Yue

 11th January

17:22 GMT +2

The police car pulls up in front of what looks like a Soviet-era block of flats, and Zatanna and I get out. The building is a little showier than its neighbours, but possessed of the standard issue smears of rust and lichen down the concrete exterior. The same eroded paint job.

I wonder if I could trade her expertise for an exterior tune-u-? No, too late, orange light is already running through the ground and up the walls, purging lichen and moss and removing bird droppings, making minor repairs and redoing the paintwork. Fortunately it's only working on the exterior, so there shouldn't be any repetition of the Gotham Police headquarters incident.

"I phoned ahead. This way."

Inspector Gherea is either ignoring the faint orange light, or he's blaming his contact. Zatanna on the other hand is regarding me with a degree of amusement.

"So enlightenment doesn't cure anal-retentiveness?"

"No, not even slightly." This time she doesn't take my arm, preferring to have both hands available to grip her staff. I glow briefly as I shift to a slightly heavier armour and check my spell eater. "But it does stop me being conflicted about it."

We follow the Inspector up to the front door, where rather than buzzing on the intercom he dials a number on his mobile.

"Anything thaumically interesting?"

She smiles at me as her eyes flash again. "One or two things. Nothing very powerful."

The Inspector pushes open the door, and we proceed inside. It's… Tidy? The paint on the walls is in good repair and the floor has been mopped recently. The Inspector's eyes go to the stairwell, but with a small shake of his head he leads us over to the lifts. He reaches out to press the 'Call Lift' button, but the door opens before his hand reaches it.

"Pressure panels under the floor, or was someone watching the security cameras?"

"No, basic synchronicity magic. John showed me how it works. It's an easy and subtle way of making things happen the way you want them to."

The Inspector steps inside, and I hold out my hand to indicate that Zatanna can get inside first. Not only is it polite, but she's better able than me to detect and identify magic. She enters without incident, and I step in after her.

"Inspector, the first time you came here-" The doors close and the lift begins its ascent. "-did the lights go out when you were part way up?"

"Yes. It was… Unsettling."

"And there were a bunch of weird sounds just loud enough to hear, and you felt something on the back of your neck?"

He looks a little taken aback by her grin. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Basic street magician intimidation. Paul, could you check the wiring?"

Ring? Heh.

"Simple ink diagram."

Zatanna nods while Inspector Gherea just looks puzzled. "I don't understand."

"When you're dealing with people who don't know anything about magic, you can get a psychological advantage by making yourself seem more powerful than you are. She put a small spell on the wiring of the light so that she could disrupt it. And the rest probably just came from magnifying your own fears, maybe with a small spell to make it seem more real than it actually was."

"So I wasn't in danger?"

"John said that most people who set things like this up usually have someone with a gun standing outside the elevator. If whoever was in charge wanted to kill you, they wouldn't need to do it with magic."

"I see." He pulls himself slightly more upright. "I will remember that."

"Or vampires."

"Vampires are not especially common in Romania. The purges were quite thorough. And I have my cross."

"Can you get it out of your shirt faster than a vampire could punch you?" He promptly takes his crucifix out and lets it hang down his chest. "Or shoot you; vampires can use guns."

"I do not think that she means to attack us. But I will be a little more confident-" The lift stops and the doors open. "-in future."

He steps out, fixing the man who was waiting for the lift with a gaze so piercing and confrontational that he takes a step backwards and spreads his hands in surrender. The Inspector continues to glare at him for a moment, then stalks away down the corridor, Zatanna and I following on behind him. Ring? No, the man isn't armed, and isn't anything to do with the woman we're here to see. Though he does take the opportunity to stare at the two superheroes as we go. Wonder if he actually recognises us?

The Inspector walks up to a heavily reinforced door, quite obviously different in style from the others we've walked past. Scan, and, yes, the wall has been reinforced too. There's a small bundle of dead flowers pushed through a wrought iron ring at head height, and the mechanism… Yes, another minor bond to allow the owner to operate it without a key. While the Inspector buzzes for entrance I take out my rune stone. A minor magic presence at most. Nothing like what someone in Doctor Mist's league would use, but street magicians keep their ears to the ground. I idly turn, looking out of a nearby external wind…

Ring, what floor are we on?

The top floor, floor fourteen.

Hah! Someone's using the Ward of Stolen Light. Just trying to unsettle people, or is that a serious attempt to disguise her precise location? If that door was anything to go by she doesn't have the power for teleportation…

There's a quiet clank, then the door swings outwards on very strong-looking hinges. No secondary door inside, but the exterior door is designed to prevent hostile entry. A safety measure rather than a trap.

"Are you going to stand there all day?"

Inspector Gherea strides in, making a point of showing that he isn't cowed. This time. Zatanna steps through primly and as I follow I shake my head.

"No 'enter freely of your own will'?"

The woman sitting on the settee looks at me with disdain. "I am a witch, not a vampire."

And scan. Ah, she's telling the truth. How novel.

The woman herself is quite striking, in an artificial sort of way. A pale complexion rendered paler by an excess of makeup, black lipstick, heavy mascara and jet black hair… Yes, dyed. She's wearing leather trousers, topped by a loose white blouse and a black leather bodice thing. All looks a bit Goth, really, but given our location I suppose it might be authentic. Behind her, a tall window gives a lovely view of… Madrid, I think.

Zatanna walks towards her. "Zatanna Zatara."

"Dala Vadim. You have questions for me?"

Zatanna sits down opposite, leaving the Staff of Love to float upright beside her. "Something stole some silverware from the Museum of Art Collections. I don't think it was human, but I don't know enough about local fae creatures to know what it was. I was hoping that you could help me."

Ms Vadim shrugs. "Gnomes sometimes steal small items. But they are opportunists, not good at sneaking into places. I would guess a bound imp-."

Zatanns shakes her head. "It wasn't a demon."

"A ghost, perhaps? The bound spirit of some thief?"

Zatanna frowns. "It could be. But why would a ghost need to walk on-?"

The window explodes inwards!