Lazarus's expression turned a dark disapproval when Mr. Bagnold laughed in the night. Vampires and werewolves had no earthly reason to love each each other, but Lazarus felt he had better reason than some. He'd lived and died risking his skin for others, that much he remembered. And his reward? Not the sweet slumber of martyrdom, but an ages-long sentence existing in shadow. A werewolf, they could probably imagine such a fate. Mr. Bagnold? He seemed to find plight a personal offense.

Lazarus Blackburn began to regret his altruism. Bagnold chose the Wizarding way to scale this wall; Lazarus, after a long moment, joined him in his own way.

"Square? You haven't done anything." A pepper of Laz's initial joie de mort had dissolved, now resolved to observe the werewolf hunter in his task. Help or hinder as the situation called for.

Lazarus began to moved down the tunnel, making no account of the pitch blackness, following the same sound Mr. Bagnold could surely hear as well.

Here they were, adventuring into the darkness: him, his undead guide, and whatever flea-ridden nightmare lay waiting up ahead.  Kurby felt uncannily, grimly cheerful about the whole thing.  It had been a long time -- since before Bruce Ballentyne had been bitten, before Mainwaring had left and come back again, before he'd finally been allowed to take the reigns of the WCU himself -- since a hunt had felt this low stakes,  just him and whatever might lay ahead in the darkness. 

There was no reason to worry about anyone's safety, whether it was a bystander or his teammates.  Even his civically-minded companion wasn't really at any sort of risk in facing a werewolf; the creature could simply transform itself into a bat and flitter away.  For once, it was just him and the monster.  It felt satisfyingly freeing.

As they moved slowly into the abandoned station, the space seemed to be getting darker and darker.  The light of the full moon couldn't penetrate here; the shadows were so deep that he couldn't see even a few inches ahead of him.  Kurby crept forward slowly, rolling each step, feeling his way along pace by pace so that he wouldn't trip over the uneven ground.  Craning his senses, he tried to listen ahead, to get a sense of where the werewolf might be in the darkness.

But try as he might, he couldn't hear it.  The werewolf had let out a howl, and then gone silent, as it might if it were hunting something.  And it occurred to Kurby suddenly, even though he knew that the vampire had been just ahead of him, that he couldn't hear his undead guide, either.

The werewolf hunter went still in his tracks.  Here in the pitch blackness of the abandoned train station, he might not be able to see anything trapped here with him, but both of the monsters in the darkness could surely sense him. 

"Lumos Maxima," he called out, shielding his eyes with the back of his hand. 

As he drew back his wand and flicked it again, the tip exploded with a bright, blinding light.  With another jerk of his wand, Kurby sent the luminescent ball soaring toward the ceiling of the abandoned station, casting bright light all around them.  Even if it meant that he gave up any hope of the element of surprise, at least now he and the monsters were on equal ground.

With the spell overhead, he could make out the inside of the station now.  The entire space seemed a little larger than  a Quidditch field, with stone walls and a dark, cave-like ceiling overhead.  An old, rusty-looking train car sat parked by a platform; both looked like they hadn't seen use in many years. 

And up ahead, letting out an enormous roar as it twisted away from the sudden light, was quite possibly the biggest lycanthrope he had ever seen in his fifteen years of hunting.

Kurby's face went gray.

He grabbed for his silver chain as he faced it, gripping the metal tightly in both hands.  There was only one type of werewolf that he had ever known to get so big: a direwolf, one of the cursed abominations created by the Wizarding Blood Alliance.  Suddenly, the noncommittal details and hazy timeline of the vampire's story seemed all the more striking.

"When did you see that thing come down here?" he snapped at the vampire, taking a step back away from the direwolf.

The wizard blasted the station in sharp-white wand-light with only as much warning as his incantation allowed. Lazarus, generally unprepared for this kind of uncomfortable illumination, swore under his breath and disappeared into the sharp shadow of a maintenance passage.

"Very subtle," he groused from the opening. The darkness had been no barrier to Lazarus a moment before when he'd thought he'd spotted the werewolf moving around up ahead. And now the wizard's light burned away any ambiguity: there he was, and he was massive. In a blink Lazarus was at Bagnold's side, again, holding his hat in a way to shade his eyes from the glare.

"Hard to say..." Lazarus muttered in response, actually surprised at what he'd found. The night's sightings ticked by in his memory, the oddities adding up. The beast loping through Regents Park at sunset. Laz had very well figured it was a dog at first and thought nothing of it. It was staying hidden and Laz had other things in his head. He'd have forgotten it if he hadn't seen it again, seen it more clearly. Followed it at some distance, following it no further than where Laz and Bags had hopped the old wall. 'New', Lazarus had thought. Funny how it seemed skittish. Choosy about where it was going.

"No, that's not right at all..." he muttered.

The werewolf, bigger than any Lazarus had ever seen, was a hulking and heavy sight. Jutting angles, coarse hair, slavering and panting maw. His stance now, head low, hackles up, clawed hands the size of car tires hanging ready. In a flash, the werewolf lashed out and sliced four perfect gashes in the side of the abandoned rail car. The sound echoed, nails-on-a-chalkboard times a thousand.

Lazarus made a sound like a nervous laugh, an ashy cough. "Hmm hmm, doesn't bode well for you trusting old Laz does it..."

Oh, Lazarus, this is what happens. He'd have a hard time getting over the damning narrative of luring a wizard into a werewolves den then leaving him to die.

The situation didn't bode well for him allowing 'old Laz' to continue along with its happy undead existence right now, but who was counting?  Kurby clenched his teeth so hard he practically ground through the enamel.  Eyes locked on the direwolf, he backed up one step, and then two, moving slowly back away from it. 

Hell.  What the bleeding hell was he supposed to do?  Kurby backed up another step as the direwolf threw back its head and let out a terrifying howl.  This wasn't a forest; there were no friendly tree roots to transfigure, and no soft ground that he could enchant to give way underneath it.  He could apparate the hell away from here, but then there would be nothing keeping this goddamned thing trapped in the tunnel.  And to hell with calling in the other two-thirds of his team: Harris, for one, would probably just get his head ripped off the second he came face to face with this beast.

Before he could make a decision, the direwolf charged at him, its teeth and claws slashing.  Instinctively, he grabbed onto the vampire's coat and yanked on it, apparating them both away with a CRACK.

An instant later, they had reappeared on top of the rusting train car.  Gritting his teeth, Kurby instantly let go of the vampire, not really caring if his undead companion had found his footing or not.

"Just break my neck and suck my blood to start with next time!" he snapped at it, his attention already focused back on the direwolf. 

The creature had skidded to a halt as its prey had disappeared mid-pounce.  Snarling, it whirled around with a limberness that a monster that big really didn't have a right to possess and charged back at the train car.  It slammed into the rusty metal with a loud crash, rocking the carriage back so hard that Kurby nearly lost his footing.  He dropped to a crouch, reaching out his free hand to steady himself against the train car's roof.

How long had it been since Lazarus had felt more than concern? More than mild dread or apprehension? When was the last time he'd found himself responsible for the well-being of a mortal? Had to be more years than the werewolf hunter had been breathing.

The wizard's Apparition all but completely stunned Lazarus and he fell hard to his knees, ears ringing. The roar of the werewolf and the harangue of the human were enough to quickly pull him out of it just in time to see the werewolf turn on a dime and charge again. Lazarus knew he was strong but not this strong, so although he doubted the beast could end his cursed existence he'd never overpower it. But what he did have was a supernatural quickness that the naked eye (and werewolves) could never match.

In a second he was across the station.

"Hey, Hairy," he rasped. Thank the stars the beast lunged for him. Just as he closed in, Lazarus moved across the space again. The werewolf roared in frustration, stalled and angry at the moving prey.

"Get handy with the wand, Bagnold," he suggested prepared to run again.

The train car dropped back into place and Kurby had braced himself to hang on through a second assault, when all of a sudden the vampire's voice called out from across the abandoned station.  Startled, the werewolf hunter froze; he glanced back behind him, and then squinted across the underground chamber.

Huh.  Apparently Old Laz had decided to do more than just jabber at him or lead him into a trap.

Silently, Kurby moved over to the far side of the train car.  A moment later, he dropped down off the side of it, landing on the old platform.  Like the rest of the abandoned station, the shadowy space looked like it hadn't been used in years.  The tiles were dusty under his feet, and the ceiling was lower here, lined with burned-out electric lights.  From the wall, old Muggle advertisements peered out at him through yellowed plastic.

"Get handy with the wand, Bagnold!" the vampire called.

Kurby glanced past the train car down the tracks.  Most of the tracks seemed to disappear into the darkness; one or two of them, though, seemed to lead to a dead-end against a stone wall, some sort of waiting area for trains pulled off the main tracks.

It would be easy to run; to apparate away and then return with back-up.  But even if the vampire was already mostly dead, he wasn't going to just abandon someone to a goddamned direwolf.  The next-simplest solution -- killing the direwolf -- would create headaches of its own. 

He began to gather his chain up again, studying the old train car as he slid the loops over his arm.  It looked too heavy to levitate by himself, but it had wheels.

Freeing his wand again, he fired off a burst of blue sparks.  The jet of cerulean light shot up towards the ceiling like a flare, hovering over a portion of the tracks in front of the train car to mark it. 

"Give me five seconds and then get it over there!" he called to the vampire.

Lazarus's 'ready' stance looked more like he was waiting for a train or having a smoke around the corner. It was certainly in contradiction to his current anxiety in a situation he'd never been in before. He couldn't help but wonder what the coven was going to think of this, if they found out. But there was no time to think about community fall-out. Bagnold was on his toes again with a plan.

Laz had to skitter once more as Kurby disappeared from sight. There was the signal, and the plan, but there was something that Lazarus didn't trust about the stoic, hardened man who was called Hunter.

"You're going to help him, right?" Zip. "That is to say, not killing?" Zip.

The direwolf tracked Lazarus never tiring. But Laz wasn't ready to hand him over if the destination was potter's field.

"Sh-!" Too close that time!

He'd already started to move and cast the first couple of enchantments when the vampire had called out again. 

Of course.  Kurby stopped short, gritting his teeth.  Of course he'd end up getting led into this mess by a well-meaning vampire who not only insisted on trying to be helpful, but actually appeared to care about the fate of the direwolf that was trying to slaughter them both.

"It's a goddamned werewolf!" he shouted back, frustration evident in his voice.  He'd dropped a Muggle automobile on one once, for Merlin's sake; they were resilient.

What the hell was he supposed to do?  Sing it to sleep?  Offer to take it for a walk?  If he didn't hit it hard enough to knock it down, then he didn't stand a chance of restraining it, and then he really would have to try and kill it.

He was scaring the wizard. Was that fear? Hard to tell. Shouting fell into many categories. Whatever it was, there was urgency. The wizard had asked for five seconds. How many had passed? A few by now, had to be. Lazarus wanted more assurances that the werewolf's life would be spared, but none would come. Who was to blame if it died? The Hunter who could only do one thing? Or the Lazarus who'd led the Hunter here?

"Plagued by conundrums," he said to himself before taking off a final time to stand below the blue light. His arrival in the trap was evidence of which end of the dilemma he'd chosen. He'd chosen to follow the course through and trust the wizard. He leaned one shoulder against the train car waiting for the werewolf and to see how this string of fate would pan out.

"Psst!" was the signal Kurby got from Lazarus that the werewolf was charging into place, taking the bait.

The vampire didn’t respond immediately to his shout.  Kurby clenched his teeth, trying to think quickly.    It wasn’t as if he’d drawn his knife and gone straight for the direwolf’s throat.  The thing was big enough that it would probably be perfectly fine, even if it were hit by the speeding Hogwarts Express.

You’ll help him, the vampire had said.  But his job wasn’t to help werewolves — particularly not unregistered ones, which most certainly included the current direwolf.  It was to keep the public safe.

They didn’t have time to debate this.  If Old Laz the vampire wasn’t going to cooperate with him, then he’d have to figure something else out.

But his argument had apparently been enough to change the vampire’s mind after all.  ”Psst!” the undead creature hissed from the front of the train.

That was enough of a signal, even if it came without preamble.  Kurby disappeared with a loud crack.

The snarling direwolf was charging toward the vampire when Kurby reappeared on top of the train.  He judged the distance, and then apparated again a split second later, this time reappearing to the right of the direwolf’s path.

At the loud sound, the creature turned midstride to lunge at him, but Kurby was already moving.  He dropped to one knee and cracked the silver chain like a whip, aiming at the direwolf’s upper right foreleg.  As it struck, the chain wrapped around the creature’s limb.  Kurby grabbed onto the other end of the chain with both hands and yanked hard, pulling the enormous monster off-balance as it fell fully onto the tracks. 

The direwolf let out a horrific roar as it fell, pulled suddenly and violently off-balance.  Quick as he could, Kurby cast a Sticking Charm to the other end of the chain, attaching it to a wooden railroad tie as he scrambled back.  It might only hold the direwolf for a few seconds, but that was all the time that he’d need.

Except now the vampire was in the way, leaning against the old train car.  “Move!” Kurby snapped at him as he tugged one of his silver rings off his right ring finger.

String of fate, indeed. The tool of Bagnold's trade was not wand as the vampire suspected, but a length shimmering chain. A neck-breaking take-down, violent but deft. A spray of gravel in front of his fate as the werewolf hunter snatched the fellow in the nick of time.

“Move!”

"Pardon," Lazarus trotted out of the way like a theatre-goer coming in late from intermission. He was in the way and had almost forgot himself. The werewolf hunter, he acted with a plan. He acted with the confident improvisation that comes from many repetitions in varying scenarios. Lazarus related, at least maybe he did. He'd been a fire fighter. How is a werewolf like a conflagration? A riddle in want of an answer. He slipped clear but, intrigued and still concerned for werewolf welfare, stayed close. Just out of reach, he hoped.

He put his hands in his pocket and leaned to the side. "Big, isn't he?" he asked with a calmness that contrasted Bagnold's intensity. "What do you reckon?"

The wood was cracking, the snarling direwolf was seconds from freeing itself, and now the vampire wanted to have a conversation.  Kurby ignored him as he apparated once again, this time to a spot only a few meters away, where he could see the back of the train car.  With a fluid motion, he tossed the silver ring back behind the train, and then cast a quick Confringo curse after it.

In his spare time, he’d always enjoyed tinkering with spells and charms.  After he had joined the Werewolf Capture Unit as a young adult, Kurby had shifted most of his hobby to improving on defensive tools.  Magic and active spells weren’t very useful against werewolves, and so he’d had to find other, more creative ways to give himself an edge.  The silver rings were a useful trick: they built up kinetic energy as he moved,  and could then be triggered to let out all of the energy that they had stored.  The resulting blast of force wasn’t enough to knock out a werewolf, but it could certainly knock one back a few feet and give him breathing room.

Struck with the Blasting Curse, the silver ring exploded.

He’d braced himself for the energy from the shockwave, dropping with an arm to protect his head, and it was still nearly enough to knock him flat.   The blast exploded into the back of the old train car, slamming it forward.  With its wheels newly enchanted to spin more freely, the train rocketed into the direwolf, culminating in one final, magnificent, thunderous crash.

Lazarus had not been ready. The explosion was bright, hot, deafening in the contained area. He was knocked back and his hat flew off. Before he hit the ground, instinct kicked in; he changed himself into a bat and fled into a dark alcove. He couldn't tell what had happened to the werewolf or the wizard. His ears were ringing and he had stars in his eyes. His angry little squeaks might have only been audible to dogs and cats.

A minute later he began to gather up his wits, and alit back on the ground in his own two shoes. He picked up his hat, dusted it off and slowly approached the wrecked train car.

"That's a nice trick..." The wizard truly abhorred subtlety it seemed. Maybe Lazarus had stolen it all up. Nice trick indeed. Bring the whole roof down and muggle police with it. He wondered how much time before someone topside got anxious.

As he got closer, his nostrils flared and his pupils dilated. He stopped. There was blood. Bad blood. He put his hat on.

"Hmmm, something doesn't smell right here, Bagnold. What now, fella?" he mumbled.
 

The explosion had rocked the underground station.  Kurby waited half a beat, giving the ringing in his ears a chance to subside a little, and then carefully and cautiously climbed to his feet.  He didn't think the dire wolf would be able to shake off a collision like that, but if it did, he wanted to be able to move.

The vampire had already begun to move towards the wreck, looking a little dazed.  Old Laz stopped short, his nostrils flaring.  "Hmmm, something doesn't smell right here, Bagnold," he mumbled. "What now, fella?"

Kurby was already assessing the wreckage, dark eyes scanning over the remains of the train.  The front of it looked like it had been as mangled by its impact with the direwolf as the monster probably was by the train car.  Underneath the twisted metal, he thought he could see something feebly moving, starting to stir.

Werewolves recovered quickly.  He didn't want to waste any time.

The light from his Lumos Maxima spell was starting to fade, so Kurby quickly cast it again, sending a second ball of light soaring towards the roof of the underground station.  He pointed his wand at a piece of the nearby railway track and cast a silent Levitation charm on it.  It took a moment of straining for it to finally begin to lift free, one creaking inch at a time, popping out the long nails that had been keeping it anchored in place one by one.

"It'll be fine," he informed the vampire shortly as he began to direct the piece of rail to float over near the direwolf.  It probably would be; it took a lot to kill a werewolf, and a direwolf was even bigger.   He didn't want to waste any time in getting it more securely constrained.  "When it turns back into itself tomorrow, it'll probably just have a goddamned headache."

It'll be fine? What was 'it'? A stand in for the general state of the world? Or the poor kid who'd been hit by a train.

"You're the expert," he said with some doubt, tugging at his hat again against the light.

He pointed up. "Wish you wouldn't do that, with the light. Something with more ambience might be nice. Got a spell for that?"

Lazarus didn't actually expect or care for a reaction to that. He held his hat as he leaned closer. The werewolf was breathing. Lazarus had to admit Bagnold's evaluation that the apprehension had not been catastrophic for the guy was coming true. But there was that fetid smelling blood blackening its fur. Lazarus wrinkled his nose again and covered his mouth.

"Mmm, something's wrong with this one, Bags. Not the train. Blood's bad. Worse than usual."

Werewolves were unappetizing, full moon or not. Superstitions abound that discouraged draining that lot. But this one, it was worse. Much worse. Much more wrong.