The Paladin's Shadow; Moving on

Cast; Petra,
"What was I thinking?"  Shad pounded the wall in frustration.  Following the previous night's disatrous events he had relocated to what most humans would have reffered to as 'a secure location'.  The Nielda liked to call them bars, but they worked about the same.  He'd reassumed his physical form as soon as he'd managed to contain the nightmares, but the fact was that he wouldn't be able to wear it for long.  He'd have to find a new one, or more likely many new ones. 
"All I had to do was explain what was going on.  But noooo, I had to go and try to sweep her off her feet.  She's not the sort of girl who wants to be swept off her feet.  Too modern for that sort of thing I expect."
"Hey buddy, you gonna buy anything or are you just going to sit there and complain all night?"
The bartender.  He weighed his options.  Back in the day he would have just killed him for talking.  But he didn't really want to for some reason.  Instead he just slid his hand across the counter and left a half dozen large gold coins for the rough man. 
"Don't suppose you have coffee?"
"What the hell is coffee?"
"Nevermind, just get me whatever doesn't normally sell, pour it all in a glass, stir it, and then leave it here for me.  I'll pay you double this for a pitcher."
"Whatever you say mister big spender."
He watched the man walk off, and then decided not to wait for the concoction.  He stepped outside and walked up the street.  He had responsibilities to attend to still after all.  But he couldn't see how he could keep doing it any more.  She'd be there to stop him still, and maybe...just maybe, he could proove to her that he'd changed. 

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Her Mother's house was a wreck.  All of the enchantments seemed to have lifted now, although she couldn't imagine why. She managed to navigate the house rather easily now, and made it back to the foyer by walking down a long hall of guest bedrooms and then cutting through the parlor.  The demon had dissapeared, as the corpses of demons tended to when left unattended.  But in place of her mother's body there was a monster.  It had a maw with thousands of teeth, and the blood drying about it was blue.  Then she remembered the story Shad had read her.  All this time she'd been living with a monster, and it seemed that there had been a demon with it.  How had she been fooled like this?  After all, there was no expert on demons superior to herself save her mother. 
And then, as if a faucet had been opened, all her memories returned.  The Shade Invasion in all its horror; the panic and uncertainty as it began, Death Herself leading the Imperial armies in battle, and then at last she remembered the last reports from embattled Anatolia and the death of Death.  And then she wept. 

Petra came in the next day for work and found the hall monitors still inquiring about the murder.  She explained to them that the situation had been taken care of, and influenced them to simply accept it and move on.  Class was uneventful, although one student, the one with the odd hair, did ask if she was feeling ok.  Her name was Tala apparently, and Petra tried to explain as politely as possible that it was none of her business.  She failed miserably.  Following that, she went to the room her Mother had always taken her to when she'd been doing poorly. 
"Welcome to the Arcane Academy Library.  Can I help you get anything?"
"Sod off or I'll.."
"No need to say it twice miss.  The dark, broody section is on the third level, in the far corner."
"And what makes you think I'm looking for the dark, broody section?"
"Well, you bein all dark 'n broody."
"Do I look like a poet to you?"
"Perhaps if you didn't have that braid..."
Petra sighed and leaned over the counter.  She rested her chin in her hands and looked the Human female, age fifty-eight, weight one hundred and fifty-four pounds, height five foot nine, in the eye as best she could without scaring her to death and said.  "Just give me the keys to the psychology section, I need to research something." 
"There you go miss, was that so hard?"  Petra resisted the urge to employ a death glare and silently waited for the librarian to return with the keys.  "And here are the keys.  If you need anything else just give us a holler, 'kay?"
Petra walked off without another word.  She was really in no mood for peppy librarians today.  Her mother had been dead for centuries withut her remembering, the man she'd fallen in love with had turned out to be her archenemy, and on top of it all the maid was missing.  Her only hope of getting her life back on any sort of track was the chance that her mother had left her some kind of explanation, or help, or at the very least, a will. 
She found the side room with the psychology books.  It was designed to look like an old study, with books all around and comfortable chairs beside ornate tables with ancient oil lamps.  It was a room her mother had built when she'd converted the old arena into a library.  In fact, it was her mother's favorite room in the entire school.  That's why she had come; her mother had always seemed to hint that she'd hidden something important here. 

Petra looked around.  She'd combed the room for years after her mother had shown it to her and never found a single secret place in it.  And as she looked around, and muttered a few potent spells of detection, she found that nothing had changed. 
~Guttentag Fraulein~
"A German cat, that's new."
~Cat? I assure you, I am no mere cat.  I am a prominent member of the scientific community.~
Petra scooped the cat out from under her chair and set him in her lap.  He looked sort of old; but in a very human way.  A white beard pattern stretched from ear to ear, and black spectacles were around his eyes.  His face was a tan-ish color, and the tip of his tale was brown like polished leather, but the rest was a sort of dull gray. 
"Alright then Professor..."
~Doctor, I am a Doctor.~
"Fine, Doctor Puss, is there a secret hidden in this room?"
~The mind holds many secrets.  And of course books hold much knowledge as well.~
"I mean more like a secret passage, or a hidden nook."
~No, I've spent hundreds of years in this room and I can find only the one door.  I've moved every book and slept by every crack in every wall.  This room has no secrets save those I hold and those you bring.~
"Then maybe we could trade.  Do you know a woman who called herself Zink?"
~Death, that is, in the tongue of the elder Nieldic mages.  Yes I know her.  Did she send you?  She said a woman of two and twenty years would come one day and release me?~
So this was the secret her mother had left her; a crazed immortal cat?
"Apparently.  My mother had led me to believe her will was here."
~And it is.  You are her heir and sole inheritor of all her tangible possessions, master of all her servants, and she has charged you with the defense of the universe against demonic forces.~
"That's..simple enough."
~Nothing is ever that simple.  Her possessions are disordered, her servants scattered, and the universe is under constant threat.  It will take all your strength to set it in line.  And so long as you fight you can never be happy.~
"Still the will?"
~Yes.  She was quite speciffic in that regard.  \I forget the rest though, something about meeting the right man, being with jiggy, and accepting feminine tools in place of your current phallic symbols.~
"Sounds rather Freudian to me."
~So you've heard of me?  Excellent!  Now could we please be off?  I'd rather enjoy a warm saucer of milk.~