Kerberos 11/14/2011

Victor POV:
Talked to Harrington, the scoundrel who had been showing the kids around town to vaudeville shows and sham preachers. He implied he just wanted friends in high places, but it seemed doubtful his motivations were that simple: he's a crook with dreams of grandeur, who imagines himself ruling the filthy roost and stepping on all those even lower than he is. Unfortunately, he's also practiced enough at dissembling I couldn't get more out of him, although he did tell me where the kids were supposed to meet up with him on the night they went missing. He had muscle (Tom) and a doxy (Fiona Freckles) with him. Also discovered that the rat-faced man Dillon saw following them was a crony of Harrington's named Jones. Left him, collected Alice (disguised by Sophronia as Alec, a naive rich kid slumming it who was surprisingly lucky when gambling on dice) and headed out... asked Sophronia to follow Harrington when he left, and she kept at it long enough to see the gentleman's house he brought Fiona to before getting bored and flying off. More than I expected, really. Meanwhile, I set off to collect Abe, who'd been trapped into unpleasant paperwork by the American ambassador: Lincoln had taken the ambassador out for a night on the town that went smoothly until they were caught by the ambassador's wife returning home. I convinced him that searching for missing children was a better use of his time. We questioned beggars and found some who had seen the kids on the night they were taken, but none who had seen the capture itself.

The next day we met at the club, where we discovered that a message had been dropped off by my landlady, delivered to me from the Doyles: it was a ransom note that they'd received from some very urbane criminals asking for the return of a dragon statue he'd taken from them in exchange for his children. Clearly from Chinese Tong. Went to Doyle's, discovered that Mr. Doyle had stolen a jade dragon statue from a monastery in China (although he left money: that made it alright in his mind) that was clearly influencing his mind. Although willing, barely, to give up the statue to recover the kids, he seemed more concerned that we recover the statue back from the trade than his kids. Alice fainted. The statue fell over. Also discovered that Jones had delivered the message. I headed out with Abe to try to track down Harrington again. I sneaked into the gentleman's house Sophronia had tracked Fiona to while Abe went to local bars to gather information. Fiona was weepy, weak-willed, and torn between terror of Harrington and a desire to see him gone from her life forever: after some waffling, she revealed to me the location of a warehouse Harrington used for illicit goods, and I sneaked back out leaving her crying into her pillow behind me.

I found Abe wavering on his feet and pretty well sloshed... he underestimated how well bar-crawlers in Wapping can hold their alcohol. Wanting to reconnoiter the warehouse, and not trusting Abe to lumber stealthily while drunk, I pointed him in the direction of the gentleman's house, where a poor girl had been left in tears. I then crept to the warehouse, where I spied Harrington, Tom, Jones, the two children in cages, and five Chinese. I watched them for a while, not quite daring to act on my own, until a carriage rolled up and unloaded a jade dragon statue. It was obvious that the statue was merely Sophronia in disguise. When Abe showed up, I motioned him to be ready to bust in the door... then Alice flew in, and we all exploded into action: Abe kicked down the door, Sophronia turned from jade to bronze and flew at Harrington, and I rushed in to unlock the kids' cages. I should have pushed myself further to get them out of there immediately, since they were just grabbed as hostages by the Chinese. Abe threw Tom into some boxes, I knocked out some Chinese, and Alice offered the real jade dragon to the Tong, trading it for the children.

We then put the fear of spiders into Harrington, told the Tong not to rely on our local criminals (not up to the levels of professionalism the Tong expected) and to come to us in case of further difficulties, took the children home, and that was that.

After the fact, I will discover the following:

• Abe brought the three girls from the gentleman's house to my flat. He intends to keep one himself, give one to Alice, and foist one upon me so that we all have maids who were previously whores.
• Alice and Sophronia discovered the statue was a prison for a powerful and evil dragon that could not be destroyed, and the monks had guarded it for millenia.
• A second ransom note, from Harrington instead of the Tong (written very crudely) moved up the timetable for the exchange: Abe and a disguised Sophronia went to the exchange while Alice stayed behind to recover the real jade statue, and prevented Mr. Doyle from sacrificing Mrs. Doyle in a ritual that would have freed the evil dragon... the monks were clearly more strong-willed and better able to guard the statue, so Alice was happy to return it to them.