I'm early. Betcha weren't expecting that, were you? Well, this is one of my personal favorite chapters so far, so I really hope you like it. Thanks to all of my reviewers, too! Constructive criticism, as always, is appreciated.

For anyone that has read Always or Wonderwall, I will be removing those fics soon since they violate that song lyric rule FFNet is enforcing now. I'll be posting them on my Livejournal, which is the homepage on my profile, and I might put a link in my profile, also. Sorry, but I have to. I don't want to, though.

Without furthur distractions...

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is not mine. The trilogy is just one of those things.

Chapter Twelve
Reflection Period

"No matter how dark the night, somehow the sun rises once again and all shadows are chased away." –David Click

Her sides felt ready to explode, like a fire was burning within her lungs. She could barely stand it, but she had to, she must. It had been close, much too close. They were lucky, and all of them knew it.

Where were they? She didn't really know; she had just run away from it all. She should have probably paid a bit more attention to where they were going, but that was just a detail right now. Nothing major. What was behind them was major, though. Very major.

"Was that-"

"Yes," Kitty breathed, cutting Jack off sharply. "That was John Mandrake, along with an accomplice and a spirit."

Glen's eyes darted upwards. "Well, that's just splendid. An accomplice, and a spirit." He looked at the ground in front of them and leaned against a street light. "I'm pretty sure it was a djinni, though, because I was reading this book in the library about identifying entities. A mouthy one, too."

His words hit Kitty like a runaway train. That djinni had felt so familiar… Could it be?

"I'm a wicked demon. You said so."

"Perhaps he was tired of this world after all. Do you understand it, Kitty Jones?"

"If Mandrake dies, I go free. It's hardly in my interest to help the idiot out."

"I don't have free will most of the time, you see. So when I do, I'm hardly likely to act in a way that injures myself, if I can help it. That's what makes me superior to muddled humans like you. It's called common sense."

"It's refreshing to see you doing exactly what I would do and getting out while the going's rough."

"Exactly. You're a smart girl. Off you go and leave him to die."

"Mad. Quite mad. You're as mad as that afrit was."

"What about the Staff? You could take it, you know. No one's here to stop you."

She blinked. "Bartimaeus," she said finally.

"What?"

"The djinni." She looked back in the direction of her flat warily. "His name is Bartimaeus."

"Oh." Jack sat on the step of a townhouse and rubbed his eyes in frustration. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

Kitty shrugged slightly. The situation seemed hopeless. "I don't know," she replied. "There's not much we can do. Mandrake will be on our case constantly, so the three of us will have to stay hidden, which basically cripples what we're trying to do in the first place."

It was silent except for the hustle and bustle of the street before Glen spoke up.

"Let's just do what we do best," he proposed.

Jack shot him an odd look. "And what is that?" His tone was somber, but Glen was grinning defiantly back at the teenager, as if their ages had been switched in some mad turn of events.

"Easy. We run."

-

"And would you like chips with that?"

She nearly slammed the phone into the wall upon hearing this. "No, I would not like chips, you moron! I want fish. Just. Fish. Is that so hard to get that through your thick skull?"

"Well, ma'am, we don't offer just fish. Customarily, the meal comes with chips and a soda."

"Oh, well that's just dandy," the young woman remarked into the telephone. Sarcasm dripped from her lips, but no doubt the worker was too stupid to realize he was being mocked. "Listen, you imbecile, just give me fish. No chips. Lord knows I already eat too much."

There was a pause on the other end. "I'll have to talk to my supervisor about that. Please hold."

A shout could be heard over the line, followed by another shout. Finally, the worker returned to the phone.

"I'm sorry for the delay, ma'am. We will have to call into company headquarters to ask if we're allowed to do that."

She stared at the phone in disbelief. Headquarters?

"Fine," she spat angrily. "Call your damn corporate leaders and ask them if you can give loyal customers – and we're talking extremely loyal – fish for their supper. And while you're at it, tell them that I'm sick of their ridiculous food chains and the decrease in food quality, and I hope they learn the error of their ways, and I hope they all burn in hell." She stopped for a moment to think. "Oh, and tell them their suits are ridiculously tight," she added. "Any tighter and it wouldn't matter that they had pants on, because I'd have a clear view of their-"

The door opened, and Kitty stopped mid-sentence. "-Precious belongings."

"I'll be sure to tell them that, miss."

Kitty sighed and hung up irritably. It was official. The world was run by greedy, idiotic children. It really was.

"Hey, Katherine," she said as the younger girl entered the cellar. "How'd your day go?"

"Alright. Have you ordered food yet?"

Kitty glanced away and tried to appear innocent. "Well, I didn't agree with the restaurant about something, so… Yeah, that's basically how it went."

"Oh, sweet mother of Jesus, Kitty," Katherine breathed, strutting over to the phone and dialing in a number furiously. "Hello, is this the deli? Yes, we'd like two number threes, one salad, and an extra-large pop. Katherine's tab, delivered to the underground flat. Thank you."

"Wow," Kitty whistled. "That took all of, I don't know, ten seconds."

"It's called people skills, Kitty." Katherine smirked in her direction before taking a seat at the table. "They're helpful in the real world, but you wouldn't know about that, I guess."

"I certainly won't be seeing any of that for a while," Kitty commented dryly, sitting down next to her friend. "All thanks to that slimy rat bastard Mandrake."

Katherine studied the cracks in the table offhandedly. "Well, it's not all his fault, is it? I guess he's just doing his job; after all, we are fugitives." At Kitty's furious glare, she recanted her statement. "Oh, I don't mean I agree with him. Far from it. We're right, after all."

"That's better."

A few moments passed, the only sound being Katherine's knuckles knocking against the wood. Finally, she broke the silence. "Have you ever- did you ever- would you ever consider-"

"Spit it out," Kitty sighed wearily. The girl looked up a bit reluctantly before continuing.

"Have you ever even-" she looked to each side to make sure no one had sneaked into the room "-had a boyfriend?"

It got deadly quiet in the cellar.

"No."

"Seriously?" Katherine scoffed in doubt.

Kitty's jaw clenched irritably and she nodded. "Yes, seriously. What would be the point in me saying I hadn't ever had one when I had?"

Katherine took her time deciding which words to use, for Kitty was not a person one would like to have as their enemy. "It's just that it's a bit hard to believe, really." She shifted in her seat uncomfortably as a drop of water splashed on her head. "But… you've been- you've been kissed before, right?"

Another uneasy silence came over the room. Kitty stared at the wall with a dead expression.

"No." She swallowed down the lump in her throat. "Never."

Katherine blinked. "Holy shit."

Again, silence.

Kitty smiled feebly at her cohort and leaned back in her chair. "What? Is it that hard to believe?" She found herself grasping for words, but anything to delay further probing into her psyche. Like she, of all people, needed a shrink. The very thought just made her laugh. Ha.

"Uh, yeah!" Katherine exclaimed. "Face it, Kitty: you're eighteen years old. Eighteen. In a lot of countries, that means you're legally an adult. Yet you still haven't even kissed a guy yet? What, are you scared of S.T.D.s? I'm not even sure if you can get those if you don't actually- hold on, that's not what I was getting at. You're eighteen!"

Kitty exhaled deeply and rubbed her eyes some more. "Thanks for reminding me what my age is," she replied in as venomous a voice as she could muster. "I completely forgot."

"I'm just saying that it's a bit odd," Katherine stated seriously. She flashed a grin at her accomplice. "After all, you're eighteen."

"I get it, I'm eighteen!" snapped the eldest of the two, exasperation in her voice. Her breathing stabilized, and her hands loosened from their chokehold around the armrests of the chair. "Besides if you're such a romantic, what was your first kiss like?"

Katherine smiled and leaned closer to Kitty. "It was three years ago. Me and this guy I used to hang out with, Mo, were at one of those carnival things passing through town. As a joke, we decided to go into the Tunnel of Love, to make fun of some of the lovebirds. But by the time we got out, we were snogging in our boat. This little kid screamed, and his mum swore at us like you'd never believe."

Kitty looked at her in disbelief. "Wow. Sounds dreadfully sappy. It's hard to find the story through all of that unabridged, non-perverted fluff."

"Sure is."

There was a rapping at the door, and Katherine shot up. "That's our food, no doubt."

She hurried off to the entrance to the Resistance's current headquarters and flung the door open eagerly. A young man with short brown hair was standing outside, two bags in tow, and he gladly gave them to the girl.

"Thank you, miss."

With that, he disappeared down the London street, and Katherine slammed the door shut. She approached the table and sat the bags down, and Kitty eagerly grabbed her sandwich from the depths of one of the sacks.

"Number three," she read off of the wrapping of the meal. She opened it and her eyes widened as the sandwich lay revealed in front of her. "You know, that should be in the museum."

"Damn right it should," Katherine agreed as she pulled a salad and another sandwich from a bag. Finally, she removed a large bottle. "Litre of the good stuff," she acknowledged, pushing it to Kitty. "Enjoy."

They dug in, and Kitty felt better than she had in what seemed like forever. She hadn't had a decent meal since before they'd found Dylan, seeing as she'd never gotten to eat the breakfast she'd been preparing when Mandrake had caught her off guard at her flat. It had almost been a day since she'd last eaten, quite a lot for her standards.

Suddenly, her tongue fell on something rough, and she raised an eyebrow. "I think I've got-"

Without warning, she choked, and spat out the food that she had been chewing onto the paper wrapping in front of her.

"-A bad piece of lettuce in my sandwich."

But what she had choked on was no lettuce. It was a slip of paper, complete with untidy scrawl placed on it in very dark blue ink. She picked it up carefully and wiped away the dressing (and saliva) that covered it.

"Glen," she read. "Hopefully your companion won't swallow this, but that's beside the point. Meet me at the usual spot: I've got some useful information for you. Sincerely, R. Sanders."

Neither of them said anything until Katherine voiced both of their sentiments.

"What the hell?"

-

Glen studied the slip carefully in the dim light given off by the lamp and his eyebrows furrowed. Finally, he nodded.

"Yep, I know the guy," he said. "Rick Sanders, a real balls-buster if there ever was one. We can trust him. He's never let me down before, and there's been a lot of befores."

Clarice eyed the paper skeptically. "Are you sure? This was found in Kitty's sandwich, after all. Who's to say someone else couldn't have already read it and gone to this guy?"

"Because no one besides me knows who Rick Sanders is," Glen responded as he set the note down carefully on a countertop. "That's just his alias for when he's dealing with me. Trust me, he's a professional. Not some puppet of the magicians. And even if his information is bogus, we can at least hear out what he's got to say."

Elliot shook his head. "I don't know, Glen." He spat onto the ground casually. "You may think this guy won't turn you in for a few pounds, but can you really be sure? The Empire's pretty crazy right now. You never know who's working for who."

"Whom," Clarice corrected.

"Whatever. Same thing."

Glen rubbed the back of his head and took a seat next to Kitty. "Don't worry, I can handle this guy if he tries to take me in. He's not invincible. I'll just go talk to him, see what he has to say, and if he does find a way to get me, only one of us will be caught. And I won't tell them anything."

"I'm going with you," Kitty said abruptly.

"No."

She gave him a disbelieving look. "What?"

"No," he reiterated. "They're already looking for you as it is, so you going out could jeopardize everything. And besides, you might scare ol' Rick off."

"But they're looking for you, too!" she protested furiously. She would not go down without at least getting in a punch or two. "That's not fair at all!"

Glen chuckled. "Yeah, they are, but Mandrake didn't get too much of a glimpse of me, I imagine. With you, he's had plenty of time to remember your mug. And I've got a few ways to disguise myself, one of them being a shaver, which no one else here could even attempt to handle."

"I shave," Elliot announced, raising his hand.

"Sure you do, kid. And I've never touched a drop of liquor in my life."

Jack, who along with Yasmin and Katherine had been silent for the entire impromptu meeting, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the opposite wall in deep contemplation. "I say we give it a shot. Worst comes to worst, Glen here snuffs it, something that at least half of us have been wanting since the day we met him."

"I love you too, Jack."

"And second," he continued, "we have no other way out. We're backed into a corner, and at least with this we might have a chance of making some progress. Time's running out, and we'd better start being more aggressive or we all might end up like Dylan."

Yasmin shook her head. "Wasn't aggression the reason Dylan got killed?"

"Different kind of aggression," Katherine remarked. "His aggression, that was just anger. Our aggression has to be intelligent, calculated."

She surveyed the group in front of her as the light flickered over her frame, shadows dancing against the walls behind her.

"And most of all, we've got to be ruthless."

-

It had begun raining shortly after their discussion, and the water had been pouring down constantly ever since without showing any signs of slowing down. It rapped menacingly against the sidewalk outside their cellar like the sound of drums, keeping all of them alert and wary while Glen was meeting his contact.

Jack had left for his night shift and the others were scattered about the room, some trying to entertain themselves with cards and such games while others were content to merely sit and stare out into space, their minds working at a thousand miles an hour. What if Glen didn't return? What if they forced him to give information about their hideout? What if they were all sent to the Tower for their actions?

Too many questions with answers that depended on this one rendezvous. And eerily, Kitty felt more comfortable than she had in years.

She felt alive, and she could feel the blood rushing through her veins. Her mind reeled and her fingers shook anxiously at her side, and her heart was beating like she had some sort of fever. This felt right, this calm before the storm, this anxious waiting period. They were doing something. They were making strides in the right direction.

Yasmin and Katherine were rolling dice to her left while Clarice was playing Solitaire beside them. Elliot, of all things, was asleep. Or maybe he was just convinced that they were all going to die, and he'd rather go in his sleep.

She stopped in her tracks. That had been a bit morbid, unusual for her. Kind of.

"Lucky seven," Katherine whispered beside her. A die fell onto the floor and came to a halt. "Damn. Six."

Kitty smiled a bit and took a swig from the liter of soda she'd gotten from the deli. As she set the bottle down, her other hand crept into her pocket, tightening around the hilt of a hunting knife she had been carrying around in the wake of recent events. Once again, as it had during that long, boring play in the theater, it comforted her. The knife was stable. The knife was sure. It would be there tomorrow, whether she was alive or not.

There were footsteps outside and the door opened. She flinched a bit before Glen appeared in the room as the door closed, his boots sloshing across the cement messily. His hair was drenched and stuck to his skin miserably, but a tired smile was worn into his face.

"I've got some good news."

Kitty stood and bit her lip. "What?" she asked, hoping it was actual good news and not the feared "Glen good news".

He sat against the wall and sighed happily. "Sanders found out from one of his best sources that a ship, the Paix Fausse, is carrying something extremely valuable to the magicians, a weapon of sorts."

"I don't want a weapon," Kitty stated, her voice firm and unwavering.

"I know, I know," he said as he hurried to change her mind. "But think about it. This weapon, it's extremely valuable to the wizards. We could use it as leverage to really jumpstart us, to make this a fair game."

Kitty thought carefully. Glen was a comic sight, wet from head to toe, but he was completely serious about this.

"The most opportune time to strike is at midnight on Saturday," he added.

She thought it over once more before taking a deep breath and nodding.

"Let's do it," she said. She grinned. "Let's do it."

It appeared that Saturday would be a very important day.

To Be Continued

Author's Notes: As I said, I like this chapter. It was the longest before Chapter 13 came along and was longer, but still, I like the interactions in this chapter, and it's a decent length. Kitty and Katherine's conversation was one of my favorites to write, as was the call-in to the restaurant. Surprisingly, a lot of subplot-like themes wove their way into this chapter. Odd.

Next Chapter: In Brains, Brawn, and Magnetism, the days are passing as Saturday draws closer. It's up to Nathaniel to plot out the trio's next course of action, but in the meanwhile, dark and dangerous businesses going on, namely, an odd connection between a hot dog vendor and a finger. Morris has an idea, but does anyone agree with it?