POV ?
Early morning, Paris...
— ...Here, — an inconspicuous man of the most ordinary appearance held out a small but rather swollen paper bag. — This is all I could find on such short notice.
He did not take off his hood, but moved it a little so that his face was visible — only in cheap action movies various "dark" personalities hide their faces, in real life information dealers, various intermediaries and similar people providing "interesting" services are known by sight, but with a correction.
Not everyone even thinks about the possibility of buying certain goods or services, let alone information. Most people, for some reason, believe that information dealers exist only on the pages of detective magazines, but it's not like that, because it's quite a lucrative business. It is quite difficult for an outsider to find a way out to such people, because there is always a chance of danger, i.e. the applicant for services may turn out to be a freshly hatched competitor or some spy. In general, there are a lot of pitfalls, but that's not what we're talking about now.
I will not tell you how I managed to reach this person and how many golden rounds his services cost, or rather, the first part of these services, because the information I ordered is not provided to me in full. But that's more than enough — I'll find out myself, I just didn't have anything to hold on to.
The government of Magical France did a good job in this case, so I was not even able to find those people who were just snitches or spies, not to mention more serious figures. All the lower links of the chain were cleaned up, even some of the "higher" ones were "removed", but it was not possible to destroy everything — the proof is the swollen package in my hands.
— Thank you very much. — In return, I give you a 300-gram gold bar. — Have a nice day. — I turn around and leave this dirty, smelly alley in the darkest backstreets, not waiting for this wizard with the talking nickname "Nuhler" to check my gold for fraud.
I'm not afraid that someone will recognize me and report me, even if it's Nyuhler himself — the seal of concealment and the strict control of my own magic won't let me leave a magical trace, and the fed circle of spirits creates a stable destabilization of the background, destroying any tracking or scanning charms and weaves at the root.
For the next half hour I walked through these dark and dirty streets, turning corners sharply and often or stopping to try to detect surveillance, which I didn't. After that, I walked out into ordinary Paris, not the cleanest and quietest neighborhoods either, leaving three dead Arabs and one dark-skinned man in piles of garbage. Then I took an ordinary taxi to a quieter neighborhood, rented a room in a cheap hotel for a day, where I sat down to study the information I had received....
***
POV Momo-chan
— Momo, where's Sora?
— The master is busy. — The housekeeper replied calmly, not taking her eyes off the dishes.
— I have to talk to him. It's important. — Junko was extremely annoyed, but she held back because Zashikiwarashi only listens to the owner of the house, and the attitude towards the other residents depends solely on the residents themselves, i.e. you can fight with the girl and you can be friends, but she only takes orders from one person.
— Mister in the central magic room. — The girl sighed heavily, obviously not very pleased with this woman's misunderstanding. — Sora-sama said not to be disturbed or bothered.
— I'm telling you, this is important, he won't be happy with you when he finds out that you didn't let me in to see him. — The woman frowned.
— Sora-sama said not to take him away under any circumstances. There are only two exceptions: if the house is attacked and if the world comes to an end. Therefore, I will not disturb the lord.
— Good. — The woman closed her eyes, breathed in, breathed out, repeated, opened her eyes again. — I'll tell him myself, just open the door. — The woman frowned a little more. — By the way, where is it?
— The entrance to the magic chamber is hidden. Especially since you don't have access to the underground rooms. You, Junko-san, will have to wait until the master is finished.
The woman had a lot to say to the insolent house-elf, she wanted to say it all, but wisely held back because she didn't want to spoil her relationship with her son any further, and if she started a cold war with the Zashikiwarashi, Sora wouldn't be happy. Showing her displeasure with her whole appearance and hissing curses through clenched teeth, she left.
Momo had been watching the woman out of the corner of her eye the whole time, and when she left the kitchen, she gave her a displeased look. The Lord needed to be secretly absent, so he asked her, Momo, to help him by telling everyone that he was doing something underground. The lord didn't tell her why, but he said it was very important.
Domovaya, however, did not doubt the man's words, so she said nothing to anyone. And the access to the subterranean levels and the truth at the moment has only the owner of the house and the faithful guardian of the house and the surrounding lands — Momo.
***
Evening of the same day.
— I am grateful that you responded so quickly. — I bowed politely to the woman and greeted her in the same room. Yusheng Lan entered with a regal stride, glancing at the furnishings before taking the only chair. — I don't want to beat around the bush, so I'll ask you straight out: you've also taken over Minghe's case, right?
— Of course, — the woman said in surprise. — How could it be otherwise? But it's going very slowly, and we're being actively hindered. — Yusheng frowned slightly.
— That's not surprising, — I rubbed my face with my palms and forced a yawn. — There are so many powerful people involved in this case that some of them do not even dare to be touched by the local police. Here you go. — I handed the woman a folder full of papers. Not all of them. By the way, I'm not wearing gloves right now — they're on the table. — Here is something that was literally thrown in my face... — The woman gave me a piercing look and then started with the papers.
That day at Dunois, I found a strange magic on the papers and there, and at that moment I couldn't quite make sense of it. I had to feed my blood to a spirit (a summoned, natural spirit, for the one that would be mine was not yet fully formed) to show me the meaning of the magic.
It turned out to be an appearance, or rather, a cunning modification of a magical contract with a powerful curse mechanism, the essence of which is that whoever touches this curse receives a powerful block prescribed in advance by the creator.
If I had touched the documents with my bare hands, I would have signed a text unknown to me. What was there — unknown, but in addition, another curse, apparently created to work in tandem with the previous one, should correct a person's thoughts in a certain direction in relation to the text of the contract. I have no idea what genius invented this thing, but it's one of the most despicable magical inventions I've ever seen.
And that's just in terms of the physical medium. The information itself was also overlaid with some sort of distraction, so I couldn't reconstruct the text of the documents from memory — I had to go into a deep trance, trace my past, and then read the papers again from there. Although, it should be noted, someone tried to cause disturbances in the spiritual plans, but worked not too strong and little knowledgeable in this way magician, so that to create me at least some difficulties he did not succeed.
In addition to this work, I had to thoroughly study the information I received from Nüchler, compare it with Dunois' information, and draw the first conclusions. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, but I can do some things. But the problem has come up where I didn't expect it: I need fighters, but how do I get them to France?
One thing I did: using astral tags, mental magic, and Nick Summers' knowledge and skills with portal keys, I got a portal that bypassed both British and French trackers. I ended up in Paris incognito, and both ministries have a record that I'm now in Britain. But it's one thing to move myself, and quite another to drag a whole group of my people here — it's a foul. I thought about giving up and working alone, but then I remembered Lan, sent a Patronus to Yusheng, and in a few minutes I got a reply, and a few hours later a woman came to my room.
— Sora-kun, do you know what they'll do to you if they find out? — The woman patted the closed folder on her lap.
— Actually, these documents and fifty thousand gold pieces were offered to me as 'compensation' for my non-interference agreement. But as you have seen, Mrs. Lan, the papers contain almost no information that would be suitable for direct accusations, for making claims against the guilty. So I threw them away and reconstructed them from memory.
For a minute the woman looked at my face, my eyes, studied me, was silent. Very unpleasant, but I needed her, so I could bear it. Then Yusheng turned her head slightly and exhaled.
— Okay, I can see that you don't understand what ended up in your hands. But we can talk about the value of these papers later. You didn't call me here just because of them, did you?
— No, — I shook my head negatively, pushing aside the thought of the papers in the folder on the Battlemaster's lap. — I've managed to find something, a thread we can pull to untangle the mess and punish the guilty. Will you join me?
— What are you planning? — Lan narrowed her eyes.
— There were many people involved in this case, many people. But what's important to us is that Lucy Dunois was directly in charge of the investigation. — I paused for a moment and the woman didn't interrupt me. — As you know, the Dunois are a powerful family, aristocratic, and they have side branches, four to be exact. There is a Roman Richard, who is the deputy head of the coordination center of the DMLE, through which all the information of the investigations pass, and the same department closes the cases and sends them to the official and secret archives. What is important for us is that Roman Richard is the husband of a certain Lucretia Dunois, a representative of the younger branch of the Dunois family, and this person, according to some information, reports directly to the head of his family. Given the fact that in these documents, — I nodded at the folder. — to the official job titles of the Coordination and Analysis Departments, I believe that this Roman Richard will be able to answer most, if not all, of our questions.
— And you want to kidnap him? — Yusheng squinted to hide her eyes behind her fluffy eyelashes.
— If we interrogate him, we'll get the names of everyone involved, from the suspects to those who paid him.
— You want revenge? — The woman smiled slightly, lifting her upper lip in a predatory half-smile.
— Yes, — I nodded. — And I intend to do it right now. We may not get them all, but their time will come.
— Goooddddd... — the woman purred, showing her sharpened teeth like a grinning tigress. — When do we start?
— According to the information I have, Roman has been sent to Marseille, for what purpose is unknown. But what's important is that he's staying in an ordinary hotel and has only the standard four Auror guards... — I couldn't hide my grin either.