By now I had accepted that confused was a constant state around these two. This though, I had no idea what to make of it. I had left the bathroom to see them being loaded into a car by guy's in suits, called Michael and took off in pursuit. In the time it took for me to meet with Michael and create an attack plan they had somehow managed to fight their way out. I actually felt kind of inadequate, they hadn't even needed to blow something up. I glanced into the back seat and saw they had both fallen asleep. Not surprising since the house they had been taken to belonged to one of the red court vampires, I didn't know why he'd kidnapped them but I was hoping it had to do with the prophecy. Mostly because if it didn't that meant it was my fault and I hate it when things are my fault.
"I don't believe it." Saying it out loud didn't help. How had they managed to fight their way out of a red court vampires house? Claire had been holding a sword so they clearly hadn't just run off under the cover Sam's sword provided. I would have to wait for them to wake up and ask them, meanwhile I needed a plan to avoid the captain without pissing her off further. She had not been happy to arrive to find that me and the girls were gone, or so I assumed. I hadn't actually talked with her yet having decided to rescue the girls first.
"Hmm." Michael was thinking about something. "It is amazing that they made it out on their own, but it is good to see that they have the strength to do it." He had a point. Not many people knew about the prophecy, but the ones that did were all going to want the girls to make it go their way. It was too bad the prophecy hadn't defined their role a little more, the way it was now all anyone knew was that they had arrived to do something. Sam was supposed to right the ancient wrong but who knew what that was supposed to be? And Claire didn't even get that much, she was just "strong". Judging from the lack of obvious injuries I figured that "strong" referred to physical strength but there was no real way to know from the phrasing.
A short while later we arrived at Michaels house and put the girls to bed. I said my good byes and headed home expecting to find an irate Captain waiting for me. I wasn't very far off. I started talking almost before I got out of the car.
"I'msorryweweren'tthere. SomeonehadkidnappedthegirlsandIwentafterthem, everythingsfinenow." her irritated expression switched to one of confusion, which had been my goal when I started talking that fast. "Right now they're at Michaels resting. It might be best to put off the talk until tomorrow."
"Actually, I need to talk with you too, and we may as well do that now." Lovely. Captain Luccio needed to talk with me. Maybe I'm just paranoid because of the years I had a warden following me ready to kill me if I so much as breathed wrong but I really don't enjoy hearing those words.
"Alright." I went to my door and opened it after taking my wards down. "Won't you come in?" I tried to think of what she might want to talk with me about, and suppressed a surge of fear when I realized she knew how I felt about the council. If she thought I'd support them…it could end badly. She went immediately to my couch so I took the armchair.
She got right to the point. "As much as it pains me to admit this, Claire is right. There is no way to support the council as long as people within it are corrupt. The thing I don't think they understand is the politics involved, there is no way to smoothly take over the governing of the worlds wizards. Most of whom still believe in the council, by the way. Not to mention the chaos while you try to figure out which members you can trust, they would have to be able to win the trust of the officers and soldiers, and lead them while they investigated the corruption."
"So, why are you telling me this? Shouldn't you be convincing the girls?"
"I will speak to them as soon as they are done resting, but I think that they will be more willing to listen to objections if you voice them. In their world they were clearly fans of The Dresden Files and they seem to trust you. We can talk about that later though right now I want to know about this kidnapping."
I took the time to fill her in on what we knew had happened and promised to give her more details once I'd asked the girls what had happened. After I finished we arranged another place and time to meet and she took herself off. Leaving me to think about what she'd said. It was strange, it seemed like she wasn't going to oppose a plan to bring down the council as long as they could create a new governing body in it's place. Her biggest problem was that she didn't think they could do that. I always thought Captain Luccio would be the type to stick by the council no matter what, but now she'd practically told me she tentatively supported the girls plan. What did she know about the council that I didn't? was it really that shaky? I shook my head, I wouldn't worry about it for now. For now I was going to think of some quick and dirty magic I could teach the girls to protect themselves with. This would require creativity and skill, or maybe I'd just buy them both some mace, that would be much easier. I'd talk with Bob real quick then head over to Michaels house and check on them.