Foxfire, Esq.

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Dublin, Ireland

“Cheers, dear girl.”

With that, Ambrose ended the call and slid his phone back into his trouser pocket. But then he reached into the inside pocket of his sports coat and retrieved another phone — a bulky, unsightly old device with nary a bell nor whistle to its name. Instead, it offered one key feature: security.

The old mobile phone would need approximately three minutes to power on and be prepared to establish a connection that was encrypted enough for his liking, so in the meantime, Ambrose made good on his promise to send Naomi the information she desired. Mighty convenient that the determining factors would be relevant to her. Convenient enough that he would have been suspicious, really, were it not for the lady’s connection having been purely coincidental. He was sure of it.

He’d checked.

Ambrose returned his attention to the other phone, and seeing that it was ready, he called the second speed dial programmed into the device.

The call itself took another thirty seconds establishing a secure wireless connection, but once it went through, the person on the other end picked up on the first ring.

“Any luck?”

The voice on the other end was a light tenor, a bright tone amplified by the raw anticipation the words carried.

“Won’t even spare time for some pleasantries?” Ambrose asked with a chuckle. “At least offer me a simple how-do-you-do. Even your brother indulges me that much, at least.”

“Half-brother,” his conversation partner seemingly snarled — but Ambrose could detect a trace of fond exasperation in the words. “And you can have your beloved pleasantries back when the Taoiseach stops breathing down my neck. With interest, of course, you bloody conniver.”

“Now now, Faye, that’s no way to greet a gift of good news, is it?” he chided.

“… you’ve got them?” she asked after a moment’s pause.

“I eliminated one outlier, and have just determined which of the remaining four is the other,” he confirmed. “You may inform the Taoiseach that we only need one more day, and then Interpol may bring this investigation to a close.”

“Best news I’ve heard all year,” Faye murmured, then cleared her throat. “Very well. Though it is long overdue, the Giant’s Causeway incident will officially be handled. Although…”

“Yes. Unofficially, this was yet another ‘incident’,” Ambrose agreed. “It does represent a startling escalation, however, or perhaps a worrying inclusion. We had not considered organized crime as being possible collaborators.”

“Perhaps they’re not, and are merely being led into thinking they are?” Faye suggested, a slight lilt entering her voice as she spoke. “Catspaws to draw attention, or perhaps testing the waters to see what response such activity of their own might provoke?”

“Hmm… possible,” he admitted, bringing a hand to his chin in thought. “Or perhaps it was due to the known compatibility issue.”

“That one’s unlikely,” she countered. “There’s enough Irish blood spread across the world for compatibility to not be a concern. No, they’re setting the stage for their opening act.”

“How certain are you?”

“Please don’t ask me to check.”

“… you know I would never ask that of you,” Ambrose whispered, as the pain of old regrets ached once more. “Don’t you?”

“That… my apologies, old man. I’m just worried. I dislike puzzles with missing pieces.”

“They shall reveal themselves in due time, dear girl,” he said, keeping his voice soft so as not to sound like he’d made light of her concern. “There is always an opening. We need only find it.”

“I suppose.” Faye sighed, then made a slight hum. “And at least we are killing two birds with this stone — but must we really keep cleaning up after the Americans?”

“We are doing them a favor, Deputy Ambassador Gauss,” Ambrose reminded her. “Better to have them in our debt when the time comes than need to prostrate ourselves before them.”

“I suppose,” Faye muttered, and while she seemed to agree, Ambrose could still hear the distaste in her tone. “Very well. When may I tell the American ambassador that Scotland Yard has their latest most wanted?”

“Once I call you tomorrow. But for now…” Ambrose pulled the chain of his pocket watch and flipped it open, checking the time. Just shy of half three; he still had another hour and a half before he could check into his hotel room, after which he would need to make preparations. Until then, though… “Faye, my dear, where in Dublin would you recommend I take my afternoon tea?”

The exasperated grumble from the other end was music to Ambrose’s ears. Yes, oh yes, this only made him more certain that he would need to introduce his two favorite women to one another. After ensuring that they wouldn’t burn the city down, of course.

But that was a thought for later.

For now, he had a spot of tea to enjoy… and then preparations to make.

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Dublin, Ireland

The Westbury Hotel

Two birds with one stone. Not incorrect, but also not entirely accurate. It would be more proper to say four birds with one stone.

First: apprehend those responsible for vandalizing the Giant’s Causeway, who then took advantage of the jurisdictional snarl caused by the ongoing Irish Reunification Conference to disappear into the night, much to Faye’s great consternation.

Second: ascertain what connection they had to the miscreants that his King yet pursued across the world.

Third: curry favor with the Americans for when he and his would need to call in favors of their own.

And fourth: give dear Naomi some closure for that dreadful affair back in January.

So much to do in so little time.

He could have apprehended his quarry several days ago, but that would have been… hasty. Small men of smaller means such as this simply did not have a reason to have gone to such lengths.

This saga, this manhunt, had begun on Samhain of the prior year. The auspicious timing was no accident, not with the location. Under cover of darkness, an unknown number descended upon the Giant’s Causeway. They ransacked, vandalized, and carved apart the basalt pillars that had stood largely untouched for centuries, seemingly in search of something. When they did not find it, they fled for foreign shores, and a litany of commercial flights from Norway and Iceland ferried these would-be brigands to the United States, where they disappeared for a time. But this was information that had only been discovered a scant few months ago, once it no longer mattered.

At the time, the investigators, feeling the pressure of the approaching high holidays, burnt the candle at both ends to try and find some lead. They called in favors, contacted confidential informants, pulled undercover operatives from their postings, and more. In the context of a diplomatic conference to determine the future of Northern Ireland, it was more than just a black eye on the UK’s and EU’s collective reputations.

It was also a threat. We know where your greatest ‘heroes’, your strongest weapons come from, it said, and we intend to claim it for ourselves.

But that was merely an assumption, Ambrose knew. And as he had learned over his long lifetime, assumptions had a funny way of both being completely wrong and also going utterly unchallenged. Assumptions, he’d come to understand, were not reasoned guesses. They were gambles, throws of the dice, mere blind faith to which humans held fast in the face of the unknown.

For most humans, a beautiful lie was infinitely more comfortable than accepting how much they did not know.

Regardless — these assumptions were a key factor in allowing the criminals to escape untouched. And when the High Holidays rolled around with no further lead, the authorities declared the case closed, blamed “unknown vandals”, and upped security at the Giant’s Causeway.

Then, on January 6, an apartment building burned down in Washington DC, and a half dozen men bearing the name of the IRA’s most (in)famous member all returned to European shores. All of them held Irish passports. None of them flew to Ireland. To the authorities, it seemed an obvious bluff — of course six men going by the name of Michael Collins would be Irish malcontents, obviously, which was why they simultaneously could not possibly be Irish. It was too blatant, too much a thumbing of the nose at the authorities, especially in the wake of the Causeway incident.

But Ambrose hadn’t been so sure. After all, if you were already set to leave an area, why not make an extra bit of coin on the way out? That these could perhaps be the same criminals made sense to him — enough that he made a gamble of his own.

He asked one of the three people he trusted beyond reproach to keep an eye out for any odd financial activity within Ireland’s major banks. And sure enough, there it was — transfers of money into and out of accounts suspected of belonging to organized criminal elements. The surprise, though, was where the money was going: an ‘aspiring plutocrat’, as Ambrose would disdainfully call such people, whose wealth was founded on exporting and exploiting natural resources in the global South for the benefit of those hailing from the North.

He hardly even bothered learning the boy’s surname. He was but a spoiled whelp, sucking on a slave-labor cobalt spoon.

Regardless, the plutocrat was here in Dublin, at the Westbury. For what official purpose, Ambrose could only begin to guess, but he was not blind. The boy had little reason to come around if not to speak directly to his hirelings without fear of their communication being intercepted.

And so here Ambrose was, entering the lift in the most quiet portion of the hotel, preparing to breach its vaunted P.V. Doyle suite. He had promised the hotel’s proprietors that the squad of Interpol agents who were ostensibly performing the raid would do everything in their power to cause as little damage to the premises as possible. But alas, Interpol remained below, waiting for the signal to come in and arrest these criminals. With such a restriction on the extent of their actions, an entire squadron of Interpol was far from enough.

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Thankfully, Ambrose mused as he shifted his grip on the cane in his right hand, he alone would more than suffice.

The lift arrived at his destination with a simple ding, and as the door opened, Ambrose laid his ring finger over one of the myriad markings he had carved into the cane’s grip: a wavy, watery letter from the Phoenician alphabet, which would eventually become the Greek “mu”. He exited the lift and turned right, at which point his gaze fell upon two men in overlarge, ill-fitting suits. They stood watch over the suite at the end of the hall, and though that end of the hallway held the doors to two other suites, Ambrose was reliably informed that they too had been bought out for the next few nights. There should have been no reason for him to go in that direction.

When he did anyway, and the two men responded to his approach by reaching inside their coats, Ambrose struck the floor with his cane. The impact carried with it a smidgeon of will, and the barest mote of power. But even that was enough to make the hotel floor ripple, waves traveling along its impossibly liquid surface and sending the two armed men arse-over-teakettle. They slammed into the walls and fell to the now-still floor, and Ambrose made his approach before they could find their bearings once more.

Ambrose shifted his middle finger to cover a different glyph on the head of his cane, and focused. A murmured word, a speck of magic, and a feather-light tap from the tip of his cane was all it took to send both men into a deep, dreamless slumber. They would wake before the hour was up, but that was more than fine.

Ambrose would only need another five minutes.

He estimated that it would only be another few seconds before the men inside the suite’s doors checked in on the ruckus his simple cantrip had caused — time enough to move their benefactor into the back and ready their weapons. They wouldn’t fire through the door, for that would bring too much scrutiny down upon them, and… ah, he was getting ahead of himself. There was a way to know what he would be facing.

Ambrose checked one of the men he’d already incapacitated, and retrieved a .22 caliber pistol, fitted with a suppressor. Ejecting the magazine, he noted the ammunition of choice — hollow points. Maximum damage to flesh, minimal damage to the environs, small enough that liquid cash liberally applied would make any trace disappear. Disappointing, really. All that work to try and pilfer type-C Moonshot, and yet this plutocrat’s hirelings couldn’t bring anything but mundane armaments to bear in his defense?

What a dreadful shame.

Ambrose stood and pointed his cane at the door, shifting his little finger to cover an Eye of Ra engraved on the underside of its grip. He drew a box in the air, and with a shimmer of heat haze, the door became transparent to his eyes alone, giving him a glimpse of his quarry.

The suite’s dining table had been propped up on one side, and from the shadows along the ground behind it, two men were using it as cover. One stood such that he would be hidden behind the door as it opened, while another hid just off to the right, visible only by the tip of his shoe peeking past the corner. The barest glimpse of movement off to the left suggested that at least one other had joined the plutocrat as personal defense — per the floor plan he had been given, that way lay the bedroom, baths, and walk-in closet.

Two incapacitated. Two lying in wait. One other in hiding to protect their benefactor; no, better to assume two. Safer.

Ambrose watched as the man placed behind the door’s arc reached for the handle, allowed his little reconnaissance charm to fade, and shifted his grip once more. The problem before him had simple solutions, to be sure. But he had given his word to the proprietors that damage would be limited to a bare minimum, and gunfire streaking down the hall and possibly into another guest’s room was not the bare minimum. No, there was a more elegant solution to be had here, and all it would cost Ambrose was some momentary discomfort.

The door handle turned. Ambrose choked up slightly on his cane, fingers wrapped around the shaft while his thumb rested upon the newest engraving on its handle.

And moments before the door opened, Ambrose’s body disappeared in a brief flash of white-gold flame.

Being bereft of a body was a rather unnerving experience, Ambrose had come to discover. While some could bear it without issue, such as the wily old fox who’d instructed him in this technique, less heavenly beings were rather tied to their physical forms.

But at the same time, there were few things quite so satisfying as executing an impossible ambush.

Ambrose endured the mental strain of remaining bodiless just long enough for the men who’d taken cover behind the table to emerge from their hiding spots. They stepped forward and past it, giving him the perfect window to retake physical form.

The sound of roaring flames heralded Ambrose’s return to his body, drawing the attention of the assailants back into the suite and away from the rest of the hotel. And yet, they did not open fire. A curious thing, the human mind — in the presence of the unknown and improbable, reflexes and training were simply insufficient. These men could not fathom a way for Ambrose to have gotten behind them without them noticing, and their disbelief bought him the few precious seconds needed to unleash his next assault.

Ambrose flipped his cane to wield it as a baton. His index and middle fingers fell on a pair of Norse runes, then he swiftly whipped the tip of his cane from the floor to the ceiling.

And with shrieks of shock, terror, and confusion, four grown men slammed into the ceiling at approximately twenty-five meters per second, then fell back to the floor a moment later.

A trained boxer’s punch could reach speeds of up to twenty meters per second. It carried their full weight, momentum, and force, concentrating all that energy into a relatively small surface area. By contrast, an entire human body striking a flat ceiling, even at a notably higher speed, was not enough to do much more than daze and disorient. There was pain, yes, and perhaps a fractured bone or two. But much more importantly than the damage to the body was the effect on the mind: these men had experienced the impossible, and even at the speed of thought, attempting to find their bearings once more would take time — time that Ambrose was not inclined to give them.

He stepped between their prone forms, and with a simple prod from the tip of his cane, the four men joined their compatriots in dreamless sleep. With them out of the way, he turned his attention towards the rest of the suite, and the closed door leading deeper inside.

The floor plan remained fresh in his mind, and he considered what he knew of the layout: the door to the bedroom sat against the exterior wall of the hotel, while the restrooms sat opposite the windows. The bed backed up against a floating wall, which hid a hallway into the expansive walk-in closet. More importantly, the wall of the closet abutted the suite next to it, which had also been rented out, and Ambrose’s target was more than wealthy enough to swallow the bill such damage would incur.

Two men, Ambrose assumed: one to provide cover, the other to extract their employer. But as for where they would be standing… it was impossible to know.

Oh, bugger it, he thought as he approached the door to the bedroom. He had been subtle enough so far.

Might as well allow himself a quick bit of anger.

He tossed his cane in the air with his right hand and caught it with the left, which now held the implement in reverse grip. Ambrose used his now-free right hand to loosen the tie about his neck and performed a quick dexterity exercise to limber up his digits, sharpening his focus as he did.

Then he slashed at the air before the door, leaving the barrier little more than a hazy suggestion, and pooled raw power in his free hand as he stepped across the threshold.

There had been a gunman in the bathroom, set inside the bathtub just inside the room. He leaned out from the bathroom doorway, seemingly summoned forth by the click of Ambrose’s oxfords on the hotel floor, and took a scant few moments to sight on him before pulling the trigger. But no matter how swiftly he raised his weapon and fired, it was positively glacial compared to his opponent, for Ambrose needed but a moment’s thought to impose his will upon this enclosed space.

The trigger pulled back. The hammer flew forward. But the impact of firing pin upon primer did not create a spark, did not cause the cascade of reactions that would have propelled two grams of hollow-point steel-coated lead into Ambrose’s heart at just below the speed of sound. The pistol did little more than click in the gunman’s hands. The explosive compounds within the gun’s ammunition did not combust.

Ambrose did not allow them to do so.

The confusion on the man’s face and the slight relaxing of his grip was Ambrose’s cue to shift his focus, and with it, the earth’s claim on the gunman intensified. Gravity’s grasping hands on the man doubled, then doubled again, and once more for good measure. His own weight practically glued him to the floor, and his prior positioning meant he was now bent over the rim of the bathtub, locked in place by the distribution of his own weight. Ambrose walked up and tapped the man with his cane, forcing him into slumber, and let the unconscious man’s personal gravity return to normal.

With that, Ambrose turned. He entered the hallway into the closet. Then, with a snap of his fingers and one last grand flex of will, he plunged the closet’s confines into its own personal Ice Age.

A whumpf of air pressure and a pair of surprised shrieks heralded the sudden temperature decline, followed immediately by pained screams as the hungering cold froze whatever they were touching against their skin. Clothing itself became their prison, and with them locked in place, Ambrose entered the closet.

One man, a wiry fellow of Chinese descent, struggled quite vigorously against the fabric that now held him down, and a simple tap of Ambrose’s cane sent the obvious bodyguard to dreamland. That left one person, sitting on the stool in front of the closet’s built-in vanity: a pale, lanky fellow with watery blue eyes and dusty blonde hair. He muttered what Ambrose recognized as a mix of Dutch and Afrikaans curses around chattering teeth, even as he desperately tried to angle his wrist away from the deathly-cold Patek Philippe wristwatch that now tore at his flesh.

The cold faded with a wave of Ambrose’s hand, and the sudden shock of relief would have sent the wealthy South African falling to the floor were it not for the tip of Ambrose’s cane pushing him back against the dresser as an invisible force held him in place.

“Welcome to Dublin, Mr. van de Beer,” Ambrose said, a most unfriendly sneer upon his visage. “I’m afraid you are in for quite a lengthy stay.”

A quick page summoned both Interpol and local authorities to the P.V. Doyle Suite, whereupon they marveled at the unconscious criminals’ seeming refusal to wake, even when presented with smelling salts. Ambrose’s assurance that they would all return to full wakefulness at the top of the hour was more than sufficient for all involved, and as such, there was little argument against his request to take them away and leave him alone with poor Mr. van de Beer. Ambrose grinned, and with his solitude assured, he sent one last quick message, and settled in to wait.

He’d scarcely had time to get comfortable when the door to the suite opened once more, followed by the staccato click of stiletto heels on a stone floor. Ambrose stood from the armchair and turned to face the newcomer, his usual friendly-yet-impersonal grin traded out for the soft, genuine smile he offered those he favored.

She was tall for a woman, standing at one hundred seventy-five centimeters before her pumps added several more. A white sleeveless blouse revealed toned, pale arms, her too-short skirt sans hosiery exposed long legs, and she had an expensive blazer tied around her waist, the sleeves knotted tightly enough that Ambrose feared the wrinkles would never come out. Dirty-blonde hair in a tight ponytail fell over one shoulder, and eyes the colour of fallen leaves landed on Ambrose, practically daring him to comment.

“A rather quick arrival,” he remarked as he buttoned his coat and retrieved his cane, deciding that discretion, in this instance, was the better part of valor.

“Done by ten so you can make it to midmorning tea,” the woman replied, rolling her eyes as she untied the sleeves of her blazer. She tossed the garment upon the sofa, heedless of the way it would wrinkle even further if left where it lay. “You’re predictable, old man.”

“A more recent quirk, dear Faye, I assure you,” he fired back with a grin. “And as for yourself—”

“It is summer,” Deputy Ambassador Faye Moira Gauss snapped, one hand coming to rest on her hip as she scowled at Ambrose, “and I want. My tan back. So unless you have some pressing need for which I must remain indoors…”

Ambrose sighed, his face falling flat as he reached into his coat pocket, retrieved the proof Faye asked after, and presented it to her.

“Back in Europe,” he said as she took the token from him, inspecting it in much the same fashion as he had. “But for what end, we do not yet know.”

It was a white plume, the flight feather of some sort of waterfowl. The point had been fitted with a golden nib, though like the seven others that they had retrieved before it, neither the gold nor the plume showed any sign of having seen use as a writing implement.

Unlike the seven pinions before it, however, this one showed something new: strands of inky darkness, creeping up the shaft and staining the vanes black.

“I know not what it means,” he admitted as she handed the plume back to him. And from the way Faye’s lips pulled down, she hadn’t a clue either. “When next we meet, I shall inquire with your brother.”

“Half,” she corrected now as she did yesterday, though there was no heat in it. “And the one who carried this?”

“Awake, irate, and uncooperative,” Ambrose said, gesturing to the back. “I left him for you.”

“I suppose,” Faye sighed, sounding quite put-upon. And in fairness, she rather was; Ambrose would not have asked this of her were it his forte, but alas, needs must. “Find us a time for tea, would you? You know the spot.”

“Of course, my dear,” he said with a light bow. Faye rolled her eyes, but retreated to the back, closing the once-more solid bedroom door behind her so that she might work her magic in privacy.

Ambrose, for his part, made a pair of calls. The first was just a quick little thing, thirty seconds to book a table for tea for himself and one of his two favorite women. The second, however…

“Good morning, United States Embassy to the Republic of Ireland; how may I direct your call?”

“This is Sir Ambrose Camden, Special Diplomatic Officer for Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service,” Ambrose said, idly thumbing at the grip of his cane. “Please inform the Ambassador that Interpol has just taken your country’s latest Most Wanted into custody, and is open to extraditing the arsonist back across the Atlantic to stand trial.”

A little gift for his other favorite woman: loose ends, tied off in a neat bow.