Disclaimer: The Bartimaeus Trilogy is the property of Jonathan Stroud
A/N: Hello again, guys! My profuse thanks to EdgeStrife, Measuringtape, joeylejoker (by the way, now it's time to update your story, my friend.), Nari (Ron Weasley? Ha, I guess he does match Bostwick's description. Oops!), Duckweed, The-Quoi, and Allendra, for leaving me a review. And thank you to Lady Noir for beta-ing this chapter.
Edit: By the way, Lady Noir, who's been beta-ing my stories since midway through Monomyth, is an excellent author herself. She's just published a Wicked story, called "The Price of Defiance," and I encourage you all to check it out, especially if you like Wicked. Her story is posted under the name A Evans, and you can find her under my favourite authors. Now on with the story!
The funeral was chaos. A sea of mourners dressed in black from head to toe lined the streets as the casket – draped with the obligatory British flag – was drawn past by a team of midnight-coloured horses. A marching band followed, hacking out a skull-rattling funeral march to assault civilian ears as they wound their way towards the graveyard outside of the city.
A regiment of soldiers trailed the procession, stopping every so often to fire a barrage of ammunition into the air [1. Although why it was customary to honour the dead by piercing the heavens (where the deceased was supposedly resting) with bullets was beyond me.]
As the spectacle passed, the weeping crowd closed in behind it. They trailed after Kitty's corpse like moths to light, uttering sounds of lamentation and woe all the way to the cemetery gates. There they were met by a somber line of suit-clad politicians whose faces were unfamiliar to me – probably because very few of them were magicians. I did spot Rebecca Piper however, conspicuous as she was in the centre of the group. That Nathaniel's assistant had managed to hold on to her power as Prime Minister for the past three years, in spite of the near-constant stream of political changes that threatened to dethrone her, was a testament to the unexpected resourcefulness and ambition hidden within that tiny, unassuming frame. She stood in all five feet of legislative glory, at the head of the group of stony-eyed government officials, welcoming the arrival of Kitty's body with measured deference. The funeral was, in short, a send-off worthy of Napoleon himself.
As I stood with Bostwick at the cemetery's gilded entrance, I thanked my lucky stars that Kitty was tucked blindly away in my pocket, because something told me she wouldn't be too impressed with all this ridiculous pomp and fanfare surrounding her demise.
"Brothers and sisters," began a black-robed man, perched above the masses on a wooden podium. He was shouting into his microphone to be heard above the crowd. "We are gathered here to mourn the loss of a great woman, a woman of courage and integrity, a woman who stood for freedom…"
Bostwick shifted uncomfortably beside me, stamping his feet in the watery slush. His droopy eyes were focused on some point in the vast crowd. I followed the gaze of the gangly youth and noticed an impeccably dressed, black-haired woman shoving her way towards us. Something about her sharp cheekbones and sour expression rang a bell. I nudged the boy beside me.
"Someone you know?" The woman's icy eyes strayed from us for a moment as she paused to kick a little blonde girl out of her path.
"That's my boss," Bostwick replied, "Jane Farrar. She's our Police Chief."
Jane Farrar. Oh yes, I remembered her now – Nat's little girlfriend. The chick was bad news, if I ever saw it. She had disappeared the night of the Demon Revolt, and had conveniently returned to her old job only after the destruction and political turmoil had been cleaned up nearly a year later. There were whispers going around that she'd spent the intervening time cowering in Prague, under the wing of the new Czech Emperor who wasn't particularly fond of the British.
Finally free of the crowd, the shady politician stood before us. She placed her fists on her emaciated hips and stared Bostwick down until the kid was quivering pathetically.
"Well…?" She lingered on the word for an absurd amount of time before continuing, "Have you got anything worthwhile to report, James?"
Bostwick turned an unfortunate crimson colour – a direct result of his sudden inability to breathe, I suspect.
"I, I- no, I've only just begun the investigation," the boy stuttered. Instead of meeting his employer's eye, the boy was nervously inspecting the razor-like tips of her shoes. "B-But I'm sure something will turn up in no time!" His head shot up and he made a goofy, hopeful, grimace that was probably intended to be a reassuring smile. Jane looked down at him coolly.
"James, it's become painfully obvious over the last week that you're nothing more than an idiot." Bostwick flinched, and his eager grin wobbled. Jane leaned in for the kill. "If you can't solve a simple murder case like this," she cooed in his ear, "Well, then, I'm afraid we won't have much use for you in the police service. Do you understand?" Wide-eyed, the boy nodded.
Jane straightened up and readjusted the collar of her fitted blazer. "Good. Have a preliminary report on your findings on my desk on Monday." She took a step back as though to leave, when suddenly her eyes flicked over to me.
"Do I know you, demon?" She asked suspiciously as she wrinkled her nose and peered at me through her contact lenses.
"I don't think so, ma'am," I said as deferentially as I could, "The name's Quingu."
Bostwick's forehead twitched, but he didn't contradict me. Jane's suspicious expression dropped off her face, leaving behind a look of patronizing boredom.
"Well, then. Goodbye, Mr. Bostwick. I'll see you tomorrow morning." And with that, she turned her back on us and stalked off in the direction of her limousine. I watched silently until her driver opened the door and she slipped inside next to an indistinct figure that I couldn't quite make out through the tinted windows.
I turned to Bostwick as they drove away. "Nice broad, that one. What was she doing here? She never liked Kitty."
"That hardly matters," the boy scratched his nose in an absent way. Apparently he was still feeling rather nervous and out of sorts. "Everybody's here today. They have to put in an appearance or they'd lose face with the people. She was a very popular public figure, you know."
My eyes narrowed. "So is that why we're here?"
Bostwick shrugged. "Not really. Nobody would notice whether or not an unimportant underling like me attended the funeral of someone like Ms. Jones."
"So then we're here because…?" I prompted.
Bostwick's eyes grew distant as he watched mourners encircle the coffin. "No reason. I thought I ought to come pay my respects. It's only because of her that people like me are even allowed to study magic."
"Because that brings you so much happiness," I scoffed. Bostwick made no sign that he had heard.
"Maybe," he said eventually in a tight voice, "You should leave me alone for a bit. Stay in this general area and come back when the ceremony is over."
"You got it," I said eagerly. And with a bound, Ptolemy was off.
oooooooooooooo
"My God, what are they doing now?"
I'd finally released Kitty from her miniature prison after settling down on a secluded rooftop that afforded a nice view of the crowded cemetery. After a few brief (and frustrating) attempts to recreate her original form, Kitty had finally given up and settled on the simpler form of a garden slug. Her stalked eyes swayed back and forth as she strained to get a good view of the proceedings below.
"It's just a small show of affection, that's all," I assured her. [2. At the moment, the crowd was showering the coffin with a mountainous pile of gaudy wreaths and bouquets. I half-wondered if the pallbearers would be able to lift the bedecked box off the carriage, or if they would be crushed by the shear weight of the vegetation.]
I gently pinched the slug's oozy middle between forefinger and thumb and attempted to pry it from the moldy shingles. The slimy flesh beneath my fingers suddenly became wispy and insubstantial, as if it were dribbling away.
"Pull yourself together, Kitty," I muttered, meaning it quite literally. Carefully I scooped up the little melting slug and placed it on my shoulder where it could more easily observe the funeral below.
"That's a small show of affection?" The slug asked incredulously. "I'd love to know what you'd expect to be done in your memory."
"That's irrelevant," I said pompously, "Since I don't plan on dying."
"I didn't plan on dying either," Kitty muttered darkly.
The statement was sobering, and for a moment we didn't dare speak, letting it hang ominously in the air as somber organ music played and Kitty's coffin began its slow descent into the ground. I shielded my eyes as the wind whipped fiercely around us, the odd snowflake riding on its heels, dancing in irregular spiral patterns.
"My parents are here," Kitty said finally. Her voice had a strange empty quality that hadn't been there a moment before.
"Which ones are they?" I asked curiously.
"The middle-aged couple up there on the platform. They're probably just loving all this attention." She made a bitter scoffing sound in her throat.
"Uh, I take it you don't get on too well with your family?"
"No," Kitty chuckled dryly, "We haven't seen each other for years. They sold me out to Mandrake, and we've had no contact ever since. And now they show up after I'm dead so they can stand on stage and accept condolences from important people like they have some right to be here! The truth is they wanted me to die."
I craned my neck to face the slug on my shoulder, only to find it had been replaced by an extremely weather-beaten moth. "Are you sure, Kitty? That's pretty cold, even for humans."
The moth flapped its wings irritably. "They cared more for the government's approval then for their own daughter. They were nothing but sheep, all starry-eyed, and willing to follow anyone who'd lead them. And all of those people down there, mourning me as if I was some kind of saint - they're all sheep too. They were hoping to blindly follow me, just like they followed the magicians before me. Times change, Bartimaeus, but people never do."
I raised an eyebrow at the girl's uncharacteristic cynicism. I was no stranger to doom and gloom style pessimism, but to hear such statements from a wide-eyed idealist like Kitty? It threw me.
"Well," I said, turning away to watch as the last shovelful of dirt was tossed over the fresh grave, "I won't say I told you so."