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7. Lights, Camera,

Lilian walked the streets of St Albans, killing time before his flight. He had sold his jeep to a college student after he arrived, and so he had been looking around the city. He had visited once in 1897 when it officially became a city, but he wasn't all too impressed by it. Now, over 100 years later, it was quite a nice place to take a walk. The streets weren't too busy, and he only passed a few groups of people, and one woman walking a dog.
He went through the airport thinking back to the cabin. He had rebuilt the cabin after it was burnt down, but soon went back to England. He had only really come back since it was nearly 100 years since his son had died that night. He had tried to get in touch with China, but she was a notoriously difficult woman to find if she wanted to be.
In all her life, China was selfish, unreliable, and unforgiving, except for the thirty two years they spent together after she had left the Diablerie and was on the run. She had a glimpse of a better life, but the world reminded her that she was China Sorrows, and she would never be rid of that. She shut down after their son was killed. She reverted to being all those things she was before, and the more Lilian tried to convince her that she wasn't all the things the world thought she was, the more she became them. He hadn't spoken to her in over half a century.
Lilian's train of thought was interrupted by the gate being called. He wiped each eye of the tear they had accumulated, and got on the plane.

***

Lilian sat down, in first class as usual. Though they were different in many ways, he and China still shared a mutual love of luxury. It was all he'd ever really known. His father's companies had earned the family a fair sum by the time Lilian was born. His family weren't magic, and so he outlived all of his parents and siblings. He tried running the businesses for a while, but he wasn't as good at it as his father had been. He sold the businesses just before the seventeenth century became the eighteenth, for more then he would ever need. Yes, Lilian had all the money in the world, but he could never have what he wanted.
He caught his reflection in the window as the plane took off.
'Jesus, man,' he thought to himself, 'stop feeling sorry for yourself.'
To distract himself, he order a whiskey from the flight attendant. When it came, there were two on the tray, and he watched as the other was given to a woman with red hair, not dissimilar to his own.
Wait.
Lilian realised it was the dog walker he had seen earlier, and found himself watching her.
She was talking to someone, another woman with a purse, although he was too far away to hear what they were saying over the sounds of the plane.
He watched as the woman with purse threw the dog walker a pair of handcuffs, which she put on and closed her eyes.
Lilian was, for lack of a better term, confused as hell.
Eventually he decided to see what was going on. He walked down the aisle and sat opposite the woman with the purse.
"Can I help you with something?" The woman asked
"I've been dying to know," Lilian asked, "what's up with her?"
He gestured to the sleeping dog walker.
"What's your name?" The woman asked
"Oliver Tailor," Lilian replied, "and yours?"
"Oliver Tailor," the woman said commandingly, "go back to your seat, and don't tell anyone what you've seen."
"Now that is an odd name," Lilian replied. He liked to see how long it took these stuck up sanctuary officials to figure out he wasn't a mortal. "Is it French or something?"
"Oliver Tailor," the woman tried to command him again.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. Listen, I don't know what she's done," Lilian said, again gesturing to the dog walker, "but you sanctuary guys have got to stop acting like you're better than everybody else."
The woman's eyes narrowed, and Lilian had been around long enough to recognise a psychic trying to see into his mind. Many had tried, and of course, none had succeeded. She was really trying to get in there too, and she had gone a bit red. She almost looked constipated.
He chuckled a bit, standing up.
"That look never gets old," he chuckled to himself as he walked back to his seat.

***

As the plane landed, Lilian got his bag out of the overhead locker and looked back over to the dog walker. She was awake now, and talking with the psychic. Lilian couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could tell the conversation was tense. He supposed it was unlikely you'd be friendly with somebody who was arresting you. The dog walker said something and then they both stopped talking. Lilian wondered what she'd done to get arrested. Oh well, his next flight was in an hour, so he didn't really have time to find out.

As he walked through the walkway, he watched the two of them, trying to get one last bit of information before they inevitably parted ways. Suddenly, the dog walker pushed off the wall and launched herself through the window. Shit, that must have been what? Thirty feet?

Lilian decided in that instant that whatever this dog walker had done, he wanted to find out. He could always book another flight.

He ran through the walkway and out of the gate, getting through the airport as quickly as possible. Once he made it to the car park, he looked around and saw a young woman get out of her car. That would do. He ran over and handed her his wallet, apologising as he pushed past her and started the car. He sped off in the direction he had seen the dog walker run, and started looking for a vehicle she might be driving. Then he saw a van in the distance, and figured it was her. He sped up, trying to catch her, when the van stopped. Someone got out of the car, a man, and before a minute had passed, he started attacked the dog walker with waves of shadows.

This was hardly fair, Lilian thought. The dog walker was already injured, and the man was pulling no punches. As Lilian got out of the car and started running over, the necromancer threw the van at her. Lilian was sure it had connected, but somehow the dog walker had managed to leap over it and had grown - no, was still growing - massive claws on each finger. She was inches from slicing into the necromancer, when he stabbed her leg with a shadow from the ground. She rolled on the floor in agony.

Lilian was close now, and the necromancer was too busy talking - presumably bragging - to notice him approaching from behind. He wrapped his thick arms around the necromancer's neck, and squeezed. The necromancer tried to stab him with the shadows, but Lilian felt nothing. The stabs got weaker and weaker, and the necromancer finally passed out.

Lilian turned his attention to the dog walker, who was staring, eyes distant. Shit, she was bleeding a lot. Lilian pressed on her leg, and took his bag from his back, talking out some blue chalk he kept handy for emergencies. Wait, was it blue or yellow for shadow cuts? He decided to go with his gut and use blue, since her femoral artery was gushing blood everywhere, and she likely had little time left. He'd never been great at sigils, but he remembered the few that China had taught him, and he could replicate them well enough. He drew the last symbol, and double checked his work before sliding his index and ring finger along the outline. The sigil hummed slightly for around five seconds, and then stopped. Lilian let go of the dog walker's leg, and (somewhat surprisingly) the sigil had worked, and she was no longer bleeding. It would take longer to repair the tissue and nerve damage, but at least she was alive.

He gently picked her up and put her in the back of the car - which he now realised he had probably overcompensated its owner for - before driving off.

He smiled.

It had been far too long since he'd had some action in his life.