Cold Case Set On Fire

Brian looked at the teal hairbow that appeared to be treasured and well worn. It made him smile. His daughters, young as they were, loved bows, and if their favorite ones were misplaced, it became a house-wide emergency. Hairbows made some deeply personal statements. It all made perfect sense to him.

"Perfect," he said. It was small enough to fit in her pocket and personal enough to evoke some potent memories. "Always trust your gut. If it feels to you like its hers, and it feels important, then believe it." Growing up as Khaat's childhood friend, he had learned early the importance of trusting one's instincts. He had learned that, regardless of one's own abilities, if someone had that certain feeling or urge about something, they were usually right.

"If you believe its what we're looking for," he said to her, "then that's good enough for me." He glanced in the crate and saw the assortment of clothes and toys. "Besides, that beats the heck out of dragging that teddy bear down in the catacombs." He smiled at her. "If these are her things, we can return anything that she wants to her. Or, we can pass on the inventory to her father, and he can claim them for her. Anything else you'd like to take from here for now? If you're good, I'll seal up the crate again and mark it so we can find it again."

"No, I think this is all we'll need. It feels like the only thing with a lot of meaning." She responded, looking down at the contents of the crate again.

Everything else in there seemed like they'd been somewhat important at some point but nothing seemed to have as much meaning as the little bow seemed to have. She had a feeling that the bow was so important because it must've been a gift from the mother, and for all they knew it was her favorite color too.

She stood up from where she'd been crouched down to look inside the crate and dusted herself off quickly. It was amazing the amount of dust a person could collect on their clothes after only a few minutes. "I think we can go now. It's a good idea to mark it though. I have a feeling she's definitely going to want most of these things."

For the most part, the items looked new so she assumed that a lot of the things had just recently been given to her when her mother.. passed away and she was taken by the wolves.

Brian merely nodded to her. If she had some feeling that the bow was important, then it was surely more than he had. From his vantage, he had a warehouse key and nothing else than a few guesses. He'd lived with seers more of his life than not, and while he didn't know what Anabelle's particular magic skills were, he did know that someone getting "that feeling" about something often turned out to be on point.

He gathered up the others and called them out of the warehouse, locking it up when he was sure they were all out. By the look of the skies, it was getting later in the day than he'd thought. They would surely need to get some dinner and then spend a little time stretching and limbering up for what he felt would be a long walk either to hunt James or to find the catacombs.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting hungry. I hope Angus has made us something to eat before it gets dark," he said.

"Must be catching," Marcus said, "I was just thinking of one of Angus's grilled steaks." Brian was going to speak but he suddenly felt something icy cold and wet down the back of his neck. He frowned and looked around. Kate and Marcus were looking upward.

"Oh, stellar," Kate sighed. "Freezing rain. Just what we needed."

"It might be a good thing, Kate. I doubt they'll expect any interruptions in crappy weather, as low as their opinions tend to be of humans," Brian said. He looked at Anabelle. "Ready to go?"

(feel free to godmod us or move us ahead to the actual rescue if you like.)

Hit looked up at the sky, closing her eyes as the cold rain began to fall onto her. She'd always liked the rain so this didn't bother her, but she thought it would be a bad thing if she ended up with a cold from being in the rain for too long.

Especially if it started hitting her during the mission.

She lowered her face and looked at Brian when he spoke to her, "Yes, I am." she answered with a nod.

--

After dinner, everyone prepared for the mission. Hit had quickly changed into the clothes she'd gotten and found that she was staring at herself in the mirror as she patted down the shirt she'd just put on. She sighed, her stomach hurt and she wished she could blame it on the food, but that wan't the case at all. Her nerves were getting to her, just like she thought they would.

But she knew she had to focus and after smacking her hands onto her cheeks, she took a deep breath and went back to everyone else. She looked at everyone and held her wand tightly in her hand. "Okay, we should head out."

It was time.

They appeared in an alley near the entrance to the den and Hit looked at Brian. She could feel her legs shaking slightly, she'd have to do something about that soon. The teal bow was with her, in one of her pockets, and she really hoped it would be enough to make the girl come with her, if it came to that. Hit really hoped she would be easy to convince, that she would be eager to leave, even.

(I'm bad at GMing and time skipping, sorry >.<)

(don't short change yourself. you did fine! )

"Stay close," Brian said to Anabelle. He took out a ring from his pocket. It had a 6 mm green stone set in silver. "Now, listen," he said, "this is one of Khaat's rings. Take it and don't lose it. If this goes sideways, don't wait around. Don't come back for us. The stone is a portkey. If you need to use it, all you have to do is twist the ring backwards so that the stone is in the inside of your hand, and close your hand into a fist around the stone. That's all. You'll end up back at the house. We'll be right behind you. Good luck."

He looked at the others who had come along--Marcus, Khaat, Kate, and Edward. They all had their wands drawn and at the ready. Marcus stepped up near the entrance of the catacombs.

"Khaat, you go next," Brian said. "Stay close to Marcus. Anabelle, follow behind Khaat? I'll follow you. Kate will follow me, and Edward will guard the rear. Marcus? Any words of wisdom?"

"They will smell us long before they see us, but they could hear us long before that, so being as quiet as possible is key," Marcus said. "It will get very dark and cold before we get to the lair, so light your wands. When you fire, do not be timid or it could be your undoing."

Marcus opened a wooden door leading into an old building and took the cellar stairs down to the basement. In the basement, he found a passage behind a large stack of ale kegs, and it led down to a section of the catacombs that had long gone out of any sort of use or service. It smelled musty and quite foul here. The farther they went, the colder it got.

Brian wrinkled his nose, trying not to let it get to him. He saw Marcus reach back behind him, take Khaat's hand to draw her closer. Brian took it that they were getting close to the lair, and Marcus did not want James, perhaps, unexpectedly taking her.

They turned a corner in the corridor, and Brian began to see light and feel heat. They were getting close. He started to hear voices of men and women and children, and he started to smell food cooking, specifically meat. He questioned it for just a moment and then realized that the children and some of the younger werewolves would perhaps not have quite the taste for rarer meats yet, and, the human part of the werewolves' makeup would still have some, if limited, desire for some additional supplement from other foods, like breads and vegetables. It wasn't something Brian had thought of before, but now it made sense.

When they got near the doorway, Brian felt his own pulse starting to increase as his adrenalin started to prepare him for a fight. He did not want to lose anyone in the fight to get this child. Brian keenly felt the responsibility of taking an intern and four civilians into this.

Marcus and Brian took a quick look into the lair to get the lay of things. From what Brian could see, there was a sort of spit cooking the food in a common area off to the left. Off to the right seemed to be a space used for keeping the children out of the way of the males. He saw several children, but the ones he saw were younger than the child they were looking for. He did notice some hallways going further down, probably for storage and sleeping quarters.

He felt Marcus tap his shoulder, and he looked to see that Marcus was pointing him towards the far wall of the lair, where there was a niche in the stonework wall. There was a large oversized wooden chair, covered with old fabrics and fur pelts of some sort. It struck Brian as some sort of seating reserved for the alpha male--Fenrir, Brian was sure. The more he looked, he saw James' distinctive overgrown shadow in the light, but James didn't dare go near the alpha male's place. James was satisfying himself for a bottle of firewhiskey.

It was about to be game on. Brian looked back at Anabelle and pointed her to go off to the right--towards the children--and then he pointed everyone else off to the left towards werewolves, who were not transformed, at least not at the moment.

Marcus and Brian looked at each other and nodded and took the lead, going in and firing as rapid fire as they could manage. Khaat followed, but she lagged a couple paces behind, in case someone decided they were going to fire at Anabelle from behind.

She definitely wasn't expecting to see the scene that unraveled before her. While it wasn't as.. comfortable as a human's home, at least in her mind, it was a lot more comfortable than she had imagined it would be at first. It was comfortable enough for them was what she was trying to get at.

The whole point of the of their being there was to get the little girl they'd kidnapped but Hit couldn't seem to find anyone close to her age in the group of kids she was looking at. The girl had to be somewhere in that area, though. She, like always, nodded at Brian when he pointed for her to go to the right. She had to stay focused because this was going to be the crucial part of the mission.

A lot was riding on this.

Hit suddenly felt all the pressure. She couldn't screw this up, it was a real mission. She sneaked off as best as she could toward the children when Marcus and Brian began to fire, causing her to look back at them and everyone else. The grip on her wand tightened again and she continued on her way, hoping she would have enough time.

She suddenly saw a girl, a little ways apart from the other children, who seemed incredibly frightened (how could she not be?) and Hit immediately went for her. That had to be her, why else would she seem so isolated from the rest of the kids there? Hit made her way toward her, being careful that none of the other kids cried out about her though they all seemed more interested (and probably terrified about) with what was going on in front of them.

After slipping past, Hit kneeled in front of the little girl who seemed on the brink of tears. "Are you Eleanor?" she said in a quiet voice but the girl didn't want to respond. That wasn't unusual, a complete stranger coming toward her after firing started and they ask her name, yeah not normal. "This is yours, right? You can trust me. We're here to get you out of here." Hit pulled the bow out and showed it to the girl, who's eyes widened and she began to cry. "Shh, no no don't cry." The older girl began to panic, not really knowing how to deal with crying kids.

"Let's go." she started to stand up, taking the little girl by the hand but she pulled away shaking her head.

"I- I can't go with you, Dylan will be mad at me if I leave.."

Dylan? Who was that? It had to be one of the wolves in the pack, the one who'd probably gotten the duty of watching her. If that was the case, why wasn't he there with her? "It's okay, he's a bad person, right? He won't be able to do anything to you once you're away from here."

"No! He's not bad, he doesn't do anything to me. I can't leave, I want to stay with him."

Hit gritted her teeth, this was bad. She had to find a way to get her to agree to coming. If she couldn't, she'd have to resort to knocking her out and that was something she'd really rather avoid having to do. "He.. wants you to leave. He doesn't want you here." she said, hoping that making the little girl think the werewolf didn't want her there (which was probably the truth) would make her want to leave.

"I- I don't believe you! Dy-" Hit scrambled to cover the little girl's mouth before she yelled anything else. The girl looked at Hit with narrowed but teary eyes and tried to bite her hand.

"Ow!" Hit squeaked quietly. "You little, don't you understand that we're trying to help you?! You're a vampire in a den of werewolves, you're going to get killed!" she said seriously to the girl and got her to quiet down for a minute. The only problem was...

"Ekko! Where are you? We're going!" A male's voice sounded a little ways away from the two of them. Hit had managed to move the girl a bit and she turned to see that everyone was scrambling about and the children were being led elsewhere. A redheaded male seemed to be searching for someone, and though the name sounded odd, Hit assumed it was Eleanor.

"Ekko? Is that what he called you?" A small nod was given from the girl and Hit sighed. I still have to find a way to get her out of here, but I don't want to take her by force. "Did you understand what I told you?"

"I- I'm not a vampire, I don't.. I'm not.." Ekko sounded like she was going to cry again and Hit groaned, not knowing what she was going to say to get her to calm down now.

"Ekko!" the redhead called again, moving closer.

"Dylan!"

"Sh*t."

The redhead, named Dylan, heard the girl and ran over to where he would not see Hit standing. Ekko tried to run over to Dylan but Hit stopped her by putting her arm out in front of her and holding her back.

"Dylan, help me!"

"Are you really going to help a vampire?" Hit asked, holding her wand out in front of her aimed at Dylan.

Marcus was working to make as much of a nuisance of himself as he could make, blasting any resource the werewolves might need. He blasted the cooking fire first, sending flames spitting every direction. Khaat scowled in Marcus's directions as sparks hit her clothes.

Marcus was also firing at any werewolf he could find, and then he heard a familiar sound--a deep, guttural growl. Then he heard Khaat calling his name in warning, but he wasn't quite fast enough to turn around. Something clutched him, picked him up and hurled him into one of the stone walls. He thought he saw stars for moment, and he looked up, trying to make sure that there wasn't a second blow coming.

"I'm going to kill you, Belby," James said in a deep, lethal tone.

"Oh, hello," Marcus said sarcastically.

"I thought it was me you wanted, James!" Khaat shouted. "I'm right here. Come on, you pillock." James turned away from Marcus to go after Khaat. Marcus sighed, thinking, Here we go again. He scrambled to his feet, readying himself to go for James when Edward apparated in front of Khaat, leveling his wand at James' heart.

"The only one who is going to die tonight is you," Edward said, fearlessly. James froze. Marcus stood frozen, looking at James. It was the first time Marcus had ever seen an element of fear in James. Then again, though, he supposed if he were a werewolf, the last person he would want to see would be Edward Donohue, and never at the wrong end of Edward's wand.

Knowing that Edward had Khaat covered for the moment, he glanced towards Anabelle and saw that she was talking with a child, or seemed to be. Good. Welp, maybe not so good. The child was confused, and she had every right to be. He was going to head that direction when he saw Kate working her way towards Anabelle in case perhaps the child might relate a bit towards having two friendly women there, and in case Anabelle needed help. Marcus saw the young ginger interfere with Anabelle. Uh oh. Trouble.

He fired a wand blast to blow up a wine cask that was, perhaps ten feet behind the ginger--enough of a booming sound to distract perhaps, but not enough to hurt him. He hoped that would give Anabelle some advantage to do something.

His last concern was Brian, quite honestly, who appeared to be on some odd mission to destroy any sort of wooden partition. And then he saw a couple of the wooden partitions turn out to be escape routes. Nice. That might well get some of them out alive. Perhaps. What Marcus hadn't seen so far was any sign of Fenrir Greyback, and perhaps that was for the best.

".. You're a vampire..."

Vampires, werewolves, killed?

No, that couldn't be right. Dylan wasn't going to kill her, he was nice to her. Er, well, nicer than he'd originally been. There was just no way he going to do something like that to her. Or that she was a vampire, she didn't drink blood, she didn't need it. Vampires needed blood, right? Yeah, so Ekko wasn't one.

She was so confused, how could all those people be there to help her? Help her with what, exactly? She didn't need help, she had Dylan he always kept her safe. Whenever any of the other wolves in that pack wanted to do anything to her, Dylan was always there to keep them away.

Tears stared to run down her face as she brought her hands up to her eyes to frantically try to stop the tears.

"Answer me, wolf boy. Are you really?"

Ekko looked up, her eyes already red from the tears. She looked from the girl who stood in front of her, keeping her from running to Dylan, to Dylan himself who stood there not advancing toward them. Why wasn't he advancing? Wasn't he going to help her? Dylan looked irritated, though.

"Man this is such a drag." the redheaded boy said as an answer, his eyes showing no emotion as he scratched the back of his head. "Ekko, didn't I tell you not to talk to anyone?" he said coldly, taking a step forward toward them. Hit found it strange, was he actually going to help the girl? They were supposed to be natural enemies, what was going on?

"She's actually pretty important, you know." The voice sounded closer than she'd like it to. Hit's eyes widened as she realized that Dylan had moved a lot closer than she'd thought. He'd placed one hand on Hit's shoulder and was digging his nails into her. "I'll be taking her back." He reached out to try to take Ekko by the arm and Hit snapped back to reality through the pain she felt.

"Like hell you will." She snapped, shoving the ginger back. It didn't seem like he intended to use magic to fight her, maybe he thought he didn't need it? Whatever the case, Hit wasn't going to let him take Ekko, they'd come too far to have her be taken from them now. Besides, if he didn't want to use magic, that gave her an advantage.

She heard Dylan laugh and her eyes narrowed as she said, "What's so funny?"

His hand was covering his face, as well as his bangs, and he answered, "You're a feisty as ever, Hit."

She took a step back, he knew her? Wait, Dylan. This was the boy that hung out with Olivia and her friends at Hogwarts? He was the Dylan that disappeared after the attack? But this Dylan was.. different. There was no way. A wine cask exploded behind them, causing Dylan to jump away from it and look around for what had caused it. Hit looked to the side to see Marcus and smirked. This was her chance.

Ekko still seemed to be in a daze, so this would work. "It's now or never, so we're leaving now." She remembered the ring she'd put on her left ring finger and turned it so the stone was facing the inside of her hand. Grabbing onto Ekko, Hit looked at Dylan who had once again focused on them, "Looks like we win." she said as she closed her hand to form a fist around the ring.

Seconds later she was at the estate where she collapsed onto her knees, sighing in relief. Her shoulder stung and she could feel the wetness from the blood Dylan had managed to draw from digging his nails into her. She looked over at her shoulder and noticed the clothing was ripped. Figures, his nails were sharp enough to pierce her skin, how would they not tear her clothes?

Ekko sank to the ground shortly after Hit, tears staining her face as she cried out rather loudly. The little girl was holding onto the teal bow tightly as she cried. Hit moved toward her, wincing as she moved the arm where the injury was, and she put her hand on Ekko's head. "Stop crying, you're alright." She cooed, trying her best to make her stop.

Clearly she was failing.

Sending an extraction team was always a worry, even though it was the sort of mission that, he knew, both Brian and Marcus had done before. That hardly reduced risk or made it easier to stop the concern until everyone was back safe.

He had managed to get home from the office, change into jeans and a work shirt and help with some evening chores in the barn. New foals did not com on a well timed schedule either. However, mama and baby were doing well, and Robert brewed a pot of a new tea blend he'd been tinkering with. It had just enough chocolate and raspberry in it to be decadent on a cold night, and with milk and sugar, it was a treat.

He was stirring his tea when he heard the distinct sound of someone porting in. He came in, bringing his tea mug and saw Anabelle there with the girl. He did not miss that Anabelle was bleeding. That was a concern. He hoped it was not a bite. If a werewolf had bitten her, that would be grim news indeed.

And then there was the matter of Eleanor Augustine. The girl was naturally quite frightened and upset, and she had a right to be. He took his clean, plain white handkerchief out of his pocket and crouched down on the floor next to the girl.

"Here," he said gently, handing the handkerchief to her. "I'm Robert. You're safe here. You're among friends." He wasn't going to push it. He was going to say something else but he saw his almost-five-year-old granddaughter Abbey had wandered downstairs in her little pink pajamas and a pair of fuzzy striped slipper socks, her long blonde hair a bit tossled from sleep.

Abbey saw Anabelle on the floor and saw she had a boo boo. At her young age, Abbey had seen a lot of boo boos. And there was another girl there too.

"What are you doing up, Abbey?" Robert asked.

"You look sad," Abbey said to the girl on the floor. "I'm Abbey. You want a cookie? We got cookies in the kitchen. Cookies make everything better."

Ekko wasn't feeling any better, no matter what the other girl did. So much had just happened in a short amount of time and she had no idea how to process all of it. Through her tears, she looked at the older girl who had put her forehead on the hand that she'd placed on her head before.

She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be mad at her, but Ekko knew that now she wouldn't be able to go near Dylan anymore. Still, the older girl had gotten her out of that den and that made her happy to an extent. She, at the very least, didn't have to worry about the older wolves wanting to do anything to her. But she'd never really been worried with Dylan around..

More tears continued to fall until she saw a handkerchief being held out in front of her and she looked at the man who was holding it out to her. Ekko hesitated at first but ended up taking the handkerchief and burying her face into it.

Hit moved her face away from Ekko, leaning back to give her some space. She winced as she leaned back, though and she reached over to touch the wounds on her shoulder. "Ow.." she cried softly, moving her now bloody fingers from her shoulder and dropping her hand onto her lap. She sighed. "That went, sort of as planned. I got her out, I just wish I'd done it faster to avoid getting this." she said, looking at Robert.

She looked over at Abbey who seemed to have been woken up, probably from their porting in, and she began speaking to Ekko. Hit smiled a little at the young girl's words, of course she'd think something like that, and to be fair cookies did make everything better. When you're her age.

Ekko looked up at Abbey from the handkerchief, not saying anything but looking at Hit who was looking back at her with a smile. "O-okay.." she said softly, wiping her eyes.

Hit's smile faded as she looked at Robert with a serious expression on her face. "It seemed like they knew she was a vampire. But I don't know why they didn't do anything to her. Maybe we just got to her in time."