[Sticks]

Don't you just hate it when things get confused, and sometimes people lay things on you expecting results. Sometimes people have unrealistic expectations as to what is possible and what is not.

Take for instance, saving the world from a bunch of warring mystical creatures, trying to track down a sister of two former Greek gods, and trying to protect possibly two reality stars, all on a shoestring budget.

What is even more impossible, is tracking a cheap B&B in London.

It had been an eventful day previous

Meeting up with the Prince Low Troll, son of the assassinated Lord Low Troll, dodging orc arrows again, visiting in person the World of War Craft and traipsing through the streets on London in a fruitless search for an old YHA hostel, which was now an office block.

A ride on the Northern line down to Brixton lead me to a small guest house, from where I had to try and work out what to do.

The Spirit of True Love, supposedly committed suicide, yet none of us bought that. The Guardian of Mortal Struggle had been shot in the back by an orc assassin. The Spirit of Fancying was in hiding in cyberspace.

There was a middle sister out there, here in the world of mortals. But how could she survive if the Prince Low Troll had the talisman on Permanence. Or was there more than one talisman on Permanence.

The Prince Low Troll had definitely used the indefinite article.

So if two members of the family had been murdered, that must mean that this middle sister was the next target, but how do you look for an unnamed Greek deity, who appears human.

As for Yagel, it bothered me about the reaction of the troll, was it just the fact that during the trial of the Spirit of True Love, he was defence counsel and so on the other side. From what I remember his defence was pretty lacklustre and he did make some knd of foul up on jury selection. The Guardian of Mortal Struggle threatened to replace him at one point, but that was never made public..

The female spirits, well at least two of them were concerned with affairs of the heart, so to speak, so maybe, the only way to try and find her, to warn her of the danger, was to find Brimanda, or Brian and Amanda. Maybe she would be near by.

Brimanda was what the Spirit of Fancying had set up, but it was very odd that the Prince Low Troll completely missed that one, with the mirror of Spirit activity detection. It had picked up activity by Chiggy and Lamey, but not Brimanda.

The troll had broken up Lamey, successfully, as in the real world Amy had gone back to her glamour modelling and Liam was supposedly going back to the north and his tree surgery. To fix the rift, and stop the Mystical Realms Civil war, they needed a flush of well being, caused by a successful romance. Lamey falling apart on the actions of the troll, would never produce that.

This left Chiggy. Chiggy, true, in the house had imploded, but post Big Brother it had restarted and was as high octane as ever. Chiggy was getting quite a high profile, even Chanelle in one of the glossy rags had allegedly said she wanted to marry Ziggy and have his children. (Heavy)

If anything, Chiggy should be the one to give that warm feeling, but the Spirit of Fancying had been insistent that her's was Brimanda. Things were not adding up. All I could reason was that, being low key, and the twins being popular, this could be one of those sleeper hits.

So my resolution was to find either the twins or Brian, which was also another good reason to be in Brixton.

I finished breakfast and gathered my stuff. Finding Brian could be difficult, as being the winner of Big Brother 2007, there would be a lot of gate keepers. Even if you could get through, what could you say?

"Excuse me but some magical creatures from another plane of existence , that bear a striking resemblance to creatures off of Lord of the Rings, are out to hunt you down"

Even I would not believe that one!!!

Also how would you spot the real target, this middle sister, these spirits tend to be invisible when they are working at their match making.

In short I had no idea how I was going to proceed on this one.

I took what information I could gleam from the net and headed down to the appropriate part of Brixton, still unsure what I could do.

I found another coffee shop, and with a copy of a glossy I sat down to read of how Brimanda was happening, if keeping that going was all I was to do, then I certainly was not needed.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

"huh", I looked up, there was some kind of Romany, trying to sell me some service like reading my palm or telling my fortune. She broke my concentration.

"Fancying eh" she grimaced

"What?" I asked

"I can read minds and fortunes" She pressed, "And I can see interesting times ahead"

I looked to see if there were any staff were around, but I was alone in the coffee shop with this woman, trying to peddle who knows what.

"I'm sorry, I do not go in for that kind of thing" I told her.

"But I can you are far from your Newcastle home"

"So you can see the Newcastle label on my back pack" I countered, I was aware that many so called psychics were excellent at cold reading.

"I have a warning, from the Atropos"

I suddenly froze, how could another mortal know of what was going on, assuming the Romany was another mortal like me. How could they know of Atropos, the eldest of the three fates. Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Lachesis had stood trial with The Spirit of True Love, but somehow got off on a technicality. Not long after the trial, all three dropped out of sight from the Mystical Realms.

"Who?" I said

"All I know, is that this Atropos, asked me to find you and pass on a message"

"And what might that message be?"

She looked furtively around, "Someone you have met, is not who they seem to be"

"And who might that be" I asked

Before she could answer, she sank to the ground, clutching her throat, and spluttering as she was choked. One of the waitresses came round to try and help, but to no avail.

The Romany women was dead.

It took about 15 minutes for the police to arrive, and they were very interested in the fact she had been speaking to me, but what could I tell them. A detective looked at her eyes.

"It looks like she was strangled"

"What?"

"Would you mind coming down to the station to answer a few questions" requested on of the police officers

"I don't understand, I never touched her"

At that point one of the officers started reading the police caution, while the other got out some hand cuffs.

This was not happening.

I was bundled into the police car, but for some reason the police officers did not get in. Suddenly it was driving itself along the road, right in the direction of a dimension door that was opening up...


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