Under a blood red sky

Murphy hadn't been in town all that long. Harry had been busy, and she'd taken her time getting the lay of the land. From what she'd gathered, York seemed to have nearly as many unexplained incidents as Chicago. And given that Chicago was significantly larger, that was disturbing.

After a few days, she'd finally resigned herself to calling her mother. While they weren't on the best of terms, her mom still called once a week to check in with her and Murphy knew that there would be a little panic if she wasn't there to answer that weekly phone call and keep up the obligatory small talk that had very little to do with what was actually going on in her life.

When she'd told her mother where she was and that she was planning to stay in York for awhile, she'd gotten the famous Catholic guilt trip that had eventually resulted in encouragement to visit one of her dad's old coworkers.

Charles Jackson had been on the CPD with her dad. From what she knew, he had been a black cat investigator as well, which basically meant that he had been throw as many of the weird cases as Collin Murphy had. No wonder he'd decided to move out of the city.

Murphy sighed as she sat down at the coffee shop across the street from the police department, coffee in hand. It was a nice day outside, so she was content to enjoy her coffee under the warm sunshine.

During the meeting, Charles had joked with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes that he and his wife had moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to her family, in the hopes that they could settle down and live the quiet small town life. Funny how some people just never seemed to get that chance at a quiet life. It was always the good people, it seemed.

Then again, maybe there was something to the idea behind the Holy Knight calling. Maybe some higher power was working to put the good people exactly where they were needed. She'd stopped going to church a long time ago, but there was a chance that Murphy still had some faith left.

She sipped her coffee, thinking about the rest of the meeting. Charles appreciated better than most that the kind of cases that had come across her desk in her time while leading the Special Investigations department sometimes required a person to work outside the rules to help those in need. He was sympathetic to her forced early retirement, even if she had declined to discuss the details.

In fact, he'd been confident enough in her abilities and work ethic that he'd had a proposal for her. Or perhaps he just hadn't found anyone else crazy enough to take it on. There had been a lot of police officers who had been killed on the job lately in various weird methods. Charles wanted someone on the inside to look into it. He didn't need to say it, but throwing herself in there was tantamount to offering herself up as bait. It wasn't something she was opposed to, but throwing herself back into police work... dealing with the red tape again, having to answer to a boss again. She wasn't sure if that was the best way to help people anymore.

All the same, it would be nice to get some income coming in if she was going to be here awhile. And it would feel good to get back to some semblance of her old life.

There was a lot to consider. She'd told Charles that she would answer him by the end of the week. For now, she just couldn't take her eyes off the police department. Couldn't get her mind to stop running around in circles while she tried to decide.

It was a warm day, but there was still frost lingering on his shoulders. The duster had been replaced, and woven into its new protection spells was the power of the Winter Queen. Harry had tried hard to avoid accepting favors from the gathered Faerie at the Winter Court, but he could not find the proper way to sidestep Mab's assistance in armoring himself. So her power had strengthened his spells, and the duster was as comfortable as ever. 

Harry had stood in front of the door for almost ten minutes now, veiled, trying to work up the nerve to knock. e wasn't certain how this left things with Murphy, or how his most recent adventure in Chicago had left the rest of them, but one more supernatural bad guy had been defeated. He'd done everything he could to help them out one last time. He wasn't sure if this way the right way to go about things -- he'd thought it was over for him, and had made the preparations as though it was -- but this was Murphy. Karrin Murphy. He couldn't leave her thinking him dead when he wasn't. 

If anything else, because she'd make sure it stuck once she found out.

That thought made him smirk a little, and his fist took the momentary distraction to knock, regardless of what else was going on in the brain. Harry paled, swallowed, and dropped the veil to wait.

( Were greatly exaggerated. )