Section: 29 May 2019 Up Main page Section: 3 July 2019 

5 June 2019

Miss Yvette opened at the Firehouse, to a stunned silence followed by well-deserved applause; Terry stayed with ’Arry the bodyguard while I blended with the customers, and after the act she spent some time with one of the patrons.
We left in Lucio’s car and went north through Whiterose. Miss Yvette changed into a dress that accentuated her Fey-ness.
Meanwhile Mac, who’d been keeping out for large black dogs, found one waiting at a taxi rank, surrounded by worried people. He pulled up and the dog got in, spitting out a wad of bills into his hand, and asked to be driven north. They went up the side of Grover Park, and the dog asked to go “west, towards the greenery” and was dropped off at the gate.
At Tin-Tan, we saw Lucio at a table, with some pleasant company; we nodded and sat elsewhere. Miss Yvette’s performance went over well, perhaps not setting the place afire as it had in the previous venue though I couldn’t see why not.
’Arry ended up back with Lucio; when Miss Yvette sat with another patron, Lucio looked disgruntled, and invited Terry and me to join him. It seemed he’d wanted to move on immediately, and ’Arry was sent to retrieve Miss Yvette (with more hinting than anything more serious).
It seemed that Rebecca, the singer at the hotel when we’d done the job, would be at a party; and so would her protégée, or “disappointment”. Diana apparently had her claws into someone who could “make her a real princess” (Federwell, perhaps?), and was now thrown over and heartbroken; and she was the only unexploited lead on what Federwell had been up to. We moved on towards an address in Torpenville, with some trepidation.
Mac spotted a large projectile hitting the road in front of him, perhaps a javelin or something of that type. He dodged round it; it looked metallic, blued steel perhaps, and decorated. He moved on, and spotted a two-legged figure jumping from shadow to shadow on the sidewalk; he dropped off his passengers, who’d wanted the slow way, and got away as soon as he could, dodging a second missile.
He drove off evasively, and the pursuer failed to cross the street as quickly as he might have. Mac turned back to try to retrieve a javelin, but found the attacker pulling it out of the road; and he leaped over the car rather than be run over.
Mac drove for Grover Park and got in through the gates, deliberately going slowly enough for the hunter to keep him in sight. Another hunter threw a javelin in front of him, and he grabbed it from the road as he drove past. He tried to swing past and clothesline the attacker in front; he lost the javelin in the impact, but was able to run him over. Repeatedly, until he stopped moving.
He started to move away, and saw the dog lounging on a wall; but he got away without further interference.
Meanwhile we arrived at our destination in Torpenville. We were let in by a chinless young man, “Bart”, who seemed pleasant enough for most purposes. There were quite a few part-fey, and a few full; some of the mortals were thoroughly englamoured, others were more blasé. The atmosphere was so thick with magic that even I was picking it up; Bart was Rebecca’s pet, which would mean Diana was here somewhere, but he didn’t know her to recognise.
When I showed off the sort of small thing I worked on, I was pointed to Mist-and-Fog, the sprite on the mantelpiece, who seemed fascinated; this attracted more of an audience, including someone described as Diana, who’d been talking with a full troll. Miss Yvette spoke with him, and they spent time in the sort of verbal fencing that fey seem to enjoy; he encouraged her to sing, though afterwards he encouraged her to find patronage soon before she was ripped apart and picked clean.
Meanwhile I played the trickster for Diana, and Mist-and-Fog eventually drifted away; once we got out onto the balcony, she started to weep, and though she played up when I offered her dinner she seemed genuinely in distress. With some sympathy she revealed that her prior special friend had met an untimely end; it was all going really well, and even Mother was prepared to put up with the situation; one day he came back with a particularly special necklace, and said that things were coming together, and then she never saw him again.
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