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“It’s possible only Lynch has it out for you.”

Her brows furrowed. “He’s adean. Even more damning for me.”

“If we can find success in this, eradicate this Plague, they will all have to eat their own words. They won’t have a choice but to shout your name in the streets and give you the highest accolades.”

“I don’t care about all that,” she snapped, folding her arms over her chest. She looked exhausted. He should tell her to sleep. To eat. But instead, he opened his stupid mouth to begin an argument.

“I’m not talking about accolades, Atta. I’m talking about your future. Your life. Grabbing those bastards by the balls and making them respect you, give you back your education.”

“None of that matters if all of Dublin becomes a playground for the Fae, Sonder.”

Atta snatched her coat from the worktable and stormed out of the atrium.

Stages Protocol:

Fae can be exorcized in one of four ways, depending on how deeply Inhabited the human is.

Stage 1] Burn Mugwort & Palo Santo Smudge Sticks

*Note: This only drives out the Fae spirit, it does not destroy it.

Stage 2]

1. Drive the spirit out with Smudge Sticks and Black Candles, singing various Fae Hymns

2. Dispel it with crushed Black Tourmaline

3. Inject appropriate embalming-level serum

Stage 3] Stage 3 Fae must be dealt with using all the above, but they are much stronger and can still Inhabit unless Black Tourmaline is mixed with Wormwood and the exorcist is guarded with Protection Oil and Tears of the Grieved

Stage 4] TBD

Atta

She was too pissed at Sonder to play assistant.

To his credit, he hadn’t asked her to, but if they were going to attempt another exorcism before it was too late to do so, the faxes Vasilios sent over needed to be sorted and a plan put in place.

Atta sifted through the gathered stack and sorted them into piles on the long table in the library.Inhabited,Media Requests, andMisc. Then, she sat back in the stiff wooden chair and blew the hair out of her eyes.

“I do not have time for this.”

She phoned Gibbs instead. He loved organisational tasks. An hour later, he was at Murdoch Manor with takeaway and a scowl. “You realise I’m not your assistant, right? Or Murdoch’s,technically? I have fucking Lynch breathing down my neck, and that’s who I work for.”

Atta took a bag of food from him and pulled out a chip. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“The disrespect, I swear.” But he stomped in and slammed the door shut. Once he’d deposited the food on a shelf in the library that Atta had relieved of its books days earlier, Gibbs looked around at her piles. “Eat and shower. I’ll handle all this.”

“Bless you, Bernard Fitzgibbon.”

“Ye’, ye’. Go away. You stink.”

“I do not!”

“Yes, you do. You smell like death and cigars. Murdoch’s signature scent,” Gibbs groused, shoving a chip in his mouth and fussing with the faxes.

Atta couldn’t help but smile, even if she was peeved at Sonder. She took her food and left Gibbs to his work, but she heard him shout, “What the hell am I supposed to do without any damned call-back numbers!”