Who: Alicia, Pamela, and some unexpected guests What: Alicia stepped out of the production center and into a whole lot of trouble. Good thing she has a Knight in shining armor to save her. When: A few minutes after this Where: Chicago generally Warnings: Violence.
Okay. This looked bad.
Well, no, this was actually bad. Her broken wand was discarded by the dumpster and her right ankle not going to hold for any more running. She was beaten, bloodied, and exhausted. And now Alicia Spinnet, one of the best hit wizards in the UK, was staring down the flashlights and swagger of Chicago’s best.
“Ma’am, put your hands in the air.”
After all, she was unarmed, and at least visibly on the losing end of a fight.
Alicia sighed, before doing as instructed. Tempting as it was to try her luck at something wandless, she couldn't account for the body cam.
“Is there a problem here, officer?” She didn’t bother to attempt an American accent. There were already too many variables to worry about.
“We received a call about an incident at the construction site, and saw you fleeing the scene. Do you want to tell me what you were doing there?”
“Am I under arrest?” There was the pulse of a very bad idea that she shrugged off. Patience. If she could stall long enough she might actually get a Knight in shining armor to show up.
"Not right now," the cop said in a tone that meant she could be if she mouthed off. "But maybe you want to reconsider telling us what you were doing, because you're on the hook for trespassing at least and things would go a lot easier for you if you explained."
His partner broke in to say, "Hey, you go easy on her. She looks like that ankle might be broken. She may need EMS. Go call it in and see what we can get." As the first cop moved off in apparent retreat, the second lowered her voice. "Look, you're not from around here, and obviously someone messed you up big time, and I don't want to see a woman in a foreign country thrown in jail and deported or something ridiculous like that. Especially not when you look like someone tried something really bad on you," she added sympathetically.
She could do this. Or at least Alicia could cooperate. Buy some time until another option presented itself. “Aye, I am a long way from home.” She let her accent come through a bit stronger, maybe even played it up. At least they weren’t (yet) telling her to go back to China. “‘fraid I got a bit turned about trying to meet up with a girlfriend and I might be a wee bit in over my head.”
Alicia laughed, sure to sound nervous. “And my ankle sure does smart. But I’ll be happy to answer any questions if I could sit down, maybe get some ice?” As she spoke she mentally ran through a list of anything still on her person that might violate the Statute and really all she had was her Ministry ID and badge, which was charmed to confuse muggles.
"Sure, sure, we'll get you some ice in a moment, let me tell him to do that--" The officer texted her partner, as best as Alicia could tell actually asking for the ice. "Who's your friend? Do you have some way to get hold of them? Your friend wasn't with you back there?"
It was a friendly interrogation but interrogation nonetheless. Good cop, bad cop, and this was the good cop.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to sit, take some weight off this.” She telegraphed her moves, hands still up in the air as she lowered herself against some of the crates nearby. “The whole night was a damp squib. I met up with this bloke from tinder, who was a right arse, which serves me right, taking a chance, getting outside my comfort zone.” Alicia let out a sigh. Weariness was endearing, it maybe even made her less threatening.
“Pam was trying to bail me out, and well, reckon you know the rest. But I could text her, let her know what’s happening?”
The officer had long since lowered her gun and though she didn't move to assist Alicia, she nodded her approval with a wry smile of recognition, either over bad dates or the uselessness of Tinder. "Yeah, that would be great, if you would give me her number."
“I’m going to need to take my phone out for that.” Alicia gestured toward her pocket. She would take this one step at a time, keep building that tentative trust.
"Ok, sure, go ahead." She watched Alicia with interest but no apparent concern.
Alicia pulled out her phone. “Cheers.” It looked like any other muggle phone on the market, but there was something to said about what she could do with WizTech. Under the guise of unlocking her phone she could sent her location and “11-99” with a cop emoji. And with another swipe the screen looked just like any other muggle smartphone.
“I’ll just put her on speaker, yeah?” The quiet trill of a ring back echoed in the alley over the background sounds of Chicago at night.
The phone clicked. “Oh my goodness, you won’t believe the night I’m having right now. Like it couldn’t have already gotten worse than that sus Stan.”
The traffic noises were similar enough that Alicia could tell that Pamela was close by. "Hey, hey. Where are you?" Pamela's voice was shot through with concern which didn't sound even slightly false. "I've been worried about you, Alicia."
The cop spoke up and said, "Hello. I'm Officer Novak with the Chicago Police. May I ask who I'm speaking with?"
"Oh, Officer, hello," Pamela said. "I'm so glad someone found Alicia. Is she okay? My name is Pamela Knight and if you'll tell me where you are, I'll be right there. Alicia's from out of town and she gets lost easily."
"We're at--" and the officer rattled off an address "--and I think your friend may have broken her ankle."
"Oh shi--sorry, Officer, that's just not good news. I'll be right there to straighten everything out and help Alicia get to urgent care."
Then there was a snap and a red flash of light.
Officer Novak went down.
Alicia should have known better. She had lost track of the other officer when he went back to the car. It was a first year mistake.
“It’s a--” was the only thing Alicia managed to say before the line went dead.
"Trap, yeah, I know," Pamela told the phone. The line was dead, but she had centered in on where Alicia had been, at least up until the point where they'd done whatever they'd done. Her wand was up and she disillusioned herself, silencing her steps as well, and hoping any shadow that was cast was lost in the visual clutter of the city lights and the fences and whatnot along the edge of the construction site.
She hoped the Chicago cop was alive. Assuming it had been a cop in the first place.
The edge of the block where Alicia had met the cops beckoned. Pamela took a good look down the road for Alicia, the police, the car. Not expecting any such luck, but hoping she could at least get a clue.
Novak was still there. She was collapsed in the alley, gunshot to the leg which was nothing compared to the head injury. At least she wasn’t dead, not yet.
There were bullet holes on either side of the alley. Shattered glass from the headlight. And a cop car zipping off in the opposite direction.
Well that wouldn't do. Not at all.
Pamela slashed out the rear tire that was most easily visible to her with a severing spell and hoped Alicia was braced inside.
Despite their carelessness with guns, self-proclaimed criminal masterminds did have time for safety belts. It also didn’t hurt that when the tire blew, they were only going about 40mph. The driver fought for control of the car, jerking them about.
Alicia huffed, trying to grit through the pain. Bullet wounds weren’t fun at all. Muggles were actually crazy. Or brilliant. She still wasn’t sure. Although they did know something about causing pain. Maybe she could learn here.
Rather than dwell, Alicia reached for the walkie talkie in hopes of welding it and knocking the driver out. Except the car swerved and rather than hit him, she lost grip and smacked herself in the face.
“Sodding bullshit.”
Unaware of Alicia's plight, all Pamela could do was run after the car, brace, and aim for a shot at one of the front tires with another severing spell. It was at least easy to explain. Anyone who saw her would think she shot the tires out.
But the severing spell did nothing as far as Pamela could see; perhaps the swerving of the vehicle had caused her to miss. And if she waited much longer, the officer who was down might die. At least she knew the right answer there. She dialed 911 and said to the emergency dispatcher "You have an officer down with a gunshot wound at--" and rattled off the nearby intersection "--and someone trying to steal a police vehicle with a civilian inside. Get an ambulance and backup here at once. Vehicle number--" and here she gave her best guess because she couldn't see it clearly.
The head blow didn’t help, but what more was a second blow? As the car swerved again, Alicia threw her body at the wizard, aiming to headbut him, but instead knocking his arm off the steering wheel might actually be a win.
It was just enough to push his head more bodily into the window, causing him to lose all control all of the car. The car slammed into a street light. The airbags still not deployed.
Alicia saw the world spin.
The man spit out a mouthful of blood. “Stupid girl. Now you’re going to pay for that.”
And then the street light fell onto the car. At least they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Right, because it’s been brilliant so far.”
The crash and the area lights going out in the area as the lines to the fallen light pole snapped were going to draw more attention. "Shit!" Pamela said as she hung up on 911. Not that a trace was going to do anything anyway. She shoved the phone in her jacket pocket and approached, wand held forward like it was a service revolver instead of magic. "Come out with your hands up," she told whoever was inside, and it was not a suggestion. If it was Alicia, she'd understand.
Alicia glared at the man. Daring him to do something stupid. She certainly had a few ideas so bad it might actually be good plays to be made. She counted to three, waiting.
When he did nothing she picked up the walkie talkie and this time managed to smack him upside the head. Hard. Only the adrenaline was going to run out soon and she could probably use some healer attention.
“Aye, Knight, not sure our friend is going anywhere.” Once he was out, Alicia reached over and pulled his wand off him. She tossed the wand out the window. A sign of good faith. “Or me for that matter, anytime soon.”
"Yeah?" Pamela asked, because she had to be sure. Alicia had been out of her sight long enough. "Can you get to the window to show me your badge?" Circling around but still not close enough for an easy strike, she angled to get a look at Alicia. Although Pamela had seen her toss the wand, she didn't know what else Alicia might have been forced to do while she was out of sight. What spells Alicia might have had cast on her with the wand she'd just seen come out the window.
“Fuck, yeah, just give me a second.” Small a movement as it was, it felt worse. Alicia took a deep breath and reached into her pocket to pull out her badge. The modifications that NYC office still intact, untampered with. Out that went as well. “You can test the blood if you still don’t think it’s me, it’s mostly mine. Shit, at least tell me we didn’t blow anything up, completed the op.”
Sagging slightly with relief, Pamela said, "Okay, okay, I'm coming up to get the door off and get you out. Then we'll talk." She approached, close enough that Alicia could see her and showed her own badge: also clean. Then she retrieved the badge and the wand, the latter under clean conditions, wrapped in silk for weighing and priori, because she knew what she had to do next.
The good thing about partnering with a No-majborn was that they knew what to do in emergency situations with No-maj folks. It took Pamela a moment to figure out what was holding the door together and weaken it so the door simply fell off as its own weight pulled the hinge apart. "Can you get out or do you need a hand?" Pamela was there to do what she needed, but she warned, "We have a minute or two at best before more of Chicago's finest roll up, so we need to do this fast."
Alicia fiddled with her seat belt to get it undone. It gave her a moment to take account of her physical state. “Sensation throughout. So pain. Probably can stand, but not for long. Ditched my broken wand in the alley.” She had worse. “What do we want to do with the perp? Can you side along us two?”
"I can try," Pamela answered, scooping up the wand and reaching in to help pull Alicia to her feet. "Or we can let CPD take him in and get him through official channels."
“I will rightfully defer to you on most things muggle and police related.” The perp didn’t have his wand on him. Worst case he used magic on muggles and there was something else to hand him for. “But let’s get out of here, yeah?”
"Yeah, let's leave him before--" the wailing of sirens was getting close. "--yeah, let's go." Pamela took a moment to concentrate and then there was the familiar twist of disapparation, and immediately following on, the painful twist of reapparation. They'd appeared in the flat they were sharing.
Pamela waited until Alicia had recovered to say, "Sorry. I couldn't think of where else to go that was safe."
The pain was clarifying. Alicia pushed through it to reorient herself and settle on the sofa. “Good thing magic makes blood easy to get out, but this is fine. Long as no one followed. But cheers for the assist.”
They were sharing a basement flat and Pamela put on the television to cover any noise Alicia might make. First and most important was the bullet wound, and figuring out whether the bullet was still in there.
Oh the bullet was still there, just missing anything major but still doing enough damage all the same. Alicia clenched her jaw as Pamela used a variation on wingardium leviosa to remove it. A couple conjuried bandages later and Alicia was taking deep breaths. The television was a nice touch, masking the hissing, but she wouldn’t let herself scream.
She handed Alicia a bandage for her head while she moved to examine the ankle and determine whether it was broken. She knew both the diagnostic for broken bones and first aid checks. Neither of them served her to tell her how badly Alicia was doing. If it was broken, it wasn't obvious, but her ankle was swollen and painful.
"At least we need to elevate it. Do you know if you're allergic to any No-Maj--Muggle--drugs? They'll have some basic OTC stuff here. Ibuprofen, that kind of thing."
“Paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin, tried them all at some point. Not quite the punch of a pain potion, but they work in a pinch.” Alicia scooted back on the sofa - grateful it wasn’t as white and clean as the rest of place - so she could prop up her foot. A Ferula would be well timed here. “Shower or even a bath might not be too bad of an idea in a bit. Everything should mend. Well, except my wand, that’s a lost cause, which does put us in a spot.”
“How are you holding up, Pamela? Now time for the sitrep?”
"Nothing significant. A lot of bruises but ibuprofen and a good night's sleep should do it for me, too. Something alerted people on the end where we went in, maybe when you phased out, and I had a faceoff with a couple of goons. Chicago has them, for good or ill," Pamela said as she got up to fetch the first aid kit from the bathroom. If there was a mole in the Auror Office, as Pamela and Alicia suspected, then they'd be out before morning.
“Fucking mess sums it well. Can’t say that went like most of the ops I run, but then again brave new world here.” While not afraid of the unknown, Alicia didn’t appreciate this losing feeling. “Is it keen if I want to wash down the ibuprofen with a beer right? Probably need to contact Rivera, yeah?” Just something to help take the edge off. Although as it was she was fast burning through the remains of her adrenaline. Alicia was just as likely to pass out on the sofa as anything.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Only it was less like a knock and more like a banging. Alicia had been half asleep a second ago and now she was up. Up and armed with a candle with a solid glass base. It could do some damage.
"Hang on, I'll be right with you," Pamela sang out in a loud voice. She grabbed her wand and hid it behind her back, which was about all she could do. Fortunately there was no other obvious evidence of magic. Even the bandages looked like their No-maj equivalent. She peeked out the peephole to get an idea of who was out there.
Standing in the hallway was a short middle-aged woman. “I heard a strange sound. I wanted to make sure everything was all right.” Their temporary landlord was a self-proclaimed all-service rental host who worked hard for the 4.8 rating.
"Yeah, everything is fine. I got an Amazon box and I dropped it," Pamela explained. She turned away from the door and conjured an apparently heavy box with the familiar markings of the retailer behind her on the floor. Then she put her finger to her lips in Alicia's general direction to suggest Alicia keep her mouth shut. There was a blanket from the bedroom on the floor; Pamela silently gestured to it to make it go to Alicia, hoping Alicia would hide anything that needed hiding under it. "Let me get the door open."
Alicia didn’t put down the candle, but she did pull the blanket over the worse of her wounds. She also grabbed one of the magazines on the table. She could attempt casual. At least until the situation proved otherwise.
Gracie could play her part too. She waited, unassuming, until the door opened just enough for her to throw a handful of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder into the small living room. Enough of a diversion to pull out a wand and blast the door open.
There was no going back now.
Pamela had really hoped it wasn't going to go that way. She hated being wrong. (On the other hand, her instinct to trust nobody was at least right.)
The door protected Pamela from the blast but its opening knocked her into the wall. She knew where the box she'd just conjured was; her magic was still on it. It was, in fact, heavy enough to have made that crash. She stepped back and with a slash of her wand jerked the heavy box straight into the doorway to knock Gracie back.
There was no time to react to the box. So, it knocked her backwards. Gracie rebounded the momentum, launching herself forward in a slide right into the apartment. As she went through the doorway, she threw off two more blasting spells - the first in the general direction of the sofa and the other where Pamela was a moment ago. It wasn’t particularly academic, but it was raw, wild power.
Jesus H Christ, who was this bitch?. It occurred to Pamela to wonder if this was actually Brigid Playfer one more time as she tried to dodge the blasting spell and failed miserably, ending up thrown back into the desk. Ow, that hurt. It took her a moment to recover from the blow.
Alicia might not have had a wand, but she still had an arm. “Pamela, call out.” She had one play here. It wasn’t a great one, but something was better than nothing. So, she hurled the decorative candle at what she hoped was Gracie.
"I got an idea," Pamela said, but her voice was moving, coming toward Alicia and racing past, though the whole of the room was undoubtedly plunged into darkness given the size of it.
The candle hit nothing. Gracie was prepared for this. With her non-wand hand she pulled the Hand of Glory out of her pocket. It gave her the advantage, but she needed to orient herself, figure out who was where. The woman on the couch wasn’t moving, probably not an immediate threat. Although maybe she was a good tool.
With the ability to see, Gracie moved easily across the rest of the living room. She threw a stunner at Alicia, knocking her out in one shot. It was almost too easy.
Which was her bad fortune given Pamela's plan. She sprayed the room with a high-pressure wide-angle jet of water, meant to wash the Instant Darkness powder out of the air. Pamela was ready to follow up with a hard stunner to Gracie if she could get a line on the other woman.
Also, she didn't look like herself any more. She looked like Brigid Playfer.
Once the woman was out, Gracie’s play was to dive for the couch and tackle them both to the floor. They hit the table on the way, but a bit of blood simply added to the truthfulness of the situation.
Not that anyone was telling the truth, because now Pamela-as-Playfer was looking at two Alicia Spinnets tumbling on the ground.
Well, Alicia would have to forgive her. As a metamorphagus herself, Pamela knew what the correct answer to this question was. She fired off two stunners, one at each Alicia.
Gracie was able to make sure the real Alicia took the first hit, but wasn’t quite so lucky with the second. She couldn’t quite throw up a full shield in time, and took a hit. So both Spinnets flopped to the ground.
Pamela moved closer, quick but careful, ready for the fake Alicia to pop back up and try another trick. Which was which ought to be obvious. Real Alicia ought to be out like a light after all that.
It took her a moment to sort which was Gracie and which was Alicia from outside arm's length, and she put a second stunner into Gracie because she could. Then she cuffed her with actual police cuffs that Pamela had enchanted to be tamper-proof. Sometimes they were useful and sometimes they weren't.
Then she bound up the other Alicia by spell just to be sure.