Chapter 177

~~Jack~~

He went home. He didn’t want to go home. Well, he did, because he wanted to see his thralls and crows, and make sure everything was going well. And much as it kinda irked him, he did feel possessive of his thralls. They were his pets, his, and any good owner took care of what was theirs. The Ventrue half of him loved that idea.

But at the tower, he spent all night in bed, recovering, and being the center of attention to Antoinette and Elaine. Antoinette, er, Ann, got in a pampering mood whenever Jack was injured, and considering how the confrontation with Black Blood went, combined with him now being as weak as a young neonate again, mostly, she was in a super motherly, pampering mood. He’d spent every night with his head on her lap, kissing and sucking on her breasts, while Elaine made sure he came over and over, until he had to feed on Ashley or Julee just to stay hard.

Difficult to walk away from that. But, as he stepped out of the car in front of his mansion, and Mulder and Scully flew down to land on his shoulders, he smiled. There was something empowering about coming home, even if he felt only a shred of the curse’s power left in him. A shred was a shit load more than Elaine had expected him to have left, and he was damn happy to have it. He’d need it. Owning a mansion as a young neonate? There was a chance Michael or Garry would try and take the mansion from him, and he’d have to prove he could hold his own territory from pushy Carthians.

And he was kinda excited to do that.

He stepped into the mansion, with his mom, Damien, Beatrice, and Athalia following behind him. It was originally just going to be Damien and his mom, but he’d found her with Beatrice and Athalia, chatting away. And naturally, his mom had invited them, without checking with him, because it never even dawned on her that Jack might not want all the possible company he could have for his first trip back home.

That was fine. After everything that’d happened, those three deserved a little leeway from him, especially his mom. If she’d been anyone else, his mom would have figured out how to use the ‘I saved the world’ card to get whatever special treatment she wanted. But she was his mom, and the idea would never, ever enter her mind.

He loved her for that.

“I feel like I should be helping carry some bags of clothes,” his mom said as she followed him into the entry hall, big stairs in front of them inviting them to come upstairs if they wanted. Not yet. “Like old times, you know?”

“This isn’t a yearly trip to the university dorms, Mom.”

“I know. Still. Where’s the girls?”

Right on cue, all three girls stepped around the wall upstairs and stopped at the top of the stairs. He half expected to have a very awkward situation with his thralls standing there in sexy fake maid outfits, or bikinis, or nothing at all. Thankfully they were wearing more normal, modern maid outfits, and they all waved before hopping down the stairs.

“Master!” they said in unison as they ran up to him. Before he could say anything, they all hugged him, at the same time, and they made sure to squash him between them as they did.

Veronica with her blue hair was a bit shorter than Jack. Leilani with her brown hair was his height. Rachel with her short blonde hair was a couple inches taller than him. Having all three hugging and giggling was colorful and varied, and Jack did his best to hug them back while ignoring the judging looks he got from his mom and Athalia.

“Dude,” Triss said, and she held up a thumb. “Nice.” Which earned a small slap on her hand from his mom.

“It’s nice to see you too, girls,” Jack said. “Sorry I haven’t been here. I’ll make sure you get your blood later.”

Their eyes lit up like kids on Christmas.

“Yes master,” they said. They stepped back, gave him a small bow, and gave his mom a small bow, too.

“Thank you, Miss Terry.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

They bowed deeper, and left.

If she’d been Blushing Life, his mom would have incinerated from the heat of embarrassment. She stared after the girls, before looking back at him and the others.

“Don’t look at me,” Jack said, shrugging. “Probably something Antoinette told them to do.”

“You didn’t call them?”

“I did, but I didn’t really fill them in on the details.”

Nodding and sighing, she came in closer to him and gave him a quick pat on the arm.

“I know you don’t like to talk just to talk, but young girls do. Make sure you treat them nicely, even if that means just having a conversation with them every so often. Even if that means ... sitting around and just listening to them talk.”

He raised a brow, and looked to everyone else. Damien shrugged. Triss shrugged. Athalia shrugged.

“Yes, Mom.”

And then they all laughed. Assholes.

“Think you can defend this place without the curse?” Damien asked. Leave it to him to be direct about the issue. One of the reasons he was Jack’s best friend.

“We’ll see. I know Michael’s gonna wanna talk about it.”

Athalia frowned as she looked around. “But you own it.”

“I’m Invictus, and this place was passed down from other Invictus. I don’t really own it. I mean, I kinda do, and I kinda don’t.”

“Stupid,” she said, shrugging, and walked off.

“Mom, follow her and make sure she doesn’t burn my home down.”

Athalia laughed, which was a pretty damn strange sound to hear from her. And kinda creepy, evil sounding, like she belonged behind some big computer screen with a countdown showing the seconds before her deadly nuclear strike wiped out the world.

His mom nodded and followed after her.

“I’ll show you around. This place is huge! Almost as big as my sire’s tower! Well, its basement anyway.”

Jack watched after them as the two mothers left, before he relaxed and sat down on the stairs. He clucked his tongue a few times up at Mulder and Scully, and the two crows nodded before flying after his mom and Athalia. Much as he trusted his mom, she could be a bit of a pushover, and he didn’t want Athalia rummaging through all his shit. The birds would stop her. Hopefully.

“How’re things with Sándor?” he asked Triss as she sat beside him.

“Pretty great, honestly. You’d think there’d be drama, considering how we met, and all the shit with ... everything. But, no, the dude is so chill.”

“Yeah? Sounds kinda boring.”

She snorted a laugh as she shoved his shoulder, and slid him a few inches across the stairs.

“You’d think, but it’s not. He’s—wait, why do you care?”

“What, I can’t care?”

“No. You’re a guy. And you’re Jack.”

“True,” Damien said, nodding. “She makes a valid point. I couldn’t care less about how Beatrice’s dating life is going.”

Triss nodded and gestured to Damien, as if he’d said some universal truth. And Jack did kinda agree, but only a little.

Groaning, he rubbed his hair a few times. How to say this, how to say this.

“I care, because ... shit’s happened to everyone. Bad shit. And I’m hoping people are recovering.”

Damien leaned against the railing beside him. “That’s also true. Fiona was a wreck when Sándor delivered a message to her from Azamel. She really was the grandmother Fiona never had.”

“That old bitch?” Triss asked.

Jack laughed. “She was an old bitch, but probably the kind who was super nice to her close family. I don’t know how Fiona got into that family, or Athalia, or Mark, but considering Mark was willing to die to see her again...”

“Assuming Jacob meant Azamel,” Damien said, “when he was talking about Mark.”

“Assuming, yeah. Athalia doesn’t talk about Azamel, Triss?”

“Nah. We keep the topics light, ya know? It’s her and Sam that get into the heavy topics with each other. I steer clear.”

“They do?”

She nodded as she looked down, tapping her boot toes on the floor.

“They’re the ones who know what each other’s going through, ya know? Sure, I’m Sam’s friend, and I guess Athalia and I can talk now without wanting to kill each other. But it’s those two that are gonna be best friends, given some time.”

Athalia and his mom, best friends. That was a weird thought, but Triss was right, it fit. Both moms who’d lost their daughters. Both had gone through a lot of other nasty trauma, too. His mom had lost her husband, and then killed the next man she’d gotten close to. Athalia, Jack had no idea what other sorts of troubles she’d faced, but considering the sort of shit Begotten had to go through just to survive, combined with having her own daughter hunting her down to kill her, it probably ranked similar.

“I wonder,” Triss said. “I mean, I know what happened with Jacob is probably eating her up, and Athalia is the best person she could talk to. They both blame themselves for shit. But, Athalia’s got a boyfriend.”

Jack grimaced. Best head this conversation off before it went sideways.

“Mom’s been through Hell. I think we should let her recover before—”

“Fuck no. Your mom is not that sort of person, Jack. She shouldn’t be left alone to wallow in misery in a tomb with candles, listening to shitty emo metal, and drawing bleeding roses on her arms with a black pen.”

Jack blinked, and looked to Damien. Damien blinked and looked to Jack.

Triss threw up her hands. “Yes, I’ve done that. You fucking assholes.”

“Okay,” Jack said, “you think we shouldn’t give Mom time to recover?”

“I think some people need that. The super introspective types that can’t get out of their own head.” Predictably, she poked Jack in the skull, and he winced as her claw almost pierced skin. “But your mom? No. She’s better off with someone in her life. She is the last person on the planet who should ever be alone.”

“I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around that.”

“Of course not. You ever stop thinking, dude? You ever stop running thoughts in your head, around and around and around?”

No point in trying to deny it. He knew it. Damien knew it. And apparently she knew it.

“No.”

“Well, your mom is not like that. She’s a, dare I say it, extrovert. Dun dun dun!” She threw her hands up again. “I know, right? Other kinds of thinking exist. Not everyone is like you, or him,” she gestured to Damien, “or Miss BigTits. Some people are like your mom, or Fiona, or Othello, or Harcourt. If they’re alone, that’s basically their own, personal Hell. They do better when they have people in their lives most of the time, people to talk to.” She pointed at Damien. “What would happen to Fiona if she had to spend a week with no one to talk to, no one to text or call?”

“She’d die,” Damien said, nodding slowly as he looked up and went into thinking mode. “She talks to Jessy all the time, and Natasha, and Athalia, and others. When she’s done talking to one, she moves down the list.”

Jack had to fight to not laugh. Much as Damien was smiling at the thought of his girlfriend, he was also wincing. Fiona likely talked his ear off whenever her girlfriends were out of contact. And sure, Damien probably enjoyed listening to her ... for a while. Jack knew the man pretty well, and Damien loved silence like Jack did. Why the man was so into Fiona, he couldn’t figure out, but the man clearly loved her. One of those mysterious examples of opposites attracting and actually working.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Jack asked Triss.

“I dunno. I’d thought about maybe asking her if she wants to fuck Othello and Madison again. Get some intimacy that way, but—”

Jack groaned and sank his face in his palms. “Why. Whyyy.” It was in his head now. His mom, naked, with Othello and his ghoul doing things to her. Argh.

“Oh shut up. Your mom knows you fuck those three girls who just hugged you and called you master. Fucking slut with a fucking harem. Imagine how she feels seeing that?”

“It’s not a ... okay, fine. Mom has a sex life. I can accept that.” In some alternate reality. “But...?”

“But fucking Othello would probably bring back bad memories for her, what with Jacob.”

A mountain of will and mental fortitude later, Jack managed to not cringe.

“Maybe one of the werewolves?” Damien said. “Maybe Carter...”

Silence hit them like a snowball with a hidden rock inside. The azlu had killed Carter, the oldest werewolf in the pack alongside Avery.

“I don’t have anyone in mind yet,” Triss said, “but I figured I should say it. Your mom is not the sort of woman that should be left alone, but she’s too nice to actively go looking for company. So keep an eye open for any guys you’d think would be good for her.”

“Maybe a thrall?” Damien asked. “Or, you know, a few? She is a Daeva.”

Again, somehow, Jack managed to find the strength to not cringe or groan or even squint at the thought of his mom getting triple stuffed. Look at him, growing up.

“Honestly, Triss,” Jack said, “you’re talking to the wrong guys. I mean sure, she’s my mom, but I don’t really, uh ... hang out with people and talk to them. I have no idea who’d be a good match for her.”

Damien lifted a finger. “The Prince would know. So would Elaine.”

It was Triss’s turn to groan. “I mean, I guess I could ask them. The Prince probably already knows, but sure, yeah, I’ll talk to her.”

“You’re going to be talking to her a lot,” Jack said, “if you’re going to be the leader of the Circle of the Crone in Dolareido.”

“Fuck me, leader? There’s three of us. The only one who actually does Crúac rituals is me. And I need another fifty years at the fucking minimum before the Prince gives the smallest shit about my opinion. I’m no Primogen. Far as she’s concerned, the Circle of the Crone doesn’t exist, and I’m just a hippie with a couple friends who like to dance naked around a fire in the moonlight, smoking random plants.”

Jack laughed. It was a pretty accurate description of what a pompous elder would think of anyone who called themselves a ‘witch’ in the modern era. It wasn’t accurate to what the Prince thought, though. Ann knew Triss was more than some deluded hippie.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Yeah, well, it’s true enough. And that’s fine. Maybe in fifty years I’ll have scratched the surface of the mountain of shit Jacob knew that he didn’t tell me, didn’t get a chance to teach me. The rituals. The ... crazy weirdness. What it means to be in the Circle of the Crone.” She looked overwhelmed, like a kid hanging onto a piece of driftwood in a flood.

Jack was shit at this, but it seemed like the thing to do. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“You got a friend in me?”

“Oh my fucking god, you really suck at comforting people.”

His turn to throw up his hands. “Nevermind, then!”

He got up to walk away, but she grabbed his wrist and yanked him back down.

“Thanks anyway, dumbass. You seen Aaron?”

“No. No one’s seen him. I got the whole Invictus keeping an eye open for him, but so far no show. You sure he got out of the Great Below? You said he had no limbs left, and was in torpor. I can’t imagine he survived, Triss.” That’d be enough to kill any neonate vampire.

She shook her head. “Something happened. There should have been more ashes, and the other ash piles weren’t touched.”

“Crúac ritual?” Damien asked. “Something that yanked him out of the Great Below? Or maybe had some sort of reserve blood that allowed him to heal?”

“Probably. Or maybe a ghost came and helped him? Sabrina was full-on helping Black Blood, right? Like, she was convinced he’d help her get out of the Great Below. Could be the fucker had other ghosts under his thumb, too.”

“Got a place to sleep?” Jack asked. “Must be unnerving, knowing Aaron’s out there, maybe plotting revenge and shit.”

“Yeah I do. Jen and I have a little hideaway, something no one knows about. But it’s just a hole in the ground. Literally.”

“You could—”

“Nah we’re not staying here. Besides, I’m a fucking witch. I got ways of defending myself.”

“Witchy witch stuff?” he asked.

“Hell yeah.” She grinned and flicked her crow skull necklace a couple times. Mulder and Scully hated that thing.

“What about Sándor?”

“Yeah, he might be able to help.” She sighed dreamily, leaned forward, and set her elbows on her knees, chin in her palms. “Me and Jen been fucking the guy pretty much all night every night for a week, now. It’s been great.”

Again, Jack went through his sanity-saving routine of burying his face in his palms before rubbing his buzzed hair. But the beaming smile on the girl’s face settled him. She wasn’t just saying that to screw with him. She was happy.

“Glad it worked out for you two.”

“Thanks. Sándor’s great. Pretty damn hard to read, though. Super quiet all the time, making it a bitch to tell if he’s brooding or just thinking about how to play a song.” Her eyes drifted away, thinking up something she liked. “How about you, you little shit? You need help?”

“From Aaron?”

“Nah. If Aaron’s alive, and if he’s got revenge on his mind, he’ll be coming for me. I don’t think that’s what’ll happen, but who the fuck knows.” She stood up and paced around in front of the giant mansion doors. “I meant with normal vampire shit. If Michael gives you trouble about the mansion, I could cast a curse on him?”

Jack laughed. “I’ll find out later tonight.” A meeting he was not looking forward to.

“Garry gonna gank your ass for all the trouble you gave him?”

“Hopefully not.” He didn’t think he would. Michael and Garry were both assholes that liked to shove people around, but they weren’t colossal assholes. “Uh, put me a good word for me with your old boss?”

She laughed and shrugged. “Uh, yeah sure, I’ll try. What about that bitch Bella? She doesn’t like you.”

“I think my last conversation with her managed to settle things down a bit. I had the curse then, so maybe she was just biding her time. But, uh, hopefully once I talk to Garry and tell him about what happened with Jacob, Bella won’t hate my guts so much.”

“Assuming Bella wouldn’t have wanted Jacob to win,” she said.

There was that, and that was a pretty big if. The details of Jacob and Black Blood’s plot were still basically a secret, and usually summarized to others as ‘an apocalypse’. If people found out what Jacob had really been up to, some might be angry Jack and the others had stopped him.

“Playing damage control will be harder from now on, yeah, but I think I’m fine.”

“Maybe,” Damien said. “I’m worried about Isabella.”

“Ah shit, right.” Another facepalm and head rub. “I did kind of bully her, didn’t I?”

“Ice queen?” Triss asked. “Want me to deal with her?”

“She’s almost as old as Othello,” Damien said. “She’s strong.”

“With delusions of grandeur,” Jack said. “Pretty shit combination.”

“We could have her killed,” Damien said. That was ice cold, even for him.

Jack shook his head. “I’ll talk to her, probably right after my meeting with Michael.”

Mulder and Scully perched on some nearby power lines. If something happened, they had specific instructions to tell the girls, and the girls were on standby to contact the Prince. He wanted the girls out of any situation dealing with Jacob or Black Blood, but typical Danse Macabre politics? They weren’t just his food or pets, they were his backup.

Next time he had a minute for them, he’d do more than teach them how to load and shoot a semi-automatic pistol.

Sure enough, as he stepped into the Invictus HQ, repairs completed since the fire, Isabella cut him off before he could reach the elevator. Tall, busty, wearing a business suit with plenty of cleavage, her long dirty blonde hung behind her in a half dozen braids, she grinned at him with icy blue eyes and a very sharp jaw. Daeva doing what Daeva always did, using their looks to get their way, but he wasn’t the simple little Ventrue who’d walked into this building an eternity ago as a naive kid.

This woman was a venomous snake, waiting for the right moment to strike.

“Mister Terry,” she said, blocking him from hitting the call button for the elevator with her body. “How are you?”

He met her icy gaze with a solid, flat gaze of his own. He would not be intimidated.

“Madam Leauvion. I’m feeling a lot better, thanks.”

“That’s good. News got around about how badly you were injured.”

“Second time getting torn up by werewolf claws. They hurt like fire. Literally.”

That got a shiver out of her. Isabella was confident about a lot of things, but a physical brawl wasn’t her strong suit, even as a Daeva. Mekhet would probably have suited her better.

“Not to mention losing your curse.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Got your ear to the ground, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Her grin was absolutely evil. “I have to know where I should put my focus.”

“Not on me, I hope.”

Her grin only got more evil.

“And why not you? You are at the center of so many conflicts, many I didn’t even know about.”

“Not by choice, and not anymore.”

“You know full well you’ll end up in the middle of events in the future, Mister Terry. Be it with the werewolves, or the covenants, or even the nightmare monsters in our midsts, you’ll be put between it all again eventually.”

Much as he hated what she was saying, he couldn’t entirely disagree with her. It was still his job to play liaison with the different groups and try and keep peace as best he could. It was a job the Prince insisted he keep, and as far as he knew, Michael still wanted him to keep; probably not for its peacekeeping position, but the knowledge it made him privy to. A key piece in his game of chess.

“No point in dodging around it,” he said. “No, I’m not the freak I was before. Just a young Ventrue, now.”

“Very young.”

He smirked. “You could probably kill me in a fight, yeah.”

She blinked. Well well well, a hole in her armor: honesty. Typical.

“How will you defend yourself and your assets now, Mister Terry?”

“With the power, of friendship.” And of course, he made a rainbow-like gesture with his hands.

“What?”

“I got friends in high places, Isabella. And in dark places. You really think you’re a threat to me? You? Some ice queen bitch hiding deep underground with a troupe of actors who can barely throw a punch? I’m dating the Prince, and have been for years. My best friend is one of the stealthiest Mekhets around. My second best friend is a witch, and Jacob’s favorite, largely because she’s a god damn natural at being a witch. I’m close with the Uratha, and despite what you may think, we’re not on bad terms. We’re allies, and they’ll help me if I ask. Same for the Begotten.” He leaned in toward the staring Daeva, and grinned up at her. “You have any idea what Begotten can do, Isabella? Any fucking clue at all?”

She frowned, ground her teeth, and said nothing.

“No, of course you don’t.” His turn for an evil grin. “They don’t need to attack you physically. They have ways of getting into your mind, and terrorizing your dreams. Not to mention literally showing up under your bed or in your closet. And trust me, you fucking sociopath bitch, you wouldn’t last two seconds trapped in the dark with one of them.” He raised a hand, and Isabella glared at it as he pointed a finger at her sternum. He jammed it into her chest, and she took a step back, giving him the space needed to press the call button for the elevator. “And you might not think it, but you’d be hard pressed to find a Ventrue my age who can do what I do. I’m not an ant for you to step on, or child for you to bully. It won’t be long before I won’t need my friends to grind you into ash myself.

“With anyone else, I’d be trying to make peace, but you are a cruel, heartless fucking sack of shit, and as far as I’m concerned, the city would be better off without snakes like you. But, unlike you, I have a heart. Stay out of my way, and you get to live. Follow whatever official orders I give you, and you get to live. Fight whatever war you want with Michael, and as long as you keep me out of it, you get to live. But cross me and I’ll make sure Hella comes home to find your urn, nice and full.”

Her eyes had widened, rage and surprise cutting through her usual icy mask, but he didn’t have to keep staring at them. The elevator dinged, and he stepped on. Isabella didn’t follow.

“I have to admit,” Michael said, “I didn’t entirely believe my childe’s report until the last Primogen meeting.”

Jack nodded. The two of them stood alone in the usual meeting room the Invictus council always used, a big expensive black table near a wall that was actually a giant touch screen. It was off. No relevant data to show for this conversation.

“The night was pretty insane, sir.”

“Insane doesn’t begin to cover it. Everything in the report read like something I’d expect to see in a witch’s book, or the bible.”

“It was biblical in scale, no denying that.”

Michael nodded as he slid his finger up his smart tablet, likely reading more of Jessy’s report.

“Jacob is dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So’s the Begotten Mark. The sheriff killed him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your curse killed two werewolves, while one of those azlu monsters got another.”

The man wasn’t trying to hurt his feelings, but damn, he was blunt.

“Yes, sir. Avery and Eric have since told me they’ve been working with the Begotten to find the remnant of that azlu, before it grows up. They’re confident.”

“Good. Monsters in the sewers? Shit like that ends up on the news, and then we get hunters on our doorstep. More hunters.” Nodding, he scrolled some more. “Your curse is gone.”

“Yes sir. Black Blood’s doing.”

Michael eyed him. “The report is pretty vague on the details of that.”

“It was a complicated situation.” How to word this without exposing sensitive information. “But, ultimately, Elaine had set up a trap to stop Jacob and Black Blood. She succeeded. Me losing the curse was a step in that plan.”

“I want more details, Mister Terry.”

“Sorry, sir. I was pretty beat up before I even got to Jacob, and missing an eye. Damien was a bit too far to see the nuances. Jessy and the others arrived in the middle of chaos. Elaine and the Prince, on the other hand, were in pristine condition, and hands-on with Jacob until the end. You’ll have to ask them for the more intimate details.”

Michael knew he was lying, that much was obvious. But considering what Jack and the others had accomplished, there was a good chance Michael would let it drop. He did.

“Damien has spoken with Maria at length of the event.”

“Has he?” Jack asked with his best poker face.

His boss glared at him. “He has, but Maria is hesitant to speak of it.”

Jack nodded slowly. “I wonder why.”

More glares.

“Regardless, you and your companions have done well, Mister Terry. I wish I could have been there, if perhaps for a chance to speak to Roland. But, considering how he died, and how ... shortsighted, my feud with Tones over his death has been, I am under the impression he would not wish to speak to us.”

Oh, shit, he was being honest.

“I ... wouldn’t know, sir. I only know his name wasn’t mentioned by any of the souls.”

Michael nodded slowly, and shrugged. “Very well. This event will remain a mystery, as it always had to simple folk such as Garry and myself. How dare vampires such as the two of us live our second lives in the world of the physical, of blood and smoke.”

Jack said nothing. Hearing his boss be honest one moment, and sarcastic the next, was throwing him off. This was not the usual Michael McDonald.

“Next topic. Your mansion. Do you think you are capable of defending it?”

“I think I can. I am confident I can easily defeat a vampire of similar age in any sort of battle, without the curse.”

“Yes, but it won’t be young neonates coming to your mansion to kill you and hide the evidence. It’ll be vampires like Isabella.”

Jack frowned. “Isabella—”

“Is more of a threat to me than she is to you, officially. She wants my head, and my seat now that the council is gone. But she will forever be undermined by her passions, a slave to them. She is a pale shadow of Antoinette, and she knows it. That, however, does lead to a second issue: she is more of a threat to you than she is to me, unofficially. She does not like you. She envies you.”

“I can handle her. And if I can’t, I have other ways.”

“Other ways.” That seemed to make Michael’s night. He smiled bright, and leaned in toward him. “You mean you won’t just bash your skull into her over and over again and hope for success?”

That reversal came out of nowhere, and Jack winced as he looked down.

“I’ve had to learn a lot of things over the past half a decade, sir. And, I admit, I resisted a lot of those lessons. But, yes, I now know if I have to make something happen, it’s not always optimal to bash my head against the problem and hope for the best.”

“Good. Now, I will let you keep the mansion, Mister Terry, assuming you can deal with Isabella, and Hella, and Garry and Bella taking the occasional poke at you and your rather exposed property.”