Talera took a deep breath and, displaying the speed Sarah had only briefly glimpsed earlier, seemed to sink into the shade beneath her wings, vanishin... altogether into mere wind and cloud. Grains of sands swirled beneath the whorls of a particularly dense shadow that flashed across the beach. The shadows coalesced several yards away, condensing into a dark form. With a sharp grunt she reappeared, fully human, all vestiges of darkness left behind, dropping to a low crouch, head down, panting. The theatre." Oh sure," she said. "You know we're checking folk because of what went on there?" Ah, yes, sure, ah." Gregg could feel his bowels loosening by the moment as he realised the problem. The officer was wearing dark glasses. Pilot style, mirror shades obviously did something to the light of the ruby. That was why she wasn't affected.He was busily trying to think of a reason to get her to take her glasses off when a call came from across the street. "Come on, Krupke. Time to go. Chief. Ten or fifteen percent of nine billion dollars a month seemed a small price for them to pay us. Over ten or twenty years though it had become a tidy sum, enough to finance even more rewarding deals. By now our coffers were seeing more than a Trillion dollars a year coming in. Not bad for any organization. Sure our 'partners' were making a lot more than us, but they now did everything. What we took was not enough for then to no longer want us as friends, they were making new enemies every day.To. Of course, the choicest parts, you guessed it, were where "Knob Hill" was located.Locals often called it "Snob Hill," for obvious reasons. It was needless to say it was a snipe at the wealthy and well placed.So Mandy and Bob settled just at the edge. From the second floor of their house they could see over the low growth woodlands and wet lands that were between them and the lake.It was a beautiful sight. At certain times of the year, they would sit on the terrace that extended from their.