Chapter Three – The Quarrel
"Ssh!" Emma woke to a hand over her mouth. She blinked, eyes wide, making out a stern woman's face in the darkness. A mask. "It's me." Shadow Stalker hissed and let her go slowly. Emma sat up as Stalker prowled round the room, barely visible in the light from the window, although the darkness didn't hinder her at all. "Emma, stuffed toys?"
"My mother insisted," Emma whispered, grimacing, "That or therapy. She doesn't get it."
"Civilians don't," Shadow Stalker said. "You do." Emma smiled, proudly. She was a survivor. That was why Shadow Stalker was here, talking to her, but that was a good point.
"What are you doing here? Are you hurt?" Obligingly the clock beside her ticked to 1:30. "Something happen on patrol?" Shadow Stalker prowled back to the bed, lowered her voice to a murmur.
"Ems, if anyone asks you were I was tonight, I came to see you, OK?"
"Sure. You're here, aren't you?" Emma's heart was racing with excitement. "Why?"
"Grue," Shadow Stalker said with satisfaction, and Emma's eyes went wide. She sat up so fast she made the bedsprings squeak. Shadow Stalker ghosted backwards immediately, losing herself in the shadows of the room, as Emma listened. There wasn't a sound from the sleeping household.
Carefully she crept out of bed as Sophia became solid again.
"It's safe?" Emma barely breathed and Sophia nodded. "So spill."
"He's not going to be a problem again. He was shot last night. I heard someone fired a broadhead arrow through his lung."
"Go, you!"
"Not me." Sophia's grin said it all, and then it soured. "Not unless I want to get stuck in juvie."
"I wish I'd been there."
"Sure you do, survivor." As Sophia left, ghosting through the wall, Emma smiled proudly. It was good to have a real friend, someone who made a difference, not like that wimp Taylor. She knew her story, keep it simple. If anyone asked if she'd seen Sophia tonight say yes, that she hadn't known the time and they talked about stuffed toys and things. School stuff. It wasn't like they'd be able to question her without Dad present, and he'd stop them asking anything incriminating. And now Sophia had killed Grue. Emma smiled and snuggled down in her bed, pulling the stuffed cat under her head as a pillow, practising Sophia's alibi in her head. And slowly, Emma fell asleep.
#
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl, and her name was Emma-Lee.
And she had a shop. It was a rather unusual shop because it didn't sell anything.
You see everything in that window was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emma-Lee had found. And brought home to Bagpuss.
Emma-Lee's cat Bagpuss. The most important, the most beautiful, the most magical, saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world.
One day Emma-Lee found a thing and she brought it home to Bagpuss who was asleep in the shop window as usual. But then Emma-Lee said some magic words:
Bagpuss, oh Bagpuss, Big, fat, furry, catpuss
Wake up and look at this thing that I bring.
Wake up, be bright, be golden and light.
Oh Bagpuss, hear what I sing.
And Bagpuss was wide awake. And when Bagpuss woke up, all his friends woke up too.
The mice on the Mouse Protector organ woke up and stretched.
Madeleine the rag doll,
Gabriel the toad,
and last of all Professor Yaffle, a very distinguished old woodpecker. He climbed down off his bookend and went to see what it was that Emma-Lee had brought.
"Mya, mya, mya" said Professor Yaffle. "Why this is just a broken stick with a pointed end. My word, it is a bolt." And the mice picked it up and tried to carry it to the door.
"No, no, no, not that kind of bolt," said Madeleine. "It is a quarrel." Bagpuss was amazed.
"A quarrel! I mean, why, that must have been a very pointed argument."
"Mya, Mya, Mya," said Professor Yaffle. "It comes with a crossbow."
"Well," said Bagpuss, "it must be a very cross bow indeed if it has quarrels."
"One that exchanges sharp words," said Professor Yaffle, and Bagpuss thought about it. He thought so hard that his thoughts appeared by magic.
~ Once upon a time there were two cross bows. One was tied in black cheesecloth and lived on a hill overlooking the sea. The other was tied in silks and lived on another hill not so very far away. And they were always angry and always bowing. And they each had a quarrel.
One day, the bow in black cheesecloth lost her quarrel. And she looked everywhere, and it wasn't there. So she came down from the hill to the town in the valley because you can't have a quarrel with only one. And when she came down, the other bolt saw her and came down to meet her and share her quarrel with her.
And they argued so long and so loud that the townsfolk couldn't get to sleep. The Mayor opened his window and looked out, and he was cross too because it was far too late at night for such things.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"Who's quarrel is this?" the two cross bows asked the Mayor, for they had only one between them. The Mayor told them that if they couldn't share, then he would take the quarrel. And then the two cross bows didn't have a quarrel between them any more, so they were happy bows. And since happy bows don't argue, the townspeople could sleep so they were happy as well. ~
"What a silly story!" said Professor Yaffle, and the mice protested that it was not a silly story, it was a nice story. They even had a roll of music in the Mouse Protector organ for it.
"It isn't time for Mouse Organ singing," said Madeleine "It is time for work. Bagpuss has started to yawn! Quick mice!" The mice bustled to it with cloths and mops and very small paint brushes.
"We will tend it, we will mend it
We will polish and clean its edge.
We will clean it, we will sheen it
We will paint it nice and red."
And the mice polished the quarrel like new and painted the end in red just as it had been, and marked the odd whorls on the shaft back on. When it was done the quarrel was gleaming and all ready to start a brand-new argument with someone, if they were so inclined.
Then the mice carried the quarrel in the window, so if the person who owned it saw it, they could come and claim it.
And Bagpuss gave a great big yawn and settled down to sleep.
And when Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the Mouse Protector organ.
Madeleine and Gabriel were just dolls.
Professor Yaffle was a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep was just an old, saggy, cloth, cat. Baggy and a bit loose at the seams.
But Emma- Lee loved him.
#
"Wait, Dragon." Obligingly the Tinker fell silent across the comms and Armsmaster stopped his motorbike. It wasn't a good area of town, with the benefit of no tourists being present if he had to engage in combat. Security protocols engaged on the bike automatically as his scanners checked for threats. None found. Only then did he turn off the engine, patching Dragon into the HUD, so she could see what it had flagged. At the base of a shuttered shop window there was a crossbow bolt. A fast pattern-match identified it as a standard hunting broadhead, Shadow Stalker's preferred type prior to recruitment, and it had blood on it.
Armsmaster got off his motorbike and walked over, HUD running a more detailed scan. No traps detected. He zoomed in, focusing on the shaft, using micro-enhancement to see it there was any DNA. Fingerprints showed clearly first.
"Dragon?"
"Those prints are from Shadow Stalker's gloves," Dragon said instantly. His own HUD agreed, matching with the gloves of her current costume, and that blood was fresh.
"Console," he ordered "page Shadow Stalker. Is she injured?" He picked up the weapon between finger and thumb of his gauntlet, careful not to smudge the prints. It could be a revenge strike on her.
"Those prints are in the wrong position," Dragon said, over the comms. He frowned, focusing. If the broadhead had been pulled out, there would be a firm grip, like a fist, and as he looked he made out glove lines in such a position, but the hand size was too large for Shadow Stalker.
"It was pulled out of a wound by a large individual, likely male. High probability they were the victim." Blood analysis would confirm details when he returned to base. Shadow Stalker's prints were on the shaft near the base, a finger and thumb grip used to load the crossbow.
"Console to Armsmaster," Kid Win's voice said, "She's at Winslow right now. No injuries reported." The conclusion was obvious. Armsmaster accessed Shadow Stalker's patrol patterns. She was not scheduled to patrol again until this afternoon, after four days off. Her reports appeared clear, but it was possible someone at the PRThad not updated them.
"Console, did she report any incidents in the last two days?"
"None."
"Armsmaster," Dragon said, and he could tell they had reached the same conclusion. The probability of her having a crossbow and broadheads present for a random mugging was near zero. Ownership of broadheads at all was a breach of probation.
"Unauthorised patrols," he said, tightly. The stupid girl could get herself killed. The damage to his reputation from losing a Ward would be considerable.
"If she's hunting again, she'll have caches of bolts in places she can reach them."
"Most likely hidden by her power." His old cross-scanner would easily find anything hidden in walls.
"Agreed. I'll produce a list of most likely locations."
"Thank you, Dragon." He examined the end of the bolt again. The blood was less than twenty-four hours old. "Dragon, access my HUD. I require a second opinion on the nature of the blood spatter." He knew what he was seeing, but two tinkers were preferable.
"Internal, high pressure and the bolt head appears to have been immersed," she said professionally. "Look behind the barbs." His HUD zoomed in. There was flesh caught in the barbs right behind the head where it had been pulled out.
"A torso shot?"
"Probably a lung. Colin, she shot to kill." That stupid little girl. It was not self-defence, the blood-spatter on the shaft identified that the bolt had travelled about twenty feet, most likely fired from a rooftop given the angle of entry. This wasn't the crime scene, so the bolt had been discarded while on the run or left for them to find.
"A set-up?" He knew that was low probability. In its position by the base of the window, the bolt would be hard to see for normal vision.
"Or someone who wants to let the Protectorate know what she's doing but can't come forward." A gang member or criminal. It would fit her hunting patterns prior to arrest. "Which is a good thing."
"Explain."
"Consider if someone had gone to the media with this," Dragon said, as Armsmaster picked up an evidence bag and secured the arrow. His jaw set. A Ward going on unauthorised patrols would not help his reputation. A Ward using a murder weapon would ruin it. He knew he would take the blame if the P.R.T. tried and failed to cover it up, and with this level of indiscretion that failure was inevitable. Even with an immediate transfer, his name would still be linked to the debacle.
Turning back, he snapped a series of high quality shots of the scene, already writing his report in his head. If Shadow Stalker could not follow her probation terms, she was not valuable enough to keep. If this was swept under the carpet his public standing, and his reputation internally in the Protectorate and P.R.T., would be ruined when she eventually hit someone who did not shut up. He wasn't having a loose cannon like this on his watch.
"Console, get me an appointment with the Director."