Lin Ze When I took that document back to the office, it was almost time to get off work.
The moment he opened the door, the team members who were originally gathered together in twos and threes looking at their workstations all looked over.
Ben was placing a pot of cactus that he got from somewhere on the windowsill.
"What's wrong? The minister scolded you?" Ben asked, because Lin Ze's complexion was indeed not very good-looking.
Lin Ze said nothing and took out the crumpled document.
"That's not true. I just have work to do on the first day."
Everyone looked at me and I looked at you, and immediately gathered around. Mia stood behind everyone, but his eyes kept staring at Barty Crouch Jr..
Lin Ze took out his magic wand and clicked it on the wooden chair nearby. The wooden chair turned into a long conference table.
"Let's all survive together and come and take a look at this."
Lin Ze opened the document and pushed it toward the middle of the table.
"In the past five days, seven wizards have disappeared near Diagon Alley. This morning, a corpse was found outside Knockturn Alley. The magic power had been drained from the whole body and there were no external injuries."
The office was quiet for a few seconds.
"Drain the magic power?" Amos was the first to speak, frowning, "This doesn't sound like the methods of ordinary dark wizards."
"So the department thinks it is a dark creature." Lin Ze said.
"Vampire?" Ben said subconsciously.
"I don't know." Lin Ze shook his head.
Lin Ze quickly scanned the details in the document.
The seven missing persons, both male and female, range in age from 20 to 60 years old, and have different occupations. Some of them opened a shop at Diagon Alley, some were brokers at Knockturn Alley, and another was a night guard at Gringotts.
The only thing they have in common is that they both lost contact after going out alone late at night.
"Amos and Weiqi went to Diagon Alley to visit the families and neighbors of the missing persons."
"Carl and Mona went to Knockturn Alley to get information."
"Barty Crouch Jr. and Mia go to the scene to see if there is any valuable magic left."
"Ben and Arthur are going to check the movements of these seven missing persons in recent days to see if there are any intersections."
"Mr. Cradock stays in the office."
"I'm partnered with Mia?" Barty Crouch Jr. looked up.
Lin Ze glanced at him, "Is there any problem?"
"No problem." Barty Crouch Jr. shook his head and said.
Mia remained silent.
After assigning the operational tasks, Lin Ze returned to his "wardrobe", leaned back in his chair, and read the missing persons' files again.
"Victor Mosley, male, 43 years old, Knockturn Alley junk dealer, disappeared at night five days ago and was found dead early the next morning."
Lin Ze Turn the document to the next page.
"Sharper Pemberton, female, 27 years old, clerk at Diagon Alley Potions store, disappeared at night four days ago and has not been found so far."
"Olan Frinko, male, fifty-one years old, night guard at Gringotts, disappeared three days ago and was found dead outside Knockturn Alley this morning."
"Marge·Travers, female, 33 years old, Knockturn Alley information dealer, disappeared two days ago."
"Why is there still Travers?"
He continued to scroll down.
"The missing time of the remaining three people was concentrated on the night before yesterday, but..." Lin Ze clicked with his hand under a few lines on the file.
"These seven people don't seem to be related... Could it be..." Lin Ze suddenly remembered the vampire who was killed by him in Brazil.
Is that ghost chasing you?
No, didn't Newt say that thing wouldn't leave its base easily?
Lin Ze read the corpse report from beginning to end again.
"There was no external trauma on the body. The pupils were dilated, the lips were blue-purple, and the skin was abnormally dry and gray. The time of death was approximately between nine and eleven o'clock last night."
"All the internal organs of the body have shrunk, and the blood and magic power have been drained at the same time."
He touched his chin, "Besides vampires, what else can suck the blood and magic of wizards?"
It would be great if Newt was here, and I could ask this expert Fantastic Beasts who knows everything.
Lin Ze suddenly thought of the information that he had seen in the archives before, the record about "Soul-Devouring Vine".
This thing is a kind of Dark Magic creation between animals and plants. It lives by sucking the magic power and vitality of wizards.
But Soul-Devouring Vine was extinct as early as the Middle Ages.
Of course, the possibility of someone re-cultivating it cannot be ruled out.
After all, Dark Magic will never lack sales in Knockturn Alley.
Although he doesn't have Newt, he still has a top student he can ask for advice.
He took out Riddle's Diary from his pocket.
"Do you know that besides vampires, is there anything else that can drain a wizard's magic and blood at the same time?" Lin Ze wrote in his diary.
After a while, the handwriting appeared.
"I don't know, but it doesn't sound like something ordinary magic can do."
"Weren't you the most powerful dark wizard at that time, and you didn't even know about it?"
"My interest has never been in such cheap tricks"
"Okay, you are noble." Lin Ze rolled his eyes and stuffed the notebook back.
Early the next morning, Lin Ze just walked into the office and found that the team members had already arrived.
Even the book I usually ordered was twenty minutes early, and I was muttering something to Arthur while holding a cup of coffee.
"Are you all so positive?" Lin Ze put his coat on the hanger.
"We all went around the scene last night." Amos put down the teacup.
"Talk about it." Lin Ze walked over and sat down at the conference table. Before he left yesterday, he went to the logistics department and asked for some chairs.
"I went to the death place guarded by Gringotts." Weiqi said.
"No magic left, but I found this on the wall next to it."
He spread his hands, holding a small glass bottle in his palm. There were a few gray-black particles the size of sesame seeds in the bottle, glowing faintly.
"I scraped this from the cracks in the bricks, but I don't know if it has something to do with the deceased."
Lin Ze took it over and looked at the light.
"It looks like burnt medicine residue, and it looks like scales. I can't tell what it is." Weiqi added.
"Sir Carl, take a look." Lin Ze threw the glass bottle to Carl.
Carl took the glass bottle and raised it to his eyes. His glasses slid to the tip of his nose, and his two small eyes almost touched the wall of the bottle.
"It's interesting." He muttered, took it to his nose and smelled it, then stuck out his tongue to lick it.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Ben grabbed his wrist.
"You can put anything in your mouth without fear of poisoning yourself to death!"
"You little brat, what do you know?" Carl shook off Ben's hand dissatisfied.
After saying that, he finally stuck out the tip of his tongue and touched the mouth of the bottle lightly.
Everyone is staring at him.
Carl's brows first wrinkled, then widened, then wrinkled again, and finally spat on the ground several times.
"It's not a good thing," he said.
"What does it smell like?" Lin Ze asked.
"Like burnt Mandrake Root, fishy and bitter, and smells like rotten wood from old graves."
"I guess this thing is probably the secretion or excrement of some kind of dark creature."
"Secretions or excretions?" Ben silently took half a step back, keeping himself farther away from Carl.