“Ok, come on. What’s that supposed to mean? Nineteen what? Donuts? Cops? Mysterious sigils on spooky trees?”

Serah turned a corner. “One of my functions is to replace potentially compromised ward relays. There are twenty in the outer edge, I will be replacing them all tonight.” She seemed to pause for a moment. Ed tried to get a read on her through the rearview but he was fairly certain it was impossible. She seemed to have two expressions. Mouth open, mouth closed. “Our tail is a shikigami or familiar. I am primarily non-combat, but so are they. You are safe.”

“Oh, wow.” Ed fell back into his seat. While he hadn’t noticed it before; he’d been on the edge of it for a while now. “Ok, thanks. We’re totally good, yeah? We’re not going to get like, shot at or anything right?”

“I do not believe so.”

“Do you normally talk like this?” Ed caught himself a second later. “Uh, sorry. That was kinda rude. You were just kinda giving me the cold shoulder for a while there.”

The car began to slow and Ed just sort of sat there in silence for a while as Serah got out and went through the same sort of spray paint motions as before. Well, if she didn’t want to talk that was fine by him. He flipped open mudman’s, Mr. Garry had handed them to him in a brown satchel before he left, then he paged through to the index. Familiars, shikigami, this seemed like the sort of thing that would be in there.

“I was nervous.”

“Err, what?” Ed faltered. They’d started moving again and he’d just about gotten to the good part too when Serah’d suddenly interrupted him.

“To answer your question. I believe I was nervous. Tamtilus rarely fights in person. We function as proxy minds for his clones, the exact scope of the mall altercation was…” She seemed to pause again. “Alarming.”

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“Wait wait, hold up. You’re saying you were there?”

“Yes. I was the clone third from the left, fifth to be shot, adjacent to the west side entrance to the atrium. You were the boy floundering next to the pillar.”

Ed laughed somewhat nervously. “Uh, yeah, that’s me, flounder boy.” And Mr. Garry said she had no sense of humor. He snorted as he put aside the book. “Us? So you mean like there’s more of you?”

“Tamtilus purchased us out of a surplus,” She adjusted the rearview. “or so I am told.”

But before he could think too much about the exact implications of that there was a soft whap, as if something'd hit the windshield and Serah switched on the wipers. Ed caught the tail end of what he was pretty sure was a large moth as it was pushed away off to the side. There was a distinct lack of blood though and Ed could have sworn it had been made of paper.

There were a few more whaps and suddenly it was as if they’d driven into a snowstorm or something because the windows were absolutely smothered with moths. These ones were definitely not paper and Ed even somewhat scrambled into the middle of the seats to try to get away from them. If they weren’t fluttering past, they were frantically jamming themselves into the gaps.

“So, uh. Non combat you say?”

She eyed him briefly. “We are heavily warded. This is merely a ploy to hide what I assume is their actual scout somewhere next to a door. A mistake. Their master has revealed their inexperience.”

Just as quickly as they’d come the moths vanished and Ed was almost left wondering if he’d simply imagined it.

“Am I missing something?” He squeaked. He’d never been very good with bugs. “That seems like a pretty good plan.”

“Illusion and dissuasion wards extend out into the gaps when we exit. Open air is one of the first points Tamtilus looks for in defense. It would take at least a fifth level flood to break past them. Or perhaps a very dedicated specialist.”

“I’m guessing there’s a reason they don’t do that?”

“No, not particularly. If they did we would be… how would Tamtilus put it?” She tapped a finger on the wheel. “Screwed. Yes, we would be screwed. Do not worry. I do not believe we are important enough to warrant this. Tamtilus has sent all of the A series out on similar runs, they should be spread just as thin as us.”