Everyone was pretty much used to dinners on the table of the Manechester table by now. They all made the non-spoken agreement of either keeping to themselves or interacting only with the people who want to have a word with them.
That's to say that everyone pretty much limited themselves to their own little groups, which often were sitting together.
The air was a bit heavy with tension between the people on the table who blatantly disliked each other, like Caitlyn and Carolyn, like Angus and Gabe... well there was a few people on the table who blatantly disliked Angus, including Gazelle and his own father.
Luckily, Adrian seemed to be too busy to pay too much attention on Angus or anyone else on the table, including his own wife, who was sitting right by his side. He was way too busy texting on the phone, trading messages with someone on England...
And Yahya, likewise, was too busy to pay attention to his own son, as he continued to discuss things with Gosha, mostly asking him about the barrier he and the others put around the house and how it protected the ones inside from external threats. It was quite the interesting subject, and Gosha did sound like he knew exactly what he was talking about, showing how much more experienced on the matter he was compared to his grandson, who tried to scam the Manechesters under influence of his delinquent friend.
He was asking the wolf if he could maybe work something similar for a protection around the headquarters of the Beastar Corps, for a fair compensation, of course, while feeding some things from his plate to the other dog who was really close to him.
This was Dogo's first time taking part on a dinner of the family. However, he was not sitting on a chair like the others. Instead, he was on all fours on the ground, sitting on his haunches or laying down. He was going around each one of the people on the table, as he stopped by their side and looked up at them, making puppy-dog eyes as he whined.
"Are you seriously begging for scraps right now?" Charlie asked to the dog, who was doing that little "hungry pooch" show to Euphemia, who looked at him for a while, before giving him a piece of celery from her plate, which Dogo quickly devoured.
"Don't give him food!" Charlie said to his wife. "If we keep feeding him then he is never going to leave!"
Euphemia ignored her husband and went back to eating, while Dogo went back to going from person to person and seeing if any of them would give him something to eat, using his puppy dog eyes to their fullest effect so he could get as many threats as he could, sometimes even laying his head on their laps for an extra "d'awww" effect, before eventually going back to Yahya and laying, quite literally, by his hooves.
His presence certainly added something to this otherwise uneventful dinner, which soon came to an end.
And that was when Chandler happily announced that it was time to continue their game, and the players all went to have the game continued. With some people accompanying coming right behind them. Including two members of the Beastar Corps who Yahya made sure to add as an extra precaution to ensure everyone's safety.
"This is practically a gameshow now." Nick whispered to his partner as the players all got in position, with the many accompanying people serving as an audience for the next challenge: a pool game
Pool was, by nature, a long game, so this meant that all the participants would be in there for a while. And this also meant that they could have a conversation while playing their game.
"Seriously, I would have loved to be able to know a guy as amazing as Gosha Drachenwolf." Josh said as he got ready to hit the white ball. "I'd like to ask the guy about a couple of his adventures from before he retired. I mean, a heard a lot about them from other people, but it's mostly hearsay. And there is the fact that a lot of it is classified because it involved some pretty sensitive stuff."
"What, was the guy like, some kind of secret agent or something?" Charles asked as he stood between Hannah, who was Josh's double, and his wife, who was his own.
"Well, enforcers could be considered secret agents by default, considering the secrecy related with the works of the Mage's Association." Euphemia chimed in as she stood by the side of her husband, they were both waiting for the cheetah to make his move.
"You got that right, sweet hooves." Josh said with a smile as he hit the ball with the tip of his stick, hitting the ball and making it hit two other balls. Neither of which entered their holes, although one of them came close.
"Uhh, I thought I had it..."
"You will get the next one." Penny said to her brother as she stood by along with the other people watching the game. Meanwhile, on the other pool tables of that specific game room, the other mammals were having their own little competitions, as the doubles played games against each other, with the winners earning the right to see the clues.
"So, people still giving you a hard time?" Ben asked as he and Gazelle stood alongside with Marcy, as Tyson was now taking a shot at hitting the balls. The popstar nodded.
"They still seem to think I am somehow being mind-controlled by Tyson and the others. That they put me under a spell that keeps me from acknowledging that they were responsible." Gazelle said, a scowl on her face. "They keep telling me to try and fight it, and some of them are even saying that they are sending energy to me through their prayers, or something like that, and that they hope I can see the truth soon..."
Ben looked down. He was unsure of what to say, so he just gave her the stereotypical supporting advice of "don't let them get to you, it will be okay". It was cheap, and the chubby cheetah knew it, but he still got a nod and a "thank you" from Gazelle, and this meant a lot for him. Meanwhile, Tyson hit his ball and got it in the corner, then he turned to Gazelle and told it was her turn, and soon the popstar was walking forward and taking place to take her shot.
Meanwhile, on the other table, the people in there were having a conversation as well... or trying.
"Melon?" Legoshi said, causing the hybrid to snap out of it as he had been looking on Josh's direction. "It's your turn."
"What? Oh, yeah, yeah, right, give me that stick." The hybrid said and picked the piece of wood from the wolf's hand, walking and getting into position as he was in front of the ball as he prepared to hit it with his cue stick.
And his mother and father were both by his sides as he got ready.
"You know, you two don't need to be so close." The hybrid said in annoyance to his own parents. "I am not going to slip and try to set the house on fire."
"You got that right, boy." Lumia said, "You are not because we are not giving you the chance to do it."
"Mom, Dad, I love you two. But I really preferred when you two were not here."
"Well, that's too bad, because we are not going anywhere unless you are coming with us."
Melon said something under his breath.
"What was that, boy?"
"Nothing!" the hybrid said, immediately flinching as he suddenly looked scared, and then saying that he would be making his move now. Next, he hit the cue ball and managed to get ball 11 into the corner. After a little celebration, he tried again with another one of the balls, only to miss this time.
After he missed, it was the turn of Nick and Judy. And, since the table they were playing into, as well as the cue sticks, were made for much bigger animals, this meant Nick and Judy had to literally stand on the table and work together to operate the stick and hit the balls with it.
They struggled a bit on the first moves, but soon they got the hang of it, and they started performing very well, and they eventually won the game.
"We are a mean, two-piece pooling machine!" Nick said proudly as he stood by the side of his partner after they got the last balls, which then were calculated into the score and determined that the two cops were the winners. Legoshi applauded them, while Melon grumbled under his breath, what granted him his mother telling him to "lose with elegance".
Meanwhile, the other teams also got their final scores, with Euphemia and Charles being the winners on their table over Josh and Hannah, and with Ben and Marcy defeating Gazelle and Tyson, what granted Gabe to applaud Ben's victory alongside Angus, who had a smirk on his face as he politely applauded the result.
"Okay, now. I will have to, once more, ask the losers to wait outside while I share the clue with those who won."
"I will tell you the clue later." Ben said to both Gazelle and his brother, who nodded at him as they went.
"Let's go, Legoshi." Melon said to the wolf, who was soon walking right behind him. And so were Lumia and Tibor.
"Seriously!?"
"Okay then!" Chandler said as he looked at the remaining players. "Now, for being the champions in our pre-Halloween pool tournament, you have all earned the right to see this." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "Take as much time as you need looking but be sure to pass it around so others can see it as well."
And soon, that one piece of paper was passed around for everyone, as they took looks into it. Eventually, the paper made it to Nick's paws, and the fox looked at it with a raised eyebrow, before passing it over to Judy, who took it and eagerly looked at the paper. At the very top, were the words "ITEMS MAIL DELIVERED TO THE MANECHESTER MANSION BETWEEN 18th AND 22nd OF OCTOBER".
"A package of sleeping pills... a tightly wrapped painting frame and a couple statues... a small ornated box of wood... a pair of orthopedic horseshoes?" Judy said, reading the items of the list to herself. "What does this has to do with... wait a minute..."
Judy read the items again in second, and that was when she realized it.
The wooden box.
A small one. The kind that could contain a small jewel.
Or a cursed bug.
One look at Nick was enough to tell Judy that he had caught it on as well.
"Okay, everyone has saw the clue now?" Chandler asked, and the winners all confirmed they had, with the last one being Marcy, who nodded and then lighted a fire on the tip of her finger and used it to set the small paper on fire.
Everyone stared at her as she did that.
"Sorry, force of habit." Marcy said as she placed the half-burnt paper into an ashtray. "Hope that wasn't important."
"Nah, just some old paper I used to write the clue. As long as you all read and memorized it, then there is no problem." Chandler said dismissively. "Now, what about I take you guys to the place of our next challenge? And don't worry, this one won't take as long as the pool tournament."
Just as they were leaving, they were approached by a butler, who then let Mr. and Mrs. Horne know that their presence was being requested.
"The security team wants to repass the protections you have put around the house and to know what they need to watch for or be careful about." He explained, and Tibor and Lumia both shared a look.
"Is this important? We need to watch over those two idiots." Lumia pointed at Legoshi and Melon as she said those words, causing the wolf who look down and the hybrid to roll his eyes.
"They assure it is important. Master Yahya himself requested you two to come and give them a rundown on the protections as to avoid possible complications."
"It won't take too long." Chandler said to the couple. "Maybe a couple of minutes, if even that much. We will be going to meet with you as soon as it's done. We can keep an eye on the boys and make sure that they don't cause trouble. I mean, how much trouble would they even be able to cause in just a couple minutes?"
Tibor seemed to have an answer to this:
"Plenty."
"Master Yahya requested me to bring you as quickly as possible, if you don't mind." The butler urged, and he talked to the two of them, who shared a look again. Tibor shrugged at his wife, and then Lumia groaned.
"Fine." She said, turning to Chandler and recommending him to keep a very close eye on the two, especially Melor.
"I'm serious, Manechester. You don't know the trouble this boy can get himself into if you let him even entertain the idea of acting stupid." Lumia warned, before turning to Melor. "Behave and don't do anything idiotic. I am not kidding."
With this, Lumia and her husband both went with the butler, who guided them away. Once they were gone, Melor let out a sigh.
"Finally! Some room to breathe!"
And then, Chandler reminded everyone that they still had a game to finish.
"So, we will have to stay in here for how long?" Eliot asked as he looked around the place, taking in just how fancy it all was.
"For as long as it takes for me to be sure you will be safe." Gerald said with an indifferent expression, although Eliot could certainly tell that his friend was worried with both him and his wife.
"But that could take a long time if you don't ask for Bogo's help!" Eliot said. "Oh, did you... did you changed your mind about telling Bogo what I did?"
Gerald looked at Eliot. Once more the wolf found it difficult to figure out what exactly was going on behind those apparently cold eyes.
"No, I have not." Gerald said. "What you did was totally against protocol, illegal, and deserving of being both fired and prosecuted. But you did it to protect your family..." He cast a glance at Chloe, who was sitting on the fancy bed on the bedroom, with her hands over her stomach protectively.
"Your actions are reprehensible, but your motives were certainly not, and I am sure anyone will agree."
"Yeah, I hope Bogo agrees with you." Eliot said, "And Judy and Nick too. Seriously, if they don't forgive me, I may never get to be their best mammal."
"I am more worried about you being arrested, but I do see your point." Gerald said, "Anyways, you can stay in here for as long as you need to. I will try and find more about Tasman and see if I can gather enough intel on him to send to the enforcers."
"Can't you just go and tell them to arrest him?" Eliot asked, and Chloe, shaking her head, said he could not.
"The Tasman clan is a very noble one, especially after they broke contact with the Mage's Association alongside the other thylacine clans. In fact, among the mage thylacine community, they are so feared and love that they are almost royalty. If you want the enforcers to be able to truly go after Kolby, then you will need irrefutable evidence, so he won't be able to squirm his way out of the accusations, even with the help of the other thylacine clans."
Eliot looked at his wife, and he nodded.
So... her psycho ex is basically, like, a thylacine prince? Are those still a thing? Eliot caught himself thinking. And she always told me not to worry about him...
"I will talk to a few acquittances of mine and see if they can get me more information." Gerald said "Too bad that you lost the files, they could have been useful, but it's okay, the enforcers are already looking into him. But chances are he already knows and is covering his tracks, so I will see if I can find something they can use for their advantage. Meanwhile, it is better if you stay here and out of sight."
"But what if Bogo asks for me?" The panther had an answer ready to the wolfs question:
"I will tell him that you found out your wife is pregnant, and that you requested for time off work so you could help her during the pregnancy because the doctor said it could be a delicate one. Sounds believable, and not a complete lie. You can work something around those lines if Bogo tries calling you and asking any questions."
"Right..." Eliot said, looking around the room. "Man, this place is so fancy! This must be costing you a fortune, Gerald!"
"Not really." Gerald said, "It belongs to a friend. He owed me a favor, and I decided to call it in. You two can stay for as long as needed. It is free and it is one hundred percent safe, no mage will be able to even find you. Room service is also on the house, so ask for anything you need, but do not call just for fun."
With this, Gerald turned around and walked to the door. However, before he could leave, Eliot stopped him.
"Thank you, Ger." Eliot said to the panther. "You are a great friend."
Gerald looked at him for a few moments, before nodding.
"You're welcome, partner. Stay safe, please."
And he closed the door, leaving Eliot and Chloe alone on their room. Soon, the wolf was going to his wife and sitting with her on the bed, once more asking her if she was okay, and if there was nothing wrong with their baby, to what Chloe, for the twentieth time since the warehouse, confirmed to her husband she was.
"I'm so happy for hearing it..." Eliot said, and he placed at his paws on her stomach. He knew that it was only the beginning of her pregnancy, and that he should not be able to feel anything. However, he was sure that he could feel the form of their little one growing in there, and he himself could not believe it.
"We are going to be parents..." Eliot said, half to himself, half to Chloe. He could feel a single tear running down his cheek, which Chloe wiped out.
"Yes... We are." Chloe said to him with a smile. However, that smile was not as big as she had hoped it would be when she originally planned to share the news with her husband.
"I really wish that Kolby had not come back and ruined everything..." She said, and Eliot could only hold her paws in his', promising to her that he would make sure the enforcers gave Kolby a sealing designation, not noticing the queasy look that passed by Chloe's features as she heard her husband say something like that with such casualness, showing that he clearly didn't understood clearly what the punishment of a sealing designation entailed...
"And if he tries to come close to you again, I will fight him!" Eliot said, "I can do it now!"
Chloe looked at him, and she thought about it.
"Yeah... yeah you can..." Chloe said, and She held Eliot's paws. She focused, causing her magic circuits to light up. As they did, the resonance caused Eliot's own circuits to light up as well, causing his skin to tingle.
"I'm gonna need a while to get used to those..." Eliot said as he looked at the circuits. "They are pretty, though. Like yours!"
Eliot was still the same as always. Once more, he did not truly understand what having magic circuits on his body entailed.
He did not understand that this made him a mage or, at the very least, a spellcaster. That it irrevocably made him part of the Moonlit World.
What meant that now he was even deeper into it and the dangers it carried than only from being married with an ex-mage.
And it was all the doing of that thing.
"What even is that?" Chloe asked as she cast a glance at the object, which they had wrapped neatly into a piece of pillow casing to keep them from making direct eye contact with it. It was a request from Gerald, as he claimed that looking at the object was giving him uncanny feelings of desiring to touch and hold it.
To that, Eliot could only shrug.
"No clue. The Enforcers didn't say anything about it. I have the impression Judy and Nick knew something, but neither of them said anything either. All I know is that is important, and that Tasman wanted it for some reason. Enough to kidnap you and blackmail me into stealing it for him."
Chloe nodded.
"It's a good thing Kolby didn't put his paws on that." She said, "If it can give magic circuits to a non-mage, then there is no saying what else it could do."
"Yeah, and it taught me that spell too!" Eliot said, but Chloe was not so sure.
"Take off your shirt." She said to her husband, "Your pants too."
Eliot, naturally, misinterpreted what Chloe meant.
"Pumpkin, I am happy that you are okay and we are together again, but I don't think this is the moment for this. Besides, I heard somewhere that doing it too much can be harmful to a baby."
Chloe could only shake her head and explain to her husband that it was not it. Soon, Eliot had removed his shirt and pants, and then Chloe placed her paws on his chest and repeated what she just did. This time, the magic circuits were visible all over Eliot's body, from his head down to his legs and even on his tail.
However, Chloe's attention was focused to a certain mass of circuits that was on the left side of Eliot's chest.
"Why do those look different from the others?" Eliot asked as he looked at the thing on his chest, which was a half-moon filled with a crisscross, intricate cat's cradle-like filling in it, which was quite different from the spiral-like pattern on the other circuits running across his skin.
"A magic crest." Chloe said, "A set of magic circuits that have been turned into a record for thaumaturgical knowledge. An archive with a spell-list saved inside."
"Did the glowing thing gave me that as well!?" Eliot asked, looking at the half-moon, which soon vanished from sight along the rest of his circuits, but Eliot was still looking at the area where it had once been.
"So, there are, like, spells stored in it and I can access them at any time I want?" Eliot asked, and he continued to ask a few more questions. Chloe, however, was there to reign in his current excitement.
"Eliot, I think you should refrain from using your circuits for now." Chloe said to him. "It could be risky if you don't know how to use them. So, try to avoid using magecraft for the moment. I will teach you how to access and use them, okay?"
Eliot looked at his wife, and he nodded at her.
"Yes, you are right... besides, there is something way, WAY more important than magic circuits that I need to worry about now."
The seriousness with which Eliot said that caused Chloe to tense a bit. But only until Eliot said:
"We need to decide a name for our baby! Let's make a list! Where there's paper and a pen?"
Chloe could only laugh and shake her head at her husband's antics.
She was so glad that she could still live to see it.
While Eliot was preparing to write down and discuss names ideas for their upcoming cub with Chloe, Gerald was making his way to the exit of the place where the two of them would be staying. But he would not be leaving before someone else stopped to have a word with him.
"You know, I knew that at some point you would come to call in the one favor I owed you." Said a wolf. This, however, was not Eliot. This wolf was taller than Eliot, who was short for a wolf, standing on six-and-a-half feet tall, and he had dark-grey fur and honey-colored eyes. He was wearing a fancy suit as he came out from the hallway where he had been standing, looking at Gerald with crossed arms.
"But I did think that would include offering you asylum against them. Not to give it to someone else against 'general threats that might come'."
Gerald stopped and looked at the wolf for a few moments, and then he said:
"They are my friends, and they are in danger. It seemed worth using this favor for their safety."
The wolf, on his end, could only chuckle.
"You are a good mammal." The wolf said, "Even if you may not be a real one."
Gerald looked at him a while more, before simply saying:
"Please, look after them and make sure they are safe. I am holding on to you for this, Villalobos."
Without another word, the panther walked down the hallway until he walked out of the building, and the wolf continued to smile as he watched the panther leave. He could still feel his presence as he was outside, as he was following him through the bounded field around the place.
He had to pay attention, otherwise he would let him slip. The panther had been made to be the perfect spy and assassin, after all...
He was hard to notice in moments like that. Unlike that wolf who he brought, who might as well have been buzzing a horn while carrying a neon sign with the words "LOOK AT ME" in it.
Yes, that wolf was certainly easy to notice, and Villalobos knew that others would notice him as soon as they came close.
"Things have been so hectically interesting lately." The wolf said a with a smile, as he rubbed the ring on his right paw with his fingers. "To think I would live long enough to see the return of the Wolfram Magic Crest... Heh. I wonder what the Bellwether clan will say about that. Maybe Fanghanel would be safer if he lived here forever... Well, time to see if everyone in the club is having fun."
With this, the wolf walked down the hallway, taking the path that would lead back to the club he owned on that very same building.
"So... what kind of challenge is this exactly?" Melon asked as he and the others took in the set up of the room they were into, with twelve small stands. In each one of the stands, laid two goblets on top of a tray.
"It is a logic challenge." Chandler said. "The goal here is to drink the from the right goblet. For that, you will have to figure out the side which contains the wine, and which one contains the poison.
"P-poison?" Legoshi asked, but Chandler was sure to tell the wolf it was not real poison, and that this was only part of the game.
"One of the cups has grape juice. The other has a... special mixture. Don't worry, it is not toxic, but the flavor is not good, take my word to this."
"So, basically we have to figure out which of the cups is safe to drink no?" Effie asked, to what someone said that this was obvious. Chandler, on his end, just nodded. "So, it is safe to assume that there will be some kind of clue, no?"
"Indeed." Chandler said, and then he pulled out another piece of paper from his pocket.
"How many of those do he has?" Nick asked to his partner, who mostly ignored him and looked at Chandler, paying close attention to what the horse was saying as he read from the paper:
"Before you are two cups. The cup on your left contains a deadly poison. The one at your right contains a delectable wine."
Judy kept hearing closely, not wanting to miss anything.
"However, before you can drink from the wine, you look at the before you and realize its wrong." The horse continued, "You move the clock's arms backwards three hours. Then the clock spins two hours forward by itself. To correct and compensate, you move it backwards two hours. And then, as you expected it to, the clock moves forwards an hour. With satisfaction, you can finally drink your wine as the clock moved back to an hour before."
Everyone looked at him, some of them trading looks.
"What does that even mean?" Charles asked, and Chandler only smiled and said:
"That's for you to figure out. Now, each one of you get to a stand. You have two minutes to figure out what is the right goblet and drink from it."
Soon, everyone was rushing to a stand where they fit.
As soon as Judy arrived on her stand, she put herself to think and try to figure out what the clue should be about.
It said something about the clock before them?
All stands were facing the same wall of the room. There was not a single clock on that wall.
Maybe it was not literal?
Maybe it was something else?
Just as Judy was thinking about it, she then noticed something about the tray that the two goblets were standing on.
It was clock!
That was the clock that Chandler was referring to! The clock right in front of them!
But... she could not see the hours. The clock had no pointers. Actually... this clock looked strange, and Judy soon realized that the reason why because the clock only had two hours. It was a full circular analogic clock, but each one of the "hours" took half of the clock.
At that moment, it was as if all the pieces came together into Judy's mind. She knew how to solve the riddle now.
She went over what Chandler said again. Move the clock three hours backwards. That meant counter-clockwise. In this case, it meant spinning the trail to the left three times, causing the goblets in it to spin as well, changing their original position.
And then, the clock would move itself two hours forward. This meant two movements clockwise.
And then, two more movements counter-clockwise, followed by one movement clockwise.
So, with the goblets on top of the "clock", this meant that the initial position of the goblet with the wine was on the right. Then it was left, and then right, and then left. Then it went back to right and then left. Then right and then left. And then, with the final clockwise movement, the goblet was back at the original position.
What meant, that the right choice was right!
"Thirty seconds to go, guys!" Chandler announced, and Judy just grabbed the goblet and she was about to gulp it down when she stopped.
At that moment, she remembered the end of the instructions.
The clock returned to an hour before.
All things considered, that could mean that the goblets were back on their original position. However, the way the phrase was built was what called Judy's attention.
It said an hour before. Not the hour before. As in, it was not talk about the goblets being on the same position, but about the clock moving back a whole hour.
This meant that the tray would be spun one movement counter-clockwise.
What meant that, in this case, the goblet with the wine would be on the left instead!
But, was that really it? Or was that just a mistake of the phrasing? Was she only overthinking it and there was no secret clue on the end of the message that told to spin the tray to the left? Was the one on the right the correct one and she was about to make a stupid mistake by choosing the cup on the left?
"Fifteen seconds, guys! Decide now!"
As Judy went back and fourth on her head about that being it or not for nearly seven seconds, she finally made her decision by the time Chandler had started the countdown.
She picked the one on the left and, once she downed it, she realized...
It was the correct one.
She could recognize the clear favor of grapes against her tongue, and she knew she had chosen the right one. Some, however, had not, as she could tell from the sounds of disgust coming from a few of the participants as they tasted the juice and found it to not be good at all.
"What is this!?" Tyson said as she tasted the disgusting liquid.
"Grape juice as well." Chandler explained. "But this one was mixed with a quarter of vinegar."
"Yeah, I can certainly feel it! Dang!" Josh said as he clicked his tongue, trying to get rid of the taste. By his side, Melor was looking at the cup from which he just drank with an empty expression.
"Did I got it right? I literally went with the one on the right."
"Then you went wrong. The one on the left was the correct." Chandler confirmed, "And, from your reactions, I can tell that Wilde, Ben, Marcy, Gazelle, Effie and Hopps all got it right. Well done, guys!"
"Yeah, the 'go back an hour before' bit nearly got me." Nick said, and Judy thought the same thing. He told the losers to go wait outside as he showed the winners the clue they earned.
Which was a broken watch.
"What is this?" Ben asked, to what Chandler answered:
"This is a really expensive watch made of gold and bejeweled with six twenty carats diamonds. It belonged to Mister Blackson before his sad passing. It was found after his death, as it was not on his person when he died, even though he was confirmed to have it by the time he went into the bar to talk to Gazelle."
The way Chandler said this made it seem that he was trying to tell them this piece of information was important. Judy continued to look at the watch with a raised eyebrow, checking on it as it showed the time to be 6:42. The arms clearly had stopped spinning, and now the watch was just stopped on that specific time for some reason.
A tap to the shoulder made Judy look to her partner, who then mouthed something to her:
"Bar... bug... curse..."
Judy blinked, as she tried to make sense of what her partner was trying to tell her. That was when it clicked.
The bar. The one place where the curse was delivered into Blackson as a result of being stung by a magic bug. And, if that bug was anything like a real one, being stung by it would cause a mammal to feel pain and, in most cases, reflexively reach for the stung region to try and slap whatever had produced the pain.
And this kind of movement could cause a watch to slip free from someone's wrist and end up falling into the ground and breaking, with the arms stopping spinning and resulting on the clock stopping on that specific moment.
That was the reason why this watch was a meaningful clue.
It gave them the exact moment when Blackson was cursed.
And that was a major element of the mystery, once combined with the clue they got that told about everyone's position on the house during the time before dinner.
Now, if she could just combine the information about the location of each person to see which one was close to Blackson during that specific time, she could narrow down the suspects...
"Okay then, guess we are done here." Chandler told everyone. "Now, what about we all go meet with Mrs. and Mr. Horne? We can do the final challenge of the game tomorrow."
"Fine by me." Marcy said, taking another sip of her cup, and saying how much of a good juice that was. But also adding that that she would prefer if it was actual wine.
"Well, it was supposed to be originally." Chandler confessed. "But I had to change it to juicer because Horne and Ogami cannot drink due to being underage."
"Hey! I am old enough to drink!" Melor said as he looked at the horse.
"Yeah, you are. In the UK." Josh said to the hybrid. "But here in the UZ, you are too young to be allowed near a drop of alcohol. So just enjoy your juice, little boy."
"How can I enjoy it when I have dead taste buds!? It just tastes like styrofoam, like everything else!"
The way the hybrid snapped made a lot of people jump back, as it caught all of them off-guard, and now all of them were just staring at him.
"Melon?" Legoshi's voice made the hybrid whip his head to look at him. Once he saw the way the wolf was looking at him, he calmed down a little bit, and then he only resorted to grumbling to himself as he had a very pissed expression on his face.
"Oookay?" Chandler said, "We should... we should go meet with Mrs. Horne. Yeah."
With that, the group walked back in awkward silence, with the hybrid in question walking right on the back of the group.
As a result, no one noticed when he stopped as they passed in front of a wine cabinet...
Harry had to stop as he arrived in front of the building he and his family were staying. He had to stop because he needed to calm himself down and not just go into his house skipping and binking like he had been doing since he left Sophie's house.
It had been his first official and formal magecraft lesson, and it had been all that he had hoped and more.
There was a lot of theory, as Harry had already been expecting. Luckily, Harry was never one who was afraid of diving head-first into books nor had any problems to focus on lessons. He was not about to lose his focus on the theoretical part all because he was too excited about the practical part. He knew how important it was after all that Sophie explained to him about the risks of misusing his own magic circuits.
The "exploding" part was a great encouragement for him not to put his feet before his ears when learning how to perform spells.
But, once more, Harry proved that he was nothing short of a prodigy. That according to the words of Sophie herself, who told him that she never met any quicker learner than Harry on her life, except for one other person.
She didn't say who that person was...
And that even applied for his elemental affinity. Sophie gave him a test that was supposed to determine to which element, and therefore what kinds of spells, Harry had affinity with.
"So... wind?" Harry said, remembering how easily he could cast the Aspiro spell, and he imagined that he must have some affinity with wind. And Sophie all but confirmed.
"Yes, wind." The vixen was looking him in the eyes as he spoke that. "And fire. And water as well. Harry, you have a triple elemental affinity."
Now, considering that there were four elements, (five, if you counted the "void"), then Harry was more than halfway into being an Average One!
And that was a huge thing!
He could learn a lot of different spells with a triple elemental affinity. Not to mention how this basically made him even more special as a mage since it was so rare to have even a double elemental affinity. Harry was certainly even more pumped up about learning magecraft now that he knew that.
Sophie, however, didn't really seemed all that excited about teaching him. She had been the one to say that she would, but she didn't seem that she was willing to do it. It was nearly as if she was being forced into it. As if she had no other choice.
Just because she had told that other vixen with the white fur that she was Harry's teacher, and so she should not be coming anywhere near him.
Did she only agree to teach me to keep me away from that vixen? Harry caught himself thinking as they proceeded to have lessons, which took most part of the day. As it turns out, learning magecraft from the basics was a time-consuming and arduous work.
"Remember that you need not to let your family know. Especially your mother." Sophie warned him. "She would not be happy for knowing that I am teaching you magecraft. She would rip out my tail and use it to throttle you."
That... didn't sounded as far-fetched as one could think. Harry had seen the magnitude of the fits his mother could throw when it involved one of her children. And he'd rather not be in the focus of the next one.
Which was why, as he arrived in front of their building, he had to calm down his excitement from having had his first official day of magecraft lessons so he could come into the apartment in as much silence as possible, considering how late it was, and how he didn't wanted to disturb anyone from his family, as most of them were used to sleep early due to the farmer background.
So, Harry assumed that he could just sneak in and not be seen by anyone, if he did so quietly. Which was why he calmed himself down so he would not make it into the apartment binking and making a fuss to wake up his siblings and parents.
He had a relatively good success. He managed to pass by the door and through the living room, and he passed by the fridge to grab himself some carrot ice cream to eat so he would not go to bed with an empty stomach. And he did all of that without making a sound. At this rate, he was sure that he would be able to make to his bed without anyone seeing him...
"Welcome back, Harry."
The bunny let out a squeak as he jumped back, dropping the ice cream pot into the ground as he turned around to see his mother, still awake while wearing her nightgown and looking back at him with her hands on her lap as she sat on a chair.
"O-oh... I... Uhhh... Goodnight, mom?" Harry said, smiling at the female rabbit, who only continued to look at him with a serious expression as she asked:
"Where were you all this time?"
The way she asked that made it clear that she was not kidding. Harry quickly got serious and told her that he was walking around the city when he went into a place that had some cool games that made him lose track of time. He apologized for not having come back all day and told her that he would try to be more mindful about it in the future.
Harry, like many of his siblings, had long figure out that the key to lie to your mother's face efficiently is to have a believable story and to do so without missing a beat. But you cannot give more information than she asks and give the information in a way that seem natural. It takes a while to develop the right technique, but luckily Harry had older brothers and sisters who gave him a lot of tips on how to make their mother believe in most things they said to her when they didn't want to tell her what they had really been doing.
Harry had spent good ten seconds hoping his story was convincing enough, and it apparently was, because then his mother nodded at him.
"From now on, I want you and the others to be back to the apartment before sundown every day. I want all of you back home by the time it is dark." Bonnie said to him. "And I don't want excuses. I already told the others earlier, and I am telling you now, Harry. I don't want any of you out in the city after dark anymore."
Bonnie was using the tone she always used when she wanted to make a point. That one tone that let anyone who heard it to know she wasn't kidding. That she had decided the law and that this was how it was going to be from now on.
When Harry, jokingly, tried to say that maybe he could lose track of time again and spend the night on the arcade, his mother was incisive:
"From now on, if you are not back home one hour before sunset, I will send you a message tell you to come back. If you don't answer in five minutes telling me you are on your way, I will go out, find you, and drag you by the ears back to the apartment. Do you hear me?"
Okay, that kind of incisiveness was... unsettling. Even Harry's mother's freak outs were not usually like that.
"Mom...?" Harry asked, his ears down as he looked at his mother, who took a moment to recover.
"I... just want you all to be back on the apartment where is safe." She told to her son, this time in a gentler tone. "It is not safe to be out on the streets here after dark."
"Oh... because it is a big city and big cities are dangerous?" Harry asked. To that, Bonnie looked at him and she said:
"Because this is Zootopia, and this city is not safe when the sun goes down. You can believe I know what I am talking about. I grew up here, after all."
Harry looked at his mother, and she then sighed.
"I just want to make sure all of you are all okay and safe." She said to him, seeming sad. "I already lost children within the years. I don't want to lose any of you to this city, of all things. To the dark corners, and the things that lurk in them..."
Bonnie looked away as she said that, at the window. Nearly as if she was half-expecting something to start trying to crawl through it at any moment...
She turned back to her son.
"Just promise me you will be home before sundown from now on." She asked. Once more, she used one of her tones. This was that "worried mother" tone that made anyone who heard it feel like a jerk for making her speak like that.
When confronted with that tone, there was only one thing any of her children could do.
"I promise, Mom." Harry said, and Bonnie nodded at her son.
"Thank you. Now brush your teeth and go to bed. And try not to wake anyone up, please." Bonnie said to Harry, and then she got up and went to the bedroom. Harry was left in there for a while. He was thinking with what his mother just said, and the way she was saying it.
Harry had very rarely ever seen his mother like that, and that was how he knew that she was not kidding about anything.
Was that city really that dangerous?
Was that why, despite Bonnie telling Judy that she supported her dream of coming there to become a cop, Harry would often see her on the kitchen or in another part of the house looking like she was about to have a mental breakdown from stress?
This only made Harry wonder how his mother's life was in that city when she was around his age or so...
"No. For the last time, you don't have to worry about being cursed if you cross the bounded field!" Lumia said, "It only absorbs curses and then releases their energy little-by-little without harming any living thing. We would not have put it around the house if it was any different. None of them poses any danger to anyone who has not harmful intentions towards the people inside."
"And how does the forcefield, or bounded filed, or whatever, knows if someone has harmful intentions or not? Does it, like, read the people's minds and then decides if they want to harm someone or not?" Krumpaski asked as he and the other guys doing the security looked at the gazelle. "You know, that implies that the bounded field is somehow alive and can think and that's... unsettling."
Before Lumia could give an answer to this, the doors opened, and in came Chandler and the players. Lumia took one quick look at them, and she immediately said:
"Where is Melor?"
Surprised by this, Chandler and the rest of the group looked around, and not even one of them could see the male hybrid.
"Ugh! I told you to keep a close eye on him!" Lumia said, "We have to find him! Everyone starts looking! That includes you!"
"We only receive orders from Chief Yahya." Said one of the members of the BC with his arms crossed. Lumia instantly gave him a look that was identical to the ones their boss gave to them when he was not happy with them. And this made all of them agree to help.
So, the next fifteen minutes were spent looking around the mansion, as they tried to find out where the runaway hybrid went. Everyone looked everywhere, but they could not find him.
At least until they all took knowledge of a commotion happening in a certain part of the house.
"...And so we sing the song of bourbon!~" Melor said as he swung the bottle of bourbon on his hoof.
"Song of bourbon!" Dog said as he threw his paws in the air.
"How long has he been doing this?" Chandler asked as he stood by his father and grandfather's side as they all, like the other people who watched, were very awkward about the whole thing. Mainly because the hybrid was dancing on top of the coffee table on the center of that room only on his briefs.
"He had already taken off his clothes when we arrived here." Yahya said with a neutral voice as he watched the scene with crossed arms and an indifferent expression. "Hard to say if he was already without them when he started dancing or if he took them off while he danced like a stripper."
Just as Yahya said that, Adrian had to duck to avoid being hit in the face by Melor's underwear, which he removed and tossed away, and now he was standing on top of the table completely naked.
"Feast your, eyes, normies!" Melor said as he stood there with open arms. "On the freak of nature that is a hybrid of gazelle and leopard! I know you all look at him and think: man, what a complete weirdo! Well, that's because..." And then Melor shifted his stance, activating his magic circuits.
"He truly is!"
And with that, his body change, muscle and bone rearranging as his body changed from gazelle-like to leopard-like, with more muscles and spots all over and a long tail. It was a quick, but gruesome transformation that made some of the people around queasy. Especially with the loud sounds of bone popping and muscle shifting.
"And he has some sick dance moves!" And Melor started dancing, much to everyone's amused and mortification, as the movements of the dance were quite suggestive, and they made everything "swing". And Dogo was soon joining, as he was soon holding hands with the hybrid as they both danced to some music that it seemed only the two could hear.
"Did Dogo drank the bourbon too?" Chandler asked, trying to keep himself from looking at what was swinging around.
"No. He just joined Horne because he said it looked fun." Yahya said on the same indifferent tone, with the only thing he showed being mild amusement. That was when the door slammed open and more mammals arrived.
"Melon!"
"Sweet cheese and crackers!"
"Melor Albertus Jacob Liebert Horne! What do you think you are doing!?" Lumia demanded as she approached.
"Uhhhhh! The full name!" Melor said, his voice slurring as he spoke that. "Now that is a sign I am really in trouble. Ah ha ha ha!" And he took another swing of the bottle of bourbon, downing all of it in one go and then dropping into the ground.
"Melor! How many of those did you drink!?" Lumia gestured to the bottle her son just dropped, and he was already picking another one that he had placed on top of the table he was standing as he danced, ripping the cork with his teeth and spitting it out before taking a swing.
"Only one bottle... after the two first bottles of wine."
"You are not supposed to be drinking!" Judy said, "You are underage!"
"Oh, kiss my tail, bunny girl!" Melor said, turning around and sticking his butt out for the rabbit, who immediately looked away.
"I am old enough to go to pubs, what means I an old enough to drink! I am a responsible guy who knows how to handle his liquor! Now who wants to see me dance the macarena!?"
"Melor!" Lumia said, "Get down from that table! Right! Now!"
"Or what!?" The hybrid demanded from his mother. "Will you finally start giving all the punches you've been threatening to give me since I was eight!? Oh, now that would certainly earn you a 'mother of the year' award, wouldn't it!?"
"Enough!" Tibor said, raising his voice, only for Melor to say:
"Oh, and you shut up too, dad! Just stand there like a good little whipped husband!"
"Melon!" Legoshi said in horror at his hybrid friend's words. Meanwhile, the hybrid downed another gulp of wine, while Lumia, now looking positively beamed, ordered her son to get down from the table and stop making a fool of himself.
"Oh, leave me alone!" Melor said back to her. "I am not a little boy who you can tell off and make do whatever you want by counting to three! I know that nothing happens when you pass two!"
"Oh, just you try me, and you will see if nothing actually happens." Lumia warned.
"I am not a child!" Melor shot back. "I already drink!" He showed the bottle as if to make his point. "I smoke my catnip! And, you know what else? I lost my virginity!"
Lumia blinked, staring at her son as her mind processed that.
"Yeah, I did! Don't believe me? Ask Josh! Where is- there!" He then pointed at the muscular cheetah on the room. "That guy! Over there! He took my virginity! That night was great, love! Still want to do it again!"
Josh, who normally was quite unreserved and immodest, found himself lowering his head and covering his face with his paw as all eyes of the room suddenly were on him.
"So, that's it, Mama! Your sweet wittle Mewon is no longer a pure little virgin! And that's okay! Because I am old enough to get laid!" The hybrid kicked one of the ornaments off the coffee table as he said that. "Just like I am old enough to drink and get high! I..." He held the bottle against his chest. "Am a grownup! I no longer need you to hoover over me trying to keep me in the good path and protect me from anything!"
He then looked his mother in the eyes.
"Even because you never could protect me. Not from the horrible and cruel things in the world. Not from the people who look at me like I am a freak and call me that and much worse on a daily basis. I know you want to shelter me from all those things, to protect me from other people and from myself, but you cannot! I accepted that long ago, and you might as well do it too..."
Lumia said nothing as she looked at her son, who then straightened himself.
"Now! If you will all excuse me, I gotta look for a catnip dealer..."
Then the hybrid turned around and put a foot forward, ready to step down from the table.
And he faceplanted with a loud "BANG" on the hardwood floor.
"Melon!" Legoshi rushed to the side of his friend, kneeling by his side and checking on him while calling his name. Nick also stepped forward and checked the hybrid.
"Aaaaand he is out." Nick announced to the room. Meanwhile, Dogo, how was still on all fours on the table was sniffing on Melon's butt.
"Honestly..." Lumia said in exasperation as she pinched the bridge of her muzzle.
"Worrying." Tibor spoke.
"I swear sometimes I just don't know what to do with that boy..."
"I could suggest military school, was he just a little younger." Said an antelope butler. "It did wonders for my nephew's behavioral issues. Do mages have military schools?"
"Forget military school." Adrian said, "Someone should have put him on juvenile detention a long time ago."
It was late.
It was so late that not a single soul was out on the streets at this late at night.
It was the perfect time for mages to lurk around.
There was a reason why they referred to themselves as being part of the "Moonlit World". Night time was a time when most mammals had gotten used to sleep, despite a great number of species originally being nocturnal. It was a time they settled for themselves to rest due to the lack of light from the sun. And so, the mages made it the time when they could act as they pleased, thanks to the reduced number of possible witnesses.
You could say that nighttime was the natural hour of mages, who were only glad to go back to being nocturnal so they could roam the darkness freely to do as they pleased with no fear of being sighted.
But that's not to say mages became reckless and sloppy after sundown. After all, only because mammals chose, collectively, to adopt a diurnal schedule, that's not to say the night life did not exist. So, even at night, mages were very careful not to be seen by anyone.
Especially if they were moving in an urban area.
Such as Sheppard was doing now.
The shepherd was lurking just outside of the Manechester house, looking at it from a safe distance while being careful to avoid being seen by the cops on the car parked just by the corner.
He was confident he could handle then easily, but he was pretty sure that, if he did, then he would end up waking everyone in the house, including the mages inside.
And those were no amateurs, like the wolf and his hybrid friend. The proof of it was the intricate bounded field they put around the house. This was not like what the idiots did. This one was well-made. It was easy to notice, but not because it was sloppy. It was easy to notice because the ones who made it willed it to be so. They wanted it to be noticed by anyone who approached a certain distance. They wanted then to know there was a protection around the house and that they would pay the price if they tried to go in.
One close look at the field was enough to tell that it was made by a professional or many. By someone who truly knew what they were doing.
They would certainly pose a much greater threat to him than most other people on that house. And the people on the house, considering how many there were, would already pose a great threat.
That was what was keeping Sheppard from going inside.
That and the fact he could not find a single blind spot or breach on the bounded field around the house, and he had been looking for the last hour.
Those guys truly were pros.
He checked his watch. 2:30 in the morning. Everyone was certainly asleep by that time. He should be as well, but he'd rather not. He was too focused on this.
On the mission he had been assigned, and on everything that had happened till now.
Wilde was ditching his calls. The burner phone that should be his contact with him had gone mute and he could no longer contact the fox through other means. As far as he knew, the mission had probably been abandoned at this stage, but that was something Sheppard found hard to accept.
He had not been paid yet, and he went through too much on that mission alone to walk away without gaining anything.
He could not afford to not gain anything.
Even if he had to steal one of the artworks on the mansion and sell it on the underground market, that was what he was going to do if this meant getting enough money to get by. This would make him little more than a thief, but that would not be much of a stepdown from being a freelancer, according to some.
That was what his family had been reduced to after all they lost...
With that, Sheppard took his hand to his shoulder. The place where his magic crest was located. It was all that was left of his family, and it was the one thing that still gave him the slightest semblance of having any pride as a mage.
And, just a couple hours ago, it did something it had never done before.
It acted up. Lighting up without Shepard willing it to and tingling in a very curious way. It also seemed to be pulling him into a certain direction, as if telling him to go there. As if someone was tugging on a line connected to him to make him go towards them.
But that could not be. Because feeling that would only be possible if... if...
Sheppard's ears twitched as he caught a sound that made him quickly jump behind a tree, hiding from view as one of the windows opened. After a minute, Sheppard peeked from behind his hiding spot to see who it was on the window, and he saw a mammal in there, leaning over the window and looking outside.
The gazelle from this morning!
Lumia, on her end, was too busy as she replayed the memories of a couple hours ago. Memories that kept her from sleeping, even after she and her husband had both retreated to their bedroom after they carried their unconscious drunken son to his own.
"I'm no longer a child!"
Lumia had a serene expression as she looked outside, taking a deep breath and allowing the cold winter air to fill her lungs.
"Your sweet wittle Mewon is no longer a pure little virgin!"
She placed her hooves before her muzzle, intertwining her fingers as she looked outside.
"Even because you never could protect me. Not from the horrible and cruel things in the world. Not from the people who look at me like I am a freak and call me that and much worse on a daily basis... I accepted that long ago, and you might as well do it too..."
Her vision blurred. Soon, the moisture on her eyes gathered so much that there was nothing it could do but drip out. And soon, an involuntary sound started escaping from Lumia's throat.
Even from where he was hiding, Sheppard could hear her scrying as she buried her face on her hooves and sobbed...