Three days later, Merick was reading the Daily Prophet, he'd already read the Quibbler, when a screech owl came flying through his window, dropping a letter in his lap, turning around, and flying right back out the window.
"Already?" he muttered, opening the letter.
Dear Mr. Baelone,
You have informed me that we could contact you if we were in need of
your services, well, that time has already come. We have been informed
that a few, three for sure, wizards, at least one a Death Eater, have been
smuggling magical objects, we think mainly creature related, into the
country. We had an eyewitness report from a man working at the some
docks in Wales, and we need them stopped, who knows what
monstrosities they are bringing for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I
await your reply.
Mycroft Cossey
Mycroft Cossey
"Great, they've already got me punchin' in," he said as he stood up and walked over to the coat rack. He looked around at his home and sighed, it wasn't much. It was a moderate sized shack that he had in the Southeast English countryside. He had a living room with a chair and a television, along with all sorts of rubbish strewn about the floor. He had a kitchen with a wood burning stove/oven, a washbin, and a small table with chair, there was a faint odor and several cockroaches scuttled about. There was an outhouse a hundred feet or so from the house, and a few chickens pecked about and some geese lazily pulled at some grass. There was a somewhat kempt garden where gnomes darted around, giggling like madmen, and a jarvey could be seen weaving through the tall grass, winding towards its prey.
He put on his cloak, hat, and put his duel wands in his pockets, brushing aside the wand he kept as a trophy from his previous quarry. Once outside, he took out a cigarette, and snapped his fingers, igniting the tip. He slowly drew on it and let the smoke drift out of his mouth. He looked at his watch, it was 2:00 PM, he had yet to eat. To hell with it, he thought, taking another drag.
Merick walked over to a tall oak and whistled, while ripping off a corner of the parchment and feeling around for a graphite stick. A beautiful harpy eagle, which he received as a gift after a rich grandfather of his passed away (and trained like that of an owl, taking letters and such), flew down from the highest limbs and landed on the ground in front of him, staring up at him with deep, hazel eyes. He scrawled a reply saying he would, and whistled again at the eagle, and it flapped its wings and landed hard on his shoulder, causing him to stagger. He gingerly held the note in front of the beak, but the bird was hungrily eying the gnomes.
"Alistair?" Merick said, "Alistair?...Alistair!" He finally got the bird's attention. "I'd like you to take this to the Ministry of Magic. You can come home when you're done."
He waved the note, and Alistair irritably snatched the note in his beak, spread his wings, cuffed Merick painfully on the back of the head, and flew into the horizon.
He decided to finish his cigarette before he left, so he walked around a bit, glancing at the pesky gnomes, watching the geese, all the while smoking away until he came down to the filter. He took it out of his mouth, dropped it on the ground, stepped on it; ground it with his heel, and disapparated.
Merick arrived in an alley near the train station in London at around three o'clock and bought a ticket to Bangor of Snowdonia in Wales. Once there, he sought out a lavatory to relieve himself. After stepping outside, he noticed a little screech owl perched on a pub sign, a small roll of parchment tied to its foot. He looked around to see if anyone was there, there wasn't, and walked up and took the note off. Relieved of its burden, the owl took flight. The letter read:
Dear Mr. Baelone,
I thank you for accepting this mission. You must go to Holyhead,
which is on a small island off the western coast. Go to the farthest
northwestern part of the island to get to a disused harbor. We
heard that a ship carrying the "merchandise" will be arriving
around midnight. Secure the culprits, alive if you can, secure the
"merchandise," and reach us by post.
Mycroft Cossey
Mycroft Cossey
"Right…"
He went back into the alley and apparated into Holyhead and glanced around. There was not much there…a few scattered houses, a gloomy looking pub, and the disused harbor-three docks where one was rotten, another was missing more then half of the planks, but the third one looked fine, in fact…it looked perfect. It didn't seem likely that this rundown hellhole of a town would have a new dock, as everything seemed in disuse, though lights could be seen on in the pub, and smoke curled out of the houses' chimneys. He decided to go into the pub and put down a few pints.
Merick opened the rusty door, and peered around. There was one guy wiping down a table, and one guy seated at the bar, head on the counter, obviously passed out. He sat down a few stools away from the other guy and waited patiently for the barkeep to return from his duties. He glanced at his watch, 6:30, five hours until he figured he'd need to head out and wait. The bartender finally came over, setting down the rag and saying in an unusually jovial voice "What'll it be?"
"What d'ya got?"
"We've got beer, whiskey, anything to make you forget your life."
"I'll have a beer."
The bartender brought him one, and then headed back to wiping tables. Merick sipped on his beer a while, then he walked over to the dusty television in the corner and pondered at it for a small while. He glanced at the bartender, whose back was turned, and then at the guy passed out at the bar, still snoozing away, then quickly took his wand out and tapped it on the top. It turned on and Merick walked back to his stool, watching the image. It was some show where some guy with white hair told people an answer to a question, and then they had to reply with a question…it was weird. Then he watched a marathon of some show where law enforcement drove around and stopped crimes.
After the last show, Merick looked at his watch, 11:40 PM. Shit! he thought, I wanted to leave at 11:30. He asked the barkeep what his tab was, and then dug around in his pockets looking for pounds to pay with.
"That'll be ₤7.92."
"Here you go," Merick handed the barkeep a 5 and three 1 pound notes and said, "keep the change."
Merick stood up and headed for the door. The passed out man was still there, drool now emanating from his mouth, pooling on the counter. Merick opened the door and stumbled outside into the brisk night. How many beers did I have? It could only have been like…four he thought, wincing at the brightness of the flickering streetlamp. He looked over at the unnaturally perfect dock, then around the streets, not a soul out or about. He walked over to the dock, sat on a barrel, and lit a cigarette.
Then, Merick saw something strange. Through the thick fog covering the harbor, he saw a greenish-emerald light faintly dancing across the cloud. He was mesmerized by it, it got brighter and twisted and writhed even more, like an aurora borealis; it was hypnotizing. The cigarette rolled and fell out of his lips, onto the back of his hand.
"SHIT!" Merick exclaimed, he rushed over to the water and dunked his hand in. It still stung when he looked back at the green light, there was now a bit more shape. He noticed certain patches of the light. There were two somewhat circular patches, a triangular shaped patch, and a longer rectangular patch. But the light never remained steady, like the reflection off of water. Then a small breeze came up and some of the fog cleared, and he finally realized where the light was coming from.
The light was coming from a rather large skull, perhaps that of a giant, acting as a lantern, mounted on the bow of a merchant sailing ship. It projected an eerie green light out in front through the eye and nose holes and through the gaps of the teeth in the jaw.
Then Merick heard voices behind him and glanced at any possible hiding spots, but went into the water after deciding the other spots weren't that good. He eased in until he was up to his neck, then tiptoed slowly over to the pier and grabbed one of the slimy posts. He started making his way over to where the ship would dock, which was at the very end, being careful to stay up to his ears and behind the posts, he tried not to think what creatures lurked below his feet, what would swim up and snatch him and bring him to the depths he couldn't escape.
He continued forward, trying to shake those thoughts out of his mind. He stopped about five planks short of the end and waited, bringing his ears out of the water. The ship furrowed its sails and a man bent over tapping the deck with something, and the ship turned and the starboard side bumped gently on the end, making the post Merick was grasping to shudder. He heard footsteps above and two men talking in hushed voices.
He eased forward a bit more so he was directly under the last few planks, and clearly saw something serpentine swimming in the skull.
The two men reached the end of the pier and waited, the cloaked man on the ship threw them a few ropes. They tied them around some posts and helped the man climb onto the dock. Then Merick remembered some trinket he found when he was in Diagon Alley. He slowly put his hand into his pocket and found it, what seemed like a piece of flesh colored string. He carefully brought his hand out of the water and slipped one end into his right ear, then carefully grabbed the top of a post and brought himself up near the gaps of the plank, where the string extended and rested in one of the knots in the planks. He slowly eased himself back in the water, and the string stretched a bit more, finally, he was back up to his ears in water, but the string allowed him to hear clearly what they were saying.
"-and he appreciates your treachery, though he…never mind."
"Whatever, just, where's the money? And none of this gold coin crap, people don't take that," one of the two said. That voice sounded familiar…THE BARKEEP! He was one of the muggles helping this Death Eater.
"Here, all your muggle currency that The Dark Lord will allow you, don't forget, we also brought some…merchandise that you wanted, so we deducted that from your pay, and this is our last shipment, we won't be employing you in the future."
"Let's just hurry up and do this. I had someone at the bar not twenty minutes ago, he seemed a little wasted, I don't want him to see us and report us."
"Just leave him to me."
For the next twenty minutes, the men unloaded boxes and crates off of the ship. Only one of them came back from the last trip, and Merick saw it was one of the muggles.
"Who does this blighter think he is? Is he part of some cult? Is he gonna take everything out of the back room, I don't wanna get caught with all that-that-that…stuff, whatever the hell it is," he said to himself, still walking towards the ship. Then he stepped on the string Merick had deployed, sending a throbbing thump to Merick's head, causing him to cry out in pain. The man stopped immediately in his tracks and nervously looked around. He then turned around and started sprinting down the pier, back to the bar. Son of a bitch Merick thought, trying to pull one of his wands out. He finally got it out and pushed off into the open water.