Okay, I'm sorry. Really. I promise. I tried and I tried, but the words wouldn't go to the page, so to speak, and I was extremely busy. Everything should start to wind down in a week or two, though.

But on a lighter note, Chapter 10 turned out well. But I'll talk about that later.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Bartiamaeus Trilogy or Jimmy Eat World's "Work". Also, "Day of Recovery" isn't my term, either, but more about that later, and neither is "Training Day", obviously. That was the title to Chapter 6.

Chapter Nine
Day of Recovery

"All I can say,
I should've said.
Can we take a ride?
Get out of this place
While we still have time."
-Jimmy Eat World's "Work"

The cellar room was silent save for the trickling of contaminated water from a cracked pipe, the liquid falling onto the hard cement in loud, obnoxious drips. No one dared to talk at the moment; no one knew what to say. What they had seen had been horrifying, scarring, and worse, it was real. This wasn't some television show. This was life.

Of the entire group, Kitty, their so-called "leader", was the quietest. She had been the one to find him floating in the Thames, and she was the one whose clothes were doused with his blood. She had been fearless, relentless in guiding the group through their rocky beginning, but now, as she sat mute and shaken, it was clear. She was still a teenager, and at a time when other girls her age were worrying about clothing and boys, she was worrying about survival, and overthrowing a corrupt government.

And so they sat for quite a while, not a single word being spoken, just sitting in silence. They needed time to think to themselves about all of this, what it meant, what it forewarned them of, and why it had happened.

After many more minutes of this, Jack stood up from his seat quietly. "I've got to go to work."

No one said anything in reply. He headed to the door and was about to leave when he turned back, face grim.

"Look, before I go, will you promise me that you'll at least talk about it?" His eyes glinted worriedly. "I know it'll be hard, and I'm no psychologist, but I think it'll help."

After a few seconds of contemplation, Glen finally nodded.

"All right," he said, his voice emitting as a long croak after not being used for a long while. "We'll talk. Don't worry."

Jack smiled slightly and checked his watch again. "I've really got to go if I want to catch the night shift, but thanks. Trust me, it'll help."

With that, he opened the door and disappeared into the darkness. The door closed weakly behind him, and the rest of the team was left to themselves.

"I'm not exactly sure how to do this, but I guess we should start talking now instead of later," Glen stated. He folded his hands over his knees and leaned forward in his chair, the poor lighting of the room flickering off his graying hair. "Uh, does anyone want to start us off?"

Elliot's hand shot into the air, and Glen sighed. "This isn't school, Elliot. Just say what you think."

Elliot's hand lowered, but his shocked look remained.

"What the hell happened back there?"

Glen blinked. It was a simple question, one none of them were thinking of at the moment, but it was probably the best. What had happened at the river?

"Honestly, I have no clue whatsoever."

Elliot frowned. "Well, that's just dandy, isn't it?" he snapped sarcastically.

Glen glared at him and was on the brink of getting out of his seat to give the younger man a good slap upside the head when Clarice's voice cut through the air.

"Let's look at it logically, and try to put all of the events in place," she suggested. The eyes in the room darted to her. "Using the information we've all gathered, we can at least figure out some of this."

"What, we're going to piece this together?" Katherine piped up.

Clarice nodded towards her. "Basically, yes."

"Like a puzzle or something?"

"Whatever floats your boat, sweetheart." She looked to the others. "Now, we should probably start at the beginning, the event that got us into this mess: Dylan killing the magician. Who can add anything on that?"

"I think," Joel said slowly and deliberately, "that Jack said Dylan had told him the magician's name. It was Ross Samuel or Samuel Ross or something like that."

Clarice smiled. "Good. That's progress. Now, where did he attack this mysterious Mr. Ross/Samuel?"

"It was either a library or a fast-food restaurant."

"Most likely a library," Thomas, the youngest of the group, remarked. "Magicians may be selfish pigs, but you won't catch one dead anywhere near a hamburger."

Glen's face contorted irritably. This was going much too slowly. "So, he murdered a guy- whose name was some combination of Ross and Samuel- outside a library. Wow, that really helps us."

"It does," Clarice said carefully. "Baby steps, Glen. Now, what happened at the shop Dylan worked at?"

"Magicians came," Yasmin replied from her seat in a corner of the room. "They interviewed employees, asked for information about Dylan, and left." She paused. "Hold on, I think they left separately."

Clarice looked quite pleased. "Good. And then what happened?"

"I was over at Jack's with Dylan right before he jetted." Joel stood up and began pacing around the room, his chin cradled in his fingers thoughtfully. "There was this guy in a suit, like a salesman or something, who kept trying to sell us stuff and he'd always look in real hopefully to see stuff in the flat. But I caught traces of magic around him and Jack thought he saw part of a demon, so we made sure Dylan stayed in a back room. But then I left, and Dylan ran after he got Yasmin's news."

Yasmin's head craned upwards eagerly. "Hold on, what did this salesman look like?"

"I dunno. He was medium height, I guess, pale, neat hair, too."

Her face lit up. "That was one of the magician's that came to the shop! He didn't have a demon with him at the time, but I think he's Mandrake's assistant, the one Clarice said had an advanced summoning book with him."

If Clarice was pleased earlier, then she was ecstatic after hearing this. "It seems we have our first suspect. What occurred next?"

Glen rocked in his chair lightly, biting his fingernails. "We came back here," he stated, "and we met about the situation. We split up and started searching for Dylan, and we found his blood in an alleyway. We thought something inhuman had done it, so I guess it was a higher level demon. And then, we jumped in the Thames, but really, only Kitty can tell us what happened."

He looked towards the young woman meaningfully. She had been quiet the entirety of the discussion, resolute to say nothing and share nothing. She stared at the ground in front of her blankly before speaking.

"I was swimming, looking for him, and none of us were having any success." She paused as the wetness in her eyes caused her to blink. "Jack said something about Katherine's accuracy being off-"

"Bastard," Katherine breathed.

"-And I was about to say something back when I noticed my clothes had red on them." Her voice began to get dangerously high at this point, and she coughed. "And I looked down, and I saw him. He was just floating there, blood and all, and I remember hearing Clarice yell and I swam away. After that, I don't really remember what happened."

It was silent in the cellar. Again, no one knew quite what to say.

"Well, I think we have our killer." Catherine looked around the room feebly. "Now we just have to catch him."

-

Her hands moved deftly across the slicing board, the onions falling to pieces beneath her blade. Cooking really was a good past time, and a productive one at that. It made sure she always had plenty of energy, and more importantly, it allowed her to think about more pressing matters.

She hadn't handled herself well at all at the meeting. She'd been out of it, completely and utterly lost. If they wished to succeed in creating a new life for those who followed them, there would be moments where the pressure would mount, and if she cracked like she had today, they were doomed.

But on a positive note, the others had shown they didn't depend on her to function. They'd been asking Kitty everything, leaning on her, and she had been their rock, their voice of reason. But even when she crumbled, they'd shown that they could take the reigns and run the operation themselves, and to tell the truth, they had done just that, and quite well, in fact. There was hope, which was more than they could say for other things.

Kitty cut herself on the blade, and she swore as she brought her finger to her mouth and sucked the blood from the wound. The salty, metallic taste stung her taste buds, and she felt a bit dizzy. And then she looked down.

A miniscule pool of blood lay next to the chopped vegetables, sitting there calmly and peacefully. But it brought back memories she didn't want to revisit, memories she wanted to move past, and images of the floating body filled her mind again.

A sharp rapping at the door interrupted her thoughts, and she sighed and wiped her finger off on a towel, throwing it in the sink and walking to the door. She peered through the peephole quickly and unlatched the lock. The door opened, revealing the forms of Jack and Glen.

"Hey," Glen greeted her quietly. Jack looked a bit shaken beside him, and was chewing a piece of gum nervously. "Can we come in?"

"Sure."

They stepped into the flat silently. Walking into the living area, they took a seat on the sofa.

"I'm making dinner if you want any," Kitty called as she entered the kitchen and picked up the knife again. The onions began seperating easily once more.

Glen looked up. "We're good. We just need to talk."

"What about?"

Jack swallowed his gum and sighed. "I got a visit from Mandrake at work today."

Kitty cut herself again upon hearing this, and vivid curses were heard throughout the apartment. Dropping the knife, she stared at her comrade.

"What?"

"He came to the museum," Jack said blandly. "It seems some arch was stolen, so they stuck him on it. Parks kept calling me over to fetch stuff, and I kind of froze up when Mandrake started studying me. He was looking at me all weird, too. I think he suspects something."

Kitty frowned. Mandrake. "Are you sure?"

"No, but I've got a pretty bad feeling about it all. You didn't see how he looked at me. I felt like at was being looked at from under a microscope or something."

Kitty leaned against the counter and thought. This certainly wasn't good. "Well," she replied, "we're just going to have to figure this out, too. Maybe he won't visit again if he got all the evidence he needs."

"Maybe." Jack looked at his watch again. "I should probably be going."

He headed to the door, but Glen held up a hand. "I'll walk with you, just hold on a second." Standing up, he walked next to Kitty and lowered his voice to a whisper. "You alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Don't think so," he said quietly, observing her carefully. "We need you to be alright."

"I will be, don't worry."

Glen looked her over one last time before nodding and clapping her softly on the shoulder. "Okay."

He walked to the door where Jack was standing and the door opened with a creak, closing once more, leaving Kitty to her thoughts. Picking up the knife, she returned to her onions once more. This certainly gave her much, much more to think about. Well, she'd be eating a lot in the weeks to come, at least.

There was a sudden noise outside the apartment and a loud yell, and Kitty cut herself once again, the knife falling to her side. But she didn't even bother to curse this time, because someone else seemed to be in much worse trouble.

To Be Continued

Author's Notes: I liked this chapter. Not much happens, but there's some character insight on the Resistance, and we really get to see who they are, also. It directly ties in with the next chapter, of course, but really, they're two sides to the same story. I'm extremely fond (at the moment) of both of them. Anyway, "Day of Recovery" was the name of an episode of X-Men: Evolution. It's one of my favorite episodes of any show ever, and it's very awesome. Just so you know.

Next Chapter: In Deus Ex Machina, Nathaniel returns from his successful meeting at Richmond along with Bartimaeus. But just as it seems he gets to relax for a second or two, he's summoned once more. What has Morris been up to? And what did Kitty hear?