Nine in the evening. La Griffe restaurant, Central London.


The waiter swallowed nervously. "A-and anything else, Madame?

Ira wasn't looking at the petite man taking the order but she felt his forced bug-eyed stare, set on her like an insect drawn to a light that would eventually singe it. The restaurant was dimly lit and quiet, each table isolated from another in a sphere of candlelight that melted elegantly on to the white linen.

"Niet," she returned the leather bound menu to him distractedly as he withdrew. her eyes persisted staring across the room, guilefully vacant in expression.

La Griffe was concealed in a narrow alley off of Knightsbridge and hidden from preying muggle eyes by a well-tailored ward. It opened late every night; that fare was hardly inexpensive and the ambience opulent. A place for the affluent... Ira was obviously a regular.

The wizard who sat at the corner table however, stout and almost indecently mannerless, was most certainly not a regular. He held her attention almost wholly as she stretched a pale and spindly arm across the table, fingers trailing the fragile stem of her wine glass. Red. Sharp, sweet with a bitter aftertaste.

His name was Errol Ullman and he was an especially unsavoury cretin. Bloated, bulging cheeks; a stomach so full of insidious venom that you almost wished he'd choke on his own bile, retching for air until the glimmer left those black and beady little eyes. Almost. There would be a greater satisfaction in doing it herself.

Ira lifted her glass and drank. Even from this distance she tried to slowly pick off his relevant characteristics. He was slow at everything except for eating; those unusually small hands jerked apart shelled crayfish and stuffed it selfishly down his bottomless throat.... that throat... Ullman's neck was heavy and thick like a trunk. It wouldn't be easy to grasp. The witch hardly tasted her drink- she was trying to visualize it. Her boney fingers wrapped around his sagging gooseflesh and sinking into it, nails digging into it. Drawing blood, if there was any in him.

A figure was approaching and Ira's gaze snapped away, the image dispersing like a pleasant dream. "Perdone, Madame." The high-strung waiter had returned; she acknowledged him with an unimpressed turn of the head. "T-there is a gentleman who wishes to join you at this table."

Unusual. Ira directed her attention towards the restaurant foyer and something almost benevolent touched her lips. Strelnikov. His tasteful appearance was solace compared to Ullman's unappetizing display.

"Da, of course..." she surprised the attendant with her response. "You will set him a place."

Taras Strelnikov had been busy since the events of the August full moon. He had never been able to stay sedentary and his seven year stint in prison had worsened that habit. Yes, he was very capable of remaining motionless, but if his mind wasn't otherwise engaged... Someone was going to have a very bad time.

He had been casually engraining himself into both the criminal and public life that was Wizarding London. He had been inconspicuously tracking records and people to get a better feel of the movements and deals being performed in the Underground. Most importantly, he was still searching for the records of Darya's unplottable manor. He smirked to himself as he thought of his -ah- wife. She was a precocious witch, so he doubted that she had anything but the best protection.

That was besides the point. He stood and adjusted his formal evening wear in the mirror. Some very, very interesting news had reached his ears recently. Ira Almasy, a connection from his youth, had appeared in London. Motives? Unknown. Suspicion? Probably tracking prey. That woman was business and pleasure all tied into one. Entertainment at its finest.

Being Taras, it hadn't taken the Russian long to track the tracker. That was why he was at La Griffe at promptly nine in the evening, his ethereal green eyes searching out a blonde shock of hair. She was unmistakable, even if she had been in another disguise. Grace and focus were rare commodities in London. Who was that she was focused on? A disgusting little man who never had a mother to teach him table manner, obviously. With a flat glance at the waiter that had him nearly stuttering, Strelnikov told the waiter to inform Ira of his presence. Step one of survival with a first class assassin as a good friend: never, ever surprise them. Odds are one wouldn't anyway, but he cared too much about his appearance to take that chance.

 With a glance from Ira to confirm his welcome, he put on a handsome smirk and walked towards the table. "It's been far too long, my dear," Taras said in his native tongue. His green eyes flashed with delight. "Time has been kind to you." His mischievous smirk never disappeared for a moment.

He sat. "I hope I have not interrupted anything too demanding." 

Errol Ulman was nothing but a fly in the corner of her eye now. Peripheral and harmless for the time being.

Ira extended her hand to the wizard now at her table and gestured that he take the seat across, which had been quickly set by the waiter. They knew better than to make their patrons wait in this particular establishment. She was never surprised to see Taras: the man was like a shadow who followed her from Moscow, bearing costly wares-- information.  Therefore he was nothing like Ullman: he was not an insect you could push into the periphery.

Another glass was placed, wine poured. "I hope I have not interrupted anything too demanding," confidence gleamed in the green of his eyes and she met this observantly with a calm, interested attitude. A social visit.

"Taras. Not at all," her Russian trickled with the same metropolitan tilt. "A contract, unfortunately not my own." A faint, wistful hint of disappointment.  More suitable hire would be found for the portly prey. "You are a most convenient distraction."

Convenience... a matter of providence, premeditation. This was not likely to be incidental. "It has been too long." Ira considered her friend speculatively. Their interaction had been discreet since he had been released by their government- no mean feat on her behalf but not done without reason."How is this evening finding you?"