Chapter 148
London.
"Black Star Headquarters".
A large owl was knocking on the window of a completely ordinary-looking Muggle three-story building, a special holder for letters was tied to its leg, and it looked very unhappy, because it was lightly raining outside, and it had been knocking for about ten minutes and no one opened it.
The bird even began to think that the owner had made a mistake at the address and had sent it to the wrong place, but when the feathered creature was about to fly away and wait out the bad weather somewhere, the window opened slightly and a hand jumped out, grabbing the surprised predator and dragging it inside.
And when the owl, having closed her eyes, began to say goodbye to her life, she felt lightness in the area of the fastening and opening her eyes, she saw a gloomy man in a leather, black and green suit in whose hand there was a parchment, and she herself had already been released and placed on table. The man, turning the letter in his hand and not noticing any identifying marks, opened it and quickly glanced at the contents, the next moment he opened his eyes in shock.
"This is impossible…"
"What is it?" another man approached him, but to the amazement of everyone, with a pale complexion, he simply flew out of the room, and the rest of the wizards in the small room began to look at each other in surprise in deathly silence, while everyone understood that there was something very important there, judging by his reaction.
"What do you think, what could have happened there?" asked a short young man with interest, who looked like he couldn't even be twenty.
"The less you know, the better you sleep," the other chuckled, adjusting his black gloves and looking down at the owl.
"It's unknown what could have been there, but I'll tell you a story about the guy who worked here before you," he took out a cigarette and lit it, creating a small flame. on his finger, "And something similar happened to him, some urgent letter arrived and he also ran to report, and…"
"And...?" the newcomer clarified, swallowing, and the others just sighed heavily and looked at each other with wry smiles.
"He never returned, they told us that he was transferred to headquarters, only he wasn't there, I asked my friends and from them I learned that he was generally listed as dead, from the very day when the letter arrived without identification marks, therefore, in our profession, the less you know, the longer you will live, our profession is very dangerous," baring his teeth, he exhaled a stream of smoke right in the face of the recruit, "Did you think that you could get such a lot of money for nothing?"
"Ron, stop scaring the kid already," said another, with a short beard, grinning, lightly tapping the young man's shoulder with his palm, "Nothing will happen to you, that idiot was after night duty and didn't notice the red cross that was marked, just be more careful and nothing will happen to you."
"Ugh! Ruined all the fun!" The man named Ron muttered dissatisfied, putting out his cigarette, and then continued more seriously, "But still, this reaction is definitely not good, I'm afraid that…"
"Shut up, we didn't see anything and this is no longer our business," the bearded man said in a low voice, "The break is over, let's get to work, we still need to sort out all those papers from yesterday and take a closer look, I have a bad feeling…"
The others nodded gloomily in response, and the pale "young man" nodded like a dummy and rushed to the work table, where he began to fill out the documents, while in the depths of his soul regretting that he decided to join the third group of the "Steel" department, how could he know that such a seemingly easy, safe job would turn out to be so dangerous...
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At the same time, the nervous man who had previously run out of the room was already standing in front of Witold, calmly reading a letter sent by a certain "Prince", while Witold looked completely calm and even smiled faintly.
"Not bad, everything went even better than I wanted... a self-confident cretin, although it's a pity that they didn't just kill him, and now we also have to pay a ransom... but I achieved the main goal, I think the leader won't be angry about this, and he'll sew a new hand on.
The rest of the wizards, for him, were no more than just cannon fodder, at least a hundred of them could be raised in a couple of months, and the loss of more than forty, if he managed to attract the "boy" to his side, would be easy insignificant, and the vacated place at the top of the Almaz department will definitely belong to him after this.
Taking out an A4 sheet of paper and a pen, he quickly wrote an answer, because no matter how much he wanted Laurus to die, he couldn't allow it, if it was possible to save him, because the loss of the eighth most powerful in the organisation, as well as one of the best killers is too much for him to handle, they definitely won't forgive him if they get to know about this.
The letter contained nothing special: an apology for the actions of the "idiot," an agreement to pay a ransom, an address for a meeting that would take place next Saturday, and a request to take good care of his subordinate.
Folding the letter in half, he placed it in an envelope and pressed the seal with the silver letter "S", and then handed it to the nervous subordinate.
"Send it by the same owl," the leader of the squad ordered with indifference in his voice, to which the man timidly nodded and took the letter with both hands.
"Y-yes! I-I'll.."
"Go."
"Yes!" and, as soon as the men left the office with the letter, he "flew" towards his workplace, while almost sobbing with happiness that everything worked out....
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{Gloucestershire. Several tens of kilometres from the populated area.}
In a dark room, in front of a transparent screen on which a green-haired man was depicted, a young man was sitting on a sofa, with a satisfied expression on his face, stroking a grey kitten on his lap, who in response looked at him displeasedly.
"You yourself agreed to four fish dishes, so be patient," said the wizard with a grin, who simply could not help smiling at the sight of this "unfortunate" face.
"~ Mmmmryau…"
"Ten more minutes, we agreed on an hour," ignoring this "suffering" meow, he looked up at the screen, watching Witold, who, after his subordinate left, rose from the table with a letter and went to the wall, and then having knocked on the bricks in a certain sequence, they began to move apart.
"Too predictable..."
The man entered the secret passage and walked up to the mirror, which was covered with runes around and touching the empty area between the symbols with his palm, the next moment they shone and his reflection began to ripple, giving way to the image of a man in a white mask with red patterns, at the sight of which the hand stroking the animal froze.
"Mask of the Faceless Man"... an artefact at the peak of the "Archmage" rank... it's not surprising that no one could find out what he looks like, with such an artefact in this world, you can lead the whole world on a skid, constantly changing your appearance, you're one lucky brute…" Severus muttered with a grin, without taking his eyes off this artefact, with the help of which, in his world, it was possible to deceive even the "Great Archmages" at the lowest rank.
"Now, I want to meet him even more." Snape, although wanted to get this artefact, but what he needed more was information about where the man found it.
The "Mask of the Faceless Man" was not a simple artefact that changed only the face, but much more amazing, because it was capable of rebuilding the entire body and even changing magic, so Snape wanted to get it, and first of all, not for his own use, but to protect himself , because, he will not be able to recognize a person with this thing if that person decides to disguise himself as someone and kill him.
These masks were mainly used by the "Assassins Guild" and only by the main members, because the method of making them was kept a top secret, although many tried to find out this secret, but no one managed to do it for several thousand years, Severus himself did not even think about it , because with his skills, this is a priori impossible.
Continuing to stroke the kitten, he concentrated on what was currently happening on the screen.
"... not bad, you did a good job, if you manage to drag him into the organisation, I will turn a blind eye to your actions yesterday and the place in Almaz is yours, and your brother will become the leader of the Steel branch, so do a good job and don't let me down, Witold ."
"Yes, thank you, I will carry out your order!" the man quickly stammered with excitement, and then added, "Even if he refuses, I have a backup plan ready, he will have no choice."
"Do what you want, but if you fail the task... "Just one gloomy voice and an unspoken threat were enough to make the proud and arrogant Alegria tremble with fear.
"I will not let you down!"
"Just try... " and the image of the man in the mask disappeared.
Snape's hand moved to the ears of the kitten, who was naturally going crazy from all these caresses, and those remaining ten minutes had long passed.
"And he is a man of few words, but I learned the main thing and... I didn't hear anything new..." moving to the ears, a contented purr began to emanate from the animal, "The best anti-stress and I don't really want to kill the green-haired one anymore..."
On the screen, Witold, left the secret room and fell into a chair, while in addition to fatigue, his face was adorned with a satisfied grin, because today his white streak begins, he was one hundred percent confident in his plan, without realising that with every second, this streak was becoming darker, and by Saturday it threatened to match the darkness from the abyss itself...
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