"You have no idea how much grease I had to smear on the palms of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures just to look the other way, Henry," the leader of the three masked men growled. He reached up and yanked off his silver-filigreed mask, revealing a face that looked like it had been carved out of sour granite.
He was a tall, rangy wizard with a black wand that looked more like a jagged piece of obsidian than a tool. Even in the flickering, dying light of the fireplace, Allen could see the man's upper teeth—yellowed and prominent, giving him the appearance of a rabid hound perpetually snarling at its next meal.
The room was a powder keg. While the two groups of criminals sized each other up, measuring the distance between their wand tips and each other's throats, Allen was a ghost in the corner. He didn't breathe. He didn't blink. He simply melted into the shadows of the peeling wallpaper, inching toward the spot where Leonard lay crumpled on the floor.
Allen didn't dare use a spell. Diffindo would have snapped the chains, but the magical discharge would have sounded like a gunshot in the silent room. Instead, he reached into his pocket—or rather, into the localized rift of his pet space.
A tiny, spindly green hand reached out first, followed by a pair of wide, inquisitive brown eyes. The Bowtruckle looked like nothing more than a twig to the untrained eye, but it was a master of the mechanical. Having been raised in Allen's care, the creature was practically an extension of his own nervous system.
The locks, Pickett. Quietly, Allen projected the thought with everything he had.
The little creature gave a microscopic nod and vanished into the shadows of Leonard's tattered cloak. It scuttled over the man's trembling shoulders, moving with the grace of a spider, until it reached the heavy iron manacles. With its long, needle-sharp fingers, it began to pick at the ancient, enchanted tumblers.
Leonard lay there, his breath coming in shallow, pained hitches, but his eyes were alive. They weren't focused on his captors, nor on the gold. They were locked onto the third intruder—a short, stocky man who was still masked. There was a raw, primal hatred in Leonard's gaze that told Allen everything he needed to know. This wasn't just a business deal gone wrong. This was personal.
"The price of doing business has gone up, Henry," Tebberley—the man with the dog-like grin—bargained, his voice dripping with false camaraderie. "The MACUSA has turned the city into a fortress since you decided to break out of that cage. My risk is tripled. I want an extra ten percent commission on the bird, or the deal is off."
"Ten percent?" The wiry, dark-skinned wizard at Henry's side, Viyon, stepped forward. His wand was vibrating with suppressed energy. "Why don't you ask the Reaper for a discount instead, Tebberley? I'm sure he'll give you a very permanent one if you keep opening that trap of yours."
On Henry's other flank, a hulking giant of a man loomed. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent, making the livid purple veins bulging on his forehead look like bruised vines. He didn't speak; he just glowered, his muscles coiled like a spring-loaded trap.
The air in the room didn't just feel cold; it felt heavy, like the atmosphere before a lightning strike. Outside, the blizzard reached a new crescendo. The wind screamed through the cracks in the cottage walls, a dismal, mournful sound that echoed down the chimney like the wails of the damned.
Far away, the bells of a church in downtown Brooklyn began to toll. It was midnight.
Christmas had arrived.
For the families in the high-rises and the brownstones, it was a time for warmth, laughter, and the soft glow of candles. But here, in the shadow of the cemetery, the only gift being exchanged was the promise of a violent end.
"Henry, don't play with me," Tebberley sneered, his confidence wavering slightly under Henry's unnerving calm. "I know your plan. You want to dump this bird and bolt for Europe. You're the most wanted man in the colonies. You need me more than I need you."
"Viyon, stand down," Henry said. His voice was quiet, almost gentle, which made it ten times more terrifying. He rose from his chair by the fire, his white hair catching the light. He looked like an old lion, tired of the games but still capable of crushing a skull with a single blow. "I've lived long enough to know that greed is a disease. But I'm in a hurry. I'll pay your price, Tebberley. Just show me the merchandise."
Viyon hissed through his teeth, clearly wanting to spill blood instead of gold, but he retreated to Henry's side.
"Decisive as always, Mr. Jones," Tebberley said, his eyes narrowing. He was sly as a fox but vicious as a wolf. "Viyon, don't look at me like that. I didn't come here with only two men because I'm stupid. I came because I know that if I don't send a signal in the next ten minutes, a dozen Aurors will be leveling this shack with us inside."
The lie was obvious, but in this room, lies were as good as truth if you told them with enough conviction.
"The bird, Tebberley," Henry repeated.
"Inspect it then," Tebberley signaled to his men.
Viyon approached the damp, dripping crate. The three black-robed men stepped back, their wands held at the ready. With a flick of his wrist, Viyon blew the lid off the crate.
For a second, the room was filled with the smell of ozone and rain. A Thunderbird—a majestic, multi-winged creature of storm and cloud—tried to burst skyward. Its feathers were the color of a bruised sky, but they were matted with blood and grime. Heavy, enchanted shackles bound its wings, and as it let out a piercing, tragic shriek, it crashed back into the bottom of the box, its power suppressed by the dark magic etched into the wood.
Viyon peered into the crate, his face lit by the faint, flickering electrical sparks coming off the bird's plumage. He turned back to Henry and gave a curt, sharp nod. The prize was real.
"A beautiful thing, isn't it?" Henry murmured, stroking his scarred chin. There wasn't a hint of pity in his eyes—only the cold, calculating look of a man appraising a valuable tool. "The power of a hurricane in a box. Viyon, give the man his due."
Viyon reached behind Henry's chair and produced a heavy leather pouch. He tossed it through the air. It landed at Tebberley's feet with the heavy, metallic clink of serious wealth.
"Undetectable Extension Charm," Tebberley noted, picking up the bag. "Still, I'm a man of details." He upended the pouch, and a waterfall of gold Galleons cascaded onto the floor, forming a glittering, shimmering mound that reflected the firelight.
In that moment, greed did what no spell could. It blinded them. Every eye in the room—Tebberley's, Viyon's, the hulking giant's—was fixed on the gold.
It was the moment Leonard had been waiting for.
With a sudden, explosive movement, Leonard lunged forward from the floor. The Bowtruckle had done its job; the manacles clattered away, forgotten in the straw. Leonard didn't go for the gold, and he didn't go for Henry. He tackled the short, masked man—the one he had been staring at since the beginning.
"Roka!" Leonard's voice was a roar of pure, unfiltered rage. "You miserable snake! You sold us out!"
Leonard's hands, calloused and strong even after his ordeal, locked around the man's throat. He didn't have a wand—Viyon had snapped his original one during the capture—but he had the strength of a man who had nothing left to lose. He slammed the masked wizard against the floor, his fingers digging into the man's neck.
The room erupted into chaos. The outlaws froze for a heartbeat, stunned by the sight of a shackled prisoner suddenly turning into a killer.
"How did he get loose?" Viyon screamed, his wand whipping around.
Tebberley, seeing his deal crumbling and his man being throttled, leveled his obsidian wand at Leonard's head. "Get off him, you piece of—"
But Tebberley never finished the sentence. The squat, masked wizard who had been standing behind him—the third member of his own team—was faster.
A jet of red light hit Tebberley square in the back. He didn't even have time to scream. He crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, his wand clattering across the floorboards. His body hit the ground with a sickening thud, his heels drumming a brief, frantic rhythm on the wood before he went still, his eyes wide and vacant.
Henry Jones sprang back from the fireplace, his face a mask of shock and fury. Viyon, reacting with the instincts of a street fighter, hurled a Killing Curse at the masked attacker.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green bolt of death hissed through the air, but the attacker didn't dodge like a normal man. The little wizard seemed to shrink, his body becoming impossibly small as he slipped out of his oversized black robes like a snake shedding its skin. He rolled across the floor with acrobatic grace, his own wand already spitting sparks of gold and silver.
As the mask fell away, a familiar, diminutive face was revealed.
"Professor Flitwick!" Allen's thought nearly became a shout.
Viyon's curse missed the Professor by an inch, instead slamming into Roka—who was still pinned beneath Leonard. The traitorous wizard didn't even have time to plead. The green light engulfed him, and he slumped into the floorboards, the look of disbelief frozen on his face forever.
"By Merlin!" Leonard yelled, rolling away from the cooling corpse of the man who had betrayed him.
"A little assistance would be appreciated, Mr. Sterling!" Flitwick squeaked, his voice high-pitched but steady as he deflected a barrage of curses from Viyon with effortless precision.
Leonard didn't hesitate. He dove across the floor, his hand closing around Tebberley's dropped obsidian wand. He felt the surge of foreign magic, but he didn't care. He stood up, shielding Flitwick's flank as he engaged the hulking giant who was charging toward them with a roar.
Henry Jones, however, wasn't looking at the fight. He realized the tide had turned the moment a Master Duelist entered the room. He didn't care about his men, and he didn't care about the gold. He darted toward the crate, desperate to reclaim the Thunderbird—the only thing that mattered.
But when he reached the box and peered inside, his face turned a ghostly shade of white.
The crate was empty.