In continuation of this thread.

Dreogan hung up the phone, dumbfounded. Pleased, anxious, mistrusting, and dumbfounded. He had suspected two inevitabilities: 1. one day, Jonas' overconfidence in his own ability would land him in a situation not even his cleverness could extricate him from. 2. Jonas would provide something by way of apology.  In all Dreogan's preconceptions -- which he had come to trust with a Seer's confidence -- 1 had always preceded 2. But, because 2 had come before 1 could happen, at approximately 7pm at the South Bank Book Market this evening, Dreogan was in a great hurry to upset the tables of plausiblity, this once. 

If Jonas Trevelyan had been at all surprised at Dreogan's willingness to assist -- his dogged insistence that he provide every protection he could -- he'd not shown it. For Jonas ought to have known better than to be surprised: even if Jonas hadn't been Adon's best friend, Dreogan would have offered; not even Jonas could have kept Dreogan from sensing the imminent threat to his family.

It took him precisely three minutes to send Patronuses to both Archer and Tamis, to grab his cloak, fumble with the metal clasp -- remove it and put on the worn, Muggle blazer from his cloakrack beside his desk, instead -- and Apparate to a designated Safe zone near Southwark. 

While not exactly a skip and jump away, in the six-block walk to the market, Dreogan had time to do many things to collect himself: he remembered to breath, to relax his throat, to send a sheepish text to Akiva that he'd left directly from his study to go deal with some business with Jonas -- and that he'd be back later that evening. And that he loved her.

Dreogan tucked his hands into his pockets, closing one hand around his wand, the other around a runic stone -- Algiz. Keeping his head low and skimming books and titles carelessly as he listened and felt for anything of note, Dreogan thought that this would be the third time he'd faced an assailant in a Muggle marketplace: the first being Gozde's gang in Jerusalem -- where Eldwynn had died and Adon had received his scars. The second had been in Camden market, the previous year -- where shortly thereafter, a young Muggle boy'd been murdered.  It was not a good record. Dreogan was sorely tempted to scry to receive some assurance that this encounter would be less fatal. 

He fought it by looking intently at the surroundings -- the low-hanging stone bridge overhead, the tables and tables of yellowed, peeling book covers, and the Londoners still swaddled in scarves, coats, and hats. Winter was hanging on with a death-like grip and refused to yield to too-timid Spring.  Breathing out in a puff of air and shaking his muscles to warm them, Dreogan pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, gripping more firmly on the wand.

Dreogan had not yet spotted Trevelyan. It was only 6:38. He wanted to be there a while before Trevelyan or this contact arrived--it felt more believable this way. Lips twitching into a smile, Dreoganr reached out a hand to brush his fingers over a copy of "Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe." He'd always meant to take Akiva to something like this -- and get out a bit more. But he'd been so worried and scared recently -- first Adon, then Akiva, and Sasha . . .-- Dreogan was becoming accustomed to the knot in his stomach and at the base of his skull. So much so that this rendez-vous merely felt an extension of his daily life. He'd lived like this before -- time spent exploring the crime-ful Middle East, where he'd met Terry. It was alarming how easy it was to fall into these feelings, even after years away.  You came to accept moments like these because they only came once, and might never come again. Beneath the pressure of attack, constant threat, and reminders of mortality, these moments became like diamonds: hard, sharp, and vibrant, little things in their beauty.

Right now, he was looking for a book for Akiva. Because in only twenty minutes, they would encounter a man attached to Adon's attack -- and his case. It was very probable that there would be a scuffle, and Dreogan was not certain what the outcome of all of this would be. Only that he needed to keep Jonas safe, needed to get answers for Adon, and needed to show Akiva, somehow, that he was thinking of her.

"How much?" he asked one of the lingering salespersons, taking the opportunity to graze his eyes over the crowd. No sight of red. The man gestured for Dreogan to open the cover, where, in pencil, was written the sum of 2 pounds.

Dreogan reached into his back pocket for his billfold, then remembered they were coins and transfered the effort to his front pocket. Handing over the sum, the salesman gave Dreogan a plastic bag. "Thanks." Dreogan had said, tucking it under arm and continuing to peruse.

From time to time, Dreogan looked up to ask the salesman a question -- and glance about him for any familiar faces -- until, finally, the man and he struck up a conversation on open markets, Dreogan sharing his past experiences of American farmer's markets -- the closest they came on the West, it seemed -- and Middle Eastern bazaars. 

"But really," Dreogan was saying with a smile, as he noticed Jonas arrive, finally, "in Egypt, everything's negotiable." Seeing that Jonas was approaching, and that he was seeking safety in numbers, Dreogan waved visibly to him. "Thanks," he told the salesman, taking a step away to meet Jonas.

It had taken nearly the entire walk from Waterloo Station to the Thames to reduce his pace from 'near-to rocket speed' to something less suspicious.  Normally, barreling up stairs from the Underground and striding quickly across streets in such cold weather would have left his knee aching, but the adrenaline rush from earlier was still pounding hard enough that he barely noticed.

He forced himself to slow as he finally reached the pavement of the walkway.  The ingenious of meeting at the book market was that there were a limited number of ways in and out; anyone who approached would likely have to do so from specific directions, thus making it much more difficult to sneak up unannounced.  Jonas knew the signs of a wizard in Muggle territory as well as anyone, so he took the time to counter them: bought a quick cup of coffee to give his hands something to do besides potentially be clutching a wand in his pocket, relaxed his pace to a half-hearted meander, pulled out his decidedly non-magical phone and called his wife.

It was still about a five minute walk to the South Bank Book Market.  Jonas barely paid attention to the conversation; if he gave any sort of sensical response at all, it was purely by chance.  By the time he reached Waterloo Bridge, he was simply agreeing every time that it seemed like Anna had left a pause in the conversation.  The scorchingly hot, bitterly burned coffee in his cup had finally cooled, but he still hadn't taken a drink.

From the look of it, the book market was just getting ready to close.  Some of the employees were beginning to sort through the boxes, returning the volumes to their proper places as they began to lock up for the night.  A quick glance over the crowd revealed at least one ally. 

"I'll call you in a bit," he murmured into the phone, and then hung up, slipping it back into his pocket.

Dreogan caught sight of him just as he started over.  The other wizard looked much more relaxed than Jonas had expected.  Talking to a salesman, holding a bag -- except for the slightly-too-worn blazer he was wearing, he looked perfectly Muggle, and even that could be explained away by Dreogan's normal absent professor air.  Normally, even considering their current state of uneasy armistice, Jonas would have greeted the mage with a smile, but there was no hint of good humor on his face as he gave Dreogan a brisk nod.

"Thanks," he said steadily.  "For coming." 

His eyes flicked quickly to meet the other man's before shifting away again, panning over the crowd.  He left out the rest of it.  If Dreogan wanted an apology, wanted any more of a dialogue, then they could debate the finer points of their respective relationships with Adon once they had this git in Azkaban. 

His attention was fully concentrated on the people still wandering through the book market.  Here.  The bastard had to be here.  A man lingering where he shouldn't be.  A bloke about Jonas's age, moving off nonchalantly through the crowd.  Muggle clothing that just didn't fit; a style that seemed just slightly out of place.  There had to be something.  Dark hair, the man had said.  A tanned complexion, features that -- but he wasn't thinking about that.  Jonas could feel his frustration starting to build; he took a deep breath and held it, forcing his emotions back behind the mental dam. 

"You get word to Raynor?" he asked the mage evenly, not making eye contact.  Jonas kept his voice low and perfectly pleasant as he raised the styrofoam cup to take a drink of the disgustingly bitter coffee, still focused, utterly focused on the crowd.  His words, usually short and clipped whenever he was in a hurry, were calm and enunciated.  Relaxed.  Under control.  "Not that I'd doubt you in a scrap, but it'd be nice to have more than two of us about."

He was hardly nervous; well that was an outright lie.  He was nervous.  Any meet had the preamble already in place to go horridly wrong[ it was simply a hazard of the industry.   Although Martin Lane was by all means and informants a right reliable chap, he was also a flake and quite capable of having merely ran off after getting his half payment.  He was also a coward, and tool who's cocky nature was nothing more than a compensation for what he lacked in physical sway.  A bruiser's personality with the frail body of a resident University geek.  The fact was, if the man didn't show; he wouldn't be surprised - after all he had shattered his false persona and channeled fear directly into his mind.

Still, he could hope that his want for cash (and the security of his otherwise unimportant life) proved of value to him.

Twilight was nearing its close as Richard began what was to be a wide half circle around the predesignated location.  It wasn't that he didn't trust Martin...oh wait...yes it was.  Sorry.  Nature of the business and all that.  Honestly; it seemed safe - however safe one could be in a location with only two entrances and a river running down one side could be anyway.  There were a couple lingering souls.  A young couple on what appeared to be their first or second date, a chap doing some late-night comfort reading, a few other souls cavorting about in a most ... pedestrian-like manner. Just because the operating hours were over, didn't necessarily mean that everyone went home for the night.

Safe was a relative word, perhaps calm was the more operative word to use.

When he finally entered from the west he felt far from ease as he perused what remained of the activity.  In truth he wanted a drink, and at this point it had better be good and stiff or not at all.  He took up a position near the wall and gazed out over the Thames for a moment before turning about and leaning against said wall.  Little of course had changed in that thirty or so second gap; but then there was still time to spare, still time for Lane to appear.

He checked his pocket watch which surprisingly read only five till seven and he laughed.  Five minutes.  It was likely that Lane was doing the same as he, it was also possible that half the people still present were bodyguards under his employ.  He''d thought about it, but as cross as he'd been with the man at the conclusion of their last meaning it would ruin the image he'd prepared of Declan Montgomery and he couldn't have that now could he?  Aliasing an Alias was such a difficult and time consuming task.  Creating fake backstops for fake backstops...it was just far too much work.  Too much effort.

He sighed and stuck his hands in the pocket of his brown leather jacket, his wand in easy reach but equally easily reachable a pistol.  He hoped to need neither but then, at the same time deep down he did want to put an end to his asset.  The man annoyed him and that was all there really was to it.  Cold?  Perhaps.

"Any day now, Martin." He muttered under his breath impatiently tapping his foot as his eyes again grazed over the two gentleman across the way.  Mundane jobs.  Mundane lives.  Muggles were quite boring when it came down to it, why there was a whole curriculum designed around them he didn't quite see.  It wasn't as though they were truly all that difficult a culture to understand.

The strain was apparent on Jonas' face--Dreogan would have liked to wholly attribute it to the extenuating circumstances the man now found himself under. But he couldn't help but feel the increasingly familiar trepidation that happened whenever he dealt with, spoke of, or avoided speaking of Jonas Trevelyan. He flickered a smile back.

"Absolutely," he said firmly. "You know I'd help." A slight, forgiveable fib there. Dreogan was not certain that Jonas knew any such thing. But he hoped this proved it.

Dreogan still considered Jonas a--well, there was, perhaps not a word for it. Dreogan was involved. He didn't trust Jonas. But he wished the man well. And he'd do what he could. "Yes; I also contacted Archer." Dreogan considered for a brief moment, some sort of apology. Jonas hadn't wanted it. But Dreogan had. Jonas had a habit of charging into things without sufficient guarantees or support. Adon was a talented wizard--a superb combatant--but with a partner who seemed hesitant to do magic anymore, he was just one person. And against that assassin, one person had not been enough.

And so, when Jonas continued to say he wanted more backup, Dreogan's bushy eyebrows approached his hairline, a surprised smile on his face. The man was learning. "No, no." Dreogan said lightly, words cropped and crisp. He felt a dropping sensation in his stomach. The nazar he wore about his wrist warmed up slightly--the way it did whenever an onlooker gazed at him. But then it cooled; it had been a passing glance. Nothing of consequence. He felt this sensation fifty times a day since he'd put the thing on January 6th, and had nearly grown accustomed to it. But here, nearly anything would put him on edge. He reached down for another book, holding it up to Jonas. If they were going to stand there, it wouldn't do to look as though they were . . . well, doing exactly what they were doing: waiting.

"I'm of that opinion as well. Though Jonas," Dreogan said lightly, trying not to glance around too conspicuously, "who's meeting up with us?"

Drinking anything with caffeine had probably been a bad idea.  Jonas tapped his foot impatiently against the ground, sipping the coffee tentatively as he let his gaze play over the crowd.  Cool.  Collected.  Under control.  He made certain to keep his movements sure and even; he wasn't looking for anyone, he just happened to be glancing in an area where people happened to be.  Tipping off their target, whoever he was, by getting visibly impatient was not going to solve the current conundrum.

He hadn't really been listening to anything that Dreogan had been saying; the mage's voice just barely registered, his tone more than his words, until Dreogan passed him a book.  Jonas started, and then, giving the other man a quick glance, took it, laying it flat on the table so that he could use his free hand to flip through the pages.

Who was meeting up with them?  There was the question for the ages.

"Would've said for sure already if I knew," he said placidly, flipping through the rough pages from one smoothly-textured illustrative plate to the next.  It was an old copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but he got to the illustration of the giant squid clawing its way half up Nemo's submarine before he even recognized it.  The book felt oddly fitting; he could feel the weight, all twenty thousand leagues of it, bearing down on his shoulders.

Closing the back cover, he glanced back at Dreogan, letting his gaze return to sliding over the crowd.  "Didn't get much of a description," he said quietly, raising the styrofoam cup to take another sip of coffee.  Dark hair, dark eyes -- but it was hard to see anything, here under the bridge at twilight.  The artificial lights lining the pavement could only show so much.  "Reckon we're looking for anyone who sticks out.  Then we bring them in."

Across the way, a movement caught his eye -- a man returning a pocket watch to his blazer.  Jonas paused ever so minutely, letting his gaze flick over the man again.  Pocket watches weren't necessarily magical, but they were as good a sign as anything; he'd never yet met a wizard who wore a timepiece on his wrist.

His eyes played over the distant man, and then recognition struck like a bolt.  He stopped.  He knew him.  The same features, bearing down at Tait as his captors held him down.  The same tall figure, towering over Tamis.  Fifteen years younger, certainly, but he'd seen him only a month ago.  The same man.  The same --

Everything inside him went as cold as ice.  Jonas tore his gaze away, raised the cup to take a suddenly violent drink.  The coffee was so hot that it burned his throat.  He had to fight to swallow.

This wasn't the time to think about revenge; it wasn't the time to think about particularly anything, especially not what it meant if this was the man who had set someone to following him and his family.  Jonas pushed the thoughts away, clamped down tight on what he knew.  There was only here.  This moment.  Something to think his way out of. 

"I know your brother said you're a fair hand at protection spells," he told Dreogan, dropping his volume even lower.  Jonas turned his back purposely on the Irish Man and turned to catch the mage's eye, meeting his gaze hard.  "You got anything that could keep a bloke from apparating away, Dreogan?" he asked forcefully and quietly, each word edged with steel.  "Some way to lock him in here if we needed to?"

The change in Jonas happened in an instant, like a hunting dog catching sight of its game: Jonas froze, moved with precise movements--and then he turned away. Dreogan had to fight--fight hard--not to catch a glance conspicuously of the man. But he knew the direction--and the vague silhouette. "Are you sure?" he asked in a low voice.

"You got anything that could keep a bloke from apparating away, Dreogan?"

"Ah," Dreogan said, closing his mouth as he thought. Hoping that monitoring his breathing would regulate his heart. He thought of the soil he'd taken from Hogsmeade, where Terry had stood. "I do know of a spell that'd do that covertly--but it takes some preparation."

To catch a thief--to fix him at a spot, immobile until you bid him move--you take the soil where the thief had stood (better still, if it's where he stood while committing the act.) You buried it in a grave. And you said "Just as this soil cannot move, neither shall you without my bidding."

Wholly impractical. Nothing in his arsenal of arcane priestly magic seemed to fit exactly, though he suspected this man had stolen something in his life. Dreogan turned his body obliquely, to partly conceal his lips.

"No, Jonas. I don't think I can--not without him noticing. I would need to get close enough to stupefy."

But even then, the low voices--Dreogan didn't doubt he had some expression on his face. So, as he spoke, he flipped through the pages, then, opening to a page--an image with a star chart--he began pointing to various images as he spoke. He hoped, somehow, this looked like a discussion on Muggle astronomy. Not on how to immobilize the man a couple dozen metres away.

"I could--I could try to--it's very advanced magic, Jonas, and I think it might be best to keep things simple--" which meant to keep things brutal, really. Duels. Dodging hexes. He shook his head. He'd run this by Jonas. He was an Auror. "But I could try to create a no magic zone. It's--I mean nothing would work in there, though, and we'd have to keep him there, somehow. It's. . . it probably won't even work."

He fretted. To keep a man from Apparating. He closed the book and tucked it under his shoulder. Continuing in his hushed voice, he said: "The only other thing I can think of is to keep his wand engaged continually. Wands cannot multitask; he'd be trapped here so long as he was actively casting a spell." This would, of course, require Dreogan testing the strength of his magic against the unknown man's--continually and without yielding--for however long they needed. There was a lot of risk in that. In all of this. But keeping him here--Dreogan hadn't thought of that when he volunteered to cover for Jonas. This was not, to his knowledge, an arrest.

"Jonas, what are the exact objectives of this?"