++++++ Timeline wise this takes place after the Undertaking and before season two of Arrow starts.

So this means the Arrow and Shade are NOT in Starling at this time.

I hope you enjoy.

I do not own ++++++

Eight

John and Chas had left the bunker the following morning for some job in Florida so Zed stuck her hand up to come to Starling City with me. The place was big on reporting news on this vigilante dressed in green calling himself the Hood and his partner, a woman calling herself Shade.

We'd arrived in Starling City not long after a part of their city called the Glades was almost destroyed by a psychotic billionaire. The souls of those who had died were hovering around the city, screaming for their loved ones to hear them. The spiritual plane was infested with spirits who had died wrongfully.

God this place was going to need a good cleansing before we left otherwise those spirits would turn violent.

"So who exactly are you looking for?" Zed asked me as I stared at a map of the wall of the train station.

"Some place that can tell me anything about this guy, Leonardo Vincent," I answered. "He's not in any book and his name doesn't come up on the internet." I dug the card out of my pocket and handed it to her. "Can you get anything off it?"

Zed took the card, she was silent for a minute and then shook her head. "Nothing. This card is old Tessa, like really old. Are you sure they guy is here anymore?"

I shrugged. "Could be. Could not be. I imagine this is how Constantine does his investigations-blindly."

She sniggered. "You don't know how right you are. What about City Hall? She suggested. "You could speak to someone in the records department and see if they can find him. Someone dealing in ancient antiques would have to have a business license."

I rolled my eyes. "See this is why I need someone with me. I usually just hit things. The brains are Talia's thing." It was odd, I hadn't seen the ghost of my sister in over a day now-it was like she was hiding from me. I studied the map and found a small icon of city hall. "Is there a smaller brochure or something?"

Zed waved it in my face chuckling. "Way ahead of you." The two of us headed out of the train station and out the front where a taxi was waiting. After a quick chat to the driver, he was happy enough to drive us to city hall.

"You know I was thinking brick not glass," I mused as we got out of the taxi. "Imagine if someone got pissed and threw a rock through the window."

"And you would do that?" I was asked. From the side, a copper approached us with an angry look on his face. "The discussion of public vandalism isn't the best way to start the day, miss."

"She was just pointing out the architectural flaws," Zed objected. "Not like we were gonna do anything. But whilst we have you here, do you know anyone by this name?" she asked, handing the copper the card we were working off.

The copper paused and read over the card. "Never heard of him. I don't exactly look like the type to dabble in ancient antiques."

"Despite looking like you were born in ancient Rome," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that miss?" he asked.

"Nothing!" Zed cut in. "It was nothing! My friend here has a big mouth! Do you know where we could find someone who knows this guy?" she inquired. "We figured city hall would be perfect but you might know someone else."

"What do you want this guy for anyway?" he inquired. "You two don't exactly look like the type to be chasing down antiques." He looked us over carefully and handed Zed back the card.

"Half-brother," I shrugged. "Dad slept around bit."

"Keep your noise out of trouble and we'll be fine," he warned us. "You'll be looking for the records department. Jenny there is a good girl. Don't get her into trouble."

I rolled my eyes and waltzed inside.

"Ah-thank you, Officer Lance," Zed smiled. She ran after me and after a few stuff ups, we eventually found ourselves in the record department with a mousy, middle aged woman eating a doughnut. "Are you Jenny?" Zed asked with a smile.

The receptionist looked up. "Who are you?"

"Officer Lance said you might be able to help us," Zed answered, dropping the coppers name. "My name is Zed Martin and this here is my friend Tessa Morgan. Tessa's mum has just passed and she had the card of man called Leonardo Vincent in her things."

She huffed. "Mr Vincent…he's a popular man today. There was a man asking for him earlier and as I told him Mr Vincent is at the house of Malcolm Merlyn cataloguing his belongings for Saint Sebastian's Auction House."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you know this how?"

"Because I had to chase him up with his secretary," she huffed. "I'm incredibly busy so do you mind leaving me alone?"

"Yeah you look real busy shoving that pastry in your gob!" I snapped. I turned and walked out in a hurry giving Zed no choice but to follow me.

"I can get in there," I informed Zed beside me as we stood in the bushes around the back of the mansion.

"And what am I?" Zed demanded to know. "Chopped liver?"

"Can you fight a demon?" I asked her. "Exorcise it? Speak fluent Enochian? Kick ass and take names? Cause in a fight the ability to see the future and read minds is as useless as a priest in a brothel."

Zed raised an eyebrow "Or we could waltz in the front door?" she suggested, pointing to the open gates. "There are people wandering through the house appraising the art and various shit inside."

I stared at her. "Or there's that. If you ask me it's a tad anti-climactic. I was hoping for a full Mission Impossible sequence."

Zed rolled her eyes at me as I started humming the theme for Mission Impossible. She grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the front gate where a security guard was waiting. "Mary Martin and Tessa Morgan from Constantine and Chandler Antiques."

The guard frowned. He looked down at the clipboard. "I don't have you on the list."

"I'm British," I announced. "My girlfriend and I were on a vacation when we heard the old tosser was killed so we decided to come see what we could ship back to our store in Greenwich. I don't know the procedure around here in America on the estates of the dead with no relatives." Thank you Robert!

The guard cleared his throat. "Do you have a card?"

I dug around my pocket and handed him what looked like a loyalty card for Starbucks but to the guard it was our business card. He glanced at it and waved us in.

Zed gaped at me. "What is it with magicians? Constantine did the same thing with a playing card."

"It's just enchanted paper," I shrugged. I shoved my hands in my pocket and the two of us walked in like we owned the place. "Man, how the other half live. I wish I was worth a million bucks."

"Your father is an angel," Zed muttered. "I think that's better than money."

"Yeah real better," I snorted as a woman screamed out the name Leo. Zed and I looked at each other and took off running into the next room. The woman who had screamed lay on the ground with her neck snapped. "Oh son of bitch," I groaned. I reached back for the dagger I had hidden in my pants when a blade was stabbed through the chest of the demon standing in front of us.

The body dropped on the ground, standing behind it was a guy with shaggy black hair and piercing blue eyes. He bent down and cleaned the blood off the dagger with a scowl on his sharp face. "What the bloody hell do you two want?"

"Leonardo di Vinci?" I asked.

He froze. "Who's asking?"

"My father sent me," I answered, "his name is Michael."

He raised an eyebrow and sheathed his weapon. "Just what I need, the brat of an archangel sniffing around my business. Get lost."

"Yeah never gonna happen," I snapped. "We need to talk."