[Sticks]

Episode IV - Monsters

Have you ever heard anyone say "Trust Me"?
Did you ever trust them?
Usually my experience has taught me a certain golden rule, "Never trust anyone who says Trust Me"
Since being carjacked by a gun toting leprechaun called Crandal McTuckle, the pair of us have been trying to catch up with The Spirit of Fidelity, a minor spirit of virtue, who has been seized by some government organisation, with possible American links, on the pretext of being a terrorist. Now this leprechaun has been evasive about how he knew of Fidelity and I, and has been mysteriously phoning someone on his mobile. Now he has come up with the classic variant of "Trust me", with the ever popular, "you really need to trust me on this"
Yeah right
This leprechaun has just diverted us from trying to find where they have taken Fidelity in London, to a hotel near Luton Airport, where he has obviously handed me over to the two lead Americans in this hunt"



"You lying little leprechaun" I yelled at Crandal as I saw the two American officers looking at me, "I hope you enjoy your thirty pieces of silver" I added. If I ran now, would they catch me I wondered. I had not seen any of the black vans I had seen up north, but they may have been hidden out of the way.

"I know you are angry" started Crandal, but I was having none of it, as I saw red. I wanted nothing more than to clasp my fingers around his throat and squeeze the life out of him. As I went to grab him, he moved at the characteristic speed of a leprechaun, and I tripped over something and fell on my face.

At this the male American officer, well I assume it was him, to the opportunity to lock my right arm in a half Nelson and make his arrest.

"Mr Andrews" the man said "we just want to talk with you and Mr McTuckle"

The American woman bent down to look at me, "Mr Andrews, if you want to see Faith, you need to trust us, we are on your side"

It was clear that all three were in on this, it was pointless struggling, so I reluctantly nodded. The American man helped me to my feet, and escorted me further into the hotel and to the hotel"s bar. I was still inwardly seething at that traitor, Crandal. He had already found a table in the corner and was beckoning us to sit down.

I was placed by the wall, as the American man hemmed me in, and the American woman sat opposite him, hemming in Crandal. A waitress came over asking if we wanted to order drinks, The American Woman shook her head, but Crandal put two gold coins on the table and requested a pint of the cask conditioned ale they were advertising. The American man just asked for a mineral water.

Fidelity was kidnapped, Crandal had betrayed me, and now they were ordering drinks! The whole thing seemed surreal.

"Coffee please" I requested. At least it would be a hot drink to throw at Crandal, but then his lightning reflexes would make him dodge it, it was just a passing thought

The waitress went away to fill in the drinks order, so I decided to get my point across first. "I am not a terrorist, either is Faith, so why are you saying we are? I had wanted to use much stronger language, but over the years, both here in the world of Mortals and in the Mystical Realms, strong language often proved counter productive. I had remembered an old hand advising me once that when ever he was stopped by the traffic cops he was always "Yes sir No sir three bags full sir" Besides I had already given vent to my rage by lashing out at Crandal and where had that got me.

"We know that" Said the American woman, "we were ordered to use that cover story as the real reason seems too fantastic even for my partner here"

The American man decided to pick up the conversation thread, keeping his voice low, so as not to draw attention from the other guests in the hotel. "We know you are a normal guy, but were were informed that the teenager that was picked up this morning is an inter-dimensional entity in human form"
"Well that is what they have alleged" the American woman interjected, "We still have not got conclusive proof that she is not just a normal teenage girl"
"We were asked to pick you up for questioning" The American man continued "as they considered they you had been giving comfort and aid to an enemy". At the expression comfort and aid, the man mad the classic quotes sign with his fingers.

The waitress arrived with the drinks, and Crandal"s eye"s lit up. I had almost forgot my folklore, Leprechauns adore ale. My coffee was in a very small cup, with a very small pack of biscuits, with a small pot of cream. I decided Crandal was not worth wasting this coffee, or even the futile attempt to douse him with it. The American presented the waitress with a ten pound note and motioned for Crandal to put his coins away. The drinks were on him.

"Enemy?" I asked incredulously, "How can a sixteen year old girl, trying to scrape the rent for her hostel place, be considered an enemy of the state"
"I thought you were paying her rent Mr Andrews" The woman interjected, "That was what the hostel manager had told us. You had been secretly paying her rent each time you collected her from work and escorted her to the hostel"

I was stunned by the fact that they had found out. Even Fidelity had not know this, when I had rescued her the first time from the collapsing cyber-world of the World of War-Craft, all she had were the clothed she stood up in. I had secretly made the deal that I would pay her rent, and the money Fidelity had paid the hostel from her meagre wages, was passed back to me so they could be used to buy her better clothes, even if they were from the charity shops. Well that had been the plan, but somehow I had not found the time to get them.

Suddenly I remember where I was after zoning out for a moment
"So I helped her out when I could, how does that make her an enemy of the state"

At this, the man pulled a number of photos from a bag he had been carrying. There were crime scene photographs of the two police officers that had been slain by the Doppelganger assassins three months earlier, and then the crime scene photographs of the murdered Romany woman that had tried to pass on a warning from Atropos, the eldest of the three Greek fates. Clotho, Lachesis being the other two, and then a photo of the female barista at the coffee shop in Brixton.
"These four people" the American man explained, "Were murdered by two inter-dimensional entities, or as we call them for short I-D-E's"
The American man then pulled out a photo of a tall, elfin, grey-skinned humanoid, sitting in some kind of prison cell

[img=150x300]http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG67b.jpg[/img]

"This creature", the American man went on, "along with it's accomplice were the perpetrators of that crime and required a special task force to take them down in London at a place called the Isle of Dogs. One was captured, but the officer in charge of the task force had to shoot the other one dead when it threw one of his men into the marina as if he was just a soda can."

"Did they get to do an autopsy on the body" the American woman asked.
"No" the man replied, "As soon as it died it was consumed in some kind of fast acting fire and became like a fine ash"

The final photo the American man had was of an orc, wandering around with a cross now. It looked vaguely like one that had tried to slay the Prince Low Troll along the banks of the River Thames.

"To some these look like monsters out of various fairy stories, books and films, come to life. When you read the folklore of these creatures , they can be quite deadly to us humans. Can you understand why some might consider that inter-dimensional entities could be a threat"

The way that the statement and question were phrased came across to me like the standard "yes " or no, have you stopped beating your wife" question. The only one he had a point on were the doppelganger assassins, who had been in the pay of the Arch Orc and the Spirit of Lust, but that had been an aberration. As for the orcs, they were only targeting other Mystical Realm entities and myself.

I thought it best to let the question rest in mid air.

It then occurred to me, that I did not know who these people were. Were they human, or even more doppelganger assassins. Well, that possibility was not true, or we would be dead already, they had to be from some intelligence service, like the CIA. "And who are you and how did you get down here so fast?" I inquired, "you seem to know quite a bit about me already, was that from your lackey?" I added pointing at Crandal.

Crandal put down his pint, "I'm sorry Graeme, where are my manners. This is Fox Mulder" he said pointing at the American man, "and this is Miss Dana Scully, on a kind of secondment from one of those alphabet soup agencies in the New world across the big wet thing" Then Crandal added, "in case you were wondering they came down via a private charter flight to this nearby airport"
"Actually" started the American man identified by Crandal as Fox, Mulder, "I was sent over by the US State department as an observer into an IDE counter operations exercise being run by the British"
"I am just along, for the ride" said the woman identified as Dana Scully, "although as far as the British are concerned I am an observer as well"
"It was due to some treaty obligation between the US and Britain" Fox explained.
"And for the record" Dana started, "Mr McTuckle" is not our lackey, he has been most helpful"
"For a leprechaun" I added
"Alleged leprechaun" she countered.
Crandal for some reason was not comfortable with this line of questioning, and crassly asked the two Americans "Are you two married
It sounded like an innocent question to me though, because as I watched the two Americans, it looked like that they could have either been a married couple, or they had worked with each other for a long time.

This kind of broke the ice, as well as deftly changing the subject, as both made a nervous laugh and denied that such a relationship existed.

This all kind of jovial, but we were all missing a very large point. Fidelity had been snatched, and I needed to make someone officially understand that the state had no need to fear her, she was harmless.

"The girl you had dragged away" I started, "what did they tell you about her"
Fox looked at Dana, and turned and looked at me, "Only that she is classed as a IDE with unknown capabilities that may or may not be hostile"
"I'm not that convinced she is nothing other than a troubled and disadvantaged teenager that has been trying to make the best of a bad job from what they said at the coffee shop she worked in" Dana countered
"But Scully, after all you have seen over the years, you still find it hard to believe" Fox replied to Dana
"But Mulder, remember that fake alien a few years back" she countered

I did not want this pair going off at a tangent, so I coughed loudly and then started to explain, slowly all about Fidelity

"Her title is" I started "The Spirit of Fidelity" then I went on to add "She is only a minor spirit of virtue, and her only power is to empathically encourage people to be faithful to a person place or thing" I thought it best to leave out the fact she had once deflected an energy bolt from the Spirit of Lust, as that was just a spirit to spirit thing, and may only have been a result of being in cyber space at the time.

To emphasise my point Crandal chipped in with "she really is quite harmless"

"Thank you" I directed at Crandal then turning back to the Americans I asked "If you know where they are holding her, why are we not going there now?"

The two Americans looked at each other, then Dana Spoke, "Mr Andrews we know exactly where they have taken her, but due to some bureaucratic screw up our authorisation to go there does not start until tomorrow"
Then Fox spoke, "In the past I would never have let a little thing like that stop me, but this time, we need to play this smarter"
Dana gave a wry smile at Fox, "you found that out the hard way in the past"
"Well" replied Fox, "especially as we are on foreign soil.

This was frustrating. Here were two American agents, sent over by the US State department as observers on some top secret agency to the UK, a junior partner in the special relationship and they could not batter down the door of Fidelity"s prison.

A place had been reserved for us at this hotel, we had a light meal, which I could barely get down, as my thoughts were about Fidelity and what she might be going through.

After the meal, such as it was, Fox, Crandal and I went with me to get my things from the car.
"How do we know you won"t turn us in to the people after us?"
"You don"t" replied Fox, "officially you are classed as being in our custody. The British agency here has lied to us, you haven't"
"Lied?" I queried
"Yes, they made sure we did not arrive at the heliport this morning before they had left, and this bureaucratic error is just bull"
I began to get worried, maybe they would ship Fidelity out before we got there, or even worse they would kill her.

It was getting late, and we retired to our rooms.
Fox and Dana had separate rooms, just to emphasise to us that they were not an item. Even if they were, I did not care, they just seemed another road block. Crandal and I were sharing a two bed room.
Crandal seemed to know my thoughts, but I still did not feel on speaking terms with him.
"Graeme, I am sorry" he ventured, "I was told by someone in the know that this pair can be trusted"
"You could have told me" I retorted as I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling.

++++

I woke up with a start

It was 05:13 and Crandal had gone.

I got all my stuff ready.

Nobody was coming.

Breakfast had been ordered for seven, and I dragged my gear down to the dining room. I still expected to see special Branch show up.

They did not

Fox, Dana and Crandal were in the dining room.
"According to my source she is still alive and at the Facility" Crandal volunteered, anticipating my anxieties.

Breakfast was a simple matter, Fox did mention that he would loved to have tried a full English, like he used to when he was a student at Oxford university. I just wanted to hit the road.

It was decided, by everyone else, to leave my car in the long term car park and drive down in the American"s hire car. It was bigger and faster, so I went along with it.

It took an eternal ninety minutes to reach a large non descript building in North London. Buildings belonging to secret agencies, seldom attract attention with ostentation, and this one was no difference.

Fox, in one sense was the named "observer" according to their treaty concerning visitors from the Mystical realms, so he would go in the front entrance. Crandal lead Dana and myself to a side door that his insider had left open.

As we entered, it all seemed so easy, too easy.

At this level there were a couple of laboratories, and one of them seemed to have an MRI Scanner.

A lab tech guy in a lab coat came up the stairs from the basement with a clip board

Dana showed him an ID badge and requested to see the IDEs. The lab tech peered at the badge muttered something about them having been expecting the American observers, but there was only one in at the moment and took us down to the basement, and showed us the cell.

I was surprised he was giving us an easy ride, was he the inside man Crandal spoke of?

The basement level was a long corridors with high tech cells going for about 200 meters on either side.

The lab tech guy pointed to a door, "It"s in there he casually said"

It ????

We looked through the window of the door he pointed to, into the cell and were horrified.

Inside was Fidelity, sitting in a corner, just behind the in-cell toilet. She had been crying and also she had been hit around the face by the looks of the bruising and the blood from a dried up nose bleed. I knew we should have come here last night worst of all, she had been stripped of all her clothes, and was trying to cover her modesty with her thin arms. I knew she was a bit underweight for her age, but I could never understand why, as I had offered to feed her up, maybe it was a metabolism issue.

Dana was seething at her treatment. Dana had come across as a bit of a sceptic
"Open that door" Dana yelled at the lab tech, with justified anger in her voice
"Sorry mam I am not allowed to" he replied

Dana pulled out her side arm and pointed it at him, "I said open it"

The tech guy showed Dana his key card, "Mam, my card is not cleared to open cell doors"

"Then whose is?" she asked

A woman came from behind, "I am Miss Ochre, can I help" she ventured

"Can youopen this cell up" Dana replied, turning round and sheathing her and showing he ID

"Certainly" she replied and opened the cell with her pass card, "I did not know you were coming so early otherwise I would have been here to give you a tour of the facility. Are you certain you want to be in there with the IDE, some of them can be quite dangerous"

Dana glowered at her. "Just open it"

The woman swiped her card in the lock and the cell door swung open. Fidelity visibly flinched, expecting another beating

"Give me your lab coat" I demanded of the lab technician in my best fake American accent. The lab tech guy looked at Miss Ochre. "Miss Ochre?" he whimpered

"Use mine", said Miss Ochre sad as she removed her lab coat and handed it to Dana. Miss Ochre obviously knew what Dana had in mind. Dana took it in to the cell.
"Fidelity", I yelled inside, "This is Dana, she is OK". I just hoped I was right when I said that.

I stayed out side the cell door to make sure they did not close it on her, but Miss Ochre and the lab tech guy just stood there.

Dana got Fidelity to put the lab coat on and did it up for her. Fidelity, just kept crying, because she was scared, hurting cold and hungry. She just kept saying, "What ever I did I"m sorry"

"This is not enough" I heard Dana mutter and took her top coat off and put it around Fidelity, as the minor spirit was shivering violently, well a minor spirit in human form. I suddenly realised my thought track, I was almost being as bad as these guys were. For all intents and purposes, for the last three months, she had been just another human teenager, it was just that she had an empathic ability.

"Where is Mr Blue"s office" she demanded of Miss Ochre, "Take us to him now"
"Certainly, Miss Scully" replied Miss Ochre, who then dismissed the lab tech guy. He went back upstairs somewhere..

Dana held Fidelity by the hand to lead her out of the cell.
"What are you doing with the IDE" Miss Ochre asked.
"I am taking, this young girl up to see why she has been abused and where her clothes are" Dana put her other hand on her side arm and added, "Do you have a problem with that"
"No Miss Scully" she replied and lead us to a lift.
I was kind of curious as to why no one noticed Crandal, but like me he was not saying much, but did shake his head at how Fidelity had been treated
Miss Ochre called the lift.
"Graeme" Whimpered Fidelity, "they burned my uniform, and my other clothes. Angela"s going to be furious"
"I don"t think Angela is going to worry about that" I tried to reassure Fidelity, again in my fake American accent, "You have done nothing wrong" I added.
"Why did you burn her clothes" Dana demanded to know.
The lift arrived and we all got in. Miss Ochre swiped her key card, in a card reader and the lift moved up, for about three levels.
"You will have to take that up with Mr Blue, it was his orders"

Dana just glowered at her. Crandal shook his head again. I just grabbed hold of Fidelities other hand and felt her squeeze mine. Yet again, I was kind of her saviour, although I felt like a spare part..

The lift doors opened, and there was a long line of offices, with a large office at the end of the corridor.
"If you will excuse me I must get on" said Miss Ochre, and disappeared in the lift

We walked into the large office. There was Mr Blue, a man in his fifties, with a marines style haircut sitting at his desk, with Fox sitting on one of the chairs.

Mr Blue looked at us with his steely glare. I felt Fidelity flinch, and try and back away. This was the man who had beat her.

"Do you like beating children" I exploded at him, pointing at the bruise on Fidelity"s face.

"That it not a child" replied Mr Blue, "It mearly looks like one"
"What?" Dana spluttered out

"And don"t give me any lectures on interrogation techniques" Mr Blue sneered, "Does any one remember Abu Ghraib? I believe the CIA was quite effective in justifying water boarding"

"You mean you have been torturing IDE"s" Fox asked

"I have been robustly interrogating them" Countered Mr Blue "These are a threat to national security"

"And why did you order the destruction of her clothes" Dana asked

"Standard interrogation technique, it emphasises your complete control over the prisoner and shows them who is boss" Replied Mr Blue

"How can a sixteen year old child be a threat to national security" I asked

"Oh yes" Sneered Mr Blue, "The collaborator with the enemy. Actually the creature there is fifteen years old, for some reason there way of counting ages is different in their dimension, but similar to some other cultures on Earth, they refer to the year they are living through, not how many years they have lived, as in our system, but that is by the by. It is not a child, it just looks like one and according to the treaty, which you Mr Mulder know about, this creature must be exterminated"

"But that was a conspiracy to hide extra-terrestrials from the public" protested Fox, "It does not apply"
"You knew of that?" Dana asked Fox
Fox turned to Dana, "My Deep throat told me about it many years ago"
"Fidelity went white as a sheet, on the point of feinting.

This for me was just too much to stomach, so in a slow deliberate manner, I leant over his desk and told him "I have fought with, and along side, trolls and hob goblins.
I have gone up against orcs, drow, and psychotic spirits of vice.
And yet the cruellest of all creatures can be humans."

"Oh spare us the theatrics" he replied, "It is people like us that keep you safe. Safe from these monsters who would come from their dimension and kill us"

I just wondered, knowing those in the Mystical Realms, who the true monsters really were.

Suddenly there was a knock on the office door, and another man in a suit

Mr Blue was irritated, "What is it Mr Sepia, can it wait"
"No sir, as it relates to the alleged IDE" Mr Sepia replied, then looked around and clasped his eyes on Fidelity, standing in the office, wearing just the lab coat and Dana"s top coat. "Oh there, she is"

"She" I thought, this was the first person not to refer to her as it

Mr Sepia walked over to Mr Blue"s desk and dropped a folder on his desk. I could swear I saw an expression of smugness on Mr Sepia"s face.

Mr Blue opened the folder and looked at a piece of paper. He was not happy. Mr Sepia passed an identical folder to Fox, who passed it to Dana.

"You have got to be kidding" yelled Mr Blue, with hatred in his eyes.

What was going on now?
And could we save Fidelity from execution at the hands of someone who was clearly paranoid about those from the Mystical Realms?