Neron. That was the same guy that John had warned us about. I didn't think it was a coincidence but I thought that we should probably wait until the guys came back from the wake. I decided to call Nate aboard the ship. The first thing that he did was looking at me accusingly.
"What is she doing here?" He asked.
"I didn't kill your dad, Nate." Nora declared. "But I know who did. It was a demon named Neron."
"Did you see him?" John questioned. I was a little bit curious about that as well. "What did he look like?"
"He was an African-American man with a beard." Nora explained. At that point, John punched the wall.
"John, are you alright?" Ray asked him as he put his hand on the wizard's shoulder.
"No, I'm not alright!" John shouted. "Neron is bloody possessing Dez."
"Well there has to be some sort of way to exorcise him from his body.' I declared. "Plus, that lets you know that he's not dead."
However, before he could respond, the ship's alarm went off. It turned out that there was something else wrong with the timeline. It always seemed to happen at the most inopportune times.
"Gideon, what's wrong?" I asked.
"There's a disturbance in the timestream in Edinburgh in 1963." Gideon answered. "It seems scores of children have gone missing, including later Prime Minister Tony Blair."
I didn't know a lot about Tony Blair, but I also knew that he was one of the only British prime ministers that I knew anything about. That probably wasn't a good sign and we couldn't let anything interfere with history. It looked like we would have to split up yet again. On top of that, I would probably have to be bait once again. That would be fun.
"Okay, so it looks like we're going to have split up to deal with multiple problems." I stated. "Ray, I need you to go with Nora and John. The rest of us will go to Edinburgh to see if we can deal with this."
I couldn't believe that we were going back to Britain so soon, Of course, early 1960s Britain was most likely different from late 1970s Britain. You know it's possible that I've been hanging around Constantine too much if I've started calling it Britain, but that was beside the point. We needed to get to the mission.
One thing that I wasn't sure of was how to start looking for the missing children. Hopefully, they were only missing and not actually dead. It was something that we could fix but it would be easier if we didn't have to.
"So, what's the plan, Captain?" Zari asked.
"Well we should probably ask the locals to see if they saw anything stranger before the children went missing." I declared.
We started by going to a pub.
"It's so clean in here. What's wrong with this place?" Charlie asked as soon as we entered. "I don't like this."
"Things were different in the 60s." I explained. I then nudged Zari to go talk to the bartender.
"Excuse me, Sir, we're with Interpol. We were wondering if you could give us any information about the mysterious phenomenon that caused several children to vanish." She said.
"Well I don't know much, but I do know that weird things started around the time those Beatle blokes came to town." The bartender answered.
"The Beatles?" Zari questioned in disbelief.
"They apparently have a new member: Klaus or something." The man declared. "Now if ye aren't going to buy anything, ye need to go."
Well now we knew who the fugitive was. Why would the Beatles add a German man and what possible creature was he that had something to do with the disappearance of the children. I figured that the best possible solution would be to figure out where the Beatles were going to be next. In addition to being harmful to children, I knew such a thing could do a lot of damage to music in general. If the Beatles never made it to America, neither would the rest of the British bands and that would change things forever, so it couldn't happen.
"Gideon, I need to know where the Beatles next show is going to be." I stated.
"The next Beatles show is tomorrow night in Glasgow." Gideon explained.
I wasn't entirely sure what to wear to a Beatles concert. Never once in doing this had I thought that I would be able to see the Beatles perform live. I couldn't help but wonder if John was going to be jealous that this was a mission that he skipped out on.
"Is it weird that I've never heard the Beatles before?" Ava asked me once we were back on the ship.
"Well for most people it would be, but not for you." I told her as I looked up some clothes. "The good news is that you're getting a great introduction to them."
"Do you have any idea what kind of fugitive that we're after?" She inquired.
"No idea, but that's why we're going to the show to find out." I told her. "We're going to fix this. We always do…even if we don't do it right the first time."
"Have you thought about looking elsewhere for a cure to your lycanthropy? Just because John doesn't know anything doesn't mean that there isn't one." She replied.
"I honestly feel like that's the least of my worries right now. I think as long as I keep it under control, it really won't be that bad." I declared.
"I don't know what's weirder, you being a werewolf or me being a clone." She admitted.
"It's not weird. No one on the ship. These are all things that make us special." I remarked. That sounded pretty corny.
"I love you." She told me.
"I love you too." I reciprocated. I was glad that I wasn't saying it for the first time. Having gotten all of the awkward stuff out of the way before we got turned into kids was definitely for the better.
Before the concert, I decided to call John to see how things were going on their end.
"Have you made any progress with getting Neron out of Dez?" I questioned.
"Not yet. I'm still gathering up the necessary materials to perform an exorcism." He answered. "What about you? Have you found the fugitive yet?"
"We haven't found him but we did find out that The Beatles suddenly have a new member and we're going to see them tonight." I explained.
"You're going to see the Beatles perform?" He asked in disbelief. "Now that's just fair, Poppet."
"Well I'm not sure if it's safe, but I suppose that is what makes it interesting." I declared before I ended the communication.
From there, the five of us headed to the concert. Mick seemed like he was actually excited about going to the show.
"I didn't know that this was your scene, Rory." Zari replied.
"Are you kidding? I love the Beatles." He stated. I had pretty much given up trying to figure him out because he had so many random interests.
I had to admit that the show was better than I thought it would be. Apparently, this Klaus guy played the flute which was a bit odd, but it kind of worked with their music in a way. I still wasn't sure what kind of fugitive he was and that worried me. We wouldn't want to charge into battle with something and have it be something completely different. While a guy that played the flute didn't seem to be that dangerous, looks could be deceiving and he could be a very vicious monster. Hopefully we weren't dealing with another striga.
That night, when I was asleep, I couldn't help but dream of music. It was really strange. There was some sort of message in it, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was trying to say. Before I could listen to anything, I was woken up by a sort of moment. I heard the door to the room open and opened my eyes and I saw Ava walk out. I followed behind her.
"What are you doing up?" I asked. She didn't turn to look at me. She just kept walking. I then rushed in front of her and I saw a blank stare in her eyes. "Ava?"
She didn't say anything. She just kept walking. I knew that I needed to follow her. She was in some sort of trance and I didn't know how to break it. She walked out of the Waverider and I followed after her. As I walked behind her, I couldn't help but notice several other children as well. It was then that I was hit with an answer. I couldn't believe that I didn't put it together before. A man with a flute, missing children…we were dealing with the freaking pied piper. The only question that I had was why wasn't I being affected in the same way as Ava and the others?
I knew that if I followed, it would lead me to him. I wished that I had time to put on my comms, or even some shoes. I had a feeling that my feet were really going to hurt by the time I got to the location.
After what I assumed was several miles of walking, I noticed that they were heading towards a warehouse. As they walked inside, I began to hear the same music that was in my dream. When I was inside, I saw Klaus playing his flute along with several children working sewing machines.
"Wonderful more slaves to work for me." He said with a German accent. He seemed to making Beatles merchandise. "Come now, little children."
So it looked like I would have to figure out how to stop him on the spot. In the story, he wasn't defeated, so that was no help to me. I looked around the room and that was when he noticed something was off about me.
"You." He said as he came over to me. "Why are you not under my control."
"You can't do this." I told him. "This is wrong."
At that moment, I let out a growl.
"The werewolf. That explains why you have greater resistance to my music." He replied. "I'll just have to play a different tune."
He started to play the flute close to my ears and I immediately covered them up and closed my eyes. I decided that I should do something, so I kicked the flute out of his hands.
"If you will not be controlled, you will be terminated. Now I don't have a silver bullet, but I can obtain one." He said. "Restrain her my slaves."
At that point, Ava and the other started to walk over towards me. I would have to make sure not to hurt any of them. I was definitely outnumbered, but that never stopped me before. I made my way through the crowd, but I still didn't have a plan. I then came up with an idea. I didn't know if it would work. I made my way over to the piper and knocked him to the ground before I snapped his flute in half. I seriously hoped that it would work or I was in trouble.
Thankfully, it did. I noticed that everyone seemed to wake from their trances at once.
"Sara? Where are we?" Ava asked. At that moment, the door blew open and I saw Charlie, Zari, and Mick. I had to explain to them what happened.
"So why were you not affected by the flute in the same way?" Zari asked.
"Because he was playing a song to affect human children and I'm kind of not human anymore." I explained. "We need to get this guy back to the bureau and have the cops get these kids back to their families."
When we got back to the ship, I managed to get word from John that they managed to successfully get Neron out of Dez's body. Unfortunately, Dez was still not happy. He was grateful that John saved him but did not want him back. I just hoped all of our troubles were over.
So I finally posted another chapter. I've had the idea for the chapter for a while, but I never got around to writing it. Anyway, the enemy was the Pied Piper. Unfortunately for Sara, things aren't over yet. Please don't forget to review.