Sunday, January 15
2:54 PM
The main corridor of the Werewolf Wing, Level Four
Two days after the events of Calling Card

The hallways of Level Four were quieter than usual for a Sunday, but even the low levels of chatter and the dim, steady lighting were making Kurby's head hurt.  The werewolf hunter looked more unhappy than usual as he braved the journey back from the Beast Division break room, the cup of lukewarm coffee sheltered in his grip clearly the only hope he had to remain upright for the remainder of the afternoon.

Everything was sore.  He'd slept in much later than he was used to before attempting to drag himself into the office, but Kurby still wanted nothing more than to apparate back home to his flat and crawl back into bed.  His body ached with bruises earned during last night's misadventure[1] that he hadn't yet really taken stock of, and his head ached both from a hangover[2] and from trying to make sense of all of the lingering pieces from Tuesday.[3]  The handwritten list that Adrianna Xin had given him[4] -- names of all the werewolves that the Aurors suspected had fallen victim to the werewolf fighting ring a year ago -- had made everything more complicated instead of simpler.  All three of the werewolves that had been involved in the attack on Iona Ballentyne[5] had been on it.

It was far easier to go through any sensitive information today than it would be tomorrow when the entire Capture Unit was back in the office, and so Kurby had forced himself through the worst of it.  He'd been back and forth to the Registry desk three times now for files, looking for any connections between the other names on Xin's list and the two dead werewolves.  And now, with the afternoon ticking away, he found himself returning from the break room for the second time with a mug full of hours-old stale coffee, hoping that it would be enough to get him through the last few hours of reading and taking notes.

Usually, the weekends were one of the more popular days for registered werewolves to meet with their mentors, especially for those that might want to avoid the embarrassment of dropping in during the busy workweek.  Today, thankfully, the Werewolf Registry desk had been largely devoid of visitors.  Even now, later in the afternoon, there were only a few werewolves queuing, waiting to talk to the clerk so that they could ask questions or complete their mentorship paperwork.

Unfortunately, as few as they were, they were also blocking his way.  Kurby rolled his eyes and started to push his way around them when a familiar figure near the end of the line made him pause.

He hadn't really seen Hannah Bombay since she'd been bitten.  At one point, the Ministry magical examiner had been an occasional ally against the recently turned.[6]  She hadn't gone out of her way to make any friends when her work had brought her in contact with Four, but she'd also been skilled and coolly efficient, good at what she'd been tasked to do.  Kurby had respected that as much as he did anyone.

But then Bombay had been bitten herself.  Like he did with any of his colleagues who had been turned, Kurby had promptly done his best to ignore her, avoiding any contact as much as he could.  He knew vaguely that she'd missed check-ins; that she'd been disgraced and gotten into some sort of illegal mess, as newly-turned lycanthropes often did.  Her name had been on Xin's list as well.

But now here was Bombay again, waiting impatiently for the Werewolf Registry, and here he was, with two dead bodies down in the morgue that he still had too many questions about.  After all of the tension with Level Two that had been building over the past few days, Kurby was skeptical that the Aurors would share all of their information with the WCU, even if they managed to find something more than Stacey Li had.

If anyone could get more from the two corpses, it was Hannah Bombay.  It took him only a split second to make the decision.

"Bombay!" Kurby barked out, stepping up behind her. 

He regarded her impassively, ignoring the looks from the other werewolves who had been queuing in front of her.  "I need a word," he informed her matter-of-factly, jerking his head in the direction of the Capture Unit's office.  "C'mon."

1.	January 14, 2012 - Dark Side of the Moon
2.	January 14, 2012 - We Bet Our Lives
3.	January 10, 2012 - The Ruin of Many a Good Wolf and The Moon's Gift
4.	January 13, 2012 - Paint the Sky Black
5.	September 15, 2008 - When I Fall
6.	March 12, 2009 - The Beast Within

Hannah was here to finally free herself of the pointless werewolf mentor sessions she’d been forced to attend since Azkaban. Well, to request it forcefully. Whoever had thought that the wild idea of talking through problems with others who knew would actually help, clearly hadn’t met Hannah Bombay. She’d chosen to spend most session in silence, unwilling to engage. Yes, of course she had her skeletons and problems, but no one needed to sit there and listen to them. As she’d pointed out to Adrestia Gamp, all the witch had to do was read the prophet articles that accompanied an unflattering picture of the healer.

This was why, on a Sunday afternoon, Hannah Bombay was stood in the queue at the Werewolf help desk. She’d rather foolishly believe it may be quieter now. In the aftermath of the January full moon, however, it was quite the opposite.

"Bombay!" The bark came from behind, and Hannah span around on the spot to see none other than grumpy and equally unsociable Kurby Bagnold looking directly at her. Oh no. Him needing a word was trouble. Anything to do with the Werewolf Wing was trouble. She’d heard stories about Bagnold, even before her turning.

Reluctantly, Hannah stepped out of the queue to towards him, her expression revealing the irritation she felt at having been pulled up by him. What had she supposedly done now?

Instead of asking the question, Hannah stood in the doorway, not yet following him. She stared at him, eyebrows raised and arms crossed.

It was an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, encountering someone that he’d known once who had since become a monster.  From a distance, Hannah Bombay still looked much like he remembered her, but up close, there were differences that stuck out like he’d stumbled upon her doppelgänger.  Her hair was bushier than it had been before, more untamed, reminiscent of the hairy creature that she transformed into once a month. She looked thinner and more worn than he might have remembered her, and her once-smart work attire had been traded for clothes that looked like something his sister might wear when lounging around her flat.

It was disconcerting, seeing her and knowing what she was now.  Kurby had spent half his lifetime avoiding anyone he’d known who had been bitten.  If it hadn’t been for the resumed relationship with Bruce Ballentyne that had been forced upon him, if the situation with the safe house hadn’t felt quite so desperate, he would have sneered at her and walked away.

Bombay reluctantly moved towards him, but her expression left no doubt how she felt about his command.  Most of the werewolves who abided by the Ministry’s regulations were what he would consider ‘tame,’ at least compared to the packs that had roamed Britain back in the ‘90s, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have any bite to them.  The former magical examiner hardly looked like she was going to sit or stay if he instructed her so.

But the long week that they’d all suffered, Kurby didn’t have the energy or the patience left to snarl at her.  He met her gaze directly, raised eyebrows for raised eyebrows, and then turned on his heel to head back for the Werewolf Capture Unit office.

Considering the events of the past few days, and the fact that his team now had Iona Ballentyne’s desk as an unfortunate example, the WCU office was in a state that was understandably close to shambles.  Stacks of folders and piles of rolled-up parchment were everywhere, waiting to be sorted through and filed.  The door to Kurby’s newly-claimed office was open, revealing a glimpse of a much more orderly organization within, but he didn’t move towards it.  Instead, he stopped in front of his old desk, looking as if he were about to start pacing impatiently.

“Come in and close the door,” he ordered, looking back to where she still stood in the hallway.  Level Four was nearly empty today, but even if he felt uneasy about locking himself in the office with a werewolf of unknown temperament, he wasn’t about to have this conversation out in the open where others might overhear. 

No words came from Bagnold’s lips. Nothing to explain why he’d summoned her over from the slowly moving queue at the werewolf services desk. Instead, he turned and headed down a corridor, silently expecting her to come to heel like a good doggy. A surge of irritation balled up inside her gut at his expectation that she obey and follow with no explanation. Hannah Bombay had worked alongside the werewolf hunter in her past life as an examiner for Level 2. But she knew his reputation with werewolves, and it made her feel sick.

Despite this, the small witch found her feet carrying her down the corridor and into the office behind him. Werewolf Capture Unit the sign had said on the desk. The home of professional werewolf hunters who didn’t go easy on their prey.

Begrudgingly, Hannah pushed the door closed behind her. She lingered, facing the door for a moment before turning back to Kurby Bagnold.

Still saying nothing, the witch simply stared across at him, expectant.

Bombay took her time closing the door behind her.  Finally, silently, she turned to face him: the second werewolf in only a month to set foot inside the headquarters of the Werewolf Capture Unit.  Kurby could feel the hair on the back of his neck starting to stand on end, but he forced himself to ignore it; he crossed his arms instead, pressing his fingers down tightly to keep from fidgeting, and met her gaze squarely.

There didn't seem to be much point in recounting everything.  Werewolves had their own backchannels of communication, he knew, and Kurby strongly suspected that every lycanthrope in Britain probably had heard what had transpired this past full moon.  The bodies that Penelope Pickler had been so unfortunate to discover in the Ministry lift had been covered in the Daily Prophet.  Bombay likely knew the backstory as well as he did by now.

Dragging her in here was a risk.  Asking her to participate in anything illicit was considerably more of one -- even if they managed to venture down to the morgue without anyone from Level Two noticing, all Bombay had to do was open her mouth about the misadventure and he'd probably be hexed.  But if someone at the Ministry didn't get to the bottom of what had happened to the two Dunnigan brothers, then Merlin only knew what goddamned disaster was going to happen in February.

Kurby pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, trying to find the words that would let him navigate this cautiously.

"The Aurors recovered the bodies of those kidnapped werewolves two days ago," he said at last, dark eyes watching her carefully.  "You keep in touch at all with any of your old work mates on Level Two?"

"The Aurors recovered the bodies of those kidnapped werewolves two days ago," Bagnold finally began to explain why he’d wanted her to follow. This was information that Hannah knew. She read the Daily Prophet and she certainly had her ear to the ground. but what did this have to do with her? The night they’d been kidnapped, she’d been in her own safe house, as was usual. The following evening, she’d spent at Greyfriar’s as he spiralled in panic.

“I didn’t have any work mates.” The pedantic witch pointed out. There’d been colleagues, never work mates. Hannah Bombay had two friends in her life. The first was a curmudgeonly fat old wizard with too much facial hair and too loud opinions, and the second was a lanky tall german linguist with a fiancé who’d been in a relationship with a murderous psychopath. There wasn’t room in her life for any more friends, if you asked Hannah.

“I don’t know anything about these brothers, if that is what you are trying to ask.”

The werewolf hunter cracked a grin, stepping over a stack of papers so that he could lean back precariously against the desk behind him.  No, Bombay didn't have any work mates.  Much like him, the young magical examiner had sailed through her short Ministry career uninterested in making friends, although she seemed less inclined to start fights than she was to say whatever came to mind.  Landing herself in Azkaban had probably ended the story for any professional relationships she'd bothered to maintain.

"Well, they've been shite at examinin' corpses since you left," he said, cocking an eyebrow at the bushy-haired healer.  "And no, Bombay, believe it or not, I reckon you've probably got a damned solid alibi for their kidnapping."

Not knowing anything about the Dunnigans wasn't quite the same as not knowing them.   Bombay had been on Xin's list of victims in the werewolf fighting ring, same as the two brothers and half the werewolves in the United Kingdom, it seemed, and she very feasibly could have crossed paths with them.  But that wasn't an enchantment that he wanted to tug at right now.  However vicious werewolves might be, and however the curse of lycanthropy might corrupt the minds of monsters like Dugan MacDuff, he couldn't imagine a werewolf committing the blasphemy that had been visited upon the Dunnigan brothers.  Their fate seemed a purely human crime.

He didn't like this, asking for help from a werewolf; even having one standing in the middle of the messy Capture Unit office left an unhappy taste in his mouth.  But like it or not, the past month had given him plenty of opportunity to get used to the idea of interacting with a werewolf he'd once known.  At least a conversation with Bombay was much less personal than trying to navigate the rapids of his uncomfortable relationship with his once-and-returned-again boss.

"Whoever murdered them took their time with it," he said, meeting her gaze squarely.  "But the only information we've really gotten out of the morgue so far is that it wasn't pretty and now they're dead."  He shrugged, the gesture nonchalant, though his gaze was locked intently on Bombay.  "Reckon it'd be helpful to have a magical examiner who actually knew what she was doin' take a look at the bodies."