I've returned from the past

Chapter 28

Orion observed Barty- who had returned and called them in at the last minute. He seemed to be desperately struggling to find words and sweat lathered his forehead. 

"If you need a minute Barty," Arcturus speaks up from the end of the table. 

"N-no, Sir I can speak..." Orion winces internally at the state Barty is in, all because of his last minute request to find information on General Morden. It was of course his brother- if the memory and people at the funeral were anything to go by- so whatever Barty had found was clearly worrying. "I- I found General Morden." 

"You found information?" Orion asks slowly, sitting forward. He hadn't expected Barty to actually find it. he would have thought his brother would have hidden it better- 

"No sir," Barty takes a deep breath, eyes jittering around. "I found General Morden." 

"You can't have," Orion says carefully. "General Morden is an alias my brother went under." Barty's gaze shot up and the faces of the Triarii turned towards him at the new information. 

"Pardon sir? I most definitely found the General." 

"Can I see the memory?" Barty jerked and shook his head frantically. 

"No- no no, you cannot-" 

"Did he hurt you Barty?" Reinhard asked carefully, leaning forward to gaze at the man. Orion and been thinking along the same lines. What had this pretender done-

Barty choked on his words and then bit out, "No sir- he threatened me. He-" Barty trembled and Abraxas gave up his seat, making the jittery man sit down. He seemed to calm slightly and then slowly made out his words, "I happened to... come across them on accident. A vampire nudged my shoulder and I- well I felt it and noticed some unusual activity in a pub in London." Barty swallowed thickly. "So, I went in." 

Orion listened intently, observing Barty's jerking knee underneath the table and his frantically tapping fingers. "There were people wearing masks. Silver ones. Before- before I go on have you- did you- um, come across anyone while searching for Mactator?" 

Thaddeus's brows furrowed and then he admits, "Some of my men have come across people wearing silver masks. Sometimes animal but not always." Now that Orion thought about it- he has seen quite a few silver masked people who would look at him in Knockturn or the Ministry when he went in before they disappeared. 

"What does that have to do with it?" Aiden inquires. 

"Well- first... I went into this pub and these people I saw enter with the masks- they had disappeared. So I went- I went to the bartender and I made some stuff up. I pretended- I pretended like I was there to see someone and when the bartender waited for me to give him something- I pretended like it had been nabbed and they gave me- they gave me-" With trembling fingers, Barty pulled out a bronze sovereign, shoving it across to Orion and Orion stared at it. 

The familiar engravings- the marks- 

Hadrian had always fiddled with a platinum one. Constantly. Wearing it out at the edges- and had occasionally gave it to Orion to toy with but had almost murdered him for losing it. 

"Hadrian had one of these," he murmured, picking it up slowly and running a finger over it. 

"Yeah- yeah they all had one I think-" Barty licked his lips. A habit Orion had thought had ended. "But- but there were different levels-" 

"You are skipping ahead Barty," Arcturus says gently. "It's okay, they can't do anything here-" Barty glanced at him but his fidgeting did temporarily slow down.