Oracle

Part 16

 Tim's office was covered in paper, a mixture of official reports and newspaper clippings. In all, it looked like a serial killers room from a horror movie or detective programme. Except it was in a police station office. It stunk of sweat, the sort which a room gained when someone didn't leave it for days and didn't shower or do anything to air the room. She could see takeout bags of half eaten food to the side.

Tim was a tall man. Like Maria and all wardens, he was a dragon shifter. He had short black thick hair which made his narrow face look serious and harsh. His eyes were normally brown but at the moment they had an orange tinge to them to suggest his dragon was close to the surface. Likely from lack of sleep, flying or general not taking care of himself.

At first, Tim didn't notice Maria, and while Maria waited for him to, she looked over the papers. Most of the reports were missing persons. Reports which had been repressed by higher ups. Men and women who were now under slave contracts in someone's business. A familiar face caught her eye and she moved over to the report.

'Justice Savanhu,' read the name, and she smiled sadly at the picture of a full bodied Justice next to who was likely his older brother and younger sister. He looked very happy and had an eighteenth birthday badge on his chest. She had met the Rook's nighttime barkeeper once or twice. He had always seemed nice enough and well used to using his prosthetic leg. Personally, Maria wasn't a regular at any of the bars in the city, but the Rook was one she did occasionally go to. Mostly to annoy her bosses and John both. After all, no one could find the Rook if they wanted to start a fight or remove one of its customers from the walls.

"Don't move any of them," Tim commented from his spot on the ground, "They are in categories and I haven't fully connected them all into the pattern."

Maria took a step back, looking over the pile Justice's missing poster had been in. Most of them were pretty boys, the type John liked to have in his establishments but she didn't know any of the other faces. She looked over at the other piles but was struggling to see any patterns. Still holding Justice's poster she moved over to a photocopy in the corner and put Justices poster in it. As it copied, she turned around and watched Tim again.

"Tim, what are you hoping to achieve here?" She asked softly, looking at the amount of photos in the room. Not all of these were the west district's cases, she could see her own district emblem mixed in the papers and the south districts. She knew the missing person's numbers were big but this seemed too big. Calder had numbers controlling the organ and slave trade but this seemed more than that.

Tim paused from his work, looking at her, his eyes visibly trying to focus on her for a moment. "Maria? I. Um. I'm trying to prove there is a slave trade ring in the city. Too many people disappear here but have sightings of them elsewhere in the city. The ones which are no longer acknowledged as missing all seem to be hired by similar employers," he explained. "A good hundred or so are now working for Sir John Silverhorn," he gestured at one of the walls, different to the wall Justice had been on. He named several other employers, all of which Maria knew did do business with the middle house.

"It's not the proof that's the issue, Tim," Maria cut in as he got more and more excited by the links he had made and the growing excitement that he was about to prove he had that someone was kidnapping in the city. He paused, looking at her sharply as she folded the wanted poster into her pocket and moved to pin Justice's poster on John's wall.