"As I passed along the side walls of Westminster Abbey, I hardly saw any thing but marble monuments of great admirals, but which were all too much loaded with finery and ornaments, to make on me at least, the intended impression."

"Call came in," Jonas said shortly, barely pausing outside the other Auror's cubicle as he rapped his knuckles on the wall.  "Suit up."

He'd been back for eight months, and most of the time, the flashy red robes and shiny badges of the Auror Corps still felt somewhat unnatural.  Jonas had thought that he'd never get used to them again.  What had felt like a second skin when he'd been green, idealistic, and twenty had turned into a costume, something he put on only to dress up, that no normal person would wear.

Except for times like these.  Because he was angry.  It was a hard, cold, bitter anger, the sort that meant that something was not right with the world, that someone had decided that the rules did not apply to them.  Aurors burned out on anger; he'd seen it happen more times than he could count, and his time in the Corps was nothing compared to Archer Radley's.  But, Jonas thought, if he ever got to the point where things like this didn't make him angry -- where his scarlet robes suddenly turned into the costume of some avenging superhero, and finally felt suiting once more -- then he supposed he'd be burned out on far worse than being an Auror. 

Radley had caught up with him just as the lift arrived.  Jonas spared a stony glance at the other Auror; he waited until they both had boarded, until the lift doors had started to close and rise back toward the Visitor's Entrance, before he spoke again.

"It sounds like the Hitwizards have been on it since early this morning," he informed Archer curtly.  The red-haired Auror's expression was hard; the muscles in his neck were tense as he spoke.  "It's another murder.  Reckon the unpleasantness of the corpse would've given it away, but our mate chose a good spot for this one too.  Westminster Abbey," he added brazenly, a sharp look to his eyes as he set his jaw.

Being interrupted from closing a small case was the last thing Archer wanted.  He would have loved to shelf the small time billywig dealer in Knockturn without incident, but Jonas knocked on the wall of his stuffy cubicle, causing both Archer and Rufus' heads to turn at the same time. 

If Archer had big, dog ears, they might have perked in the same way Rufus' did, and he sighed, putting down the quill and closing up the file.  Jonas had mentioned something about what his little 'suit up' thing had meant, but all Archer understood of it was that it meant time to go, and he sighed.  "Talk like a wizard, Trevelyan, I never what the bloody hell you're talking about half the time - all this muggle nonsense," he pushed himself out of his chair, putting a hand down to signal Rufus to stay. 

The lumbering dog did as he was told - Ray would grab him later - though Archer would pay to see the woman who weighed probably slightly less than the dog actually did, but that was neither here nor there at this point. 

Jonas was a man on a mission, even with his limp he was walking quickly, and it was only because Archer was thinking about it that he grabbed the investigation kit before heading to the lifts, where he was sure Jonas would be. Thankfully, instinct proved right, and Archer's ideas were also good, because Jonas carried no black box of Auror secrets, and he listened closely as Jonas explained.

"The Abbey?" he echoed, perplexed only momentarily, until he realized the connection.  High visibility, muggle presence, symbolic to a shared British history, whether wizards liked to admit it or not.  "I'm assuming muggles have been cleared out? We'll have run of the place when we arrive?"

"Yeah.  The Obliviators are over there already."  It said something to the red-haired Auror's current state of mind that he didn't add a pointed comment to that.  His dislike for the memory-altering branch of Magical Catastrophes had not softened since his return to the Ministry.  "Reckon I'll give Dree a call once we hit street level," Jonas added grimly.  "I hate to interrupt his paternity leave, but if there's Muggles involved, he ought to know about it."

The lift dinged as it went past the Level One, and then began the rise to the surface.  Jonas shifted impatiently, checking his wristwatch, and then checking the time again on his phone just to be certain.  By the time they made it to the street, he had already dialed Dreogan Eleor's number, putting his mobile phone to his ear to have a short, brief conversation with the mage as they walked around the corner to an out-of-sight place to apparate.

The sky was still lightening from the rising sun when they reappeared near Westminster Abbey.  Someone had evidently thrown up a hasty yet subtle Muggle-repellent charm to keep the crime scene clear; most of the Muggles wandering by on the pavement would stop, look confused, and then abruptly turn in the other direction, mumbling something about forgetting an umbrella at home or needing to double-check the oven.  Jonas ignored them, turning the collar of his coat up as he approached the monumental entrance, nodding to a Hitwizard dressed in nominally Muggle garb who was standing guard by the precipice.

"I don't understand what the bloody point of this is," he muttered to Archer, still looking sour.  "What the hell is this bastard trying to do, get our attention?  What's next, albino monks carving up portraits in the British Museum?"  It had been an awful crime novel the first time he'd read it; Jonas didn't particularly feel the need to relive the blatantly ridiculous conspiracy theory in magical form.  "Why the hell would you murder someone in a place like this?  What the hell happened to deserted train cars and locked observatories?"

Finding the muggle witnesses was easy. All the Obliviator had to do was a bit of deletion and memory modification. It was nothing that he hadn’t done before. He wished that they hadn’t been witnesses, but he was almost glad that he had the privilege of erasing any memory they had of such a traumatic event. The cigano had not done it just because of the Statute of Secrecy, he didn’t just do it because it was his job, he did it because it was simply the right thing to do. People already had plenty of troubles in their lives without magical causes. After his work was done, Mihai felt like he needed to know more.

He had heard about the first body from the obliviators who worked on the muggles before. The body had been unusual, with a strange connection to the mask. He recalled reading about it in the papers, and was disappointed to know that the aurors had not stopped the killer (killers?) yet. He was even more disappointed with the fact that he wasn’t surprised. There were so many factors involved that it was bound to be a long, difficult, strenuous case.  The public needed to be patient, the aurors would catch the culprits in due time.

Mihai hoped that they would figure it out before there were more murders.

He stuck his rather knobby wand in his pocket and tilted his head up to see what he assumed to be two aurors. It was about time.

“Hello.” The man nodded politely, his dark eyes taking in the appearance of the aurors. His forehead wrinkled up as he silently judged the pair for wearing matching shirts.  “My name is Mihai Zamperia—the muggles’ memories have been successfully altered. They were mostly panicked, and one spoke of a blue light. The blue light was the only information we could get out of them.” His tone was serious, and the wizard spoke with a mild, controlled Lusitanian Portuguese accent—one that sounded like a mix between the smooth romantic accents and the harsher Slavic ones.

Mihai glanced back at the scene and shook his head. “It’s so uncivilized.” He sighed, mostly talking to himself.

Archer nodded as they rode upward, closer and closer to the surface, and he considered.  Dreogan would probably want to be involved, seemed like the type of thing his office would be interested in working with, even if he was on leave for the time being.  Couldn't even imagine, new office, new wife, and now a new baby? Maybe an investigation would be a good distraction!

For him, investigations made his blood pump, and Archer was curious.  Sidelong glancing at his partner, he rolled his eyes at the mobile - that's what it was, right? He hated the bloody thing, and having Ed try to explain it too him made them even worse.  Archer sincerely doubted there were tiny owls delivering the messages back and forth, but he really didn't know how the damned thing worked.  Muggle stuff, pfft. 

Once they were apparated, Archer sighed.  Weak muggle repellent was better than none at all, and he shook his head, striding past it without problem, echoing Trevelyan's nod in an eerily too similar fashion.

Once inside, the building was impressive, though this wasn't exactly a tourist visit, was it?  They had to be aware, and really investigate, not check of buttresses. Scrunching his nose, he swore he could already smell the scene and pulled his wand out of his pocket, plugging up his nose before they even got close this time.  Archer wasn't afraid of much, but his stomach didn't exactly abide by the 'suck it up' mantra.  "Obviously, the bloke wants the bodies to be found," Archer commented, slightly stuffy sounding all of a sudden.  Better than green and queasy, he thought, and continued, "There must be someone who understands who these people are - maybe a warning, or a message?"

That might have been entering into the realm of fantasy crime novels, but it seemed like Jonas wasn't holding back, so Archer could speculate too.  When they approached the Oblivator, he was polite - odd name - but got right down to business, which was refreshing, considering some peoples' attitudes about the process.  "Blue light," Archer mouthed, thinking of the red rune from the first crime scene. Giant glowing nonsense, apparently was going to be the new thing. 

"Murder doesn't tend to happen over tea and biscuits," the corner of the tall wizard's mouth quirked upward into a sardonic kind of grin and he went to take a deep breath in through his nose, almost choking on the lack of oxygen.  Clearing his throat to cover up the mistake, he looked at Jonas, "Body time," he strode forward and past the oblivator, wand drawn, just in case whatever enchantment had turned the poor bastard into a bloody pile was still enacted, a revealing charm, however, only indicated remnants of magic - one-time spell, meaning targeted. 

Not that surprising.  Glancing at Jonas his mouth was in a tight line.  "Remembering reading about any bright blue hexes in training?" he almost laughed - bloody strange.

"Training was a long time ago, Arch," Jonas replied indulgently, staying a step back as he surveyed the scene.  They had entered through the back of the Nave[1], leaving the full length of the Abbey stretched out before them.  "If all they can remember is blue flashes, maybe somebody called in the Men in Black?"

The bloody mess in front of them was hard to distinguish.  There was no way to recognize the poor soul; his or her face had been entirely disfigured, with blood and other bits exploded everywhere, as if once again the body had been transfigured inside out.  The smell of acrid, metallic blood was bitter in the air.  It was almost enough to make the red-haired Auror choke, and he was far less sensitive to the smell than Radley.

He studied the body carefully, and then shifted his gaze to examine the floor around it.  "Going to be hard to keep this one quiet," he remarked absently.  If the Prophet was going to get word, he preferred that it come through the Aurors.  At least he could trust Thursby to keep crucial details out of the press.  So far, the dreadlocked reporter had played by both the letter and spirit of their unofficial arrangement: he passed on tips, she gave him warning before anything damaging or embarrassing went public. 

But even aside from the magical public finding out, it was going to be difficult to keep word from trickling out to the Muggle press.  He didn't know Zamperia at all, but the foreign wizard was going to have his hands full.  Jonas hoped he was up to the task.

"Doesn't seem like that's enough here to be a full body, unless the poor bastard was a midget or missing limbs," he observed, glancing at last to Zamperia.  "You lot find anything else?"

1.	Map of Westminster Abbey

As the aurors examined the body, Mihai stood back, observing quietly. He had already looked at the body more than he felt like he needed to, and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight. At least he had been around long enough to get so used to the smell that he could hardly notice it. He had always been one to handle gruesome images with ease, and had forced himself to grow desensitized to it. Even so, he did feel a pang of pity for the poor guy—his death was most likely an excruciatingly painful one.

“Good catch.” He acknowledged, “It isn’t the full body.” Mihai said seriously, “Follow me.”

He turned to walk further up, leading the aurors into the sanctuary. The second half of the body was there, looking just as gruesome as the other part. “No one disturbed the body; I assume it is your job to search for identification.” The obliviator commented. He knew he had his work cut out for him, but he had altered the memories of so many muggles this morning, that he doubted that he had too much left to do. Keeping it out of the muggle press wouldn’t be too much of a challenge; it wasn’t the first time that Mihai had to erase the memories of multiple people, and he was very thorough.

“Do you two have any questions?” He raised his eyebrows. They seemed to be good at their jobs, despite the fact that they thought it was professional to wear matching shirts. The Cigano assumed that the two must have been one of those obnoxious couples that looked for any chance to be cutesy and wear matching clothes. They probably even shared desserts when they went out to eat.