[6]

Seven fifteen. The evening city traffic had slowed me down and made me run late for meeting Louise (not to mention the unexpected battle with a Vampire). The cabby pulled up outside the steak house where I paid him the fare and ran for the door. As I came into the restaurant I got several strange looks from the staff; to be honest it's something I'd become used to. Being a Wizard is not a very glamorous profession. The young waitress who stood at the entrance podium didn't quite know how to react to a man frantically running through the door, cut and bruised, but she made an effort to put on her best customer service smile. I reached the podium and did a quick scan of the tables for Louise and found her sitting at a booth along the restaurant window. She was wearing exactly the same outfit that I had seen her in earlier except this time she had tied her brown hair back in a ponytail, allowing her features to be fully displayed. Louise noticed me and waved me over. I may have been imagining it, but I could have sworn that I saw the waitress physically relax a little, as if some what relieved that she didn't have to serve me.
But like I said, maybe I was just being paranoid…again.
Regardless of my paranoia, the waitress smiled, handed me a menu and waved me through.
"Sorry I'm late," I said to Louise as I approached her.
Her eyes widened as I sat down, noticing my injuries. "What happened?"
"I guess news spread about my new assignment," I said, trying my hardest to be casual about the whole situation. I could see the worry in her eyes and it wouldn't help her if I started to fall apart. "I had an unexpected visitor when I stopped by my flat; hegot in a luck shot."
"What happened to the other guy?" she asked.
"Oh I'm sure he's in the wind by now," I responded and technically speaking, that's pretty accurate. "But don't worry about it. He won't be hurting anyone else."
Slowly, Louise seemed to relax a little. She sat back and reached down grabbing up and large stack of files, each of them full, and placed them on the table.
"Right, well, speaking of your new assignment, here's everything I've been able to find on current missing persons cases. But everything I have here," she placed her hand on top of the pile of files as she spoke. "It's out of context until I know what's going on." She kept her gaze on me as I looked down at her hand resting on the stack.
"I know I've kept my distance from everything involving this part of your life, but if things are as bad as you say they are, then you're going to need all the help you can get. So Gabe," I looked up to briefly meet her gaze. "Tell me everything you know."
So I did. I told her everything.
I told her about the Council, the Wardens, the Vampires, the war and everything in between. She sat there taking in all this new information, asking only a few logical questions with the detached methodology of a trained investigator. Occasionally her tough cop shell would crack and she would let slip a micro-expression of shock or amazement, but they were so slight that you would never have known if you didn't know her. In amongst it all a waiter came and took our order, served us some drinks and eventually our food, and all the while I continued to tell Louise the whole story.
"And so this is where I am currently," I said, finally bringing her to speed with the events of today, whilst cutting into the remaining part of my steak. "Trying to find this Icarus Charm before the Vampires can escape with it and find some way to make the entire Red Court immune to sunlight."
Louise said nothing for a moment, sorting through all the new information in her mind, whilst taking a drink from her wine glass. She placed the glass back on the table and began sifting through the files.
"Ok. So I looked through reports from the past forty eight hours like you asked, flagging any alerts relating to missing people." Louise said as she began to explain. "Now officially people aren't classed as actually missing until after they have been out of contact for forty eight hours, but all the potential cases are still recorded."
"Just in case they're needed later I assume." I added.
"Exactly. Now there were an unusually high number of calls logged in Edinburgh around the day you say this meeting went down at Hogwarts…"
"It's not Hogwarts." I exclaimed much to Louise's amusement.
"But from there, there is a steady stream of calls, of people filing missing person reports heading down through the country. It starts in Edinburgh, then after a break the next increase in reports looks to be from Newcastle. Then things become more rapid, with increased reports coming in from Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Northampton, Luton and then finally a staggeringly increased amount from London."
It's hard not to be smug when you're always right about something. And I was spot on about chasing missing person reports.
"The thing I don't get is why did they hit the bigger cities?"
"People disappear all the time in the big cities," I answered. "There's less chance of their vanishing act drawing attention. Smaller towns have a greater sense of community togetherness, more chance of the Vampires becoming noticed."
Louise sat in silence for a moment looking down at the files.
"These numbers are staggering," she finally said after a full minute. "How were they able to take this many people in such a short amount of time?"
"It's what they do," I answered, a sickening shiver dancing down my spine. "I imagine they must have started out only taking one or two people off the street, keeping a low profile. But the more they tried to blend in and the further they were going, the more their hunger required sating. But these guys were sloppy. I mean the sheer rate of calls that flooded in this quickly, that's amateur hour behaviour. They must have been really desperate."
I let the silence hang for a moment, allowing the picture of what I have to deal with sink in. For a minute or two Louise didn't speak, didn't even attempt to make eye contact. There was a hell of a lot of information being thrown at her, even without having the added bonus of my current troubles. I finished off the rest of my coke and once again started looking through the police reports, trying to find some sort of clue or if any sort of pattern would emerge that could lead me in the right direction. Maybe it was the day I'd had or maybe it was because I'm just not as smart as I think I am, but I just couldn't see anything. Frustration built up inside me. I was against the clock, the Vampires had a huge head start and I was no closer to finding where the bastards were than I was this morning when McCoy first told me about the Charm.
"London City Airport."
"What?" I said as I looked up from the stack of paper in my hands. Louise was looking at me, her features set in an expression of worry. I guess my annoyance wasn't as concealed as I thought it was.
"London City Airport." she said again. Surprisingly, that didn't make it any clearer.
"What about it?"
"That's where I think you'll find them. There are a few warehouses on Hartmann road that are currently in use as storage for the airport. They're big and dark enough for them to hide away during the day. I checked through the call logs twice. Even as I was leaving the station to get here we were still getting calls from some worried parents who 'just know something is wrong'. They all lead up to and around the area, but we haven't got any reports from beyond that side of the city."
"It also matches up with the American Vampires that arrived the other day." I interrupted, thinking out loud. "Our group would be close enough that they could quietly pass on the Charm to our transatlantic friends and they'd be able to fly away quickly and without suspicion."
And just like that, everything was starting to fall into place. But there was still something that bugged me and I just couldn't put my finger on it. Louise looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Transatlantic friends?" she asked.
"I've heard from a source that two American Vampires, possibly politicians, arrived in the country a couple of day ago."
"A couple of days ago? You don't mean Senator Larson and his aid?"
"You know about them?"
"Of course I do," she responded. "I was there when they landed. I helped set up the protective detail guarding them until they leave. Are you trying to tell me that these guys are Vampires?" You couldn't miss the shock in her voice. Louise looked at me and tried to find something in my expression that told her I was mistaken or lying."
I give her a level look, kept my tone steady and said, "You tell me. Was there sunlight when the landed?"
Louise opened her mouth to speak but quickly closed it again. I could see in her eyes that she was filing through her memories.
"That doesn't necessarily make them Vampires," she said. "It was just a late arrival."
"Come one Lou. Think over everything I've just told you about the Red Court. Can you honestly say, looking back, that there was nothing about them that doesn't fit with what I have said?"
Louise began to cycle through her thoughts, comparing them with the information I had provided her with. I sat patiently, it wouldn't have been right for me to try and pressure an answer out of her. This was all still new to Louise, she needed to work things out for herself. After a minute she slowly rested her forehead in the palm of her left hand and sighed. "Shit."
"You didn't know." I said in the most reassuring way I knew how.
Louise was quiet and after a moment she looked back at me, her eyes filled with anger and frustration.
"That doesn't change the fact," she said, her voice cold and hard. "That I helped with the arrangement of protecting two monstrous lunatics."
"Blaming yourself isn't going to change anything." I told her. "We can only act on the information that's in front of us. Just because you didn't have all of the information at the time doesn't make what you did wrong, it just means that you weren't able to make a fully informed decision. The question is now that you have all the information, what are you going to do with it?"
She sat there in silence for a minute longer before she said, "I'm going to help stop them. That's the least I can do."
She tried to hide it but I could hear the pain in her voice. For Louise, working for the police was more than just a job. She wanted to help people. The fact that she unknowingly let two Red Court Vampires free to do God knows what, would eat away at her and if anyone was to get hurt because of that...
It's what made her so good at her job, she cares.
"What can you tell me about them?" I asked, trying to get her mind focused on something other than blaming herself.
"Senator Matthew Larson of New York and his aid Daniel Haywater. They arrived two days ago to help promote the continuing goodwill between the United States and Great Britain. From what I can remember of their itinerary, their stay is just a fancy P.R stunt. To anyone else it is just a run of the mill visit."
"That happens to co-inside with the theft of the Icarus Charm." I added. "When are they due to leave?"
"They fly back to America tomorrow, around seven a.m."
I was quiet for a moment while I thought about that. They had already been in the country for a couple of days now. They had a head start on me and yet they were still here. That's what was bugging me. That was the only piece of the puzzle that didn't fit.
"Why have the waited around?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"What do you mean?"
"Well the American Vampires have already been here for a couple of days. They've had plenty of time to handover the Charm and get back on their jet and fly back to hide under whatever star spangled rock they crawled out from. That's the only part that doesn't make any sense."
Louise sat back in her chair frowning, thinking about the situation. She may be a trained investigator but this was leaps and bounds outside of her comfort zone. Don't get me wrong, she was handling herself like a champ considering all the information I'd thrown at her tonight, but even still, she sat there thinking up a proverbial storm about what we could do next. What I needed was some way of keeping the Vampires grounded just a little while longer, to take away their exit strategy. Then suddenly an idea hit me, as if a light had been switched on to clear away the fog. Only problem was, Louise wasn't going to like it.
"I have an idea but you probably won't like it." I said thinking it was only fair to pre-warn her.
"Ok…" she responded hesitantly.
"I need you to stall them. Find some way of keeping them on the ground."
"Stall them?" she said, disbelief hanging on the edge of her voice. See, I said she wouldn't like it.
"The fact that they haven't left yet bugs me, but I don't want to give them the chance to actually get away."
"Well maybe they are still here because they have to keep up appearances." Louise suggested.
"Maybe but I don't think so," I replied. "I think there is something big going down and this is just a small part of it."
Louise sighed, shaking her head in admittance of defeat.
"Ok," she said. "I'll head back to my desk put in another few hours and then say that we got a tip about a bomb scare or something to hold up any flights. I can't promise anyone will listen but I'll try."
I reached across the table and placed my hand gently on top of Louise's.
"That's all I can ask for. Thank you."
She smiled back at me before grabbing her coat and bag and heading for the exit. I watched quietly as she left the restaurant and then once again began looking through the information Lou had provided. They were all detailed reports from worried and anxious family members trying desperately to find their missing loved ones. Being so drawn into the files I didn't realised that I'd clenched my right hand into a hard fist. So much so in fact, that not only had my knuckles turned white but my nails were also biting into the palm of my hand. I forced myself to calm down and my hand slowly relaxed itself. I had been fighting the Vampires for years but they still found new ways to make me sick with rage. It didn't seem to matter how many of them I killed, there was always more to fill the void I had created.
On or off, official or otherwise, this war had gone on long enough. It was time to find a way to end it.
But first I needed to deal with this Matthew Larson and his band of thieves.