Scars of her Blood • Shadowhunters

Chapter 32: A lot of Hope

When Celia, Benicio and Lito arrived in front of Adriana's town house and rang the door bell, they were faced with an angry looking young woman:

"You guys have some nerve showing up here!"

Lito immediately tried to de-escalate:

"Look, we are here out of concern for Adriana Manzanares."

"Concern.", the young Warlock scoffed, "for all we know, you guys were the ones who made her disappear. First her brother and now this!"

"If you don't want to let us in, then maybe it helps that this is a mission administered by the Clave -"

"The Clave!", she interrupted, "even better! These idiots don't care what happens to any of us. If this was an attempt to make me trust you, then it was not successful."

Celia decided to step in. Lito was very diplomatic and most times it got the job done a thousand times better than Celia's approach, but this was just infuriating to watch. Celia took a step forward and snapped her fingers in front of the girls face:

"Alright, listen. We have reason to believe that Adriana was kidnapped by Valentine. So if you want a chance at seeing her again alive, I suggest you let us do our job."

The young woman was baffled long enough for Celia to push her aside and open the front door. Benicio followed her inside, while Lito remained where he was a little longer:

"Who are you by the way?", he asked the girl.

"I... I am Adriana's apprentice.", she stammered. Celia looked around in the hallway while listening to their conversation.

"Then I'm sure you can tell us where Adriana was last night?", Lito asked.

"She was working late in her office. When I went to bring her tea... Oh no - her office is really chaotic now... She hates when its messy - I need to clean it up!"

Benicio and Celia exchanged a look and started walking up the stairs towards the office. They both still had the layout of the house somewhat memorized from the mission a couple weeks ago.

Like the girl had said, the office was in complete chaos. Carefully, the two of them stepped over the papers and books on the ground, walking further into the room.

"There is some blood on the bookshelf over there.", Benicio noted. Celia looked over and nodded:
"Probably not enough to track anyone, though."

She continued to look around the room. There was not much they could use. Celia concentrated all of her senses. Then she stopped in her tracks:

"Do you smell that?", she asked Benicio. He raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath:
"Blood... Something burned...?"

Celia shook her head:
"No, no, no... That scent. I could swear it's Eileen's."

Benicio did not even question her hunch:
"She could be the one kidnapping the Warlocks... That would explain why they are disappearing one by one and why we did not have any trouble with her the last few days."

Celia nodded. But this did still not help them find out where they were keeping the Warlocks.

"I don't think we have another chance.", Benicio slowly began, "we will have to try and track the blood."

He placed his hand onto the bookshelf, a bit of the blood stayed smeared in his palm. Then, he pulled out his stele and held it out to Celia. She took it and drew a tracking rune into her own palm. They interlocked their hands and concentrated.