Now And In The Hour
Dusk Shine and Skyla attended mass the next morning, in the closest approximation of 'Sunday Best' Dusk had been able to put together for the two of them. Their best wasn't very good, not just yet. She had concentrated so far on work clothing, and thus had been forced to come to church in her cleanest pair of slacks and a nice blouse, with a cross-shaped crystal brooch she'd made herself. Skyla was a little more dolled up, but it was easier to get frilly second-hand clothing for children at short notice.
They grew out of even their best clothing so quickly, after all. Children's finery could often be found barely-worn in the second hand shops.
Our Princess of Heaven in College Heights was the closest local Harmonist church; the only one in Dashville, really. This part of the country was overwhelmingly, fiercely Accordist, but those churches were just too austere, too stern, too… too much for Dusk Shine. Even a Harmonist church like Our Princess was more familiar, more comforting. The church building itself was, sadly, a modernist horror, all swooping curves and weird materials. It was one of those asymmetrical postwar architectural oddities that sometimes looked as if some alien species had descended from outer space to leave behind unsettling fortresses of steel and concrete, with gravel and stones embedded randomly and roughly in the concrete.
The parishioners of Our Princess were likewise a peculiar mix of railroad retirees, university employees, students, and the odd professor or two. The priest was a young and bulge-eyed Friar Minor with an astonishing afro poof of hair; Dusk had heard from a pew-gossip that the bishopric had brought him in from some poor country in the western Sahel. All she knew was that his French-inflected lilt reminded her of Twilight's grand-mère; it made the pastoral sermon strangely nostalgic for Dusk.
This was Skyla's second mass here in Dashville. Her second, ever, honestly. As far as Dusk could tell, Cadance and Shining Heart hadn't even had Flurry Heart baptized. Dusk didn't know how to address that without exposing them both to gossip and examination she didn't care to invite. For the time being, she had explained baptism to Skyla, and told her to deflect questions on the subject as part of being 'Skyla'. The little girl sat piously in the pew next to her 'mother', watching the ceremony, the ritual and the choir with innocent eyes, not at all overly intense or hawk-like.
Their voices rose to join that of the rest of the congregation "…full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed are you…" Dusk could feel the strange shape of the old, half-familiar words, half-forgotten. They sounded different in English, and she had to keep close watch on herself lest she sing the responses in her grand-mère's church's native tongue. Twilight's parents had been, at best, holiday Harmonists, and most of her experience of mass had been during her summers spent with Grand-Mère Clair, who had been oddly intense on the subject of regular church attendance. Twilight Sparkle had been less than enthused by the experience of French-language mass, and when she'd moved north to join her brother and his new Crystaller family, she'd shed the habit of church attendance without any real twinge or sense of loss.
She wasn't sure what Dusk Shine thought about church, not really. She was still learning how to be Dusk. Dusk Shine needed to be seen as pious, Dusk thought. It was another piece of protective coloration that would help establish the two of them as themselves, and no-one else.
The resources of Our Princess of Heaven would also help when it came to taking care of Skyla when Dusk Shine couldn't keep an eye on her. Bubble Berry had lectured Dusk extensively when she'd finally been able to break free and retrieve Skyla from the put-upon child care director. It had been very late, and if Bubble Berry didn't keep a second shift for the children of women who worked the evening shift, Dusk would have been in a great deal of trouble with the henna-haired Bubble Berry, indeed.
After finally winding down, Berry had taken a deep sniff, leaning uncomfortably close to a flustered Dusk Shine, and conceded that Dusk hadn't smelled 'like smoke and whiskey', and dismissed her with a warning to 'never do that again, y'hear?'
So… yeah, Dusk Shine needed to expand her circle of acquaintances, and among the respectable and unobjectionable, if she could possibly manage it. Respectability was an armor, and associating yourself with the respectable extended, in a limited way, that armor over yourself. So she and Skyla were pretending as hard as they could, sitting piously among the congregation.
And so we pretend to be what we wish to be, in faith that masks mold the face that wears them.
Dusk Shine listened to the hymns, and thought about what she'd done the day before. The consequences were unfolding as she and Skyla sat, inactive, here in a church. The bikers were gathered, somewhere, north of town, doing whatever it was that biker outlaws did to celebrate the life of one of their dead. What heathen ceremonies were they performing to remember Soarin, fool, lover, clown, and now never-father?
Dusk didn't even know if Gilda and Wind Rider had returned from their Orphean travel into the black night, to retrieve the proofs of manslaughter and death left somewhere in darkest Tennessee. She could only put her faith in those she'd met, that they would find the motorcycle and the murder-weapon, that they'd bring it back here, to Dashville, for the police to find in the possession of the right man.
She saw, in her mind's-eye, the old man, tired beyond belief, riding on a dead man's motorcycle, panniers full of incriminating evidence, appropriately covered in misleading fingerprints. She saw him riding in state, among his chapter's loyal fellows, carrying his son's ashes on that boy's last ride in this world. She hoped that they'd gotten Blitz to ride in a side-car or something like that, to convince her that she needed to stop riding about like a wild-woman, until at least, her unborn child was better-seated in the woman's small and under-stocked womb.
Dusk Shine looked up at Our Princess's Mother-statue, in a position of honor beside the chorus. She raised up her voice with enthusiasm as the Hail Mother resumed, "…Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."
Dusk Shine returned to her life as a school-teacher and a mother, biding her time. She did not contact any of the principals of her little conspiracy, kept away from the police and didn't even seek out Poppy Seed. Not that this kept Poppy from her door. The deputy marshal stopped by the apartment the next Wednesday after school, to look in on Dusk and Skyla.
Poppy Seed, over-tall and awkwardly crowded in Dusk's apartment's narrow hallway, looked around uncomfortably, unsettled and nervous.
"I could have sworn we'd gotten you something bigger than this. How are the two of you fitting in this shoebox?" Poppy shuffled into the living room, which was itself fairly narrow and crowded, a worn couch facing the television shoved up against the thin interior wall, and a pair of armchairs shoved into the room's spare corners, their leather cracked, their wood frames battered and just short of splintered from decades of abuse.
"Have a seat, Miss Seed."
"Nah, that's OK, I just wanted to look in on you two, and make sure you weren't in any sort of trouble, or having any issues. I thought I'd hear from you about this body business, but you've been quiet. Nobody's been bothering you?"
"No, ma'am, not at all. It's been a quiet week. We've been careful, and kept a look-out, but nothing so far. Has there been news I should know about?"
"Well, it turns out it had nothing at all to do with you, just a stupid, crazy coincidence. They found the dead man's property. Being ridden around by the murderer, if you can believe it! The balls on these bikers. Like a damn Mongol lord, stealing the horses of the men they killed."
"They made an arrest?"
"Oh, yeah, a couple of 'em. The local drug lord ambushed the victim over in Arkansas, we think over a drug shipment the dead man was tracking for his own gang. Maybe planning to rip off a shipment?"
"Oh, my. How terrible. They found the drugs?"
"Yeah, you can put a pin in the performance, we're not in public. And no, it wasn't crystal molly. Common household meth, typical biker bullshit. So, a simple gangland killing. They just got interrupted getting rid of the evidence. A wild coincidence, that's all."
"A coincidence birthed by you people putting us in an apartment next door to a criminal enterprise, it appears."
"Look, nobody really made the connection between the funeral home and the bikers in a business sense before this. God knows how much evidence has gone up that chimney stack over the years. They're getting the funeral home to install a set of motion-sensor cameras to record what goes in and out of that crematorium from here out, now. The funeral home operator swears on a stack of scripture that any misuse of the damn thing was the responsibility of individual employees, etc, etc, the usual ass-covering. You know how that goes."
"So we'll be under observation now as we come and go from this apartment?"
"Aw, nah, the cameras will be inside the garage, I think? I dunno, I didn't pay close attention, I can ask if you like."
"That would be nice…" and then they went onto other subjects, such as the management of the assets which Twilight had paid into the program when they'd first been signed up, and so forth.
The arrest of Wind Rider finally made it into the newspapers a few days later. It made an impressive story, matching in most particulars Dusk Shine's imaginings of how it should have happened. The detective Soft Eyes had waited at the end of the Steel Horsemen's 'final ride', and stood surrounded by uniformed police as they watched Wind Rider and Blitz empty Soarin's ashes over a county road as a strong westerly wind blew the dead biker's remains across the fields and the asphalt.
When the outlaw bikers had finished with their 'illegal disposal of a corpse', Soft Eyes and his men advanced on the old biker, and took him into custody for the crime they'd just observed. It was at this point that one of the uniformed policemen had noted the Texas plates on the motorcycle Wind Rider had been riding. Shortly after someone discovered those plates listed as the other dead man's vehicle, all hell broke loose.
Even now, Wind Rider was refusing to confess to anything, but the newspaper reports insisted that they had the murderous biker-king dead to rights. Salvaje violence had been savagely reciprocated, and the authorities had intervened. This was not Texas, after all! He had it coming was not the letter of the law in law-abiding Virginia.
Bail had been set, and paid. Wind Rider was already out, and no doubt sitting back in his title-insurance office, fighting his rear-guard action against cancer and its endless hosts of misery and agony.
The mechanics at Silversmith Custom Motors left a message for Dusk Shine at some point that week, letting her know that the parts for her Beetle's scheduled maintenance had arrived. Saturday morning, she stopped by with the Beetle to drop it off, planning to walk the relatively short distance home.
While Dusk Shine was talking with Silver Back outside of his garage, she looked up to see Gilda and Blitz leave the title insurance office across the way. She thought maybe she'd seen the grey head of the dying man through his office's filthy glass door, but that might have only been Dusk's imagination.
"Oh, hello, ladies. Miss Shine, these two are new arrivals, I think maybe you saw last week-"
"Yes, Mr. Back, I remember the conversation. I trust you ladies have settled your dispute with that angry man?"
"Aw, don't take Wind Rider too seriously, ma'am," said the solid biker-mechanic. "He's got a hell of a bark, but his bite's been over-stated by some."
"Wasn't he in the papers this week? The man was responsible for that corpse on my stairs! I think his bite has been stated exactly!"
"Yeah, well, I don't care what the papers say, some people just have it coming, and that Salvaje boy definitely had it coming, don't you think, ladies?"
"Uh, yeah." "I guess?"
"Anyways, these folks are from out west, same as you. Where'd you say you were from, Ma'am? Somewhere out on the coast?"
"Southern California. Santa Monica."
"Right, right."
"Silver, Texas is over fifteen hundred miles from Santa Monica!" laughed Blitz.
"The view from Forge Road according to the New Yorker?" Dusk Shine smiled. "I think I saw you at the police station the other week. Weren't there three of you?"
"Aw, Butters is at work right now. We're going to pick her up, she should be done pretty soon. It's a nice day, thought we'd maybe go feed some ducks or something."
"Metternich Park is nice this time of year, isn't it?"
The two biker chicks climbed on board an old-fashioned motorcycle with a classic side-car. It hadn't been a vehicle either of them had been driving the last time Dusk Shine had seen them. She couldn't help smirking.
"Goddamnit, lady, don't make fun of me!" fumed Blitz from her somewhat comedic perch in the side-car. "They won't let me ride a hog anymore, the overprotective so-and-sos."
"Shaddup, Blitz, you're embarrassing us. Nice to meetcha, Miss Shine. See you around," And off they roared.
"Well," said Dusk Shine, turning around to the bemused Silver Back, "that seems like rather a turnaround. They reconciled with Mr. Rider?"
"Yup. Th' prospect of a pup in the kennel will bring even mean old junkyard dogs like Wind Rider around, if you give them them time to get used ta th' idear. Almost enough to bring a tear to yer eyes, ain't it?" Then he turned to discussion of labor and parts charges, and they dropped the subject.
Dusk Shine and Skyla found the biker girls sprawling around the demolished remnants of a picnic lunch in the grass sward between the still-abandoned mill and the riverside woodlot at the back of Metternich Park. Blitz was dead asleep, curled up on a battered blanket in the afternoon sun, and the other two were sitting closely together on the picnic table bench, leaning backward against the table and gazing fondly down at the sleeping woman.
Skyla suddenly spooked, and went dashing past the three intruders into her world, racing into the woods before any of the women could react to her presence. This left Dusk Shine standing embarrassed, staring somewhat irately in the direction her daughter had disappeared.
Finally, she looked down at the two bikers, who clearly couldn't decide whether they should be ashamed or amused by the situation. "Oh, go ahead and laugh, it's better than crying, I suppose."
"Is- will she be OK? I knew we shouldn't have come, uh-"
"Oh, shut up, dweeb, you can't help it by curling up like that. Sorry we scared your little girl, Miss Shine. Wasn't sure you'd come after Blitz and I dropped the hint. Sorry she didn't stay awake long enough to greet y'all, but, well."
Dusk Shine looked at the obliterated lunch spread, and made the obvious deduction. "Food coma?"
"Oh, sort of?" equivocated Butterscotch. "We've been feeding her a lot of carbs, that can make you sleepy."
"Well, good enough," said Dusk Shine, set down her own picnic basket on the table, and sat at the far side of the same bench, trying not to crowd the two of them in their cozy cuddle. "I brought my own contributions, but that can wait until she finishes her nap, I suppose. And Skyla will emerge once she's determined that you haven't done anything to her sanctum. Or maybe when she gets hungry enough, I can't be sure, really."
"Your daughter's name is Skyla?" asked the tall pink-haired woman. "That's an interesting name. What's it mean?"
"Honestly? I have no idea. Family name, her great-grandmother named her, wouldn't tell anyone else what it meant." That lie was starting to get well-worn, it almost had the shape of truth.
"Funniest thing," said Gilda, looking lazily over her shoulder at Dusk. "Dweeb here and that slugabed on the grass down there are from California, too. Some obscure northern city I'd never heard of before. Both of 'em left that burg separately, went through seven kinds of hell, and somehow ended up tripping over each other in a Dallas convenience-store parking lot thousands of road-miles away from where they started. Hell of a thing, coincidences."
"Yes, quite a coincidence. What town in northern California are you two from, originally, Butterscotch?"
"Oh? You don't know? You seemed to know so much, I just assumed…"
"Irrelevant details sometimes don't come up if I'm focused on other matters. What town?"
"Uh, Canterlot City? We went to Canterlot High School together, before Blitz dropped out. I suppose it doesn't matter after all of these years. I got my diploma, and she didn't, but it didn't really help me that much."
"Hell, girl," objected Gilda, "you got more than that, didn't you? Sounded to me like you're at least two-thirds of the way to a degree in veterinarianism or something like that."
"Veterinarian science, Gilda, and those credits belong to Fluttershy. I'm not sure how I'd start that back up again as who I am now."
The two of them started in on what sounded like a well-worn argument, gently fought but heartfelt for all of that. But Dusk Shine was having difficulty focusing on the girls' plans for the future.
Twilight Sparkle had grown up in Canterlot City. Gone to a private academy, never actually set foot in Canterlot High School, but she knew where it was, passed by it now and again with its preposterous, over-sized marble horse-statue and imposing façade right up against the south side's main drag. What are the odds?
Skyla finally crept out of the woods an hour later, as Gilda and a drowsy Blitz argued about whether to go buy some more food from the coin-operated dispensers way the heck over on the other side of the park, or to just feed the critters gathered around Butterscotch from the crumbs and remains of their picnic. Butterscotch's soft-spoken description of where they were living now – an apartment courtesy of Wind Rider, a generous loft in a converted warehouse deep in the back of the Bottoms – came to a halt as she caught sight of the skittish little girl.
Skyla's gaze bent down towards the animals – the birds and chipmunks gathered around the feet of the shyly smiling pink-haired woman. Then she stared up at Butterscotch, looking for all the world like a wary alley-cat assessing the threat presented by a kindly-faced old lady standing over a bowl of dry catfood on a back porch.
"Hello," said Butterscotch gently. "What's your name? I'm Butterscotch. Do you want to help feed the critters?"
Skyla nodded, silently. Dusk Shine watched her daughter step out of the shadowed woods to join mommy and mommy's new friends in the warm sunlight.
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be sure to post a blog when the sequel drops.
8633043
Will do.
https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/e/ed/FANMADE_Rainbow_Dash_saluting_by_lixr.png/revision/latest?cb=20120121070412
8633043
I wouldnt have to worry about that. A few moments after its posted it should be in the features list...
8633055
Sure, but for how long? And it's awful easy to miss a sequel if you aren't sure when to expect it.
Yeah, I mean, I guess it was ok.
10/10 100/100
That was a really, really nice story. Wasn't expecting it to end so soon, but I'm actually glad for it - it makes a good format.
I'm looking forward to the future book(s)!
This was so good! I look forward to the rest.
Gotta say, wasn't expecting this to end so soon. Don't get me wrong, this ended cleanly, but it felt more like the end of an arc than the end of a story. I mean, with the premise of "Flurry Heart's grandfather, King Sombra, murders her parents and half the family", there's no way this could have a "and they lived happily ever after" ending, right? Twilight may have "just" been paranoid here, but justifiably so. Even if this murder ended up unrelated, I doubt she's completely in the clear. Guess I have to stick around for the sequel, huh.
The little fey bits of this bring a smile. Of the wilds that exist, and the way we can be when pushed into rough paths.
A lovely finisher on this arc. Though its interesting the premise has shied from skyla as things go, yet she drove so much of this in her way.
Still, i wonder which of the oak or holly works here?
Okay, so, This was a great story, looking forward to the sequel.
Since that bit about "Canterlot City" basically confirmed Destiny wants the whole of the Mane Six to become friends, I'm just gonna lay out a few thoughts.
Thus far, we have several members of the Mane Six who have used the Fandom-agreed names of their Ruled 63 counterparts (or, at least, some variation thereof) to obscure their identities. So, we have:
So, Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy have already made their appearances.
We also have a character named Bubble Berry, who has not technically been confirmed to be Pinkie Pie, and who lacks the demeanor one might expect of Pinkie Pie. However, given the state Fluttershy was in when we first encountered her, I wouldn't be surprised if this was still Pinkie. Additionally, we don't know what ultimately caused her to change her name and move to...
Uh, does the town have a name? I don't remember one, but my brains stuffed with other stuff right now.
Anyways.
Rarity will, I don not doubt, be making an appearance, likely under the name "Elusive." Probably involving clothes, in some way. The only candidate I can think of in the story already is that one character from the Dry Cleaners... but I'm not sure if that was a woman. That's not a lead I'm too confident in, regardless.
At last, Applejack. As the only one of the Mane Six whose Rule 63 counterpart has the same name as her, she's probably the only one who hasn't changed their name from what they were born with. Appropriate for the (possible, future) bearer of the Element of Honesty.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to the sequel.
Also, Cheese Sandwich is a Catholic Priest. A Franciscan Catholic Priest, assuming mt understanding of the term "Friars Minor" is correct. That's... interesting. Moreso for the worldbuilding than the fact itself, in my opinion.
So... yeah.
8634474
The town is called Dashville.
8636688
Ah, yes. Thanks.
So Seed and Bubble Berry also went to CHS?
8638262
Didn't intend to give that impression. Only Blitz and Butterscotch talk about CHS in that scene.
8638320
You didn't give that impression, I was just wildly speculating.
Overall a good story, not what I expected from reading the first chapter, but it was good.
Accordists? Is their preferred instrument the accordion?
(I admit, that was bad, fire away with your wet carps and rotten tomatoes.)
While I do have issues with Dusk's behavior, I'm looking forward to the sequel.
(And who knows, maybe Dusk and Flash will start something 
)
8642268
Blitz and Butterscotch are well on the way there, considering she came in to fix all their problems like a literal fairy gold mother.
There needs to more of this. I need to know what else there is to this story.
I'm confused... Why was Twilight trying to do all that in the last few chapters?
I read this one via its ebook download, so I'm kind of coming in at the end to leave a quick, snipey comment…
I enjoyed this, and I think the best summary I can give as to my overall reaction is that it felt like it was channelling Quentin Tarantino (with a little extra magic mixed in). This is, I should note, a good thing — I happen to like Tarantino flicks! It was just such an unflinching look at an unusual and unexpectedly dark aesthetic given the initial premise, and felt like it had so many of the same thematic undercurrents (the struggle for redemption of sinners on the wrong side of the law, the violence-soaked and mostly broken characters). In the best part of that tradition, this finds a sort of grace amid the hellfire, and I especially appreciated the way that it tied the AU back into its roots right at the end.
That did, at times, make for somewhat odd reading. Pony Tarantino is reconciling two quite opposite ends of a spectrum, so it's admirable that this succeeded as much as it did. Also, I would have liked to feel like I had a more consistent grasp on Flurry/Skyla's character; she seems to bounce back and forth between childhood and adulthood in a way that was perhaps intentional but still disorienting. And there's a certain amount of have-and-also-eat-the-cake on Dusk/Twilight's magical skepticism — really, this is a first-chapter problem, because the rest of the story seems quite solidly behind the idea that she believes in magic, and it probably should have just led with that and run with it.
But those are my major quibbles in a story that otherwise was full of heart and an engaging, unusual world. Thank you for it!
8706959
You're very welcome, I'm glad you liked it.
This was amazing, definitely can't wait for more.
Now this has my attention! I'll be watching out for more in the future!
9076438
Now that’s some good shit. 👌
Different
And that’s okay
The odds are astronomically excellent. Go out and buy a lotto ticket and get ready to meet some more people... wonder if the old CHS ringleader is out there somewhere?
this was friggin amazing.
Amazing throughout. Modern fantasy mystery is one of my favorite subgenres, and this is a fantastic example of it. The way you exchange names to show the ongoing identity crisis in Twilight/Dusk's mind is fantastic, to say nothing of those parlor room scenes with Butterscotch and Wind Rider. (And the fact that you're going by the Cross and Arrow names, allowing Applejack to stay herself since she has nothing to hide, is kind of hilarious.)
Again, a fantastic read. Thank you for it. Here's looking forward to more in this setting, in all its bizarre almost-familiarity.
I just stumbled on this story without reading any of the prequels and consumed it beginning to end.
You have done something extremely skillful that not many people could pull off: you have superimposed the fantasy world of Equestria onto the real, mundane earth, and it's absolutely fascinating. It's good to read the action taking place near my little corner of the world.
Also, Harmonism vs. Accord? Obviously "Dusk Shine" has never visited one of those snake-handling Accordist churches. Nothing austere about them, I assure you!
I look forward to reading the next installment.
Oh my god, so this is Equestria Girls! :O
You should consider sanding the edges off and publishing this as urban fiction mystery. It's so fucking good, oh my god.
That was good. Surprisingly slice of life for a murder mystery, but I guess that's what happens when the protagonist has a day job and a kid.
I'm disappointed that Rarity didn't make an appearance, though I'm guessing she was the sign artist noted early in the story.
9763783
Interesting idea, but Rarity is currently busy having her dreams crushed in Manehattan. I've been picking at ideas for getting her into town for a follow on. In fact I've a badly typed scene of Rarity turning up on Applejack and Goldie Delicious's front stop with a suspiciously small non pile of luggage.
Or maybe not. One of the things holding up a full sequel is working out the timelines, as I want the CMC living with Goldie and AJ as they get ready to become freshmen at (fictional) Virginia A&M.
9763808
Really, a college is a great place for a mystery. Students have so much and varied free time and there are so many nooks and crannies around campuses that really anything could happen.
9763406
I also have another theory: NS may have repurposed the Dashville train station as a satellite office for signal and track maintenance. CSX pretty much did the same thing for the old passenger train station in my town on their Bruceton Subdivision.
Ayup!
Wow, I really enjoyed this story. Many kudos. I'm left wanting more, but The Princess's Bit is also excellent. I'll read and write feedback for whatever story you want to tell.
On earlier chapters I've compared this to Dresden Files, because they share space on my sense-of-taste-for-stories. Some of the same flavors. By and large, that which they have in common I like. However:
9895407
1) Have you read Applejack Uprooted? It isn't a mystery, but it is in the same continuity as this story. More of a character piece.
2) There is someone working on a Pinkie Pie story set in this AU. I shouldn't make promises for that writer, but what I've seen of their drafts is fun.
9895806
I've not read it yet. It's in the queue, when I have the energy and opportunity to read things actively (ie writing down some reactions and thinking things over and maybe even writing that too).
I liked In the Company of Night, and read about half of it a while back but found it difficult to pick up again--the story doesn't have much in the way of break points, so figuring out what's going on again and getting engaged with the characters was an issue.
However, I take this story as a strong recommendation of everything that came between it and your current work.
9895407
Dresden Files isn't great. Cinder Spires is much better!
9962816
Merely being in prison would do something, even if it wasn't high security. Some rituals and spells clearly require uncommon or exotic components - we've seen this with Dusk's spellwork - that would be difficult or nearly impossible to get a hold of in prison, even for Sombra.
True, a sufficiently determined wizard could no doubt manage it, but then, that's assuming that one or more of his jailers are not, themselves, sufficiently determined wizards who would prefer that he not have those things. As I've said previously, there is more going on with the Marshalls than we are privy to, which deepens the mystery.
9963153
Visitors. For the magic, well... maybe Sombra took up a hobby. Jewelry, say. Dusk's only real hope is the entire organization getting hemmed up by RICO.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16101033-the-shadow-tracer
Here's what this reminded me of
9984548
Huh. Interesting coincidence. I've never seen that book before, or the author in question. I'll have to take a closer look at it.
9984957
Resourceful young woman raising her deceased sister's young daughter, grandad is a drug kingpin / cult leader in ultramax
9985112
I've started reading it. Kinda soapy and wild, but interesting. Skip tracer has got to be the worst possible job for a fugitive to take up. You'd think she would constantly be bumping up against a suspicious legal system.
9985112
This is kind of uncanny. She just renamed her daughter Skye. I swear I've never seen this book before, so unless I've been sleep-reading library books...
This is spooky. It reads a bit like the story I was faking out the readers was coming. Not that I could have written this, I didn't have the skip tracker research to back it up.
9985300
Maybe.
9985358
It's so spooky!
Hope there's a future continuation to the saga
10042686
You may be interested in the Dashville group
A story of new beginnings, and second chances. A way to continue on for all of our characters. Well, except Hayseed...but eh, that guy sucks anyway!