Darker London

The scene smelled of spilled petrol and Stephie clutched Marie tighter, gagging not from the smell itself but the sense memory of the Templar splashing Thomas with petrol. She pressed her face against Marie’s hair, and clung. Marie was wailing and clinging too, Stephie could feel her tears hot on her neck in heartbreaking contrast to the icy shock as they were both soaked completely in the rain.

( ... )

The fact that it was April Fools Day had not gotten past Peter as he frantically searched the hospital for one of his helicopter pilots.

Abby had made the call to Dr Rothschild in Bristol and security was now keeping an eye on Amaris. Peter did not, however, assume that would be enough to keep her from harming anyone in the long run. They needed to get to Bristol and retrieve her so she could be safely contained in RMMH. He could not, however, find any of his pilots anywhere.

With shaking muscles, thanks to his hell of a seizure earlier, Peter traversed the hospital and texted Thomas to see if he knew where Stephie was.

He hadn't yet told Thomas that they knew where Amaris was.

When Thomas messaged back that Stephie was in the hospital with Tasha, Peter did a 180 and headed back towards his daughter's room. There he found both of them, cuddled up together, and he smiled gently at the sight of it. "Sorry to interrupt," he said softly, "I uhm...Stephie? I need to ask a favour and I really hate to ask it."

Merry strode across the hospital carpark flanked by Ellie and Geordie and feeling like she was striding into battle. She had it all planned out; what she would say, how she would feel; all her plans riding on the momentum she’d felt start to build last night, when they left Aberdeen.

The momentum had been killed a little when they’d stopped half way to Liverpool so that everyone could sleep, eat, and brace themselves for the next day. It died a little more when they hit roadworks outside of the city, and even further as they wound their way through the midday traffic.

Then once they arrived at the hospital, the head nurse on duty said that Joss was sleeping, and Teagan was having some tests, but if they’d like to wait they were welcome to see them a little bit later.

So the momentum died for good in the waiting room.

( ... )

When mid-morning arrived in Liverpool, it bought Matt with it, pulling up in the hospital carpark on his bike. He'd driven all night, eager to get back into the action after two weeks of nothing major happening in Aberdeen.

There'd been some odd stories come out of Aberdeen in the last few years, and Matt had been up there a couple of times before to deal with things. There'd been a highland werewolf pack, really feral, about six years back that the Grenadiers had managed to get rid of, and of course there were the usual number of hauntings for a city that size and age. Still, the last fortnight he hadn't had much to do except catch up with his Scottish Anabella, which was not a hardship.

( ... )

Merry spent the first week of the summer holidays feeling like she was going mad with frustration. She’d moved back home for the break, though she spent most of her time at Geordie’s house, or at Ellie’s, where it was quieter.

How did you track down a boy, a girl and a ghost, when they didn’t want to be found?

( ... )