| Details for Juno Invictus, Lady of Action, Part I |
| Summary: | Wherein the Gentle Reader is introduced to Juno Invictus, Lady of Action |
| Date: | December 2, 1941 |
| Location: | N/A |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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Editor's Note: Owing to the growing popularity of this 5-knut book series, we have chosen to reprint the very first Juno Invictus story for readers who are just experiencing her for the first time. This is a work of fiction intended for young adult witches and wizards.
Part I
It was fancy as offices went. Nice, polished oak floors covered with fine red carpet, and hand-carved furniture to the left and right. The aroma of smoke rising in the air and mingling with another fragrance I could not place — fine cedar? — and a picturesque view of the city ahead thanks to a large bay window.
The woman that sat across from me at her desk was a striking figure. She had long black hair the color of a night sky — the same night sky in the giant glass window behind her — pale skin like the snow of a pristine fjord, and eyes a forbiddingly bright green. She was relaxed, at ease, but in the same way that a cobra was. And I felt little more than a mouse, unable to look away as she winked at me and took a drag on her long, thin pipe. I knew she wouldn't hurt me, but the way her fingers so expertly twirled her smoking pipe, I couldn't say the same for anyone who wanted to stand against her wand.
"Mister Hornswaggle," she said with an amused look on her face, "you never answered my question."
I shook my head with a start. I was here for a job interview, and I was not doing a particularly good job of it. She had asked me what my qualifications were.
"Well, five years at St. Mungo's, and before that, I took my N.E.W.T.S. in Arithmancy, Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, and Charms." My mouth felt dry. There was a charm for that, I knew, but for some reason I couldn't remember what it was.
"My, my, my," she chuckled. "So you can play nurse and accountant simultaneously? That could be useful."
"Accountant?" I asked with a frown. "I'm afraid that I don't understand, Missus Invictus."
The woman tapped out a bit of ash, glowing embers fading to nothing in the air. "Please, call me Juno, my dear boy. In my line of work, a lot of things get broken. The Ministry is grateful for the cases I handle, but we do need to cover the bills."
"That's one thing I am not sure I understand, Missus Invictus-"
"Juno," she corrected smoothly. "Please continue, Mister Hornswaggle. What don't you understand?"
"Well… I just don't know what it is that you do that you need a personal healer for?"
Before she could reply, the glass window behind her suddenly burst inwards with a crash, shoved in by two great black cloaked figures. The glass shards rained over the area, but she whirled aboutface in her chair and held up a hand, and the glass pieces flew every direction but towards either of us.
"You'll pay for what you did to our sire, Juno Invictus!" one? both? snarled at her. The pallid, wrinkled, fanged faces of the intruders identified what they were at once — Vampires. Startled, I fumbled about with my briefcase, attempting to retrieve my wand.
Before I could even get the briefcase opened, however, she had a wand in each hand — made of a rigid black wood, American style — which she twirled about and then lunged up at them from her sitting position. "Lumos Solem Requiescat in Pace!" she incanted as she simultaneously thrust a wand into each vampire's chest. Fractures of light appeared over their skin before they shortly burst into piles of ash, their empty woolen robes sliding off her blood-slicked wands.
"…Oh, this, that, and the other thing," she casually remarked, and then sighed. "I told my husband that this window was a bad idea. But he really loved the view and I couldn't say no."