The Lamia Hunt

Chapter Forty-Seven: A Link

12:59 11/03/2015

"Look at it," said Jones, shoving a grainy photo of several young men in Claire's face, pointing enthusiastically at one of them. "Recognise him?"
She glanced at the photo, and her eyes widened.
No.
This was ridiculous. It couldn't be true. But it was undeniable; there, in the middle of the photo, grinning from ear to ear, was Fidèle .
"Where'd you find this?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at Jones.
He shrugged.
"Archives've got some kind of exhibit thing going on. Old photo albums all over the show. You should really go and-"
"That doesn't matter right now, Jones. Go back there, and try and find out what you can about that photo. There's got to be some kind of a reason for this."
He nodded, taking the photo with him, and Claire put her head in her hands, leaning on the desk.
What in God's name was going on? Did she even want to find out? Every development they'd been given was loading them with more problems, more mysteries to solve.
Was this what it was always like, being a Lamia hunter?
Because if so, she was more than ready to give up. Not on this case, though. Afterwards.
She couldn't abandon this case; wouldn't abandon it, not until she'd caught Fidèle , and Lucy as well. Not until she'd made them pay.
It had always seemed odd to Claire that there were hunters who were so bitter towards Lamiae, who wanted to kill each of them as painfully as possible, but now it made sense. Too much sense.
At least something made sense, though. At least there was one thing that she could cling to, that she could say without a doubt was true.
But that was small comfort, what with all this going on.
Why did everything have to be linked? It didn't make things easier; it made them much, much harder.
But this was interesting. Not welcome, but interesting.
If Fidèle had been Société... Well, she didn't know what it meant. But it definitely meant something, and when she found out...
Her train of thought was interrupted by Jones entering again, staggering under the weight of another cardboard box, which he hefted onto the table, sighing.
"Open it," he said. "Bet there's fucking rocks in it."
Claire rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Is this the file for the Fidèle doppelgänger?"
"Yup." He stooped down, reading the label on it. "Otherwise known as Jacques Blerié, apparently."
"Sweet. Want to do the honours?"
He shrugged, lifting off the lid.
"Fun. More documents."
"Don't be like that." Claire picked one up, and sighed, exasperatedly.
"What?"
"Fucking hell."
"What?"
"Jones," she said, handing him the paper. "These documents are in French."
"Yeah, so?"
"Jones."
He glanced at the paper, lifting it to his face.
"Nah, this... This... Shit."
"Yeah. Shit." She sighed. "How could we have been such idiots? Didn't it occur to us that there are people who don't speak English?"
"Obviously not." Jones shrugged. "It'll be chill; I'll just get someone to translate for us. They should be sweet with it."
"Don't bother, really. We'll be fine."
"You can't speak French, Clairy-fairy."
She shrugged.
"I'll manage."
Jones raised his eyebrows.
"I can appreciate that you're trying to say something, and that you don't want help, but it's probably best if you just accept it at this point."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'll be fine, I said."
"Fine," he responded, standing up and pushing his chair back. "I'll go and get someone to help us."
He left, and Claire turned back to the paper. He was right about one thing: she couldn't speak French for shit. What had she been thinking? There hadn't been a single level on which what she'd said had made sense, or been justified in any way. So why had she done it?
It didn't much matter now.
She let her eyes glaze over the words, not even attempting to translate it. Honestly, it wasn't worth the effort.
But it gave her time to wonder, to wonder about Fidèle . She'd never seen him in the flesh, only sketches of him, and now this photograph. And aside from what the Praedatori knew - which was precious little, to be honest - she couldn't say anything about him. But then, she doubted that they'd find anything particularly interesting in his file. Personnel files weren't something you'd call informative, and it was unlikely they'd find anything really noteworthy in it. In fact, the only interesting thing about the file was probably that it existed. The fact that it was there meant that Fidèle had been in the Société des Mains Blanches, and that was information that they had really needed to know.
Aside from that, what could the file tell them? His date of birth? Unlikely, and even so, what use would it be? It was unlikely that they were going to be able to catch him through the use of astrology, and there wasn't much else they could do with a date. Maybe it could give school records, possibly even mission reports, but they weren't likely to have anything useful in them.
But then, you never could tell until you looked.
Sighing, she picked up the photo of Fidèle again, holding it in both hands as she scrutinised it.
Its subject was a group of twelve Société hunters, all male. From their ages, it was likely that they'd just finished their training, if the Société and the Praedatori worked in the same way. They were standing in two rows, but there was an unnatural lack of formality in their position, as if they had been told to take a formal photograph, but none of them had listened.
Fidèle was at the centre of the photograph, unmistakeable even with short hair. It was odd, Claire thought, that she was so accustomed to his appearance, never having seen him outside of images. And, until now, she couldn't say she'd seen a photograph of him, either. That was abnormal, even for Praedatori; almost every case would have some kind of photographic evidence of the Lamia, especially one that had been going on for as long as this one had. But somehow, Fidèle had escaped all efforts for his picture to be taken. They'd had sketches, of course, taken from the Jordan sister who'd returned alive, but aside from that... Well, there hadn't been anyone else who'd seen him. If hunters saw him, they died. And most of the time, they died without seeing him.
And yet, here he was, this elusive and mysterious figure, laughing calmly, leaning on the shoulder of...
No. Fuck no.
Claire drew the photo closer to her face, squinting at the figure next to Fidèle . He was much taller than him, by a foot at least, his pale hair in tight curls around his head.
Those were features he had. But lots of people had those features.
Claire rolled her eyes at her own idiocy. She'd just been being a bit paranoid; that was all.
But look. Claire tried to ignore the nagging inside her head. Look at that, on his face. The scar. Haven't seen many people who look like that, have you.
It was true, she knew. It wasn't clear in the photo, but she could see it, and she knew exactly what it was. A set of two scars, running parallel up the left side of his face.
The voice in her head had been right.
And what that meant, she didn't want to know.