March 1987
Passersby heard the air split. The CRACK echoed loud down the alleyway, but no one cared enough to stop and investigate. Probably an old car backfiring or someone throwing furniture into a dumpster.
A young witch walked a few paces from where she had appeared and flattened her back against the brick wall, waiting for her twin. She watched cars drive past the end of the alleyway and headlights reflecting in shop windows. The air next to her compressed and expanded as her brother appeared. He walked up to her and the two of them left the alleyway and turned right, dodging people on their way to the Underground.
The witch and wizard held their wands in their palms, pressed up against their arms and covered by their coats. When they arrived at the turnstiles, they muttered under their breaths and went through without paying. They walked down the stairs and onto the platform as the train arrived. They stepped over the gap and followed the crowds onto the train.
The witch moved further into the car and held onto the bar above her head. She leaned with the train as it pulled away from the platform and into the darkness of the tunnel. The train swayed. She looked ahead and watched the train curve in and out, losing sight of the adjacent cars and gaining it back as they hit a straightaway.
"Two stops, Cass?"
"Three," her brother said.
"Three?"
"Kennington is closer, Jules," Cass said.
"We should have left sooner."
They got off at Kennington Station and took the stairs out of the Underground.
Cassio checked the street name as they walked outside. He turned left and Juliet followed him.
"Number seventeen is just ahead," Cassio said.
When they arrived at the building, Juliet used the same charm on the front door that she had used on the turnstiles and pushed it open. The apartments were old and there wasn't an elevator. They took the stairs. When they got to the fourth floor, they left the stairwell and walked down the hallway.
"Four-oh-five is ahead on the right," Cassio said. "That'll be Albert Daven."
Juliet raised her hand and knocked on the door. No answer.
She knocked again. "Mister Daven? Are you in?"
Juliet heard movement on the other side of the door. Something heavy fell on the floor. There were muffled voices. A man and a woman. Juliet caught pieces of their conversation.
". . . don't . . . "
". . . hold . . . "
". . . stop . . . "
Juliet pulled on the doorknob.
"There's a ward," Cassio said.
"Shite," Juliet said, "we're too fucking late."
Juliet raised her wand and chanted, trying to break the ward. Cassio did the same.
"It's not working!"
"It's a gate ward," Cass said, wand raised, "we can unlock it if we keep-"
"There isn't time!"
Juliet waved her wand and unlocked the door of the adjacent apartment. She ran inside. A woman screamed. Juliet hit her with a stunning charm and knocked her unconscious.
"Confringo!"
Part of the wall between the two apartments exploded. Insulation and fractured wood framing hung around Juliet as she stepped through the opening with Cass behind her.
A man was on the floor in the dark, choking and holding his neck.
"Lumos!"
Juliet's glowing wand revealed the man on the floor. A crudely cut M dripped from his forehead. Blood covered the front of his body and the floor. His throat was half open.
Cassio grabbed the man and raised him to a sitting position. The man's hands fell to his sides.
"Who did this?!"
It was no use. The man's vocal cords were cut and his eyes weren't responsive. The man's blood poured down Cassio's arms and chest.
"Jules, quick, check his mind."
Juliet bent down and put her hands on the man's temples.
There was a flash and a bright light came at them.
Cassio raised his wand. "Protego!"
The shield projected itself around Cassio, Juliet, and the dying man.
Juliet pulled her hands off the man's head and ran across the room, breaking out of the shield. She broke the window glass with a spell and dove, tumbling out onto the fire escape. Two dark figures were three stories above her. Juliet chased them up the fire escape, wand out. She apparaited upward to get ahead of them, but whoever it was had the same idea and she appeared, hitting the air with a loud crack, right as they dissipated. She did the same two more times, until she could pull herself over the parapet and onto the roof. The figures ran ahead of her.
"Stupefy!"
They were already gone; dissipating off the roof.
"Shite."
Juliet stopped and listened. She heard duel cracks from her right and spun around to see the figures on the adjacent roof. She apparaited and landed behind them. They dissipated again. Another series of cracks and she was on the street, running after them, shoving past people on their way home from work.
They apparaited again. Juliet did the same. She appeared in the middle of the street. A car hit her legs and she fell back on the ground, scraping her hands, back, and legs. Horns honked.
Shite. More memories to alter.
Fuck that hurt.
She stood up and ran.
Where are they?!
She listened, but she didn't hear anything. She ran down the sidewalk, disoriented.
I fucking lost them.
She ran for another ten minutes.
Shite. Fucking shite.
There was no sign of them.
Juliet dissipated and appeared back at the apartment.
"God fucking damn it!" Juliet said. "I fucking lost them!"
"Quick," Cassio said, "before his mind is gone."
Juliet grabbed the man's head. She closed her eyes and pulled herself inside his consciousness. Fading light encroached on her. She saw dark figures wearing cloaks and masks; the same ones she had seen on the fire escape. The fading light turned to darkness and picked at the edges of her vision. If it caught her, it would pull her into death with the man.
Just another second.
She saw a stove and a counter top. The man had been in the kitchen when they grabbed him. All she saw was the masks and cloaks. She heard the voices again, but they distorted as the darkness pulled at her mind.
Juliet opened her eyes and gasped. She took her hands off the man's head.
"Anything?"
"Nothing," Juliet said. "Just the same two people I saw on the roof with the cloaks and masks. The voices were right there. Shite, I lost them."
Cassio had taken a towel from the bathroom and laid it over the man's body.
We need Moody.
Juliet dissipated and appeared in Moody's apartment in Edinburgh, tripping over the table in his kitchen. She collapsed on the floor, exhausted from the jump. She was covered with the dead man's blood and dirt from the street. Her palms, legs, and clothes were torn from her collision with the asphalt.
Moody bent down and took her shoulders. "What happened?"
"Another killing," Juliet panted.
"Where?"
"London," she said. "Not far from Kennington Station."
"Don't move," Moody said, holding her.
They appeared in a park.
Juliet's mind tossed. She threw up on the grass.
"Which way?"
"I don't know," she said, "where are we?"
"Burgess Park."
"I can jump us." Juliet grabbed Moody's arm before he could protest.
They appeared in the apartment. Juliet fell on the floor.
Moody looked at the body and Cassio.
"When?"
"Fifteen minutes ago," Cassio said. "We interrupted the killers. Juliet chased them."
"We were so fucking close! I lost them." Her body shook and she tried to stay conscious.
"Did you see their faces? Hear them?"
Juliet shook her head, now laying on the floor. "They wore cloaks and masks. We heard pieces of their conversation before we entered, but they were muffled and distorted on the other side of the door."
"Did you excavate his mind?"
"Yes," Juliet said. "He didn't see their faces either. I heard their voices right before I lost him. It was a man and a woman."
"I'll pull your memories later and see if I can get anything," Moody said.
"I fucking lost them."
Cassio looked out the window. "How many people saw you?"
"Maybe a two block radius?"
"I'll start altering memories," Cassio said and disappeared with a loud crack.
Moody checked the body. "You arrived mid-kill. How did you know?"
"We've been monitoring police reports and scanners. The man told them he was being followed last night."
"The fucking muggle police."
"He called the police so he actually had a chance of someone taking him seriously."
Moody stood over Juliet. She wasn't wrong. "How did you know he was one of ours?"
Juliet pulled herself up to a sitting position. "We've been tracking muggle-borns."
"You fucking what?" Moody almost grabbed her.
"Just Cass and me," Juliet said. "I swear, Moody, no one else knows. We're the only ones who can pick up the trace. Cass came up with the spell."
"That was reckless with the Commission Act," Moody said. He smiled. "But it fucking almost worked."
"Until I lost them."
"How did you find muggle-borns to trace?"
"Cass came up with the spell so we could watch our sister, Rosalind. She's been living back in the muggle world with her husband and we were worried, with her pregnant and all. So, we put a trace on her and started checking in on her. I thought, why not do it for more muggle-borns? So, we started casting our trace on any muggle-borns we encountered. Cass set the trace so it doesn't work on wizard-borns or half-bloods. It made it easy to isolate them. Then, we decided to cast a trace spell over Diagon Alley a few times a week and pick up whoever we could. That's how we found this man," Juliet said. "All we had to do next was identify them and cross-check police reports."
Juliet's hair was knotted, loose, and hung in her face.
"It's a brilliant strategy," Moody said, "but if anyone finds out what you've done-"
"I know," Juliet said. "We're careful. We haven't told anyone, not even Burke. I swear we won't."
"You better fucking not."
"We had to do something, Moody. They are fucking slaughtering us out here."
"I know," Moody said. He helped her stand. "When you can walk, start altering memories with Cassio. I'll clean up here and inform Burke and Bagnold."
"No," Juliet said, "I want to report it. I don't want them thinking I just keep running to you, even though I do. I won't tell them about the traces. I'll just say we've been listening to police reports and following leads. It's the truth."
"Good fucking work."
Moody waved his wand and cleaned up the blood on the floor. He lifted the man's body in the air and wrapped it.
Juliet walked through the hole in the wall, slow and careful not to fall, and waved her wand.
"Reparo."
The fractured wood framing collected itself and fused back together. The plaster and insulation multiplied like bacteria.
Juliet stood over the woman on the floor.
"Rennervate."
The woman sat up and opened her eyes. "Don't hurt me! For the love of-"
"Obliviate." The woman's face went blank.
"Now, you were just about to make dinner. And you never saw me. In fact, the last thirty minutes passed without you realizing," Juliet said. She went to the television and turned it on. "You were just watching the news here on the telly."
Juliet closed the woman's apartment door behind her and walked down the hallway, heading to the street to find her twin.
