Chapter 27: Christmas Crimes (Part 2)
"Okay, I think… this will do," I muttered as I looked over my stock of magical items. There were potions, but I was hesitant to bring them with me. Too fragile. I still put a few potions into small plastic bottles just because they were too useful to not bring with me, and the plastic containers were better than nothing, even if – for reasons I still couldn't figure out – the potions would degrade in effectiveness over the course of a few hours due to not being stored in glass.
'I'll have to splurge and get some vials with Unbreakable charms on them,' I mused, thinking of the future for a moment. 'My best bets are the runic artifacts and Ofuda.'
The former were items I'd carved with runes to do various tasks. I even had a few that were basically magical bombs. Toss 'em and forget about 'em. Same for the Ofuda, which were Japanese talismans inscribed with a unique rune language based on Japan's Kanji.
The ink used to inscribe the magical arrays had been mixed with a few potions and my own blood, to provide the magical energy necessary to even use them. But they were more versatile than the runic devices, as I'd been able to make Sealing type Ofuda that were basically one-use stunners. And a couple Fire type that would set whatever they attached to on fire.
I gathered them all up, in the end. Better to have them than not need them. Only ten of each, though.
My runic rings would be going with me as well, but I also put on a pair of fake glasses that I considered to be my best work yet.
They had a trio of potent spells woven into them; a Bubble Head charm, a Shield Charm centered around the head and neck that was anchored to the Bubble Head charm to protect me like a transparent astronaut's helmet, and a facial obscuring hex that made it hard to identify me so long as I was wearing said glasses. It sadly wouldn't fool cameras or electronic videos, but that was a problem for another day to be dealt with.
What it would do was protect me against being shot in the head. I'd gotten lucky earlier with the gunman choosing to pop a round in my enchanted suit instead of my face, but I wasn't going to let that happen again.
'Oh, and I'll be able to breath underwater or in a smoke-filled room, so that's also nice,' I mused as I adjusted them. It felt weird to wear glasses, as I'd never needed them in my previous life either, but I would put up with the discomfort.
'Perhaps a Cushioning charm on the bridge of the nose?' I pondered to myself.
I then slid a couple bundles of Stunner Ofuda into a pair of modified faux-leather deck holders. They were originally designed to hold a deck of cards each, but I had added straps so they could hang off my belt or across my chest, bandolier style. This way, I could draw my paper talismans with ease.
A pair of sturdy hiking boots was next. A Cushioning charm rune set kept them nice and comfy, while also letting me jump and land on me feet without breaking my legs, at least from a height of ten feet or less. And of course there was a Muffling charm to hide any noise I could make.
Gloves were next. These were my most offensive runic creations besides the rune bombs. Made of greyish Mountain Troll hide, I had woven ancient runes for Great Strength onto them, making me capable of lifting close to a thousand pounds with them. And punching with as much force. If I hit somebody at full strength, they would be lucky to only get bruises, and not broken bones.
Last but not least, I got out my bag of fortune telling bones. You never knew when a bit of Divination could come in handy, and I'd been getting better at using this particular method of observing the future. I tied the velvet bag full of knuckle bones to my belt, ready to use them at a moment's notice.
There was a dangerous amount of magic in my combat outfit, not to mention all the magical modifications in my muggle items, which was technically illegal since I planned on using it against other muggles, and if I was caught by an auror carrying even half of this stuff, I'd be thrown in Azkaban faster than you can say 'Dementor!'
But I didn't care that there was a fiendish amount of power at my fingertips, nor that it was illegal to even try and fight against muggles with it. I was going to save Delilah without hesitation!
As I was getting my battle supplies ready, Inky popped back in with a remorseful look on his face.
"Inky is sorry, Young Master Eddy," the Hunch family House Elf apologized. "Inky could not use the bullet to trace the bad muggles."
"Hmm, it's alright, Inky, it was a long shot anyways," I said with a sigh. "Did you find any of the kidnapped victim's hair, at least?"
"Inky did," the House Elf proclaimed, proudly holding up a single silver strand.
"Good," I muttered, and began to prepare a special potion. This one used up a good chunk of my available magical ingredients, but when I was done, I had a Tracking Potion.
I dropped Delilah's hair into the potion, where it sizzled and went from a murky brown to a bright silver-white. Then, it started to glow yellow.
I poured the potion into a bottle, and held it up to the light. The Tracking Potion was sort of like Sting from the Hobbit. It glowed in the presence of the person it was tracking. I would be using it as a poor man's Tracking Spell to divine her location.
Next, I spread out a map of London, and placed a single drop of the Tracking Potion onto each of the knuckle bone dice. It would take too long to wander about a city like London holding a bottle in one hand and waiting for it to glow brighter as it got closer to Delilah's position, so I was going to have to do a bit of old fashioned Divination work.
"Find Delilah Hunt," I intoned solemnly, tossing the dice across the map. I noted the spots they landed, and wrote down the symbols on the face of the corresponding dice.
"Hmm, no luck," I muttered in annoyance.
It took a few more tosses and half the Tracking Potion before I finally got an exact answer out of the finicky Divination tools. One of my special bone dice had the words 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Maybe' carved onto its faces, and I grinned madly as I saw that I'd finally narrowed down Delilah's position.
"Here," I uttered, looking at the building my die had landed 'Yes' side up on.
I quickly got out a silver bowl and filled it with water and the last of the Tracking Potion, save a single silver droplet that I carefully stored in a crystal vial. Using the unicorn horn stirring stick, I stirred the contents together to create a crude Scrying effect. In the ripples of the bowl, I could catch glimpses of Delilah. She was trapped. It was hard to tell, but I could make out ropes. And a chair?
There were men. Angry men. I saw a gun being brandished. The contents of the bowl suddenly turned milky white before I could see any more, and I frowned.
"Damn, ran out of power," I grunted in annoyance. "Still, at least I know where she is, now, and that she's alright."
Using the British equivalent of the Yellow Pages to track down the address of the building revealed to me the address my fortune telling dice had landed on was an office building in downtown London.
"There we go," I muttered, a finger running over the address. "The Marlin Building. Has offices that it rents out to a bunch of different companies. Hmm. No time to do a deep investigation. I'll just have to rely on the dregs of the Tracking Potion."
I then turned to Inky. "How close can you get me to this building?" I asked, pointing out the location on the map. In response, the elderly House Elf pointed to a spot that was about four blocks away.
"Alright, then, do it," I commanded, and Inky snapped his fingers, teleporting the both of us away from the apartment.
We appeared in downtown London, hidden in a filthy alleyway that smelled horrific, and that was with the Bubblehead charm on my glasses active!
Grimacing, I glanced down at Inky, who was giving the alleyway an offended look.
"Alright, Inky, I have a few more commands for you," I told him. "When I go in, I want you to protect Delilah, the silver-haired woman that was captured. You are free to do whatever you wish to ensure her safety."
Inky nodded in understanding, and I grinned a bit in relief that he didn't say anything against the order. There were Rules that House Elves had to follow. And that was 'Rules' with a capital 'R.' One major Rule was that House Elves couldn't strike or otherwise try to harm a human, magical or otherwise, with magic, so long as they were bound to a family.
There were ways around this rule, obviously, or Dobby couldn't have – or technically wouldn't be able to, since it was yet to happen in this timeline – enchant the Bludger in Harry's Second Year. In that case, the fact was that Dobby was trying to hurt Harry Potter to save him. A bit of a stretch, but since it worked, that meant Dobby's own magic viewed the threat the Horcrux diary possessed to be great enough that a broken body was acceptable if it meant saving Harry's life.
This meant I could not use Inky to punish the kidnappers, but I could use him to keep the girl safe. There was also another Rule, albeit a lesser one, more of a taboo than a magical enforced order, that stated House Elves couldn't be seen by anyone other than the family they served. Only if their master called for them could a House Elf be seen by guests. Again, easily worked around.
But the main reason I couldn't use Inky to pop in and rescue Delilah and save myself the trouble and danger was the ancient Rule of Guest Rights, a magical law older than the House Elves themselves. Just as vampires cannot enter a building without an invitation, so too can a House Elf not act in another person's home without permission from an owner of said building. And an office building was just enough of a grey area for this Rule that all I could do was have Inky protect Delilah, and that was only possible thanks to Delilah herself being an unwilling 'guest' of the office building in the first place.
Dobby had skirted this law himself when he'd messed with Harry's mail and his aunt and uncle's home by using some very sketchy legal loopholes in the Rules. Loopholes that honestly couldn't have been done by a sane elf. And Dobby was practically insane by House Elf standards already, plus I couldn't put it past the Malfoy's tortured House Elf that the punishments inflicted on him by the Malfoys had weakened the bond between them, leaving him demented and just free enough to be able to bend the Rules so thoroughly.
Taking a deep breath, I strode through the dark and cold streets towards the Marlin Building, righteous fury burning in my chest and keeping me warm alongside my runic enchantments.
As we got close, I took out a potion bottle – one of the few I'd bothered to take with me – and took a deep swig of the oddly tasteless liquid. The next thing I knew, and I was able to see, hear, smell, and even taste everything far better than I usually could. It wasn't a full hundred percent increase for my senses, not with the potion ingredients I had access to, but it wasn't less than fifty percent, either.
With sharper eyes, I could see a few street cameras watching the building as well as a light in one of the upper windows, as well as a thin wisp of smoke from a cigarette drifting out of an alleyway.
I approached, and saw a man taking a smoke break outside near the Marlin Building. He was a tall man with wide shoulders and looked like he had played some rugby in the past what with his broken nose.
I wasn't sure if he was an actual security guard for the building, or if he was working with the kidnappers, as he wasn't wearing any uniform that I could see under his thick winter jacket, but he did have something that made me worried. A gun, stuffed down the back of his pants that I could just barely see with my enhanced vision.
"Is this man with the ones who kidnapped Delilah?" I asked, taking a rune-bone out of the pouch and tossing it on the sidewalk.
The man heard the clatter of the die and looked my way, frowning, but I ignored him as I bent down to inspect it.
'YES' said the fortune-telling die, and I sighed and shook my head as I picked it up.
"Hey, buddy, move along," the smoker told me, but faster than he could react, I twisted my runic ring and drew out an Ofuda, throwing it at him like it was a playing card. Magic crackled to life within the ink as it flew, the Ofuda talisman somehow recognizing it was time to be used (likely by reading my intent as I tossed it) and after less than a second it seemed to turn into a miniature red lightning bolt that zipped through the air before striking the guard's chest with a "Pop!"
He fell, stunned, and after returning my perception of time back to normal, I walked over to him, nudging the man with my boot. He didn't budge, and I checked the talisman that had struck him. It had burnt up upon activation, and all that was left was a bit of ash stuck to his jacket and a scorch mark on said jacket.
I checked his pulse. He was alive. Unconscious, but that was fine. I then rummaged through his pockets, trying to find something useful. I took his gun, of course. It was crazy hard to get a gun in England and I wasn't going to pass up the chance to fiddle around with one. Ideas for runic or potion enhanced bullets danced through my mind.
Alongside a crumpled packet of cigarettes and some gum, I also discovered a keycard, which was hopefully for the door he'd been guarding, and his wallet.
'Well, I'm already acting like a mugger, might as well go the whole nine-yards,' I thought with amusement, stealing the wad of cash he'd had on him at the time.
Once I was done looting his body, I tried the keycard on the slot on the door, and what do you know, it clicked open!
'This feels too easy,' I thought nervously as I stepped inside, but quickly shook my head to clear that thought away. 'No, don't be paranoid!'
After mentally scolding myself, I moved in through the building until I reached the stairs. They were unlocked, and I took them, choosing to ignore the elevators because they were too loud and obvious.
Entering the stairwell, I held out the crystal vial with that last remaining drop of Tracking Potion, and watched as the bead of liquid within glowed brighter when I held it up to the ceiling. Using it as a guide, I followed it up.
Eventually I came to the landing of the third floor, where the glow was brightest. I double-checked by going to the fourth floor's landing, but when it dimmed, I knew she was being held somewhere below.
The staircase's door opened easily at my touch without so much as a creak or groan. Looking about, the third floor consisted of row upon row of offices, with sturdy wooden doors decorated with brass name plaques.
"She's in here somewhere,' I mused to myself, watching the Tracking Potion start to pulse as it got closer to Delilah.
I walked around for a bit, but after peeking around a corner, I had a feeling I knew exactly where she was. The two thugs standing outside an otherwise unremarkable door was a big giveaway as to which room was currently occupied.
Two Stunner Ofuda later and the big men guarding the door dropped like rocks into the hallway.
"What was that?!" a muffled voice from the other side of the door demanded, having heard the thuds the guards had made upon falling, and when it opened, another Stunner Talisman sent him to the ground.
'Is that it?' I wondered, waiting for another person to emerge or investigate. But no, that seemed to be all of them. I sighed a moment later. I'd only had to use four Stunners.
'Honestly, I felt like I might have gone overboard with the preparation,' I thought to myself, looking down at myself in wry amusement (and a smidge of embarrassment) as I was decked out in magical gear.
'They weren't expecting me at all, that's why,' I reasoned away, before shaking those thoughts clear and walking over to now open door, stepping carefully over the unconscious kidnappers.
The interior was a waiting room with a secretary's desk in a corner that was visible as soon as you entered, and I checked the name on the door. 'Michael T. Tompson, Notary,' said the plaque.
The name meant nothing to me, so I shrugged and walked over to the other door and opened it. Delilah was inside Mr. Tompson's office, tied to a chair and looked frightened but also exhausted.
Her head snapped up to me, eyes wide and I saw she was gagged.
"It's alright…" I began, about to reach up and remove my glasses so the enchantment would fade and she'd be able to know it was me, and not someone worse, but when I looked at her, I realized her gaze wasn't on me. In fact, it had shifted to somewhere on my right.
'There's someone behind the God damn door!' I realized, adrenaline pumping through my veins and I started to turn to face the door as well as and crouch at the same time.
It wasn't enough, and someone who'd been hiding behind the door when I opened it fired through the flimsy wood, hitting me in the chest twice, once in the right arm I'd used to open the door with, and the final shot going wide and missing me completely.
I staggered back, left hand catching onto the doorframe so I didn't fall, but it was a close thing. My breath had been driven from my lungs, and my chest and right arm hurt. Like, Bone Breaker Curse hurt, not Stinging Hex hurt. Trust me, I knew the difference thanks to my father.
The bullets did not pierce my rune-reinforced suit, which was the only saving grace, but it still felt like some bones had been cracked by the impact. Bruised at the very least!
"What did you expect?' my snarky internal thoughts demanded as I reached for an Ofuda from my holster. 'It's a freaking bullet, and it hit you point blank! Of course it was going to hurt!'
I ignored my mocking internal chastisements – which sounded far too much like Erroneous Hunch Senior for my liking – and pulled out a Stunner while using my Bullet Time Ring a second time.
Lucky I did, as the gunman who'd shot me stepped out from behind the door – probably to check if he'd killed me. When he appeared in front of me, narrowed, angry eyes slowly widening into shock at my lack of blood and bullet holes, I slapped the Ofuda onto his chest before he could react and smirked gleefully as his body convulsed as the magic flowed into him.
'That was more powerful than usual,' I wondered, then after checking my holster, realized I'd grabbed two Stunner Ofuda without noticing.
I shook my head, ignoring the mistake I'd made, and staggered over to Delilah's side, yanking the gag out of her mouth. She gasped for air, panting a bit, before giving me a confused but grateful look.
"T-thank you," she mumbled. "Who are you? How did you know where I was?"
Then, in a quieter, hopeful voice, "Did my father send you?"
"No, I'm afraid your father didn't ask for my help," I replied as I untied her from the chair. "As for how I knew where you were, and who I am, that's a longer story."
'Note to self, bring a knife next time!' I thought as I fumbled with the knotted rope. 'And maybe work on some Ofuda with the Unlocking Charm in case I ever run into any more locks. I got lucky with the dope outside carrying a keycard.'
"Well, if father didn't send you after me, who did?" Delilah asked. "Although… your voice… it sounds familiar for some reason…"
'Gonna have to work on that,' I mused. 'My glasses can block facial recognition, but can't do anything about someone who hears and remembers my voice.'
"I can't believe my father didn't even bother sending someone after me!" she said darkly, glowering at the ceiling as the ropes fell away. "Shouldn't be surprised, though."
"Um, is it because he's an asshole?" I guessed. He seemed like it from what I'd heard so far. And who else but an asshole wouldn't try and get their daughter back from kidnappers!
Delilah snorted. "That, and he's… not really my father."
"Ah," I said shortly.
"My mother swears she never slept with anybody else, but, well…" she trailed off and waved a hand at her hair. I blinked slowly, and horror dawned on me as I realized why she looked like a gender-bent Lucius Malfoy.
'He raped her mother!' I growled in my head. 'That slimy bastard!'
It fit, sadly. She was seventeen, possibly eighteen, only a bit older than me. She'd have been conceived during the height of the Dark Lord's power, and the Death Eaters had been known to do terrible things to muggles during that time.
'And with a simple Obliviate, none of their victims would ever know,' I thought to myself. 'Those that survived their attention, at least.'
Delilah heaved and sigh and looked down at herself, wincing. "Cannot believe I'm telling a total stranger this," she mumbled to herself, a note of embarrassment leaking out of her voice.
"I'll admit I'm a bit strange, but I'm no stranger," I replied, smirking a bit as I took off my glasses and let her see my face without the spell.
"You?!" she exclaimed, blinking in surprise. "Edward Rose?!"
Delilah's eyes then began to water, and she grabbed me in a crushing hug.
"You're alive! How?!" she sobbed in relief. "I saw the driver shoot you! How are you okay?!"
"Ahh!" I exclaimed in pain as her hug caused me some agony. "Ribs! Watch the ribs!"
"Oh? Oh! My God, you were shot! Again!" Delilah gasped, stepping away and looking at my chest in bewilderment. "Hang on, there's no blood…"
"Bullet proof clothes," I said smugly, before grimacing and grabbing a bottle from utility belt. I chugged the Wiggenweld Potion down, draining half the bottle before sighing as a cooling relief filled my body. If the bones really were broken, I'd have to get some Skele-grow to fix them, but for now the Healing Potion took away the pain.
"And that?" she asked, watching me curiously.
"Pain reliever," I grunted, rubbing the spot on my arm I'd been shot.
"Oh. That's good," Delilah sighed in relief.
"Well, I took care of the goons," I said, waving my hand at the unconscious kidnappers and hostage takers. "Let's get out of here."
Before she could respond, there was a screech of tires outside, and I warily peeked out, Delilah at my side. A big black van had driven up to the curb, and someone got out from the driver's side. They only took a few steps towards the building before pausing, and then they turned and began shouting at someone else in the van.
"They must have noticed the guard I knocked out," I muttered in realization.
"Um, they wouldn't happen to belong to your father, would they?" I asked hopefully as we stared out the window as several more thugs emerged from the van, all sporting handguns.
"No. No, they are not," she replied, biting her lip in worry.
"Bloody hell," I grunted in annoyance. "Looks like this won't be as easy as I hoped."
Author's Note:
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Enjoy a special early chapter! And don't worry, there will be the regularly scheduled chapter tomorrow as well!
Also, if you're interested in supporting me, please do so by checking out Akashicrecordstrue on Patty-ron where you can read chapters early, or Akashicrecords on Kofi! Every little bit helps a lot!