That's no good, he thought

He could see the fluxes around the hole all right, he could even make sense of them. But as he protruded is magic to touch and rearrange the fluxes, they seemed to slip from his touch, or just move at the last second, completely wasting his efforts to influence them.

«Well?» asked Banshee, her nerves starting to act up, as the water level kept on rising constantly.

«It's not something immediate, you know? Not all of us have inelegant little spells that work shaking your hands in the air. You made me lose my focus and now I have to start all over!» snapped Chico, trying to cover his trail, and his panic. He took a deep breath, focused deeper and tried again.

Nothing.

The fluxes remained beyond his understanding and reach- He started to feel cold sweat forming on his forehead.

He tried again.

The hole slightly enlarged, and the water flux got visibly faster.

«Oh my God you botched it! It will be flooded in a matter of hours!» Banshee was already feeling the tearing sensation of Garaham screaming at them with all his might. «This place has no fucking door or windows! There's no way the water's flooding out!»

«Stop shrieking I need to think!» roared Chico, starting to frantically massage his temples. Uselessly. There was no way to do something fast. They would have needed time, materials and a complex ritual.

«You know what we do in Russia when hole is problem?» Vopros's voice sounded over all the overwhelming panic going around. Chico and Banshee turned to him. «We close it.»

«What the hell do you mean? I already told you, we can't close this thing! We'd need Dispel magic, but only Enforcers know it and we can hardly ask the Chief, can't we!» Chico groaned.

«We don't have to close it forever!» Banshee's eyes started shimmering, and Chico shut up.

«I'm listening.»

«We just have to close it now, clean everything as if nothing happened and then if it opens again while we are not here... well, tough luck, who knows what happened. Am I wrong?»

«Precisely my point.» said Vopros, approvingly. Chico looked at them as if he had just ended up in a madhouse.

That was perfect.

They started to pick up anything they could use to fill the hole. They clogged the spring with cloth, then amassed everything on top of it, and finally moved a nearby bookcase to cover their work, filling it with even more boxes than it originally had. Banshee used her newly discovered Displace magic to remove the excess water, leaving the floor damp but clean. The hole in the wall was no more visible, but their consciences could clearly feel the slow amassing of water behind the patch.

They had just started breathing again, looking anxiously at the incriminated bookshelf, that right beside them a dull, grey light started to shimmer. It was like a blurred window pane through which they could see Garaham's office.

«So.» he said, putting his black and gold MontBlanc in his breast pocket, treating it with the sacredness of a relic, and looked at them, with suspect. «Everything done?»

«With no hiccups whatsoever!» Banshee lied, with a straight-up face.

Luckily for her, there was a light of worry in Garaham's eyes that made abundantly clear that, from the will to punish them the day before, he had long passed on to something more serious.

«It seems we have a problem.» Garaham passed a hand over his forehead, trying to keep his cool. «In short: Justin d'Yves denounced the theft of the Music box to the Council, saying he has proof of our involvement in it, and demanded a trial.»

«Aye, that's rich!» Banshee jumped up, crossing her arms over her chest. «We didn't leave any trace o' our passage there! The police are literally in the dark! I made sure of that, and I can be bad in many things but not evading law and order!»

«You don't need to remind me.» Garaham replied, coldly. «Still, I have the strangest theory that maybe it was some little detail, I don't know, like the explosion that pointed them in our direction.» he growled.

«Explosion is human thing. It destroys evidence. Is not proof. Fact I good with explosive not proof.» Vopros defended himself, with an uncaring tone.

«Nonetheless, we have to face a trial, and that's not good.» Garaham sighed.

«But Chief, we have no music box. They'd just have to ask us under some kind o' a truth spell and...»

«First: mental control, remembrances browsing, past scrying and truth spells are so easy to manipulate, in an Order of Mages that no court would ever accept those. Remembrances can be manipulated, visions of the past can be wrong and truth changed right in the mind of the speaker. After six or seven trials gone awry, that kind of Magic is first of all discouraged and, in official proceedings, completely forbidden.» Garaham explained. «Second, you stole it. The sole fact that we don't have it, it's far from enough to exonerate us. The deed had been done, and Justin D'Yves want to show what happens when you touch their family. And the Council can't do anything but bow their heads.»

«Council's families are a bunch of medieval pussies.» Banshee grumbled, a tad too harsh to feel natural. Garaham clenched his fists.

«You mean, like mine?»

«Yer at least not in the Council, Chief. Yer a good person.» she replied, without even flinching. They exchanged a glance.

«I'm not usually en acuerdo with Banshee, Chief, but we did not leave any proof. No prints, no eligible witnesses, no recordings, nothing. They can't have any... oh...» Chico interrupted his speech, when he caught Garaham's glare. «Verdaderotiempo...»

«Gesundheit?» Banshee frowned, bummed by the sudden stop of his fiery defense, something that didn't happen often.

«Truetime.» Garaham translated. «Logan must have taught you about Majestic Forces.»

«Aaah, right. Just the basics.» she shrugged. «Super-strange powers that come from the Great Supernatural Powers like Time and Destiny, and that sound like Sega-Mega-Drive final bosses' combo moves?»

«Ay, mi corazon...» Chico whined.

«True forces are powers we still can't fully comprehend. As much as your disillusioned modern-day pose towards the magical word can put a false sense of security in your scarred little brain, Banshee, I dare to remind you that Magic exists and yes, it is scary.» Garaham reprimanded her. «Truetime is a fearful ability that lets the person who wields it to bend the flow of time to its will. The D'Yves are particularly proficient in stopping it whenever they need it and use the time gap to act while their enemies are unaware and, often, powerless. So, you can flaunt your ignorance as much as you want, but just until that doesn't kill you.»

Chico looked at Banshee's face after Garaham's words, and he saw her jaw clenching and the grip she had on her own forearms tighten. He had been trying to understand something of Banshee's backstory, but the talkative and friendly Irish girl had never given up anything. Even under the influence. There included the story of how she had found herself inside that Coven without spending a single day in Mages Academy.

«But the Councilman? Della Rovere? He gave you the mission, he doesn't have a plan to get you out of this?» Vopros asked.

«I think he would have never thought Justin would call a Trial. Usually, artefact theft is a trivial matter. There's a light investigation, nobody ever assesses anyone's fault, the artifact suddenly resurfaces and it's sucked in by Division 3 and forever forgotten. If anything, stealing an artefact from another Mage is the safest way to ensure either that he'll just try to steal it back, and never tell the Order anything, or that he'll press charges, and the Council will solomonically ensure that neither of the mages get to keep the object. In a way, it's kind of educational.» Garaham explained, for once not surprised by his underlings' ignorance. The Order's internal games were something the Pollos had always been oblivious about. «I guess Councilman Della Rovere simply thought that Justin wouldn't press charges, risking to expose the fact that he had a Pandora's Box he had always denied having. And that, in the end, he would have made sure to pop it out in front of the whole Council, and good luck then, forcing them not to open a Pandora's Box. Even if you're a D'Yves.»

«So, everything simply backfired on our asses.» Banshee summarized.

«We can still turn this all.» Garaham nodded. «We have four days. Use them. Find out anything you can about Justin and whomever could have helped him. That Staccato surely has a role in this freakshow. Anything.» his voice vibrated with an undertone of rage that spread a strange, reassuring sensation in the hearts of the three. «And this time. No. Mistakes.»

He teleported everyone back at the Order's Headquarters, a seemingly inoffensive warehouse, out in the factory district of the city, far from the center and the fuss, and apparently just the blue-collar site of a shipment agency.

As they split up to go their separate ways, Chico marched towards his pick-up, with no intention of working on the common problem, but rather hoping to get to spend some time with Carlos in his church. The kid needed to be trained in the way of the Palo, and every day counted. Plus, he liked the poor child. He was so curious about everything, and Chico loved to tell him stories that made his eyes glimmer with wonder. The kid had a terrible present, with a very unfitting family for a boy so clever, and Chico had made his personal crusade to make sure he had at least one chance.

He had just sat in the driver's seat when suddenly, with a muffled thumping sound, around him everything went dark. He stood in shock for some seconds, before realizing what had happened. He pushed the car door, who seemed stuck for the first two attempts, and then gave way with some difficulty and with a crunching noise. He rolled out of the car and looked at it, puzzled.

The pick-up had been covered with at least one foot of white, cold, perfect and heavy snow.

********************************
Hey, followers and readers, as always thanks to be here!
Announcement, announcement!

From next week on, I will update just once a week.
But - but - I will update a complete long chapter, meaning at least three parts to read, so you'll be covered until the next upload.
I think it's easier to follow the story this way, for you, and for me not to become crazy in cutting too strangely. So, benefits for all.

As always thank you ever so much for reading, and if you feel like comment, start discussions and/or light up that little star, I'll be happier than a tornado in a caravan park.

Have a super-duper weekend!