With a princess killer to catch, a host of fairy-tale characters to wrangle and a crumbling career to resurrect, fallen hotshot Agent Fields has his hands full. And that's before the case leads to a story-obsessed, dimension-hopping scientist, hellb...
Fields thought about it. He didn't like it. "Okay, so clearly we need to find him and stop him, ASAP. Which kind of begs the question, why are we here?"
Peregrine gave her partner a puzzled look. "This is a pizza place. Why do you think we're here?"
His eyes widened. "No. You can't be serious. We're here for pizza?"
"Ha! When it comes to food, I'm always serious. And this place is great. The cook refuses to use any of those barbaric non-pizza ingredients, like pineapple or eggplant—he's a man after my own heart. I thought we'd just top up on the old carbs before we head off to interrogate the entity, wrangle the witch and finger Featherstone. And let's try not to get those mixed up, okay?"
Fields held up his hands. "You knock yourself out—I'm all carbed up, thanks."
Peregrine gave a sad shake of her head. "Oh, young padawan. Disappoint me, you do. Five minutes on the job and you've already forgotten the first rule of Section F. Ah well, I'm sure Embers will join me in the partaking of some quality pizza. How about it, princess?"
"Ooh, yes please, Peregrine. Being magicked, wooed, imprisoned, rescued and driven in an enchanted carriage does tend to make one rather peckish."
"Excellent."
"I do just have one question, though."
"Okay, hit me. Ow! What the hell?"
For what may well have been the first time that day, Fields felt the corners of his mouth tugging up into a grin. "You might want to watch what you say around Embers, Peregrine. She's quite the literal-minded princess."
"Oh, yeah." Giving her bicep a rub, Peregrine shot Embers a rueful smile. "That's quite an arm you've got there, slugger. What I meant to say was, what's your question?"
"Well, Peregrine my dear, I was just wondering—what exactly is pizza?"
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Their actual destination, to Fields' surprise, turned out to be a nursing home. And the entity, to his even greater surprise, turned out to be an elderly Asian man. An elderly Asian man dozing in the sunlight of the home's extensive, manicured gardens.
"That's your pan-galactic, inter-dimensional, transcendental whatsit?" he demanded, as they walked over the lush, freshly mown lawns. "The old guy in the wheelchair?"
"Yep," replied Peregrine. "Well, actually, no. That's just the vessel it currently inhabits. It doesn't have an actual physical presence in our dimension, so it tends to kind of just, ah...borrow one."
"Wait a minute. You're telling me this thing takes over people? That it possesses them?"
"Well—more or less. But don't worry, it usually only goes for late-stage dementia patients. Says there's more room that way."
"Oh right, obviously that's okay then. Peregrine, what are we even hoping to achieve here? How's this...this thing supposed to help us find Featherstone?"
"Simple, Fields. Well, now that I think about it, it's probably horribly complicated. But anyway, because it's pan-dimensional, or multi-universal or whatever you might wanna call it, the entity is able to somehow sense disturbances across the various planes it inhabits; basically, it can tell when stuff is out of place. Stuff like Embers here—"
"Peregrine, I really must protest—"
"Sorry, people like Embers here, or the witch, or our dozy prince. This won't be the first time it's helped me find interdimensional interlopers. Anyways, come on over and I'll introduce you."
The old man didn't stir at their approach, and it was only when Peregrine placed a gentle hand on his shoulder that his eyes opened. When they did, they were looking straight at Fields.
Who gasped, and took an involuntary step back. The light of a million universes blazed in those dark eyes—a billion galaxies, a quadrillion suns. The vastness of time, the immensity of space, the birth of creation and the end of all things, life, death, love and hope, the ineffable enigmas of existence, all were contained within those stygian spheres, the two inscrutable, black eyes directing their dispassionate gaze at him, seemingly piercing down to his very soul. Only when they turned away and Fields started breathing again did he realise he'd stopped.
The dark eyes fell on Embers. Already fair, she became deathly pale, as the blood drained from her lovely, aristocratic features. "Oh...oh, my." The eyes moved on.
And at last, came to rest on Peregrine. There was a moment of hushed stillness, as even the birds fell silent, and it seemed as though the very world held its breath. Then, at last, the entity spoke.
