Thanks to Donkey and Skunk and Luli27 for the reviews. Happy authors are posting authors.

My apologies for any formating problems. I'm new here.

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Chapter Seven: Owls, Files, and Messages

"Maria?" Terref said with a frown as she walked into his sitting-room that afternoon. "What are you doing here?"

Daria rubbed her jaw. The putty she'd used as part of her disguise always made her face itch after she took it off. Nibor had told her that was a common side effect and nothing to worry about, but it was still annoying. "I spoke with that gentleman you told me about, Uncle," she replied. Switching to Goa'uld, she told him about her visit to Holmes and related the information he had given to her.

"Good work," Terref told her after she'd reported. "I'll try to get in contact with our Egyptian agent and pass on the story you used."

"I got the impression that he was editing what he told me quite heavily," she said. "I don't know if he would have been more frank if Watson hadn't been there."

"Probably not," Terref agreed. "This information is older, but it's a great deal more than we've previously had on Moriarty."

"Old data is still good if we can use it to figure out Moriarty's methods. And if we figure out Moriarty, we figure out the Hawks."

He nodded. "Learn anything else?"

"Holmes is very sharp," Daria said. "Almost too sharp for a human. I'm not entirely certain I fooled him. However, he is well organized with his information- he has dozens of files relating to every case he's worked on and every person of interest this side of the Ural Mountains, and then some."

"Anything on Moriarty?"

She nodded, raiding her hand and holding her thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. "He's got a file on the man that's this thick."

Terref thought for a moment, absent-mindedly stroking the short goatee he'd chosen to grow over the past two weeks. "Get a hold of that file," he said at last. "There may be something about the Hawks in there. How you get it is up to you, but you must get it I'll start tapping my contacts."

She nodded again, and their conversation went back to English and innocent, mundane topics.

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A pharaoh eagle-owl perched on the roof of the building directly across from 221-B Baker Street. It was a fairly large specimen, its tawny feathers streaked across the back, wings, and throat with sable.

Perhaps it was a good thing that there were no ornithologists nearby looking at the owl, for they would wonder what a North African bird was doing in England. The bird waited patiently, its large eyes fixed on the window of 221-B Baker Street. The lights there had finally gone out thirty minutes ago, leaving the rooms dark.

It was long past midnight before the owl moved, spreading its four-four wings to their greatest extent and gliding, whisper-quiet, towards the window it had been watching. An onlooker would have been surprised to see the way the glass opened of its own accord, letting the large bird swoop inside. He or she would have been even more surprised to see the owl's form shift and grow, to become a human figure dressed in dark, mottled clothing.

Daria listened for a moment, waiting to see if the soft thump of her landing had been heard. But all seemed quiet, to her relief. She padded across the room to the shelf where she'd seen the file that afternoon.

There it was- her sharp eyes picked out the name "Moriarty" written on the side in black ink. The Tau'ka smiled and stuffed it into her shirt for the time being. She turned to leave.

The faint rustle of cloth and the creak of a floorboard reached her ears as she approached the window. Someone was awake and moving around in one of the back bedrooms.

Of all the times for Holmes to want a midnight snack!

As swiftly as she could, she turned herself back into the pharaoh eagle-owl and flew out the window, causing the drapes to ruffle and billow as she passed through them on her way to the night sky. She silently thanked the pressures of evolution that caused owls to develop their soft-feathered wings.

Holmes, in his dressing-gown, frowned as he saw the open window. Cautiously, the detective sidled over to it and closed it, listening hard for any movement. There was no movement in his home, and the only sign of life outside at the moment was the large owl flying across the crescent moon. He frowned, shrugged, and turned back to his room.

A pale gold, downy feather on the floor caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it carefully, noting the soft, fringed edges of it. An owl feather? What was an owl feather doing in his sitting-room?

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"Excellent work, Maria," Terref said the next afternoon. Daria had joined him for a private tea and had presented the older agent with the thick stack of papers she'd borrowed. He flipped through them, skimming the information they contained. "I have equipment that can scan these so you can return them before they are noticed missing. How did you get in there, by the way?"

"Owl shape," she replied in between bites of sandwich. "Flew right in."

"Ah," Terref said. The older Tau'ka frowned. "Where have you seen owls, Daria? I thought they were native to Earth."

"Some species were exported under the Goa'uld rule," she told him. "I saw some on Cs'tanya a few years ago.

"I see." He pulled a sheet of paper out of the stack and studied it closely. "It appears that Holmes was aware of the Museum thefts- there's a description of the Hawks here. "Two men, identical in every way barring the fact that one was larger than his twin, both with dark hair and green eyes that had the peculiar quality of being able to reflect the light like cut gemstones"."

"That's them, alright." Daria's jaw was set, her mouth a thin, grim line. Terref noticed.

"My dear, I feel that you may be too personally involved in this," he said quietly.

"I am not," she growled, "too involved. I just want them taken out. I'm getting sick of dealing with those two."

He didn't seem convinced. "If you are angry with them because they killed-"

"I know who they killed!" the younger agent snapped, eyes flashing dangerously.

"Being too hotheaded could compromise this mission," Terref said. "We cannot afford that."

"It won't be a problem." She forced herself to take a deep breath. "I want K'Wah and Koor removed from a position where they can cause that kind of harm. I wouldn't mind seeing one or both of them torn to shreds, for that matter. However," she said, holding up a hand to stall Terref's interruption, "I won't let a need for revenge ruin the mission. That's more important at this point."

Terref nodded and switched from Goa'uld to English. "Very well, then. I'm going into the paper tomorrow. If you would care to stop by, Maria, I'll have some files for you to take care of."

"Yes, Uncle Terrence."

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Daria reclaimed the Moriarty file the next afternoon with little difficulty, unless one counted nearly getting run over by a pair of cabs that hurtled down the street as fast as the horses could pull them. She caught a glimpse of the passenger in the second vehicle as it flashed by and recognized the face of Dr. Watson. A few moments later, Watson's cab tried to negotiate a sharp turn too quickly and spilled over. The first one, still going at a breakneck pace, had managed the turn as vanished from sight as a crowd convened on the wrecked vehicle.

Daria paused by the crash site just long enough to determine that both Watson and the disreputable-looking driver would be alright before hurrying on to the headquarters of the East End Intelligence.

"Master Nelson?" an ink-streaked clerk said when she inquired as to her contact's whereabouts. "I dunno, Miss, 'e 'asn't been in today. O'Reilly!" he called to another man walking through the office, carrying a stack of papers. "Seen Master Nelson today? The girl 'ere is looking for 'im."

O'Reilly shook his head. "I'm afraid I haven't seen him," he said. "Are you his niece, then?" When Daria nodded, the red-bearded man jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Terref's desk. "He was in last night and said you might be in today, lass. He left an envelope over there for you."

She thanked him and collected the thick manila envelope from its place on top of the desk. Looking inside it, she extracted a piece of paper. The characters on it were in Terref's neat, precise hand, but they were Demotic Goa'uld rather than Roman. She read the message.

Noclaf,

Return the file to the place it came from- I have copied the pertinent information already and sent it to your datapad. I will be out of touch for the next few weeks or so- I heard a rumor that may be deadly if it pans out. Fair skies and clear shots to you.

TN.

Having read the letter, Daria crumpled the sheet into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket, making a mental note to destroy the message when she got back to her townhouse. She left after telling Terref's secretary that would not be in for some time.

Strolling along the cobbled street, Daria pondered what Terref could be after. There was very little that would prompt a Shadow Agent into direct action, after all, so whatever it was must be serious She doubted that it was something to do with her own mission- if it was, he would have let her know about it in full.

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Inclement weather kept Daria indoors for the next week. Rain- buckets of it- poured down on London for seven days straight. The Tau'ka kept to her townhouse, burying her nose in any book or newspaper that came to hand in an effort to improve her reading skills. Even those proved tiresome after a while- the only thing that caught her eye on the sixth day of her imprisonment was a small obituary describing the presumed suicide of a 'Dr. H. Jekyll'.

Not only did the rain prevent Daria from further out-of-doors excursions, it made her testier than usual. She had been unable to either get word of any of the Hawks' doings or return the file on Moriarty she'd 'borrowed'. That was what really grated on her- Holmes surely must have missed it by now. But with the rain pouring down, there was no way she could fly to Baker Street to return it, and walking there would mean that she would leave traces of mud behind her.

Terref sent no word either. She tried to contact him nearly every hour, but he was outside of her telepathic range and refused to answer messages sent over the computer. Stressed by the lack of word and her inability to cover her tracks, Daria was in a very poor mood. The four household servants quickly learned to avoid any room the Tau'ka was in, for fear of provoking her into doing something she would regret later. The Tau'ka were noted for having fairly short tempers, and while Daria was a bit more level-headed than most of her people, everyone had a breaking point. She was rapidly approaching hers.

"I don't dare go in when the mistress is in a room," she overheard one of the maids, a brown-eyed, brown haired girl named Danielle say to the cook. "She's always pacing around, she is, looks ready to tear something to bits."

Ana Lee, the household cook, nodded. "Miss Maria doesn't come down here much, and a good thing, too. She'd scare off the help. Remember that china ornament she broke this morning?"

Daria grimaced upon overhearing that. Upon rising that morning to see the seventh straight day of rain, she'd lost a bit of control. Her telekinetic powers had inadvertently taken up residence in a little porcelain figure and shattered it. She'd been forced to say that she'd thrown it in a temper when Danielle came in to clean it up. Now she had the entire staff terrified, something she had not wanted to happen. She cleared her throat.

Ana Lee and Danielle whirled to see her standing in the doorframe leading to the kitchen. The two women looked afraid, and Daria promptly altered her stance to look as unthreatening as possible.

"I overheard you," she said calmly. As her servants began babbling over one another in apology, she held up a hand. The frantic chatter died off. "I am sorry for being in such a foul mood- you may have noticed that I like to spend a great deal of time out of doors, and this incessant rain has prevented that."

"We had noticed that, begging your pardon, Miss," Ana Lee said shyly.

Daria smiled gently. Ana Lee had started making jokes again. The Tau'ka knew that was a good sign. "If I have inadvertently frightened any of you, I wish that you would accept my apologies. I'll arrange for everyone to get an extra shilling in their wages and a day off for putting up with me." She laughed. "If the rain keeps up, I'll have to nominate every one of you for sainthood!" The two women laughed as well, thanking her shyly for her generosity. "Really, thanks aren't necessary. I do try not to be a tyrant, after all."

The rain finally let up the next day, and Daria gleefully returned to her work. Seeking the haven of the half-manicured trees in Hyde Park after her morning rounds, she took raptor form and went soaring over London to work on her mental map of the city, delighting in the rush of wind and the freedom of flight. She would have preferred her shape of inclination, that of the gryphon, but there were too many people who might see and wonder at the sight of a mythical beast flying overhead. An eagle, while still somewhat remarkable, wouldn't cause panic.

Back outdoors and working at last. Much better.