"I'd be willing to, normal standards of sure-hope-you-aren't-up-to-anything-nefarious-there apply, and I can do books with title and author most of the time."

"A number of these texts predate the common practice of recording authors' names in books. Is there other information you can use instead?"

"Title and author is most reliable, but I've gotten acceptable results from title and publication year, or title and first fifteen to twenty words of the main text."

"I'll let him know, thank you." A pause, and then, "He says he will be back in a few hours with a list."

"Cool."

"I'll let you know when he returns."

Cam continues figuring out how to word his email to the NIH. It's probably not going to come to anything, but if he tries enough similar organizations maybe something will stick. Once he gets out of this house he's just going to fly to Africa and deploy massive clouds of sterile male mosquitoes on his own recognizance, though, that worked great in 2044 and it should work just as well here and now. After he's got to a good stopping place in his draft, a few hours after Sherlock's departure, he meanders to the kitchen for a regularly scheduled food-appearing.

Jarvis operates the elevator for him as per usual, but delivers no news about Sherlock.

"Did Sherlock leave me a grocery list or should I just suggestively make the ingredients for primavera?"

"He left no explicit instructions; you may make whatever ingredients you please. He is also a little later coming home than I expected, and under the circumstances, I am beginning to worry."

"...Do you want me to put on a snazzy leather coat to be less visibly demonic and go looking?"

"All things considered, it's probably a better idea than sending Tony. I would be grateful. He intended to visit the local high school, whose library is well stocked with halfheartedly hidden occult reference material; I can provide a map."

"Yes please," says Cam.

"I've sent one to your computer."

Cam goes back up to his room without making any groceries and fetches his computer, folds his wings up snug, puts on a heavy leather trenchcoat to cover them up, and goes down to the garage. "Unless you think Tony will begrudge the garage space, gonna make a motorcycle."

"I expect him to joke that you may only store your motorcycle here if it is sufficiently awesome, but not to actually complain regardless. Also, it may be relevant that Sunnydale High is built on top of a Hellmouth - the site of a currently dormant gateway to a hell dimension. It is the reason why Sunnydale is such an epicenter of magical and demonic activity, but most of the time its exact physical location makes very little difference. I don't expect it to have anything to do with why Sherlock is late, but I can't rule it out."

"Uh, okay, will typical demonic activity be scared off from bothering me if I show off the wings and maybe sprout horns and fangs and surround myself with fireworks?" Cam asks, beginning to make his motorcycle. It is dark blue with white Milky Way patterns spangled across it.

"Unlikely that horns and fangs will help. The wings may or may not. The fireworks are the likeliest to make an impression. I predict that Tony will consider your motorcycle sufficiently awesome."

It opens to admit him.

And he's off schoolward.

There are tire tracks through one of the ash piles on the fringe of the battleground; perhaps some of the combatants departed in a vehicle. As to where they went - it's hard to say.

"Damn," says Jarvis. "Damn. That would be plenty to go on, of course, if we had Sherlock to help. As it is..." A slight pause. "I've notified Tony. He doesn't have any ideas either."

"I mean, I could go wandering around without the leather coat and see if anybody interesting decides to spontaneously volunteer information to me, but I don't know whether that's got a prayer of yielding anything worth knowing."

"It would be much likelier to cause you trouble than to produce any useful results," he says. "At this point I await one of two things: Sherlock coming home with a rousing tale of adventure, or a ransom demand."

"Okay... well, if you want a sack of small unmarked bills without breaking the bank let me know."

"Thank you."