Cold Case Set On Fire

"Good choices," Khaat said. "Those ought to do nicely." She sized up Anabelle's height, and pulled off a coal black cloak for her. "It'll be cold. You might want this," she said, handing it to her. She heard someone behind her and saw Marcus come in and go to one of the gun safes. He took a keyring out of his pocket and unlocked it and chose two semiautomatic revolvers, a shoulder holster, an ankle holster, and then got out four clips and loaded them all.

"You starting a war all by yourself?" Khaat asked him.

"No," he said, "but if we face James, I intend to be armed."

"You loading those with silver bullets?"

"Um...no. I honestly don't know if that old myth is true or not, but I do know that he bleeds, and bullets make nice holes if I need them to. You pay me to keep you safe, and that's what I intend to do."

"Should I arm myself, then?"

"Your wand should be sufficient," he said. "Besides, I'm a better shot than you are, anyway. You? With a gun? That's almost scarier than James." He did crack a bit of a sarcastic smile at her.

"I'm not that bad," she said.

"Yeah, well, let's not put that to the test tonight, shall we? Just bring your extra wand. That should be sufficient." he said. "Your father stored some big-assed knives down here too, didn't he?"

"Of course," Khaat said. "How big-assed do you want?" She took the keys from him while he loaded the clips of bullets and a clip in each gun. Khaat unlocked another cabinet and opened up a couple of drawers of switchblades.

"Bigger than that," he scowled. She closed the drawers and went farther down in the cabinet, finding larger knives as she got into the lower drawers. When she got to the bottom drawer, she found a number of large military tactical knives--overgrown Bowie knives.

"There we go," he said. "Thank you." He picked two and two knife sheaths. He closed the cabinets and locked them securely. He pocketed the keys and walked out casually.

She shook her head slightly. "He handles weapons as casually as you and I handle a pen or a pencil. He's just completely at home with them," she said. "I'm not that secure. I suppose that's why I have him, though. Understand, though, you've got the real mission tonight. Our job is to draw everyone else's attention--to get them to come after us, and we do know how to do that. We'll keep you covered so you can go after the girl and get her out. I'm sure we'll leave you a portkey so you can port out and back here just as soon as you get her. We'll follow as soon as we know you're safe."

She looked at Anabelle's stack of clothes again briefly. "Looks like you're equipped. Maybe we've got a storage locker key by now. Let's go back up and check, shall we?"

She listened to Anabelle's view on weapons and smiled. For an apprentice, her views were very sophisticated and healthy. Good for her. That would serve her well and would certainly help her tonight.

"You've learned well somewhere," Khaat said. "My father feels that way too about weapons. He believes, like you do, that being familiar with as many of them as possible is a good thing. That, and he also believes that a healthy respect for them is a good thing too. Sounds like you're going to be a good auror, if that's what you want." She motioned to Anabelle and went upstairs and found Brian.

"Any lucky on the key?" she asked.

"Just now," Brian said, holding up a wrought iron key with a tag on it."

"Family vault?" Khaat asked.

"No," Brian said. "Its in a ministry vault of estate possessions. I was rather hoping for something with family ties but not so much. From what your father said in his owl, he uncovered paperwork on it in an unclaimed vault file."

"Well, that would make sense since the vault is unclaimed," Khaat shrugged.

"Anabelle," Brian said, "I think we should go check out the vault and then get back, get some dinner, and prepare for tonight's work."

"We're ready to go whenever you are," Kate said. "You might have it narrowed down to one family, but even one family can acquire an unfathomable amount of stuff. You're going to need some help to find something significant."

"Indeed," Brian said. "Marcus has the address. Shall Anabelle and I meet you there?"

"Sounds good," Marcus said. "We might have to watch the weather. Skies are getting dark outside. Might make things difficult."

"I think we can deal with it at least for now, can't we, Anabelle? We'll take tonight as it comes, I think. Maybe it'll pass by then," Brian said. "Shall we, Anabelle?" He reached for her hand.

Khaat started through the warehouse looking at crates. They were all old. Much older than a year--by a century or two. This was not the right section. She glanced behind her and saw several casks of extraordinarily aged firewhiskey, just waiting for the tasting. Well, that was certainly a crime against wizardry itself, wasn't it? She made a mental note to see if there were any estates that were up for liquidation that just happened to include some prime casks of firewhiskey as well. It would be a worthwhile investment.

Marcus was doing a search of his own, and for a moment, he thought he came across the right crates. He opened one of the crates and found a very large hippogriff head mounted to be hung on a wall. Not something likely to belong to a woman on tight means. Strike one.

Brian wasn't having any better luck. He was just trying to find some newer crates and the ones he was finding were well aged. Kate, meanwhile, had found a loose crate and had opened it and had found women's clothing--Edwardian, and definitely not helpful.

"Can I make a claim on some excellent firewhiskey?" Khaat called.

"Very possibly," Brian said. Especially if it's over seven years old."

"I would guess this was several hundred years old," she said.

"Sounds delightful, but its not what we're looking for," he laughed. "Kate? Marcus? How are you doing?"

"Striking out," Kate said.

"Same here, so far," Marcus said.

"Anabelle? How about you?" Brian called.