There is always Hope

Goober was absorbed in watching a young man at the far end working on a mural that read "There is always Hope". His technique was classical and the painting of a virginal muse was strikingly beautiful for a tearoom.

Puck ordered for them, “three teas would be very nice thank you,” he said taking a fiver out from his pocket. Daisy hesitated and then took it - she wasn't used to anyone paying any money in there.

Barnabus arrived with their teas. He looked very pleased to see them - almost as though they were old friends.

"Here's to the gentle souls,” he said inexplicably, picking up a glass of water with dramatis. Puck glimpsed an air of regality about the man.

Dressed in his corduroys and a yarn challenged sweater, he looked more like the crowd that he ran with, than the millionaire that he was. Puck had his security do some research and it revealed that Barnabus had begun his philanthropy over forty years ago.

"You can't bring that in here" he said pointing to Nervina's satchel. Nervina stuck his hand inside and placed it over the steel box holding the heart, protectively.

"This is a holy place you see - and we don't abide that kind of thing. Negative influence and all that - brings the place down."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Christian Mission Tearoom

The Christian Mission tearoom was crowded with elderly men, comforted with scones and bingo and the societal warmth that the meeting place did bring.

No sooner had Puck walked in was he greeted by an older woman with a generous smile. Her name-badge identified her as one of the volunteers, and she had embellished it with a daisy drawn with a smiley face, coloured with a yellow felt tip pen.

Nervina and Goober both looked suitably shabby - even Puck himself had dressed down, wearing just jeans and a hoody (which, as he had pointed out many a time, never really went out of fashion).

They searched the room for Barnabus but could not see him amongst the sea of hats and bald heads.

"Barnabus is out spruiking for the tearoom - we have a few places left for lunch today, which you men might have just filled. I'll call him on the mobile for you. He shouldn't be long" said Daisy, whose name just happened to be Daisy as well as wearing a picture of one on her name tag.

"What would you boys like?"

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Weather Channel

There was a rap at the door - it glided open and through walked Pepper, back from her time away on the border. Dressed all in denim, she threw her coat off and thumped herself down onto the couch beside Puck. Little Charley shuffled over onto her lap and started playing with her ponytail. Pepper parked a kiss on her nose and laughed as her hair clips were yanked fiercely from her head.

"Are you doing ok?" she asked her brother affectionately with concern.

She knew that he could not be ok really - which was precisely why she had cut her holiday short to return to him.

"Pip" he said seriously, "I have to go out with the boys - it might take a few days - do you think you could take care of Charley while we're gone?"

"Sure" said Pepper reassuringly "that's what I am here for now...”

He smiled a fond smile at her and motioned to Gordon and Nervina to get their coats.

"You better bring that along with you too" he said to Nervina pointing at the box. Within minutes the three had left the forest for London.

Pepper fixed herself and Charley a hot drink and snuggled up in front of the picture window.

"What country will it be this time?" she asked Charley playfully - "Oh look, it’s Mexico again! It almost seems to be set on that place! Let's see if we can find England and what the weather is like there today!"

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Heart in a Box

Nervina produced a small plain box saying:

"I've brought you Marsden's heart."

Puck tried to look disinterested, he really did not want to give Nervina the time of day, but still he felt compelled to ask: "You said that it was compacted after being placed into the garbage. Are you telling me your mischief of falsehood began as far back as then?"

"Yes, you could say that. I think most likely it was holding his heart that infected me so."

In Fey terms this was a possibility.

"And so you did not dispose of it as said?"

"No, I souvenired it. He had been giving us grief and I had worked so hard to defeat the man - I took it as a trophy."

"But then," asked Puck wonderingly "you fell in love with this same being?"

"Yes, once again I think that by keeping his heart it began the attraction ... and I was thereafter admiring the goodness I perceived in him."

"Until he murdered Marley." Puck said poignantly.

"Yes, until then ... " Nervina started to weep, he continued: "And all of a sudden it became deeply personal and his evility was real, and I began to see, no feel, what he is in reality."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A visit from Nervina

His doorbell rang. The birdcall sang twice before he had made it to the peephole.

Two elvish guards were pressed up against the door, gripping another with a stranglehold. They had caught Nervina.

Puck let the three in, asking Gordon to take Charley up into the nursery first before they would talk. He motioned the security elves to the cake cabinet and coffee bar.

Nervina coughed, his throat was red. Puck noted his weight had changed dramatically - he now wore a middle age girth and a double chin as an accessory. His chi was depleted, his eyes were bloodshot. Puck guessed that Forsythe had sucked the very life out of him.

"What is it you want?" he asked disparagingly.

"I want nothing from you Puck - I came only to bring you something I thought you should have."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Life as a full-time Father

"She can't go back - she can never go back,” Puck said solemnly to Goober who was feeding Charley her morning porridge, on which he sailed little rice paper boats, and would sink with sultana missiles.

"But it's her home there" Goober persisted.

"No more than it is here" replied Puck firmly. "She can be raised as I was, and no one ever needs to know."

Goober conceded. Charley was growing more and more faery-like by the day living in the etheric woods.

"Besides, if she develops, she will be able to see Marley when she returns to us. Better to have a mother in spirit than none at all."

They had still not seen or heard from Marley. Puck had searched, but could not locate her - it was as though the link between them had been entirely broken.

He had much to occupy himself with however, and as ever, poured himself into the first matter at hand. Life as a full-time father was more demanding than what he was used to - but it was growing on him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Interview Room

Puck just sat there, not moving. He could not move, and no words came.

He told himself that she must not have been suffering any pain, or fear, for he would have felt it if she had.

But how could this have happened? They had been with each other just moments before. It did not seem possible. This world was becoming a place of shadows for him yet again.

"Sir", the officer persisted, "do you recognize the young woman in these photographs?"

He nodded yes, unable to respond any further.

"We will give you a moment - would you like a cup of tea or coffee?"

He did not reply.

Puck suddenly became diminutive in size, losing twelve inches from his height. His magnetism waned and the officers became disenchanted – now far more attentive to their duties.

"I am, I was, Marley's partner" he knew as he was saying this that it would be hard to prove. No one had ever seen him enter and exit her flat and there were no belongings of his at her place. Added to all this, he had no DNA to prove Charlene's parentage. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to connect him to Marley at all. When the dialogue continued, both women had now become much sterner.

"And how long had you and Ms Marian Silver been seeing each other for?"

"On and off for years" he replied blandly. He could see where this was going.

"Am I a suspect?" he asked bluntly.

"No, and I apologize if we have implied that in any way at all. The entire crime was captured on CCTV. It was almost as though the murderer had wanted his activity filmed - he actually faced the camera deliberately several times smiling at it."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"We believe that Ms Silver was running a bath when Mark Forsythe entered her apartment. We cannot ascertain if he broke his way in, or if she had opened the door willingly. They were business acquaintances, and so in all probability she just let him in."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series