142. Examined

The eight of us all appeared in the glade in the ravine at the back of our property. Six fae in a circle holding hands, and I had two pixies on my shoulders clinging to my hair.

Kelly and Keira and I knew this place well of course, but to our companions it was a very strange, very foreign land. Though to be fair the glade and the ravine weren't that unusual. Earth trees and Otherworld trees were all basically the same, though there were regional variations of course.

The sun had just come up and the weather seemed nice. As usual I had no idea what day it was, but I knew it was mid-June when I was here for a brief visit and saw Susan and Elise and that was just over two weeks ago. I figured it was early July now. I also knew Lughnasadh was about four weeks away, and we were planning to return to Otherworld in a little over three weeks.

"This way," I said, as me and my girlfriends got moving. We were still speaking fae of course. Usually we'd switch to English when we came back to Earth but the rest of our sept didn't know the language yet.

All of us were still armed. Merryweather and Petunia both had their tiny swords with them. The rest of us had swords and daggers on our belts. Laoise carried her crossbow, the rest of us had our bows. And we were all wearing our packs.

Merryweather and Petunia continued to ride on my shoulders, while Siobhan and Laoise and Padraig followed behind the twins and I. Soon we emerged from the woods into our backyard. The lawn was well overdue for a trim, but other than that everything looked fine.

"Is that the cottage you mentioned?" Padraig asked.

I grinned, "Nope. That's the main house, that's where Kelly and Keira and I live."

That elicited some surprised looks from the three fae. I'm sure they expected me to live in some huge mansion or something, if not a little castle of my own.

Laoise commented in a hesitant voice, "It's ah, smaller than I'd expected."

Kelly smiled, "It's the right size for the three of us, and it's comfy with a few guests. For now it will be fine for all of us, but we'll be moving you three to the cottage soon enough."

"What about us?" Merryweather asked. "Will we stay in the main structure with you, or move to the cottage?"

I replied, "I don't know yet. We have a lot of things that require our attention first, so in the short term we're all just going to figure out how to fit in here."

When we got to the back door I unlocked it with a spell and led our sept inside. The power was still out as expected. For the moment we all gathered in the living-room and unloaded our packs and things.

We had some food and drink we'd brought with us, wine and mead in skins and some meat and fruit and vegetables to last a couple days. We gave our companions a very brief tour, opened some windows to get fresh air in the house, and also took stock of the situation.

I cleared out the fridge and freezer of spoiled food last time I was home, but we still had some stuff in the pantry. Canned food, dry goods, jars, that sort of thing. And cooking wouldn't be a problem. The stove ran on gas and we could light the burners with matches or magic. Plus we had a bbq in the backyard and a fire pit. And of course Laoise could cook without any fire at all.

Water was a bit of an issue, we were on a well but the pump required electricity to run. There was the ravine though, so if we didn't mind hiking and carrying buckets or whatever, we could bring water back to the house that way. And I knew a spell that would purify it so it was safe to drink.

Still, one of my top priorities was getting the power back on. Which meant I had to deal with the human authorities.

As our companions got settled in the living-room, I said "Kelly, Keira, I'm going out to the road to have a look around, make sure we aren't barricaded in or whatever. And if there's any mail I'll bring that in."

My girlfriends both got to their feet, "We're coming with you."

"Should we all go?" Siobhan asked.

"No," I replied. "It's not far and we're safe as long as we're inside the property line. If we see anything dangerous we won't venture past the protected area."

The three of us still had our swords with us as we stepped out the front door. I couldn't help smile again at the forest that surrounded the house. The road, the cottage, my workshop, were all hidden from view now by the dense woods.

"I bet people are freaking out about the trees," Keira said with a grin as the three of us walked along the driveway out towards the road.

Kelly added, "I'm sure the neighbours have a lot of questions."

As we got to the end of the driveway we could see the cops had been busy. The ground was torn up in places, it looked like they tried to drive some heavy vehicles onto the property but of course they couldn't get into the protected area. Now there were a couple big concrete blocks at the end of the driveway to prevent access.

Keira commented, "I wonder if they put up the barricades thinking that would keep us in? Or to make sure nobody else tried to drive in?"

I shrugged, "Until we get a new car it doesn't make much of a difference."

Our mailbox was outside the protected area, and we couldn't see anyone around keeping watch or anything. No cop cars on the side of the road or anything like that.

The mailbox was full, and as we pulled out the contents Kelly said "I'm almost surprised they didn't block our mail delivery."

"They've probably already opened and examined everything before it got here," Keira suggested.

I just shrugged, "It's probably all just bills and junk mail anyways."

As the three of us headed back to the house with the mail, Kelly asked "So what do we do next?"

"I think it's time to deal with those two detectives," I sighed. "I'll scry for the one guy and we'll go from there. He'll know who else is involved up the chain of command, and I guess we just deal with them all till the problem's solved."

The twins both nodded quietly.

• • • • •

Detective MacRae was back in the little rented house in town again. I figured using my bank card out west a couple weeks ago got the two detectives back on the job, and maybe MacRae was back in this little house since then waiting for sign of my return. Bernier wasn't around, but I'd find out where he was soon enough.

MacRae wasn't alone though, he had a younger woman there with him. She looked to be in her late twenties, and when I first looked in on them the two of them were sharing a bed.

We waited till MacRae was up. He was dressed, sitting in the kitchen sipping a coffee and checking email on his laptop while the woman was still asleep in bed.

I teleported into the front room of the little house, and a moment later Kelly and Keira were there next to me.

"Good morning detective," I said as I walked to the kitchen door. "Did you miss me?"

I had a shield spell up across the doorway, just incase the cop decided to start shooting or something.

MacRae almost dropped his coffee, he was obviously startled and shocked. He quickly set the cup down as he got to his feet. His right hand moved to his belt where his gun was holstered, but he didn't draw the weapon yet. He was ready though.

"How the hell did you get in here?" he demanded. "How did you even find me here?!"

I rolled my eyes, "Magic. That's why I took your badge, so I could use it to find you with clairvoyance spells."

He gave me a skeptical look then demanded "What do you want, what are you doing here?"

I replied, "I'm here for information. You may as well sit back down and get comfortable."

"I don't think so," he stated.

His hand was still overing near his weapon, and I knew better than to let my guard down while he was still in a position to fight.

"Suit yourself," I replied, then hit him with a paralysis spell.

The twins and I moved forward into the kitchen as I dropped my shield spell. I sat down at the kitchen table and cast a mind reading spell on him, to start looking for the information I needed.

Kelly took the detective's laptop and sat down beside me as she started going through it. Meanwhile Keira disarmed him, she took the gun from his holster and gave him a pat-down search, then relieved him of a second gun in a holster at his ankle.

Keira tucked the two guns into her own belt for now, then commented "That coffee smells great. We need to get power back on so we can brew up a pot."

I rolled my eyes, "We can go pick some up at the cafe before we go home. It'll probably take a day to get the power back."

My expression turned to a frown as I looked at MacRae again, "I thought maybe the brunette was your girlfriend, or possibly your wife. I suppose I should have guessed she's your mistress. Are you just using this investigation as an excuse to cheat on your wife?"

The woman was in fact a cop, but she had nothing to do with the investigation. She was just here sleeping with the detective. I shook my head, "So much for being one of the 'good guys'."

As I continued digging, I added "So you've been at this for four months now. Beginning of March till today, and you've found nothing. No criminal activity, no connections to known criminals or criminal organizations. Know why you haven't found anything? Because we haven't done anything wrong."

Of course the detective said nothing, he just stood there frozen. I could tell he was freaking out though, I could practically hear his train of thought as he kept trying to talk and move and react to what me and the twins were doing and saying.

Kelly spoke up, "They still haven't frozen our accounts, so at least we can stock up on food and stuff. It looks like they're monitoring them of course. According to his emails, the investigation quieted down since we all vanished. Bernier's been reassigned, so it's just MacRae in charge now."

"Yeah," I agreed as I continued digging up information in MacRae's mind. "Oh here we go. Bernier recommended closing the case because they couldn't find anything. MacRae wanted to keep it open. Not because he had any solid leads or evidence, but so he could get the taxpayers to keep paying for this quiet little vacation spot where he could hang out with his mistress."

"Awesome morals there officer," I scowled at him then added, "Looks like his boss agreed to keep it open because of some pressure from above."

Kelly was still looking through the cop's emails and nodded, "Looks like the pressure is coming from the top? Ministry of the Attorney General. Oh, right from the minister himself."

I found the same information in MacRae's memories. "So Bernier's out of the picture, we don't have to worry about him. Just this guy's boss and the minister. That might be where the king's agents started? Like right at the top, influence or enspell the minister in charge of justice and legal stuff, then from there it's all humans doing the king's dirty work."

A little more digging through the detective's memories got me his boss's home address, a posh place in Toronto. MacRae had no idea where the minister lived though, but I figured we'd work our way up the chain and get there sooner or later. At worst we could wait till tomorrow and visit him in his office.

"So we have at least two more people to visit today?" Keira asked. "Assuming we can find them. And what are we going to do with this guy?"

I sighed as I glanced at Keira, "I don't know. I was feeling generous at first, but now that I know he's basically just here to harass us and our friends as an excuse to set him up with a place to cheat on his wife, I'm feeling a lot less charitable."

Kelly asked, "Does the mistress know what he's up to?"

"Yeah," I frowned at MacRae. "He told her. They laughed about it."

Keira's eyes flashed with magic as she glanced upwards, then she said quietly "She's awake, coming down the stairs. And she's armed."

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