Cold Case Set On Fire

"Good choices," Khaat said. "Those ought to do nicely." She sized up Anabelle's height, and pulled off a coal black cloak for her. "It'll be cold. You might want this," she said, handing it to her. She heard someone behind her and saw Marcus come in and go to one of the gun safes. He took a keyring out of his pocket and unlocked it and chose two semiautomatic revolvers, a shoulder holster, an ankle holster, and then got out four clips and loaded them all.

"You starting a war all by yourself?" Khaat asked him.

"No," he said, "but if we face James, I intend to be armed."

"You loading those with silver bullets?"

"Um...no. I honestly don't know if that old myth is true or not, but I do know that he bleeds, and bullets make nice holes if I need them to. You pay me to keep you safe, and that's what I intend to do."

"Should I arm myself, then?"

"Your wand should be sufficient," he said. "Besides, I'm a better shot than you are, anyway. You? With a gun? That's almost scarier than James." He did crack a bit of a sarcastic smile at her.

"I'm not that bad," she said.

"Yeah, well, let's not put that to the test tonight, shall we? Just bring your extra wand. That should be sufficient." he said. "Your father stored some big-assed knives down here too, didn't he?"

"Of course," Khaat said. "How big-assed do you want?" She took the keys from him while he loaded the clips of bullets and a clip in each gun. Khaat unlocked another cabinet and opened up a couple of drawers of switchblades.

"Bigger than that," he scowled. She closed the drawers and went farther down in the cabinet, finding larger knives as she got into the lower drawers. When she got to the bottom drawer, she found a number of large military tactical knives--overgrown Bowie knives.

"There we go," he said. "Thank you." He picked two and two knife sheaths. He closed the cabinets and locked them securely. He pocketed the keys and walked out casually.

She shook her head slightly. "He handles weapons as casually as you and I handle a pen or a pencil. He's just completely at home with them," she said. "I'm not that secure. I suppose that's why I have him, though. Understand, though, you've got the real mission tonight. Our job is to draw everyone else's attention--to get them to come after us, and we do know how to do that. We'll keep you covered so you can go after the girl and get her out. I'm sure we'll leave you a portkey so you can port out and back here just as soon as you get her. We'll follow as soon as we know you're safe."

She looked at Anabelle's stack of clothes again briefly. "Looks like you're equipped. Maybe we've got a storage locker key by now. Let's go back up and check, shall we?"

Good thing I like this color.

For some reason, that was the only thought that seemed to resonate in the mind that was completely filled with different outcomes of the mission that night. Maybe it was a way to keep herself from overthinking things that she didn't need to right now. It happened often, her thoughts liked to get away from her and she had yet to figure out how to keep them from doing that.

Though most of the relationships she had seen so far in the estate were mostly family ones, the few that were not seemed like they also were. Hit sighed softly, wishing that the relationships of her family with those were worked in their home were similar. Most of her family members didn't think it was necessary to treat those who worked for them with much compassion and care, which seemed wrong to the Gryffindor.

The original idea she'd had that maybe she didn't belong in the Mulciber family was still there, planted in her brain. It seemed more and more possible that she was adopted into the family because she was just too different from the others of the same name.

What am I doing? This isn't the time to be thinking about that.

"It's useful to be comfortable around weapons though, makes it so much easier to fight when needed. The more comfortable you are, the easier it is for the weapon to mold, I guess, to the skills of the person who uses them. That and everything in the ara has potential to become a weapon when you're out of options." The girl spoke, feeling like she was babbling on about something no one else would really care about.

"Mhm, sounds good." She nodded with a smile at Khaat's suggestion.

She listened to Anabelle's view on weapons and smiled. For an apprentice, her views were very sophisticated and healthy. Good for her. That would serve her well and would certainly help her tonight.

"You've learned well somewhere," Khaat said. "My father feels that way too about weapons. He believes, like you do, that being familiar with as many of them as possible is a good thing. That, and he also believes that a healthy respect for them is a good thing too. Sounds like you're going to be a good auror, if that's what you want." She motioned to Anabelle and went upstairs and found Brian.

"Any lucky on the key?" she asked.

"Just now," Brian said, holding up a wrought iron key with a tag on it."

"Family vault?" Khaat asked.

"No," Brian said. "Its in a ministry vault of estate possessions. I was rather hoping for something with family ties but not so much. From what your father said in his owl, he uncovered paperwork on it in an unclaimed vault file."

"Well, that would make sense since the vault is unclaimed," Khaat shrugged.

"Anabelle," Brian said, "I think we should go check out the vault and then get back, get some dinner, and prepare for tonight's work."

"We're ready to go whenever you are," Kate said. "You might have it narrowed down to one family, but even one family can acquire an unfathomable amount of stuff. You're going to need some help to find something significant."

"Indeed," Brian said. "Marcus has the address. Shall Anabelle and I meet you there?"

"Sounds good," Marcus said. "We might have to watch the weather. Skies are getting dark outside. Might make things difficult."

"I think we can deal with it at least for now, can't we, Anabelle? We'll take tonight as it comes, I think. Maybe it'll pass by then," Brian said. "Shall we, Anabelle?" He reached for her hand.

Hit nodded almost excitedly, a sparkle seeming to appear in her eyes. "My aunt's husband handles weapons similarly to the way he does," she pointed toward Marcus.

It's not polite to point.

A voice scolded her in her mind, causing her to flinch and lower her hand, but continuing to speak. "... He always seemed at home with the weapons that were around him, and the objects that he always somehow made into weapons." She felt her eyes start to tear up and she tried to blink away any signs of tears from her eyes. It made her sad that she couldn't watch Raphael with the knives, swords and guns the way she did when she was little.

That was an odd thing to say, if she really thought about it.

It was a sad thing to not be able to watch someone handle weapons? Guess so.

She nearly made herself laugh, but felt it catch in her throat as Khaat began to speak. "I like the way your father thinks," she said softly. "Guns aren't really my thing, though, but they are my aunt's husband's. Aside from my wand when it has to be, I usually prefer smaller weapons, like knives." she admitted.

Particularly one switchblade Raphael had given her when she turned thirteen, though obviously not in person due to his situation with her family. She didn't like using it if she didn't have to though, which was usually the case since her wand was always more than enough to handle someone.

She watched quietly as the adults spoke to one another, almost lost in thought, but nodded when Brian said they'd go check the vault. She didn't feel like there was much she really needed to say at this point, so she maintained her quiet nature for the conversation and took Brian's hand when he reached for hers.

Brian found the portkey took them to a row of warehouses. They all looked alike. It sometimes boggled him when he thought of hundreds of years of wizards' and witches' belongings laying here unclaimed. Of course, anything truly believed to be significant had already been stored aware safely to avoid trouble, but it still seemed to beckon to the curious as to what sort of antiquities and wonders lay in inches of dust in one of these old brick buildings.

He took the key, checked the number again on it, hearing Marcus port in behind him with Khaat and Kate. "Number 89," Brian said. "We've got to be close. Robert's portkeys are normally pretty close."

"And if they're Michael's, they're probably better," Kate said. They all started to look around at the numbers chisled into sandstone markers on the corners of the buildings, looking for warehouse 89.

"There," Marcus pointed to a warehouse not far down the stone pathway. They all walked to the large warehouse door and Brian fitted the old key into the large iron padlock and opened the large doors. The building was filled with crates. Marcus walked in, wand drawn, scanning the place, listening.

"Don't shoot the rats," Khaat told him, teasing.

"You tease now," He said. "You'll be glad for extra eyes tonight of not sooner."

"I know, but I honestly don't think anyone's here."

"No one who would announce it anyway," he said, "but then again, we're not exactly being stealthy either."

"Perhaps because we're not stealing. Any idea where to begin?"

"Um..." Brian said. "No. Not really. Some sort of numbers of crates that we should check might have been helpful."

"They should be marked somehow."

"Well," Kate observed, "A lot of these boxes are quite old. Certainly not a year or so old. You would do well to check the newest boxes. It looks like the Ministry's system is a bit haphazard. As if they store new crates wherever they've been able to liquidate space someplace. I'd suggest we'd just look around, and if we see something newer, then let's open some boxes and see if we can't make a connection. Surely there's something identifying in one of these, right? There are five of us. Surely it can't be impossible to pick out the newest crates, I shouldn't think." She started walking down one of the walkways, looking at crates, and Marcus and Khaat took off in separate directions.

"I don't have any suggestions that are better," Brian looked at Anabelle shrugging. "Going up a level might help us look down, but we really would need to know the stairs are sturdy. Be careful, huh?"

It really couldn't be that hard to find something that could be important to a ten year old, could it? It wouldn't be, if the area to look for things had been smaller. Hit couldn't help the sigh that escaped her lips when they entered the warehouse. It was big, and there were so many boxes in there that it made the girl wince. They were really going to have to search for the boxes that could fit what they needed and search through them, among all of the dusty boxes that were lying around?

That was just great.

She couldn't be pessimistic about it though. It was part of the job, especially when they didn't have much to go on from the beginning. Kate was right, though, there were five of them so that would make it easier to find something to link to the little girl and her mother. What Hit wondered though, was if it was a better idea to find something that belonged to the girl herself or something that belonged to her mother.

She knew they'd touched on it before they'd come here, but the thoughts still lingered in her mind. Hit began to wonder if the girl even knew if her mother was alive or not. Whether she knew or not could change what they had to look for. It was probably best for them to try to find one belonging for both of them.

"Right." she nodded at Brian, before looking at the boxes near her as she passed them. They all seemed like they'd been there longer than the time frame they were looking for. She looked away from the boxed and continued walking, stopping at a set of stairs. Be careful.

The stairs didn't seem to have anything wrong with them, but she couldn't be too safe. Hit took a step forward, one of her feet on the step in front of her. She put pressure on the step, making sure it was sturdy enough before she continued up the stairs. She stopped at the top of the stairs, glancing down toward the boxes beneath her and she suddenly moved back from the view.

"Maybe.. I should go back down." Oh yeah, she was afraid of heights.

But something called her attention just before she started going back down the stairs and she walked toward a box that was sitting on the opposite of her.

Khaat started through the warehouse looking at crates. They were all old. Much older than a year--by a century or two. This was not the right section. She glanced behind her and saw several casks of extraordinarily aged firewhiskey, just waiting for the tasting. Well, that was certainly a crime against wizardry itself, wasn't it? She made a mental note to see if there were any estates that were up for liquidation that just happened to include some prime casks of firewhiskey as well. It would be a worthwhile investment.

Marcus was doing a search of his own, and for a moment, he thought he came across the right crates. He opened one of the crates and found a very large hippogriff head mounted to be hung on a wall. Not something likely to belong to a woman on tight means. Strike one.

Brian wasn't having any better luck. He was just trying to find some newer crates and the ones he was finding were well aged. Kate, meanwhile, had found a loose crate and had opened it and had found women's clothing--Edwardian, and definitely not helpful.

"Can I make a claim on some excellent firewhiskey?" Khaat called.

"Very possibly," Brian said. Especially if it's over seven years old."

"I would guess this was several hundred years old," she said.

"Sounds delightful, but its not what we're looking for," he laughed. "Kate? Marcus? How are you doing?"

"Striking out," Kate said.

"Same here, so far," Marcus said.

"Anabelle? How about you?" Brian called.

The top of the crate that had caught the Gryffindor's attention had been carefully placed aside so it didn't cause much noise and the girl took a moment to look at the contents for a moment before she began to look through it. The crate wasn't too old, she assumed, since it didn't appear like most of the others she had found so far which meant she could be onto something.

As she looked through it, she heard Brian call out to her and she answered, "I.. I think I might've found something." without lifting her gaze from the contents of the crate. This had to have something useful in it, there were several toys and clothing for children. As well as pretty modern clothing for women. This had to belong to the mother-daughter duo.

Something was telling her that the items inside belonged to them. Hit finally picked something up from the crate and held it in her hands carefully, she had a strong feeling it was something important. It was a medium sized teal bow, no doubt a hair accessory, that seemed like it was well taken care of before it ended up in the crate among the other items.

She thought it looked more well taken care of than the other items in there, anyways, because most of the other things seemed like they just a little more worn. Then again, the bow had a couple of tears in it and its color was faded, but there was something about it that made her think it was important.

Brian had called out to Anabelle but wasn't hearing a response. That didn't particularly alarm him--not yet. They were all busy, but still, that didn't mean he was going to continue his search while she was quiet. He started to look for her.

Marcus had looked up to see where Khaat was and to make sure she was alright. Satisfied, he scanned the room just out of habit and saw Brian looking around, apparently looking for someone. He pointed upstairs towards Anabelle, figuring since Brian was well familiar with leaving Khaat's security towards Marcus, that Brian was most likely looking for Anabelle.

"She's up there," Marcus said. Brian's eyes followed where Marcus had pointed. When he saw Anabelle, Brian nodded.

"Thanks," Brian said. He went upstairs. "Got something?" he asked.

There didn't really seem to be anything else noteworthy in the crate, but it didn't mean she had found exactly what they'd been looking for. The bow was the only thing that stood out, though. She turned her head slightly when she heard Brian's voice near her and nodded after blinking a few times in surprise.

Guess he must not have heard her.

She wasn't surprised, now that she thought about it, because he had been on the floor below her and her voice didn't carry well anyways. "Oh y-yeah, um, I think this is important. I.. don't know why, though. I just had this weird feeling that it was, almost like it called out to me.. or something." For some reason she felt her face getting hot and she lowered it as she held the bow out to Brian.

She really didn't know what it was about the bow that made her think it was important, but it was like a voice had told her it was. Now that she thought about it, she felt like she had heard something, someone, tell her that bow was important to the little girl in question.

And they'd told her to help the little girl.