Following the events of The Message
London Zoo, Regent's Park
9:27 PM

A loud crack split the night, and the werewolf hunter appeared in what was hopefully the last place that anyone would think to look for him.

Apparating with an injury was probably not the smartest thing he’d done tonight, which said something considering the series of increasingly stupid decisions that had gotten him to this point. Kurby let out a gasp as a hot, agonizing pain shot through his right shoulder. He pressed his left hand tightly over the injury, doubling slightly as he tried to breath through the worst of it. It took several long seconds, head bowed and teeth gritted, before he could think about straightening again.

He’d appeared out of thin air next to the penguin beach. One of the penguins was still trumpeting loudly, announcing its displeasure at having its normal night swimming activities interrupted by a magical intruder.

Kurby wiped his face on his left sleeve, and then risked a careful look around to take stock of his new surroundings.

The first thing he checked was the sky, which was overcast but clear of magic. He could hear the nighttime quarrelings of the animals across the zoo: the snarl of a big cat, the mocking call of a monkey, another unhappy penguin letting him know that it wasn’t pleased about his choice of apparition destinations.

Down the path a ways, he could see a pair of large Muggle torchights slowly turn in unison, angling back towards his direction. Apparently the zoo’s night guards had learned their lesson from the tragedy in December. Their patrols now looked to be conducted in some sort of large, menacing-looking automobile, not by foot.

He didn’t need to be spotted by them tonight. Steeling himself, the werewolf hunter headed directly for a small brown brick restroom that he'd spotted on his last visit here, pain making his movements stiff and jerky.

The building’s two entrances were blocked by black metal grates. It was a simple task to vanish the lock on one and then duck inside, pulling the grating shut behind him. He paused just inside the entrance, leaning his head back against the cold cement wall and trying to think about anything else as he waited for the Muggle vehicle to pass. It rolled by: slowly, but still rolling nonetheless.

Kurby gave it another minute or so before he finally forced himself to stand up fully again.

Now that the adrenaline from the encounter with Briggs was wearing off, his awareness of everything else that was currently wrong with his body was growing. His shoulder hurt, enough to make it hard to concentrate on anything else, and exhaustion was starting to hover around the edges of his perception.

Clenching his teeth, the werewolf hunter summoned up a small ball of light and headed for the utilitarian cement counter that housed the restroom’s sink.

Whatever curse Briggs had hit him with still hurt. Leaning fully on the cement counter, Kurby attempted to strategically peel back his shirt for all of three seconds before he decided that it was too painful to move that much and he didn’t really care about fully exposing the injury anyway.

With the added challenges of limited mobility and his already-limited knowledge of healing spells, it took far longer than he wanted to deal with the wound. Finally, with the bleeding stopped and the resulting mess mostly cleaned up, the werewolf hunter tiredly boosted himself up to sit on the counter. Tilting his head back to rest against the mirror behind him, he closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.

The last thing he wanted right now was to go back to his flat. It was probably fine: he knew his wards were solid, and if Briggs or Hunt decided to poke their face in, Kurby would happily flatten them without a second thought. But the thought of getting ambushed on his way in or getting woken up in the middle of the night to deal with another problem left him feeling apprehensive about returning home.

Unfortunately, he also didn’t have a lot of options. Rosheen, the Sellaphixes, Gervais Bellingham, even Bruce Ballentyne: he didn’t exactly want to put a target on any of the people he actually cared about. Duncan McBoid owed him a favor and was nursing his own grudge against Lorelei Hunt, but the big Scotsman seemed to travel at least as frequently as he was home. Running to Laz and the vampires when he was already injured would continue tonight’s trajectory of stupid decision-making. And Shay would finish off Briggs’ murder attempt on him if Kurby dared to show up at his door.

In the end, there was really just one place that made sense to go.

Gingerly, Kurby slid to his feet. He took a moment to carefully rotate his right shoulder, giving an unhappy grimace as he tested his range of motion. It was probably going to be fine, but he wasn’t exactly looking forward to throwing himself into another tussle. Even if the destination that he had in mind only gave him a chance to catch his breath, it was still better than barreling straight into another fight back home.

Now, he only had to hope that he could remember the address.