I Must Be Crazy

The waiting was painful.
The Vauns spent a sleepless night, and in the morning Markus was called away to be questioned by the police. He went reluctantly, but with an air of resignation.
Tracy answered the door a little later to greet the three teachers on the doorstep. “Darcie’s in her shed, Markus is out. Do you want some tea?”
“Don’t worry, I’m back from my shed, I’ll make it,” the nanny called from the kitchen, and they settled down to wait some more.
The demon hunter eventually arrived at a little past noon, looking decidedly worse for wear. His hat had a large chunk missing from the brim, and something had torn apart some of the seams on his jacket. Limping into the room, he seized Darcie’s cup of tea and swigged it down.
“Aaah,” he exclaimed, apparently satisfied. “Much better.”
After an awkward silence, Tracy asked, “Did you get rid of the demon?”
He pursed his lips. “Well, I tried, but there was a slight problem.” He neatly hooked Crispin’s teacup away and drank the contents of that as well. “She’s managed to get herself some… minions. Quite a lot of minions, in fact. In the hundreds, I’d imagine.” He stared hard at Zariya’s tea. The werewolf rolled her eyes and passed it to him.
“Hundreds of minions?” repeated Tracy weakly.
“I’m guessing this means you didn’t complete your task,” Hadrian said dryly. Noticing the demon hunter’s eyes on his cup of tea, he drank it quickly and replaced his cup triumphantly. Myles gave him a baleful look.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t complete it. It just means I can’t complete it alone.”
“That means you can’t complete it, moron,” muttered Crispin, clearly annoyed at losing his tea. The demon hunter glared at him.
“No, it doesn’t. There’s a simple solution to all this. Hire me some sidekicks.”
“It was enough trouble hiring you!” said Tracy angrily. “And you’ve hardly been worth it so far!”
By way of reply, he stole her tea. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to be coming up against flaming hordes,” he said. “You want a bulldozer, not a hunter.”
“So what, you want your own army?” Hadrian said, scowling.
“Not my own army. I just want some people to help me out a little. Mercenaries, I guess - other demon hunters would be good, but I doubt we’d get along. Just three would do.”
“Three? That means three more of those stupid crystals we have to get!”
Darcie sighed. “I suppose what we have to discuss here is whether or not it’s really worth it,” she said.
“Well, it’s… worth it,” said Tracy uncertainly. “I mean, we need to get rid of Tiar, don’t we?”
“So surely you should spare no expense?” cut in Granger, smirking.
“But that’s at least three more jewels,” Tracy went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Can we really do that? Will Mr Pith know of three more jewels for us to get?”
Zariya stood up. “Well. Only one way to answer that question, isn’t there?”

“Of course, of course, I would be thrilled to offer you an opportunity to get three more crystals!” beamed Mr Pith, back at the agency once more. “Of course, it would be far more economical for you to all go at the same time to get the different ones - and since you can’t have more than three in a group, it all works out!”
Darcie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Right, that’s fine. Three groups… we should have one of you Vauns in each group, and then two of us in one group and one with the other two.”
Markus, who they’d picked up from the police station on the way there, sighed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“It might not be a good idea, but it’s the best one we have,” Tracy said firmly. “We’ll do it. Lissy, you can go in the group with two people, okay?”
The little girl immediately attached herself to Hadrian’s arm and gave them vampire a winning smile. “I’ll go with her,” he said, relenting easily. “Crispin, you too.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Zariya said grudgingly. “You’ll probably be able to look after both of them.”
“I do not need to be looked after,” muttered Crispin.
“I’ll go with Markus,” offered Zariya. “Trace and Darcie should be alright together, won’t you?”
“We’ll be fine,” said Darcie. Tracy squeezed her brother’s shoulder.
“You alright going with her, Mark?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good good.” Tracy smiled at the others. “We all ready to go, then?”
“I suppose we are,” said Hadrian with a small smile in return, Lissy clinging happily onto his arm.
Mr Pith held up another of the small shiny things between finger and thumb; Tracy finally worked out that they were strange coins, with a triangular design on them. “Got three of these, when you’re ready to go.”
“Please can we have the portals on the ground for once?” Zariya made puppy-dog eyes at Mr Pith. Of course, she was very good at them. The man sighed.
“You ask so much, but I suppose it won’t hurt to have them on the ground just this once.” One by one, he tossed the coins in front of the desk. Three separate doors popped into existence, and the man sat back, smiling in a self-satisfied manner. “They’re all yours.”