“Phew… That was intense.”

“Well, I’ve been backed up for a while.”

“You could have taken it easy in consideration of my first time.”

“Really? For some reason, I remember I was trying to take it easy when someone shouted ‘HARDER PLEASE!'.”

“HEY, You...”

“And then screaming ‘SLAM IT IN’ before marvelously climaxing.”

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! That’s enough from you. You’re being very ungentlemanly.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a rest, in consideration of your first time…” He winked at her and cuddled her from behind. Realising that their bodies fit together perfectly she accepted his embrace and moved closer before whispering.

“Goodnight, Night Demon.”

“Of all the things…” He said whilst chuckling.

The newly christened Night Demon woke up from slumber to find a beautiful lady lying next to him. She was staring at his freshly opened eyes.

“Good morning my love.”

“Good morning darling. How long were you awake?”

“5 minutes… I would say. You have a wonderful sleeping face.”

“You have no idea, it’s been 4 and a half years since I have been able to sleep like that.”

“You squeezed me a few times during the night, what was that about?”

Beau rolled over, freeing his now completely dead arm from underneath Watson’s head, much to her displeasure.

“I had nightmares before. Too many to count. But, last night, just as they were about to start, they fizzled out like nothing happened. You’re like a dream catcher, catching all my bad dreams!”

“I… I have no words for you. But, as long as you keep up your performance from last night I don’t mind being your dream catcher.”

“Oh, there’s a lot more where that came from.” He straddled her and started kissing her, pushing him away from her she quickly intervened.

“You have work in an hour! And you have to get washed, dressed and eat something and…”

“Make love to my future wife.” He added.

After two hours Beau finally entered the shop, looking brighter and happier than ever before.

There was a good reason for this. Just after a brief but thorough wash he had looked in the mirror and found himself smiling. A huge, stupid looking smile that belonged on a dog being given a treat rather than a human being.

He stopped for a second realising that, after all this time, he had his smile back. There was no longer need for a mask. No fake smile, no false happiness. Just genuine cheer. He smiled but didn’t dwell on it. He had a future wife to tease and a shop to run.

Beau started his day slow and steady, only being joined a bit later by Watson who looked incredible being freshly bathed.

“Ella-Mae”

“Just Ella is fine, or Mae, I don’t really mind.”

“No, that’s no good, I love both of them so you will stay as Ella-Mae.”

Watson rolled her eyes.

“You know what I realised.”

“What, darling?”

She pouted and looked at him cutely.

“Oh, I see, so you knew it was Sunday today so I don’t have to open the shop.”

“Oh, It’s Sunday today? I had no idea!”

She said with undisguised sarcasm.

“Ho ho ho, you’re way too early to play games with me little one.”

He walked towards her menacingly but she stood her ground.

“I’m older than you!”

“Age is just a number!” He smiled an evil smile before pouncing on her and tickling her. She instantly turned docile, her laughter spread throughout the shop. After mercilessly tickling for 30 seconds he released her. By this time she was on the floor panting. If someone walked in at this point it would really give the wrong impression.

After she finally got up, straightened her clothing and cleared her throat, Beau continued the conversation as if nothing happened.

“So, why did you say I needed to get up?”

She followed suit and answered his question dutifully. “For two reasons. The first being that I need the day to think about what you told me last night. The second is: I need your help moving in! All the cupboards and draws are taken up by your things. I’ve never seen so much useless stuff in my whole life!”

“Ah… Good point. Okay, let's get to work.”

Luckily it didn’t matter that the shops were closed. Seeing as they were both magicians, they could just make any kind of furniture they wanted out of mana, as long it was just wood. Anything complex was beyond human ability. Even the bullets Beau made had to be created one component at a time. Which is why he carries separate magazines instead of crafting bullets on the go.

Within half a day Watson was fully moved in and Beau’s house had gone through a significant change.

In the past, if you walked into Beau’s house you’d think, a bachelor lives here. Now you’d think, a couple lives here.

It was that kind of change.

The day passed happily as Beau tinkered and Watson read, Beau made a hearty breakfast and lunch, Watson tackled the dinner with some help from Beau. They had both lived alone in the past so they both knew how to cook.

However, despite the day being spent in bliss, they still had a lot of work to do.

Watson was presently re-reading the papers involving the corruption of the Queen.

“This is very serious. We’re talking about the entire country being in danger if this plan works. Do you have any ideas for it?”

“I have a couple, but, you wouldn’t like them. The easiest way for me would be to just kill them all before they could do anything. That’s also what I’ve been doing for the past 4 years.”

“Well, I think, you’re pretty much right. We aren’t going to be able to stop this without there being a loss of life, however, that means you would need to kill more people. For that, I’m sorry.”

She reached her hand up and grasped the back of his head, forcing his forehead towards her so that she could place them together.

After the gesture, Beau smiled and kissed her hand as she tried to remove it.

“It’s not something you need to apologise for.”

She nodded her acceptance.

“Well, while I think that is the best way, we are going to approach it with a little more delicacy. Luckily for us the plan is being carried out in Reading, meaning even if we leave the day after tomorrow we will still make it in time.

I assume they chose Reading because it is a smaller city and she will not be as heavily guarded or protected as she is in the centre of London. I also think they are doing this to escape the Night… I mean the White Demon’s clutches. If they know your general location they will try and avoid you at all costs. Considering its pretty much public knowledge that you’ve been in Bath recently, they want to make a move before the Queen gets here.

The only conclusion I can draw from just these papers is that they will carry it out in private, meaning the Queen will be at her safest.

However, that’s assuming there will be no betrayal, and the implications of this page mean there is a very high-level member of the Government that could be involved, meaning she is also at her most vulnerable as there is no witness or risk. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I think you’re right so far. But I also considered the possibility of them carrying out the plan whilst traveling, did you think about it and dismiss it or just miss it?”

“No I thought about it, but I dismissed it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, this paper describes pretty clearly how they want to take control of the Queen and her decisions. They want to use magic in her brain, some sort of complex magic, normally used for torture by the Government, but they changed it so that it just makes you dumb in the head, like a robot. Don’t even bother asking how they managed to create such magic.”

“I won’t, just the idea of it is terrifying. But, why does that rule out the possibility that they can’t initiate the magic whilst traveling.”

“Well, you would come to the same conclusion if you knew the process behind the magic.”

“Is it too long of a process?”

“Not just too long, but you need quite a lot of people and quite a large amount of mana, to the point where it would be very easy to detect it. So doing it whilst traveling would be a problem.”

“I see, so she’ll be attacked in her home in Reading. So we just need to be there before they do.”

“Well, yeah, pretty much.”

“This seems like it will be quite easy, no?”

“Yes, however, we can be sure of one additional factor. That being that there will be strong magicians present, they are required for the mind breaking procedure after all.”

“Well, if it’s that then we’ll be fine. I have so much mana I’m practically made of the stuff.”

Watson giggled and stood up from her chair to join him on the sofa, officially ending their business talk.

“When do we leave then?”

“In 2 days, then we’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Sounds lovely, not really my idea of a holiday but it’ll do for now.”

“Darling?”

“What, my love?”

“When all this is over, you won’t turn yourself in, you won’t apply for a magician’s license, but you will not continue to be the White Demon.”

“Those conditions are favorable. I agree.”

“Also…”

“Also?”

“You will colour the mask black and adopt the new personality of the Night Demon.”

“NO, No I won’t you rascal!”

They laughed all the way to the bed where they picked up from where they left off that morning.