Sen asked, genuinely puzzled.  “After everything we spent to establish a foothold here?”

“This guy is some kind of moron,” Callum said, making sure that the walkie wasn’t in transmit mode.  “He actually thinks that I’d be fine with that?  That I want to work for them?”

“I mean, House Fane is kind of big and powerful,” Lucy said.  “Probably a lot of people would be glad to work with them, but nobody that I’d get along with.”

“Gotta give him an answer of some sort.  A stall.”  Callum considered, running through a few half-baked ideas, then pressed the talk button.  “I need some time to think about it.  And I want to meet with Archmage Fane directly.”

“What makes you think he’ll meet with you?”  Sen scoffed.

“He went to this much trouble.  GAR knows who I am and what I can do.  Surely he can take the time to take the teleport network here.”

“I suppose I can inform him you wish an audience.”

“Not at House Fane,” Callum warned.  “If not here, some neutral place.  I’ll return in a week to hear your answer.”  He would have liked to punctuate his ultimatum with retrieving the walkie, but mage bubbles prevented that.  Instead, all he could do was ignore Sen’s protests about propriety.  So long as Sen didn’t reject things outright – and Callum was certain he didn’t have the authority – it was good enough.

“A week, huh?”  Lucy raised her eyebrows at him.

“It’ll give us some time to plan.  And find out more about Fane.”  Callum leaned back in his chair.  “There’s no way I’m prepared to do anything right now.  If Sen’s the one who blew up the café in France then I can’t let that go, but I’ve got to worry about what would happen with Tanner if I did that.”

“Shahey can probably take care of it,” Lucy pointed out.  “Still kinda weird that you’ve got a dragonblooded consulting you.”

“It is,” Callum agreed.  “But I can understand why, in this case.  It’s aimed at me, and Shahey sees an opportunity to get past his limitations. I bet you that he could deal with Fane if he really wanted to, but from what he told me, that level of involvement would violate their own rules.”

“Yeah?”  Lucy’s eyes lit up.  “You never did tell me about the conversation you had with him.”

“Sure, I’ll fill you in later,” Callum said, keeping his senses on the mages in the house.  “Once we finish up here.  Then we’ve got to figure out what we can do in a week.”

“You could have asked for two weeks, at least,” Lucy said with a faux pout.  “But yeah, a week isn’t that much time.  We’ll have to burn the midnight oil on this one.”

“I suppose I should tell Chester, too,” Callum said unhappily.  “Moving against Fane – if and how we do so – is not a minor thing.  I did promise to keep him informed.”

“I don’t think he’d object much, big man.”  Lucy considered. “Actually, he might.  Things have got to be strained as is, if you make some major moves on House Fane that could cause some real inter-House violence to happen.”

Callum winced.  That was beyond what he really wanted to be responsible for, but at the same time he could hardly avoid it.  If he started holding the people who were genuinely responsible for the atrocities of GAR to account, it would shake things up.  No matter who they were.

All that sort of calculation made it tedious and uncomfortable to keep people informed of what he was doing.  For all the vulnerabilities of being off as a lone agent, one of the benefits was that he could just do as he liked.  He still could, in fact.  Neither Shahey nor Chester had the authority or capacity to stop him.

Still, it would be an annoyance if they had arguments about what he should or shouldn’t do. Callum mistrusted that kind of thing, even if they couldn’t technically stop him.  It was far too easy to reason for or against any course of action, and he was pretty sure both of them could speak circles around him if they tried.  He’d have to be careful to try and spot the line between giving him advice and trying to control his actions.

“Once they cool down we can move the drone, but for now we might as well figure out what we’re going be doing this next week.  That’s not much time to figure out a way to deal with the worst case scenario.”

“You mean Fane himself showing up?”

“Bingo.”  Callum rubbed at his forehead.  “If he’s as dangerous as Shahey says, then I can’t really do anything near him.  I’m not going to let Tanner become some statistic for a mysterious gas leak on the evening news or whatever, but it’s hardly going to help if he just looks in my direction and I fall over dead.”

“So you’re going to try and kill him?  Just like that?”  Lucy looked uneasy.

“No, not just like that.  We’ve got a week.  I want you to find out everything you can — follow up those rumors.  I very much doubt that he’s going to leave Tanner be anyway, but we need to know whether or not he should be killed.  Then we need to figure out how to deal with everything.  If we can deal with Fane himself, we can manage anything short of that.”

“Is this how you do it every time, big man?” Lucy asked, staring at him with a slight widening of her eyes. 

“Not exactly, but it’s the same idea.  Try to figure out and prepare for every possibility.  Or at the very least for the worst case scenario.”  Actually he hadn’t had nearly as much time as he would have liked for anything that he’d done so far, but he’d at least prepared somewhat. 

“Right, well then.  I’ll see what I can dig up — you know I don’t have my old connections anymore, big man.  There might be a few back doors but if they’re smart they’ll have trapped ‘em.”

“It might be worth considering what you could do if you had physical access,” Callum suggested.  “We could try sneaking a portal anchor or even a drone onto the premises.  If there’s people coming and going all the time there’s only so much they can do for security.”

“Those are some big brass balls, big man.  I like it.  Yeah, we can see about that.  What else?”

“Well, offhand, how the hell would you kill an Archmage?”

“Uh.  I sure don’t know,” Lucy replied.  “You just want to know what they’ve got going for them in general?  So they’ve got their shields, for one.  They’ve all got homebonds, I’m pretty sure.  Enchanted clothing.  Focuses of all kinds, probably super fancy stuff.  You’d have to get past all that.”

“So a single, overwhelming strike, one that can overcome their magical defenses, and doesn’t give them time to recall.”  Callum smiled wryly.  “And doesn’t level Tanner in the bargain.”

“Right.”  Lucy tapped her laptop thoughtfully.  “Sounds like we need to have a big brainstorming session.  I’m not sure I have a good feel for how you do this stuff yet, big man.  I dunno how much use I’m going to be.”

“Hey, you thought up those tiles,” Callum pointed out.  They were still waiting for them to be finished, but the glass cutter had sent some initial photos and they looked pretty good.  “Not to mention the drones and walkie-talkies.  I’m sure once we get into it you’ll be fine.”  If nothing else, having someone to simply bounce ideas off of would be a help.  He knew that working solo he’d missed obvious things more than once.

They started hashing out ideas while Callum kept an eye on the mages in Tanner.  They had missed the drone arriving, because they weren’t looking for it, but they’d be hypervigilant while they thought he was still around.  Anyone who paid attention wouldn’t miss a drone flying around.  He could just recall it through the anchor, but that would give things away. 

Lucy had reminded him, during one of their talks, that just because one person in GAR knew something it didn’t mean everyone in GAR would know.  Bureaucracies were generally terrible about distributing important information.  One full of politics like GAR might be even worse.  It was clear that everyone important knew that Callum had gone in and wrecked a BSE outpost in the Deep Wilds, but it wasn’t likely every grunt had it in the forefront of their minds.  So even if he’d revealed the portal anchor trick once, it was still a good idea to keep it concealed.

He actually had to turn off the portal after a while, since people were still stirred up and the mana flow through the anchor would start to get noticeable.  It wasn’t until the next day that he reconnected and had Lucy fly it back to Shahey’s gym. 

“I have doubts Fane would come himself,” the dragonblooded said once Callum had filled him in.  “But it’s good to know.  I’ll see about organizing some sort of impromptu town fair or the like to keep everyone away from the area.”

“Considering what Sen did last time, that’s a good idea.”  Even if Callum didn’t want to level Tanner, he doubted the Fane people had any such compunctions.  While he still didn’t really like working with people, it was nice to leave those sorts of logistics to someone else.  He had enough on his plate trying to figure out how to deal with walking death in the form of the healer Archmage.

“Good luck,” Shahey said, with a toothy smile on his reptilian face.

“Thanks,” said Callum, and recalled the drone.

“We should get more drones.  How many more of those anchors can you make?”  Lucy asked, going to the charger to replace the batteries.  “We could use like a million of them.”

“I think two more pairs,” Callum replied.  “It’d be more if we could do anything with silverite.”

“Yeah, I’ll try to figure out where we can look for that.  Probably can figure it out if we snoop on the Guild of Enchanting.”

“I would really like to get ahold of their archives, yeah.”  He really wanted the basis of the theory on transcribing spell forms to enchantments.  The bit he had was like the times table when what he really needed was statics and differential calculus.  A focus version of the gravity field or the like would be really nice, but far too complex for his current knowledge.

It didn’t take very long to get the drone back to Chester’s compound, but it was still tedious.  Callum was well aware that his perspective on travel time and ease was being completely warped by the portal anchors, since going several hundred miles in half an hour or so was incredible.  Yet he still couldn’t help wanting to have a dedicated portal anchor by the shifters.

There was a bit of a wait, but when Chester was ensconced in the warded basement with the drone, he opened a phone-portal to bring the shifter up to speed.  Between them, he and Lucy filled him on Fane’s involvement and what they were intending to do about it.  Chester reclined his chair in war-form, ears flicking as he listened.

“I’ve never had to deal with Fane myself,” Chester said.  “I know he’s the reason there basically aren’t any shifters – or fae, for that matter – in China, but he’s kept his interests more in line with increasing his own House’s power.  The only influence he has in the US is places where his family’s bought up land or businesses.”

“Didn’t I send you a document on him at some point?”  Lucy asked.  “Real early on.  I don’t really remember what was in it but I remember scraping his name some years back.”

“Maybe,” Chester said.  “I forgot you don’t have access to any of that anymore.  We’ll see if we can find it.”  He waggled a finger and one of the people in the basement room went off to check.  “I don’t have anything else to really offer on Fane though.  Except maybe wish you luck.”

“We’re going to need it,” Callum said.  “Still not sure whether we’ll have to actually kill him, but I hate being on the defense.  It’s just a losing proposition.”

“Most people would say it’s the other way around,” Chester said dryly.  “But I suppose I understand your position.  I don’t think we have any investment in this one way or the other but I appreciate being kept in the loop.  GAR has to know about Tanner, but I doubt Fane is filing any paperwork about it.”

With his obligations taken care of, Callum was happy to just bury himself in trying to come up with ideas on how to deal with Fane.  Lucy was a fantastic help, in part because she knew more than she realized.  From the fact that Archmages had a small backchannel teleport network to how Archmages didn’t actually bother with guards because it showed their strength, just bouncing the stupidest concepts off her helped fill out a sketch of what he was working with.

Then there was the tech stuff.  Callum could use a walkie-talkie or a laptop easily enough, but quickly and easily setting up transceivers, networking together wifi cameras, or setting up a nigh-untraceable phone call was all Lucy’s work.  Things he needed if he was going to even contemplate talking to Fane; there was no way he was bringing his magic anywhere near the Archmage.  

He doubted Fane actually wanted to kill him; the job offer was probably genuine.  The things Callum could do held obvious attractions for anyone who wanted a stealthy agent.  The thing was, he doubted that he’d be given a choice, not when Fane had gone to the trouble of effectively holding his hometown hostage.

Callum needed to make sure he had his own options.

***

“The sheer arrogance of the man is astounding.”  Archmage Fane found Fane Chen’s droning to be tedious and obvious.  Truly, Chen had a talent for banality.  It made him a capable administrator for House Fane, but having to endure the man’s endless repetition and reedy monotone voice always made the Archmage reconsider.

“The effrontery!  We don’t need anyone with that kind of attitude!”  The bluster continued until the Archmage raised a finger.  Suitably chastened, Chen sat back silently.

“As unacceptable as his behavior is, that sort of caution is completely in line with what he’s already done.  He wouldn’t be the kind of man we do want working for us if he was pliant.”  It was one of the most irritating conundrums, one as yet unsolvable.  Though not for lack of trying.  The very best tools were the ones most difficult to wield.

“What do you intend to do, Patriarch?”  Someone asked at last.  One of the rotating toadies that some of his sons used to keep an eye on him.  As if their pretentions of someday inheriting House Fane would ever go anywhere.  None of them had anywhere near enough talent to be an Archmage.

“Apply more carrot and stick both,” Fane said.  That was part of why he had included Sen in the team.  Mostly to see what Wells would do when confronted with someone who had attacked him, since Fane wasn’t very impressed with his grand-nephew’s incompetence.  A reasonably passable mage, but lacking in any sort of social acumen.  Not so great a loss, if Wells decided to eliminate him.

He had been expecting some sort of reaction, but Wells had disappointed him in that regard.  Or perhaps not disappointed.  Wells had demonstrated more self-control than Fane had anticipated, after having been lured quite predictably to Tanner.  That made it difficult to gauge what pressure would push him which way.

“Yes, Patriarch,” Chen said, sensibly scribing down Fane’s words as holy writ.

“First, I will agree to meet him personally,” Fane said, to some surprised looks.  They obviously didn’t realize how valuable an asset Wells could be.  “We can grant him some face.  His desire to not meet at House Fane itself is understandable caution, but I very much doubt he realizes how great the influence of our House is.  Ning, arrange the matter at the resort in Beijing.”

“Yes, Patriarch,” the toady said, bowing.

“Huang, security.  We know Wells is a slippery customer and I do not want House Fane property damaged or destroyed.  More, we need to show that House Fane is not vulnerable.  I will have the reports from Garrison Two made available to you.”

“Your will, Patriarch.”  Huang was fairly competent.  Fane was a benevolent master and didn’t expect Huang to completely Wells-proof the resort, but demonstrating they were capable of countering and controlling him would send the message Fane wanted.

“We will also send the message that we are not to be dictated to.  The hand gives, and the hand takes away.”  Fane waved a hand dismissively.  “Take Journeyman Cho to Tanner.  Cure all those that ail, and wither all crops on the ground.  Let him contemplate how easy it would be to do the reverse.”

“As you will it, Patriarch.”  Master Yen bowed as well.  He was the one in charge of managing Fane’s healers.  Most of those with the healing aspect were his now, whether born into the House or acquired through other means.  Some lesser healing mages had escaped his grasp, but that was for the best.  Even the dimmest and dumbest would realize that a complete monopoly on healers by a single House was dangerous.

Duvall’s monopoly on spatial mages only endured because there were so few.  Something which might not be the case much longer.  In fact, Wells had arguably broken that monopoly by his very presence, and no matter how that turned out whoever found the next one would contest Duvall’s claim.

“Wells is the thorn in the side of GAR,” Fane said, addressing his underlings.  “A demonstration of how effective one determined individual can be.  When we bring Wells under the aegis of House Fane, not only will that disruption be gone but we will be the architects of the new status quo.  Whether or not Wells is actually effective hardly matters.  Only what it appears.”

There were nods all around.  They all knew that Wells wasn’t really that dangerous.  Oh, he’d done well enough against chaff, vampires and fae and the dregs of mages, but he’d also done absolutely nothing against those in Garrison Two.  A proper shield was enough to render him impotent.  No, the real threat was to the authority and legitimacy of GAR, and all it would take to undo all the fractures Wells had caused was to assert authority and legitimacy.  It was everything House Fane could ask for.

With the matter of Wells taken care of, Fane dismissed most of the council.  Only Chen remained.  The nature of Fane’s experiments were well known, but the outcomes were not.  A secret only had value if it could be wielded at the right time.

“What is the status of the shipment from Constance?”  Fane asked.

“It is late.  She claims the current shakeup has impacted her ability to provide subjects, but will be sending several duds and fae in addition to the usual mundanes.”

“Very well.”  The fae were, in fact, quite a boon.  He had not made progress on splicing fae magic into a mundane or a dud, let alone a mage, but he had so few subjects to work from.  He was convinced there was some way to do it, since the ability seemed to be biological in origin, but hadn’t even reproduced the experiments that had removed magical ability.

Fane suspected that there was something in the blood of the things that might euphemistically be called Oberon and Titania.  It wasn’t just the twisting of the portal world, though humans had been inside Faerie longer than anywhere else.  By what few accounts he could find, prior to the arrival of the beings who had taken on Shakespeare’s monikers there was little to no fae magic at all.  Just distortions of form.

“I shall be in my lab,” Fane decided.  He was the only one who had the authority to open it, so it was a place few people went without direct instruction.  “Only interrupt me if there is news of dire import.”  Chen bowed low in acknowledgement, and Fane strode from the office.  He had work to do.

***

It clearly wasn’t Wells’ work.  Ray and Felicia both had been entirely too happy to be pulled from their useless accumulation of irrelevant infringements on the part of Chester’s shifters.  The push had started out seriously enough, but they’d both concluded it was useless.  Time had made it clear that Alpha Chester was not going to be intimidated by such bureaucratic pressure.

The news of another potential Ghost attack had been a welcome break.  Except that just visiting the scene they could tell it was just a clumsy copycat.  There was too much collateral damage, too much evidence of physical might.  Some of the furniture was smashed, some of the dishes broken. 

They’d been called to the crime scene for two reasons: there was no sign of forced entry and there were small steel ball bearings found at the crime scene.  In a sense it rather did seem like one of Wells’ hits, since the kills had been from cold iron bullets.  But everything else made it clear someone had physically been there, so not Wells at all.  Which meant Felicia’s power would actually be useful.

“It’s a copycat,” he told the GAR man who had called it in.

“But,” the man – a mage, though a sorry specimen of one – protested.  “The ball bearings.  That’s what he does!”

Ray considered pointing out the rest of the issues, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.  The dull-eyed fellow wouldn’t have the wit to understand.  It was hard to believe such a person even survived their service in the portal worlds, but the most incompetent of mages had to wind up somewhere.

“We’ll take it from here,” he assured the man instead, and looked over to Felicia.

“Morgue?”  She wrote on her tablet, and Ray nodded.  Since it wasn’t Wells, they’d probably find out who it was soon enough.  Considering that the attack had been in the middle of Chicago, the morgue wasn’t very far, not like the last few scenes where the bodies had been out in the middle of nowhere.  Or missing entirely.

The fae victims were not quite nobles, but somewhere in the upper rung of the complicated fae hierarchy.  Two were far larger than human, with bulky, stony bodies, while the third was smaller and looked almost human but for extra joints and claws.  They were as much a mess as anyone would expect, considering they were shot in the head.

Felicia touched the cold arm of the small fae briefly, her glamour flickering as she exercised her own unique power.  After a moment she snorted and got her tablet, giving him an expressive eyeroll before she started sketching.  It didn’t take long before she had a clear picture of a quartet of vampires.

“Figures,” Ray said.  Places like Chicago were more vampire than fae territory anyway, and scuffles were not uncommon.  Outright murders were less so, but not unheard of.  Trying to blame it on Wells was a new wrinkle, but by now everyone had heard of the Ghost.  Felicia started fiddling with her tablet to attach the sketch to their report while Ray called their new supervisor.

The investigation into GAR had shaken up a lot of posts, and when they’d returned to normal duty there was a new mage in charge of the Department of Arcane Investigation.  Not one Ray had even heard of before; someone transferred in from somewhere in BSE.  It wasn’t ideal but considering their old boss had been embezzling a bit on the side it was understandable.

“Supervisor Lane,” the voice came.

“It’s Danforth.  That fifth avenue site wasn’t Wells.  Felicia’s sending over the rendition but it was just a vampire attack.”  Felicia gave him a nod as he talked.  “Not anything to do with Wells.  We can probably wrap it up in a few hours, just need to⁠—”

“No, return to your previous duties.”  Lane’s voice was curt.  “It’s a local matter.”

“With respect, sir, we don’t know that yet.  The identities haven’t been confirmed⁠—”

“I said it’s a local matter.”  Lane’s already curt voice turned waspish.  “Go back to pestering Chester.”  He hung up.  Ray sighed and looked at Felicia.

“I guess that answers whether we’re being punished or not.”  She made a face in reply and tapped the drawing of the vampires again.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “We could, but I’m pretty sure they’d bench us entirely if we started poking around on our own.”

Felicia just sighed and submitted the report.  It sat ill with her not to finish such a simple investigation, and he had to agree.  He didn’t have the same sort of driving requirement as a fae did, it was more the principal of the thing for him, but those two aligned well enough most of the time.

“We have to do something, though,” Felicia said, when they were back out in the car.  “We can’t just keep cooling our heels because they don’t like how the Wells case went.”

“I don’t think either of us want to try freelance,” Ray said dryly.  “But you’re right. There’s no telling how long this is going to drag on and I already don’t like some aspects of it.”

Felicia sighed agreement.  They’d run into politics before, now and again, but most of their cases were straightforward.  Or had been until now.

“We’re going to have to figure out a way to wait this out,” Ray said.  Supernaturals had long memories, so whatever grudges people had against them weren’t likely to go away any time soon.  Their best bet was to go somewhere obscure or protected enough that it wasn’t worthwhile for people to spend political capital on them.

“So long as we don’t go back to Faerie,” Felicia said firmly.

“Don’t worry,” Ray replied.  “We’ll never be that desperate.”