Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

41) Severe Words of Warning

Mornings come with daylight, daylight comes because of the rising sun and that rising sun means that morning has arrived. A loop moving constantly around in a circle, on and on, it would never end as long as the mechanics kept the world's cogs and wheels nicely greased. But with war, famine, pestilence, and death sprouting wings and flying low, it seemed they were starting to get behind in their greasing. Which was why, as a loud, hard thunk resounded through the apartment, they had given the world Dastardious Hollow as a helper. It was up to him to help clean up the world, and he was doing that slowly with one person at a time. And after today, the world would once again see a dangerous criminal sentenced away for life and Dastardious's job would be one step nearer to completion.

Dastardious rose weakly to his feet and rubbed his sore forehead. A trickle of blood made its way down past his eye and carried on to his chin. It seemed maybe the world didn't want him there. Wiping away the blood from the wound caused by cracking his forehead against the corner of his bedside table he found his way to the bathroom, stripped and showered. The wound wasn't too severe, he had caused and had worse, and had stopped bleeding as he stepped out and wandered back into his bedroom to get dressed. He would need to wear a suit, possibly one with a tie, today.

Today was the day everyone had been waiting for to arrive for months. Justice would be declared today, people would rejoice in the streets and in their homes, and he himself would be congratulated most likely by the Mayor and by the Commissioner. For today, this wondrous Wednesday, the 10th of July, Alice Aforethought would be tried for her crimes as the Shadow. Dastardious didn't believe a single word or his thoughts as he dressed. He was confident that Alice would try something, even though they had a closed case, he had no doubt of that. Her game wasn't finished yet.

It was a beautiful day outside as Dastardious walked out onto the street and surveyed the slow moving line of traffic. If he caught a taxi there was a chance he would end up moving nowhere. So deciding against it he proceeded to cross the street and walk towards the direction of the courthouse. The trial was scheduled for one o'clock that afternoon, so he had plenty of time to get there. It was nine now, but he had work to do beforehand. He had to prepare himself for what would come later.

Dutch had been asleep when he had left, as much to Dastardious's knowledge probably the only sleep he had gathered all night, or week. But Dastardious had woken him anyway, when the man got to sleep he would sleep all day, he had to make sure the man would turn up for the show later. He could rely on Silence to show up on time though, Susan would be there early trying to get a story so Silence would follow along. Both he and Dutch were aware of the fact that they would have to get up and give evidence against Alice so it was imperative that they be there.

It had been a busy couple of days. Tuesday morning Dastardious explained everything to Dutch, who later retold it to Silence. There were a great many questions he had to answer from the both of them before they let him go, mainly questions like how did he know it was Alice before they did?

It was hard to explain. He had rejected her as the killer the first time they had met, mainly for the reason he believed his ears. She hadn't seemed to remember anything, and she had an alibi for the night Mary was taken. As it turned out, just because she had been spending the night with a friend didn't mean she was with her friend the whole time. But there was always the point of her memory. All parents they had interviewed remembered faintly telling someone their child's favourite place, but they couldn't remember what the person looked like. All the other friends of family they had talked to were different; they didn't have that fuzzy spot in their minds when they tried to recall someone that the parents had told. Alice, on the other hand, just had that problem and she didn't fit in anywhere. Why? Well, he had pieced that together shortly after he had been invited out for dinner.