Cold Case Set On Fire

"Good," Robert smiled, knowing the girl was nervous. "You know, if we're going to have lunch together, you really should just call me Robert, like everyone else does."

"I come bearing lunch," Brian said, showing him the bag.

"Good. I'm starved," Robert said. "So, should we eat first, or shall we dive right into whatever you're using this bribary for?"

"Let's eat and talk," Brian said.

"Well, that works too," Robert agreed. "Over there?" Robert pointed towards the office sofa, coffee table and chairs.

"Yep. That's fine," Brian said. He looked at Anabelle, smiling reassuringly. Brian went over, sat down on the sofa and began unpacking the tea, the turkey paninis and the pumpkin trifles. Robert decided to ditch his suit jacket over lunch. He was tired of the tie, so he loosened it, and rolled up his sleeves. Might as well be comfortable. Besides, Anabelle looked like she needed to see him as approachable.

"What's on the menu?" Robert asked, going over to sit down with them.

"A new fall turkey panini, some pastries from one of Lizzie's chef tastings, and a new pumpkin trifle. Oh, and tea, of course. Your blends are turning out to be good sellers."

"Good. Glad to hear it," Robert said, as Brian handed paninis to Anabelle and to Robert. Robert peeked inside the panini. "Oh. Looks like this ought to hold me until about breakfast time tomorrow," he laughed. "Looks great. So, tell me. What is this all about?"

"A cold case," Brian said.

"You didn't bring me lunch to rehash a cold case," Robert said dryly. "This one has heated up again for some reason."

"Yes," Brian said. "It did." He handed over the relatively empty file of the victim. "What's wrong with this picture?"

Robert took the file and opened it. He scanned it quickly. "What the hell is this? Where is everything?"

"Well, that's what we want to know," Brian said. "I could understand it if it were maybe 20 years old, but this was just last year.

"Unacceptable," Robert announced.

"Exactly," Brian agreed. "We think we have a theory on what happened to this woman, but we need your help before we go any further. Anabelle is the lead investigator in this, so I think she should fill you in on the facts as we know them."
Brian looked at Anabelle and nodded. He believed she was very capable of presenting the case to him, and if he were needed, Brian would surely help her.

Anabelle took a seat in one of the chairs near the coffee table and gently took the panini from Brian as he handed one to her. Normally, she'd have taken a seat on the floor with her legs tucked beneath her as she had grown accustomed to doing with her aunt. However, she felt like that wouldn't be the best thing to do at the moment, considering who she was with.

Though, by the looks of things, it didn't seem like it would have been minded as much as she thought it would have been.

She sighed softly as she watched them speak, something she found herself doing a lot more than usual today, knowing that at some point she would have to speak as well. Her eyes focused on the file of Elizabeth Augustine as Robert looked through it and had the same reaction they had, as she bit into the panini in her hand.

She covered her mouth with her hand to finish eating when Brian nodded at her. Great, right as she was eating.

"Okay," she cleared her throat. "As far as we know, last year Elizabeth Augustine was killed "due to severe lacerations" as the file says, but there is no other information int he file about what happened to her. We went to the scene of the crime to investigate, and we found claw marks; some larger than the others."

"They weren't just any claw marks either, they were werewolf claw marks, and we've narrowed it down to them belonging to James Blood and a female in his pack, Moira." Hit explained.

"After further investigation, we managed to find that Elizabeth had a daughter who is about ten now, but she wasn't found with her mother nor was she found anywhere else. So we think she might be in Blood's clutches. And being a half-vampire, it is definitely not the safest place to be."

"Well, isn't that a pretty mess?" Robert sighed. He'd been listening while enjoying the first bite of his sandwich. "Okay. Mom is murdered. Definitely sounds like James.  No apparent photos of Mom. So, we don't know if she fits his profile."

"No," Brian said, knowing exactly what England's spymaster was asking--whether the victim was blonde or not. "We don't. However, here's the thing. The victim was murdered in the catacombs. There are still stains on the stone."

"Well, yes, there would be. That's all limestone down there, and limestone is comparatively very porous. And, we already know that's one of James' top places he tries to hide in to evade aurors who might be on his heels. He'd done it more than once. So, what did you find?"

"Well, clearly the victim bled out down there," Brian said, "and, Anabelle is right. There were two sets of claw marks. It's very possible that Moira was the killer this time. We just don't know because there's no autopsy report."

"Conveniently missing," Robert sighed. "And so now, we apparently have a birth certificate that says there was a child that no one, a year ago, thought to go find and take care of. Fabulous," His tone was sarcastic. "I want to know who the heck let that happen. They'll need to answer to me how you just happen to miss a child."  To hear that a loose end, more particularly, a child, had not been accounted for or rescued by the Ministry last year was unacceptable as well.

'You know as well as I do that unless we find the original paperwork, we may never know that," Brian said.

"And the child is half vampire? Mom was a full blood vampire, then? That might have been reason alone to go after her by any werewolf," Robert said.

"No," Brian said. "Mom is registered as half."

"Then Dad had to be half vampire as well."

"Oh, he is."

"Oh, we know who Dad is, then?"

"We do. The birth certificate lists Lorcan D'Eath as the father."

"You're kidding, right?" Robert asked, about to take a second bite of his sandwich. This made him forget all about the sandwich.

"No. I'm not."

"Oh, this just gets better and better," Robert sighed. "So we have the leader of the Death Eaters as an illegitimate father for a missing child--a daughter. A man who is married to an assassin."

"Creating a child is not a new behavior for D'Eath," Brian said dryly.

"No, I know," Robert said, waving that concern away. "What I'm more concerned about is that this child is missing, and, you're both right. The likelihood that the child is with the werewolves is quite high--unless they have figured out that she has vampire lineage. If they find that out, she's as good as dead. Have you checked Mom's address to see if anyone has seen the girl? Or have you checked to see if there are any other living relatives?"

"Not yet," Brian said. "But, at ten, the girl is too young to be a fighter, and she's too young to use for breeding. My guess is they're just biding their time until she hits puberty at least. James will look closer at that when she's a bit older. I doubt he's given it much thought, honestly."

"Well, if you're right, you might have a bit of time, but not much," Robert said. " We may need to distract him for awhile to buy some time for you and to get a lead on where the pack is holding up."

Brian cast him now a cold stare. "I don't want to hear this plan, do I?" He wasn't trying to keep Anabelle out of this little portion of the conversation. He made a mental note to explain this piece to her later. Brian knew that Robert had allowed Khaat to be bait before to draw James out of hiding, and he also knew Robert wouldn't hesitate to do it again. One of the last times it had happened, though, Khaat had nearly been killed and it had taken her almost three years to recover.

"No," Robert said.

"You'd seriously do that? Are you out of your mind?"

"Ask her. What would she do?"

"No, I'm not going to ask her because she's as crazy as you are," Brian said, a bit hotheaded now. He knew that Khaat would never turn down any opportunity to help a child, even at her own expense. He and Robert both knew it. He didn't need to ask her.

"Its my call, not yours...." Robert began, attempting to insert his position as Minister of Magic and as Khaat's father

"Up yours, if you think that!" Brian came right back and asserted his rights as Khaat's husband.

"Before you tell me to sod off, let's do our homework well before we tip of D'Eath about anything, shall we?" Robert completely unmoved by Brian's brief display of temper. "If he'd known about this child, he'd have made more than a little noise about this, surely. That leads me to think he doesn't know--either about the mother's death, or doesn't know about the child at all. I'd like to try to avoid a magical creatures war if we can."

"That may end up being out of your control," Brian said grimly.

"Indeed, but if we can get him to redirect his focus to the girl, if we can get her back, that might mitigate things."

"Well, yes, but that leads us to need your help."

"What is it you want?"

"We need either a copy of the autopsy or an exhumation of the mother," Brian said, turning over the requisition forms to Robert. "Maybe both." Robert took the paperwork and looked it over.

"Seems to be in order. Alright. I'll get you the autopsy. We'll hold on the exhumation until we read the autopsy." He looked at Anabelle. "You need to know that most often, in a violent death or a suspicious death, there is most often a series of photographs that is part of the autopsy record. If she died violently, you may find that these photos are more than a bit grisly. You don't need to force yourself to look at these.  Even the text can be gruesome. Your apprenticeship is not supposed to be a baptism by fire. There's no shame in deciding that you're not going to force yourself to look at all this. It's certainly your choice, of course, but no one will think less of you if you decide to let Brian deal with the autopsy results."

"Robert," Brian said. "Anabelle has done a great job. If we go to get the girl, she wants to be part of that. I don't object--under the right conditions, of course."

"Aha. And that's the sound of the other shoe dropping," Robert said, with a slight smile. He looked at Anabelle, turning his attention fully to her. "Let me first explain what you'd be going into. We suspect Greyback's lair is underground, and its one of the largest in England by all we know. It's not for the faint of heart. Its exceptionally dangerous business. I think we well could be outnumbered if we simply invade. Your wand skills would have to be up to snuff, and you would need to be part of a team. If anything happened to you, not only would your parents be fully within their rights to be more than outraged with me, but so would your headmaster.

"I'm not saying no," he said, "but I have to be able to justify that, at your age, you're ready and appropriate to go with us into one of the most dangerous places we know of. You'll have to prove yourself before I consider it. You think you're up to it?"

"He's asking you if you're up to a bit of sparring to see where your skills are," Brian said to Anabelle, shrugging. He wasn't worried about her skills for some reason. He figured she would most likely do very well. "Here's the good thing in it for you. You do well, and if you choose that you want to continue to work on gaining your auror skills, this would undoubtedly cement it for you. I think you'd do well to consider it."

"Even if he didn't pay much attention to it, someone else could have." she had to cut in, even if it was for something that was more for her own sake. "I don't know much about Blood, but it seems to me like he has too many other things on his agenda to be taking care of a little girl. I feel like he would have dumped her into the care of one of the other wolves." she stopped for a moment. "And for some reason, I feel like Moira wouldn't have been that person. She seems like someone too important to drop a child off on."

Once she'd gotten that out of the way, she returned to her original stance of watching the conversation as it went on. She had forgotten about her own sandwich, her appetite suddenly gone as they dove deeper and deeper into the mystery that was the case of this woman's death.

Though she had basically no idea about what was going on for a portion of the conversation, she still paid attention, knowing that something important would come up or be said that she would need to hear. Whatever they were talking about, though, Brian didn't seem too keen on. There wasn't much she could gather from what they said, but she wasn't stupid, and what little she could make out and judging by Brian's reactions to what Robert was saying, the 'she' they kept mentioning had to be someone close to Brian.

She remembered what they'd been talking about before, about his wife and Blood's seeming infatuation with her. She couldn't know for sure if she was right until he said anything to her, but Hit was willing to bet it had something to do with Brian's wife.

"Of course." she nodded. "If it means being able to show that I can do this, I'm up for it." she was determined to be a part of the rescuing, she had to be. "I know how dangerous they can be, the attack on Hogwarts a couple years back showed me that. I'm not afraid of them, but I know they're a force to be reckoned with."

She wasn't sure if it was a good idea to mention her battles with them, but dueling was something she knew how to do from classes and PA meetings and was she ever glad to have actually taken part in those classes and meetings, because now it would help her greatly with this.

She looked a Brian suddenly. "Um, I don't know if this will help much at all, but remember that boy I mentioned earlier? The one that had tried to make his friends join the pack? I remembered his name, from hearing one of my friends say it before. His name's Dylan, I'm not sure about his last name though. I think it started with a D." she shrugged, feeling like that was useless information.

"True," Robert replied to her. "I know a child that was kidnapped by the werewolves, and, you're right. interactions from any of the adult females appeared to be limited from what she told us after we got her back. She only remembers of one of the females intervening when one of the males lost their temper and wanted to go after our child. The female stood between the child and the male and forced the male to back down. The child never was able to find out names or give us much more information than that. We probably won't know if it was Moira or not, but it does appear that females still are maternally minded to not allow smaller children to be killed or turned."

"Are you suggesting that we take Marcus with us?" Brian asked.

"He's the only one that I know of that's actually been in that particular den, and I do know he wasn't sure he could find it again. It does make sense to me that he should go along, though. Why? Do you think he'd refuse?"

"No. No, I don't. I was just asking."

"Alright," Robert said. He listened to Anabelle's view of being able to go and why. He hadn't forgotten that the werewolves were on the school grounds. He'd been there that night. So had a lot of other members of his own inner circle, his own trusted friends. That had been an ugly night. One of Robert's own friends had died that night.

He listened to her mention that one of the missing students had come back to try to make his friends join the pack. That made perfect sense. They did know that some students had been taken and turned that night. Those students surely were older now. Perhaps they would assist in looking after a smaller child. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking on Robert's part.

"Well, at this point, I think we need to presume that perhaps the child we're after is alive until we know otherwise. It would be, I think, like a younger pack member to try to at least look out after a small one because I can't imagine a little one being there and not being frightened. It makes sense. So--how about we finish our lunch and then we'll go play for a bit in the training room?"

That did make Brian laugh. He looked at Anabelle. "He's such a sucker for any sort of a sparring match. My odds are so bad," Brian laughed. "This is gonna shape up Robert and Anabelle vs. Brian, that's how this is gonna go."

"Well, of course. Being the gentleman that I am..." Robert began.

"No," Brian laughed. "This is about you finding an excuse to go spar--as if you needed an excuse. Okay, okay. You can come. Besides, it gets you out of an hour or so of paperwork."

"Exactly," Robert laughed. "You certainly don't think I'd let her face you alone, did you? Don't worry, Anabelle. We can take him."

"I am so screwed," Brian laughed. "I didn't doubt you to begin with, Anabelle, but now I'm definitely done for."

Dylan never striked her as the type of person to be okay with being deemed a babysitter. Maybe he would've been before being turned but his personality afterwards was just so vastly different that he didn't even seem like the same person anymore. Not then, at least. Dylan always seemed to care about people from what she had heard from Olivia about him, but after he became a werewolf, he didn't really seem to care about anyone else. To her that made sense though, that he wouldn't care about people after suffering such a drastic change in his life.

She thought there was one person he seemed to still care about, though she couldn't remember who that person was.

She had to have been someone very special to him since he'd even stopped talking to the people he'd once considered his friends after they turned down the offer of joining the pack he was now a part of. "Right." Hit nodded, tuning back into the conversation just as Robert began his sentence about the younger pack members. She really wanted to believe that if anyone was watching the little girl it would be Dylan. But that was probably because she at least knew of him and she figured she could find a way to get him to give the girl up if it came to it.

If not, well.. Then she'd have to take her.

Watching Robert and Brian made her laugh softly. She had assumed she would be facing Robert, but as she listened she was relieved that she wouldn't have to face him. She was definitely still nervous about Brian being the one she had to take on, but she wouldn't have to face him alone. The thought that she might not be able to prove herself too well with Robert fighting with her crossed her mind, but she chose to ignore it. Only because this was going to be a match to decide if she would be able to go with them to rescue the girl, so she assumed she would get her chance.

She was excited about the sparring match, not only because it would decide if she could go or not, but because she hadn't gotten to duel with anyone for a while now. It would be a good way to test herself and see if her skills were still where they were at or if she had improved or not. The only thing distracting her, though only slightly, was the amount of times her real name was being used. She knew that it was something she would have to hear often, and she didn't think it appropriate to say she would prefer to be called something else at the time, so she tried her best to ignore the fact that she didn't like her name.

When they'd finished lunch, Robert made quick work of cleaning it up with a simple "Pack" spell. It packed all the leftovers in the bag.

He wrote the order for the autopsy and sent for it by owl to St. Mungos, knowing they would have it back shortly. In the meantime, there was time to spar. He did want to see if Mulciber had the skill to keep herself alive.

"Alright," he said, "That's that, then. We've got at least an hour or so before that comes back. let's go spar, shall we?"

"Certainly, but its my turn to win, you know," Brian said.

"You'll win if you win," Robert grinned. He looked at Mulciber. "He's apparently afraid of us already."

"Hah," Brian laughed. They headed to the training room.

"Drawing room!" Robert flicked his wand to cast a spell to request the room to assemble as a mock drawing room with furniture and carpets and tapestries.

"Oh, good," Brian said. "I've always liked this set up." He looked at Anabelle. "Anything in this room is fair game to use in your sparring. This room works rather like the Room of Requirement. You tell it what you need, and it, well, it does it." He had noticed Robert hadn't bothered to roll down his sleeves and tighten his tie. He still preferred to be informal.

Brian took a stance on one side of the room, his wand in his hand but not at the ready.

"Over here on this side, then, shall we?" Robert asked her. He walked over to the side of the room opposite Brian and took up a stance.

There were many things that the girl was not confident about, whether it had to do with herself or others. She wasn't confident in most of her decisions, from what she wore to what she said, in the decisions of her siblings nor was she confident about the family she was born into. But if there was going to be one thing that Anabelle Mulciber had confidence in, it was going to be her dueling abilities. Being alone a lot of the time gave her time to practice, to hone whatever skills she might have, which was why since she had found out about the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, she had learned to use it to her advantage.

Her nervousness had been replaced with excitement and what seemed to be determination. She had something to prove now, and she was going to get the point across one way or another. The excitement that now lit her eyes was clear to anyone who looked at her and she somehow felt a bit embarrassed for it.

She felt like a little kid, and maybe she looked like one too.

Hit nodded as Brian explained and smiled slightly when he mentioned the Room of Requirement. "Great." she said simply, her joy not being able to be hidden well. It was perfect, though, that the room seemed to work like the Room of Requirement because she knew how to use that. She wasn't sure if she would actually want to use the room too much even if it would give her an advantage, she decided that she would only do if she was backed into a corner.

The Gryffindor followed Robert, walking to the other side of the room and faced Brian. Both men had taken up their stances and Hit took a deep breath before taking up her own stance with her wand in her hand.

"Wands at the ready?" Brian called.

Robert glanced at Anabelle. "One moment," he said. He looked at Anabelle. "Allow me to teach you something I'm quite sure they didn't teach you in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The time honored dueling stance does you little good in a real duel. Let me show you a new stance."

He turned to the site, brought his wand to shoulder height and turned his head to look straight down his firing arm, which he had leveled right at Brian.

"Expelliarmus!" Robert fired at Brian, striking him with pinpoint accuracy. Brian's wand was blasted from his hand and flew several feet behind him. Robert turned to Anabelle.
"When you turn to the side, you are a much smaller target and harder to hit, and your opponent has a much lesser chance of hitting you in the center of your chest and causing a lethal blow, unless, of course, they're using an Unforgiveable. And, if you hold your wand level with your shoulder you have a much greater chance of getting off a better shot, because you can use your own arm as a sight for your wand. In other words, look straight down your arm and straight down your wand. It'll show you exactly where you're firing. As I said, its not an approved stance for your dueling class, but you'll find, in a real life duel, it just might save your life. Try it and see if you don't feel like it gives you a bit more control and confidence. Might take you a bit to get used to, but it tends to work better for a lot of fighters I've trained through the years. If you feel unsteady and need both hands to fire, then face forward and use your body and your arms to create a triangle. Your wand becomes the top point of that triangle, and it gives you an even firing point so you can use both hands. Facing forward with one hand is the most common way people try to fire, and it just doesn't give them the best control. Play with it while we're sparring and see what you think."

The stance she had learned had been pretty basic, and she'd seen how others dueled when they weren't in class, and even in her own duels she had taken up her own variation on the stance they were taught in their Defense classes. That obviously didn't mean it was a perfect or a better stance, obviously.

She nodded and watched as Robert explained the stance to her and fired at Brian, amazed at his precision. Granted, her amazement could have been from just getting to see the Minister of Magic in action, but it helped to know he was trying to help her when it came to dueling.

She moved herself so that she was in a stance similar to his and lifted her wand up to shoulder height, turning her head as he had to be able to look down her wand arm. She was comfortable with only using one hand, as she was usually able to control her aim with one hand, but the stance was unusual for her so she made sure her other hand was at the ready just in case she needed to change stances.

Her wand was pointed at Brian but without his wand in his hand, she didn't want to send a spell his way, not yet. She looked at Robert and smiled slightly, already liking the way she felt in the stance, but she wouldn't know if it would be any good until she was able to get a move in.

"Okay, so now we should be ready?" She asked, her body still positioned as it had been in the stance but with her arms down.