“Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,
And evidence of those that are not seen...”
― Dante Alighieri
The next day I was woken up by my alarm, and I felt worse than I could ever imagine. Every part of my body hurt, and every move was a struggle. I couldn’t imagine being stuck at home until I was back to being my normal self. The A’rea had bitch slapped me good and proper, and on top of that my whole face looked like the swollen arse of a baboon.
After coffee that tasted like the swill they served in hospital, I looked through the book of potions that I kept hidden in my bedroom. The red elixir made from the feathers of an angel (yeah, they existed too) was supposed to numb the pain. Normally the bottle of tequila was my usual salve to fix the problem, but I reminded myself that I was trying to turn my life around. I had a little bit of red potion left, and no ingredients to brew another one. It was time to pay a visit to a certain old lady, but even the idea of walking to the tube station scared me.
Arthur was still on my mind, now that my brain was working at full speed and my thoughts were clear. I was struggling to cope with the constant ebb and flow of unexpected emotions. The red elixir started kicking in when I showered. Most of the time it worked like Valium, but it was the magic with something extra boosting my immune system to advance my healing. Suddenly I could function, walk and do the usual nonstrenuous stuff.
Fighting was out of the question, but at least I had some of my strength back. People, mostly humans, were staring at me as I made my way through the streets of Brixton. Mongrels and other demons could smell the charms on me, and the fact that the A’rea’s scent was still in my blood made me a bit of a target. Ricky wanted me to stay at home, but this wasn’t going to happen. I was bored out of my mind and I needed to stay busy.
“Morning, Maxine, how are you in that…”
Yep, Emma stopped talking in mid sentence when she saw me. She most likely had no idea that I got attacked last night. Humans weren’t aware of magical formulas, but I had taken enough elixirs to bring the attention of other mongrels and demons to myself. I always had to pay the price in the end and being called down to hell for using forbidden elixirs wasn’t on the list of my priorities. That’s why today I needed to stay out of any kind of trouble.
“Chill. I’m fine. I was on the case last night and things got out of hand,” I explained, trying to calm her down. She was staring at me with her eyes wide and seemed very concerned.
“Oh my God, but your face. Are you okay? You shouldn’t be here in that state. Go home and rest,” she said, leading me back to my desk. She was ready to walk with me back to my flat, which was sweet. No one ever fussed over me like this, even when I worked for the royals.
“Emma, I’m fine, just get on with your work. Did Ricky say when he was going to be in?” I asked.
“Maxine Brodeur, you’re not fine; you look terrible. Let me at least make you a cup of tea,” she said swiftly, never once considering that I didn’t need to be taken care of. “And Ricky is on his way. He was working late last night on some new evidence.”
I rolled my eyes, and then my jaw started to hurt. Emma was talking to herself in the kitchen whilst she was making my tea. Then she announced that she had to go out for a bit. I just waved my hand, glad that the whole fuss was over. Growing up with nuns taught me that sometimes the best thing to do was to keep your mouth shut as a kid, and it was still true as an adult.
Ricky showed up at eleven a.m. He looked tired and he stopped in his tracks when he saw me.
“For shit’s sake, Max, you look dreadful. Your face—”
“Yeah, yeah. I heard it from Emma already. I had to get to the hospital last night. An A’rea nearly ripped my face off, but don’t worry. I’m fucking fine, all right?”
He was shaking his head, putting his stuff on the desk.
“This whole case is becoming very complicated. One day you’re going to die for that fucker, Maxine, and then what?” he asked. By “that fucker” he meant Arthur. Ricky knew everything that happened to me. He was convinced that I was doing too much, risking my life to find the missing prince who was most likely in hell already.
“Calm down. I won’t be going anywhere alone from now on. Zach wants to keep me on a short leash. You better tell me what you found out about the evidence that the Watcher brought in.”
He wasn’t done with giving me a lecture just yet, but he nodded to me to go to his office. He’d created a spell to deter any intruders from getting inside his drawers. When I looked past the wards, I could see that he was in the process of analysing the potions and hair. The whole setup from the photographs looked a lot like the lab from Jessica’s apartment. There was obviously a connection between Natasha and a demon that kidnapped George.
“You finally met someone that talks with some kind of sense. I’m scared, Maxine, petrified that one day you won’t make it. I know that we agreed that you should be out in the field and I’m taking care of the rest, but last night was a close call. You were risking too much.”
“She could have killed me, but she didn’t, so stop going on about it. Tell me, what is it that you found?” I asked, fed up with talking about last night. I was going to be fine, and my friends didn’t need to worry.
“Nothing yet. The hair is definitely a human’s, but it will take me a couple more days to extract and identify all the ingredients. I’m going to run some tests on all the liquids today.”
“Cool, let me know if you find anything,” I told him. We discussed a few other possibilities, but I knew that he worked better alone, so after a few minutes I left him to it. He’d taught me a lot about potions and elixirs; the books were useful, but there was nothing better than learning this stuff directly from an expert.
I went to my own room hoping to take my mind off recent events. I had some reading to catch up on and I had to take care of phone messages and reply to emails. Sometimes I also took care of the bills and other paperwork, only if Ricky was busy. My throat was dry and I really wanted to get my hands on some tequila. This wasn’t going to happen, because I was planning to stick to my resolution of sobriety. My irritation turned into a frustration just before lunch. I was trying to change my whole lifestyle, and the time was dragging, leaving me free to think of everything I shouldn’t.
Emma knocked on my door and I told her to come in. The smell of freshly baked cake and coffee filled the room. Her hands were full, and she started putting various boxes on my table.
“What is all this?” I asked, scratching my head when she placed a fancy coffee pot in front of me.
“I brought in some homemade cakes… lots of them. They make a nice impression to visitors. I left some in Ricky’s room too,” she said shyly. “I thought that maybe you would like to talk?”
My stomach was rumbling. I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. Most of the time I missed breakfast. Maybe this was the best time to start changing my routine. I needed to fuel my body with energy and the cakes looked delicious.
“Talk about what?” I asked, and shoved the raspberry turnover into my mouth. Emma was unsure what to say, her thoughts slightly tangled. The work that I needed to do could wait.
“About what happened to you last night. My mum says that if you’re feeling down, talk to someone and have a very naughty cake.” She smiled widely.
I started spinning in my chair moving left and right very slowly staring at her, slightly taken back by the fact that she wanted to make me feel better. In my entire short, but eventful life I never had anyone that I could talk to. Most of my friends were guys and we spent time together drinking or playing cards. Getting together with a group of girls and sharing our emotional experiences wasn’t my kind of thing. I’d never been a sleepover-pillow-fight chick. Emma most probably had plenty of girlfriends, and today I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I decided to go with it. The craving for tequila wouldn’t just go away and these cakes looked really good. Maybe I could substitute tequila with sugar and get a really fat ass and then Arthur wouldn’t be hounding me and then that would be one problem solved!
“Okay, I guess I can try, but I don’t think that I’m very good, you know, at talking about stuff in general,” I told her.
“Don’t beat yourself up over this, Maxine. You saved my life, and I’ll remember it forever. Tell me, what’s bothering you?”
I thought about her question for a second. There was nothing that was bothering me specifically. I’d made certain decisions that impacted everyone around me whether they knew it or not. I couldn’t talk to her about my affair with Prince Arthur. My broken heart would heal eventually.
“The investigation isn’t going anywhere. I’ve made so many mistakes with this case and I don’t know what to do. I feel stuck,” I confessed. Ricky had to have something in that room. George had disappeared down in the cemetery and the demon that took him had covered all their tracks. “But at the same time I’m not that worried. I know that I should be, but for some reason I’m not bothered.”
“Why? Are you thinking about something else?” she asked, and took a bite of a chocolate eclair.
I sighed, knowing that my head was clear. Last night I didn’t drink, so my judgment wasn’t clouded.
“Zach asked me out on a date and I said yes,” I blurted out.
Emma giggled and then started clapping. “OMG, that’s fantastic, he’s so handsome.”
“Yep, that he is,” I admitted, feeling a little warmer all of a sudden, “But I don’t know if going out on a date with him is such a good idea.”
“Why? Because of the case?”
“Yes, we have been assigned to work together, but I don’t want to complicate things. My focus should be on George.”
Emma was chewing her cake, mulling over what I said. Maybe I really needed to change the way I dealt with things in my life. Humans seemed to understand more; their problems were insignificant, but they had to deal with them on a daily basis.
“In my opinion, you just have to get back to the basics,” she announced.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“With the case, the investigation. Go over all the evidence once again, and think about what you would do in the very beginning. Maybe you’re just overthinking this,” she said. “Sometimes I do it too. Before I got this job I was struggling. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this month without any money. My ex-husband was supposed to send the maintenance payment, but I didn’t get a penny from him.”
Only now I begin to realise that Emma used to be broken too, but she always remained positive. Her heart was healed. God, I didn’t even know that she was married before.
“Why is he not paying you? Surely you have a child support agency on your side?”
Maybe I wasn’t very domesticated, but I knew things like that. A while ago I had a mongrel that wanted to track down her ex-boyfriend. A demon that fathered her child and ran away with someone else. She still had to pay her bills and for that she needed money.
Emma smiled weakly. Part of her soul darkened when I mentioned her ex-husband.
“I had to run in the middle of the night with my daughter. He used to beat me up. Things were tight for a few years, but that’s all in the past now.”
I clenched my fists. I hated men, humans that abused women. If I could get my hands on that prick I would kill him. Shit, Ricky was right. It was a good thing that I gave Emma a chance.
“But you ran and he hasn’t bothered you since?”
She took another bite of the cake and chewed slowly, thinking about her daughter’s dance lessons.
“He came around a few times promising that he would change. I had to call the police on him. He couldn’t understand that I didn’t want to be with him anymore, and when I refused to take him back, he stopped paying me. Things were difficult for a few months, but I managed somehow,” she explained. “There is no point stressing over the past. There are some things you will never be able to control, so appreciate what you have. I’m not doubting that you can solve this case, but first you need to take a step back and relax. Go on that date. Zach is a good man for you.”
I sat in my chair thinking about what she said for a moment. She finished her cake, got up and left the room. She’d been through a lot and still didn’t let this ruin her outlook on life. She picked herself up and carried on. I felt like an idiot, thinking that my addiction could get the better of me.
I could erase Arthur out of my life, but I needed Zach to help me. George was still alive, and I would carry on doing whatever I could, but I needed to cut myself some slack and stop worrying about things that I couldn’t control. I picked up the last cake and leaned back consuming it slowly. For the first time in a while I was thinking about myself and felt excited about my upcoming date with Zachary Quinton.