Cepheus watched the body language out of the corner of his eye, as the reflection in the bar only showed his sister studying an empty space.
“Prove I wasn’t here? I’m not sure I understand.”
His sister seemed to soften her approach in response to the confusion from their quarry. Ceph’s stomach twisted with nerves. If this went wrong, then they had potentially insulted an unregistered vampire who could have drained Muggles in his confusion, and might turn on them.
“… Black Forest…” Cepheus didn’t catch the rest but he made out the location and ran his tongue over his lips, becoming surer by the moment that the figure between Tristain and Andromeda was missing-presumed-dead-or-turned Matty Amherst. “… from here though… work for the Ministry…” The tone was softening again, less hostile, more confused.
Mateo Amherst had become missing in action in October 2009, during a diplomatic mission to a Vampire sect. They had already been in the area for a month from late August, befriending and discussing. ‘Recently’ turned vampires, those turned within the last a year or two, could suffer varying degrees of memory loss over their former human lives, known as the ‘fog’. The more traumatic the turning the more the memory loss could be exhibited. If they were nearly two years into Mateo’s vampire life then the memories had remained gone, either through the trauma or because he hadn’t had the help to recover them.
Cepheus made a more obvious glance at the trio, trying to read whether it was best they made a suggestion that they could help Amherst, but unfortunately it would require a visit to London that night to reconcile a few details. Either way, it did not look like they would be able to confirm or disprove if Amherst was in Whitechapel with the Muggles as much as they could another vampire.
[May 4th] Fanged Friend or Foe? (PM)