Hunter

Chapter 13

         The whole journey I had tried to convince myself that everything would be fine for Arthur, however when we had finally arrived to the office, I still had not managed to think of something else. Several colleagues greeted us. I nodded back before going to the meeting room, followed by Bob. He closed the door behind us and we seated to the oak table with Gaspard and Henri.

Gaspard cheerfully said "hello", but I felt Henri's suspicious look locking on me. I innocently motioned to him to greet him.

"Oh well! What's happened to you Gustave? You look awful!" Gaspard said.

I wish I could have simply answered that I was tired to avoid to give Henri the opportunity to question me, but Bob answered first.

"Of course he does, his house was turned upside down! Burglars. They took what remained of his wife's jewelery."

Henri's prying look darkened and weighed a bit more on me. He had been leaning on the back of his chair until that moment, he sat up and rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward.

"On a full moon night? Really? Are you sure it wasn't a werewolf?" he said raising an eyebrow.

I did not blink but our two colleagues burst into laughter, thinking Henri's remark was a joke.

"Werewolves don't come out in the afternoon! said Bob inbetween laughters.

"Neither do burglars." Henri replied abruptly.

He had answered tit for tat and this time silence settled in the room as he and I challenged each others, eyes locked.

Bob cleared his throat to end the unpleasantly tensed silence.

"Well" he started, "enough with fun! The boss gave us the case of these bloody living dead that were seen last night." He turned to me. "What do you think?" he asked.

I folded my arms and let myself go in my seat.

"How many were there?"

"According to the witnesses, a score."

I raised my eyebrows, surprised. That was big. The magician who had summoned them must have been very powerful to awake them at the same time. Even if he had done it a night of full moon, a moment when magic was even more powerful.

"So?" Gaspard asked as I kept silent.

"Where did they go?" I asked.

Bob shook his head.

"We don't know."

"That won't help..."

Henri, who had kept silent until now, put aside his suspicion and asked:

"Can you do something to find the warlock?"

There were some ways to find the warlock, indeed. However the two I was thinking about were not easy to implement.

"Maybe. There is no guarantee." I paused. All three of them were looking at me and waiting for an answer to move into action.

"Either we ask a psychic, meaning, there is no guarantee they will see something. Or I can try to cast an identification spell and then a localisation spell. But in order to do that, we will need to put down at least to zombies for me to get their flesh."

All three of them looked disgusted.

"Yuck!" Henri and Gaspard said in sync.

"Well, let's call Sophie." Bob commanded.