"No,"

I explained, resisting an urge to punch Lana right in her smug face.  "I'm only asking your opinion on what to do next.  If those self-absorbed, power-hungry Floozies think I am going to give them even a shred of authority over me, they've got another thing coming."

"Fine," Lana sighed, rolling her eyes.  "First piece of advice, stop getting distracted and let me tell you about Zan-"

"And don't think for a moment that I don't know what you're doing," I interrupted.

"What?"

"You're trying to play your little mind games again," I declared.  "The first thing you do when you get here is start berating me.."

"Of course I berated you!" she snapped.  "You have made a continuous series of the stupidest decisions possible, and consequently made a complete fool of yourself!"

"Yes, yes," I replied calmly.  "I see what you're doing.  Breaking me down and chipping away at my confidence so you can control me like a puppet and make me nice and pliable for The Sisterhood.  Well it won't work!"

"You literally just asked me what I think you should do," she pointed out.

"Such tricks won't work, as I said," I continued.  "I have the power of Hyper-Focus on my side!  My mind is an impenetrable fortress."

"It's impenetrable all right," Lana conceded after a brief pause.

"You thought I would not notice," I declared confidently.  "But how did you get past the rabbits if their security cordon is so tight?"

"With great difficulty," she replied.  "Now will you please just let me give you the intel-"

"I also commanded you not to return here unless it was to tell me where Zandar Skönk was."

"THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO!" Lana snapped irritably.  "So let me tell you and be done with it so I can go.  I'd rather be anywhere else but here, having this idiotic conversation with you."

"You need to learn to control your temper," I pointed out.  "Very well.  You have my permission to share your findings.  Proceed."

Lana sighed in irritation and told me an address in Londinium.

"That's her last known location," she elaborated.  "The trail stops there.  The house was purchased while still under construction, about 120 years ago, by Madame Zaza, a supposed Iberian Olera - that's kind of like a witch, basically a fortune teller and healer.  Oleras were always skunk femmes.  We think Zaza was Zandar.  She had an accomplice, one Hester Bunni.  We traced Hester to Egypt and there the trail ends.  Working backward, we can connect both of them to an incident in a certain Continental city which involved several ecclesiastical murders and the destruction of a Prostitutes' Guildhall.  From there they traveled to the court of King Bremor of Spain, where Zandar assumed the Olera identity.  This was not long before you and Estmere 'rescued' Queen Edessa.  Had the timing been slightly different, you might have met both of them then, and we wouldn't be having this conversation now."

"I care not about the past," I sniffed.  "Nor about some random bunny.  Where is Zandar now?"

"There's no trace of her past the house in Londinium.  Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - can disappear so thoroughly as to be undetectable by The Sisterhood's best techniques.  The only answer is that she still remains within, and alive.  There are ways to access the magick that maintains the Hall of Ancestors, and it shows no record of her death."

"How is that possible?"

"I wouldn't know without investigating further.  Since that address is her likely location, and you expressly forbade me from getting close to Zandar ..."

PREV http://www.patreon.com/posts/90005661