Annie turned and took a breath, which did nothing to calm the anxiety she felt from working with him. Instead, she took a large step, placed her hand against his chest and pushed him with such force that he tripped on the leg of the table and fell backward into the filing cabinet.
“Enough! You are nothing but a puffed-up bird. All you do is for show. Either you get a grip and do your job, or you go home. I’m sorry if you think we stepped on your toes, but I need to finish this. If you won’t help or are going to be a pain in the ass, then leave!” She dropped her hand and glared at him before heading to the first filing cabinet.
She yanked open the first drawer and began shuffling through the folders. As she searched the first name on the list for this morgue, a metal drawer opened on the other end of the cabinets. Fabien was beginning his search.
“What’s our name?” he asked quietly, as if that were a peace offering.
“Julienne Blanca, died December 15.” Annie sighed as she continued to search the names on the files.
A tense silence filled the room as a drawer was slammed shut and reverberated as another squeaked open. Papers rustled.
With more squeaking and less slamming, they continued in silence as they manually searched for the file they were after. When they each had examined their eight drawers, they met at the center of the wall.
“She should be here,” Fabien said, dejected.
Annie surveyed the table behind them. “Maybe on the desk,” she suggested.
She thumbed through the piles, odds and ends, crime scene and autopsy files. Everything seemed out of order, or in no particular order or subject matter, as if someone had stopped caring about doing a good job.
Or maybe they’re short-staffed.
The first pile held nothing important or useful to her, so she moved to the second pile, and pulled up a stack of ten folders wrapped with a thick rubber band. Attached to the top of the file was a paper covered with scribbled notes. She held her flashlight above the note as she read.
“Oh, crap,” she groaned
“What?”
“I think they’ve discovered a link,” Annie said.
Fabien read the notes from over her shoulder.
10 victims, each with two puncture marks on the neck. Blood completely drained, pooled beneath the victim.
4 victims in two locations related to the Van Alton family.
1 victim worked for the Van Altons but found in an abandoned home owned by the royal family of Amborix.
“Amelie went where she knew,” Fabien said as he and Annie took in the notes. Pulling herself away she texted Spencer, placed her phone in her pocket, and continued reading the police notes on several seemingly linked acts of murder.
“There’s a link between three of the cases. Four victims of the Van Alton family and one who worked for the family. Five other victims have puncture marks and were drained of blood. That’s Amelie. How did we not see so many vampire deaths?” Fabien asked quietly, mostly to himself.
Annie felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She picked it up, seeing Spencer’s name on the screen.
“We found something similar. Four cases, all with vampire tracks and blood drained. They haven’t said anything about the Van Altons, but then the names could be different,” Spencer told her.
“That’s a good point. Someone may have married out of the family. Louis should confirm the names. Have you heard from anyone else?” Annie asked.
“I haven’t. If you haven’t then I’m guessing no one else has found anything.”
Annie glanced at Fabien. In the last ten minutes he had visually stopped sulking; he pretended to sort through the folders while eavesdropping.
“Where are you guys?” Annie asked. Fabien turned over a sheet of paper and glanced at her from the side of his eyes.
“We’re just a little north of you,” Spencer responded.
“It sounds like maybe she stayed in conjoining regions. Family locations.” Annie watched as Fabien put a folder on the pile and straightened it. “This isn’t a coincidence. She had a plan. I’m going to call Graham, see what he wants us to do with these.”
“Call me when you’re done,” Spencer said.
After hanging up with Spencer, she said, “Anything we missed?”
“No. I think you’re right. This was a plan. What did Spencer say?” Fabien asked. Annie told him about the similarities.
“Why the Van Altons? Did Louis Van Alton know this? What was in it for Amelie?”
“I wonder the same thing. Though he seemed very upset when we found his uncle, aunt, and cousin. He was visibly shaken.”
“Then why would she target them?” Fabien asked.
“Whoever helped her… maybe that’s who gave her the targets,” Annie said, staring at her phone.
After contemplating that, she dialed Graham.
“Annie, what did you find?” he asked.
Annie explained the police notes, the link between the cases, and Spencer’s encounter with Amelie’s handiwork.
“Have everyone who finds this connection mark the folders and give me the locations. We’ll head to each morgue location and take care of what we need to,” Graham said.
“You sure you don’t want us to help with this?”
“No. This is why my team and I are here. We’ll take care of the new paper trail. Just send me the info, mark the folders, note their location, and send pictures. I need to see style, verbiage, and such. We’ll handle. Bucky and his team are waiting, and Max White will handle some other aspects for us. If we need more help, I’ll let you know.”
“It’s all okay?” Fabien asked as Annie sent a text to the entire group, giving them their instructions.
“Yeah. We have four Vampire Attack Unit members in France. Their department has over twenty other individuals on their way. We have a lot of resources at home that can get what we need. They’ll redo the folders and the evidence. They’ll take care of it so no one will ever know.”
Annie glanced at her phone, acknowledging each message as it came from the team. “Okay. Let’s magically mark these folders and take a few pictures. Then we can check our next location.”
“Where shall we start?” Fabien asked with a small grin on his face.
Chapter 27
How did France not see these vampire killings?
Annie reread the conclusions of two morgues. The mysterious deaths were related to the Van Alton family.
Why would Louis Van Alton do this? For what, money?
There was very little Van Alton money. What wealth was left was tied up in the many properties scattered across France. Louis had virtually no family left, and many of them were now dead.
Was this his plan all along?
Annie pulled her notes together and headed to the minimum security floor of the prison wing, where Louis Van Alton had been living since they arrived in Paris. Within the last several hours he had been charged as an accessory to murder as he was clearly involved in most or all of Amelie’s murders.
Who used whom?
Annie sucked in stale air. She passed a security guard who waved her through without so much more than a cursory smile.
Louis lay on a wafer-thin mattress, fidgeting with a hole in the side. Pale and gaunt, he appeared at his breaking point. His food lay congealed and untouched on the bedside table, rotten and foul-smelling.
Annie reached out for the metal bars, cool to her touch. She knocked on the bars to get his attention.
Louis let go of the mattress and turned away, facing the cement wall.
Do I feel sorry for him?
“What was Amelie’s plan?” Annie asked. Louis pulled a very thin blanket around his shoulder and over his head as if that could prevent her from reaching him.
“I have no control over your trial or your sentence, but if you hope for leniency, you need to cooperate,” Annie warned. With so few soft objects in the room, her voice bounced off the cement floors and walls, harsh and angry.
Louis
’s foot shook, and the bed squeaked.
“I get you think she loves you and will save you, but she won’t. She’s locked in her own cell here. She’s been killing off Van Altons. Maybe you were using Amelie for your own end. Maybe you wanted the remaining Van Alton money?”
He stopped bouncing and stared at the wall for a moment while he digested the question. When he turned, his expression was one of surprise and nausea. His skin had turned a putrid shade of green.
He didn’t know.
“Who was killed? There aren’t so many of us.”
Annie slid the list under the cell door. “We have four Van Altons with the locations noted. I need you to verify if the other names belong to family members. The last names are different.”
The cot whined when Louis pulled himself from the bed. He shuffled over to the list Annie held and read the names. The paper fluttered in his shaking hands.
“They’re all family. Distant, but all of them. Even these.” He pointed to three names that weren’t Van Alton.
Married out of the family, Annie guessed.
“She couldn’t have known this,” Louis whispered.
“What?” Annie asked.
“I’ve known Amelie my entire life, we grew up together. But this. These distant relations. She couldn’t have known who they were. I didn’t, she couldn’t have…” The paper slipped from his loosened grip and floated across the floor.
“Is there any other family that might be helping Amelie? Someone with magical DNA? Maybe they want the money for themselves. This is a plan, Louis, and you could be next.”
Louis paced nervously across the five-foot-long room. His short strides still took little time to complete a round trip. He quivered.
“Who, Louis?”
He stopped. “I don’t know. I don’t know that side of the family. I don’t know.” He plopped back down on the cot, lowered his head, and cried.
*
“You arrogant woman! How could you let this happen? Had Amelie been dealt with when she was killed, we would not have this problem on our hands!” This time Annie was taking the berating from Armand Lefebvre, the manager of the Criminal Justice Unit, Fabien’s boss. For all of his trouble, Fabien had been removed as the liaison.
Armand clearly didn’t like the United States Wizard Guard.
Annie paced to release the anger and fury that had been rising inside of her since arriving to the French Wizard Hall. She bit her tongue to avoid any further complications with this situation.
When she had calmed and felt she wouldn’t spit fire, she turned to Armand and said, “Seriously. Have you not heard what I just said or you going to stay focused on my perceived error? The Van Alton family is being targeted by someone who used Amelie as a weapon. The princess was assisted by a witch or wizard, most likely a member of the Van Alton family who is looking for access to the family money. Meaning that Amelie is being used. My error from eight months ago has no relevance to this situation. And for the last time, lay off. I always check for vampirism, you sanctimonious prick!”
Armand jumped at the attack. “You come here and take over where you don’t belong after you created this mess. You think you are so important, so smart. You are nothing but an arrogant American!” he shouted back.
“At least we do our jobs,” Annie mumbled before smiling. “Fine. We’ll pull out. We’ll send our Vampire Attack Unit home, along with all of our research and with Amelie, Louis, and Sturtagaard. You then can clean up the vampire deaths that started two months after Amelie died that your team was unable to track. Do you ever clean up the bodies in the morgues or track vampire attacks?” Armand had nothing to say to her verbal barrage. “I didn’t think so. So get off your ass and do your jobs. Stop blaming me for this. I followed proper procedures, and I’m fairly certain that none of your people would have caught that either.”
She watched Spencer mess with the computer again. The reception in the conference room was awful, and they were due for a meeting with the U.S. Wizard Council any minute.
“Well?” Annie asked. As if on cue, the computer screen popped up with Milo’s angry face filling the entire screen.
“Enough with the blaming! My people did their job and yours too. What have you done?” Milo accused. He heard the verbal attack through the computer without the benefit of the screen. He was angry; his loud, gruff voice expressed his desire to no longer keep up the pretense of simple manners between Wizard Guard units.
Behind him, Ryan Connelly and the entire wizard council looked less than pleased.
“So we’re still blaming, I see,” Ryan said sardonically. “I think you should reflect a little on why the morgues across France have come up with so many vampire attack victims, rather than blame us for the one that got away. Granted, it’s a large one, but we’re taking care of it. We’re minimizing the consequences. From what my people have told me since they’ve been there, at least ten vampire attack victims have passed through your morgues and weren’t discovered until we found them. DO NOT make this all about us!”
Fabien cringed, and Armand clenched his jaw. Not willing to be berated by those across the sea, the Criminal Justice manager stormed off.
“While Graham and his team are busy in the morgues, Annie, you take Spencer, Gibbs and Cham,” Ryan ordered. “Marcus and Phillipe need to return back home immediately. I want you in Amborix to complete the memory modification spell. Graham said they were finished and have the equipment ready for you.”
“Isn’t that the purview of the VAU?” Annie asked, confused. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do it, but the VAU was always responsible for performing that particular magical spell.
“Don’t you think they’re busy enough? Just fix this.” Sometimes it didn’t matter that Annie was his goddaughter. Ryan had a job to do and offered no special treatment.
It wasn’t a long conversation or meeting. Annie had no idea why the entire Wizard Council had been assembled as the computer screen went blank.
Unless they’re showing force…
*
Annie peered at the map as Spencer and Lial Peng marked locations along the Amborix border. They were attempting to space the crystal locations for the memory modification spell evenly around the country, ensuring good spell coverage.
This is a little overly detailed, Annie thought as Spencer removed one mark and added a second only millimeters away. Then again, in real location the difference was probably miles.
Elsewhere in the cramped conference room, Cham, Gibbs, Shiff, and Brite sorted through the crystals Graham had provided, separating them for each group.
While they were busy, Annie began reading the carefully worded spell she would be performing in Amborix.
“What shall we do?” Marielle asked. Annie glanced up at Marielle, who was quickly followed by Roland and Jory. They entered the conference room with some caution, almost sheepishly.
Annie had locked them out of the proceedings when Armand stormed away.
Nothing!
“You were ordered to not assist,” Annie told Marielle. What had been a chilled relationship only hours ago had turned to ice. Annie returned to the spell.
Maybe I could have avoided this had I found Amelie was turned. It was a thought that had run through Annie’s head for the last several hours.
I could have dropped just few drops of water on Amelie. This wouldn’t have happened.
“We are not tied to this disagreement in any way. What can we do?” Marielle asked again. Annie sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, slowly making eye contact with Marielle; her blue eyes pleaded with Annie to let them help.
“If you really want to assist, you can help lay crystals across Amborix. Phillipe and Marcus are going with us to meet Guenther. Until we’re ready, there’s nothing we need from you,” Annie said.
“This isn’t going well, is it? This magical cooperation?” Marielle asked. Her smile was grim, and her bottom lip quivered. Her eyes never stopped darting across the room. Annie wasn’
t surprised; most wizard guards would continue to assess the situation until resolution.
“No. It’s really not.” Annie offered her own smile, which was nothing more than her lips curled upwards. “I realize that we took over, but here, you just don’t have the resources we need. We had no choice and I apologize that we ran you over, but this is serious. Amelie is dangerous. We did what we had to do.” Annie glanced at Spencer, whose concern was palpable. They all felt the pressure to get this right.
After a later tiring conversation with the Amborix Witches Council, who had finished a heated discussion with representatives of the royal family, Ryan finally ordered Annie to handle it. The once symbiotic relationship was torn beyond repair. Neither the Witches Council nor the royal family wanted to wait any longer with the news of the queen. After a tenuous truce, the royal family agreed to wait for the witches to take care of the situation. That resolution fell to Annie, and she and the team realized they had little time to handle it before the news got out.
“I have a suggestion to offer.” It was mild-mannered Roland who spoke. Everyone on Annie’s team looked at him with curiosity.
“What kind of suggestion?” Spencer asked.
“Place a memory modification spell over the French Wizard Council. We can do it from in here. From the Eiffel Tower. Out at the center.” He pointed out of the conference room toward the center of Wizard Hall.
Annie wore the same concerned expression as her entire team. She glanced out of the conference room, following the direction that Roland pointed—up to the ceiling where a large metal pin hung.
It’s perfect! A perfect magical rod!
Annie realized the spells would be sent upwards and out through the tower and then scattered across France.
But how?
“So we cast the spell upwards and out. How do we target the Wizard Council and employees at Wizard Hall?” Annie asked.
Marielle unpinned the small silver brooch from her lapel and handed it to Annie. It shocked Annie’s palm.
“This?” Annie asked as she examined the half-inch pin, the one that had been proudly displayed on the lapel of all Wizard Hall employees.
Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set Page 92