“Where was the other one from?” I asked. I’d only skimmed their files, more interested in the fact they were supposedly dead than where they’d come from.
Max picked up another file and scowled. “Bristol.”
“So why Birmingham?” Gabriel asked again.
“Where is Yates based out of?” I asked. Just thinking his name set off the familiar tingle in my magic.
He was key.
I’d bet my life on it.
“Yates has a compound just outside of Leicester,” Max answered.
“And how far is that from the Birmingham gateway?”
“About an hour’s drive.” Max met my gaze, and I saw it in his eyes. He knew exactly what I was thinking.
“I know hunters aren’t our favourite people, but it’s a big leap to accuse them of falsifying documents and lying to the police.”
I had no feelings about hunters either way. I had little to do with them. All I cared about was where the evidence pointed and the way my magic flared in connection to Yates. “How big is Yates’s compound?”
Max rubbed a hand over his face before answering. “Big enough to hide a refining lab, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I grinned. “We should go speak to him.”
“We can’t just turn up at his compound with no proof,” Gabriel cut in. “If you’re right, if he has anything to do with this, then his whole hunter group are involved. And they’ll be prepared for something like this.”
I turned to Gabriel. “You were part of a hunter group before you joined the police, yes?”
“I was. And I can tell you now, if we turn up on their doorstep without authorisation to search the whole property, then they will have every right to deny us access—which they will, probably forcefully—and by the time we return with the proper documentation, every trace of whatever they were up to will be gone.”
I growled in frustration. As far as I was concerned, we had enough evidence to go on their property and search it top to bottom. Through the gateway, I’d have already been leading a team of guards to do just that. “So what do you suggest?”
“We watch them,” Max cut in, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Watch them?” I glanced from Max to Gabriel, then back again. “Watch them?”
Max raised an eyebrow, but his tone remained steady, unconcerned. “Yes. We monitor them, see where they go, who they meet with, while we wait for permission to come through to search their compound. We have to follow procedure, Dathal, or anything we find will be useless.”
I huffed and opened my mouth to protest, but Axel put his hand on my shoulder. “They do things differently here, cousin. There are boxes to be ticked, rules to be followed. You can’t just march in there and throw your weight around.”
“How long will it take to get thispermission?”
Max tapped out something on his phone, then set it on the table. “Depends. I might struggle to explain to CI Thornton exactly how we know the witches are alive. I only have yours and Axel’s word that they are.”
“Isn’t that enough?” I snapped, irritation spiking. They were out there somewhere, and we had no idea how much Blue Alhuirn they had at their disposal. The thought of it being sold to the highest bidder, being used whether willingly or not, sent my blood cold.
“The word of the high court will be enough for Thornton, but ideally we need tangible evidence,” Max said patiently.
Closing my eyes, I forced myself to calm down. What was wrong with me? Yes, the rules that we had to follow were annoying, but it wasn’t like I didn’t know they did things differently here. “We can’t produce any. Only our word.”
“Which is why it might take a little longer than usual for CI Thornton to persuade the human judges to let us conduct a search on Yates’s property.”
“What do we do in the meantime?”
Max shrugged. “We watch and we wait.” He lifted his phone. “I’ve requested a twenty-four-hour watch on the Crimson Dagger hunter group. If any of them leave their compound, then we’ll know about it.”
It would have to do.
