Star Harbor Nights

"Well, anyway, babe, I'm really sorry, but as much as I'd love to help, I've really gotta run," D.J. said to Perfect when Dani's story had concluded. She added in an undertone, "Unless you don't feel comfortable being alone with present company." She glanced briefly at Dani and Raven, but her gaze lingered pointedly on Ray, who she'd made sure was close enough to hear her.

"No, I'll be okay," Perfect said. "These are the good guys, remember?"

"Alright, I'll talk to you later, then," D.J. said. She gave Perfect a hug and a quick peck on the forehead. "Nice meeting you," she said in the direction of Dani and Raven. She waited a beat before, then gave Ray one last glare before she left.

"So, what now?" Dani asked though the last word turned into a yawn.

"You look about half dead," Perfect said. "You can crash here, if you'd like. I've got extra rooms in the other building."

"Thanks," Dani said. "I don't really have any where else to go."

"I'll show you where you can sleep," Perfect said. "Raven, are you coming, too?"

Raven looked at her, but gave no indication she'd heard or understood. She did follow Perfect as she lead Dani through the kitchen, downstairs into the basement and then through the passage which joined the townhouses into an impromptu duplex. When they got up into the remodeled living quarters, Raven declined--or rather, once more didn't respond--to Perfect's offer to show her to her own room.

"I don't know what your guys' deal is, but I don't have any beds that aren't singles," Perfect said apologetically. Raven just went over, looked out the bedroom window, and then went and stood in the corner.

"I think she's just protective of me," Dani said, climbing into bed.

"But doesn't she need to sleep, too?" Perfect asked. She looked at Raven, but saw that the woman's head had drooped slightly and her eyes had closed. "Okay... so she sleeps standing up. Interesting." She looked back at Dani, who was getting under the blankets, still in her peasant blouse and skirt. "Do you want me to get you some pajamas? Or I could leave if you just to get out of those."

"Oh, it's not a problem," Dani said sleepily. "I'll just..." She trailed off, but there was a blue flash beneath the covers and the part of her clothes that Perfect could see had turned into blue silk pajamas."

"Well, alrighty," Perfect said as Dani visibly drifted off.

She returned to the other side, still shaking her head in bemused wonder at the turns of fate that had brought the two strangers to her doorstep at the precise moment she was talking about recruiting members for her team. Now, she had two superpowered beings sleeping in her long-empty headquarters.

"I was thinking next we should..." she began saying to Ray as she came back into the living room from the kitchen.

"Hold on, I think you'll want to see this," Ray said, waving to the TV. Perfect took in the image of the burned-out churches and the scrolling text as Ray explained. "They found bomb fragments and traces of accelerant at one of the arson sites from last night, and the night before. They're going back over the first one now with a fine-toothed comb... they're saying maybe it's not mystical after all. Which doesn't mesh with what you and I know, but it could make things simpler if it's true for the more recent ones."

"Yeah... it could," Perfect said slowly. "You said one of the most recent sites, and the night before... was it at only one the night before, or at both?"

"Huh?"

"Did they find evidence of bombs at one or at both of the churches the night before last?" Perfect asked.

"I'd guess both, but they might have said just one," Ray said with a shrug.

"We'll look it up in a minute," Perfect said, her gaze slipping away from the screen as she considered. "But... does it really strike you as likely that they would have missed bomb fragments at the other recent sites if they knew what to look for?"

"I guess not," Ray said. "But... it'd be kind of a huge coincidence for two different groups to be torching churches at the same time, wouldn't it? It would make sense that they'd all be done by the same group, or person, so..."

"...so it would make sense that they'd all have the same M.O.," Perfect concluded. The wheels were still turning in her head. "And, as you said, it would simplify things for the investigators if it was bombs instead of some untraceable spell of unmaking. We saw the spell in the first church..."

"Right, but the other ones could be copycats done by somebody who was inspired by the first one," Ray said.

"Or the bombs could be decoys," Perfect said. "The first church burned alone. Then, two more incidents... but with two churches each this time. Why the change? Bombs are found at some of them. Again, why the change? If we're going to accept the principle that magic makes some kind of sense... which we pretty much have to... then the churches probably aren't being picked at random. There's a pattern. The first one wasn't enough to see it... two probably wouldn't have been, either... but three could get us somewhere. Adding a couple of random ones to the mix confuses things a bit... and if those ones are done with normal, mundane means, the official investigators will probably happily jump on that as an explanation for the whole thing. It seems to simplify things for them."

"Seems to?" Ray asked. "Doesn't it actually simplify things?"

"You ever read Sherlock Holmes?" Perfect asked. "The more ordinary a crime is, the harder it is to solve... it's the unusual elements that'll help crack this."

"Are you sure about that?" Ray asked. "It seems like bombs are easier to track than a spell that obliterates all evidence of its own existence when it goes off."

"The number of people who could burn down a church with gasoline and matches is the same as the number of able-bodied people in the city," Perfect said. "So it's not much help. Tracing the gas to a particular source narrows it down a little bit, the use of bombs narrows it down a little bit more... but the use of magic narrows it down a lot more, and the use of one particular spell must narrow it down even further, possibly to a single entity. We don't know who or what that entity is at the moment, but whoever it is, it's to their benefit if everybody starts chasing down bomb leads instead of magical ones."

Perfect switched off the TV.

"Don't you want to see if there's anything else about the churches?" Ray asked.

"Of course I do, but let's get with the 21st century," Perfect said, heading for the stairs. "I need to be able absorb information at my own pace."

Ray followed Perfect up to her office and computer room. She opened up an Imperial Explorer window and started typing. Ray was just able to follow that she was searching for articles about the churches, but he didn't recognize the page she was using. The background was a sparse steely gray, and it had a lot of checkboxes with labels that didn't make any sense to him.

"It's my own search engine and news aggregator," Perfect explained. "It's not pretty but it does the job."

Instead of displaying a list of results, it tiled six different articles on screen at once, in two rows of three. They seemed to be scrolling automatically, just a little bit too fast for Ray to follow a single one of them. Perfect's eyes, on the other hand, moved rapidly across the screen, taking it in.

"It automatically distills the most relevant and best quality results with the least duplication among them," Perfect said. "See? Of the five burnings, the first one had no bomb traces, of course... the next two waves of two only had evidence of bombs at one church each. 4B is all but ready to hand it back to the FBI... they're falling for it hook, line, and sinker."

"Well, the FBI aren’t stupid," Ray said. "Even if they're following up on the bombs, they'll still lead back to somebody."

"But the right somebody?" Perfect asked. "If I were going through this much trouble to conceal my real plan, I'd make sure I had a patsy for the bombs. You watch, right around the time this is becoming old news somebody'll turn themselves in, or be found with bomb making supplies in their home they swear aren't theirs, or will turn up 'accidentally' burned to death with the same fuel used as accelerant."

"So we're just going to ignore the bomb lead?" Ray asked. "Because we don't really have anything new to go on with the whole spell angle."

"We have Dani's information," Perfect said. "It's not much, but there are a few suggestive points in it... I'll have to question her more closely after she wakes up. But no, we are going to investigate the trail of the bombs. We're just going to keep going when we think we've got to the end. Or rather, I'm going to do that... no offense, but you're not really the detective type."

"So I'm just cooling my heels?" Ray asked.

"No, you're going to be looking at a different part of the puzzle," Perfect said. "Two of the three authentically mystical burnings had mystical heroes: you at the first one, Dani at the most recent one. Am I right in thinking that the Seeress is the mysterious 'source' you didn't want me to know about, the one who sent you there?"

"Uh, yeah," Ray admitted with visible reluctance. "That's right."

"There you go," Perfect said. "We know the Seeress had pawns or agents or whatever you want to call it at two of the burnings. Why would the other one be different?"

"You think somebody was there?" Ray said. "Somebody on 'our side'?"

"Two examples isn't enough for me to put money on it, but it seems possible. If not, then it's an anomaly," Perfect said. "And we'll want to know what else was different about that one."

"That is a good thought," Ray said.

"See what I meant? When we write off the mundane bombings as decoys, a pattern emerges," Perfect said. "You're the one with the connections in the mystical world, so it'll be your job to investigate that. Ask around... maybe at that Sands of Time place. We can meet there later."

"Uh... I don't think that'll work," Ray said.

"Ray, I'm a part of this," Perfect said. "Don't keep trying to protect me. You lost the right to do that when you hurt me. Nobody gets to do both."

"I... sorry," Ray said. "But I really mean, I really literally don't think it'll work. I don't think you'll be able to enter the Sands. It's... well, it's a whole big magic thing. I'm not sure how to explain it. The door... it doesn't really let people in if they don't 'belong' in the Sands. There's not like a huge forcefield or anything, and it doesn't seal itself shut... it just... well, you could walk right up to it and then just... not go in."

"That's silly," Perfect said. "I'm sure I could go through the door if I wanted to." As she said it, though, it occurred to her that she wasn't sure how much she actually wanted to. What could she do inside this mysterious otherworldly place that Ray wouldn't be able to do? "But I don't feel like arguing, so you can handle it."

"Right," Ray said. "So... um. Now we...?"

"Now we get out there and do our things," Perfect said.

"But separately," Ray said. "When I came back here, it was because I thought we should keep working together."

"We are," Perfect said. "But I want to be realistic about it. We do work well in a fight, but we've got different strengths. Let's use them."