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Jun. 23rd, 2023 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_naturesTitle: Change Places
Original Universe: Strange Natures
Rating: gen.
Summary: the prompt was 'The Shoe Being on the Other Foot'. Blythe finds herself with the information.
Warnings/Triggers: None
“It’s a bloody omnishambles, Anne. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Blythe paused in her mum’s hallway, halfway through shrugging off her jacket. Oh, no, not already. She couldn’t face DCI Liz Catton again already. She briefly debated putting the jacket back on and heading back outside, sending her mum a text and pretending she’d never arrived, but what good would that do? The two women went back for years. She couldn’t avoid her new DCI forever.
Her dad gave her a weak little wave through the living room door, and she waved back, grateful that her response wouldn’t be visible from the conservatory. He was in his customary position in the chair next to the fireplace. He still looked fragile, almost birdlike wrapped in his favourite brown cardigan. Stronger than last time though. Less… washed out.
Probably the strongest she’d seen him since he first got sick.
“There’s nobility showing up to see Thewlis,” Catton continued, “except she didn’t look like any lady of the manor I’ve ever seen. If Cassie hadn’t been there ducking her head and outright calling her ‘milady’…”
Blythe shook her head, remembering walking through the doors into HQ that morning. Hearing one familiar voice asking, “Wotcha, mush, where’s the gaffer?” followed by another, far more familiar one saying, “I’m DCI Catton, how can I help?”
“Nah, luv, the gaffer. Karen. About yay high, brown hair, looks like she started cosplaying Columbo but couldn’t fully commit?”
Blythe had looked up, and there was Catton, standing her ground next to the duty officer’s desk, staring out Perdita, the Patron Goddess of It-Seemed-Like-a-Good-Idea-At-the-Time, co-matriarch of the Waifs & Strays pantheon. Perdita was 6’5” to Catton’s 5’7”, and her biceps were probably the circumference of Catton’s waist. A silver-haired, battle-scarred, heavily tattoed slab of a deity in jeans, sneakers, and a green tank top that brought out the Heineken-bottle glint of her surviving eye. An aura of sheer power roiled off her like static; a sense of storms and crashing waves that tingled across the skin, and set alarm bells off in the average human hind-brain.
A living reminder that the classic image of Mother Nature as a kindly old biddy was wishful thinking.
By contrast, Catton was a thin, severe woman in a neat navy skirt-suit and low heels. The stereotypical female career officer. The lines in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth were a testament to it: a record of unhappy endings etched into the face of the person responsible for writing the epilogue. An epilogue that couldn’t always be justice, no matter how hard she tried.
Blythe had briefly pictured a terrier having a stand off with a polar bear.
In the conservatory, Catton went on: “And the PCSO looks like a bloody glamour model, can’t keep her underwear on…”
Blythe winced. That had been an unfortunate bit of timing. Tabitha had decided she could manage the whole bra-shopping experience by herself this time, and had screwed up. She’d managed to hold out all morning, but the moment she’d reached the safety of the incident room all bets were off. She’d come striding in, repeating, “Off, off, off-” like a mantra while rummaging around under her blouse. The moment she’d gotten the thing free she’d flung it across the room, accidentally wrapping it around DC Marlowe’s face.
Under normal circumstances they’d all have had a good laugh about it, maybe poked some fun. It was what they did. The claustrophobic nature of the job meant they had to blow off steam somewhere. And Marlowe could take the teasing - Novell or Patel would have died of embarrassment long before being extracted from the first F-cup.
But under normal circumstances their DCI would be in the main building. Claibourne had seldom ventured into their safe little bunker, where he might see something that could upset his worldview - something like a shape-shifting vampire loudly bitching about the world of female fashion he’d been non-consensually dropped into.
Catton seemed intent on intruding. How did you explain Toby/Tabitha/Tibbles Duvall when you couldn’t reveal the existence of the supernatural?
“And you should see the sub-basement,” Catton continued, “one room looks like a bloody dance studio…”
The practice room. It looked strange to outsiders, yes, but Thewlis insisted that her officers learn a shield spell. The mirrored wall made it easier to perfect your forms in the same way it helped a dancer or gymnast. Drill after drill, until it was second nature.
You’ll probably never need it, Witman had told Blythe, but if you do, your opponent won’t give you time to learn.
And then there were other spells, if you had the potential. She ran her fingertips across the invisible sigils set into her palm.
“And then there’s this… I hesitate to call it a lab, looks more like someone’s idea of an apothecary. Jars full of god knows what. Test-tubes and bunsen burners, everything you can think of. And a civilian support officer who looks like Prince knocked up a lamp-post, and then the baby was raised by a feral pack of Steve Jobses. Black turtleneck; stands like he’s some kind of super-villain. I swear he was making jewellery.”
Damn it, Blythe thought, she was going to have to commit. She noisily dropped her keys on the kitchen table to give fair warning, then headed for the conservatory, popping her head through the door. The air was warm, and noticeably moister than the rest of the house, thick with the scents of soil and greenery.
Catton was sitting on the rattan sofa, her back ramrod straight, sipping tea from a teacup. She was still in her neat suit, so logically she’d come straight from work. A cactus among the luxurious foliage.
By contrast, Blythe’s mother was curled comfortably in one of the matching two chairs, her legs and feet tucked up beneath her and hidden by her layered skirt. A small, round woman. Kindly. The brightly coloured embroidery on her peasant-blouse suggested at an easter egg.
There was a tea tray on the small coffee table in front of them, nestled among the gardening magazines and half-burned scented candles.
“Hi, mum, hi Liz,” Blythe said brightly, before turning to Catton. “For what it’s worth, the hands are a cultural thing, something about keeping energy flow in the body. Like chi, kind of.” Magic could leak out through the dominant hand. Mages and adepts of a certain calibre tended to press their fingers together to conserve it, Kit included. He was a thauman in an area with low ambient magic, wasting any could cause him serious health problems.
Blythe wondered what Catton might make of the pained looks he gave the squad’s adepts whenever they fumbled or squandered power - especially Witman’s extravagant finger flicks, since he felt she should know better by now. Sometimes it was hard not to laugh.
At least Catton had the good manners to look like a rabbit in the headlights, even if it was only for a millisecond.
“We’ve got a line on a smuggling ring,” Blythe continued. “Kit’s been putting together forgeries for a sting.” Counterfeit amulets - real enough to stand up to testing, but the ‘power cord’ could be yanked from a distance. One of the biggest problems with tracing dangerous artifacts was that you couldn’t, in good conscience, leave them out in the marketplace to catch any dodgy buyers. Having a top notch artificer whip up some fakes solved that issue.
This is my life now, Blythe thought. This is actually my life now.
“Come sit down, Cass,” her mum said, beaming.
After a cup of tea and half an hour of excruciating small talk, Blythe’s mother went to ‘put a bit of dinner in’, and left her alone with Catton.
It reeked of a set-up.
They sat in silence, waiting for the other to speak first, until finally Catton said, “I thought you’d lost your damned mind when you made that transfer - still do, looking at how much you’ve come on. And now look at me. Stuck where you went by choice.” She paused. “That didn’t sound quite so bitchy in my head. Sorry.”
“With respect, ma’am, I think the… unique challenges and opportunities in the Odd Squad are why I’ve grown so much.” Blythe heard the defensive note in her own voice and regretted it immediately. “And Thewlis is shit hot on personal development. If it turns out someone has potential in a certain area then she'll find the support; she's got contacts.” She rubbed her fingertips over the sigils in her palm again, then added, “She’s trying to protect you, you know.”
Catton’s expression made it very clear what she thought of that.
“It’s not being on the squad itself that’s the problem,” Blythe continued, “it’s the non-disclosures. If you’re on the ground there’s no avoiding them, and once you’ve done them there’s no going back. Claibourne never went through with it, he just left the actual investigations to us while he handled the admin and politics.” She sighed. “And he thought it was easier to lie to the press if he didn’t know the real story.”
To be fair, she thought, she couldn’t blame him for that. She wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face while giving alternate explanations to: We retrieved the murder weapon after the suspect attempted to dispose of it in the Eas River, where it landed on the Goddess of the Eas Estuary while she was napping.
Talk about bad luck. Lyra had been livid.
“And I’m expected to just let you all get on with it? Under my command?” Catton said. “A murder investigation has to be overseen by a DCI.”
“We never let Claibourne down.” Blythe paused a moment to let her digest that, then added, “It would mean you can move on eventually, once all the bullshit calms down.” Once Catton was no longer a potential scapegoat for the Lipman case.
“I just wish I knew what requires such secrecy. Anti-terrorism maybe, but then why these cases? And why aren’t we part of the anti-terrorism wing? Especially since we seem to be taking in more and more? Cold cases too…”
Blythe was silent for a moment. What could she say? The non-disclosure spells kept so much secret. She racked her brain… What had Thewlis told her back in the beginning? “It’s… the witnesses, ma’am. There are people who can’t be part of the normal legal system… It used to be that the squad only got a case if the investigating team identified one of ‘our people’, but, since Thewlis took over, they’ve started coming forward to us with information, which leads to more cases. As for the cold ones, Thewlis decided it would be good to have a dig through, see if any of ‘our people’ know something. They might not have been identified at the time.”
“Witness protection?” Catton asked, her surprise clear in her voice.
“Not exactly, but I’m limited on what I can say.” Literally. The non-disclosure spells would shut her language centres down mid-sentence if they felt they had to. She took a deep breath. “I know it’s going to be difficult not knowing what’s really happening, but I also think it would be difficult for you to be what the Odd Squad needs in a DCI. You’ve always been straight as an arrow.” Which was why being scape-goated for the Lipman case was such bullshit.
“So was Karen Thewlis, once upon a time,” Catton muttered. “At least, I thought she was.”
Blythe had forgotten that Thewlis had been under Catton’s command back in the day. “She still is, in her own way, she just has to… juggle. We all do.” She groaned and leaned down to rest her head on her knees. “It’s hard to explain without context, and I can’t give you the context.”
There was a sharp note in Catton’s voice as she asked, “Can you at least tell me the kinds of things I’d need to do?”
You’ll need to learn about a whole new world. You'll need to learn your team's strengths and weaknesses, and they are very different to those of normal officers. You’ll need to lie to the press and the public on a daily basis. You’ll need to participate in cover-ups to protect our ‘witnesses’. You’ll even need to stand by and watch vigilantism: there’s not much we can do about a vampiress taking punitive action over a spiked drink, or a ghost fucking up their killer, and the gods are way out of reach. They only obey the laws of physics if they feel like it; we’ve got no bloody chance. Best we can do is send it up the line and hope. Oh, and you’ll need to keep a moral compass while you deal with it all. We straddle the line between different worlds, and that brings its own difficulties - not least being that we answer to Justice herself, and she can be a proper pissy bitch at times.
Blythe shook her head slightly and sat back up. “Maybe, but without context it’ll give you the wrong idea. I guess I can tell you that we do a lot of things outside the normal remit, and there are times when we have to look the other way. I think the reasons are good enough; it’s down to whether you trust my judgment.” She winced. She hadn’t meant to throw the gauntlet down quite like that.
A buzz from her phone saved her. She checked the screen. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Catton asked.
“New case, Thewlis wants me to see if I can interview-” The non-disclosure spell tickled a reminder. “…A witness.” She wondered whether she’d ever get used to the quiet little mental shut-downs. If she’d known what she was agreeing to, would she have done it? Probably.
“No one else can do it? I thought Constable Duvall was on duty. He seems more than competent.” She raised an eyebrow. “Enough so that the higher ups have been asking whether he really can’t be transferred.”
Interesting, Blythe thought. She wondered how Catton and the higher-ups would feel if they knew why he was so good. Well, you see, emotion-eaters can usually taste a lie. By the way, you need to keep him out of direct sunlight, pander to his ‘pack’ instincts, and he’ll hold a garlicky lunch against you for months. While we’re at it: Diyab’s also sensitive to strong scents, has a silver allergy, and always needs the full moon off; Kit can’t leave Orion’s territory without some hardcore power-backup; and we have to rescue Dr. Charmers from the truant officers on a regular basis. And that’s just for starters - managing our squad’s special needs is a steep learning curve all on its own.
Standing up, she said, “This one’s my speciality. Look, just think about what I said, yeah? Thewlis is trying to keep it so you can move on once this Lipman bullshit is all over, and we’re not in the habit of letting DCIs down.” She chewed her lower lip. Her mother was going to be disappointed…
“You should visit more often, Cass,” Catton said, with only a hint of reproach. She glanced towards the cooking noises in the kitchen. “She misses your dad. Says she can still feel him in the house…”
Because he is still here, Blythe thought. And I genuinely don’t know whether I’m responsible or not… She pushed the now-familiar worry away. Both her parents seems comforted by the situation, she could tackle it if that changed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but Thewlis wants me in before the witness gets muddled.”
She let herself imagine explaining, and Catton's reaction to the words: Theoretically my skill-set makes a murder inquiry easier, in practice you have to get to a spirit before they draw their own conclusions about who did it. They get it wrong sometimes. Once they do it can be near impossible to change their minds.
DS Cassandra Blythe, Necromancer, rubbed at her palm again, a half-smile quirking her lips as her own words came back to her: I think the unique challenges and opportunities in the Odd Squad are why I’ve grown so much.
It felt like one hell of an understatement.
Original Universe: Strange Natures
Rating: gen.
Summary: the prompt was 'The Shoe Being on the Other Foot'. Blythe finds herself with the information.
Warnings/Triggers: None
“It’s a bloody omnishambles, Anne. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Blythe paused in her mum’s hallway, halfway through shrugging off her jacket. Oh, no, not already. She couldn’t face DCI Liz Catton again already. She briefly debated putting the jacket back on and heading back outside, sending her mum a text and pretending she’d never arrived, but what good would that do? The two women went back for years. She couldn’t avoid her new DCI forever.
Her dad gave her a weak little wave through the living room door, and she waved back, grateful that her response wouldn’t be visible from the conservatory. He was in his customary position in the chair next to the fireplace. He still looked fragile, almost birdlike wrapped in his favourite brown cardigan. Stronger than last time though. Less… washed out.
Probably the strongest she’d seen him since he first got sick.
“There’s nobility showing up to see Thewlis,” Catton continued, “except she didn’t look like any lady of the manor I’ve ever seen. If Cassie hadn’t been there ducking her head and outright calling her ‘milady’…”
Blythe shook her head, remembering walking through the doors into HQ that morning. Hearing one familiar voice asking, “Wotcha, mush, where’s the gaffer?” followed by another, far more familiar one saying, “I’m DCI Catton, how can I help?”
“Nah, luv, the gaffer. Karen. About yay high, brown hair, looks like she started cosplaying Columbo but couldn’t fully commit?”
Blythe had looked up, and there was Catton, standing her ground next to the duty officer’s desk, staring out Perdita, the Patron Goddess of It-Seemed-Like-a-Good-Idea-At-the-Time, co-matriarch of the Waifs & Strays pantheon. Perdita was 6’5” to Catton’s 5’7”, and her biceps were probably the circumference of Catton’s waist. A silver-haired, battle-scarred, heavily tattoed slab of a deity in jeans, sneakers, and a green tank top that brought out the Heineken-bottle glint of her surviving eye. An aura of sheer power roiled off her like static; a sense of storms and crashing waves that tingled across the skin, and set alarm bells off in the average human hind-brain.
A living reminder that the classic image of Mother Nature as a kindly old biddy was wishful thinking.
By contrast, Catton was a thin, severe woman in a neat navy skirt-suit and low heels. The stereotypical female career officer. The lines in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth were a testament to it: a record of unhappy endings etched into the face of the person responsible for writing the epilogue. An epilogue that couldn’t always be justice, no matter how hard she tried.
Blythe had briefly pictured a terrier having a stand off with a polar bear.
In the conservatory, Catton went on: “And the PCSO looks like a bloody glamour model, can’t keep her underwear on…”
Blythe winced. That had been an unfortunate bit of timing. Tabitha had decided she could manage the whole bra-shopping experience by herself this time, and had screwed up. She’d managed to hold out all morning, but the moment she’d reached the safety of the incident room all bets were off. She’d come striding in, repeating, “Off, off, off-” like a mantra while rummaging around under her blouse. The moment she’d gotten the thing free she’d flung it across the room, accidentally wrapping it around DC Marlowe’s face.
Under normal circumstances they’d all have had a good laugh about it, maybe poked some fun. It was what they did. The claustrophobic nature of the job meant they had to blow off steam somewhere. And Marlowe could take the teasing - Novell or Patel would have died of embarrassment long before being extracted from the first F-cup.
But under normal circumstances their DCI would be in the main building. Claibourne had seldom ventured into their safe little bunker, where he might see something that could upset his worldview - something like a shape-shifting vampire loudly bitching about the world of female fashion he’d been non-consensually dropped into.
Catton seemed intent on intruding. How did you explain Toby/Tabitha/Tibbles Duvall when you couldn’t reveal the existence of the supernatural?
“And you should see the sub-basement,” Catton continued, “one room looks like a bloody dance studio…”
The practice room. It looked strange to outsiders, yes, but Thewlis insisted that her officers learn a shield spell. The mirrored wall made it easier to perfect your forms in the same way it helped a dancer or gymnast. Drill after drill, until it was second nature.
You’ll probably never need it, Witman had told Blythe, but if you do, your opponent won’t give you time to learn.
And then there were other spells, if you had the potential. She ran her fingertips across the invisible sigils set into her palm.
“And then there’s this… I hesitate to call it a lab, looks more like someone’s idea of an apothecary. Jars full of god knows what. Test-tubes and bunsen burners, everything you can think of. And a civilian support officer who looks like Prince knocked up a lamp-post, and then the baby was raised by a feral pack of Steve Jobses. Black turtleneck; stands like he’s some kind of super-villain. I swear he was making jewellery.”
Damn it, Blythe thought, she was going to have to commit. She noisily dropped her keys on the kitchen table to give fair warning, then headed for the conservatory, popping her head through the door. The air was warm, and noticeably moister than the rest of the house, thick with the scents of soil and greenery.
Catton was sitting on the rattan sofa, her back ramrod straight, sipping tea from a teacup. She was still in her neat suit, so logically she’d come straight from work. A cactus among the luxurious foliage.
By contrast, Blythe’s mother was curled comfortably in one of the matching two chairs, her legs and feet tucked up beneath her and hidden by her layered skirt. A small, round woman. Kindly. The brightly coloured embroidery on her peasant-blouse suggested at an easter egg.
There was a tea tray on the small coffee table in front of them, nestled among the gardening magazines and half-burned scented candles.
“Hi, mum, hi Liz,” Blythe said brightly, before turning to Catton. “For what it’s worth, the hands are a cultural thing, something about keeping energy flow in the body. Like chi, kind of.” Magic could leak out through the dominant hand. Mages and adepts of a certain calibre tended to press their fingers together to conserve it, Kit included. He was a thauman in an area with low ambient magic, wasting any could cause him serious health problems.
Blythe wondered what Catton might make of the pained looks he gave the squad’s adepts whenever they fumbled or squandered power - especially Witman’s extravagant finger flicks, since he felt she should know better by now. Sometimes it was hard not to laugh.
At least Catton had the good manners to look like a rabbit in the headlights, even if it was only for a millisecond.
“We’ve got a line on a smuggling ring,” Blythe continued. “Kit’s been putting together forgeries for a sting.” Counterfeit amulets - real enough to stand up to testing, but the ‘power cord’ could be yanked from a distance. One of the biggest problems with tracing dangerous artifacts was that you couldn’t, in good conscience, leave them out in the marketplace to catch any dodgy buyers. Having a top notch artificer whip up some fakes solved that issue.
This is my life now, Blythe thought. This is actually my life now.
“Come sit down, Cass,” her mum said, beaming.
After a cup of tea and half an hour of excruciating small talk, Blythe’s mother went to ‘put a bit of dinner in’, and left her alone with Catton.
It reeked of a set-up.
They sat in silence, waiting for the other to speak first, until finally Catton said, “I thought you’d lost your damned mind when you made that transfer - still do, looking at how much you’ve come on. And now look at me. Stuck where you went by choice.” She paused. “That didn’t sound quite so bitchy in my head. Sorry.”
“With respect, ma’am, I think the… unique challenges and opportunities in the Odd Squad are why I’ve grown so much.” Blythe heard the defensive note in her own voice and regretted it immediately. “And Thewlis is shit hot on personal development. If it turns out someone has potential in a certain area then she'll find the support; she's got contacts.” She rubbed her fingertips over the sigils in her palm again, then added, “She’s trying to protect you, you know.”
Catton’s expression made it very clear what she thought of that.
“It’s not being on the squad itself that’s the problem,” Blythe continued, “it’s the non-disclosures. If you’re on the ground there’s no avoiding them, and once you’ve done them there’s no going back. Claibourne never went through with it, he just left the actual investigations to us while he handled the admin and politics.” She sighed. “And he thought it was easier to lie to the press if he didn’t know the real story.”
To be fair, she thought, she couldn’t blame him for that. She wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face while giving alternate explanations to: We retrieved the murder weapon after the suspect attempted to dispose of it in the Eas River, where it landed on the Goddess of the Eas Estuary while she was napping.
Talk about bad luck. Lyra had been livid.
“And I’m expected to just let you all get on with it? Under my command?” Catton said. “A murder investigation has to be overseen by a DCI.”
“We never let Claibourne down.” Blythe paused a moment to let her digest that, then added, “It would mean you can move on eventually, once all the bullshit calms down.” Once Catton was no longer a potential scapegoat for the Lipman case.
“I just wish I knew what requires such secrecy. Anti-terrorism maybe, but then why these cases? And why aren’t we part of the anti-terrorism wing? Especially since we seem to be taking in more and more? Cold cases too…”
Blythe was silent for a moment. What could she say? The non-disclosure spells kept so much secret. She racked her brain… What had Thewlis told her back in the beginning? “It’s… the witnesses, ma’am. There are people who can’t be part of the normal legal system… It used to be that the squad only got a case if the investigating team identified one of ‘our people’, but, since Thewlis took over, they’ve started coming forward to us with information, which leads to more cases. As for the cold ones, Thewlis decided it would be good to have a dig through, see if any of ‘our people’ know something. They might not have been identified at the time.”
“Witness protection?” Catton asked, her surprise clear in her voice.
“Not exactly, but I’m limited on what I can say.” Literally. The non-disclosure spells would shut her language centres down mid-sentence if they felt they had to. She took a deep breath. “I know it’s going to be difficult not knowing what’s really happening, but I also think it would be difficult for you to be what the Odd Squad needs in a DCI. You’ve always been straight as an arrow.” Which was why being scape-goated for the Lipman case was such bullshit.
“So was Karen Thewlis, once upon a time,” Catton muttered. “At least, I thought she was.”
Blythe had forgotten that Thewlis had been under Catton’s command back in the day. “She still is, in her own way, she just has to… juggle. We all do.” She groaned and leaned down to rest her head on her knees. “It’s hard to explain without context, and I can’t give you the context.”
There was a sharp note in Catton’s voice as she asked, “Can you at least tell me the kinds of things I’d need to do?”
You’ll need to learn about a whole new world. You'll need to learn your team's strengths and weaknesses, and they are very different to those of normal officers. You’ll need to lie to the press and the public on a daily basis. You’ll need to participate in cover-ups to protect our ‘witnesses’. You’ll even need to stand by and watch vigilantism: there’s not much we can do about a vampiress taking punitive action over a spiked drink, or a ghost fucking up their killer, and the gods are way out of reach. They only obey the laws of physics if they feel like it; we’ve got no bloody chance. Best we can do is send it up the line and hope. Oh, and you’ll need to keep a moral compass while you deal with it all. We straddle the line between different worlds, and that brings its own difficulties - not least being that we answer to Justice herself, and she can be a proper pissy bitch at times.
Blythe shook her head slightly and sat back up. “Maybe, but without context it’ll give you the wrong idea. I guess I can tell you that we do a lot of things outside the normal remit, and there are times when we have to look the other way. I think the reasons are good enough; it’s down to whether you trust my judgment.” She winced. She hadn’t meant to throw the gauntlet down quite like that.
A buzz from her phone saved her. She checked the screen. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Catton asked.
“New case, Thewlis wants me to see if I can interview-” The non-disclosure spell tickled a reminder. “…A witness.” She wondered whether she’d ever get used to the quiet little mental shut-downs. If she’d known what she was agreeing to, would she have done it? Probably.
“No one else can do it? I thought Constable Duvall was on duty. He seems more than competent.” She raised an eyebrow. “Enough so that the higher ups have been asking whether he really can’t be transferred.”
Interesting, Blythe thought. She wondered how Catton and the higher-ups would feel if they knew why he was so good. Well, you see, emotion-eaters can usually taste a lie. By the way, you need to keep him out of direct sunlight, pander to his ‘pack’ instincts, and he’ll hold a garlicky lunch against you for months. While we’re at it: Diyab’s also sensitive to strong scents, has a silver allergy, and always needs the full moon off; Kit can’t leave Orion’s territory without some hardcore power-backup; and we have to rescue Dr. Charmers from the truant officers on a regular basis. And that’s just for starters - managing our squad’s special needs is a steep learning curve all on its own.
Standing up, she said, “This one’s my speciality. Look, just think about what I said, yeah? Thewlis is trying to keep it so you can move on once this Lipman bullshit is all over, and we’re not in the habit of letting DCIs down.” She chewed her lower lip. Her mother was going to be disappointed…
“You should visit more often, Cass,” Catton said, with only a hint of reproach. She glanced towards the cooking noises in the kitchen. “She misses your dad. Says she can still feel him in the house…”
Because he is still here, Blythe thought. And I genuinely don’t know whether I’m responsible or not… She pushed the now-familiar worry away. Both her parents seems comforted by the situation, she could tackle it if that changed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but Thewlis wants me in before the witness gets muddled.”
She let herself imagine explaining, and Catton's reaction to the words: Theoretically my skill-set makes a murder inquiry easier, in practice you have to get to a spirit before they draw their own conclusions about who did it. They get it wrong sometimes. Once they do it can be near impossible to change their minds.
DS Cassandra Blythe, Necromancer, rubbed at her palm again, a half-smile quirking her lips as her own words came back to her: I think the unique challenges and opportunities in the Odd Squad are why I’ve grown so much.
It felt like one hell of an understatement.
