A Jacabian Adventure (A Jackaby oneshot)

Story

(Disclaimer: The characters and everything referenced in this do not belong to me, and in fact belongs to the incredibly talented William Ritter! I do not claim to own anything in this!)

"And what, Ms Rook, do you hope this will achieve?" the detective asked, an eyebrow raised so high that it began to vanish under a stray lock of dark hair.

"Nothing really, though it is devilishly funny." the Spector responded, interrupting the person who was actually addressed, her long silver hair flowing elegantly around her as she floated several inches above the ground.

"What I was hoping was that if we went it might give us a better chance of finding the source, new perspective and whatnot." the young lady replied, her British accent causing her to stand out somewhat from the others present.

"And you think that these," the man began, his grey eye so regarding the array of uncomfortably elegant articals of clothing before him with utter disdain, "Will help us find the source of a cluster of fire sprites?"

Abigail nodded, determined to hold her ground, looking up at the taller individual, her employer, gesturing to the clothes that she herself found to be in poor taste.

"Something like this," Jackaby paused, lifting an unpleasantly bright, silken white waistcoat from the pile, "Is more likely to offend them, and one offended fire sprite leads to ten offended fire spirites, and ten to one hundred, and a hundred to a thousand, then they're all offended and causing anything within reach to combust. Thankfully there's nowhere that is large enough to house for than one thousand without them burning themselves out, or this would be infinitely worse."

As the man was rambling, the ghost, Jenny Cavanaugh, wished the living woman luck before slowly gliding out of the room, having already heard more than enough of his ramblings to last a lifetime, despite not actually being alive in any shape or form.

Abigail raised her arms as if in defeat, shaking her head ever so slight as she did so, having grown far too used to such a thing herself.

"Alright so, no disguises then?" she summarised , hiding the slightest disappointment that this had caused, feeling that it would feel more like one of the investigations that she had read about when she was younger, though of course her experiences have led her to know that investigations often don't run as smoothly as they would in such a novel.

"Correct." the man replied simply, nodding in such a way that it made his ghastly woollen cap shift slightly. Despite working for this man for quite some time, she seemed to forget just how horrid this article of clothing was, it's ungodly mixmatch of colours making it impossible to match with literally anything, even itself.

"Can you be certain that it is, in fact, fire sprites that we are looking for?" she enquired after a moment.

"Yes, Ms Rook, all given evidence points in that direction," he paused, tilting his head, "Though of course we can't entirely rule out the possibility of it being a particularly ornery lounge of salamanders, though that is highly unlikely simply due to the sheer scale of the damage we're looking at."

The eccentric fellow tossed several things into the multitude of pockets lining both the inside and outside of his seemingly oversized coat, making it even more impossibly bulky. Abigail could not, even if her life had depended on it, have successfully named everything that filled this pockets and would consider it a personal, yet all the same impressive, achievement if she could list even a quarter of the contents.

"Now, Ms Rook, time is of the essence. There is no time to dilly or to dally! We'd best be off before the blighters manage to set some bystander on fire now, hey?" he declared in an almost theatrical manner, his coat billowing most dramatically as he turned and made his way to the door before pausing, glancing over his shoulder to her. "A certain police officer will be meeting us at the scene so we really shouldn't keep him waiting, but if you feel the need to, take a piece of fruit, it's peaches this week."