Sorry about the delay. I hit a brick wall (again) when I was about halfway through Chapter Fourteen (which is over 400 words!), but a few days off and re-reading part of The Golem's Eye helped out. Also, my delay was partially caused by the fact that I wrote five one-shots, three of which being HP, one being X-Men, and one being a prologue of sorts to this! If you want more while waiting for Chapter Fourteen, go read it and review, please!

Disclaimer: I wish it was mine, but the trilogy isn't.

Chapter Thirteen
Brains, Brawn, and Magnetism

"The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side." –Margaret Carty

The raven pecked at its wings in as innocent a manner as is possible while perched comfortably on top of a gargoyle. A clear view of the Tower lie ahead of him, and the city was sprawled out all around him.

Of course, that did absolutely nothing to help my utter boredom. Nathaniel had been locked in his office since noon drawing intricate maps and summoning all of the resources available to him in an attempt to make the perfect plan, something that is total nonsense. A perfect plan does not exist. Of course, magicians scoff at this knowledge, just as they did way back when we were trying to convince them that the Earth was round.

So far, nothing interesting had gone on in the area. I had flown from the Tower to the South Bank to the harbor and to Parliament and back, but it seemed Friday was just a dull day, something that makes no sense at all. Shouldn't people be happy it's the last weekday? You know, drink a little, do drugs; something wild, perhaps?

With a sigh, the raven took flight into the dreary sky, resolute with the fact that there would be little to do before very early Saturday morning. Cats below it gave it a wary eye, knowing fully well that it was one bird they should not attempt to prey on, and the expanse of Greater London flew by under it as it made its path to Parliament.

Finally I landed on the windowsill of Nathaniel's office (who knows, maybe I could scare the little bugger) and observed the busy street of Whitehall as casually as I could. All in all, it was a very interesting site, if only for the fact that commoners and magicians mingled along it, the only such occasion that didn't require an event the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped to occur.

As I sat, I ruminated over the last few days. They had been somewhat dull compared to that one day, but planning is essential, I suppose. Although I usually like to plan as I go. It's a strategy I call improvisation, but others call it pure laziness and attribute it to my lack of a reliable attention span. Whatever you call it, it works. Unless my surviving for five thousand years was pure luck.

I disposed of that disturbing thought and turned to more pressing matters. Namely, the man serving hot dogs (I'm not sure how they fit in with the whole government atmosphere, though) across the road. People were lined up for at least a hundred feet, and I smirked to myself. Foolish humans and their need for food. Ha. Ha, ha. Heh.

I got over my sudden, brief fit just in time to hear a lady shriek, "There's a finger in my chili dog!"

Well, this certainly beat staring at the Tower all day. Of course, there had been that bird that had been hit by a falling rock from the gigantic structure, but that was more of a "hm" moment than a "wow" moment. Big, big difference. Trust me, I've been around the block a few times. And a few more for good measure.

The hot dog man blinked and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow with his palm (how clean). "What'd you say, lady?"

After I was done wondering how a guy with that kind of American accent lived in Europe – oh, I guess that would explain him being a hot dog server – I continued to listen with a keen ear. Yes, ravens do have ears. No, I will not explain.

"There's a finger!" the lady screamed. She gasped and flung her hand to her face in a dramatic act that would probably not get her into one of that fellow Makepeace's plays. On second thought, with magicians' strange tastes in the arts these days, it probably would. Uh, back to the point. "And it's in my chili! My chili!"

Another woman near her poked her head over the food, obviously intrigued. "Isn't the real mystery why you're eating a chili dog? That's definitely not good for your figure. Way too many carbs."

"Yeah," said a young man in a very metrosexual/homosexual-sounding voice. "Definitely not good at all-"

"Shut up!" yelled Hot Dog Man, putting his arms up and waving them frantically. Huh, it was like a scene out of a bad play. The American tough guy, the damsel in distress, the annoying friend and her stereotypical gay companion. I mean, not all queer guys speak like girls. "Now, let me have a look at this."

He walked over to the woman, stuck his head right by her snack, and plunked his hand into the depths of the calorie bonanza. After much digging through layers of nacho cheese and chili (maybe she's trying to gain weight in some crazed frenzy), he extracted a long, bony stick-like object.

A finger, in all its gruesome, cheesy glory dangled in his hands, exposed to the crowd at hand. Chili dripped from the tip of the nail, and a young girl passed out right into the street.

"Well, that's… different."

However, my further indulgence of the scene was prevented when a knocking on the window behind me caught my attention. I turned my head only to see Nathaniel's looming face out of the corner of my eye.

"Come in, Bartimaeus," he commanded. "I know that's you."

My wings drooped a bit, but I tried to hide it. "Caw," I attempted feebly.

"Nice theatrics." He checked his watch and unlatched the window, finally sticking his head straight out of it. "But it won't work on me."

"Damn."

With some degree of reluctance, I hopped on into the office as he closed the window behind me and shifted into a more comfortable shape as my essence had begun to wear down after being a raven for such an extended period of time. I stretched my arms high above my head before taking a seat opposite Nathaniel's desk (minus Nathaniel, of course, who was fiddling around with the window latch). He growled, snapped it furiously into place, spun on his foot in a reckless manner, and fell into his chair. All very impressive, really, how he could make such boring actions worth an entire sentence – and a half, if you count the note in parentheses in the prior sentence – of description.

"Had a good day so far?" I asked in a particularly sweet manner for myself. "Get work done? Eat a good lunch? Not look at attractive women as they pass by you?"

Nathaniel shot me a glare that might have intimidated a flea, but only a puny one. "Do you like being a nuisance?"

"Yes."

He sighed and ruffled his hair half-mindedly with one hand. "Of course you do. It's your sole purpose for living, isn't it?" His hand had shot up to stop me before I could even say anything witty. "That was rhetorical. That means that it's a question you don't answer."

"Thanks," I said sarcastically. "I didn't already know what that meant."

Nathaniel shuffled some papers that probably held no importance whatsoever as importantly as he could. It seemed he always had some documents ready to rearrange at any time. I made a mental note to look into getting him a stress ball for his birthday. He surely needed one.

"Did you learn anything?" he asked.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling apathetically. "Nope, didn't learn a thing. But there was a finger in some lady's chili dog a few minutes ago, and there was this American, and this other girl and her friend and they all-"

"That's great," interrupted Nathaniel. My head tilted back downwards and I gave him a dirty look. Rude piece of tripe. "I suppose you have done nothing useful for the last day."

I shrugged. "Well, your exact orders were, 'Stay out of my hair for at least an hour or two or I will personally make sure that you are never able to walk again.' Oh, and you also said that I should 'stay far from magicians, particularly politicians, since we don't want any suspicions at all around us.' And my favorite, 'please don't stick your head in the-'"

"I know what I said," he snapped at me angrily. What was it with this kid and interrupting? Who taught him his manners, Ramses? On second hand, Nathaniel was English, which explains a lot. Of course, it's probably better than being French. But that's a whole different subject, and I'm afraid I can't explain it without using less than twenty various words that are not proper to use in public.

I rolled my eyes at him and smirked. "If you're such a diligent worker, what did you learn today?" I inquired. "I know I didn't learn anything since you ordered me to lay low, so hopefully you made up for my production, or lack thereof."

He raised an eyebrow. "Thereof? Are you getting smarter or something?"

"Fine, I won't use big words, if that makes you – "

"Never mind," he cut me off. See, interrupted again. "I studied the maps of the area surrounding the harbor, and have set up a plan according to this information." He laid out a large map with several squiggly red lines on it before me.

I looked at it with wide eyes. "It looks like someone was stabbed to death on this." I leaned over the desk and pointed my finger to a large line with an x running through it. "What's this?"

"Oh, I messed up right there so I crossed it out." He looked somewhat sheepish as he said this, which gave me some delight. "But if you look to the side you can clearly see that-"

The door flew open and hit the wall with a thud. Looked like Nathaniel was getting interrupted. Nice change, if you ask me.

"Morris!" Nathaniel hissed. He hurried over to the door and checked the wall behind it. "You made a dent in the wall, you fool!"

"Oh, sorry." He took a seat next to me and inhaled sharply. "I've got a lot of adrenaline running at the moment, you know?"

Nathaniel looked up dangerously. His expression could not be good at all. No, sir, it could not. "What do you mean? Why would your adrenaline be running so quickly?"

Morris bit his lip, obviously stalling as he decided how to word the inevitable. "Eh, I was doing some field work and I got into a bit of a jam. No worries, though: I got out of it fine, as you can see. No damage. Except for your wall, of course. So actually, there was minimal damage."

Nathaniel's eyes narrowed into thin slits. "What kind of field work?"

"Uh…" Morris sighed. He was caught. No use trying to get out of this one. "Well, I was getting some pop at a bar, since beer and wine taste like crap – incidentally, that actually is somewhat relevant to my story – and I overheard these two ladies talking."

"What did they say?"

"You've got to understand," the youth said slowly and deliberately, "that it was very crowded and stuffy and loud and many other adjectives that have definitions similar to that. The clarity of speech wasn't so good, to make my point clear. Hey, that's kind of ironic. Clarity, clear." Nathaniel's eyes told him this was no joke. On the other hand, I thought this would be a riot. "Er, sorry. So these two ladies were talking and I thought they said Paix Fausse, so I turn to them and say, 'You know something about the Paix Fausse?'"

He coughed. "And they give me this real evil look and say, 'No, we don't know anything about that, you sick little man!' So they run to this guy and he comes up to me and says, 'Were you bothering these ladies?' And I say, 'No, I just asked them about the Paix Fausse.' He glares at me and tries to grab me but I start running."

"Why would-"

"Let him finish!" I said indignantly. He shut up promptly, I'm proud to say.

"So I finally hide behind these boxes," Morris continues, "and catch the man talking to the ladies, who have come after him. Turns out, they were making a joke about fried feces, and then- well, you know the rest. But I make a sound at this, so they find me and I have to run, until finally I run in here and lose them. Great story, huh?"

I cringed. "Fried feces? As in – "

Morris nodded, affirming my very thoughts. "Yep. One and the same."

"If I could throw up, I probably would. Fortunately, I'm not human."

"As educational as this has been," Nathaniel stated in an official tone, "it means absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Both of you have done little to no work while I have been toiling away in this cell of an office, but that is something we shall discuss at a later date. Now, we must go over our plan of action."

"Great," Morris mumbled under his breath. "It's like math class all over again."

Nathaniel ignored him and approached the map once more, studying it with alert eyes. "We will meet here at precisely eleven thirty," he declared as he jabbed a finger at a big blob on the paper. "It's a warehouse nearby the harbor, and from there we will commence along this path – " his finger followed a red line from the blob " – to this loading dock at the back of the ship. We will crawl into this opening and separate in this storage room along three separate paths. Mine is green, Morris's is yellow, and Bartimaeus's path is blue."

Morris squinted at the map. "I can't see my path very well."

"Live with it. I didn't have a black marker."

"What do we do after that?" I asked.

Nathaniel looked at me with mild surprise. Evidently, my asking a useful question was uncalled for. "If we encounter anyone, we will detain them, as no workers are scheduled to be on the boat. If there is a large group, we will seek assistance, but if we can detain at least one or two that should help us greatly to catch the others."

"I guess that makes sense."

No one said anything for a little bit. It hit us all for the first time that this could very well be the end of the Resistance, or the end of us. Even I was at risk with all of the resilient commoners we would be going up against. They would not hesitate to destroy us if we tried to destroy them, or at least that's what the general feeling was. That one guy had carried a gun.

Of course, Morris was the one to break the silence. "You guys nervous?"

Nathaniel stared at him. "A little bit. You?"

"Nah," he replied. "I figure if I've gotta go down, I might as well go down to a group of crazed terrorists. Who knows, maybe a few thousand people will show up for my funeral."

"I guess that's a good enough reason. What about you, Bartimaeus?"

My eyes darted to him lazily. "I'm more nervous about dying with you two at my side than the actual dying. I've got a reputation to preserve. Imagine what people will think if the great Bartimaeus is last seen with the likes of you."

"Gee, thanks," Nathaniel responded. He smiles a bit despite himself. "Don't boost my confidence too much, though, or I may just get arrogant."

"Don't worry, Nat, you already are."

Morris yawned loudly and rocked backwards in his chair. "I don't see why you're so anxious about all of this. We're the perfect team."

"What?" I completely ignored the fact that both Nathaniel and I said this at the same time. Perfect team? The very thought, the very act of comprehending that information, almost made my brain turn to radioactive slush. Surely this was a joke. Surely.

"It's simple," Morris said. He gestured to Nathaniel. "Here we have the mastermind, the brains behind the operation. If the Resistance has anyone as smart as this guy, than I'll be damned. Really, his brain is humongous. Just look at his head. His brain's got to be huge."

"Too bad he doesn't use much of it, though," I muttered to myself. Nathaniel heard me loud and clear, but he was too busy basking in the glory of the compliment to pay attention. He completely ignored the fact that his head had been called humongous, too.

"And Barty here is the brawn of it all," explained Morris. "He's a djinni, and a powerful one, too. I'd like to see the Resistance mess with him. He could snap them in two with his pinky."

I smiled. "Damn straight."

"So," Nathaniel mused, rubbing his chin, "we have the brains and the brawn. Admittedly, both are very, very fitting. But the thing is, Bartimaeus is a bit lacking in the brains category, and I'm not the strongest fellow you'll ever meet. What makes up for that?"

"I don't have brains?" I scoffed. Now this was funny. Truly, he could be a wonderful comedian. I, Bartimaeus, fourteenth-level djinni, am one of the cleverest beings a magician will ever encounter in his puny life. "Have you met me? I have more brains than you do!"

Nathaniel ignored me. Again. Instead, he focused on Morris. "What makes up for our weaknesses?"

His counterpart grinned broadly, almost smirking, and points a thumb at himself. "I do, of course."

"What do you mean? We have brains and brawn, so what else is there?"

"Three words, Johnny," he replied, using Nathaniel's chosen name, as he jutted up three fingers proudly. "They are: sheer animal magnetism."

Nathaniel was caught off-guard, and it showed. "As in… attractiveness?"

"Yep." Morris was very serious, however. "Face it. When I walk by, all the girls in the room swoon as if it's going out of style. They can't resist me."

Nathaniel frowned and gave Morris a skeptic glance. This did not suit well with him. "Are you joking?"

I thought this was all very funny, but Morris was very sincere and Nathaniel looked as if the sky was close to falling. "No. Face it, not all of us can be ugly. No offense, Bartimaeus."

"None taken," I said happily.

It was quiet, far too quiet in the room. Finally, Nathaniel found his tongue.

"So, if you encounter the Resistance, what're you going to do? Sleep with them?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that, Nat," Morris replied, using Nathaniel's true name this time. "But basically, I'll just flirt and talk my way out of any situation."

"Hold on," I started, "what if it's a gu-"

"Let's just get out of here," Nathaniel cut me off, once again stopping me mid-sentence. Bastard. "I don't think I want to hear any more, or else I may just decide to stay home tonight."

He swept out of the room and I followed dutifully, but I gave Morris one last look-over before turning to the outside world.

I was starting to like the kid. After all, he had style.

To Be Continued

Author's Notes: This chapter is officially dedicated to any fans of Morris out there. He is vintage Morris in this, and unlike in Like Pawns, We Fall (the prologue fic I talked about in the first notes), he's less angsting. But I think I'm going to return to that later. Bartimaeus chapters are always fun, of course, and the first scene was something I enjoyed. I actually got a map of London to help with this, too. Any British folks out there, just correct me if those damn map people are wrong.

Next Chapter: In Maybe From Your Perspective, Bartimaeus and Nathaniel have a discussion about good and evil and the chessboard is revisited. Judgement Day has come, and now the fellas and the Resistance must confront each other and face off for the last time. But can there be any true victor?