Prather called Perfect back within a matter of minutes.
“Yes, I got your message,” he said. “It’s John Lydia that I’m after, as it happens.”
“Oh,” Perfect said. “I guess that makes sense.”
“You sound disappointed,” he said. “I must confess to not being all that well acquainted with Senator Jones. Were you hoping I could facilitate a meeting, or something of that nature?”
Perfect laughed, a short, bitter laugh that she realized would make no sense to Prather.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I guess in a certain sense, yeah, I was kind of hoping for my own meeting with Senator Jones, though that’s not why I called you. I’m afraid I lied to you when you asked me my name… though only to avoid a conflict of interest.”
“I see,” he said. “Would your last name be ‘Jones’, then?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Perfect Jones.”
“You must know you’re taking an awful risk with your avocation,” he said. “Though the physical dangers far outstrip the social ones, in any case.”
“I was brought up to use my gifts to benefit people,” Perfect said.
“And you think putting on black tights and a mask and going out at night is the most efficient way of doing that?”
“Mr. Prather, I respect you a lot,” Perfect said. “I do. But there are people I respect even more who wouldn’t approve of what I’m doing if they knew, and I don’t let that stop me. Besides: end of the world. If I can stop that, well… it kind of makes being a doctor or a lawyer or a politician redundant.”
“Except that if the world doesn’t end, people will still need doctors,” Prather said. “And while it’s important not to underestimate the severity of the potential threat, it’s important to note that the longing to destroy something is not the same thing as the capability. The symbols of unmaking might be viewed in much the same light as anti-American messages found at the sight of a bombing: it gives us a hint about the goals of the perpetrators, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they pose a credible threat to the existence of their target as a whole.”
“But by opposing them, we can still stop them from doing any further damage or endangering more lives,” Perfect said. “So far the churches have been targeted while they’re empty, but… well, the Bone Lords were definitely a threat.”
“Yes, and that is why you must do your best to oppose them, regardless of whether or not they form a larger existential threat,” Prather said. “I don’t mean to dissuade you from your focus. Quite the opposite. I want you to be aware that of the importance of your task for itself, not because of any romantic notion of a world in peril.”
“Believe me, I don’t find it romantic,” Perfect said. “In fact, I’m kind of glad to be able to put it in this perspective now. It’s a lot easier to approach it, thinking of it as a terrorist cell… we know their big goal, we don’t know their plan, but we know their MO. That’s something I can work with.”
“Indeed,” Prather said. “Even though I fought her alchemy with alchemy, in many ways my crusade against Opal Song was no different than any attempt to disrupt a drug trafficker’s activities… I interfered with her cash flow, I cracked down on her customers, I went after her supply lines.”
“Supply lines… we followed the mundane firebombings through the components used back to the arsonist who would have put them together,” Perfect said. “And that was a dead end… possibly literally. What would it take in terms of materials used to create the unmaking spell?”
“It’s hard to say,” Prather said. “Possibly nothing. The letters themselves could have been written in anything from an exotic ink to blood of some sort, or they could simply have been brought into being as the result of a focused ritual. The nature of the spell is that any residue left behind at the scene is destroyed. What we’d have to do is identify the ritual itself… not an easy task. But if it does involve exotic components, that would give you something to go on.”
“If,” Perfect repeated.
“Yes,” Prather said. “But it is, potentially, a start.”
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