"Very well."  Random gestures to Karloff.  "Report, then."<br/><br/>Karloff sighs, gives Anne a sidelong glance, and starts talking.<br/><br/>"We have a problem.  There's a new power on the board and it isn't friendly.  The good news is that they don't like our opposite number any more than they like us.  That's the short version."<br/><br/>He slouches in the chair and closes his eyes.<br/><br/>"I was doing what I do best, wandering about in shadow and staying mostly out of trouble.  Found myself stuck on this little backwater...kind of like that Earth place that Uncle Corwin talked about so much.  Definitely not a good tourist spot for us, though.  I'd been there maybe ten minutes when this little teeny-bopper in a pedo-bait schoolgirl outfit shows up, says something along the lines of 'fry, demon!', and throws a fireball at me. Almost got me, too, 'cause I was looking for the<em>demon</em>.  I got the picture pretty fast, though.  You can imagine my irritation when I found out I couldn't shift shadow out of there.  After that, my night got really busy.  Magical girls popping out of the woodwork..."<br/><br/>He shakes his head and chuckles grimly.<br/><br/>"It sounds silly, but silly isn't the same thing as harmless.  After several hours of getting berated and assaulted, I was even almost willing to consider hard take-downs...but as luck would have it, the pressure dies down a couple of hours before dawn.  I guess they needed their beauty sleep or something.  I managed to find an all-night diner, ordered the worst coffee you can imagine, and started contemplating options.  Just before dawn, I got a visitor.  Young gal, maybe twenty, dressed like Joan of Arc.  Dirty.  Scuffed up.  Really pissed off.  Oh, and Chaotian.  She just walks in, slams both hands on the table in front of me, and demands to know why I won't let her leave my shadow."<br/><br/>"This and that happened.  It took a bit but I was able to convince her that I wasn't the architect of her misfortune...strange bedfellows and all that, right?  She's a courier, works for one of the Greater Houses in Chaos.  And she was there because someone had sicc'ed a beastie on her tail, all to stop her from carrying out her duties.  She didn't specify and I didn't ask.  There wasn't time--the beastie could cross shadow, okay?  And it showed up at the damndest moment you could imagine, throwing magical girls around like rag dolls."<br/><br/>"Little Miss Courier and I did the stupid thing.  Not like we could just shift through shadow and escape, you know?  And I have no love for the locals, but this fire angel thing was just too much for a bunch of little girls in stupid outfits.  So we...<em>nobless oblige</em>and all that crap.  We helped out as best we could.  I think we might actually even have killed it.  But we got separated in the mess, and then I made Trump contact unexpectedly and exercised the option.  And here I am."<br/><br/>"Any questions?"<br/><br/>Random has gone quite pale.<br/><br/>"Fire angel?"<br/><br/>"That's what the courier called it, yeah.  I've never heard of them before.  I never want to see one again, either."