After a day's sleep in the truck, Magenta Jones rises, expeditiously does her hair, and goes to find the wayward Smith, who skipped town on her and who had spent the day with the staked Piven in an untraceable safe-house he just purchased.

Magenta easily traces the safe-house (not many places in Louisville would stand up to Smith's standards) and comes for a visit, but Smith and Piven are no longer there. She calls O'Hara and tells him she lost Smith. He is disappointed, but tells her to make her way to the Cincinnati airstrip anyway, which she does.

As she parks her car, her phone rings. Unknown number. She answers, and hears a strange noise on the other side, something like a digital interference sort of thing. Then there is a monotonous voice that sounds like a recording, but filtered. Stretched. The voice says “take out your notepad and start writing”. Then there is more noise and the call hangs up. And in the voice, scrambled as it is, she detects more than a slight lisp. So she writes.

When she is done writing, she has a conversation with the cat, who tries to talk her out of going on the plane, but also makes a point of staying with her regardless of her decision. Then she phones Smith, who explains his sole motive for deserting her (with a dead body) was letting her make an independent decision. He want her to come with him, which means not getting on the plane (which he considers suicide), but it has to be her call.

The most Magenta is able to put into it is “agreeing to disagree” and telling Smith they'll meet in NY if they come through - each in his own special way. And so, with this display of crippled emotions, she disposes of her phone in the public washrooms, hides Derek in a locker and then boards the private jet without even noticing that the Cat has rendered her invisible.

On board the plane she is surprised to see Bertie talking on the phone, and to O'Hara no less. Bert is not the first person one would send on such a delicate mission, being an official executioner of the Camarilla and all, but there he is, packing his favorite stake, telling the nervous O'Hara that Magenta did not yet arrive and promising to call him as soon as she does.

In spite of the accumulating evidence, Magenta refuses to take advantage of her invisibility, so the Cat scares Bertie out of his wits by appearing before him and unveiling Magenta. Once Bertie recovers from the initial shock (“Shit! You can't sneak up on people like that! Did you see a cat just there…?”) he starts asking Magenta all sorts of questions about her recent transgressions, and eventually admits he's been ordered to stake her on sight - which he does not consider very sportsmanlike. He wanted to talk to her first, and now that they did… Well, if she could only be so kind as to undo her blouse so he doesn't make a hole in it.

Magenta, finally snapping to her senses, tells Bertie she will just go and fetch Derek. Bertie, not being that fucking slow, gently recommends that he send for someone to get Derek, to which Magenta reacts by explaining that Derek is training a portable missile-launcher on this very private jet, and that he is ordered to pull the trigger unless she comes to get him.

Bertie is astonished by this criminal attitude from someone he knew and trusted, and as the great gears in his mind grind to formulate an attack plan, Magenta reaches into her purse and shoots him with her secret weapon, this time taking the shape of a large Peacemaker. Bertie blurs a bit, from dodging so fast, but the bullet badly scratches his arm. His face contort with horrible surprise and like that, he's gone. To the dust bin with him.

Meanwhile Smith has picked up an RV and a hitchhiker to drive it to New Jersey. The cat relays Magenta's follies so Smith U-Turns and picks her up. On to NY.

Heading for New York on their own terms, and even sleeping on the way, Smith's shiny new RV is attacked and boarded by Werewolves. And this is daytime. Smith, Piven and Magenta helplessly awaken in a hidden hold (made even more hidden thanks to the Cat's awesome obfuscation), while hearing their captors search for them. Eventually one of them starts hacking the safe, but not before he makes sure to close all the shades, so as not to hurt them if they are there. Before he tears any substantial holes the Cat unobfuscate Piven (“For him, I don't carez”), and the safe-cracker is immediately content. Found them. Helplessly, they are driven to Pennsylvania.

In the stronghold of the Black Spiral Dancers, S,P&J meet drinks-alone-and-nothing, who lectures them on the mysteries of the universe (Wylde, Weaver and Wyrm and all that) and offers his help - for a fee.

In exchange for their story of Faerie encounter, he reveals his Burzmali contact, somewhere in India, and even arranges for cross-Umbra transportation. Smith specifically asks for Theodore as guide, which is arranged.

Teddy is not so happy with meeting them again (“Some friend you are” said Smith), but he does with his claws, and the bubble of reality bursts around them.