Jonathan arrived in Eldridge a little after noon, and as before followed the main road to the square with the bell tower. First order of business was finding a street vendor selling non-sandwich food that smelled good and had a decent sized line. Jonathan lurked around off to the side, then picked a particularly hungry-looking waiting customer, enlivened his magic, turned his back, and summoned the meal the person was desiring. This time he didn't make enough to share, though, and simply consumed it on the spot. It was some sort of kebab, with what was either a dipping sauce or a really juicy salad on the side along with a slab of something with the consistency of cornbread, but an unexpected purple-ish color. Whatever it was, it all tasted great together. Jonathan could see why the food vendor was popular.

Hunger sated, he began walking around the square, taking in the sights while he kept his eyes peeled for kids. This proved to be an effort in futility; his new clothes, or the fact that he was mingling with the crowds instead of watching from the sidelines—or maybe a combination of the two—meant that if there were any young intrepid pickpockets casing the crowds, they were staying out of his sight.

Taking a different approach, Jonathan returned to the street he'd come in on, and worked his way around the edge of the square in the direction he'd gone to meet Fowler. Eventually he found what he thought was the alley where he'd seen the kids duck down, and he settled down on a nearby bench to watch and wait.

After about a half hour, Jonathan hadn't seen any sign of the kids, so he got up and ambled down the alley a little ways.

He'd been worried that it wouldn't feel safe, but honestly the alley just felt like an alley. There was a little bit of refuse along the sides here and there, and it was a little dark compared to the streets due to the buildings looming over it, but overall not somewhere that Jonathan felt at risk walking down. He continued for a bit, but when the ally jogged to the side, he opted to turn back. It would be far too easy to get lost back here.

As he emerged from the alley into the square, he looked around and saw a young child in ill-fitting clothes lurking in the shadow of a nearby merchant's stall.

Target acquired. Jonathan strolled past, looking around at the entryways into the square nearby, and saw a small group of kids leaning up against the steps of a nearby minor street. Jonathan turned down the street, ignoring the kids to either side, and kept walking until he found a cross-street, which he turned down. As soon as he judged he was out of sight from the original street, he turned around and walked back to the intersection to watch the kids.

They definitely didn't appear to be residents of the nearby houses. He'd have expected a group of kids who lived there to be talking to one another, or playing games, but these were just crouched and sitting around watching the square.

Jonathan walked a little ways back toward the square, then settled on a front stoop to observe the small gang. Hopefully the owners were at work or otherwise wouldn't mind.

The kids were pretty young; three of them looked at a glance to be around Abigail's age, two were noticeably younger, and one was a good deal older—probably in his early to mid-teens, if Jonathan had to hazard a guess. He hadn't gotten a good look at the kid hiding behind the merchant's stall, but he thought he was around Abigail's age, as well. Four of the six were wearing clothes that would have fit right in next to Fowler, and the other two had clothes that looked in better repair, but were not quite the right size.

Jonathan enlivened his magic and focused on the smoke that sprang into being around each child. It was hard to tell them apart at this distance, and he still had a hard time figuring out what the impressions that he received actually meant, but there were a few things streaming off these kids that were extremely familiar. A burning desire for food. A yearning for freedom somewhat similar to what Abigail was feeling when she helped Jonathan remove the lock from the fence a week or so ago. What Jonathan thought was a desire for warmth or comfort that he'd sometimes noticed from Abigail. The teen was desiring something quite strongly, but Jonathan couldn't quite figure out what it was. From the body language of the children, though, and the way the teen oriented his body toward them and discreetly examined every passerby, it seemed the boy was their leader and if Jonathan had to guess, he'd guess they trusted him to protect them rather than feared him.

Honestly, this was all looking really promising as far as Jonathan was concerned. The big question was how could he bring himself into contact with them without coming off as threatening or suspicious? Well, the suspicious thing he might not be able to help. Asking a bunch of street kids to move into an orphanage out in the countryside had to ring all sorts of alarm bells for anyone halfway intelligent—not to mention the fact that he was going to need to present himself as a demon looking for contractors.

Plus, he didn't have any way to know if they were part of a larger group or not.

Ugh, he really didn't like his options at the moment. He could approach them here, but suspected they'd be extremely on their guard, if not outright hostile, given one of their number was likely out taking a risk of some illegal sort. He could try to follow them but could very easily become lost in the city.

He really missed his cell phone, GPS, and instant access to map information.

Unfortunately, while Jonathan was debating the best course of action, he lost his opportunity. The seventh child came running back into the alley, passed something to one of those waiting, and they scattered. The teen stayed where he was, two of the younger kids ran down the street past Jonathan, and the rest filtered into alleys and through side yards and disappeared from view.

"Damn!" Jonathan enlivened his magic as soon as the two kids rushed past him and fixed the look and feel of one of the two clouds of smoke in his mind. As soon as the kids turned the corner, he stood and sauntered after them, doing his best to keep an eye on the smoke that was withdrawing down the side street without losing his enlivened magic.

Although he was successful in keeping up with the two kids he was following—somehow managing to keep his magic enlivened the whole time—as he had expected he was soon hopelessly lost otherwise. He really hoped he was able to get back to the orphanage before night fell.

Eventually, he found himself standing in front of a boarded-up home in a far less well-to-do part of town. As far as he could tell, the kids he'd been tailing were hiding inside somewhere.

"Well, now what?" he wondered aloud to himself. "Should I wait for that teen that was with them to show up? I really don't want to make anyone feel threatened."

Something sharp poked him in his lower back and Jonathan froze. "Well, lucky you," growled a voice behind him. "Because I'm right here."

Well, shit. That went sideways fast. Jonathan tried to keep his voice steady and not make any sudden moves. "Lucky me, indeed. How about I take two steps forward, nice and slowly, then sit on my hands and we can have a conversation like civilized people?"

There was a pause. "Fine. But no sudden moves!"

"Of course, of course." Jonathan carefully took two steps forward, turned around, and sat down on the side of the street with his hands tucked underneath him. There went this outfit. Maybe he'd have to conjure a second tomorrow, because he had no idea when he'd be able to launder this one.

The person holding the knife that had so recently been threatening Jonathan's kidney was indeed the teen who had been with the kids earlier. He must have followed Jonathan all the way from the square. What a dumb oversight on his part; he never had looked behind him because he was so focused on keeping the smoke in view.

"Who are you, and why were you following B—us?"

"My name is Jonathan, and I was hoping to have a chance to talk to you and your little group."

"Why? Are you with the Brownies?"

Brownies? Maybe that was a reference to the police force Jonathan had noticed the other day. "No, no, I don't particularly care about whatever you were doing in the square there. I really do just want to talk to you about an opportunity I'm offering."

If anything, that made the kid even more guarded, the knife reorienting on Jonathan from where it had dropped to his side. "So you're trying to recruit us. Who do you work for?"

Crap, now the kid thought Jonathan was part of some gang or similar. Although that meant this little group probably didn't have connections to organized crime, which was all to the good. "No, no, you misunderstand. I'm not trying to recruit you into a gang or whatever. I want to offer you a place to live."

"Right, I've never heard that one before. Then once we're in your territory and surrounded by your friends, the tune changes."

"No, you misunderstand, I really do want to offer you a place to live. Outside the city, in point of fact. Look, this is going to sound extremely sketchy, but I'm running an orphanage that doesn't have enough orphans and I'm here in Eldridge looking for people who can fill the beds."

That confused the teen, and the knife wavered a bit. "You're running an orphanage? What in Anthrax's name are you talking about?"

"Ugh, this is so hard to explain properly. Look, this is going to sound weird, but I'll give it to you straight: despite how I look, I'm a demon and in order to stay here in the world I need to contract with several people in exchange for allowing them to live in the orphanage."

The teen looked well and truly baffled by this point. "And that's supposed to make me trust you why?"

…He had a point there.