"Now I gotta kill ya' both."Zach wasted no time. In one smooth motion he used his palm to flatten Sean's nose, then threw a hard punch into his stomac...h. Sean doubled over for a moment, but sprang back up with his nose leaking blood and a thin-bladed dagger in his fist.Jillian screamed a warning, but Zach had already jumped away from the sweeping blade. There wasn't enough room in the cave to move very far, so Sean kept swinging the knife to keep Zach on the defensive."I watched ya' fightin'. I suppose that’s rubbed off on me a little, though. Keeping the traditions going.” She glanced at the door. “Should we go check on them?”“They’re probably fine. I bet they’ll be back soon.”“Okay.”“What do the old-timers think of your lip piercing?” I asked.Muireann smiled a little. “It was the talk of the sessions for a time. But what can they do? They still let me play, despite it.”“Maybe they realize that they need younger people to carry on the traditions,” I remarked.She looked at me. Case in point was Ursula Upton who was a 14 year old second former who had the misfortune of arriving at Gatwick Public School on the very day of the Board of Governors' Conference. Ursula was from good family, as they say, and she expected to be treated like a princess. In fact, all through the early grades she was pampered by teachers and loathed by fellow students who called her 'Uptight Upton' when being polite; behind her back it was ' Stuck-Upton--where-the-sun-don't-shine'.So Ursula was. “Can I help you?” he asked. His tone matched his expression.“Yes, my name is Seth Connors and I wanted to talk to someone about the investigation into my father’s disappearance.”“Are you here to report a missing person?” he asked, his voice dry with boredom.“No, my father disappeared last August. There was an investigation at that time. That’s what I want to talk about.”The officer stared at me, his expression annoyed. “If we investigated last August, then aren’t you a little late?”“I had just.