Edwyn Mulder's page

The sudden transition to the park is not nearly as disorienting as Edwyn might have expected, if only because it is not a sudden transition at all. At least, that is what his memories seem to tell him. The detective frowns, finding it surprisingly difficult to chalk down as just being 'magic' like he has with so many other recent oddities.

He looks over at the Lady, only now realizing that she did not give them a name to call her by. That, and peculiar aura about her that awakens something in him, memories of a time not so long ago. The familiar scent of cigar smoke, the crackling of a fireplace, the feeling of a good leather-bound novel against his fingertips... Blinking, Edwyn finds that he is a little teary-eyed. I've really taken this whole 'being dead' thing in stride, haven't I?

"Subterfuge is more my style," he agrees, wiping his face off with a sleeve.

"They have an arrangement that'll keep the authorities off their backs, and while I suspect they are the mercenary sort, I highly doubt that we have kind of money to throw them off this job," Edwyn elaborates, wondering if this is the kind of information that matters to her. "We have until midnight to stop them."

Edwyn is slow to respond, distracted as he is by the woman's... knowingness. This isn't what I expected when I asked him to let Brigid take the wheel. I'm starting to think my secrets aren't as well-kept as I thought they were.

"A pleasure," Edwyn replies with a slight bow, after Kenneth finishes with his heralding. With only a crash course on supernatural etiquette, he could only hope that his decorum suffices.

"I think that's the idea," he says, looking to Kenneth for confirmation. "But the Fomor have some human friends that are liable to show up. We were hoping to find out more about them beforehand. Maybe find a way to keep them out of it."

"Ah, right, the magic thing," Edwyn muses, as though that is something he could really forget about. He brings the engine of the car to a low rumble and starts to pull out of his parking spot. "About that, is my phone in any danger of getting fried? It's not exactly state of the art, and I could probably scrounge up another in a pinch, but it could be a problem if we land ourselves in trouble."

As he starts to drive, he leans back in his seat and weighs the options Kenneth lays out. "In my line of work, I depend on any lead I can get, regardless of who or where it comes from. Can't say I've ever followed one from a goddess before, but there's a first time for everything. We're working with a bit of a time limit here, so if Brigid can at least point us in the right direction, then I can't argue."

"Just don't flex any muscles. You might pop the seatbelt," Edwyn warns as he slides into the driver's seat with considerably less difficulty. The Mini does not exactly bend and buckle beneath the bard's weight, but the shift in balance is perceptible. Do wizards have car insurance? he wonders as he adjust

"All right, let's get a move on. Don't want to get stranded on the other side of the causeway. Would not rather not have to row a boat to get back across." Looking over at Kenneth, he adds, "Though I guess you'd be doing the rowing."

"I hear you. Not much room on a bike to do much else with a bonnie lass, though," Edwyn replies with a grin, depositing his cigarette in his pocket ashtray. He eyes his compact car with a grimace.

"Not that there's any room in that thing. It's not much of a fit for anything, really."

"Closed spaces not your thing?" Edwyn asks, having taken an opportunity to poison the delightful sea breeze with puffs of cigarette smoke. Evidently, his little road trip with Danny gave him the opportunity to resupply. "I could always roll the windows down, let some of that salt in."

Eyeing Kenneth's bike with perhaps a smidgen of envy and wounded pride, he asks, "You ever think about picking up a sidecar?"

Edwyn grimaces at Danny's remark, an expression he awkwardly tries to pass off by cramming a pork rind into his mouth. Right after we discussed the buddy system, of course. Might need to make some adjustments...

With Bren's timely interruption, he offers a smile, playing up the awkwardness.

"Is it that obvious?" Edwyn asks of his accent with a sigh. From the way he says it, this has obviously happened before. "I haven't lived in the states since my teen years, but I still sound like an American." The detective smirks. "But I suppose I am a tourist."

Edwyn is the last to arrive, on account of the overly generous lead he gave Sal.

He smiles pleasantly enough at the barmaid, but gives the scratchings a wide berth. Since it's been a few hours, he gives the others some slack about their day-drinking, even taking a few sips of his own lukewarm beer. He snorts at the utter lack of subtlety in their planning discussion, eyeing the surrounding area at Sal's mention of C4.

"I can do some poking around at the Barn," he suggests, unsure of what would happen if he went with the alternative. "Fothergill's not my contact, and even after Sven's breakdown, I don't think I'm equipped to tell them what they're up against." Never mind that we're on the Holy Island...

"As for my partner of choice, well, whoever doesn't mind getting shot at." Edwyn blinks. "You know, in case they catch on."

After visiting a corner store and two separate apartments, Edwyn shows up in a new jacket and tie, fresh and ready to be riddled with bullet holes.

Not having much in the way of an appetite, but figuring that he should order something, he pays for a kids' meal, ostensibly for some next of kin that he left in the car. He clarifies that he wants the tiny box of fries and the tiny little soft drink to go with them. Healthy or not, milk and fruit with a burger was just plain wrong.

With Danny safely transferred over to Sal's mobile pillow fort, Edwyn returns to the Mini alone. He waits in the parking lot, putting fries into his mouth one by one as he watches the others drive off.

"It's just you and me, pal," he remarks to no one as he places a small hunk of plastic on the dusty dashboard, some cartoon abomination from the latest in computer-generated children's entertainment. "Whatever the hell you're supposed to be."

After five minutes or so he takes off in the same direction, already knowing the way. He doubts that anyone would actually follow them, but it wouldn't hurt to play it safe.

"I don't know, Sal. That's a lot of Happy Meals," Edwyn remarks dryly when he is offered the small stack of cash. He considers objecting, but ends up stuffing the bills into a pants pocket.

Shaking his head, he helps himself to one of the stab vests. There was some conventional wisdom about knives and gunfights, but he figured that it would be easier to get stabbed than shot.

"Alright, Danny, where am I taking you?" he asks, already working on a mental travel itinerary. Might as well be as economical as possible. "I have one or two stops to make before the rendezvous at Mickey D's."

"Casual clothes? While I'm on the job? Never," Edwyn retorts, leaving out the fact that he has been 'on the job' for the past several months. "I'll take a stab vest, too. I mean, it's not like we're dealing with trained marksmen, right?"

Smiling back at Danny, he replies, "Thanks. But you should probably think of a better name for your crew."

"Good for you two," Edwyn inserts awkwardly, flashing a thumbs up as he gulps down the rest of his coffee. He glances at Danny, once again hiding his incredulousness behind the mug. Twins? Christ. He really is living the rock star life.

"Ah. Refreshing. Now then, unless we have any more planning or prepwork, I should probably get ready to head out," he says, already rinsing out his mug. Normally he would be happy to help himself to another cup, but the situation was now painfully awkward. "Before you ask, you should have my number in your call history, Sal. It might have been labeled as 'Scam Likely.'"

Not exactly what I would call subtle, Edwyn thinks, using his investigative skills to the opposite of their fullest potential.

"Wait, you mean we're going to an establishment that doesn't serve alcohol?" he asks with mock incredulity, swirling what little coffee remains in his mug as though it were wine. "I'm pretty sure you lot had at least one drink at every stop we made yesterday."

And you wasted a lot of perfectly good beer, he chides himself. But at least you drank the stuff the literal god gave you.

"But yeah, I can take him. Once he's had his fill of coffee, anyway. And if he doesn't mind riding in the clown car with me."

Edwyn needs a pack (or carton?) of smokes, so I can finally stop mentioning that he's out of them. :P

As he pours more coffee down his throat, Edwyn glances back and forth between Sal and Kenneth over the rim of his mug. Rather than making any keen observations

"A nightmare to others, maybe. Like those of the piscine persuasion," he replies with a lopsided grin. "As for Danny, well, I think I heard him in the hallway last night. Sounded like he was having a good time." He looks back the way he came, half-expecting him to show up. When he doesn't, Edwyn continues, "A-"

Interrupted by Danny's off-cue entrance, the detective watches as he violates a perfectly good cup of coffee. "A very good time, apparently."

"As far as our itinerary goes, well, I guess it’s just a question of what we want to do before heading to Lindisfarne. It’ll take us a while to get there, and we’ll want to get there early.”

After being shown to a cozy guest room, Edwyn had promptly kicked off his shoes, doffed his jacket and flopped onto the bed. Despite all the excitement, he didn't even feel even a little tired. Like many things in his life, sleep was now more of a suggestion than a necessity. A blessing at first glance, but he had found that he missed the sense of gratification that came with crashing after pulling an all-nighter. Left with little choice, he mulled over every little detail behind the day's events repeatedly, eventually boring himself into half-slumber.

Man, you look like hell, he tells himself the next morning, as he inspects his reflection. He briefly contemplates taking a shower, only to remember that he doesn’t have a change of clothes on him. It is not as though he has much in the way of body odor, though that only seems to accentuate the lingering fishy smell on his jacket. Maybe I can swing by the apartment before we head to Lindisfarne.

Edwyn spends a few moments straightening out his hair and clothes as best as he can, principally restoring the knot on his necktie to a proper Windsor. By the time he arrives in the kitchen, he looks like a man ready to have a really bad day at the office.

”Morning Sal. Morning Kenneth,” he says with tired resignation, as though he’s clocking into work for the day. Spotting the coffee pot, he saunters over to it and helps himself to a mugful. He breathes in the aroma deeply - one of the few things he still could still enjoy - before taking a long draught of the bitter drink. It doesn’t exactly return the color to his face, but he does seem to become a bit more lively.

"Hmmm. We're all still here, which means that yesterday wasn't just a fever dream," he observes aloud, leaning against one of the countertops.

Sawed-offs are more of a homebrew kind of deal, yeah? <-- has no idea how guns work

Sorry about the lack of postage. I'll get something up before we transition to the next scene. :)

"Vest, armor, robot suit, whatever. As long as I can wear it under this," Edwyn says, tugging at his collar.

He relaxes somewhat when the C4 plan appears to be nipped in the bud, and quietly decides against asking about the 'vampire lab.' Going by what he heard earlier, he could put two and two together. I guess these guys aren’t exactly shy about causing collateral damage.

"Well, since you offered, I'm good with crashing here. I could use a wardrobe change, but this suit was already shredded earlier. Throwing another one on before our big day would just be a waste."

I don't think I ever described Edwyn's clothes. Visualize a designer suit, worn in the most horrifically casual manner possible. With laceless dress shoes, because no one has time to tie their shoes anymore.

"Sure, but I can drop my clients whenever I want," Edwyn replies with a shrug. He does not sound very convincing. "Benefit of being self-employed."

At the mention of C4, he balks. "Explosives? Weren't you just saying we should keep the gun fighting as low key as possible?"

"That does remind me, though. Are there any bulletproof vests around here? I don't plan on getting shot, but if I do, I'd rather not have to plug the holes."

"I'm lucky that I'm self-employed. I don't know what I'd do if I had a boss breathing down my neck," Edwyn remarks with a tinge of humor, after a moment of contemplation. "No offense to Brigid."

"As far as telling the Fomor apart from humans... to be fair, those 'vikings' were cozied up on their boat before the attack. No one could have gotten close enough to give them a whiff even if they wanted to. And they didn't show their true colors until they came ashore. It's possible that they knew their disguises wouldn't hold up under closer scrutiny." He frowns. "But that reasoning is more speculative than deductive."

"Sounds like you two have it all figured out," Edwyn remarks thoughtfully, nodding to himself. "Don't worry, I wasn't trying to catch you in some big moral dilemma or anything. I've had to shoot in self-defense before, but I've never actually killed anyone before, monsters notwithstanding. But if humans really are mixed up in this - with the bad guys, no less - then it sounds like I'm not gonna have a choice, sooner or later."

"Which I suppose brings me back to Danny's suggestion of getting the authorities involved. I'm not as worried about getting arrested as I am about getting them involved in something they probably can't handle." Though getting arrested wouldn't exactly go down well...

Edwyn chuckles darkly. "I used to be pretty good at ignoring what was right in front of me. Not exactly the quality of an ideal detective. I suppose I was a little trigger happy about dismissing the impossible. I drew the line at ghosts, for some reason. They were just... more familiar."

He pauses for a moment, wondering: if Stoker was clued in about vampires, then did his buddy Doyle something too?

"But I guess I'm beating around the bush. What happens if we end up shooting regular humans dead? I don't suppose we'll be having our day in court."

Edwyn smiles genuinely, taken by the same catharsis he always feels when met with a client's gratitude. It made him feel alive - there were not too many things he could say that about these days. He merely shakes his head when Sal mentions that she still owes him, but she did not strike him as the type to let her perceived debts slide by.

Family, huh? he quietly contemplates as he wipes his hands off with a rag, standing apart from the trio. He does not join in on the toast, partly because the scotch would be wasted on him, but mostly because the energy just didn't feel right. It did not take a detective to see how close the three of them are to one another. Small wonder, considering what they've been through together. Looks like you've found yourself a good one.

"I got one shot off," Edwyn confirms as he returns his reassembled firearm to its concealed holster. "The fishman said it tickled."

He winces at Danny's idea, coming to an uncomfortable realization. "Do humans usually get mixed up in stuff like this?" he asks. "Normal ones, I mean, like these army men we're gonna be dealing with."

"Well, in my not-so-expert opinion, if the guys we're dealing with are as low on the ladder as you say, then it's unlikely that their direct supervisor is in upper management," Edwyn supposes as he inspects his handiwork. As clean as a whistle. "This all seems a bit low-key for the god-killing department. But they are trying to let loose an invincible octopus monster, so who knows?"

"Hey, Edwyn? Quick question back at you. I'd really like to know." Sal's voice is oddly soft and even. "When I came to you in Amsterdam for help - for free help - you said no at first. Understandably. Then you came and found me and did help."

"Why? Why did you change your mind?" She barely seems to breathe, her whole being still and focused on the detective.

Edwyn grimaces, having figured this question would come up sooner or later. Answering it properly would require him to divulge a trade secret, one that might have gotten him locked in the loony bin (again). But given the weirdness present in this room alone, he felt like he'd fit right in.

"Back then, I didn't believe vampires existed. Didn't want to believe it. So when you came to me with your story, well, I thought you were crazy," he admits finally, avoiding Sal's gaze as he slowly reassembles his firearm. But that much she already knew. "That would have been that, but... someone vouched for you. I highly doubt you realized it at the time, but someone followed you all the way back from Afghanistan. Someone who must have cared about you very much."

"Where do fish people rank on the list of supernatural weirdness you've had to deal with, anyway?" Edwyn asks, the question open to the floor. "Like, are they worse or less worse than vampires?"

"Could always just saw the barrels off," Edwyn suggests as he cleans out his Glock's barrel. The smoky blackness on the cotton betrays months of neglect. "If your friend doesn't mind his hardware being chopped up, anyway. I mean, I could haul around a guitar case, but I'd be in trouble if someone asks me what a chord is."

"And here I thought flames just burned things..." Edwyn murmurs lamely, eyeing the sword with a tinge less incredulity than he did seconds before. As Sal starts her swording lesson, he preoccupies himself with digging out one of those kits she mentioned, unwilling to admit that he's been neglecting the poor Glock.

Poppy Court... he thinks as he starts to disassemble the firearm, a delayed reaction to Sal's humblebrag. Now that sounds familiar.

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," Edwyn says to Fothergill with a nod, his mouth curved into a strained smile. As the gentleman turns away, however, the detective looks over at Sal and silently mouths a rather pointed one-word question. Ogre?

"That's some serious hardware you've got there," he remarks, a little wide-eyed when Sal breaks out the sniper rifle. Their little armory was large enough to make some terrorist cells blush - not that he would know anything about those. Just a year ago this would all register as a giant red flag to his detective brain, but now it just looked like Christmas.

”I know a thing or two about peashooters,” Edwyn elaborates as he reaches into his jacket, withdrawing his Glock. He promptly unloads it before holding it out to display, practicing sufficient gun safety to keep the real enthusiasts from cringing. As for the firearm itself, it is, well, basic. ”Not that mine did much against those fish people. But people in my profession don’t usually carry around machine guns and flamethrowers.” He nods toward the sword Kenneth just pulled out of his hat for her. ”Or magic swords.”

Considering Danny's invitation, Edwyn sighs woefully. He felt like most of the amazing booze he's come by today has been wasted on him. "I think I've drunk more today than I have in the past month, but what the hell."

"I'd take offense, but lucky for me, it's just a rental," Edwyn replies curtly, as he remembers to manually lock the car's door. That alone made it a dinosaur in his book.

He follows Sal's lead as he sizes up the place - definitely not a pub.

"Ogre. Right," he repeats, pen tentatively hovering another box on his mental checklist.

Edwyn raises an eyebrow. "Trip's? That's not another pub, is it?"

"Here I've been picturing a crossover between Friar Tuck and Crouching Tiger," Edwyn remarks, only half seriously. He withdraws his phone from his pocket and checks the time. "Well if you all don't mind clocking in some overtime, we could always head in that direction now. Maybe they'll give us the grand tour, explain a bit more about what's going on. Maybe even a bed, or at least a spot to camp out on their lawn."

Edwyn treats the security system with the care one would give a ticking time bomb, delicately moving the wires back to their default positions. Granted, they were a mess, to begin with - if they left them as is, he wouldn't be surprised if no one noticed that the thing was even tampered with.

"What a coincidence," he remarks as he puts away his tiny little tools - suspiciously similar to those found in a glasses repair kit. "My line of work also involves being entrenched in one spot for long periods of time. Usually with lots and lots of coffee involved. Anyway, we should probably warn the monks before we turn in. So they can... ready their defenses?"

He reaches into one of his jacket pockets, only to find a crumpled cigarette box, still empty from earlier.

Holy crap, this day hasn't ended yet, he realizes with a grimace.

As Danny and Kenneth deal with the fancy invitation and exchange more supernatural jargon, Edwyn does his best to return the room to how it appeared before they crossed its threshold. Obviously he listens in, unwilling to assume a total lack of connection to their current predicament.

"Well, unless we tripped some magical silent alarm or something, I don't think they're gonna realize we dropped by," he reports as he neatly rearranges the pens that were on the desk.

"So are we visiting the monks next?"

I think the Summer/Winter Knight has to be a man; at least, both the current and preceding ones that we know of all have been men. Given how archaic the rules of the Mantle (and the Fae in general) are, I can only assume that it is sexist on top of everything else. :P

I don't see an easy way out for Murph, unfortunately. She's never gonna be as strong as she was before without supernatural assistance.

Thomas is a good candidate for Amoracchius, but that might be a bit hard for him to pull off given his current predicament.

But the meanest thing Butcher has done is release "Christmas Eve" two years ago because it takes place after Battle Ground. >:|

The threesomes/orgies/etc. set him straight, but I think it was the general guilt trip that broke him out of his edgelord phase. Pretending that you don't care to protect the people you care about doesn't work so hot when the people you care about bite the dust. (It really doesn't help that characters are absent for entire books, though.)

"Sometimes," Edwyn starts, his eyes locked on the sealed folder, "The curtains are just blue."

Well that explains a few things, Edwyn thinks as he finally pops the door open and helps himself to the office's contents.

"I don't think they've been initiated into the fish cult, if that's what you're asking," Edwyn suggests as he checks another drawer for a false bottom, just in case. "Could be that they're just doing odd jobs for briefcases of cash, no questions asked. This one just happens to be unsealing evil in a can."

Edwyn continues to wrestle with the lock, making liberal use of the 'auto-attempt' button. He glances over his shoulder a few times, watching as Danny opens his Sight. "So what does this Third Eye do, exactly? Give you X-ray vision?"

"If they didn't spend the money to update their security system, I doubt it was that comprehensive to begin with," Edwyn speculates as he gives the office door an experimental rattle, finding that it is locked. Well, locks are just a suggestion anyway.

As he probes the lock with his tools, Edwyn asks, "So what are we looking for again? Incriminating documents? Salacious photos? A paperback copy of the Necronomicon?"

Burglary: 4d3 - 8 + 3 ⇒ (3, 2, 1, 2) - 8 + 3 = 3

"If you're doing it in reverse, then the party is already over," Edwyn remarks, his eyes wandering in search of an ideal point of entry. He knew more than just a thing or two about breaking and entering, but calling it burglary made it sound a lot more gauche than it really was. He reaches into his deep pockets, fiddling with the various tools and other miscellaneous crap that they accumulated. "Let me see if I can fiddle with the lock on that door, before we bust it off its hinges."

Burglary: 4d3 - 8 + 3 ⇒ (3, 3, 1, 3) - 8 + 3 = 5

Edwyn simply shrugs, taking Sal's word for it.

"My clients don't usually pay me to put them into debt," he explains sheepishly. "I'm more accustomed to checks and wads of banknotes."

Just put it all on my tab. Whatever that means.

Edwyn immediately regrets his contribution to the Hanna-Barbera bit, his eyes glazing over amid the silliness at the table. Only when they start discussing transportation does life seem to return to them, despite the probability of the Mystery Machine coming up.

"I've got my own ride now," he says, sitting back and adjusting his tie. "Got tired of trying to max out my client's credit card with cab fare."

Looking at the tankards sitting on the table, the detective frowns. "Well, I guess we don't have a designated driver."

He looks over at Sven, wondering if he could just transport the lot of them there with a crack of thunder - or whatever he is the god of.

During Kenneth and Danny's back and forth, Edwyn suddenly seems far more interested in Sven's gift, which up till now he has only been sipping furtively.

"I'm up for a bit of skulduggery. Just as long as we don't split up and look for clues," he says dryly.

"They must have had some idea of who they were going after, asides from the bystanders," Edwyn reasons, testing his recollection of the festival.

"You mentioned Henri Miller before, yeah? Well, those things tried to drag him and his wife off. I can't say for certain that they were their primary objective, but there was definitely something strange going on with those two."

As he awaits an answer from Sven, Edwyn glances over at Danny and Kenneth, quietly processing the revelation about the former's mother. He did not know either of them particularly well - hell, he barely knows Sal - so commenting on the personal matter did not quite feel right. Especially since his feelings were less optimistic than Kenneth's.

Hopefully the cork metaphor wasn't literal, he thinks, struggling to process what they are supposed to do about IT, or the D.C.O. as he now knows it. Because you're not supposed to stick it back in once you pop it off the bottle.

"I knew media corporations were evil, but hell," Edwyn remarks dryly. He lets that hang in the air for a moment before assuming that now is the time for questions.

"So this 'Dark Cyclopean Octopoid'... how much damage are we talking here, if it manages to get out?"

"You're welcome," Edwyn replies with a stiff smile, despite feeling like he did little more than get thrown around like a rag doll. He nurses his tankard in both hands and watches Sven closely, ready to scrutinize the inscrutable.

"Right, you're the Herald of Brigid," Edwyn remembers aloud, nodding to himself. Granted, it is only after Kenneth's explanation that the meaning of the title really starts to sink in. As extraordinary as the idea of there being actual living gods is, it made an odd sort of sense. And I suppose that answers the question of who his boss is.

"Well, I'll have you know that I am the perfect gentleman. I'm not about to go out of my way to tick anyone off... god or otherwise."

He groans at Danny's Nicholson impression - Kubrick managed to ruin that man for him forever.

"Come on, we just met the guy earlier. And now we've invited him over for drinks. What's he gonna do, smite us?" Edwyn asks as Sal makes new seating arrangements. But in spite of his skeptical tone, he gives the designated God Chair a wary look. Oh man, can he?