May 10th.

Miranda Gray entered the outer office of the police commissioner and smiled at the secretary seated at the desk outside the 'inner sanctum'. "Can you let Commissioner Blaisdell know I'm here to see him?"

Miranda wondered how long Blaisdell was going to carry on pretending to be clueless about her involvement in Peter's abduction. Or for that matter that he still believed him to be dead. It was a diverting game currently but eventually, she was going to lose patience.

Gale Lewis was in actuality a policewoman who had been a receptionist while putting herself through college. She was there as much as a bodyguard as a receptionist. She picked up the phone and pressed the button that dialed through to the inner office. "Mayor Gray is here to see you, Sir."

"Send her in," Paul said and pasted on his best smile as Lewis pressed the button that allowed the office door to be opened from the outside. He got to his feet and offered his hand to Miranda. "Good morning, your honor."

"Oh please, call me Miranda." She was certain that she had told him this repeatedly, but she wasn't going to point that out yet. She was sure that it was part of his game to mildly annoy her as much as possible. "How is your first day going?"

"It's going well enough, of course, it's only 10 am who knows what it will be like by lunch." He said with a quiet laugh. "I think if I'd known about the sheer level of paperwork I might have given you a different answer." He made sure it sounded like teasing.

"I know that feeling. The first week after my election I was certain there was an assassination plot to bury me alive under the paperwork. It gets less daunting." She took a seat as he indicated she should.

"I'm going to hold you to that. So, no bodyguard today?" He asked.

"I sent him to handle a few errands for me. Honestly, it gets a little tedious to be followed around endlessly. But my brother made me promise to hire a guard so I did. You know my brother is a homicide detective over in New River City."

"Is he? No wonder he insisted. Homicide detectives see the worst of the human race."

"Your son is a homicide detective as I recall."

Paul let the fake smile fall and drew in a deep breath. "Was a homicide detective. He hasn't been seen since early February." It took everything he had in him to keep his expression neutrally sad, rather than enraged. " My wife and I aren't holding out hope any longer." Truth be told Paul was starting to doubt he'd ever be able to give Peter the all-clear to come home. He was no closer to finding out anything useful against Miranda Gray or her cronies than he had been the day Peter came home.

"I'm so sorry."She said, even though she didn't believe a word of it. Paul knew enough to set up a trap with a near look-alike in a safe house. Fortunately, Beckett was more efficient than Kline had been and there had been no living witness to the abduction otherwise this conversation might at least briefly be held in a completely different setting.

"Thank you," Paul said. "I'm sure you didn't take time out of your very busy day just to come and check on me."

"Not entirely. I am here to invite you to a luncheon in your honor. It's not just me, the city council and a few others will be there as well."

"I suppose this is one of those political moments I don't want to blow off in favor of actually getting work done." He said.

"It is. These are the people who make sure you can actually get work done. Blow them off and you will find more roadblocks than you can count. We like to think we run things. You, me, the fire commissioner. That we're the big fish in the small pond. Truth is though that we're surrounded by piranha, not pilot fish."

"Maybe it's time to get out of the water and deal with dry land."

"The piranha would simply turn into rats." She said. "It's the nature of politics. You pick your battles and never make a move without figuring in the backlash and how that affects your agenda. I'm lucky, the corporate world isn't much different. You have to learn who you have to play hardball against and who you have to play chess against. You're an intelligent man. I'm sure you'll get their number soon enough."

"I'm sure I will." He said, wondering how many metaphors she'd mixed into that statement. "So where and when do I show up for this luncheon?"

"One O'Clock at the Majorcan."

"That new Spanish restaurant on 73rd?" He asked.

"That's the one." She said getting to her feet. "The reservation's in my name."

Paul rose as well and once more offered his hand and she shook it. "I'll see you there." Paul wondered if he was about to be shown exactly how deep the political deep end was. For all of her talk about piranha, he thought it more likely that it was cotton mouth snakes surrounding him in and out of the water.

Jordan didn't like being assigned a new partner. She needed to be able to trust her partner and she knew she could trust Tammy Li. Cavanaugh, she wasn't so sure about. Yeah, he'd protect her from Bellamy, if the need arose. She was equally sure that he'd be the one to pull the trigger if her true purpose for being in New River City was ever discovered. Cults weren't known to be forgiving of infiltrators.

She took a long drink of her coffee and sighed.

"You are enjoying that coffee far too much." Richard Cavanaugh said.

"Shame on you. There is no such thing as enjoying coffee too much." She said with a smile. "Especially good coffee. But even bad coffee is better than no coffee. It is second only to good sex. Unlike coffee, bad sex is just bad sex and should be avoided."

"Should I get you and your coffee a room?" He teased.

"Coffee can be enjoyed no matter the degree of ecstasy in public."She said "So no. No need to rent a hotel room or find a back seat."

"Back seat? No pleasure is to be had in a back seat." He countered.

"As long as your legs are, I'm not surprised," Jordan said. Richard Cavanaugh was 6'4" tall if he was an inch. She grinned when he laughed rather than look uncomfortable. "Okay, so your desk or mine?" She asked.

"Mine." He said. "Other than Bellamy there isn't anything on yours that Tammy couldn't handle on her own until she gets a new partner." He said.

"Then read me in, my friend." She said. She wished he really could be considered a friend. She liked him. She thought he liked her. Too bad neither of them was honest about what they were there for.

"Okay, well, let's start with Gordon Sizemore. He owned a bodega over on 35th."

"Yeah, I know the place. It's not far from my grandmother's retirement village." She said.

"Well, it's set up to look like the typical robbery gone wrong."

"Set up to look like a robbery but not a robbery?"

"It's just a feeling I have." He said. "Mr. Sizemore had closed the store and dropped all but 125 bucks for the morning till down into the store's floor safe. He did this every night at midnight like clockwork. According to his son, he did everything in such a way as to be out the back door at 12:05 am. It wasn't a secret. Everyone in the neighborhood knew."

"Okay…"

"So, our killer comes in the back door, shoots Mr. Sizemore, and leaves without taking anything. They didn't even turn on the lights. The register was closed and the key was on Sizemore's key ring in his pocket."

"Okay, I see your point. So who is saying it's a robbery gone wrong?" She asked

"His brother."

"Does he inherit?"

Cavanaugh shook his head. "Nope, not via a will anyway. Mr. Sizemore had no will. He has no living spouse and only one son. Everyone I have spoken to that knew Sizemore outside of the bodega said that he was a spectacularly unpleasant person. Including his son and brother."

"I guess he was spending his daily allotment of pleasantness at work instead of at home."

"Apparently. So people have a daily allotment of pleasantness?" He asked, amused.

"Absolutely." She said "And it gets used up slower or faster depending on how much bull shit we have to put up with during the day. It gets recharged when you sleep because you don't have to deal with bull shit while you're asleep."

"Your theory is faulty."

"How so?"

"If it was accurate we would have more store clerk-related violence over the holidays."

"Nope because the holidays grant store clerks an extra allotment of pleasantness. Unfortunately, due to the balance of nature, it takes it from the customers they have to deal with."

Richard laughed at this. "How do you explain cops?"

"We fake it better than anyone else alive. Years of sensitivity training because of someone else's screw-ups or inappropriate use of the word 'honey' and constant interactions with ineffectual liars and truly crazed individuals have given us Herculean levels of patience. Unless of course we're the ones screwing up or the ones calling every female encountered Honey, sugar, or sweet cheeks."

He laughed again. "You've put a lot of thought into this."

"Had to keep my mind off of how cold my fake hooker clothes were in December and the pain my toes were in year-round. Vice has led to a lot of kooky theories over the years." She said with a grin. "So what's your theory of the murder if it's not a robbery gone bad?" Bodegas and banks were two of the rare cases where robbery went wrong more often than not.

"I think Mr. Unpleasant was unpleasant to the wrong person for far too long and they decided to put an end to it permanently."

"Which means we have a massive suspect list and none of them is going to admit that this guy made their life a living hell."

"Things are never what they seem." He said with a nod. He looked at her pointedly. "Remember that, Jordan. Nothing is ever what it seems."

There was something about the way he said that, and the way he was looking at her that made her think he wasn't talking about the Bodega murder any longer. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but the moment was gone as quickly as it came.

Peter walked across the balance beam, across his shoulders was a bamboo yoke from which hung two buckets of water. The buckets were half full, two gallons in each bucket, and they swung a little as he walked. He was surprised at how much those gently swaying buckets messed with his balance. He had already fallen twice. His clothes were wet but they were drying by the heat of his body.

He knew that the three men focusing on his training were watching him. Master Hsiao, Lo Si, and most important to Peter's way of thinking, his father. They spoke in soft tones. A few days ago he would have focused more on trying to hear what they were saying than anything else. If he were being honest, that was why he had fallen earlier, but he wasn't ready to admit that yet. Not to his teachers anyway. He had learned his lesson that morning and put his focus on where he was putting his feet and balancing his movement with the movement of the buckets.

Caine watched his son. He was more proud of him now than he had ever been in the past. But this was nothing new. The day the boy had been born he had been convinced that there was no way he could be prouder than he had been at that moment. But through his childhood, Peter had proven him incorrect as his love and pride grew for his only son. He had often been frustrated with adult Peter because of his impatience and occasionally by what Caine had seen as a casual attitude about shooting the villains they encountered. Until he had seen the aftermath of one of those shootings. He had been proud that his son had chosen a career that embodied protecting others who could not protect themselves. Yes, some officers crossed lines to the point of villainy, but not his son. Not once. Now when he could run and no one would judge him poorly for it, when he could choose to wait for others to make his world safe again, Peter was choosing to fight. Alongside the pride he had for his son, in equal measure, was fear that he would lose him again.

"Were you able to find anything out in Shamballa?" He asked his old friend.

"Your vision of your grandfather's encounter with the cult showed that the artifact is required to force the avatar into the host." Lo Si said softly. "Peter must destroy the artifact while it is empty."

Caine shook his head "The only way to empty the artifact is to allow Nag to enter him."

Lo Si nodded. "And to prevent the avatars from returning to the statue, to break the curse on the avatars, he must destroy the eyes." He said. "There is more research to be done to know how to properly do so to prevent them repairing it."

Master Hsiao nodded. " There is time." He said. "Peter is not ready yet. He is growing in his skills and knowledge more quickly than I would have thought possible. But he is not yet ready to master an avatar."

"Is that even possible?" Caine asked.

"I believe so, yes." Lo Si said. "I believe that when they came to the mortal realm to fight their great evil of the time, they chose their hosts poorly. They became enslaved. Being a host to an avatar is a powerful thing. There is a merging of personalities. The body becomes enhanced by the avatar's presence."

"Peter is strong. If he is right about Nag, they will merge together and fight the cult to great advantage. But both he and the avatar must believe that they can do this or they will fail." Master Hsiao said. "If they can do this it is possible that they can take the harbingers down to the level of the Sing Wah with just one blow."

"And if they do not the Harbingers will become a greater evil, and I will lose my son forever," Caine said.

Paul entered the restaurant just before one PM. He wasn't certain what to expect. He knew how foolish that sounded, or more to the point, how paranoid it sounded. It was a political welcome aboard luncheon. It was just Miranda Gray's involvement that set his teeth on edge.

Things were much simpler when he and a team would go into a politically unstable situation and remove the problem with a few well-placed bullet holes. This situation wasn't nearly so simple. Miranda Gray was just a figurehead at the end of the day. Like the hydra of myth, removing her would just put another in her place at the head of the cult. He didn't know what to do about that. He just wanted his family home again. All of them.

He pasted a smile on his face and walked over to the hostess behind the pedestal "I'm dining with Mayor Gray." He said.

The young woman returned his smile. "Right this way." She said stepping from behind the pedestal to lead the way through the dining room. "The Mayor has not arrived as yet but the others in your party are present." She opened the double doors to a private dining room.

"Thank you," Paul said as he entered the room.

Jason Walsh got to his feet and grinned as he offered his hand to Paul. "I told you, you'd wind up in politics one day."

Paul laughed "You say it like that and I may just resign to wash that grin off your face."

"You wouldn't dare." The fire marshal said, laughing as well. "Let me introduce you to the others."

Paul shook hands and smiled as he was introduced to five more city council members. He made note of rings and cuff links as he did so. So far there was no evidence that he was about to be dining with a group of cultists. But that didn't mean they weren't getting cagey. After all, Kline had been murdered within prison walls and no one had shown any of the cult insignia there either. He'd give his fellow city council members the benefit of the doubt for now. In a broad spectrum soft of way.

"You know I think you're the first Police Commissioner in what… 40 years that was at one time a police officer." Gina Thomas said.

"Oh, I'm still a police officer. Don't doubt that for a moment." Paul said with a smile. "I just have different paperwork to do now."

Miranda entered the room, and Tyler Beckett followed close behind. "Oh good, it looks like everyone is here." She said.

Beckett pulled her chair out for her, then made his way back to the door to stand watch. Miranda Gray thought that he was standing guard, protecting her. He didn't see any reason to break that illusion. He would stand silently at the door where he could see and hear everything, and report back to the inner circle. She was unstable and they all knew it. He'd put money on Paul Blaisdell knowing it too. If the circle wanted rid of her without having to do anything about it themselves then Paul Blaisdell was going to be the best tool in their toolbox. Too bad he was so tightly connected to Peter Caine.