Blood. Not mine. The Faerie’s.
I spat it on the ground. Spit and trace amounts of blood.
I looked up to see her looking a bit disgusted. “Okay.”
I left Jo and Penelope behind as I went to go deliver the letter, Ms. Lewis one step behind me.
2.06
“Stop,” Ms. Lewis told me. “Look. Our destination.”
The building sat across the street. Squat, unimpressive, with some large windows showing bookshelves on the other side.
“The library?” Rose asked.
“A government institution. If you find a lost driver’s license, you can leave it in a mailbox, and the post office will take it where it needs to go. Leave a note clearly labeled for the police at a library…”
“And they’ll take it to the police,” Rose said.
“Why did we stop?” I asked.
“Two reasons. Both having to do with attention. First of all, I think it would be a damn shame if you were to put all this time and effort into this, only to see it shoved into a drawer and ignored because it is inconvenient, or thrown into the trash. Give some thought to how you label it.”
I nodded, but my mind wasn’t feeling as sharp as usual. I didn’t think it was blood loss, I hadn’t bled nearly that much, stabbing my hand, but I had suffered from blood loss before, and the symptoms weren’t so different.
“Something blatant? Rose asked.
“Something blatant. Remember, presentation is tied to effect. Be dramatic.”
“Something like, ‘For the eyes of the RCMP only: Contains information about the Molly Walker murder‘?” Rose asked. “Get the library people talking, word spreading, people asking about it?
“That’ll do,” Ms. Lewis said. “Mr. Thorburn?”
I hesitated. “Am I missing anything? We’re about to leverage the supernatural stuff to try to ruin his non-supernatural life. There’s no way this doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.”
“We’re declaring war,” Rose said. “But there’s nothing special there. They declared it first. We’re just responding.”
“Ms. Lewis? Is there a factor I’m not paying attention to?”
“The rules about secrecy were established for everyone’s mutual benefit. Inducting too many people into this world carries too much danger, too much weight. There are no hard rules about doing this, but there are very, very few people who would be willing to, knowing the kind of enemies it makes, and the confusion and chaos it causes.”
“So…” Rose said, pausing for a second, probably to gather her thoughts. “This isn’t one of those situations where a rule becomes law and law becomes natural law?”
“No. I must say I’m wondering why you returned the familiar to its master and showed some restraint, only a few minutes ago, but you are responding in this fashion to a more indirect threat.”
I sighed. I wasn’t in a state to offer an articulate response.
“He’s fucked up,” Rose said. “Laird is. He’s crazy, and he seems to be spearheading this whole thing against us. Those kids, they were acting like they were following orders. Going to some dance class, they saw us, they attacked. I get the impression we changed their minds a bit. I don’t think Laird is ever going to change his mind about us.”
“That’s a fair assertion,” Ms. Lewis said. “Is this going to do enough damage, for the kind of response it’s going to get? He is going to retaliate.”
“Probably,” I said. “But how much worse can it be than him trying to kill us?”
Ms. Lewis said, “Individuals like him, typically, have effectively stocked up on good karma, so they might spend it in times of crisis. I have a good idea about what’s happened, even if my information is incomplete, and I think he may have been holding back. Acting upfront, informing you as to why he’s attacking you, being honest and helpful. Inviting compromise. Tempering himself.”
“And he’s going to stop?” Rose asked. “Start going into debt to take us out?”
I glanced back the way we’d come. Nobody following. “He’s been holding back because he’s trying to decide if I’m a threat or someone who will happily sit back and wait until he’s ready to actively kill us. I’m not sure if he’s made that decision yet, but I have to assume it’s sliding towards the latter.”
“Is it?” Rose asked. “If you take the Duchamp thing just now into account, word is going to spread about what we did. Shouldn’t we seem less threatening than we did?”
“You’re making that a question, and not a statement,” Ms. Lewis noted.
“It feels like a question,” Rose said.
“I agree. It doesn’t feel like a certain thing,” I said. “I’m more inclined to be paranoid, I’m betting they won’t tell the full story. If only half the story gets told, then people in the Duchamp family are going to notice that the familiar is injured. They’re going to know there was a fight. That is going to reflect badly on us.”