Disclaimer: I don't own either of the Star Wars or Harry Potter franchises. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not written with commercial purpose in mind. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.
Chapter 4: Unintended consequences
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Part 3
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Rumours are interesting things. Even when no one wants to believe them, they spread faster than a wildfire in a dry forest during the summer. For example, after Grindelwald and Voldemort, no one was prepared to accept that a third Dark Lord was on the rise in less than a century – not within continental Europe anyway. That's why when the first rumours of such a man surfaced in Sofia during the first weeks of January, most people dismissed them as the ravings of various Dark Creatures and Wizards. Even those who got first hand accounts and had a reason to go after said Dark Lord, didn't really believe it. Most of those were Dark after all. Dark Lords contacted and recruited their kind first.
The Bulgarian Aurors weren't an exception – they didn't believe either. However, they weren't ready to take any chances and mere hours after the rumour reached their ears, they were out in strength. It didn't take them long to shake down their informants, round up a lot of the usual suspects and soon a concerning picture began to form...
In the same time, Stephan Ivanov's goons went out in strength – from petty thieves paying their dues to his organization to various Dark Wizards enjoying his patronage to the Vampires working directly for the man, they all swarmed out of their hiding holes and began asking pointed questions too. It was mere hours after Igor Cherni was taken when they clashed with the Aurors for the first time and it was soon after dawn on the thirteenth that a group of angry werewolves arrived raring up for a good fight...
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13 January 1986
Director's office
Auror Department
Ministry of Magic
Sofia
Bulgaria
An hour past dawn, Director Lydia Malinova paced in front of her desk. Her usually braided black hair whipped behind her back and danced with power fed by her anger. Lydia's heart-shaped face was fixed into a scowl that was more than enough to make her subordinates nervous. She eventually paused her angry striding and glared at the three men standing at attention in her office.
"We dropped the ball on this one." Malinova's alluring voice snapped through the silent office, betraying a hint of Veela heritage. "I spent the past hour talking to our dear Minister. He seems more concerned about how disruptive we've been the past few hours than concerned that a new Dark Lord might be on the rise." She fixed her blazing gaze upon her Chief Auror.
Alexander Pchelarski scowled right back. "We already have advocates crawling all over the place as well as flunkies from Kniajev's office demanding we stop upsetting the status quo before we've provoke darker elements into doing something we might all regret."
"What do we know about this Dark Lord?" Lydia asked.
"One confirmed appearance of a possible Dark Lord in the Fey's Delight bar. He went there to kidnap the alpha of a third rate pack – one Ivailo Kolev." Alexander explained what his people managed to piece together. "Another likely appearance last night, when someone poly-juiced or glamoured as Kolev kidnapped a Vampire high up in Ivanov's organization..."
Lydia listened to the report, while quietly seething inside. There already were half a dozen encounters between her Aurors and members of Ivanov's organization since Alexander heard the rumour of a new Dark Lord. The cells downstairs were filling up with rounded up troublemakers, she had a pair of Aurors in Saint Lazar Hospital along with ten criminals who were out looking for trouble and the elusive Dark Lord who kicked out this whole mess and baring a miracle things were going to get worse before they improved. Potentially a lot worse.
"We can't have open warfare in the streets. Make it clear to everyone that what's happening this morning simply won't fly." Lydia ordered. "Do we know what Ivanov did to piss off a potential Dark Lord?"
The Director's three most trusted subordinates looked at each other. They did know something then. "Alexander." She asked sweetly. "Talk to me."
"The woman Kolev was with already got picked up so we rounded a few of her friends. He's been boasting about getting a few Veela's to play with from up in the mountains." Pchelarski said.
Lydia closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead in a futile attempt to forestall a headache. After an accident a few months ago when a Veela lost control of her allure in the presence of a group of Aurors, the current Ministry policy was that the Auror Department should be very careful when answering any calls from Veelas or suspected Veelas. That, pressure from the Minister's office and what Lydia believed to be bribes but couldn't prove it yet meant that responding to calls for disturbances from most Veela sanctuaries in the country was hard – if someone deigned to rely those calls to her people in the first place. That issue wasn't helped by the fact that most such places were in the wilderness far from human habitation and thus outside the monitoring network that was concentrated on the borders as well as cities, towns and villages. When all was said and done, someone could have a pitched battle in some forests and mountains in the country and unless someone reported it, no one in the Ministry would be the wiser.
Frankly, what was happening with the Veelas currently was an unacceptable state of affair, one that Lydia hated. However, she had a choice – either spent her political capital in ensuring that her department received the budged in needed without cuts or push for removing the directives tying up her hands. She chose the budged – otherwise, there simply might have been no one to respond to a problem happening outside a populated centre anyway. With a Dark Lord apparently making an appearance, her choice was obviously the right one.
Well, apparently one of the Veela Matriarch's decided that the existing state of affairs was unacceptable and did something about it...
"Do we know which Sanctuary Kolev was after?" Lydia asked. That was really the only thing she needed to know right now so she could go visit the Matriarch. "And why didn't begin with this little piece of information?" She glared at Alexander.
Suddenly it was clear what was happening. A Veela Matriarch called some kind of favour – Malinova would be learning the details sooner or later, and that somehow led to a Dark Lord taking notice. Things could get really ugly even if this one was among the Dark Lords content to spent their time secluded playing with forbidden research and unspeakable experiments instead of one of those eager to cause problems for everyone...
"We don't know, Director. Just that Kolev had his pack out in the mountains." The Chief Auror admitted.
"That's not helpful." Lydia groaned. Most Veela Sanctuaries on the Balkans were in the mountains. Lydia sighed. She would be writing to every one, hoping that one of her contacts could give her a clue. She simply didn't have to time to visit them all and hope she would hit the right one any time soon.
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Werewolf camp
Pirin Mountains
Bulgaria
"My Lord, are you sure about this plan?" Vance asked.
I looked away from the burning vampire we just finished interrogating and experimenting on. My minion looked a bit pale and did feel somewhat off.
"Do you have a better idea on how to get this mess cleared up in a short amount of time?" I inquired. Did I mention that my patience wasn't what it used to be before awakening in this world?
"Faster? Not really. My Lord, the plan is..." He gulped. "Suicidal or the next best thing."
"Is it?" I frowned. It was dangerous, all right; not something that I would have contemplated during my first years working with Imperial Intelligence, however the situation was very different these days. Back then my control over the Force was much lesser than today and I did have a support network, which changed things significantly.
It was obvious that the smart or at least safer course of action would be to slowly create a network of spies and agents before jumping on the deep end as I did when I agreed to help the Veela's solve their larger problem. However, that would take years to do properly. I simply lacked the patience and had the power to do a lot of things that would be outright suicidal, not to mention the hight of idiocy for a regular covert operative.
"It might get us killed." I agreed. That wasn't an issue. I was a Sith. It's been a very long time since I feared death and dying – well that was a risk I would gleefully face. "The rewards are worth it."
My minion didn't look reassured. The truth was that I did think about the situation. In order to do anything in an acceptable time-frame, I needed resources. To gain those resources, I needed, well, resources, duh. What I did have at my disposal was pocket change and my powers. Powers no one was really aware of, which under different circumstances would be a boon. However, in order to get various doors opened, I needed reputation. To be precise, my Dark Lord persona, which should be kept separate from one Stephan Veil, needed to be known and feared.
That Varshenska woman wouldn't bet on a virtual nobody. On the other hand, a Dark Lord? That was someone who people would take notice of.
It was dangerous, insane even.
It was going to be so much fun too.
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Part 4
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13 January 1986
Sofia
Bulgaria
If Vance had to describe what working for a Dark Lord was like, the simple answer would be – pure, sheer, distilled madness. It was close to noon when they found a fuel truck, jumped on it covered by notice-me-not charms and then things got crazy. Well, crazier.
The Dark Lord mentally dominated the driver to get out, while he had Ignatius cast all kinds of anti-detection and concealment charms on the truck. Only then did the maniac deign to check what exactly did the truck carry – which was at least a ton of petrol. Little did Vance knew that the insanity was just beginning. The Dark Lord simply had to levitate the truck, while both of them stood on top of it, wandlessly of course, because who needed wands?! The mercenary turned retainer felt his face twitch as they flew low above the roofs of all kinds of buildings with no one the wiser.
Their destination? The lair of one of the most dangerous people in that part of Europe. The reason? They were going to attack it frontally. In the middle of the day.
The sheer audacity was what he should have expected from a Dark Lord. However, that didn't make him fell any better. It didn't help that through their connection, Vance could feel his Lord's sheer amusement and eager anticipation! The madman was looking up for this!
After twenty minutes of flying, the Dark Lord waved a hand and the roof of the trucks cabin tore away. Ignatius had just a moment of horrified realization that if hurled their way before his master grabbed his hand and jumped pulling along. A moment later they were standing upon the roof with the fuel truck ascending above them.
"Brace yourself, we're in position." The order snapped him back into attention and he looked down.
One of the buildings below looked like the description they got from the vampire his lord captured. Ignatius shuddered at the thought of what happened to the bloodsucker. While he didn't like the bloody undead, what his Lord did for information and to figure out what could harm this particular kind of unliving... Vance had seen some nasty shite in his day, but what happened last night...
He shouldn't have given the oath of allegiance. Now his fate was bound to that of his Lord and... there was no more time for his pity party. The Dark Lord slapped the back of his head and pointed at the target building with his wand. Ignatius nodded and they began casting – anti-apparation jinxes, anti-portkey curses, wide area concealment and notice-me-not charms. Once they were done, the fuel truck flew past them like a missile and smashed through the roof of the building like a battering ram. A few seconds later a purple lighting bold followed through the hole and the ground floor of the four story building simply disintegrated in a fiery explosion that collapsed the whole thing.
Vance caught his Lord casting spells – flame-freezing and bubble-head charm and hastily followed his example mere moments before their makeshift platform flew them towards the disaster site below. It was just now that he noticed that he didn't simply fall from the acceleration despite not casting a sticking charm – either to the jagged piece of metal they stood upon or earlier, on the fuel truck.
A weird sensation, as if entering underwater surrounded them both and Ignatius could barely perceive a shimmering shield forming around them just before they plunged into the black flames.
The Dark Lord waved his hands and tons of rubble covered with burning petrol moved as if they were mere bits of dirty soil banished by an irate housewife. The mercenary could feel when they passed through the charms protecting the place, which were a mere nuisance – nothing like what Cherni described during his interrogation. Whatever that shield was combined with the improvised air-strike undoubtedly not only weakened them but shook or even broke some of the rune-clusters anchoring them in place.
Soon enough they were in the centre of the inferno. The Dark Lord waved a hand and the burning petrol sloshed away along with the acrid black smoke allowing them to see the broken ceiling of the bomb shelter below. Vance blinked at the strikingly intact front of the truck – his Lord must have cast an unbreakable charm on it when he wasn't paying attention. It had battered its way through the thick reinforced concrete that should have been able to survive the crash.
Vance shook his head. It wasn't important. What mattered was that their target's sanctuary was breached. His Lord jumped down and landed within a lake of burning fuel, which he merely directed into the shelter. Ignatius shook his head, cast the appropriate charm upon himself and jumped too, letting the magic protect him.
What followed had little in common with the pitched battle Vance expected. Even during the day, especially during the day, a vampire's lair was exceptionally well defended. However, the sudden attack, a river of burning petrol, stone transfigured into silver blades of garlic powder – the latter being a spell he taught his Lord last night, combined with the odd Incendo, banisher or wandless lighting produced by the Dark Lord saw the few goons they met either torn to pieces or turned into human-shaped torches.
Less than a minute after they got in and two massive doors torn from their hinges with merely a gesture later, saw them face to back with Ivanov who was about to jump through an open floo. The Vampire actually managed to jump, only to be caught in an invisible grip and hurled at the far wall, which he struck hard enough to shatter the wood panelling before bouncing from the concrete below.
"Loot, then burn." The Dark Lord ordered and nodded to a torn door that led deeper into what turned out to be a very expensively furnished suite.
"As you command, My Lord!" Vance snapped at attention.
Behind them he could hear screams of pain and rage.
"Go." His Lord prompted. He was already casting stunning and binding spells upon the vampire.
It took Vance a few minutes to make sure, however he couldn't get at anything of real value. What should have been the office was charmed to hell and back – not something he could just break into without a long study of all the magics layered upon that room. The same was true for the bedroom. In fact the only things of value he could retrieve were the antique looking furniture, some paintings and a bar that was very well stocked with all kinds of expensive alcohol. Thanks to a few enchanted bags, Vance did manage to get a lot of the more expensive looking stuff in a short amount of time before returning to the room with the floo. He did so just in time to see the Dark Lord pointing his left hand at the corridor leading at the other parts of the bomb shelter and unleashing a wall of blinding lighting that entirely filled up the passage. Short lived howls of pain told him that time was running out.
The most disturbing part was that Vance could feel echoes of the suffering that the Dark Lord's enemies experienced under his tender ministration, along with the dark pleasure that the man felt while destroying them. If there had been any doubt in his mind about what exactly his Lord was, Chernev's interrogation and today's massacre, erased them.
"My Lord, I can't get into the office. It's too well protected." Vance admitted, half expecting a vicious punishment.
"Not unexpected." The Dark Lord said. For a moment he concentrated on the corridor before he brought it down with a mere gesture. He did the same smashing the floo too. "Look over our new friend. I'll see what I can do about the office." With those parting words the Dark Lord strode deeper in the suit.
Vance glanced pityingly at the bound unconscious vampire then levelled his wand at the collapsed corridor. He only hopped that they would be out of this place before the Aurors showed up in force.
