Chapter 172 - An Easy Job

The rescue itself was very anti-climatic from my perspective—I missed all the action, and didn't regret that one bit. On our way to Avarice's, though, JJ filled me on the details. His velvety voice almost lulled me to sleep as we sat, jammed together with Ghost on the backseat so Alexey could drive and Anon have the front seat.

But to be fair, being jammed together with JJ wasn't that much of a pain. Too bad the ceiling of a car wasn't high enough for me to fit in his lap. I liked it there.

"It took me ten minutes to run to the place. I must add, after all this running I will have to buy myself a fresh pair of shoes… They had a sentry placed outside. He was human, and dressed like a vampire hunter, with all their gear, so I believe even more that they have joined a union, temporary or not, with the local shapeshifters. I was toying with the idea of getting from him the information about Denis's holding place, but I remember what you told me about hidden cameras, ma chèrie. It was a possibility, in my mind, that even with glamour, a trained observer would notice me on camera."

I nodded. "Panda explained that, didn't she? Though I'm pretty sure she wasn't thinking about someone with glamour of your calibre when she did."

"Yes, yes. She was as astonished to see me 'disappear' from plain sight as the shapeshifters, wasn't she?" JJ smiled. "So, I walked from the other side of the house and climbed up. Which my shoes didn't like, either… But I digress. It wasn't hard to find out what storey they were at, even without the information from the sentry. I simply had to listen. There weren't any other people in the building that I heard, and it was made even easier by what the kidnappers talked about."

"Do you even need any easier with that hearing of yours?"

JJ grinned. "No. But it wasn't bad for me that they were discussing what to do with their prisoner. I understood that taking him wasn't in their plans, and someone there got several reprimands about it. There were guesses about the nature of Denis's relation to Avarice. Most guessed he was either her servant, her blood source, or," he curved his lips in distaste, "her lover. From the latter I assumed they didn't know about their family relation."

I cringed too. "I hope so."

JJ made a shrug, somewhat awkwardly because of the small amount of space left for it. "Well, it was a moot point after that, either way. They kept Denis in a separate room, under watch, but it was on the fifth floor, and they didn't bother to board up the window. From outside, I hypnotised the guard…" he leaned towards me until his ears were directly at my ear, "with a whisper."

The murmur of his voice sent shivers down my spine. As JJ leaned back again, I raised my wide eyes to his. "A—"

His finger on my lips made me pause. "Ah, ma chèrie, I have to keep some secrets from all the people around, don't I? Especially these. I might need it in the future. In the soon future, with how the things going. I will tell you more later."

"That you would," Alexey spoke out. "The real chaos didn't even begin yet."

JJ nodded solemnly. "Indeed. But as I was speaking… I hypnotised the guard into quietly opening the window and, after assuring Denis about my good intentions, took a sip from the guard. He was a shapeshifter and, well, it was simply a shame to let him go without one. Then, I hid Denis with me under glamour and simply walked out. We were just in time for Avarice and her team to arrive. Alexey and I stayed with Denis, while Avarice and the rest of them went to take their revenge on the shapeshifters and the hunters."

"She's boiling hot on revenge, Aunt." Anon's voice was still trembling a little, but much steadier after his own painkiller spell. I also registered a few notes of fondness in it… Huh. What a thing to be fond of. "Never holds a grudge without a reason, but gets angry about things, anyway. I remember… I once messed with her make-up stuff… it was a while ago, and just before an important meeting or something. She was so angry with me, I thought she will literally bite my head off. But then she just hissed some and went to that meeting, and after she returned, she halved my allowance for a month."

I chuckled. "And it's always about the money, in the end," I joked.

"She does deserve her name," Anon agreed.

When we got back to Avarice's place, I was glad to see that both Panda and Andrey were still alive. In fact, Panda got her hands on a really delicious-looking sandwich and was happily munching on it when she walked out to meet us. A mere sight of it was enough to make me salivate, and remember when was the last time I ate. A looong ago.

Good thing that there were more of that, and that Alexey was happy to share with us all before I and Ghost went to heal Anon.

The food was great, and the healing process was really educational. Again, my job was to simply help Ghost filter small aspects. Meanwhile, he taught me about the combinations of aspects that separated living, non-living and undead things, walked me through all the stages of healing a physical trauma with magic, and talked about different approaches to it. You could slap it with life aspect and let the organism do the rest, reshape the informational aspects—ideas—until they were all about healthy body and the body followed, physically mend every broken thing or, as Ghost did, mix every method depended on every small part of the trauma.

It was complex, it was interesting, and it drained our mental capabilities completely by the time we were done. I told myself I was just going to sit down for a moment on that soft, soft Baroque chair, and then I was already asleep.