“So do all the teams understand what they’re looking for?” he finally asked. Annie thought it was a pointed dig at the French team, Fabien cringed.
“Yeah. Ryan, it’s fine. Everyone knows what they’re doing. We have six teams to work six more leads,” Annie said.
“Her information was good then?”
“Yes. Sturtagaard convinced her to be honest. Do I still have to bring her back with us?”
“That’s the deal.” Ryan rolled his eyes. His hands were tied by the 150 people sitting behind him.
“Okay then. We’ll reconvene in five hours?” Annie asked.
“We’ll be here.” Ryan sighed as the screen went blank.
*
Alone in the conference room, Annie checked her supplies in her field pack. She reordered them a second time before placing her list of morgues inside.
“Hi.”
Annie smiled at the sound of Cham’s voice, at his arms as he wrapped them around her.
“Hi, baby.” She rested her head against his chest. “It seems like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
He kissed the top of her forehead. “I’ve missed you.”
Annie turned in his arms and let him kiss her, unconcerned that they stood in conference room.
“I’m not allowed to go, so please be careful,” he pleaded. Annie would be leaving soon, heading to her designated morgue.
“You know I will.” Annie reached up with one more kiss before pulling away. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? With Fabien? He’s taking this whole thing a bit… defensively,” Cham said.
Annie had paired herself with Fabien for no other reason except that he’d been sulking for hours. She hoped it would make him less dour.
“No. Well, I’m hoping if he’s working with the lead on the case, he’d feel less wounded.”
“Good luck.” Cham kissed her one last time, then sat back down at the conference room table with a full list of cases and a large map as Annie left the room. With one more glance and wave, Annie headed to the teams.
She had divided them into pairs. As per Fabien and Marielle, the morgues were spaced throughout each region in France. Each pair was responsible for rummaging through the files and evidence for any vampire attack.
This better work! Annie sighed as she and Fabien readied to leave.
They left by pairs through the back entrance, now officially opened again. The French Wizard Guard’s inconsistency and lack of concern for their safety and secrecy infuriated Annie. She said nothing about this as they exited the hall into the empty field and offered no words when Fabien put an arm around her as he teleported them away from Paris.
*
Annie guessed incorrectly when assigning Fabien to work with her. It did not soften his demeanor.
He growled when they reached the first morgue, which was so small and cramped they were in each other’s way, bumping into the other as they perused the single filing cabinet in the records room. After a careful review of the files accumulated over the last eight months, Fabien seemed pleased that there was nothing to discover, almost justified that they were wasting time.
For the second location, Fabien landed them in an alley behind the morgue, which was dark and difficult to see. He peered around the corner of the building. The single light above the door was dim at best.
“Any cameras?” Annie asked as she waited for his assessment on their safety.
He scowled and curtly replied, “No.” He strode to the door without announcing he was leaving, Annie jogged to catch up with him.
“Don’t you have protocols?” Her voice turned cold and icy, realizing working with him was a big mistake. He was petulant, and she was afraid this could put them in danger—or worse, they’d be discovered breaking into the morgues.
Fabien ignored her. He held his palm six inches from the door handle, twisted his wrist, and popped the lock. Without waiting for Annie to back him up or look for alarms, Fabien entered the building, his pace quick and angry.
If he’s not going to wait, I’ll let him find out firsthand what happens.
When no alarm screeched through the night, Annie entered and followed him down the dark hallway, the only light emanating from the crystal in his hand.
He peered inside the window on the first door they came to. Without precaution, he threw the door open and peered inside the nearly empty room. A single desk was pushed up against the wall. It was piled with boxes. He walked through, flipped the lid of the first box, looked at the junk inside, and determined nothing was worthwhile in the room. He stormed out and slammed the door before stomping to the next door. The handle slipped from his grip as the door flew open and banged against the wall.
“Get a damn grip!” Annie’s voice echoed through the empty building. She shoved past him, turned on her flashlight, and took in the sight of the room.
Four filing cabinets, each four drawers high, lined the back wall. A rectangular table at the center of the room held piles of folders, books, and journals.
“I thought they handled the entire region,” Annie said.
“It’s a small region! Not everything is as a big or as good as you have it in the States!” he snapped.
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 case
s. 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 b
y 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!”
Wizard War Page 25