v . lufkin (vivantes) wrote in valesco, @ 2023-07-03 22:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | jake bexley, kera ryan, nicola bonaccord, vivienne lufkin |
WHO: Vivienne, Nicola, Holden, Kera, & Jake
WHAT: Still at the restaurant
WHEN: Less than an hour since the boys' disappearance
The white noise of the bustling restaurant attempted and failed to pierce into Vivienne’s thoughts. Over and over she replayed the morning, every step, every word. There had still been an afterglow from their impromptu trip, teasing and more about the freckles that the sun had brought to life.
She didn’t think Adian would leave her like this. Had they, on a few occasions, exited an event early because some feelings became too much? Yes, absolutely, but it had never happened like this. Was it because Louis had followed him? She should have been the one to go after him. But Louis would never leave without Nicola and Holden. Had they fought? Fought enough to leave them without a word? No. It didn’t make sense.
Vivienne’s heart was once again pounding in her ears as her thoughts jumped from one thing to the next. She tried to keep her worry from escalating, but it was difficult as more time passed. With her arms crossed and her foot shaking underneath the table, Vivienne forced herself to try and focus back on what Kera was asking them. She and Jake arrived within minutes of her journaling, and they’d commandeered the brunch table that still had the food and plates right where the boys left them.
“Louis went after Adian because he looked ill,” Vivienne answered when Kera asked about their floo call to Mungo’s. Louis taking Adian to the hospital had been the only logical explanation until it wasn’t. “He was feeling fine this morning.”
“Looked ill how?”
Upon the auror’s quiet question, Nicola flicked her wrist like she held in her hand a whip.
“Like he should have been contributing to the conversation more and knew it,” she said brusquely, her eyes alight with a sharp fire. The scowl on her face was now permanent, and with every passing minute Louis was not present, her obvious disdain grew more severe.
Nicola knew Louis would never leave her, Holden, like this, so what had Adian done to force him to? Another outburst? Another fight? Her irritation’s imagination had no limit. She did not like that Louis was not responding to her, she did not appreciate that she had no idea what was going on, and did not approve of the answers her mind was giving her to explain why her husband wasn’t currently assuring her everything was alright.
Nicola stiffed her nose up into the air, paying Vivienne and Kera Ryan little mind. Instead, she looked over the auror’s shoulders into the restaurant, her sharp gaze focusing on the doorway Jake Bexley had disappeared through not long ago. The contempt in her frown deepened.
“Where has your husband gone?” Nicola interrupted, turning her scathing attention back to Vivienne and Kera. They could have been chattering curses upon her for how little she paid them mind - and insisted on their attention all the same. “What is he doing?”
With her grip on her son tight in her arms, Nicola presented like a statue, stiff and unwavering in her seat. Kera let a few unanswered moments pass before responding.
“Jake is checking a few things inside,” she said, her voice a cool even-keel. She sat back in someone’s seat, her fingers, hidden beneath the table cloth, rapping against the chair’s arms.
“And how did Adian look ill to you, Vivienne?”
Vivienne’s slanted gaze took a beat to pull away from Nicola before turning to Kera.
“He was pale, with a sheen of sweat on his forehead,” she said, her hands going to the table to twist the ends of her napkin. Vivienne straightened her shoulders as she kept the auror’s gaze. “I didn’t notice until he got up.”
A pang of guilt shot through her; what if Adian was sick somewhere, or splinched? Could that explain Louis’ disappearance? Perhaps if she’d noticed sooner, he wouldn’t have---? Nicola’s storytelling was always so enthralling, it was easy to get distracted. The boys were typically more casual observers anyway, but---
He’d said he’d be back. Vivienne shook her head, her frown deepening.
“He was fine this morning,” she lamented.
Nicola scoffed, and with her free hand, brushed some hair over her shoulder. She was quick to respond to Vivienne, her chin jutting out high in the air.
“I wouldn’t doubt if Adian—”
“And Louis?” Kera interrupted, her hands appearing from under the table to clasp one another. “How was he this morning?”
Nicola pressed her lips together, the look on her face so sour as she felt no need to hide it. She watched Kera Ryan not look her in the eye, instead direct her attention to the table before them. A tableau full of barely touched food, an empty seat where Louis should be - what did the auror possibly think she could glean from this to fix her husband’s absence?
“Perfect,” Nicola sniffed, brow high with disapproval. “Happy to enjoy a leisure day off, one he’s earned and hasn’t taken fully in quite a while.”
Again, Nicola shifted to glower back into the restaurant. What exactly was Jake Bexley checking? What was taking him so long to check? It didn't sit well with her, enough that when Nicola snapped back, she intended to order Kera Ryan explain what exactly she thought she was accomplishing right now. Why could no one explain where Louis was? Why was there no answer?
The words fell from her lips when she turned to see the auror was collecting everything she could get her hands on and bringing them close. Adian’s plate, his silverware, his drink, his napkin, the small vase of flowers at the center of the table; they were all raised to her nose and put back down in quick succession.
“What are you doing?” Nicola demanded when Kera motioned for Vivienne to hand her Louis’ table setting.
“Checking a few things,” Kera replied. After inspecting his silverware and his plate, she flicked open the untouched crêpe with a spoon. “How was Louis before he followed Adian? Did anything seem out of the ordinary?”
Nicola stared at Kera Ryan, feeling almost insulted by her quick and efficient movements, holding and inspecting things Louis had been using not too long ago. It upset her more than she cared to admit, and her response came out more shrill than she intended.
“There was nothing wrong with him!” Nicola burst, a flush appearing on her cheeks. Upon his mother’s piercing voice, Holden stirred in Nicola’s rigid arms. He first whined, and then began to fidget a great deal, enough to need tending.
Kera looked up at the new sound, her hand hovering over Adian or Louis’ cups. She watched Holden, his fussing in Nicola’s lap with pursed cheeks enwrapping her enough to make her hesitate. It was only a second, nothing more, but her forefinger wavered over the rim before slipping a finger into the lemonade within.
“Did they talk about plans after lunch?” Kera asked, finger curling against the edge of the glass. Like it was nothing, she raised her wet fingertip and pressed it between her lips.
Vivienne shook her head, the thought that her only goal for the rest of the day had been to take a post-brunch/post-vacation nap in the afternoon light fizzling away as her eyes locked on the auror approaching from behind Nicola. She watched Jake Bexley appear from the back of the restaurant, and her heart sank deeper into her stomach at his grim expression.
He caught her gaze for the longest-second she’d ever experienced before his eyes dropped to Kera. Vivienne did all she could to keep her hands from shaking like they did whenever Adian was a little too late returning from a shift, and she looked over to Holden to try and keep her feelings at bay.
Jake came up to the side of the table and nodded at Vivienne and Nicola before turning to his wife. He hoped his stare told her everything she needed to know, as the last thing he wanted to do was alert the two other women that there was recent, and quite aggressive, spell damage sunk into the stone walls of the alleway.
Spells and curses from at least three different wands, proving that whatever had happened to Adian and Louis, they hadn’t been alone. Jake pushed a breath from his nose, the slight tilt of his head indicating he needed to talk to Kera alone.
“Well?” Nicola snapped, twisting to scowl up at Jake. She ignored Kera Ryan dragging her chair back from the table with a loud scrape.
“What is it?” Her arms swayed slightly, rocking a bothered Holden in an attempt to quiet him back down. While her fingers gently warmed her child’s cheeks, her stare couldn’t be colder. “What have you—”
“Write down everything you remember from when you woke up this morning to right now,” Kera interrupted, cutting Nicola off. The other witch looked like she was a second from splitting open, so before she could, Kera took out her wand and produced two pieces of parchment, two inconspicuous quills, and two tiny bottles of ink. They shot toward Vivienne and Nicola as quickly as Kera stood up.
“Stay here,” she instructed. Wand pocketed once more, Kera swiped the two glasses of lemonade off the table with a purposeful glance toward Jake. From the look in his eye, she could already tell his news just may match hers. Worse? There were shitter things than drinking poison at brunch.
The restaurant’s exterior corner was empty of tables and shaded by a few tall potted plants, a good enough place to conceal from and keep an eye on Vivienne and Nicola. How much time did they have? Not a lot. Kera felt her mind begin to settle into a well-known place, one that saw it fit to toss one glass’ contents. She didn’t wait to hear if the liquid sizzled on the ground before turning to face Jake.
Kera looked at him for a moment, mourning their sunny morning and fading afternoon, evening, even the life they knew now. It was easier to focus on that than the growing concerns and ill likelihoods crossing her through mind. She frowned.
“Poison,” she said, raising the second drink for him to inspect when he got close. The scent was hidden enough, but the taste - she’d recognize that too-tarte sensation every time.
“You?” Shoulders dropping as her gaze bounced about the immediate area around them, Kera looking about for anything unusual.
“Spell damage in the alley indicates a struggle from within the hour,” Jake said, having put up a hand to rub his nose, keeping his lips hidden as he relayed his findings. His eyes were locked on the women at the table. “Three different wands, but four sets of footprints.”
Jake’s eyes dropped down to Kera. “I would put money on it was Adian’s wand that didn’t fire anything off; the shots were mostly defensive, some were…almost crude.”
The plant Kera had dumped the poison into finished sizzling, and he pushed out a breath as it died. Not good, not good. Who could have caused the scuffle? Poison? Why hadn’t Adian fought back? Where did Louis come up in all this? Surely if this was an attack on a hit-wizard, they wouldn’t want to rope in a civilian?
“We need to get them out of here,” he said, looking back at Vivienne and Nicola (and Holden).
Three wands, four people, crude spellwork, and poison all out in the open on a bright Monday morning? And at the center of it, Adian and Louis? Kera withheld frowning further, but she did not stop herself from thumbing the insides of her fingers in rapid thought.
“Yes,” Kera agreed, and handed Jake the remaining glass of poison. He would need it to take back to the Ministry and enter into evidence. Vivienne and Nicola also had to be formally interviewed, restaurant staff accounts taken, the scene swept, it… this had been planned. They had to act fast. Hands free, she opened her jacket and reached inside the inner left extendable pocket.
“You take them to the office,” she said, looking back to Jake only after her hand brushed over her invisibility cloak stuffed within. Kera quickly began to tug it out. “I’ll follow Louis’ watch. He stopped wearing it, but I told him to always keep it on him. Hopefully he listened.”
If he had, there could still be time. It hadn’t been long; it was still within the first hour and the trackable charm on the watch she gave him years ago would bring her right to him. To where, and in front of whom, that wasn’t—
“Crude?” Kera questioned, cloak now in hand. It was a curious detail, one not common in their line of work. But she would take any information she could about who she just might come face to face with soon.
“I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what spells they were because they were seamed together,” Jake explained, rolling up his sleeves as he mentally prepared himself to take on this surprise of a day, “like what first years do when they don’t know any of the good ones yet.”
Curious. It could indicate a lack of formal education. Were they young? Could be why they needed to poison Adian. Jake lifted his hand to take hold of Kera’s chin. He pushed an exasperated breath from his nose.
“Keep me updated,” he said, giving her a gentle shake, a reminder that it was going to be alright. Jake’s hand dropped to his side as he looked back to his next assignment. “And…wish me luck.”
He couldn’t help being cheeky, not when he could still hear Nicola’s frustration from across the bustling restaurant.
A tight, wry smile appeared on Kera’s lips. Ah, there he was; her partner, Auror Bexley.
“Good luck, Bexley,” she murmured, eyes watching him closely. Quite unfortunately, it seemed like he was going to need it - Nicola had already already tossed her parchment to the ground and foregone her directive to seethe in their direction. While he got to handle the devil they knew, she got to deal with the devil they didn’t. She wasn’t sure which was less desirable.
Cloak spilling over the crook of her arm, Kera rose onto the balls of her feet. Briefly, and affectionately, she pressed her forehead to Jake’s in acknowledgement and farewell. There wasn’t much more time to spare than that, so she quietly stepped back with a few quick nods. Another step, and she disappeared after throwing the cloak over herself. A few more, and after a few quiet seconds, she disapparated with a crack.