Kensington High Street seemed oddly quiet as we slowly drove past the various closed shops and businesses. Then again, it was just past two o'clock Sunday morning, and the weather wasn't great. A storm had blown through around midnight, and now the city was blanketed under a thick nighttime fog.
I couldn't help thinking both the storm and the fog were Gaia's doing, that our boss was maybe giving us a bit of an assist to make our job easier. Or if nothing else, at least it set the mood for what we were about to do.
After another half minute we turned north, and soon we were winding our way through one of London's poshest neighbourhoods. The minister had a place here for when he needed to stay in the city, and our boss provided us with his exact location.
That actually surprised me, and I couldn't help asking how she knew where the guy lived. For that matter I was also curious to know how she found out what he was up to. Gaia's answers were typically vague, according to her a little birdie told her the address. And she learned about the minister's back-room dealings thanks to a fly on the wall.
At first I assumed those were just euphemisms, but then Yuki reminded me that Mother Nature could easily be referring to literal birds and flies. After all, it's not like we didn't have experience with our own talking bird.
That was all the time we had with Gaia. Our brief meeting came to an end when she suddenly disappeared while grumbling about some new crisis in Australia that required her immediate attention.
We didn't even get a chance to ask what was wrong before she vanished, but I had a bad feeling that whatever it was we'd find out about it on the news soon enough. In the meantime Yuki and Cara and I had to figure out a way to stop that minister, preferably without getting ourselves caught. And ideally without even being seen.
We made another turn onto a street where the homes were probably worth more than our entire castle. The trees of Holland Park were visible up ahead, while a neatly landscaped cricket ground was off to our side. That's when Yuki broke the silence between the three of us.
"This should be good here," she commented. "We can park up ahead by the corner, then cover the last hundred meters on foot."
"You mean by air," Cara grumbled from where she was tucked in under my jacket in between my boobs.
I rolled my eyes but kept quiet as we reached the corner in question. Rather than pull over to the left I did a one-eighty turn to the right, then parked on that side of the quiet residential road. That way we'd be ready to head back the way we came as soon as we were done the job.
My shape-shifting magic flexed as I slipped my helmet off, but this time it wasn't to restore my fox ears. Instead my facial features changed, to the most generic androgynous look I could come up with. I'd already made my tails vanish before we reached the city, and for good measure I now stood several centimetres taller. I even obfuscated our fingerprints, by turning them into a checkerboard pattern. And as a final precaution I wore a simple black hoodie overtop of my favourite jacket, so all the kitsune buttons and patches were hidden.
"This way," Yuki half-whispered as she gestured in headspace.
"You don't have to whisper you know?" I responded internally, while opening my hoodie and jacket enough to let our raven friend out. "Nobody but Cara and I can hear you in there."
The cute little arctic kitsune's tails twitched around as she quietly pointed out, "I know that Aster. I just don't want to spoil the mood, ok? And I don't want to distract you. This is serious business, so let's all be careful."
"Cara please scout ahead," Yuki added. "Make sure it's all clear."
The large black bird was perched on the back of our bike seat, and I half expected some snark from her in response to Yuki's request. Instead she just nodded once then stretched her wings and launched herself up into the thick foggy air.
Meanwhile I finished locking up the bike and helmet, then turned to set off towards our target. I'd barely gone ten steps though before our bird friend returned.
She swooped down to land on the walk just ahead of me and reported, "There is a police man standing under a street lamp across from the address in question. I can incapacitate him if you like? Or you'll have to take the back way, which appears to be clear."
I didn't have to ask how our raven friend meant to incapacitate a full-grown healthy human, that was one of the first conversations the three of us had after Gaia told us to 'stop' the minister. It was one of those details none of us had really discussed before, but was pretty obvious once you thought about it for a moment.
Cara's magic let her manipulate and control air. And while she'd mostly been using it to steal golf balls or blow would-be muggers off their feet, there were other more malicious ways she could put that power to use. The quietest and easiest way she could deal with a threat was to simply remove the air from around their head, then restore it after they were unconscious. And we all knew what would happen if she waited an extra minute or two past that point.
Likewise Yuki's lightnings could do a lot more than cause blackouts and mess with electronics. You only had to look at things like police tasers or home DIY accidents to know what electricity could do when it was misused.
And as much as I knew all cops are bastards, the fact that this one was standing in full view on a residential street made it seem like an unnecessary risk to try and mess with him. Even if we could do it without being seen, it would only take one person to notice their local constable was down or missing to get the whole neighbourhood crawling with more of them.
So I turned on the spot and headed the opposite direction as I whispered, "In the back."
Thanks to studying the maps app on my phone before setting out, we knew the rows of posh housing were separated by strips of yard space and trees. Unfortunately there were also a lot of fences, and more than half of the properties had those motion-sensitive floodlights set up to prevent anyone from doing what we were up to. But then most folks who wanted to sneak around rich people's homes didn't have an arctic kitsune in their head who could manipulate electricity.
It was tiring, but this was exactly the sort of thing Yuki and I had spent the last two weeks practicing. I kept our shape shifted to that nondescript androgynous nobody while Yuki co-fronted long enough to selectively black out all the motion sensors and the floodlights. And Cara kept an eye out for other threats, like dogs or people who happened to be up late.
So after cutting through a half dozen yards and hopping eight or nine fences we reached the back of the home in question without any trouble.
Unsurprisingly the back door was locked and there was an electronic security system protecting the entrance along with all the windows. The alarm system was no match for Yuki's magic, all it took was one little surge of her power and the security was completely and permanently fried. For good measure the crafty little kitsune arranged for the building to experience its own localized blackout, incase there were any standalone security measures or cameras hidden inside.
"He's asleep upstairs," Cara commented quietly, as she swooped down to land on a branch of a nearby tree. Then she offered calmly, "I could save us some time and take care of him from outside the window if you like?"
I suppressed a little shudder at that thought. While we might have to get our hands that dirty someday, I really hoped we wouldn't have to resort to that just yet. Gaia said she didn't care how we stopped this guy, and our plan tonight involved a nonviolent way to achieve that goal.
"Just keep an eye on things please," I responded in another whisper. "We'll meet you at the window when we're up there."
Cara shrugged her wings then flew back up to perch on the bedroom window sill, while I turned my attention back to the door. We still had to deal with the physical lock, but I had an idea on how to handle that.
I focused on my index finger, and the fingernail grew longer and sharper as if it was becoming a claw. Then it flattened and grew ridges along one edge, as it took on a vaguely key-like shape.
"Do you really think you can do this?" Yuki asked as I slid my modified fingernail into the lock. "I know that guy who's always doing this online makes it look easy, but..."
I was already wiggling and twisting my fingernail in the lock while constantly adjusting its shape. And as I did that I internally mimicked the guy she was talking about, "Click on four, false set on two."
That earned me a little giggle from my favourite arctic kitsune, while I continued focusing on the lock. My shapeshifting definitely gave me an advantage, but it still took me almost five minutes to get the door open. On the other hand it was silent, and didn't leave any evidence of how we'd got inside.
As we crept up the stairs Yuki whispered, "What if he wakes up?"
I sighed internally, "Do you think you could stun him with your magic? I mean, without doing any permanent damage? I know Cara's method would work, but it's risky and probably has a lot of unpleasant side-effects."
Her ears drooped while her tails slowly swished back and forth behind her ankles as she thought it over. She finally responded, "You know I've never actually tried it yet Aster. But yeah, I'm pretty sure I can do it. It'd be a lot quicker than Cara's method, almost instant if I do it right."
I nodded as we got to the upper landing. Then moving as quietly as I could, I headed towards the double-doors that I figured would open onto the bedroom overlooking the back of the property. Fortunately they weren't locked, and better still they were in good condition. That meant there weren't any tell-tale creaks from the hinges as I opened one door just enough to slip through.
As soon as we were in the room I looked towards the big luxurious bed, then my shoulders tensed up as I frowned. Luckily the minister was sound asleep, but there was an unexpected surprise waiting for us.
I grumbled internally, "It would have been nice if Cara had bothered to mention he wasn't alone."
"Hold on," I added a moment later. "I thought this guy was violently anti-queer. Wasn't he one of the ones trying to get same-sex marriage outlawed again?"
Yuki's tails swished around behind her for a second or two before she joked, "Maybe that's his bodyguard, and he takes is job very seriously?"
"Right," I rolled my eyes. That was all the time we had to talk though, before we were both distracted by a quiet tapping from the bedroom window.
I gave Cara a look, but I knew if I tried to say anything I'd just wake the two guys in bed. On the other hand I was worried that the raven would do that anyways as she kept rapping her beak against the glass. That's when Yuki took the situation into her own hands.
The little arctic kitsune took over fronting, and with a couple quick steps we were next to the bed. She reached out with both hands and lightly tapped both the minister and his boyfriend, while carefully focusing on her magic.
The two men twitched, then slumped. Their breathing continued slow and steady, but odds were we wouldn't have to worry about either of them waking up any time soon.
"There," Yuki said as she slipped back into headspace. "Your turn."
My first stop was the window, which I opened just enough for our raven to slip through. She flew over to the bed then perched herself on the unconscious minister's head. Meanwhile I was already looking around for the guy's phone, which I found easily enough since he'd left it on the table next to the bed.
"Oh thank goodness," I sighed. "It's the fingerprint kind, not the facial recognition kind. I was afraid I was going to have to wear that old bastard's ugly mug to unlock it."
Instead I just needed to steal his fingerprint, which was a lot less uncomfortable. On the other hand it did require some serious concentration, and I had to touch the guy's hand to get a good sense of all the whirls and stuff. A half minute later I had his phone unlocked and my hand returned to normal, then I started searching through the minster's emails and texts for any incriminating evidence. Which we found in spades.
"Jackpot!" Yuki announced with a happy grin, while her ears stood up tall and her tails all swished around behind her.
I nodded as I pulled out my own phone and called up the list of email addresses we'd researched back when we were making our plans. But before I could start forwarding stuff from the minister's account to all the media outlets on our list my favourite arctic kitsune interrupted.
"Hold on!" she stated while she tried to suppress a giggle. "Let's not waste this golden opportunity Aster. Isn't there a tradition to uphold, when it comes to homophobic ministers and compromising positions?"
My lips pulled up into a grin as I nodded, "Right. Time to take some pictures."
That didn't take long, and a minute or two later there were a half-dozen pictures of Mr. Greedy Bigot in bed with a hunky younger man. Those photos were attached to over a dozen emails and texts outlining the illegal back-room deals he was trying to make, and all that was sent from his own official UK government account to everywhere from the BBC to the Times and even the Sun, plus everything else in between.
"We should probably get going," Yuki suggested as soon as I sent off the last batch of emails. "I don't know how much longer before my stun wears off."
I nodded, "We're just about done here. Only two more things left to do."
The first was easy enough, I made sure to send the pictures and the incriminating emails to an anonymous email we set up so we'd have copies incase we needed them. Then I put the minister's phone back where I found it before moving to the side of the bed.
For the final step of our plan, I took a black magic marker from my hoodie pocket and drew a large X in the middle of the old bastard's flabby chest, right over his heart. Underneath that I wrote, "This is your only warning. Behave, or else."
With that done I slipped the marker back in my pocket then we basically retraced our steps and left the place the same way we arrived. Less than twenty minutes after sending those emails we were on our bike and making our way out of the city.