From Durmstrang With Blood

Chapter One

Draco Malfoy was spreading blackcurrant preserve onto warm brioche when his mobile phone emitted the warbling sound that indicated the arrival of a text message. He frowned as he set aside his food and took the phone out. Were it not necessary for his work, he would gladly have drop-kicked the irritating little device into the Thames. It wasn't that it was a muggle thing -his London home was filled with many non-magical devices, most of them worth their weight in Galleons – but this privacy-stripping little monstrosity offended every idea of courtesy and formality he had ever been raised with. Not to mention the abominations committed against grammar and spelling by so-called 'txt-tlk'!

He perused the screen, then looked up at his wife. "It's work, darling. I have to go in straight after breakfast. Bother!"

"Oh, poot!" Astoria responded, as mindful as her husband of the presence of their son at table. "I was hoping things would be quiet for a bit longer, but a text at breakfast means you'll be going on another trip?" This was their euphemism for field operations.

Ten-year-old Scorpius at least had the sense to swallow his mouthful before remarking dourly. "I don't know why you guys don't just swear like normal people."

Draco gave a rather exaggerated sigh. "Your mother and I refrain from bad language in your presence, my boy, in the admittedly slender hope that you will do us the same courtesy. What you do or say elsewhere is, of course, your own affair. Might I also point out that addressing your mother and I as 'you guys' falls rather below the standards expected of a Malfoy?"

"Consider me duly chastened, honoured parents." Scorpius deadpanned, earning a playful cuff on the side of the head.

"Astoria, I must pack." Draco told his wife. "I presume you can take care of preparing this monstrosity for school?"

"I think I can manage, darling." She replied with a grin.

"Then I shall see you both before I leave." Draco finished his brioche, downed his tea and left the room. As he went, he heard Scorpius saying:

"I don't see why I have to go to a muggle school. I mean, it's fun and that, but Auntie Daphne says that most wizard kids are taught at home."

"Well, darling," Astoria replied, "you'll be going to Hogwarts next September. You're going to meet a lot of Half-blood and New-blood children there. The home-schooled wizard kids won't know what the others are talking about sometimes, and they'll feel right Charlies! At least you'll be able to hold a proper conversation with anyone you meet, Scorpius!"

About video games and television programmes, no doubt! Draco thought. But Astoria and he had agreed on this course of action before Scorpius was born. The boy would almost certainly be Sorted into Slytherin, and though the ethos of Dracos' old House had undergone changes, there was still a long way to go. Astoria and Draco did not want their son to be trapped in the same closed social circles they had grown up in. There was a wider world out there, and they wanted Scorpius to make his own decisions based on knowledge rather than inbred prejudice.

As he packed, he also considered the words Astoria had used. The term 'New-blood' was quickly making its way into common usage, replacing 'muggle-born' as the standard term for wizards born into previously non-magical families. That well-intentioned busybody, Hermione Weasley, had badgered first the Ministry, then Hogwarts and finally the Daily Prophet into using the term exclusively, arguing that, verbally at least, it placed muggle-borns at the same level as Pure- and Half-bloods.

Draco chuckled to himself. He had known Hermione as a girl, and while she was undoubtedly quite the most irritating person he had ever met, she did have some sterling qualities. Her determination was one of them, while her lack of normal diplomatic or 'people skills' was, if anything, rather endearing. At least Astoria thought so, and who was he to argue?

Having seen Scorpius off to school in the care of their muggle neighbour, Janine, who was doing the school run this week, Astoria and Draco went up to the unused back bedroom. This room held the Floo hearth and the family portkeys and had, in a rare unanimous adoption of muggle popular culture, been christened the Digital Conveyor Room. Draco picked up the SHIELD lanyard and security pass that doubled as his portkey to HQ, then turned to Astoria, who came close and put her arms round his neck.

"Here we go again!" She said.

"Indeed." He replied. "Another mission in the cause of peace, truth, justice and a not-inconsiderable salary!"

She laughed. "If you were really as cynical as you pretend to be..." She declared.

"You would never have married me!" He concluded. "But if we are to begin completing each others' sentences, after the fashion of the Weasleys, we may have to reconsider our position."

She giggled again, then kissed him thoroughly. "Take care, man of mine!" She commanded when they surfaced again. "Give my love to the others, and tell Rhodey that if he doesn't bring you back in one piece, I'll have his guts for garters!"

"And very fetching they would look!" He allowed. They kissed again, then she stepped back and Draco triggered the portkey.

Michael Morbius was used to his house-mates' irregular hours. What he wasn't used to was hearing him come home. For such a big man, Blade was uncannily silent in his movements, and even Morbius' vampire-keen hearing didn't usually detect him.

Which meant that whoever was in the lab should not be there, and that was worrying. The doors required biometric identification to open, either in or out, and every other possible entrance was protected by the most sophisticated alarms and defences SHIELD and the FBS could provide. The last person to successfully infiltrate this place had been the mutant Wolverine, on a tiger mission, and even Director Rogers had admitted that there was no way to keep the Canadian out of anywhere he wanted to go!

All of which gave the man known as the Living Vampire pause. Someone here had, potentially at least, abilities equal to Wolverines', and Morbius still had painful memories of his only hostile encounter with the feral mutant. The easiest option would be to run out into the street. The electronic tag Morbius wore at his own insistence would immediately trigger the arrival of a full SHIELD Strike Team and a SCAT Auror squad. Of course, he might not have time to explain matters before they took him down. Better to be sure, first.

The door to the lab was ajar, and there was only the light of the computer screen. Well, Blade no more needed light to work by than Morbius did. He slipped inside. The figure hunched over his computer gave no sign of having heard him. Morbius' nostrils flared, then his red eyes glowed.

Whoever it was had done a first-class job, he had to admit. The figure looked, from the back, exactly like Blade. But Blade would have heard him enter, and it was not Blades' scent. Morbius deliberately made a small noise as he advanced to the centre of the lab.

The pseudo-Blade spun round in the chair and grinned at him.

"Hi, Michael." He said. "Didn't mean to disturb you. Just thought I'd catch up on a little work."

Morbius almost laughed. "You should have done your homework more completely." He said silkily. "Blade only uses a computer to play World of WarCraft, and he uses the one in his own office, not the lab one. He only comes in here for treatments or tests – he hates the place. He never calls me Michael, either; usually it's 'Doc', or occasionally, 'Fangs'. He's also male, which you aren't. Vampire senses are more than adequate to discern that difference!"

The 'man' lunged at Morbius, fast, very fast. But not fast enough and the intruder was sent crashing into the far wall.

"Also," Morbius remarked. "I couldn't have done that to the real Blade."

The figure came up on one knee, blurring and shifting as it did so. A woman in black tactical gear, with long red hair, blue skin and yellow eyes.

"Mystique, formerly of the Brotherhood of Mutants." Morbius remarked. "I'd heard you were active again. That explains why you were able to get past the biometric security, of course. Sometimes instinct and knowledge counts for much more than technology.

"Now, what were you doing here?"

Mystique neither answered nor attacked. Instead, she flung herself into a backflip, shattering the window behind her with what must have been reinforced boots, and vanishing downwards. Morbius made for the window, but knew it was pointless. They were a storey above ground level, a nasty drop for a normal human, but nothing for a semi-feral mutant. By the time he had got there, she was long gone.

It was typical of Director Rogers, Draco thought as he entered the briefing room, that despite the fact that Antony Stark had developed a lightweight exoskeleton that allowed him to stand and walk normally, he continued to use a wheelchair. Until every paralysed veteran and disabled child in the US had access to the exoskeleton technology, Rogers refused to use it except in emergencies. In this, as in many other ways, the man once known as Captain America reminded Draco of his old nemesis and secret ally, Harry Potter.

He had arrived 'fashionably late', in that his team were already settling into their seats. He took a mental roll-call. Dracos' valued XO, James Rhodes, former USAF colonel, ace pilot of aircraft and the War Machine heavy assault armour, gave him a quick, slightly-relieved, grin. The lovely and lethal Auror-trained witch, Gabrielle Delacour, smiled at him, as did the other witch, the clever redhead Willow Rosenberg. Taciturn former Navy SEAL and ET, Agent Clark Kent, nodded briefly. His more garrulous comrade - engineer, pilot, inventor and weapons specialist Bruce Wayne - called "Hi, Boss!" Doug Ramsay, the mutant Cypher, waved, as did Medical Officer Dr Howser.

"Good day, everyone." Draco took his seat. "Director Rogers, given your presence, I presume our latest excursion is a little out of the ordinary?"

Rogers shook his head and grinned. "I went through a war fighting alongside the English, and I still don't get them!" He said. "Only an Englishman could use the word 'ordinary' to describe anything you've done since Joining SHIELD, Draco.

"But yes, this is an unusual situation. Over the last few months, this team has proved itself more than once in situations where magic and non-magical elements have been involved, so you're the first choice for this one.

"Now, there are three apparently separate incidents here, which SHIELD analysts and my gut tell me are linked.

"First, we've received an urgent call from Dr Helen Magnus at Sanctuary. She says that she and Nikola Tesla have important information for us, and they may also need our help. Now Dr Magnus is independent to the point of intransigence on most matters, so if she's approached us, it won't be about anything good or trivial.

"Second, the White Council has contacted us on behalf of the Bulgarian Ministry of Magic regarding the theft of 'an important and dangerous item' from Durmstrang School. Apparently the item concerned is as valuable and dangerous to muggles as it is to wizards, which is one of the reasons why they've asked for help. The other is that a student has disappeared, a young woman. She vanished about the time of the theft and so is the prime suspect. The problem is that she's a Latverian national. As you know, Latveria has no wizard school of its own, and wizards there don't answer to the White Council. As you also know, Dr Doom takes any harm to Latverians abroad very personally, and he doesn't always play by the rules. We need to act fast on this one.

"Finally, and I'm sure this is connected, we caught a flash from the Bulgarian police that they've found the body of a young woman by a roadside about five miles away from Durmstrang.

"Draco, I want you and your team to find out what, if anything, is going on, and to put a stop to it, if you have to.

"I won't tell you how to go about it, but keep me in the loop. Good luck."

Rogers left, Draco turned to his team. "It would seem necessary to move with some dispatch." He noted. "I will take it on trust that you are all mission-ready.

"Miss Rosenberg, Mlle Delacour, please proceed to the WAND section for transport to Durmstrang. I imagine they will be expecting you. Please gather all the information you can about what has been stolen, how, when, by whom if possible, and the potential repercussions.

"Rhodes, would you oblige me by taking the large aircraft to Bulgaria? Please land as close as possible to the site where the body was found, and proceed to investigate. Dr Howser will need to examine the body itself, and Ramsay will be able to smooth over any linguistic difficulties. You do speak Bulgarian, Ramsay?"

"Not yet, but I will!" Cypher replied.

"Quite so." Draco smiled quietly. "Finally, Agents Kent and Wayne, if you would be so good as to accompany me to Sanctuary in the Jumper? I could apparate, I suppose, but I would rather not venture into so unpredictable a scenario without reliable back-up.

"Shall we proceed, ladies and gentlemen?"

Rhodey, though American to the core, was more than a little pleased that the SHIELD SUVs were designed and built by the British Land-Rover company. They were rugged brutes, more than capable of handling rough mountain roads, but more importantly, they were stick-shift models with the rock-hard suspension, tight cornering and fierce acceleration typical of British cars. They'd made serious time on the drive from the Bulgarian military airfield, which was all to the good.

It was a typical autumn day in the mountains, and if the cold wind bit through clothes and gnawed at bones, it at least kept the sky and the sunlight clear. The scene was a kind of lay-by created by the clearance of a rockfall at the side of the road some years back. Now it was surrounded by the universal yellow and black tape. A group of uniformed officers stood nearby, clustered around a van which was apparently serving hot drinks. It was amusing to see them all snap to attention at the sight of the SHIELD logo on the vehicle door.

At the crime scene itself, a group of non-uniformed people were standing just outside the tape. One of them appeared to be operating a tablet computer which might or might not have had something to do with the camera-like device standing on a tripod close to the shrouded body and revolving and tilting rapidly to take in the entire area. As the SHIELD team got out of their vehicle, two of the figures came over to them.

The first was a middle-sized man, hair thinning but worn slightly long, with a hang-dog face, rather protuberant eyes that had seen everything, a down-turned mouth and lines of pain etched into his cheeks. The other was a tall woman with a wealth of red hair, a round, sensual face and piercing light blue eyes.

The man spoke first, in English with an American accent. "Hi, I'm Carl Hickman, with the ICC. This is Eva Vittoria. You must be the guys from SHIELD?"

Rhodey put out a hand. "Agent Rhodes." He said. "These are Agent Ramsay and Dr Howser."

Hickman looked at Rhodeys' hand for a second, then grasped it lightly with his left hand. The right, Rhodey noted, stayed in the mans' pocket.

"So," Vittoria said, "what is SHIELDs' interest in this case?" Her English was fluent, if accented.

"We're not sure we have one, as yet." Rhodey told her. "It may be linked to another case we have ongoing. Why is the International Criminal Court involved in this?"

"Two other cases, one in Oxford, England," Hickman told him, "the other in Stuttgart. Same MO, but so far, no links between the victims. Our squad works on cases that cross EU borders, so here we are. What happens if this case is linked to yours?"

"We do our job, and you do yours." Rhodey replied easily. "SHIELD isn't a police organisation, and while we got resources you don't, you have ones we don't. We work in parallel, and share information. That OK?"

"Sounds good, but I'll have to check with the boss." Hickman said. "He's in Stuttgart with another team member, following up on the killing there with the locals."

He took out his cellphone and moved away to make the call. Just then the other two men approached. The one holding the tablet -stocky, fair-haired with a square and oddly gentle face – announced. "The scans' done, it's processing now. What's Carl doing?"

"Checking something with the Major." Vittoria told him. "These are Agents Rhodes and Ramsay, and Dr Howser. They're with SHIELD."

"Oh!" The man looked at them with some surprise. "I'm Kommisar Sebastian Berger, Berlin Police, attached to the ICC."

"So the scanner is yours?" Ramsay asked excitedly. "I read your paper about it when it was still a prototype. You've got it working now?"

"Pretty much." Berger allowed. "Not as good as I'd like it to be, but I'm still working on it."

To Rhodeys' raised eyebrow, Cypher explained. "The device makes a complete spherical digital scan of a crime scene, picking up almost every trace of anything, then uses a series of advanced algorithms to reconstruct events. It can tell you where the killer and witnesses were standing, for instance."

"The hardware is virtually perfect." Berger noted. "But the software still needs improvement."

"Have you thought about incorporating AI?" Ramsay asked.

Berger looked at him narrowly. "Ramsay, isn't it? Doug Ramsay? As in Cypher, the X-Man?"

"Former X-Man." Cypher told him. "But yeah, that's me. You've heard of me?"

"Anybody who knows anything about computers knows about Cypher!" Berger said. "The man whose firewalls are so good even the Wasp can't crack them!"

The rest of the conversation might as well have been in Ancient Greek for all anyone else understood of it. Rhodey turned to the final member of the ICC team, dark, wiry, sharp-featured with intense eyes. A brawling alley-cat of a man, he thought, dangerous by nature, lethal when trained and disciplined.

"And you are?" He asked, realising he was starting to sound like Draco.

"Detective Tommy McConnell, Police Service of Northern Ireland, also attached to the ICC." The man replied. "And to me, SHIELD are just more of the funny people, so don't expect me to trust you."

"I won't." Doug Howser said. "But you can give me a hand. I need to get a look at that body, and you can make sure I don't run off with any evidence!"

That at least made the Irishman grin, and he led the way under the tape to the body. At Howsers' request, McConnell uncovered the corpse. "IC1 female, between 16 and 20 years old, fair hair, no distinguishing." He said.

Doug nodded, a took out his scanner. The Stark-built device had been modified further by Bruce, and now he swept it slowly over the body. "This takes a complete image of the body, both internal and external." He told McConnell. "I can upload it to the computers in my lab, and do a virtual autopsy later. That means the locals get to do the official one, which they'll be pleased about, and I don't have to make a mess on the plane."

"You have a lab on your plane?" McConell asked.

"It's a big plane." Doug replied. "Got everything but a shopping mall!" As McConnell laughed, Doug examined the body in situ.

"The body is naked." He said into his scanner. "Lying face-down in a considerable pool of blood which has soaked into the gravel. Blood trace further away is in an arc in front of the body, indicating arterial spray. Victim is bound with standard plastic restraints, wrists behind the back, ankles together. Body temp is equal with ambient, indicating several hours since death.

"McConnell, help me turn her?"

They gently rolled the body over, both men grimaced and Doug began recording again.

"Victim has been gagged with tape. Rigor is in full, indicating ToD at between six and ten hours ago. Lividity in the breasts and stomach is marked, so the body has not been moved post-mortem. Probable cause of death is exsanguination due to sharp force trauma of the neck. A single deep and long cut transecting the arteries and windpipe.

"No external evidence of sexual assault. Note that victim was probably undressed, or forced to undress, before being restrained."

"How do you work that out?" McConnell asked.

Doug shrugged. "It's almost impossible to remove clothing from a restrained person without either tearing or cutting it. Tearing would leave traces of fabric under the restraints, cutting, well it can't be done without scratching or cutting the skin at several points. I know because I've had to do it myself, with unconscious patients."

There was, of course, the option of magic, but Doug wouldn't raise this unless McConnell did so, or Draco gave him clearance.

McConnell took a photo of the face with his phone. "Let's see if we can get an ID." He said. They replaced the body as they had found it, and covered it again. Then they went back to the others.

Everyone was clustered around Berger and his tablet.

"We have to assume there was some kind of vehicle." Berger was saying. "But this road surface, and the time involved, means we don't have any trace of it. She was carried to that spot. The gravel underfoot doesn't take much in the way of impressions, but enough for my scanner. She was put down, not dropped, then pulled into a kneeling position and killed from behind. All within the space of a few minutes."

"So she was already stripped and tied before she got here." Hickman remarked. "Why do that? Why not undress her here?"

"Somebody wanted the clothes undamaged and not bloodstained." Rhodey said.

"To undress someone, or make them undress, you need to have them in a controlled situation." Vittoria pointed out. "Preferably indoors, with nowhere to run. But sexually-motivated killers who take clothing as souvenirs usually only take one item. Panties, usually, now that most women wear tights – it used to be stockings."

"There's no apparent sexual assault." Doug told them. "Though somebody will need to do a rape kit, I don't want to tread on local toes by doing it myself.

"This may sound dumb, but is it possible the killer took the clothes so they could wear them?"

Hickman and Rhodey shared a glance. "You may be onto something, Doug!" Rhodey remarked.

"It had better be something good!" Berger said, looking up from his tablet. "Tommy, that photo you took flagged up in Bulgarian Immigration. Her name is Ludmila Vertics, and she's a Latverian national!"

"Ah, crap!" Hickman groaned. "That's not good. Doom will be all over this one! His people don't respect borders or jurisdiction, and they don't mess around!

"Can you find anything else out about her, Sebastian?"

Berger shook his head. "Only that she's registered as a student at a school called Durmstrang Academy. Other than that, she has no digital footprint at all. No library card, no Facebook or Twitter account, no bank account or credit cards. No cellphone. How does that happen in this day and age? A teenage girl without a cellphone?"

Rhodey shrugged. "Cellphones are illegal in Latveria." He said. "So are home computers. There's no internet there, just a government intranet. Doom has towers all around the border that jam wi-fi and cell signals completely. All external signals, in fact. There are three landlines into Latveria; one to the Royal Palace, one to the Foreign Ministry and one to the Bank of Latveria. They have an internal landline system and a cable TV network that has two channels.

"Latverians can only hold accounts at the Bank of Latveria, and they have to be twenty-one before they can open one. It's illegal to lend or borrow money, with or without interest. All transactions – including international ones -are either barter or cash on the barrel-head."

Vittoria shook her head. "How do they live?" She asked.

"With zero crime, zero poverty and the highest educational achievement and per capita income in Europe and North America." Rhodey replied. "All in exchange for zero political or personal freedom and civil rights."

"What about this school, Sebastian?" Hickman asked.

Berger shook his head again. "There's a website. It calls itself a school for exceptional students with full facilities in a secure and isolated location. There's an email address , but all that gives is an automated response directing you to a PO box in Sofia. No phone number, no map, no pictures."

"One of those places where they hothouse young geniuses." McConnell speculated. "Or where rich people can squirrel their handicapped or problem kids away."

"There are no problem kids in Latveria," Rhodey supplied, "they don't allow them. And handicapped kids there are euthanised as soon as they're diagnosed."

"So how do we get to this school?" Hickman asked.

Rhodey's phone bleeped, and he glanced at the caller ID.

"I think the answer might be coming up now." He said.