Lilith was up early the next morning. Grabbing a breakfast and eating it quickly let her leave the guildhall far earlier than she had been. She didn't see Vika- which had been the whole point of getting out soon, she'd been caught that way too many times already.

She mentally pulled on her cloak of anonymity and walked through the streets, keeping her eyes and ears open. The hubbub about her induction ceremony continued, although it did show a few signs of dying down. Her treatment of the mugger last night wasn't common knowledge yet, but she expected that to change by the time the day was through.

At one point, the life cords around her showed that taint that indicated the hunter/prey relationship of criminal to victim. A quick look found a pickpocket in the act of removing a wallet. He suddenly found his hand jerking back out of his target's pocket, and yelped as it stung him. Lilith left as the would-be victim turned around and started asking what was going on. The pickpocket was left stuttering vague explanations as to what his hand had been doing in the other's pocket, but Lilith didn't bother staying around to see what they were.

After a bit of thinking, she decided that before she went any farther she needed to pay some professional respects. A good understanding as to exactly where things stand won't hurt, either, she thought.

It didn't take her long to reach the square. Walking into the courthouse, she breathed a small sigh of relief. The sun was already beginning to warm things up out there, and the thick brick of the courthouse still held some of the night's coolness. Dropping her anonymity, Lilith entered the first door on the left.

The female rat writing at the desk barely glanced up as she said, "name and business?"

"Lilith. I'm here to see the commander."

"Have you got an appointment?"

"No."

The most cursory glance at an open book on the desk accompanied a "commander's busy for the day, earliest you can see him is tomorrow afternoon."

A sharp crack caused the secretary's busy hands to fly away from the center of the desk. She gaped at the head of the staff that had just snapped down onto her work, then up at Lilith. Lilith's red eyes pinned her back against her seat as she said softly, "I didn't ask for an appointment. I'm here to see your commander, and I will. Go tell him that the Peace Enforcer is here. Now!"

The last word pushed the secretary back from her desk, but her stunned look was replaced by one of irritation and offended dignity as she replied stiffly, "I will tell him, but I doubt that he will have time for you."

"Tell him to make time, then."

As the door to the inner office closed, Lilith rather grudgingly admitted that the secretary had some backbone to her. She was scared, but would have rather died than show it. I wonder how many furs would have seen the fear underneath that surface? The commander certainly has a good rat for the job.

As it was, Lilith had time only to notice that there was another door behind her in the office as well as the one ahead which lead to the commander's quarters. The door to the commander's office opened, and he stepped out, followed by his secretary. "Peace Enforcer, I'm commander Heki, Law Enforcement Officer for Saneejo. Come in." His secretary slid back into a corner as Lilith entered the door, her gaze smoldering with a promise that Lilith hadn't heard the last of this. Lilith pretended not to notice, and shut the door behind her as she stepped in.

Heki was already behind his desk, but hadn't sat down. He stared at Lilith with an expression meant to be unreadable, with a trace of hostility. "Ruta tells me you forced her to come in here."

Lilith shrugged. "She didn't want to let me in without an appointment, so I had to explain the situation to her more fully."

Heki's lip curled a bit as he said, "did it occur to you to simply ask rather than trying to scare her to death?"

"I did ask, Commander Heki. That's when she told me I couldn't see you until tomorrow."

"So why didn't you wait until then?"

"I didn't want to. Besides which, I really doubt you would have wanted me to, either. I'm probably your main source of worry right now."

Heki's lips pursed as he replied, "I've yet to see a magician that wasn't an arrogant whelp of a runt. For your information, I've got several things to worry about besides what you might be doing. Sit down."

Lilith's look of cool amusement told Heki her opinion of that statement as they both sat down. "Now that the greetings are out of the way, Commander, what say we get to some serious discussion?"

A guarded look came into Heki's eyes. "Go on," he replied.

Lilith placed the rod across her knees, then leaned back and clasped her hands loosely in front of her belly as she said, "very well. Let me explain your situation as I see it. Right now, you're looking at me and seeing a runaway avalanche. You don't know what's going to happen, and you've got serious doubts about being able to do anything if I did something you didn't want. You'd dearly love to obtain some sort of leverage on me, or at the very least you'd like to know more about what I think I'm doing." She stopped and waited for his reaction.

"An interesting analysis... adept, is it?"

"Yes, adept. Just use Lilith, it'll make things easier for both of us, Heki."

Heki's jaw tightened as he nodded curtly. "Go on, then, Lilith. Let's hear the rest of this."

"Since you've failed to contradict anything I said, I'm left to assume that my perceptions are accurate, Heki. In that case, the next thing is to outline the situation from my perspective- or would you care to return the favor and tell me what it is for me?"

"It's probably simply another job to you, which you will or won't do as you see fit. You're seeing me as a potential problem if I started to object, so you're here to warn me off. It won't work, by the way. If I decide you're causing more troubles than you're worth, I'll have you locked up, adept or no adept."

"Think over the events of the past day or two, Heki, and you'll realize that any hasty actions on your part will cause you even more upset than what you're trying to prevent."

The commander grunted. "I doubt it."

"You might not want to admit it, but you'd be a fool not to consider it. Now, do you want to get to that considering, or do you feel the need to issue a few more threats first?" Heki glared at her in silence, so she continued, "good. First off, yes, this is a job to me, but it isn't something I take lightly. I've done several jobs over the course of my career, and when I commit myself I don't hold that commitment lightly. In this case, my commitment is to see that no one defrauds or harms their fellow citizen, and to create a feeling of safety among the citizens of this town."

Heki uttered a short, harsh laugh. "Safe? You've done a great job at creating awe and fear, but I've yet to see any safety."

"Awe and fear are tools, commander, as you should know. I very much doubt that you have enough furs to enforce the law in this town. You have to rely on a degree of fear among potential criminals to help restrain them when you're not around."

"Very nice rationalization, adept--"

"Lilith."

"--Lilith, but it won't work. You're totally leaving out a sense of public morals and duty. You're talking about a reign of terror, not the 'protection' that you were declaring you'd uphold."

"You underestimate me, commander. No one feels safe when the one they're relying on for safety is perceived as weak. First, you establish in their minds what your strength is. That's been done. Next, you let them see that strength being applied to help them. After a while, it penetrates their minds that you aren't there to see them flayed alive. But that sort of thing can only be proven by action, Heki, and the actions involved take time to be seen. Actually, that's where I'd hoped you could come in."

"Why should I have anything to do with this?"

Lilith sighed. "Don't let your fear get the best of you, Heki. Think back to what I said a minute ago. You'd love to have a hold on me, remember? I'm offering you the chance to have me as an ally rather than an independent force who might crush you when it suited her purposes to do so."

"How do I know you won't, anyway?"

"Experience. You don't know now, but once you've worked with me you'll have a far better idea of what to expect in any given situation. Besides, you've already got law enforcement problems that are giving you a serious headache, or I never would have been called in in the first place. Consider giving them to me to worry about. Remember, whatever I do is totally independent of you if need be. Any blame or problems caused would be my fault, not yours." Heki's expression suddenly turned thoughtful, and Lilith could almost see the wheels spinning in his head. Gotcha, she thought. I thought you'd like that one.

Heki's expression faded in a short laugh as he replied, "and you think I'd trust you with anything so serious that I couldn't handle it myself?"

"What you tell me is up to you, Heki. I'm simply showing you the situation as it is. You'll have to decide for yourself what to do."

Heki frowned unhappily, but accepted it. "Very well. I guess there's no help for it---" He was interrupted by his door opening.

A female weasel poked her head in and said, "Heki? Can you come out here? I've got something to show you." She failed to meet Lilith's gaze as she turned around, simply sliding back out without waiting for an answer.

Heki got up and after saying, "excuse me a minute, Lilith," he followed the weasel out of the door.

Lilith looked around the office casually. There were a few records, but nothing of interest at the moment-- until she looked at the floor. The floor at one point looked the same as the rest- brown stone- but the life energies didn't look right. She took her rod and leaned over to place its point on the area. A pulse of life energy, and the solution was shown to her. It was simply a slab of stone about six inches thick, with an underground tunnel underneath. Other cracks in the pattern suggested the rest of the trapdoor mechanism.

Lilith leaned back into the chair, resting the rod against the side of it as she fought to regain control of her stomach, and to stop the whirling in her head. Oooof. Something went bad wrong there. Those echoes were worse this time. At least I didn't have them bouncing out of me in uncontrolled displays. She forced her hand to let go of the staff, and started to feel better.

The door opened and Heki's voice remarked, "well, we have been a busy little vixen, haven't we?" Lilith was up and around in a split second, but Heki merely walked casually to his desk, and dropped a familiar looking object on it. "Earthflower, here is your suspected perpetrator. Lilith, this is Earthflower, a special investigator on my team."

Earthflower and Lilith stared at one other calmly, each trying to assess the other. Then Earthflower deliberately reached up to her right forearm and scratched it with the claw of her left middle finger. Lilith's nostrils flared from an indrawn breath as she mirrored it with the right middle finger scratching her left forearm before turning to face Heki who had been too busy staring at her to notice what had happened.

"Well?" His tone was somewhere between accusing and triumphant as he pointed towards his desk. "Care to explain this?"

Lilith sat back down and smiled slightly as she replied, "it seems you already know the story, which means I succeeded last night. Yes, I know what that is. It was a knife aimed at the throat of a weasel. Right now, it's a twisted lump of metal set on a knife hilt. It did leave one last scar before I rendered it unusable, as I'm sure you've heard."

Heki merely stared at her as he replied, "oh, yes, I've heard of it. The whole town will by nightfall. So is this some of the things you've done to inspire trust?"

"Along with the awe and fear you referred to earlier. It's two sides of the same coin, Heki."

"Let me make myself clear, Lilith. I have had too many problems out of the local magicians around here to think you're more than a simple troublemaker. This would seem to prove that. Am I going to have to go to the guildmaster to complain again? He said that none of his people would be in that part of town anymore."

"The guildmaster had nothing to do with this, Heki. The decision was mine, and mine alone. He couldn't have stopped me even if he had tried- but since he didn't know, he never had a chance."

"Doesn't sound like he's doing his job to me."

"Where I'm concerned, he probably considers himself a martyr to the whims of a capricious and arrogant vixen who needs her tail clipped."

"I'm beginning to sympathize with him."

"Unfortunately, you both have to deal with reality. Well, you do-- I'm not sure about him."

"Care to explain that reality?"

"I don't hold grudges or hard feelings against anyone, Heki, and I truly don't want to. At the same time, I will pursue whatever course I feel I must to do my job. Right now, that means I would like to have your help, not your enmity."

"She's telling the truth, commander," Earthflower said.

Heki looked more startled than Lilith did. So, commander, I wonder if you realize the fact that you're already employing magic on your staff?

"Oh, hrmm, I see. Very well, then, Lilith. I can see we've got some things to discuss here."

A couple of hours later, Lilith walked out of the courthouse and sat down on a bench as she stopped to get her bearings again. Whew! No wonder they were desperate. I wonder how many people know what's going on right under their noses? She pondered the results of the information she'd been given. A series of thefts and vandalism had been troublesome enough, but now the fingers of suspicion were pointing to several of the council members- and even worse, it was beginning to look like some sort of grudge match between them. If something wasn't done before too long, the next step might well involve murder. Heki could hardly consult his superiors, since they were part of his list of suspects. Nurans had been one of the few not implicated. Yewith, on the other hand, looked to be one of the main participants. I wonder why, Lilith mused. She impressed me as too good and ambitious to let herself get involved in this sort of high-tail match. It only hurts you in the long run. If you're going to stoop to this level, you let it be decisive and convincing, and it's best if you do it so that your target is brought down without hope of starting another round.

That evening, Earthflower told her colleagues what she had found out about the new Peace Enforcer. By then, though, the subject of their discussion was sliding unseen down a few dark alleys of her own to find out the source of the problems which had called her into action.