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The mice annoy Megara.
It’s all in what you’re used to. Satyrs and fauns and naiads and dryads she can - and has - dealt with. Gods, heroes, and monsters? Sure, fine.
Mice wearing caps and scarves and t-shirts who squeak at her when she doesn’t put the file in the right spot?
“I filed it under ‘E’ for ‘Erymanthian’,” she tells the one with the orange cap, who’s waving a finger at her like she’s just spilled wine on one of Belle’s books. “Fine, so where should I have been putting it?”
The mouse bounces along the row of cabinets and jumps up and down over the one marked ‘B’, his tone plainly scolding.
With a roll of her eyes, Meg puts the file under ‘B’ - presumably for ‘Boar’. “Whatever. You’re as bad as a harpy. It’s not like we’ll ever need this file again.”
Jaq - she thinks his name is Jaq - folds his arms and sniffs at her. Then he points his finger at her shoulder, imperious as Jasmine can get when dealing with a client who thinks that because she’s dark-skinned and pretty, she’s okay with being treated like dung. Megara sighs and suffers her shoulder to be commissioned as a ride out of the records room.
“I’m heading back into the main office,” she tells him as she closes the door behind them. “Rajah’s there, so you’ll have to take your chances.” Jaq shrugs and holds on until they reach the kitchens, then makes a flying leap onto the counter and scrambles off towards the cupboards.
Judging by the mad and emphatic squeaking that follows her down the hallway, Megara imagines Jaq is giving them an earful about her lack of organized filing skills.
Megara walks into the main office and nearly trips over the tiger sprawled out in front of the door. She catches herself on the door frame, bruising her palms, and making the giant cat give her an injured look.
“Well, if you’re going to stretch out in front of the door, you’re going to get kicked when people trip over you!”
Across the room, Jasmine looks up from the photos she’s studying. “Rajah’s blocking the way again?”
“He’s lucky I was wearing sandals!” The comfy ones that lace up to her knee.
“Rajah!”
At Jasmine’s call, the tiger hauls himself up, gives Meg another sulky look, and drags himself across the room in the way that cats do - whether small enough to fit in your arms, or large enough to break your bed. And Rajah is definitely big enough to break the bed - although he thinks he’s still small enough to sit in Jasmine’s lap and noses hopefully around until she pushes him back down to the ground and scrubs his head. His purring fills the small and crowded office.
“I’ve just filed the Erymanthian Boar case away,” Megara says as she sits down at her desk. “To the tune of much scolding by the mice. What’s next? And when’s Cinderella coming back?”
“Another three weeks,” Belle sails in with a set of books which she sets down on the bookcase she keeps in her section of the office. “They should be in Barbados right now.”
“I’ll never know how you keep all that strai-- Oh!”
The seagull plastered against the closed windowpane squawks noisily, and Belle hurries over to open the window, letting the battered bird belly-flop down onto the carpet.
“Awrk! Ariel! Awrk! Ariel!”
“Oh no,” Belle’s eyes widen as she motions for Jasmine to bring the bowl of water from across the room.. “Scuttle, is Ariel in trouble?”
“Awrk! Raark! Kaaa!”
The unfortunate thing about the animals in the office is that they tend to only be understood by specific people. Cinderella would understand him, but she’s not in. Sea-creatures - including sea-birds are Ariel’s area, but if Ariel sent him for help...
Megara’s already up and grabbing her short-sword belt with its throwing knives. She’ll never be a monster-hunter like Herc, but she has some moves on her. Besides, the monsters she hunts with the other women in the Agency are the mental kind - the killers-behind-masks that probably seem utterly harmless and benign to their friends, families, and even their loved ones, but who prey and twist and destroy all the same.
“Where was Ariel headed this morning?”
“Out to the Latin Quarter. There was a case of industrial poisoning - throwing rubbish into the sea. She was going to take some photos and interview a few witnesses.” Jasmine is strapping on the harness for her scimitar, which goes over her arms and allows her to draw the blade over her shoulder.
“Is she still there?” Meg looks at Scuttle who’s gulping down water and bobbing his head up and down. Yes.
Belle reaches across her desk for a pair of devices, and tosses Meg something that looks a bit like a brick but feels somewhat lighter. “It’s a short-range, direct-channel speaker.”
“I didn’t understand half of that,” Meg says, turning the thing over in her hand. Roughly rectangular, with a red button and a dial, and what looks like a grille over a number of holes. It looks mysterious - all Belle’s inventions do - but she knows an explanation is coming.
“You talk into it - press down on the red button - and I’ll hear you on its partner over here. See?” Belle presses down on the red button on her own ‘short range, direct channel speaker,’ and her voice comes through the thing Meg’s holding so that she nearly drops it - crackly, but audibly Belle. “Meg, this is Belle, over.”
“Over what?”
“Over. As in ‘the message is over’.” Belle shakes her head. “Never mind, just take it and we’ll muddle through. I’ll tell you if I get anything out of Scuttle.”
Megara waits until she and Jasmine are out of the main office, heading down the stairs to the storeroom. “What’s she going to get out of him other than ‘awrk’?”
Jasmine laughs as she pushes open a side door, showing a room full of odds and ends, and claps her hands three times.
There’s a clatter of something coppery falling away, and what looks like a hookah spins a little on its base before settling down. Amidst the clutter of odds and ends, a tassel pops up and ‘looks around’, swiveling on its knot. A moment later, the magic carpet zips out, landing before them on two of its tassels and bowing.
“Very elegant,” Jasmine approves. “You’ve been practicing, haven’t you? We need to get to the Latin Quarter - Ariel may be in trouble.”
The tassel makes a gesture of horror - probably akin to someone putting their hand over their mouth. Then it leaps into the air and hovers about a foot above the floor, beckoning them to get on.
Jasmine settles down without a second thought, and Meg gingerly climbs on, then yelps as the carpet starts off through the offices. A moment later, they zip through an open window in the kitchen - making the mice squeal and duck for the walls - and are zooming through the air at speeds that would give Meg a heart attack if she wasn’t used to riding Pegasus.
They cause a minor stir - magic carpets aren’t exactly common around here - but the residents of this city have grown accustomed to the oddities of the Agency. There’ll be a line or two in the papers tomorrow, but nothing that will reflect badly on them. Or so Meg hopes.
Anyway, it can’t be as bad as the zombie invasion a couple of months back. That got really bad.
“Belle? This is Meg. We’re on our way.”
“Copy that, over.”
“Copy what?”
“Copy your message... Never mind.”
“I’m not going to. Have you gotten anything more out of Scuttle about Ariel’s location?”
“Dent St, Latin Quarter. He’s indicating north on the compass, so I’m guessing he doesn’t mean the Belltower end. You’ve taken the carpet?”
“Didn’t you hear the mice as we went out the kitchen window?”
“Oh, is that what they’re squeaking about? I’ll put out some extra sausage for them. Poor dears.”
Megara exchanges a look with Jasmine. “I’ll never understand what she and Cinderella see in them - they’re mice!” In Meg and Jasmine’s homelands, mice were pests, not pets.
“Meg?” Belle’s patient voice comes from the device in her hand. “If you don’t want me to hear what you’re saying, take your finger off the red button.”
“Oh. Oops.” Megara takes her finger off the red button, blushing a little.
“Awkward.” Jasmine flashes a grin over her shoulder. “We’re coming up to the Latin Quarter. I’m going to get the carpet to set us down in the small park by the aqueduct - it’s a little less obvious than landing on the street...”
At least the magic carpet’s ‘landing’ doesn’t jar her teeth the way Pegasus’ landing does. On the other hand, Pegasus doesn’t like her, so he doesn’t even try to land gently.
The instant they land, Meg’s off the carpet and looking around for any signs of Ariel even as Jasmine tells the carpet to roll up and wait for them - and incidentally not to steal anything, get stolen, or be crapped upon by any of the pigeons in this part of the city.
It’s not a bad town on the surface. Not a lot of money, but a lot of class and style. A melting pot of people, from all walks and all talks. Not entirely unlike Thebes come to think of it.
Megara turns in a circle, getting her bearings.
She remembers the conversation about Ariel’s investigations this morning - a production warehouse with a shop front in the northern end of the street which was dumping rubbish into city’s stormwater drains in direct contravention to the city ordinances. Considering Ariel’s origins and her connection with all water-based creatures, it’s not surprising she feels strongly about this kind of thing.
There’s the aqueduct running down the back of the small park, and there’s the old sugar mill at the end - it looks like someone’s done it up as a restaurant.
And there’s the sound of a fight taking place in the alley out the back.
Megara pulls out her short-sword as she sprints diagonally across the park. She doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone - particularly not anyone human - but if she has to, she will. This isn’t a nice job, but Meg has never claimed to be a particularly nice person - whatever Herc seems determined to think.
Sometimes she wonders if he remembers that she did sell her soul to Hades in the first place.
The first thing she thinks as she comes around the corner is that there are a lot of them. Maybe as many as nine or ten. Typical human thugs, found on any street corner in any city or town, willing to do whatever work comes their way. At least two of them are down - one looks like he slipped on an unexpected patch of sludge that Meg is willing to bet wasn’t sludge before Ariel needed it to be, and another is knocked out against a wall.
The second thing she thinks is that Ariel seems to have found unexpected help. Two locals - a woman wearing a white apron and wielding what looks like a giant frying pan with a dexterity entirely at odds with her slender appearance, and a man who’s wielding a broom with the grace of a professional swordsman.
Even as Meg runs towards the fight, another two go down - Ariel whacks one in the balls with the business end of the mop and he crumples. One wouldn’t think she’d be that good at fighting considering the first time she walked was when she was sixteen, but Ariel’s curiosity and interest in all things ‘on land’ includes all the things one can do when one has feet.
“Hey!” Meg calls to snag the attention of at least a couple of the thugs, and to let Ariel know that the infantry’s come. “Need some help?”
“Help,” Ariel says, blocking another series of blows and trying to get her own in, “would be very welcome.”
The woman in the apron slams another in the nose with the edge of her frypan and he stumbles back, bleeding and swearing as he clutches his face. “Serves you right, you horrible brute!” Her voice is soft and lilts with the local argot, but there's a non-nonsense edge to it.
Two thugs peel off, coming for Megara and Jasmine. They’re armed with knives rather than swords, but they have sheer strength on their side, and their reach is longer.
Meg keeps this in mind as she engages the first, dodging his heavy overhand blow and the evil gleam of the knife. She hears the steely rasp as Jasmine pulls her scimitar but doesn’t look to see the other woman step into the fight with the kind of grace and care usually seen in dancers.
Apparently the dancing graces translate very well to sword-fighting.
It’s a short fight, and vicious. The thug Meg's up against is a clever one; he knows he’s got the reach of her and mostly feints in and out rather than trying to get inside her reach. He’s also got the stamina to outlast her. If this was a one-on-one, he’d keep going until she tired then finish her off.
Meg doesn’t wait for that to happen.
She pulls a knife from her belt and uses it as a distraction - nothing more. Herc bemoans her aim - or lack of it when it comes to throwing knives - but he can’t talk, he’s a demi-god for Zeus’ sake! And her aim is good enough to make him flinch away from the thrown knife - and stumble into a hole left by a missing cobblestone next to the aqueduct wall.
Meg’s on him in a moment, her sword poking him in the belly. “Don’t move because I'd hate to gut you. And by hate, I mean leap at the opportunity.” She presses just hard enough to let him know she means what she says - and to keep him from moving when she glances up to see what’s happening.
It seems to be mostly over.
It is over, in fact.
The nine bruised and battered thugs are tied up with the assistance of the couple from the restaurant next door and some rope the woman finds in one of their supply cupboards. “Left behind by the workmen when they finished the work on my restaurant,” she says in that lovely soft drawl.
“Oh, thank you,” Ariel is saying gratefully. “But I think Meg should tie the knots - she’s better at it than I am.”
As Meg does the knots - aided by Jasmine - she doesn’t let on exactly where she got so good at tying knots. Or, more correctly, re-tying them. A boyfriend with godly strength takes a little more effort than most.
“So what happens now?” The man who helped them out is charming and handsome, and Meg frankly distrusts him.
“We hand them over to the authorities for questioning--”
“When the authorities finally turn up.” Megara mutters and Jasmine covers her cough with her hand as an odd ‘shhhh’ sound emits from Meg’s belt.
“Meg? Jasmine? Hello? Is anyone there? Is this thing working? Perhaps I should have used the longer frequency...” Some squeaking and squawking can be faintly heard in the background. “Hello?”
“Oops.” With a rueful smile, Megara takes Belle’s contraption and presses the red button. “It’s working. We’ve found Ariel; she's fine- barely even needed our help. As a matter of fact, she'd found some help herself.”
“Is she okay?” Belle sounds anxious - as she would be after not getting any reports from them.
“She’s fine. A little bruised and sore where one of them got her wrist, but otherwise fine. We’re out the back of this restaurant... Tiana’s Place. The old sugar mill at the end of Dent.”
“Did she get the information she wanted?”
Ariel’s drawn closer, inspecting the device with her usual interest in such things. Meg sighs. “I'd suggest getting it from the dolphin's mouth. I’m handing this thing over to her now.” She relinquishes it to the former mermaid, indicating that she should press the button and speak.
Jasmine’s talking to the couple, who are apparently are from Tiana’s Place. “Megara, this is Tiana and Naveen who’ve so kindly helped us. Tiana, Naveen - Megara.”
She looks at the slender woman with some surprise. “This is your restaurant? And you’re working in the kitchen?”
“Just for this afternoon,” Tiana smiles. “I’m refining a couple of recipes and Naveen was going to be my test subject.”
“She makes a mean gumbo, let me tell you.” Naveen grins at his wife, tall and proud and handsome. “So might I inquire why your friend was being set upon by so many ruffians? I admit, I’m rather curious. As I was saying to Jasmine just now, you’re an unusual assortment of women.”
“Detective Agency.” Jasmine explains. “We’re fairly recent, but doing good business - we’ve got two other partners - Ariel’s talking to one of them now.”
“Intriguing. I’m fascinated.” Naveen turns to Tiana. “You know, my dear, you always cook too much during these tester nights. Perhaps they could join us for dinner?”
Jasmine blinks, and Megara’s brows rise.
Tiana looks surprised as well, although she covers it well as she turns to Megara and her colleagues. “Of course. You’re more than welcome. And if you have partners...”
“Oh...”
“We’d be delighted,” Megara says, not without a hint of malice. She knows that Jasmine is staring at her, and that Ariel is frowning and murmuring into Belle’s contraption. But if Mr. Too-Charming thinks he’s going to get dinner with four women and his wife, he’s got another think coming. “If you don’t mind a few extras. Our partners, you understand.”
Tiana smiles in a way that says she does. Perfectly. “Not at all.”
--
Ariel turns out the thugs’ pockets at Belle’s behest, and comes up with a contact number which the Agency will follow up. The authorities turn up to take care of the thugs. The women head back to the office, and leave Tiana and Naveen to their cooking, promising to come back later when they’ve had time to close shop and clean up.
As it turns out, Mr. Too-Charming Naveen doesn’t bat an eyelash when Meg, Jasmine, Ariel, and Belle turn up with Herc, Aladdin, Eric, and Adam.
But when Tiana lays a bowl of gumbo down in front of Hercules and says, “There you go. Fit for a prince, if I do say so myself,” it’s Aladdin who drawls, “He’s actually a demi-god, Lady Tiana. They’re the princes.” And he points - with his spoon, no less - at Eric and Adam.
Naveen pauses with the wine glasses tilting precariously on his tray before he rights them. “Wait.” He holds up one hand. “You’re telling me that I’m surrounded by princesses? Now?”
His wife coughs behind her hand, but her eyes are dancing.
And when Tiana and Naveen explain their story, the old sugar mill rings with laughter.