Chapter 14

"You can't just keep offering random people jobs without my permission." Nevada said after Emerson had called him to ask about Jane's job.

"I do ask for permission." Emerson insisted.

"Only after you've promised whoever it is that they will get the job, so it makes it impossible for me to say no."

"Of course, why do you think I do it?"

"Well you can't just offer jobs at the Guild to random people."

"Jane isn't a random person; she's worked as the personal assistant for half of her life to one of the most successful businessman this world has ever seen."

"She's still a mortal, she might not know about magic." Nevada suggested.

"She's worked as the personal assistant to a tall spiderlike creature that can change its shape." Emerson pointed out and Nevada was quiet for a while, obviously pondering it. "It really is for the good of the mission." Emerson added.

"Ok." Nevada agreed. "But no more jobs for random strangers ok?"

"Ok, thanks." Emerson said gratefully.

"This mission better be goddamn worth it." Nevada muttered and hung up.

Emerson put the phone down and walked back into the living room where the others were waiting.

"Nevada said yes." He said, and then to Jane. "He'll be in contact soon."

"Great." Jane said happily, having recovered from her crying fit. "Thank you for all your help."

"It's fine, don't mention it." Emerson said.

"And thanks for the information about Rysk." Amya added quickly and Emerson glanced quizzically at her but she shrugged him off.

"I guess we'll probably see you around." Amya said and led the way out.

Emerson made a break for the front and got in next to Amya. When they were all in, Emerson asked,

"Why did we say thank you?"

"Because we were being polite, and she gave us information which she didn't need to give." Amya explained as if she were addressing a child.

"Oh." Emerson said, not quite understanding.

"So where to?" Alasdair asked.

Emerson looked back at him with a frown on his face. "Were you not listening?" he asked.

"No, why?" Alasdair replied shamelessly.

"No reason." Emerson replied and Amya shook her head again. Well, Jane said that Rysk had gone to Hamburg in Germany." Emerson continued.

"I've been there." Alasdair said much to the others relief.

"Great." Amya said relieved. "I thought we might have to go by plane."

"What's wrong with going by plane? You practise air mastery, surely you love flying?" Emerson asked and Amya shot an icy glare at him.

"No, I like flying." Amya snapped a little too quickly. "I just thought it would take too long, that's all." She insisted but it was obvious that that was not all.

"Ok, well we can't take the car, so we can leave it at my house." Emerson said.

"I know that's where I'm going." Amya said quietly but with an obvious edge to her voice.

"Great, I like Germany, it's a nice place." Emerson said contentedly.

After a few minutes of silence, Alasdair said:

"Wait, Germany's the one with the koalas, right?"

Once they'd reached Emerson and Caiden's house, they waited in the car for a while, while Emerson finished off explaining which country Germany was and where in Germany they were meant to be going.

"Ok, so hamburger in Germany." Alasdair said finally.

"No, Hamburg." Emerson corrected.

"Right, of course, hamburger's the food. Actually that name does ring a bell."

"What Hamburg? Great." Emerson exclaimed relieved.

"No, Germany. I think I might have been there once." Alasdair explained and Emerson closed his eyes and started banging his head against the window.

"You know what?" Amya started taking charge. "How about we just show you a map, a few pictures and then you go."

"Sure." Alasdair said simply.

Emerson stopped banging his head against the window and looked up, a dangerous light in his eyes. "You're saying you could just look at a map and then go there?" he asked his voice dangerously quiet.

"Yeah, it's pretty easy." Alasdair replied completely missing the warning signs that Amya was trying to subtly give to him.

"It's pretty easy?!"

"Yeah, all I have to see is where it is in the world compared to other places, and then I can teleport there." Alasdair explained.

"And you didn't think to mention that earlier when I was trying to teach you to distinguish Berlin from the outback?" Emerson shouted.

"Oh yeah." Alasdair realised. "That might have made it a bit easier."

"You think?" Emerson asked sarcastically.

"You know what, it really doesn't matter. At least Alasdair can get us there." Amya reasoned, sensing that Emerson was quite ready to tear Alasdair's head off.

"How about we go inside, sit down with a map and have a bite to eat before we go?" Amya suggested.

"Good idea; and I could make some tea." Alasdair said helpfully and Emerson snapped.

"You are not making tea!" Emerson shouted.

"What do you have against tea?" Alasdair asked unfazed by Emerson's outburst.

"I don't mind tea just, that you continue to make more and more."

"It's because I'm British." Alasdair insisted.

"That doesn't mean you should be obsessed with tea!" Emerson snapped back.

For the first time, Alasdair seemed affected by Emerson's words, he looked hurt. He wasn't sure what to say, how to reply to Emerson's derogatory manner.

"But…" he tried, but stumbled on his words and then didn't say anything else. He looked at Amya helplessly for help.

"How about we just go inside. Alasdair you can make some tea, Emerson you don't have to have any if you don't want to." Amya reasoned.

"Whatever, I guess doing nothing isn't going to get us to Germany." Emerson decided, opened the car door and started towards his house.

Alasdair looked at Amya gratefully and then she followed Emerson with the others after her. As soon as they got in, Emerson went to get a map, Alasdair began to make some tea and the others sat down in the living room. By the time Emerson had found and returned with a map, Alasdair had finished making the tea and they all had a mug.

Luckily, Alasdair had had the sense not to make a cup for Emerson. Well, he was going to, but Amya warned him that if he wanted to keep all his teeth intact, he wouldn't make another cup, Amya wasn't surprised when he took her advice.

"What took you so long?" Alasdair asked and Emerson glared at him but answered anyway.

"I had to look up in the attic, you should go up there, everything's kind of clumped together, in a huge… pile… I think there could be a nest of rats up there… we should probably get it checked out…" Emerson said his face screwed up in thought.

"Emerson." Amya said, jolting him back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, the map, of course." He replied and handed a map of Germany to Alasdair.

Once Amya had explained, with help from the map where Hamburg was, they all appeared to be ready to go, however Emerson had one more question.

"Just one question: Did Jane give us any more, kind of direct instructions of Rysk's whereabouts."

"What do you mean?" Amya asked confused.

"Where in Hamburg exactly is Rysk?" Emerson asked and Amya's face fell so far it nearly hit the floor.

"Poop." She said crestfallen.

"If it helps, he's most likely in a building…" Alasdair offered helpfully but everyone ignored him.

"I guess we'll have to call Jane up again and ask her…" Amya said, totally beaten.

"I studied geography for my A Levels." Jeremy said but he was ignored. "I even went to Hamburg on a trip with my college once." He continued.

"I really don't think the sights of Hamburg are gonna help us at the moment Jeremy." Emerson snapped and Jeremy shrank back a bit.

"Actually, the sights of Hamburg would probably be quite useful." Ryker said quietly, but everyone jumped anyway because he hadn't spoken for ages.

"Oh, Ryker, hey, I forgot you were there." Emerson muttered. "How exactly would the sights of Hamburg help us?" Emerson asked doubtfully.

"Well Jeremy, I presume you know of the best hotels in Hamburg?" Ryker guessed.

"Some of them yes." Jeremy confirmed.

"Someone like Navaryous Rysk would only ever stay in the best accommodation, correct?" Ryker asked.

"From what I gather, yes." Amya agreed.

"Jeremy, about how many of the big hotels in Hamburg do you know of?"

"As I said, some." Jeremy answered.

"Could you probably show us online which are the biggest and most expensive?" Ryker asked hopefully.

"Yeah, sure." Jeremy said, obviously happy with the opportunity Ryker had given him.

"Great." Ryker exclaimed. "We're gonna need a laptop."

Once they had distinguished which were the most likely hotels that Rysk would be staying in, they were finally ready to go. They had been left with for hotels and they had decided to do the logical thing and start with the most expensive one first as that was the one Rysk was most likely at.

"So you're sure you know which country Germany is?" Amya asked Alasdair.

"Yeah, pretty much." Alasdair replied.

"Pretty much?" Amya asked worried.

"Yep, almost sixty percent certain." Alasdair decided and Amya's face went dark.

"Sixty percent isn't too bad." Emerson said quickly sensing Amya was on the edge.

"Sixty percent could land us in any one of the over two hundred countries in the world!" Amya snapped.

"Fair point…" Emerson conceded. "But I'm sure we'll be fine."

"We'd better be, otherwise your face is gonna take a turn for the worst." Amya practically growled at Alasdair.

"And on that happy note, let's get going." Emerson said cheerily.

"Finally." Amya said exasperated.

"Oh, no wait, I need to get something." Emerson said quickly and Amya's face dropped again.

Once Emerson had got himself completely sorted, they were actually ready to go, Alasdair told everyone to grab on, and so they did.

"If I see any camels…" Amya muttered, letting the threat hang in the air, just as they disappeared.

When Emerson opened his eyes, they were in a city, no desert, good start. Luckily they'd appeared in a side alleyway where no-one seemed to be around. Emerson glanced at Amya, she didn't seem too annoyed and she hadn't lashed out at Alasdair yet so she obviously thought they might be in the right place.

"Well, we're certainly somewhere, but the question is where?" Amya said more to herself than anyone else.

Emerson saw some movement in the corner of his eye and he turned to see what seemed to be a nasty looking gang of eight nasty looking young men. His companions had also noticed and had all turned to face the gang of youths. One of them said something in another language that Emerson recognised as German, Emerson couldn't understand what he was saying, but he got the idea. The youth was asking them what they were doing in his territory. To Emerson's surprise, Amya replied in perfect German, the gang laughed at Amya's response.

"What'd you say?" Emerson asked her.

"I told them we came here to rip of their Frankfurters and shove them down their throats." Amya replied and Emerson looked at her disbelievingly.

"What? I'm bored." She justified. "Anyway, if you were the one who could speak German, you could call the shots, but as it is, I'm the only one of us who speaks any of the language."

"I didn't even know you knew any German." Emerson replied.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me."

The German gang had obviously been preparing for a confrontation as they had pulled out a variety of different weapons. Some had flick knives, some much larger, heavier knives, another had a crowbar, and one, the one who had spoken up earlier, even had a machete. They were laughing to each other, and had begun to advance towards Emerson and the others. Amya looked at Emerson and Emerson looked at the others.

"No magic right guys?" he said.

"Whatever, let's just make this quick and brutal." Alasdair confirmed, and Ryker clicked his knuckles in agreement.

Emerson, Ryker, Amya and Alasdair started forward to meet their adversaries leaving Jeremy to stand, unmoving behind them.

"I'll watch your back." He said and Emerson grunted in reply.

The fight started brutally, one side easily on top of the other. With each of the four dispatching their enemies both effectively and violently. The Germans were down within a minute, all eight of them either unconscious or in too much pain to get up again.

"Well that was fun." Emerson said after kneeing the guy with the machete in the face, exploding his nose. The unfortunate youth collapsed onto the ground and began to groan, but made no effort at all to get back up again.

"Yeah, it was. There's nothing like a group of friends beating up young, annoying and violent Germans together is there?" Alasdair agreed.

"Wow, you guys are psychopaths." Jeremy muttered.

"Nah, just moderate sociopaths." Emerson corrected. "Now why don't we go and find this lovely hotel that our friend Rysk is staying in, I really feel like making things squeal."

A/N: Finally, Chapter 14. I'm so sorry it took so long to release, I've been busy and lazy (a really bad mix) so I haven't done much writing at all recently. I hope this makes up for it a little bit (haha no, nothing can make up for what I've done) but I am genuinely sorry if you actually like reading this (the one person of you out there) and got a bit annoyed that I haven't updated for ages. Thanks so much for reading, feel free to follow, favourite if you want. Please review, it means so much to me when people do. Thanks.

Mangobean.