Day 8 part 3



Mavis was a little dismayed, there were a number of key components to the spell that she did not have and she would have to spend another day sourcing the missing items.



She had a hazel tree in the garden, pretty standard planting for a Wytch. She went to the garden and pulled a small plug out of the trunk, and inserted a small pointed stick, the rising sap would seep down the stick and fall into the foil cup taped to the end. The hazel sap would collect whilst she was out, that was the easy one. If it had been in the depths of winter when the sap was not rising she would have possibly had a problem.



The others were a little more difficult and require some thought. The opium of the poppy for example. That was pretty common until relatively reason, but now, due to its illegality, getting hold of pure opium poppy seeds was not so easy. Many of the worts were not yet fully grown this season, and the two she needed didn’t grow naturally in this region any way. No, it was going to be a difficult day, she couldn’t just pop down to a Wytch’s supermarket. But then she had a thought, the Chinese Herbalist may well have some of what she needed.









She knew, from Eldred’s memory, how sweet the milk of a new mother was, but what she didn’t want was the food getting pregnant whilst it was here. She had spoken to them all in the most severe human voice and also with the thrall. At no point were the food allowed to have sex with each other. Anyone caught breaking this rule would have their genitals removed by Panther, and that, she told them was not something anyone would ever wish to experience, as it was a particularly painful last thing to experience. She was sure her thrall would stop them, but then she also knew how hormones were powerful driving forces in teenage bodies.



Vanessa tidied her hair and applied the finishing touches. She looked every inch the perfect nurse. She needed no vehicle today, she was not bringing back people, and so it was a matter of only a few minutes running and she was at the Rehabilitation Centre. She walked in casually through the staff entrance looking to anyone who noticed as if she had been out for a smoke. She headed to the nearest clean trolley and took what she thought she could get away with, eight full IV sets. No-one noticed and in a moment she was back out of the door and back at the mansion. Now she could simply inject the food with her blood, there was no need to taste the decreasingly vile blood. There would be plenty to taste when they were cleansed. Until then, there were the sardines.



“Four won’t be enough.” Eldred called.



“I know, but any more than four disappearing in one week is raising the risk of discovery. By the time we have been round the sardines twice we will have a plentiful food supply, and if you want to start on the food before they have finished cleansing, be my guest, they are all yours.”



“You are too kind, even the boy?”



“Even the boy” she called back. She knew he would not touch them, his palate was many times more refined than hers, he could taste the different blood types, and had told her that A negative was the most delicious. As yet her young palate couldn’t tell the difference, just that there was a subtle difference.







The map was now looking increasingly busy. There were a number of black pins that denoted black cat sightings. There were a number of yellow pins that denoted empty houses and there were 10 red pins that denoted houses with single and deemed vulnerable occupants, crucially for Bentley, ones that hadn’t had a visit from Social Services for at least a week.



Gur commented, “If you look at the panther attacks it kind of looks like a figure 8, could that mean two cats, or that simply there is not viable food in the middle cross over area?



“Good spot,” Bentley said and went up to look at the sparsely pinned area. “They are all sheep farms as far as I know there, so, no good reason why the cat, if only one, would not predate their also. Yeah, I like your two cat theory.”



Bones spoke next, “I have uniforms going to the ten red pinned locations that Bentley id’d this morning. They are to radio in when they get to a property and then radio in no more than 10 minutes later, and then if they need more than that initial ten minutes, every ten minutes until they leave. Remember what happened to PC Wainwright, he had no idea he had been drugged. Control know that if they are not contacted every ten minutes to raise the alarm, and we swoop. We will all get a text with the post code, your sat nav’s will get you there as quick as anything.”



“There are two red pins in bottom of the two black areas,” Rebekah Kahn noted, “in that the black cat seems somehow associated with Ancient DNA man, I suggest they be the first two targeted.”



“Already noted and in hand ‘Bekah,” Bones said, ‘we then have the one hundred and thirty eight empty properties to inspect. We cannot do the ten minute call in with them, it would overload Control.”



“Sir,” Dick Jones said, “do them in batches of ten, in a predetermined sequence. At least then if we don’t get a call we will know which ten to target, that’s only be fourteen calls to control, much more manageable. Yeah?”



“Good call Dick, work with Christine and group them into tens and give a sequence. Of the groups and then a sequence within the groups.”



“Sir,” Christine said, “ that is quite an area, one man cannot cover those properties in a day, Sir, you will really need at least 5 teams.”



“That is quite some man power and vehicles going to be committed, but I will talk with ACPO and see what can be done.”



“Things have been quiet for a while now,” Bentley said, “I am worried that the chemist may have had the time to perfect his drug.”



“All GPs and the hospital have been advised to keep an eye out for sex attack victims where the victim seems to have memory loss. We have said that a batch of Rohypnol was stolen from a pharmaceutical supplier in Bristol.” Bones looked around the room as he spoke. Seeing Bentleys face he continued, “yes I know the symptoms are not the same, but they are similar enough.”



“I wasn’t worried about that sir,” Bentley said, “you better get your words ready, I am telling you it’ll be in the paper by tonight. Ten quid on it.”