Strange Aeons [Book 1]

2.Sylvan Manor [part II]

«Thank you.» said the tall man when Chico reached him, smiling at the Mexican while taking a glass. He was clearly out of place, even if he was managing not to show it with grace. His kind green eyes reflected the smile peeking out of his thick dark-brown beard, the same colour of the short, well-cured hair.

«He's a waiter, Fabrice, you don't need to thank him.» said the man beside him, smaller and incredibly blonde, with strange violet eyes and a scar, right over his left eye which was somehow miraculously unscathed. The blonde man looked just the right kind of crowd for the party around him. His overly paid clothing was making sure of it on every possible level.

«Come on, Egon, the man's working, it is only right to...»

«He's paid, he's not a slave, let's get back to our search, can we? I just want to find Eva, greet her and be on my way. You, waiter, have you seen Miss Longbottom?»

«I don't think it would be very kind to escape the party so early, the play hasn't even started yet...» Fabrice tried to protest.

«Jazz is playing. Not to mention we've already lost the first act of tonight's concert of Evgeny Kisin, and I don't want to lose the others. I won't be watching a dreadful pantomime while there's good music out there, somewhere.»

Chico passed his gaze from one to the other, without seeming able to get in to answer the question the man had made him, so he tried to slip away. But the moment he moved, the blonde man glared at him.

«So? Don't you speak English?»

«Desculpame!» Chico exclaimed. «Yo he visto la señora enter her house. Do you want me to go and fetch her?»

«Oh, finally, someone useful...»

«If you'd be so kind, tell her that Egon Brunswick and Fabrice Grasshopper are looking for her, thank you so much.» the nice man managed to cut through Egon's snarky remark, earning a solid smile from Chico and letting him go on his mission unscathed by the other man's upper-classy disdain.

«Smooth Chico! Way to go!» Banshee rejoiced in his ear, as he approached the well-guarded doors of the apartment. He quickly explained to the guards that he had to look for the señora on account of two friends of her who were leaving. The guards just let him pass through.

And, just like that, he was actually in.

The house was a blast of good taste and modernity. Light-wood furniture and some glass well-placed to look tidy but warm, with a lot of inside plants. A true lot. It was an extremely green house, and the entrance alone was roughly the size of the whole Casa Pollos. Chico suffocated a whistle under his breath and started thinking.

«Ok. The music box will never be in any obvious place. Ye have to look either fer a room totally inconspicuous or fer something high-grade, I'm talking security pad and retina scan level. And look for cameras, she will have cameras everywhere.» said Banshee in his ears, instinctively lowering her voice volume while Chico scanned the ceiling of the entrance. He couldn't see any camera, at all.

«Yo no veo cameras.» he whispered under his breath, reaching a wall and walking along it, anyway.

«They could just be very well hidden, stay sharp!» she replied.

Chico said nothing, closing his eyes for a few seconds and focused.

He felt the familiar tickling of magic rustle against his veins, and up to his face, under his skin, and beneath his eyelids. When he opened his eyes again, they were a light shade of orange, and he could see every tech object in the house highlighted with a small orange aura. Which, with the level of automation the house had, was kind of sticking his head right into a disco, but after a while he got used to it, and noticed that there were, in fact, no cameras to be seen.