Chapter Text
“...more like blown off the hinges and landed 10 feet away,” Hamish said into his cellphone. After spending all afternoon trying to pinpoint where Alyssa Drake had gone with the Vade Mecum, he, Randall and Jack were at what Hamish had assured them was their last stop of the day, a modern looking house tucked on the edge of the woods on the opposite side of the Belgrave campus from the Den.
“Whose house is this anyway?” Jack asked, peering inside.
Randall shrugged, “Someone fancy from the looks of it.”
“Godammit!” came a familiar voice so loud that Hamish moved the phone away from his ear.
“Is that…” Jack began before Randall interrupted him loudly.
“This is Vera’s house?!”
“Why don’t I call you back,” Hamish said quickly into the phone. “Yeah...yeah...I’ll make sure they don’t touch anything.”
Replacing the phone in his jacket pocket, he dashed inside to find Randall walking around appraising everything with exaggerated nods while Jack lingered closer to the doorway.
“Nice place, but a little messy don’t you think?” Randall said picking up a half finished piece of knitting that was in the middle of the floor. A wooden knitting needle clattered onto the floor.
“Let’s try not to touch everything,” Hamish said, taking the knitting from Randall and setting it on the couch. He gathered up some nearby paperback books off the floor and replaced them on an end table. “We should put something over that doorway until someone can come replace the door.”
“Doesn’t Vera have like protection spells or magical wards in place?” Jack asked, wandering a bit further into the house.
“Ye-I would assume so,” Hamish said.
“Assume so,” Randall echoed, making exaggerated air quotes with his fingers. “Just like you assumed knowing how to get here without GPS.”
“That barely makes sense,” Hamish replied.
“Anyway,” Jack said with an eye roll. “Alyssa’s magic was seriously messed up. And even if it wasn’t, Vera’s security would be pretty powerful, right?”
Hamish nodded as he righted an overturned chair on his way to the kitchen.
“So that means Alyssa wasn’t here alone,” Randall said, picking up the two nearly empty wine glasses on the table and clinking them together.
It was dusk by the time they were back in the car.
“Temple?” Jack asked from the driver’s seat.
In the passenger seat Hamish shook his head, “Nope, we’re calling it a day.”
“You sure?” Randall asked as Hamish’s phone lit up with a text message alert.
“Yeah, not much we can do in the dark that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
Hamish’s attention, however, was already on the conversation on his phone.
VERA: Well?
HAMISH: We put some plastic over the door. I’ve got a guy who can come fix it in the morning.
VERA: You have a guy?
Before Hamish could reply, she added an emoji with a single raised eyebrow, and he bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
HAMISH: How long will it take to replace the wards?
VERA: Too. Damn. Long.
HAMISH: Dinner?
“Whatcha doing Ham Salad?’ Randall asked, leaning forward from the back seat to rest his chin on Hamish’s shoulder.
“Absolutely not,” Hamish replied as he watched three dots linger by Vera’s name, disappear and then reappear, only to disappear again.
It wasn’t until they were back at the Den that his phone lit up again.
VERA: Where?