Who let the Wolves out
Who let the Wolves out
I tried to stay calm, more for Barnaby's sake than anything else. I could see he was already very frightened and I knew freaking out wasn't going to help a situation that we were once again being forced to handle. My fear slowly turned to anger as I wondered why it was always us. Problems just kept arising out of nowhere, and literally being left on our doorstep.
I thought of poor Mitsey, she had been such a sweet cat. I'd left my own cat Whiptail in the care of Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts when I left. Both of my parents were highly allergic to cat hair and when I thought I was going to be moving back home I figured it would be the best place for her. Since Whiptail was to be given to a new student who couldn't afford their own pet, Mitsey had been a lovely surprise for me when she'd started exploring in our garden. I was so heartbroken that someone had done that to her. Heartbroken, furious and sick.
I didn't want to jump to conclusions and assume it had been Alexi and Chiara, not without evidence. The Wolfsbane Potion should have kept their minds human, rendering them docile even if they had somehow gotten out. But they were still in the bodies of Werewolves, perhaps prey drive could overpower their sensible sides? Either way, speculating was getting us nowhere.
I whispered to Barnaby that we had to check the house. My spell possibly wouldn't have revealed the presence of transformed Werewolves, so they could still be inside, hypothetically. He nodded and took the lead as we ventured carefully back to the door. I closed my eyes as I stepped over poor Mitsey and into the house.
The first thing we did was a quick walkthrough of the ground floor. Nothing really seemed to be disturbed or out of place. When we reached the open door leading to the main staircase Barnaby pointed out that it had been unlocked by magic. A witch or wizard had to have done it, a wandless Werewolf would have had to destroy the actual door itself in order to get through.
We proceeded cautiously up the stairs, checking each floor on our way up for signs of an intrusion or a struggle. There was nothing. Once we reached the farthest point of the fourth floor wing and opened the door, we found another sign of magic. A rickety wooden staircase had been conjured, giving access to the fifth floor.
I let Barnaby lead the way up, already knowing what we'd find. More nothing. Both Alexi and Chiara had gone, and without a trace apparently. This was not good. I sat down on the top of the new staircase and tried to gather my wits. "I don't know who could have let them out or where they might be now Barnaby. If they took their potions they should be safe I guess, but what if they didn't? What if something happened and one or both of them is feral and out there running around. Should we get the WCU involved?"
He frowned and sat down beside me. "We're leaving an awful lot up to chance if we do nothing. The law protects Chiara, since she's registered she can't be arrested, but Alexi would be forced to register if we brought the WCU out here to capture him. He might even get charged for endangering the public."
He was right, the legal implications were impossible to ignore. Not only for Alexi but ourselves as well. Harboring an unregistered Werewolf could put us in the same category of endangering the public. It might even be worse for us because of our jobs. And if there was even a remote chance they were feral, well that would be on us if we allowed them to stay out and possibly attack someone.
"I think our only choice is to go out and look for them." I finally admitted. Barnaby nodded and took my hand as we headed back downstairs. Before we started searching I scrawled a note for our other housemates. In case they got back while we were out they needed to know someone let the Wolves out. Barnaby meanwhile, said he'd take care of Mitsey.
I dreaded having to tell our Muggle neighbours she was dead, but knew it had to be done. They had a little girl called Sonia who I'd spoken to before when she'd come to collect Mitsey from our garden. Sonia cherished that cat and would be inconsolable when she found her to be missing. I imagined the distraught child putting up posters for her beloved cat all over the neighborhood and it brought tears to my eyes.
I signed the note and left it on the kitchen table as Barnaby returned holding another piece of paper, one that was drenched in blood. He looked horrified as he told me "Samhain, I think it's from Greyback." He gingerly placed the sticky paper on the table next to my own note. The writing was easily recognisable even through the blood, because it was written in Barnaby's handwriting.
It was a copy of the interview report we'd sent into the WCU. The one that cleared Lupin and named Greyback as a suspect. The message was crystal clear, he knew we were the ones who had put the WCU on his trail, and he was letting us know we were no longer safe in our own home.
"Well now we have to get Uncle Cecil involved" Barnaby decided. I agreed with him, but as scared as I was of Greyback I was still just as scared for Alexi and Chiara. We had to capture them and make sure they were safe and that they couldn't potentially hurt anyone else.
We didn't know what to do. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place as we debated going out to look for our wolves, knowing Greyback could be waiting to ambush us, or our possibly drunk housemates when they came home. We decided that was too risky. I didn't feel comfortable staying in the house to wait for them either but protecting humans had to come first.
Luckily we didn't have to wait too long before we heard the muffled arguing of people walking up to the house. I ran to meet them at the door and hauled them both inside. "Strixx you maniac, what the hell?" Merula was confused and indignant. Ismelda seemed to understand better that something was wrong. "Was that blood outside?" I nodded gravely in response and explained about the neighbors cat and Greyback's message first. Then I gave them the worse news that Alexi and Chiara had gotten out.
Merula and Ismelda were tipsy, but not trashed and after I'd explained they seemed to sober up at once. "Diego." Merula said in a horrified voice. "What about him, where is he?" I asked. Merula looked me in the eye. "I don't know Strixx, he was going really hard tonight and left us hours ago, said he was coming back here. If you haven't seen him, we're hunting more than Werewolves now."
Crap. Crap. Crap. A shit faced Diego missing too, with three Werewolves on the loose. Just bloody wonderful. We left a note for Diego if he came home while we were out, instructing him to go up to the fifth floor and hide until we got back. Then we split up into pairs. Merula and Ismelda went West and Barnaby and I went East and we started searching for our friends, and hoping to avoid Greyback.
Barnaby and I walked up and down our suburban streets for hours before we finally found something, just before sunrise. A single, elongated paw print in a small muddy patch of someone's garden. We followed its trail in what we hoped was the right direction and after a few minutes of jogging we came to a small playground area.
There, under the cover of a heavily graffitied slide were Chiara and Alexi. Naked, curled up together in their human forms, and fast asleep in the sand. I breathed a sigh of relief as I took off my purple tail coat. Barnaby, ever the gentleman had turned around when he caught sight of them. He pulled off his own coat and handed it to me, mumbling something like "I shouldn't see her like that."
I covered them both up before gently prodding them awake. "Hey, don't freak out it's just me. Some night you guys had huh? Let's get you home." Because I was exhausted and so relieved they were okay, I couldn't keep the laughter out of my voice.
Once they'd awkwardly buttoned up the coats Barnaby and I took them on side along Apparition back to our house. When we arrived we were even more relieved to find Diego snoring on the sofa and Merula and Ismelda sat at the kitchen table waiting for us, with fresh coffee. I'd have gone to bed right then, but of course there had to be more problems.
Alexi had not said one word up until that point, but as he entered the house and caught sight of his boyfriend he went over to the sofa and kicked Diego in the stomach, hard. Diego fell off the sofa onto the floor with a shocked "Oof."
"What in the hell were you playing at last night Diego!" Alexi exploded like I'd never seen from him before. Everyone froze as he continued raging at Diego. Chiara and Barnaby had both stepped forward to lay a hand on Alexi so he wouldn't kick Diego again, but that didn't stop the stream of profanities he was spewing. Obviously there was something else we didn't know, of course there was. Just one thing after another. I threw my hands up at that point and walked away. I'd handled enough, I went and plopped myself down at the table and poured myself a cup of coffee while World War Three raged on in my living room.