A/N: again, I don't remember whose review I've replied to and whose I haven't, so I'm thanking everyone here who reviewed chapter 22: fikle friend, Glitara Keladry Sophia, Glitterfrost, LandUnderWave, Aiko Moonchild, zippingzephyr, Jardin, Hello, Fredryck, uptowngirl48, Raine's Tears, Musica Diabolos, TheFasterYouUpdateTheBetter, RoseFae, scrot-nig (er… huh?), phoenixstrike, Queen Dragon, XxBlackChaosxX, hollie-short, allie, Mewhoelse, Scarfia, blargh

Chapter 23

As Long As Mine Hate For Thee Liveth

"N…Nathaniel?" Ffoukes muttered, his voice wavering. After all, he had a gun pressed to his head. "Who's that?"

"What? He's your best friend and you never told him your real name?" Jane's nasty voice asked from behind. "Tsk-tsk, John…"

Ffoukes glanced at Nathaniel who appeared to be somewhat embarrassed. "Nathaniel? Er… nice name. Sounds really... noble."

"Thanks, Ffoukes," Nathaniel replied with a grimace. His daughter shifted under his hands and that was only when he realised that he must have been grasping her shoulders so tight that it caused her pain. He released her, glancing down at her. She looked somewhat frightened, but braver than the average five-year-old would. The average five-year-old would have burst into tears and shouted 'I don't wanna go back to Miss Farrar!', but his daughter was eyeing her master calmly. The only sign of her nervousness was that she was chewing her lower lip.

Nathaniel gently but encouragingly squeezed the little girl's shoulder, then took a step towards his friend and ex-lover. "How did you escape from the car, Jane? And how did you get here?" he asked, knowing that he had to engage Jane's attention to give Bartimaeus a chance to act.

The woman's green eyes flashed at the djinni, sending him the message 'I'm keeping an eye on you, so don't even think of anything funny'. "Well…" she replied, "in the past few years I got in the habit of keeping a knife in one of my boots, and a tiny gun in the other. Of course, only when I'm wearing boots. Too bad I can't wear them for parties as well… I got so used to them that I feel horribly unprotected, almost naked without my weapons. Anyway, when I got out of the car's boot, I realised you had parked it near the library you have used twice before…"

Nathaniel made a grimace. He really should have kept silent about his adventures in this library, but all those years ago when he'd been Jane's boyfriend it never occurred to him that his lover would once use such a petty, unimportant piece of information against him.

"So, that was how you cut your wrists so bad," Nathaniel observed. "You must have bungled quite a bit with the knife to cut your ropes. Especially with your hands tied behind your back… But I have to give it to you, you did it very cleverly."

A cold smile appeared on the woman's face. "Why, thank you, John. It's been ages since you praised me for something… Why, the last time must have been when you had your way with me on my office table…"

Nathaniel's eyebrows knitted. "Don't mention such things before the child."

"Oh, are you afraid of corrupting her?" Jane sneered. "I bet she's corrupted enough already. Being your daughter, she couldn't not be."

"What does 'corrupted' mean?" Martha asked her father.

"It… it's like how Vader used to be," Nathaniel explained.

"Oh," Martha said. "Then you're wrong, Miss Farrar. I'm not like that. Daddy told me I was like a Jedi, not a Sith. I think it's you who are like a Sith."

Jane blinked. "What is the little brat talking about?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Nathaniel almost let out a laugh. He loved his daughter's style. She managed to be outspoken while still looking and sounding innocent.

"Never mind, Jane." The young Minister waved. "You wouldn't understand. It's something called culture." For a second he thought he heard Ffoukes snort in the futile attempt to fight down a guffaw. Nathaniel couldn't help but adore his friend's ability for seeing the humorous side of things, even with a gun held to his head. Nathaniel wasn't sure he'd manage to be this casual in a similar situation, but he knew he had to act as if he did, so he sent his friend a grin.

"I wouldn't be grinning in your place," Jane hissed.

"Why not?" Nathaniel crossed his arms. "You're just trying to threaten us, it's all a play. But we aren't afraid, are we Ffoukes?"

The older Minister gave him a vague smile. He seemed to be sweating. "'Course not, John. Miss Farrar wouldn't kill a Minister if she doesn't want to face trial and life imprisonment in the Tower."

"That's what I was thinking too." The younger man nodded, looking very laid-back with his hands stuck into his pockets.

"Don't be that cocky, Nathaniel," Jane replied nastily. "You can't win this battle."

"What battle?" the young man asked. "What do you want, Jane?"

"My apprentice."

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you want to train my daughter so badly."

She glowered at him. "Of course I don't. I just want to keep her out of your reach, to make you miserable. Not that you aren't miserable enough without that… Things aren't succeeding for you these days, are they, John?"

The young father frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, just… things. Like… losing your daughter, your wife, your mother, half the country thinking you're a criminal-"

"Now wait a minute!" Nathaniel cut in. "How do you know about this… criminal thing? Do you have anything to do with it?"

Jane heaved a dramatic sigh. "I just passed by a newspaper kiosk on my way here from your car and saw the headline of The Times, it was all about you. And no, I wasn't in it, though I wish I were. I can only congratulate to those who framed you, whoever they are. Come to think of it… I might have contributed to it somehow…" A dreamy smile spread on her face. Seeing Nathaniel's confused expression, her smile widened. "Rack of Retribution. Does it ring a bell?"

Nathaniel blanched. "You didn't."

"Oh, yes, I did."

"What?" Ffoukes blinked, looking hopelessly confused.

"It's a curse. One of the worst," Nathaniel replied with a sour expression.

"Even worse than Imhotep's?" Bartimaeus interjected, looking curious.

"Huh?" Everyone else replied.

"You know, Imhotep. The guy seduced the pharaoh's wife and got shut in a coffin with a hundred scarab beetles… alive. The pharaoh's priests cursed him to remain alive even in a completely rotten body and scare anyone to death if they tried to raid his tomb."

"But that's just a movie," Nathaniel said impatiently. He wasn't in the mood for listening to Bartimaeus' idiotic stories when Jane was terrorising them.

"A movie?" The djinni raised an eyebrow at him. "I never knew there was a movie like this… but if there was, then it was based on a true story. Why, my then master forced me to turn into a fake priest, and I was one of those who dumped the unfortunate fellow into his sarcophagus. One of my least pleasant memories. I threw up after it. So, is your curse as bad as this?"

"Er… I hope not… but bad enough," Nathaniel replied uncertainly.

"Oh, it's definitely bad enough, dear," Jane laughed, and Nathaniel was sure he saw madness blazing in her eyes. Suddenly she stopped laughing and her features hardened. She pressed the gun even firmer to Ffoukes's nape. "Enough of the niceties, Johnny. Hand over the child, and I won't harm your friend. And you, demon, don't even think of moving."

"I haven't been planning to." Bartimaeus shrugged with an innocent expression.

"Don't do it, John," Ffoukes said through gritted teeth. "She wouldn't dare kill me."

"I think she would, because she's really evil," a little voice spoke up. Every eye focused on Martha. "She killed my granny and she'd kill you too," she continued, looking at Ffoukes, and marched past her dumbfounded father to her master. "Don't kill Daddy's friend, Miss Farrar. I'm going with you."

Nathaniel stared at his daughter unblinkingly, and for the first time in his life, even Bartimaeus was rendered speechless.

With one swift move, Jane grabbed the child, held the gun to her head and started dragging her away from the paralysed Ffoukes.

"Jane, wait!" Nathaniel finally found his voice and ran after his ex-lover and daughter, onto the corridor.

The woman halted and turned around, the gun firmly pressed to Martha's nape. "Good that you reminded me, John… I will need transport. Throw me your car keys, and no funny tricks! I want them in my hand, not on the floor."

Nathaniel suppressed a groan. Even though she seemed to have gone crazy in the past few hours (being turned into a hedgehog by a rose bush and being shut into a car's boot does that to some people), she still had enough sense to think of the advantages that a fallen set of keys would give her opponents. After all, if the keys landed on the floor, she'd have to bend down, and that one second she used for bending down might be enough for the djinni to disable her.

Nathaniel pulled his set of keys out of his pocket and tossed them at Jane who caught them skilfully in mid-air.

"Do tell," he said, "where do you intend to go? What do you intend to do? You might kidnap my daughter, but where will you go after that? My innocence will be proved within a few days if not quicker, and you will be thrown into the Tower. If you flee, I will send a hundred search spheres and the whole British Police after you. Do you want to spend the rest of your life hiding? Is it worth, Jane? Is it worth leaving the luxury of your home? Is it worth giving up your well-paid job? Is it worth discrediting yourself before the whole British magician society? Would you do all that just to take revenge on me?"

The woman's eyes narrowed as she took a step backwards, dragging the child with her. "I hate you enough to give up everything I hold dear."

Nathaniel shook his head. "You have gone mad, Jane. This isn't the real you. The real Jane is just as evil as you are now, but she is also comfort-loving and power-hungry… the real Jane wouldn't throw everything out the window just to hurt her ex-lover. You may have ruined my life, but I'm still willing to help you. Release the child, and I swear I won't give you up to the Police. Neither will Ffoukes. Right, Ffoukes?" He sent his friend a meaningful glance.

"Of course." The older man nodded eagerly.

"You have no grounds to give me up to the Police," Miss Farrar hissed, slowly moving backwards. The floor creaked dangerously under her feet. "I have a right to have the child with me! She's my apprentice, and that's official!"

"I know." Nathaniel nodded, forcing his voice to continue sounding calm. "However, no magician is entitled to threaten his apprentice – or a fellow magician – with a gun. Drop that gun, Jane, and you will suffer no harm, I promise. You will get help."

"Help?" Jane's hand holding the gun shook. "You mean… a lunatic asylum? I'm not mad, John!" Her face was red and she was practically shouting as she kept retreating. "You might prove your innocence to the world, but you can't do anything against me! I know your name and I know your daughter's name, remember? You can't harm me, NATHANIEL!"

In the next instant the floorboard under her feet gave way with an almighty creak. The old library had finally decided it had had enough. Bartimaeus lurched forward and caught Martha as the floorboard disappeared from under Jane's feet and yanked the child away from the hole that had appeared in the floor.

His breath held, Nathaniel carefully stepped to the edge of the hole and glanced down. On the floor below lay Jane in a sprawled position, the gun still held firmly in her hand. Her mouth hung open with her last scream and the eyes that had bulged in fright were now staring up at him emptily. "I didn't harm you, Jane," Nathaniel muttered. "Your own evilness killed you." He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see Bartimaeus with Martha in his arms.

"I feel bad I couldn't kill her personally," the djinni said solemnly, "but at least I managed to torment her a bit before she died. You know, with the thorns." He winked at Nathaniel who reached for the child and took her from Bartimaeus. Martha clung to her father, burying her face in his shoulder. She wasn't crying, but Nathaniel suspected she was on the verge of tears. If it weren't for Bartimaeus's hyper-quick reflexes, she'd be dead. Nathaniel felt a lump rise in his throat, and not because Jane was lying dead on the floor below, but because he realised he'd almost lost his daughter for good. Just a few days ago he couldn't imagine his life with a child, now he couldn't imagine it without it.

Rubbing the little girl's back in a way he hoped was soothing and comforting, Nathaniel looked away from the djinni, trying to hide the fact that tears had welled up in his eyes. "Thank you, Bartimaeus," he muttered into thin air.

"You're welcome, Kid," the djinni replied from behind him. "Oh, and be sure to blow your nose, O Master Mine. I hated seeing you wiping it on your shirtsleeves…"

Nathaniel felt an urge to roll his eyes. "That was thirteen years ago, Bartimaeus." Apparently he hadn't managed to hide his tears from the djinni and apparently the djinni hadn't turned any more tactful since he'd last summoned him. For some reason, Nathaniel didn't mind Bartimaeus' tactlessness. It was sort of amusing.

Suddenly Martha looked up at him with a curious expression. "Did you too wipe your nose on your sleeves?"

Nathaniel nodded with an embarrassed look, making Ffoukes and Bartimaeus chuckle.

"Like father like daughter, eh?" Ffoukes said, walking up to the hole to have a look at the dead Jane. "She wasn't very lucky, huh? Speaking of misfortune, what was that curse you were talking about?"

"The Rack of Retribution?" Nathaniel asked as he walked back into the room and placed Martha on the blanket.

The older magician nodded. "I never heard of it. What does it do?"

"As far as I know, you need to know the person's birth name in order to use it on him, and the curse makes him horribly unlucky."

"Are you horribly unlucky? Poor Daddy, that totally sucks," Martha said with a compassionate look, giving her father's hand a squeeze.

"Actually… I used to be horribly unlucky, and yes, it sucked," Nathaniel replied, grinning at his daughter's vocabulary that very much reminded him of Kitty's in her teenage years. They had the same temper and the same style. He could barely wait to introduce mother and daughter to each other… "However, the Rack of Retribution is a curse that only works as long as its caster's hatred for its victim lives. Jane has just died, and with her died my misfortune. At least, I hope so."

"Hmm… sounds good, but if I were in your place, I would still wave at the magpies," Bartimaeus commented. "So do tell, Master Mine, what are your plans now that your misfortune is no more?"

Nathaniel turned to Ffoukes. "I have a good idea who could have framed me. Bartimaeus and I will find evidence and only go to Whitehall when we can prove our suspicion. I asked you to come here for two reasons. One: when I sent Bartimaeus for you, Jane was still alive and her existence was a threat to my daughter, so I wanted to place her under professional magical care – yours. I don't trust any other magician enough to ask them to take care of my child."

Ffoukes sent the little girl a smile. "It would be an honour to have the young lady in my home."

"Thanks, Ffoukes. Though, now that Jane is dead, I don't want to saddle you with having to look after her. I could take her to her grandparents…"

"I have grandparents?" Martha chimed in, sounding surprised. "But… my granny died."

"I meant your maternal grandparents. Kitty's mother and father."

"I'd love to go to them!" Martha said enthusiastically. "It would be so cool to have a granny and grandpa!"

"Are you sure it's a good idea?" Ffoukes asked. "Whoever wants to do you in, they might strike at your relatives."

"They don't know I have a child. And they might even strike at you," Nathaniel replied. "Everyone knows you're my friend. But you're right… I think my daughter would be safer with you than with the Jones's. The second reason why I asked you to come here is that I think I know how they found out about the secret code to the Tower's security system."

"How?" The older man frowned.

"You told them."

"Me? I'd never-"

Nathaniel held up a hand. "I know you wouldn't. The memory relapse."

The older minister's eyes widened. "Oh. You think they forced me to tell them the information then wiped my memories. Sounds logical."

"Do you remember who you were talking to at that party?"

The Minister for Internal Affairs scratched his jaw, thinking. "Well, I did talk to the Prime Minister… but I doubt he'd want to get rid of you, he's practically in love with you, John."

"Yeah, he might propose now that you're a bachelor again…" Bartimaeus interjected. His reward was a piercing look from his master.

"Did you talk to Whitwell?" Nathaniel asked Ffoukes.

"Yes, I did, but just briefly. She was at the party with that chap Jenkins."

"Clive Jenkins," Nathaniel muttered. "Of course. Another person who's hated me since I was fourteen. I made him make photocopies all day…" He made a grimace. "I too would have hated me if I were in his place… Anyone else you found suspicious? Did you see Whitwell or Jenkins talk to someone else?"

"Well, I clearly remember Miss Farrar's disappointed face when Miss Whitwell asked her partner, Arnold Callaghan for a dance…" Ffoukes smirked. "I didn't understand why Callaghan would leave such a beauty for such a bag of bones. Whitwell is anything but pretty…"

"Don't even remind me, I once had the misfortune of seeing her naked." Nathaniel wrinkled his nose. "It was kind of inevitable, having to live in her house for two years… I was violently sick. I still shudder at the memory."

"Why, was she so ugly?" Martha asked.

"Er… yes." The young man blushed slightly. For a few seconds he'd forgotten he was talking in front of a child.

"You know, you've again managed to surprise me," Bartimaeus interjected. "When you last summoned me, you seemed to be completely unaware of the fairer sex, Nat. I was firmly of the belief that you'd die of fright if I appeared for you as a naked woman…"

"Bartimaeus, may I remind you that we're talking in front of a five-year-old?"

"But Daddy, I'm not that stupid, I know how these things are," Martha said with a serious expression. "I told you I read about it in a book…"

Bartimaeus laughed. "Little Miss Know-It-All. Reminds me of her Daddy. You too seemed to know everything better than others… but I bet you didn't know about sex at the age of five."

Nathaniel gave his djinni a withering glance and turned back to Ffoukes. "I suspect that Whitwell had something to do with framing me. Jenkins also had grounds to hate me. As for Callaghan… I don't know. He's Jane's boyfriend, but Jane said she wasn't in it. Why would he want to harm me?"

Ffoukes shrugged. "Perhaps he dislikes you because Jane disliked you? I don't know. He might have nothing to do with it. And do tell, what makes you think Whitwell has anything to do with it?"

Nathaniel quickly summarised the self-destructive demon's story.

"And, what do you intend to do now?" The Minister of Internal Affairs wondered. "How will you prove it was Whitwell – if it was her at all?"

"We will break into her house, and find her notes on her illegal spell experiments," Nathaniel said matter-of-factly.

"And do tell, O Master Mine," Bartimaeus spoke up, "how are you going to prove to all the bigheaded politicians that you have actually seen a self-destructive demon?"

"Easily," Nathaniel replied. "There's a spell that can detect magical activities even days after they happened. For example, if I cast this spell on you, it will show that an imp has recently exploded in your face."

"You mean it can detect the… um… particles of said imp?" The djinni in his Ptolemy form wrinkled his nose, his dark face screwed up with disgust.

Nathaniel shrugged. "Yes."

"Is that like Priori Incantatem?" Martha interjected.

"What?" The three males glanced down at her.

"You know, Priori Incantatem, in Harry Potter, book four. It's a spell that forces the wand to show the last spells it had accomplished. It's a shame its explanation was left out of the movie, but I read the book."

Ffoukes raised an eyebrow at the child. "A five-year-old who can read, and not only Harry Potter but biology books as well… and who knows that babies aren't gifts from the stork… I'm amazed to say the least."

Martha beamed at him proudly. "It's because I'm precocious!"

Ffoukes couldn't hold back a chuckle. "An interesting little girl you have, John."

"Yeah, I know," Nathaniel replied, looking rather smug. By every passing minute he spent together with Martha he got more and more proud of her. She had inherited her mother's disrespectful but courageous nature and his pride and exceptional intelligence. She was simply perfect. "But back to the imp," he carried on, "if I perform the spell in front of all those 'bigheaded politicians', I will have evidence that such a thing has happened to Bartimaeus and if I have evidence that Whitwell has indeed experimented with such spells, then her guilt is proven."

"I wouldn't be so sure in your place," Ffoukes commented. "This all sounds great, but Whitwell can play really dirty. I bet she'll find a way to talk herself out of it."

"Not if we find some other things in her home as well… things we can use against her," Nathaniel said confidently. "I know where she keeps her things and I have no doubt we will manage to access them."

"By 'we', I expect you mean you and I," Bartimaeus grunted.

The young man sent his demon a lopsided grin. "Who else? We're a good team together, aren't we?"

The djinni made a face. "Well, I've had worse masters… like the dead lady on the floor below… I mean, dead Tramp."

"I'm glad you think I'm a better master than Jane was." Nathaniel smirked.

"Just don't get smug," Bartimaeus replied. "I mean, don't get smugger. Not that one could get even smugger than you are now…"

Nathaniel's eyes flashed. "And you make sure you don't get more irritating! Not that one could get even more irritating than you are now."

Ffoukes chuckled. "You two indeed seem to be an excellent team. Just don't kill each other before you complete this mission."

Nathaniel's lips twitched as if he were holding in a smile. "Don't give Bartimaeus ideas."

o o o O O O o o o

Kitty was staring out the window of her luxury prison, Deveraux's office at Whitehall. She had been kept here for several hours. Deveraux had his personal toilet next to his office, so Kitty didn't need to ask the guards to let her out of the office to visit the loo. At six in the morning she was brought a sandwich and a glass of mineral water. She tried to ask questions from the servant who had brought her the food but he wasn't willing to answer any of them. Apparently, Deveraux wanted to keep her in the dark.

Taking the sandwich into her hands, she wondered what Nathaniel could be doing right now. He surely wouldn't be foolish enough to give himself up just because she was here?

She took a bite then put the sandwich down. She simply didn't feel hungry, even though it had been over sixteen hours that she'd last eaten.

'There has to be something emotional about John if he managed to wake feelings like that in you, don't you think, dear?' – the Prime Minister's words echoed in her mind. Life was so unfair. She didn't want to love Nathaniel. She really didn't. She should have been happy to be rid of him and shouldn't have come to try to help him… but she still did come here in the hope of helping him, because she still loved him.

He just doesn't deserve my love, she told herself, angry at the tears that had welled up in her eyes. He's a jerk, an insensitive git, a stuck-up, egoistic, power-hungry arsehole, not to mention a horrible father! He doesn't love anyone or anything, not even our daughter or his mother… only me. She wiped her eyes. But does he really love me? Something deep in her heart told her that he did, that he'd never stopped loving her, no matter what an evil git he had become in the past five years.

Kitty fished a tissue out of her jeans pocket and blew her nose. No, she swore. I won't go soft. Even if he returns and turns out to be innocent and pleads with me to go back to him, I won't. I made that mistake once when I ran into his arms after the Jeremy incident. I won't make the same mistake twice.

She sank into an armchair, and let fatigue take over her. The last tear was still rolling down her cheek when she was already asleep, dreaming about happiness she'd never have with Nathaniel.

o o o O O O o o o

We were sitting in the kid's Ford, driving towards Miss Whitwell's house after his friend had taken Martha with himself to place her under the care of Mrs Ffoukes and their demon (correction: magical entity. Remind me to not call my fellows 'demons'. Not one magical entity deserves that name. Well, perhaps only Faquarl.)

The kid himself was again wearing those horribly Harry Potterish spectacles. Just to annoy him, I turned into Professor Snape. The London streets were still quite deserted, but there were three young women who, when spotting me, started to point and shout 'Aaaaah, Alan Rickman!' (In case you're wondering how I knew what Professor Snape looked like… Well, Kitty was a Potter fan and she used to watch the Potter movies in the Mandrake house before Nat so unkindly forced her to leave for Fenny Bridges. I, being bored with my spy job, usually joined her before the TV set in the form of various insects. I must admit I've become a bit of a McGonagall fan myself. Er… don't ask.)

Staring out the window, I was wondering why I was doing this at all. I had only agreed to help the kid to take revenge on the Tramp and to save little Martha. Martha was safe now and the Tramp wasn't very dangerous in her current state. Oh, before I forget – you might wonder what happened to her body. Well, on our way from the library to the car, we stopped by a telephone box and I called the morgue. I quote:

'Hallo, Morgue?'

'Yeah, who's speaking?'

'It's me.'

'Who?'

'You don't wanna know, trust me. I'm a homeless chap and wanted to spend the night in the library under 5. Red Lion Square and guess what I found there.'

'Er… books?'

'It's a ruin, you moron,' I replied. 'A ruin 'bout to be levelled, so there are no books. Anyway, there was this chick on the floor. Dead. She was clutchin' a gun surely to kill herself but she didn't seem to have used it. I 'spose she must've fallen from the floor above. There was this nasty big hole on the ceiling, you know. I always thought that building wouldn't last long… So anyway, I'm just tellin' you there's someone in the library who's snuffed it. You might wanna take care of her.'

The morgue's call centre boy mumbled something about having better things to do than going to fetch dead people. He was a rather unfriendly fellow. Not that I could imagine anyone working in a morgue friendly. One just doesn't get to talk to people too much there. At least, the sane ones don't. I once knew a pathologist who kept talking to his 'patients'. Funnily, they never replied.

We arrived before an ultra-modern house that seemed to have been made of glass only. The kid parked the Ford on the opposite side of the road to not wake suspicion, then we got out.

The street was deserted – it was six in the morning and people were still dozing in their comfortable beds. Come to think of it, the kid looked very tired. He hadn't slept a wink all night. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, then put the glasses back.

"What kind of defence spells do you detect? And is there anyone at home?" he asked me, stifling a yawn.

I scanned the house on all seven planes. "No one's at home… except for a fourth level djinni. My equal, you'd say, but I have to remind you that I'm quicker and wittier than most, so I'm soooo above him. As for the shields… just the usual. A defence nexus and a contraceptive shield." I made a disgusted face. "I can't imagine Whitwell really needing that contraceptive shield. Who'd want to do that with her?"

"Someone who's completely blind or who's wearing very thick glasses."

"Hmm… you are wearing thick glasses," I pointed out.

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. "Spare me your jokes and deactivate the shield. I trust you can?"

"Piece of cake. It's not even a ringing type of nexus, it won't alarm the djinni, it's just there to hold us back by frying us. But there's no shield that can hold Bartimaeus back!"

The kid again rolled his eyes (I seriously considered telling him that eye-rolling didn't suit him... well, perhaps I'll tell him another time). "And you tell me that I'm over-confident," he grunted. "The pot calling the kettle black."

"Are you going to continue being grouchy or are we going to enter the hag's house at last?" I asked, crossing my arms.

Nathaniel sent me a patronising glance. "Deactivate the shields, Bartimaeus."

"Even the contraceptive one?" I sniggered.

The kid chuckled. "No. I'm sure the world is better off without any Whitwell-offspring."

"Tell you what, I really like your offspring. Though… it must be because she resembles Kitty much more than you…" His scowl silenced me. "Okay, okay, off to work, then."

In no time, the defence nexus was down. I felt a bit of a tremor in the air when I deactivated it, but decided not to worry Nathaniel with it. I might have only been imagining things.

The kid stepped to a tiny console on the wall right next to the door and began pushing various buttons.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Whitwell isn't foolish enough to use only magical shields. She always liked modern technology and has her house full of these gadgets," Nathaniel replied as the door whooshed open.

"How come you know the code?" I frowned.

"I knew it when I was living here."

"One would expect that bony hag to be cleverer than to keep using the same code for a decade."

"Oh, this is one she wouldn't change," the kid said with a smirk. "And if my suspicion is right, then she uses this code for pretty much everything in this house."

I raised an eyebrow at him as I followed him into the house.

He kept grinning. "Even a hag like her used to be in love, though she'd never admit it to anyone. She had a serious crush on Quentin Makepeace and she has no idea I noticed it. Naturally, she gave me only a series of numbers: 7836846, which, on the keyboard of a phone or mobile phone stands for 'quentin'. Dear Miss Whitwell never thought I figured it out that it's not just a series of numbers… that it means much more to her… This is another reason why she'd hate me enough to want to ruin my life: I sent her precious Quentin to the Tower where he committed suicide."

I smiled. Just imagining Jessica Whitwell in love with someone was hilarious. Suddenly, the smile disappeared from my face as a vicious warrior in a karate outfit burst into the hall with a battle cry. Hmm… so the tremor that was caused by my deactivating the shield hadn't gone unnoticed by Whitwell's demon. I suspected the guy must have been a Jackie Chan fan. He sneered at us. "At last. I've been waiting for intruders for years. Come, my sweets, let me rip you apart!"

The kid and I exchanged a look. Neither of us liked being called 'sweets'. It was so degrading, as though we were a pair of blonde teenage girls.

"May I put him in his place?" I asked my master.

Nat nodded. "I give you free hand, Bartimaeus."

With a grin, I jumped at the Jackie Chan-wannabe.

o o o O O O o o o

A/N: there, I've killed off Jane for you as a Christmas gift ;) Since there will not be any more updates before Christmas, I'm wishing you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS:)

And now, review, please! ;)