The Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady

The Port Novem crew were settling in, and Gematria (it would grind her gears to be called Aunt Sis, for some reason) was totaling our troop strength, when a Mage, a diplomat and a nun walk into the bar....

Right, time to back-track a bit. So – I got the call from Mama about a month before that I might be needed for a diplomatic pick up, and by the way had I managed a human form yet?

Now, Mama is not one to worry about visual appearances so much as social appearances, so I was understandably curious. I reported to the main office in Kitti, then Steelhead and Antiquity, and eventually found her behind the bar at der Hut.

“All right, why here? For that matter, why not send the address, or why didn’t you just tell me?”

Her eyes flickered to the street, and then she murmured, “This is not exactly an official request, since it is for family, but I do not wish to cause an incident by sending someone unsuitable. You are suitable for the mission, if visually distinctive.”

I put my elbows on the bar and my head in my hands, “Could you, for once in my life, give a straight answer?”

Mama said, “I need you to help escort a nun in a transport across dimensional planes.”

I stared at the bar top a few moments, and sighed, “You know, the frightening part is that - for those that know you – that statement was entirely comprehensible.” Sitting up and looking her in the eye, “Which members of the Steelhead SWAT need to get to the clan house?”

“Wrong direction, dear; you will get the co-ordinates for pick-up from your Aunt Kitla.”

I shook my head, “Right, I am still asleep in the boathouse and Wolfgang had released hallucinogens in the parlor again.”

“No, your reflexes are better than mine, and you will need an exorcist in the next day or so,” her eyes flashed momentarily, and she continued as if she had not paused, “…sooner than later. Go to your Aunt Kitla; tell her what I have told you, and what you and Gematria have been gathering.” She handed me an unsealed envelope, “This is what we can release from the office and from Uncle Nico for the background on what is possibly going to happen. No foresight, just extrapolation of existing data.” Mama then went back to polishing the bar, and smiled pleasantly, “Have a nice trip dear, and let me know when you get back.”

Her change to a chirpy tone had coincided with a flicker of movement down the street, and Herr Greegor entered as I left. I took a chance at finding Auntie at home and slid back to Harborside.


Auntie Kitla was in full rig when I got there, and still making arrangements for transport in her front hall. I nodded to the boys on the stairs, who were watching in varied states of study. With barely a glance at me she asked, “Do you have a more formal uniform?”

I eye-rolled and responded, “Back in a minute.” Good thing Lowenstein Station is just across the street, and most of my things were still there. Turned out and pressed for inspection takes only a short while if everything is ready, and Mama had apparently seen to it that my gear was taken care of as soon as I left the room. Then again, maybe it was not Mama at all, so I left a bowl of milk beside my duty boots, just in case.

Back at Auntie K’s tree house, I snapped to at the door (there not being much floor space left by the glowing sphere of equations in her parlor) and waited for her to acknowledge me. With a flick of her hand, she opened a door in the wards for me, and said, “There is a handy landing point, but I warn you, it is in a maximum security circle. We may need to wait for the sister to be brought to us.” I joined her on the spot she indicated, and in the studies I had gotten so far from Great-Uncle Nico, the 'Cubi would have called it the wingman spot - one pace behind and one pace to the right of the point. This was the position that would give me the best aim for a 200 degree angle to the front and side of us. I had unconsciously settled into the ready stance, and she brought this to my attention by saying "Respectful watchfulness, please."

I adjusted my posture as she finalized the equations, and suddenly the warm woods of the sunny parlor were replaced by grey cheerless stone, the circle there blazed to life as hers faded. Auntie Kitla's posture stiffened as the new circle flared to what seemed to be unusual strength, and a gravelly voice reached us from the shadows beyond the glowing runes, "Greetings, Master Sorceress; please wait while your escort arrives."

"What is the meaning of this, Sergeant?" Auntie's voice was cool, but there was a sharp undertone. I was about to suggest I wait there while she attended to business, when the voice spoke again.

"New procedures, Lady Kitlalmina. Please wait while..."

A new voice interrupted in a hiss, "We can't let him come in here with *THAT* in the circle!"

I shifted, and Auntie turned her head to quirk an eyebrow at me. In the complex and elegant language of the supercilium, she let me know we had encountered Goodman Rookie Armsman Git. I let my posture settle into Papa's spinal memories, and assumed the air of a veteran. It was perhaps a bit presumptuous, but not entirely wrong. I muttered in Europan, "If I am reading the circle right, I am not sure if I should be insulted or complimented." Auntie chuckled, just as the door opened and allowed sunlight to pour in, haloing a dark figure.

Damn, I’m tired….

The initial waves of refugees have been taken care of, and good numbers have gone to live with their sept clans, when they were known. Not many were left in Erebus that became the Belfire clan in Steelhead, considering Zcernoboch’s children left en masse after the schism, but there were some who had no clan affiliation. We do tend to collect strays, and the crèche teachers are overjoyed to have new stories to trade. We will have to see how well they assimilate, Great-Uncle Nico is worried the egalitarian society might not sit well with some of the nobility.

I have not been able to find a place to rest since the incident. I gave up my dormitory space to my roommate’s distant cousins, thinking I could kip at the Station in Harborside. However, the place has been really noisy since Uncle Augustus got back, and Auntie Kitla is renting out her spare rooms to the Baron’s clone-brother. Wolfgang managed to find space with them, as did the rest of the boys in the school, and the Jaegers have secured some of the oddest bivouacs until the barracks are finished.

I headed to the boathouse, as the swearing from the building platform told me the lab would also be a bad idea. I found it deserted, as Uncle is out wandering again, and there was a thick layer of dust in Ash’s room. I’ll offer to help him clean it when he gets back, and set up a generator battery array, but until then, I decided to make use of the settee.

Consanguinity

Novem was a good idea to regroup, and take stock. While Gematria and Qli compared notes, I managed to send a note home to Grandmamma. It was the only way to get the news to Great-Uncle Nico without this becoming official, but I needed more ammo. We were waiting for – something, I did not know exactly what, but there was the tug of an approaching family member. The battle fatigue had masked the shock enough that it took me some moments to realize why I felt so unsettled.

The others knew immediately - the Founder had fallen. I’m a little dense sometimes, but by the time Koen arrived, I caught on to the next step. Before they had even figured out I was in the line, I knew I could not take the burden. I don’t even have the stability to shift to a human form yet – altered or not. There was no way I could provide the anchor against what was coming.

Koen left for Steelhead distracting the others just in time for the box of supplies to appear at my elbow. Aunt Sis turned just in time to see the 30.06 and the second box of rounds to appear. She didn’t say anything as I packed the speed loaders with Blessed Lead, Cold Iron, Blessed Salt and Wood Trine rounds, and secured the rest of the gear.

When everything was in the proper places, she asked in a sardonic undertone, “What, no Blessed Silver?”

I shrugged, “Some of the family have not held silver in the past three years. But that is a tale for the deep winter freeze-up, if…” I stopped and said more firmly, “WHEN we get there.”

Analysis and Regrouping

Something in her tone made me suspend my preliminary assessment of the damage to peri. I looked up at Gem, saw the tear-tracks, and paused in my repairs. Tactics aside, she needed to be active - and helping, not helpless. [Don’t apologize to us for helping family, Aunt Sis,] I said as I dabbed at her eyes with a clean bit of my work rag. [There’s a lot of similarities between both clans – the schism isn’t that deep in some places.]

Birdie chimed in, [God's Little Fish in Trousers, girl! We never said we would not help!]

[You just forgot to count all of the family available] Uncle Gus had finally stopped making disgusted noises about the taste of Oni. [The problem here seems to be that except for the niece, we have all been solitary warriors. You have the body, Gem - and therefore the con.]

I could feel her metaphysical head-tilt at Uncle's turn of phrase, but she continued, [About time we got that straightened out] Her psyche seemed to be better grounded than what Father had described from their last encounter. [Right then - Ama, can you get us to the Midas?]

I shrugged as I cleaned the last of the blood-tears from her face. [It will be easier if Father and Ash are together, and those of us who can sense them link the other end of the slide. I have limited linking with Ash, since he was in range when I was coalesced, and of course, the link to Father] I hesitated to mention the other one on board, but she needed to know. [I don't know if this has any bearing, but I... think we need to remove the one relate to Father. There's a hole in his heart where the rain gets in... and even though he may be technically family, there is something about that one that gives me the oddest foreboding] I started to wind her key again.

[We may still have to fight her to let her get away with the synthetic] Once her key was wound to operating parameters, she spoke in her "tea party" voice, the one she had used to address peri after the fight. "I am curious as to the nature of your mechanical abilities in relation to the rest of the family."

"You mean why I say I'm not a Spark?" I chuckled, "I am not quite normal, so we don't know the rules as applied to inheritance of abilities." Carefully adjusting the clockworks of our rescuer, I commented, "The assumption is not your fault - if I am a Spark, I haven’t had a breakthrough, or rather, I have not had one to my knowledge." Gentle pressure on the mainspring, allowing the temperature of the metal to equalize, "…and I understand about the synthetic. It wasn’t as if we were trying to recreate a fine vintage, more like using a middling-yet-hopefully-drinkable wine as the basis for a medicinal tincture – not the same application, but hopefully a substitute to bridge the gap between… my analogy is breaking down, sorry."

She rummaged in the toolbox for the pliers, "I believe I understand, and from the grumblings of the one inside, I understand he is a bit of a gourmet?"

I handed her my needle-nosed pliers, and chuckled, "The memories I have mark him as a gourmand in some centuries, but before he was shoved into the attaché's office, he had been a student of the new epicurean schools cropping up here and there."

"Ah, yes - that would explain it..." She frowned at the replacement leaf spring, shrugged, and installed it. "We need to make sure she does not strain herself," she muttered. "Why switch out the synthetics, though?"

"I don't know how much of a biologist Dr Steel is, but I did not want to risk him being able to synthesize demi-humans from the sample. If he is strictly a mechanic, why does he want it, anyway?"

She shrugged, and after she replaced the timing gear, she closed the panel on peri's back and straightened the pinafore. "So, we can get to them, and we need to stop Marcus," she said in a tone more suited to plans for going to the opera. "Do you see any other issues to address?"

"Not at the moment," I said, packing away the emergency kit and noting I was going to have to add some pieces if I was going to repair Dolls on a regular basis. "Let's get the site cleared before winding her; if we have to run, I don't want to leave anything her for another to trace... besides, we've been littering enough," I nodded towards the burning heap.

Zen and the Art of Doll Maintenance

Save for the merry crackling of starched linen and lace and the sizzling of dissipating vampiric flesh, there was just the sound of the winds off the sea. No wonder, the battle had scared off the game, but I also did not hear anything to indicate another wave of attackers on the way. I sat heavily on a rock between the inactive Dolls.

“Damnit, Gem – I’m a doctor, not a Spark,” I muttered as I shook and preened all over to rid myself of the last lingering bits of dainty ogre, and a thought struck me. Chance and one parent could make a biological child a Spark, and I had three out of five parents with it. (Don’t tell her, unless you have time for an entertaining lecture - you’ll just get a long-winded explanation why she is not a Spark.) However, if I was going to try to repair the new one, I would need someone to watch my back. This was unsecured territory and I sure as anything wasn’t going to haul a metal merc around until I got back to the home labs.

Gently placing a forefinger on Aunt Sis’s forehead, I attempted a link. He was ranting, and I could just catch the aggrieved tone. [GAAAAH, you’re presented with vintage vitae, and you go for the Gauxa împutita?] Uncle was in a high dudgeon, ranting in fine gourmet style.

Aunt Birdie was a bit more sensible, [It is what she needs now, it will keep her going longer, and she still has the stuff the children brewed up. Waste not, want not.]

[THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS HEAD!] Gematria bellowed, and then in the following silence, giggled a bit.

[I need someone to stand watch while I take care of the repairs. Do you have any damage that would preclude me winding you back up?]

The immediate response was [NO!] in three-part harmony. [Don’t do it just yet] Aunt Birdie continued.

[If I am active when you finish the repairs, peri will expect me to fight her for the Bloodwine. I need her to be able to take off with it without suspicion] Gematria explained.

Uncle Gus added [We can watch, and give warning, without being active. Just switch out the vial of your mother’s vintage for one of the other staff members, one of the human ones.]

Aunt Sis was aghast [you gave me what?]

“Well, duh – you’re family,” I muttered as I fished about in my kit for another vial and the wax to seal it. Out of the staff, there were actually very few that were not uncanny in one way or another. I ended up selecting the donation from Herr Messerschmitt, because though he may be a Spark, he had the least number of issues in his background; his only oddity was that he was Irish-Europan. I just hoped I hadn’t missed him being a distant relative of the Sidhe Court.

Tucking the vial from Mama into Aunt Sis’s other boot, I heard [We’re clear for two klicks, little one] from Aunt Birdie, and got to work on peri.

A lovely day for a picnic.

“Who are you?”

I blinked, and realized that *I* had not met her yet. My parents had all met her in one way or another, but she did not know me. “I am Amarantis.” Her key seemed to be moving at a slower pace, but I did not move toward her just yet. The sound of clicking gears, and a small twitch of an eye accompanied her next statement.

“You will meet the Founder in the future.”

I shrugged, “I may, I may not – the universe is a cats-cradle of possibilities. There are several future threads where we might meet.” I put the bottle in her hand and slid down to her level to wind her key.

She sniffed suspiciously at the brew, asking, “…and what is this compound supposed to do?”

“It is a first attempt at recreating something we do not have at hand, yet.” I sighed, and continued "Uncle said you might be thirsty soon, and we tried to brew up a substitute." From her reaction, I guessed we were not quite successful the first time out.

Gematria sniffed it cautiously... until the snapping of bowstrings caught our attention, sending us both diving for cover! I rolled around a boulder to get a clear shot with my sidearm, at the… ogre-sized Lolicon ninjitsu warriors charging up the hill? “’da’ell are those things?!?!?”

Aunt Sis crouched behind her own boulder and aimed her rocket launcher. "Loli-Oni! Aleister must be desperate!"

“Framitz! Soft points?” They looked like Dolls, but considering the havoc the ladies had wreaked on the demon ship, that was a designation to be feared.

“Tea sandwiches? Shopping?” Gem took out the leader with a shot to the chest, the explosion causing the others to hiss as they bared their fangs. "Oh, vampiric Loli Oni..." she commented, as the twitching limbs of the first struck the ground, and then continued to advance on us.

I was armed for stealth, not a frontal assault, but at least I had some ammo for the job at hand. "I hope blessed lead will work, I'm not carrying the Wood Trine rounds this trip." I aimed for the center of the chest for a lack of a better target.

Aunt Sis made a gesture, and the lead self-immolated on contact. "Naphtha rounds work quite well against the undead, I find."

"Beat ‘em an’ burn ‘em - Whatever works on this plane." I aimed for heart and eye-socket groupings on the next in line.

The Loli-Oni advanced in spite of their losses. As the last few closed the distance, Gematria sliced the bo stick of another assailant in two with her hook, then cut her legs from under her. I holstered and reverted to talons for hand-to-hand. Throwing an assailant three times my mass was made marginally easier, by the fact I was just tripping them and rolling them down the hill into the burning corpses of their company. Aunt Sis was winding down, and my dodging was curtailed as one of them caught hold of my wing. The pain caused by her crushing grip was immense, then suddenly it stopped, and I was covered in dainty little Loli-Oni bits.

Through the haze of the receding pain, I heard, "May this one be of assistance?"

Winterfell

Lying on the backside of the ridge, watching the grounds through the spyglass I filched from the Scout stores in the office, I scanned the manor house. For Winterfell, it was within normal limits: gothic, foreboding, and just slightly off-putting, unless you were a neighbor and used to the architectural style. Mama’s bar and the Novem sisters’ place had some of the same darkness about them, but with a sense of camaraderie that said, “nah, don’t worry, we won’t tell.” This house told me to worry.

The demonic cruise ship had lifted to what might have been the maximum altitude for the human-built airships. Demons and Dolls might not need to breathe, but I had the feeling Father was on board, and Ash as well, so at least I wasn’t in the deepest trouble I could be. Bad enough we were spread thin during the full moon, but at least Wolfgang was at the Kittiwickshire office this week, which would take some of the pressure off the Steelhead contingent. There was another there that was similar to Father, but… less. Not exactly diluted, but not as whole, missing parts of the spectrum found in Father’s life-spark.

Sensing the ship, there were fewer life-sparks on board than the usual compliment for one of that class and displacement. Even if they were reduced to patrol ship status, there should be more crew. An explanation why so few were aboard tumbled from a hatch on the underside of the ship and hit the escarpment a few meters down slope from me. The body was drained of ichors to the point it crunched without the usual splatter effect of High-Altitude-NO-Opening parachute drops. If they kept that up, the ship was not going to be able to function.

Not that I expected the dolls to keep the ship after taking the house. Whatever happened in the grounds of the manor house, it needed to be quick, quiet and neat. The less distress to the neighbors the better. Who knows what the Senechal would do about an attack on a resident, considering the security measures many of the citizens here found necessary.

Something was scrabbling up the loose shale of the ridge behind me, a low growling vocalization accompanying a faint warning, [‘ware, niece!] He said more, but the range from his body to hers, and then to another made the transmission faint.

Mama’s maxim of “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best” is a good policy. The research Wolfgang and his team of students conducted in Steelhead meant they found the source of the water-borne contaminants, the former basements and sub-basements of the Foundation. Although much diluted, the water contained the trace elements of the reanimation serum and the entirety of the Mason wine cellars. What we had prepared in the lab included the amendments from the water, ordinary pomegranate wine (not that Aunt Kitla’s oenology skills were ordinary), and blood.

Standard operating procedures for any Consulate office included the medical care of the staff. All organic staff members were encouraged, with some urgency, to donate blood regularly, unless they were medically unable to do so. However, blood has a relatively short shelf life compared to most other compounds in the infirmary. It would be a shame to waste it.

I felt a hand grip my boot as I reached into the ice chest beside me, and opened one of the bottles with my thumb. “Hey, Aunt Sis - here, drink this, iz goot.” She paused, perhaps confused by my address, the accidental accent, or the scent of the drink being not quite right, and my unsuitable sense of humor bubbled to the surface. “Oh, don’t look at me in that tone of voice. Yes, it is Mama’s, and yes, she was at Cambridge for a year, but it’s been over two decades and she still hasn’t shown any evidence of Mad Herring Disease.”