The apartment was situated in the docks of London. A large warehouse conversion that took up the top two floors of the building. Three hundred and sixty degree views and wrap around balconies allowed one to observe London and surrounds in its entirety.
There were three bedrooms, all on-suite, three reception rooms and an indoor-outdoor gymnasium on the roof terrace.
Emily’s days were much of a muchness. She rose early, ate, then trained for three hours. After that, she ate again, showered and went out if she needed anything.
Then returned and trained again, until exhaustion set in.
There were times when she longed to contact Bart and Ryoko but she knew that to do so would surely sign their death warrant. She couldn’t take the smallest chance of attracting attention to them. The Nosferatu would hone in on them and destroy them merely because they meant something to her.
She had phoned William a couple of times but the conversations were stilted and wary as his concern for her overwhelmed all else and, after the second call, Emily had decided not to contact him again until she was either in trouble or she had some sort of plan.
When she first arrived she had gone out and purchased some nondescript clothing. Cheap jeans, t-shirts, sneakers and a baseball cap. She knew that parading about in her black Shadowhunter gear could attract unwanted attention, so instead she donned the attire of a student. With her long blonde hair tucked under the cap, no makeup and small round sunglasses she blended in with any of the other thousands of comparable types walking the street of the capital city. Anonymous in their similarities.
When she shopped for food she used cash and purchased from the local market as opposed to the chain stores. She never shopped in the same place more than once a week and never purchased anything unusual. Polite, quiet and forgettable.
She was alone. But she had no time to be lonely. Her need to improve herself drove her beyond loneliness.
Over the last few weeks she had spent hours upon hours in the apartments gym, practicing with her sword, beating the heavy punchbag, kicking and striking the makiwara Japanese punching board and performing endless katas that had honed her skills to a level that she had never thought possible. She was fitter, stronger, faster and more deadly than she had ever been.
Because she was determined that the next time she came across a blood sucker, there would only be one possible outcome. They had killed her friends. They had irrevocably changed her life. And they would pay.
It was time for Emily Hawk to kick some serious ass.
It had been a month to the day when she finally donned her Shadowhunter uniform and left the building heading for the city. There she visited a shabby lawyer’s office in Brixton, handed them a wad of cash and instructed them to place a series of classified adverts in all of the London and national newspapers. There was no way that she could have done so herself without a credit card and the consequent questions and flags that its use would have raised.
The ad was short and simple but she knew that only one person would fully understand what she was saying.
Bastian. Tings a gwaan but we hab di ting lack. Link me a Ben Johnson day where we got de bashy red dress.
Loosely translated from the Jamaican patois the message read; “Bastian. Things have gone bad but we need to sort them out. Meet me on Thursday at the shop where I purchased the red dress.”
It was the best that she could do. Now she simply had to wait two days and then stake out the clothes shop that she and Bastian had visited before.
She had no idea how to track down Nathan.
Chapter 26