Need

Chapter 2

The bells tolled four times, echoing against the castle's walls and calling for an end to most classes. Students became a wash of red against the gray stones as they headed away from the drudgery of sitting still. Up from the depths of her dungeon classroom, Professor Rose Jones trudged after them. As she reached the main hall, her smile faded. The Mage waited at the top of the staircase, small bag tucked under one arm. No greetings were exchanged, only a jerk of Jones' chin indicated that she was leaving for the day. A red-jacketed servant opened the door to the outside, gesturing that they should hurry so he could close it against the cold. It was dusk already. Dark skies cut through with a few ribbons of fading light striped the castle. The frigid grounds were nearly empty. A few hardy souls braved the gloom and the increasing wind, heading towards the gates or to the various outbuildings. The two women slushed their way across the grounds towards the long stone building that held the Dark Arts offices and living quarters.

Once there, Jones set her shoulder against the wooden door and shoved her way into the building. The door's sag had become more apparent as the winter's snow and ice settled in for another siege. The other woman barely had time to cross the threshold before the door was yanked shut. At the fourth door, marked with her name and office hours, Jones leaned forward to mumble something. A silver glow appeared and parted, allowing the women entry into the cluttered office. Jones flung her satchel onto the desk, scattering bits of paper in a puff. "I'm not sure where you're supposed to sleep. I don't have a couch, just the two chairs."

The visitor followed Jones into the living area. There was not a great deal to see in the tiny room. Two chairs were set in the middle on either side of a small table. A coat rack and a sideboard made up the rest of the furnishings. The walls were decorated with cheap posters of the Seattle skyline.

"I can sleep on the floor." Loup wandered over to a clear space by the coat rack and set her bag down.

Jones laughed. "If you sleep on that side of the room, you'll get to listen to Kessler snore. The other side, you can listen to Haken talk in his sleep. Take your pick."

Considering that piece of information, the bag was moved to the other side of the room.

"I can see if we can get some kind of mattress brought in for you..." Jones began, but it was waved off.

"No. Really. Not necessary. I don't know how long I'll be here. The wording was vague. I'll sleep changed; it'll be easier that way. The floor is usually fine when I'm a wolf." Loup sat down on the floor and leaned against the wooden partition. After a few moments, she looked up. "Well, if you had a blanket I could fold up, that would help." Black eyes followed Jones's back as she disappeared back into the last room. Things thumped softly to the floor. Soon, Jones emerged carrying a blanket and a pillow, which she offered stiffly. Loup folded the blanket into a large square and sat back down. She shrugged, shifted and examined it as a wolf. The shift from woman to wolf and back was effortless. "It will do."

Jones settled into an armchair and began to light a cigarette. The other woman's nose wrinkled. Grumbling, Jones tapped the cigarette back into the pack. "Look, I smoke. OK?"

"How can you do that when you hunt?"

"How..." Jones' question trailed off, interrupted by a rapping at her door.

Jones cracked the door open just enough to peer outside. "Frau Professor!" a girl's voice called, "We have questions from your last lecture. May we come in?"

Jones' face split into a wide grin as she parted her wards. The taller of the two girls claimed the visitor's chair while the other unrolled a scroll that looked suspiciously like an exam. As Jones took up her defensive position behind her desk, her visitor leaned in the doorway to listen.

"Professor Jones," began the shorter girl, a finger at the third question, "please reconsider this score. This is an alternate name for this herb. In my language, they are interchangeable." Jones snorted, mirrored by Loup's sneer. "And here, you have marked down my answer by two points. Is there very much difference between what silver and crystal would do to influence the results? I think not! My father..."

Loup listened for a while, only a few facial tics revealing that she disagreed with some of Jones' responses. When the students had finished with the first page of their exam and moved onto the second, the black wolf appeared, curled up and went to sleep.

The students argued their answers for over an hour, gaining a few points but losing a few more with each additional challenge. Jones was perfectly willing to let them hang themselves. It seemed that there were different interpretations of almost all of the answers. Eventually, the bells tolled six counts, proclaiming the arrival of the dinner hour. With a laugh, Jones waved her charges out of her office. She lit a cigarette and pulled out a folder from her desk. With her cigarette precariously balanced at the corner of her mouth, she scanned the pages there until she found the first student's name and changed her score and then did the same with the other. Her stomach rumbled loudly. As she reached the door, she heard a soft snoring sound, reminding her of her unwanted guest.

"Dinner time." Jones stood over the snoring wolf, jumping back a bit when the black eyes blinked open.

The wolf stretched, yawned and was replaced by a yawning woman. "There are times I appreciate how often an animal sleeps." Loup scratched her head, sending her dark hair into further disarray as the other hand fumbled for her cloak.

Standing side by side, the contrast was stark. Loup was at least five inches taller than Jones. While not pretty in the usual sense, she had a kind of savage appeal. Jones' short, stocky body looked even more so next to the taller woman. In unconscious reflections of each other, both ran hands over their hair - Jones' short brown hair versus Loup's long dark mane - and adjusted clothing. Jones' long red leather coat, her practical slacks and sweater and rubber boots battled with the other woman's long, black robes for exotic status.

"Come on. I'm starving."

"What's the key phrase so I can get back in?" Loup asked, drawing the black cloak tightly around her, anticipating the wind outside.

"Sleepless in Seattle with the Seahawks and Mariners."

"Cute." Her tone of voice indicated that the phrase was too cute.

Jones stiffened for a moment and gave a little sneer, just cutting back the retort. They walked down the hall to the main door and yanked the heavy wooden door open. The wind pounded them back into the hall.

"Hope the food's worth this." Loup grabbed her mass of long hair and stuffed it down the back of her robes in a vain attempt to control it.

"It isn't." Jones gripped her red leather coat as tightly as she could and the two struggled back into the weather, stopping only to haul the old door shut again.

The walk to the castle was a battle. A shower of wet snow buffeted by the north wind pelted clumps into their faces. The wind stung their eyes and tugged at their clothing. Jones thudded against the massive oak door with her boot, unwilling to take her hands out of her pockets. One of the castle's household staff pulled the door open just enough to let them through. The odd warm silence of stepping into the main hall and being out of the wind was startling. As they started forward, the doorman cleared his throat loudly, and then glared at them until they shook all the snow off cloak and coat and stomped the muck off their boots.

"I'm going to ruin this pair." Loup peered down at an expensive-looking black leather boot. "If I had known the weather was going to be this bad, I would have brought something else."

Jones laughed and began to expound about the wonders of waterproof boots at Durmstrang. She was still nattering when they entered the Great Hall. The hall was stuffed with people. Tables along the walls held teachers sitting shoulder to shoulder. The long hall had what seemed like seven continuous long tables, all crammed with students. Servants moved between the long rows of tables, setting down platters heaped with food. Voices rose and fell in a wall of noise. Jones never noticed when her companion disappeared.

Too loud, too close, too many strange faces, too much too different. Loup fell back into the quiet of the main hall and steadied herself against a staircase. Breathing hard, she leaned there and waited until the anxiety attack passed. Waited until her own demons calmed and she could think again. It was getting worse. With only a brief glance back at the doors, she headed back to the entrance door and stood listening to the wind scream through the small cracks. Although her stomach complained, the decision was easy. Tomorrow, she would be ready, but tonight she would miss a meal and return to the quiet of the office.

It was an awful struggle back to the stone building . At the door, she stopped, barely illuminated in the faint glow from the small windows that irregularly dotted the building's face. The shadows grew closer and the wind howled. It was a miserable night. Flinging back her head, she breathed deeply, tasting the cold and the tang of the mountain air. It felt wild and smelled of freedom. With effort, she relaxed her hands clenched on the cloak and let the wind whip it away; the cold air stabbed. Even with the promise of relative warmth, the building looked like a cage. The mountainside promised better diversions than lying on a blanket, trying to sleep. A brief stretch and she was gone, transformed into her wolf self. The wind became a wave of scents, mostly human, but there were others, far more interesting, hinting of rabbits, of deer and, if all else failed, mice.

In sharp contrast against the white snow, the black wolf padded towards the main gates. The guards huddled inside and ignored the dark form that glided past. They only cared about what tried to get in or out if it walked on two legs, not four. Gray wolf, black wolf, it made little difference to them. They passed a bottle between them and went back to their fire as she broke into a lope.

The mountaintop provided many rock outcroppings to sniff, little caves to explore and hard digging could be done in the few places where the snow had not piled too deeply. For hours, she lost herself in exploring the grounds until finally she gave in to the temptation. Finding a small knoll, she jumped up onto the largest jumble of rocks and howled, letting the snow and the wind hear her. The canyons below rang her cries back to her, sounding in the echoes as if it were a pack instead of one wolf alone.

"It sounds better on the north side." The rough voice was muffled under the hood. Gregorov pulled his own cloak tight to him as he watched her shift forms.

She looked like a wolf still - predator-eyed and snarling. "Leave me alone!"

"It is hard to be alone," Gregorov observed. "No pack. No alpha. One wolf." He pushed the hood back to see better. "One wolf cannot do much. Cannot hunt very successfully, unless you count mice and the occasional cat." He produced a bottle from the depths of his cloak, unstopped it and took a deep drink. "Two wolves might take a rabbit, maybe something larger." He offered the bottle to her, but she remained where she was.

"Is that how you cope? You drink?" She looked disgusted and pulled her cloak back around her. The wolf could handle the cold, but the woman was miserable.

"And you seek to kill yourself? You need not feel superior to me. Suicide hardly seems more noble." Gregorov took another long drink and put the bottle back into his cloak. "I can show you where there is a rabbit warren. We might be able to take one."

"Why would I follow you?" She looked him over, sneering as she did so.

The implied insult hit home. Gregorov had always had the lowest status in the pack. Both of the other wolves at Durmstrang had outranked him, but it had never mattered before. Being a part of the pack, having others to hunt with, to be wolves with had been enough. The sneering woman who shivered before him saw it otherwise. He felt the old instincts kick in and his shoulders sagged. "Then lead. I will follow."

Stalking towards him, she growled and shifted back into the black wolf. Warm in its body, she moved with the predator's grace eastward. With a small yip, she ordered him to move or remain and then began to lope back up the mountain.

Angry at his instincts, but with a sudden flood of raw need raging through him, Gregorov turned to his gray wolf form and ran to catch up. Nagging demons in his soul calmed, the angry inner voices quieted, almost held in check.

When he had conquered the Animagus spell so long ago, he had been pleased to find himself a wolf. Gregorov loved the feeling of speed, the power the animal had. He delighted in the hunt and the world the creature's senses gave him. But, as in all things, the spell had costs. He had gained the wolf, but the wolf had its own needs. A wolf needed a pack, needed to hunt.

Before he came to teach at Durmstrang, there was a cousin to hunt with and then, at the school, there were Petrov and Tal. All were dead. The cousin had fallen ill and died shortly after Gregorov had moved to take the position at the school. Farmers had shot both Petrov and Tal when the wolves had found livestock an amusing distraction. Gregorov had been a lone wolf for three very long years. Sleep had become difficult, causing his normally short temper to worsen. The feeling of loneness consumed him. Nights were long hells that only the bottle could quiet. He had tried getting Haken to hunt with him, but the dog Haken could seldom be persuaded to lead a feral life, preferring instead to remain inside during the winter months. Each year Gregorov grew more solitary and each year the demons spoke a little more loudly.

Racing through the drifts, he rounded a boulder and realized that he had lost her. A small whine escaped as he began to cast around for her scent. His nose twitched over a spot where she had been just a few moments before when something slammed into him and bowled him over. He just regained his feet when he felt a sharp nip on his flank. Turning as quickly as he could, he saw the black tail flick out of his sight. He leapt to follow her and found himself knocked over again by the larger wolf. Tail wagging, she snapped at him and then raced away.

They chased each other over fallen trees and around boulders, through snowdrifts and skidded over a patch of ice into a mass of underbrush, frightening a hare. With a yip to summon him, she dashed after it. The hare zigzagged its way through the brush with the two wolves running after it. Already a bit winded from their game of chase, they found themselves falling further and further behind. She began to slow, tongue lolling with exhaustion. They slowed to a trot, then to a walk and then fell to the snowy ground.

The black wolf became the woman who was trying to laugh between gasps for air. "That is, without a doubt, the most fun I've had in over a year." She struggled into a sitting position and leaned over to catch her breath. "Let's go over to that north side and have a good howl before we go back."

Gregorov rolled onto his back and stared at the stars, feeling like a whole person for the first time in a very, very long time. He did not care that the hare had escaped, something that would have infuriated him just a day ago. He listened to her laughter as she gasped for breath and hoped that her client took his time.

Chapter 3

Thursday's bells tolled in the morning's dark to announce another school day. Todor Rabe was already awake. As was his habit, he stumbled into the staff room, performed several Illumino spells to light the room and began to make the morning coffee.

Something groaned from the couch and there was a sound of movement. Wand drawn, he crept over to the couch and peered over the back. Their strange visitor was curled up, her black cloak thrown over her as a blanket. She stretched on the entire length of the couch and, if possible, looked taller than he recalled. With a measuring glance, he left her alone, although the temptation to throw a pillow at the sleeping form was overwhelming.

Coffee was one of the few things that the majority of the group agreed on. Those who drank it liked it very strong. The few tea drinkers could brew their own pots, but Rabe had taken it upon himself to produce what he felt was a superior drink and soon the smell of the coffee filled the room.

A hand appeared at the top of the couch and soon a sleepy face surrounded by a mass of gray-streaked dark hair peered at him. "Is there a mug I can borrow?"

The syntax was wrong, but Rabe understood the question. The staff room held far more glasses and mugs than there were teachers. Kessler's theory was that the other teachers smuggled their cast-offs into the Dark Arts' staff room. However the mugs and glasses got there, there were a lot of them. Rabe grabbed one off the counter and held it up so she could see it. He waited until she nodded and then turned back to his own coffee.

Loup smoothed her hair back out of her face and yawned. Too tired to try and recall the correct phrase to open Jones' wards, she had opted for the couch. Overall, it had not been the most satisfactory bed, but her wolf form was comfortable enough to get her to sleep. Picking up the mug that Rabe had indicated, she examined it critically. Not the cleanest. She rinsed it out a few times and, to Rabe's horror, cast a quick Confirmare to see if the cup was safe to drink from. The mug was filled to the brim and she leaned against the sink to drink it. A sip later, she made a face. "Kinda weak. Is there any bread?"

"Weak! It is not weak!" Rabe sputtered, his brew's honor impugned.

"Il n'est pas très fort." She swirled the coffee and, making a small face, drank some more.

Haken appeared at the doorway, smiling and carrying a huge pile of scrolls to hand back to his first two classes. Dumping the scrolls onto the tabletop, he nodded at their visitor and poured his first cup before sitting down at the battered table.

"My coffee is not weak!" Rabe repeated. "Professor Haken, my coffee is not weak, is it?"

Haken took a sip and, with yet another smile, shrugged.

Kessler lumbered into the room, not looking at anyone as he poured himself his cup and began to walk towards the staff table. Rabe stepped in front of him and demanded to know whether the coffee was weak. Kessler gave a noncommittal grunt.

Wronski appeared next and began to heat water for tea. Rabe sulked by the coffeepot, waiting for the next coffee drinker to appear. After taking his place at one of the two chairs at the back of the room, Wronski raised an eyebrow in question at Haken who raised the coffee mug and smiled. The Potions teacher glanced at Rabe who stood, arms folded, next to the coffeepot and rolled his eyes in response.

Lowenstein and his wife Magda stopped in the doorway, watched Rabe hover over the coffee in the corner and, with a brief glance at each other, left the room before fully entering it.

Making a beeline for the pot, Jones staggered in. When Rabe snatched it away from her, she squeaked in protest.

"Professor Jones, is my coffee weak?"

Jones groaned. "No. It's wonderful. Fantastic. Just give me some."

Looking smug, Rabe handed what was left of the pot to the little witch who dumped the contents into her mug. "Is this all that's left?" Jones looked around at the others as if asking who had taken more than their share. She realized that their visitor was there with a mug in hand. "Oh. You must be the one who thinks the coffee is weak."

Loup nodded and took another sip before speaking. "I'm used to French coffee. Très fort. Is there any bread?"

"No one eats breakfast. You'll have to go to the castle. Where were you last night? " Jones eyed the stranger as if expecting some sordid tale.

"Hunting." Loup finished her mug and rinsed it out. "Too tired to remember the key phrase. If you'll remind me, I'd like to take a shower."

Jones nodded and turned all of her attention back to her coffee.

Gregorov arrived next, a sight that amazed the other teachers. Yuri Gregorov was a noted slob. Tending towards grungy sweaters and slacks under his grimy leather coat, his long, wild hair completed Rasputin's likeness. Jones had been heard to remark on more than one occasion that Gregorov reported to school in August with clothing that would not be washed until July. This morning, he was freshly bathed, shaved, in clean clothing and his hair had been combed and tied back. Jones' jaw dropped. Wronski whistled and then quickly stepped behind the much larger Kessler to avoid the Russian's stare. Gregorov tended towards grunts in the morning, which usually was all he could muster after a night of drinking, so the casual "Good Morning" he muttered to the group caused even more questioning looks. Gregorov heated his water and began to brew a pot of the strong black tea he favored.

Loup pointed at Rabe and asked, "Is his coffee strong?"

Gregorov looked over at her, his posture changing slightly and a smile creeping over his face. "It is too weak."

Loup nodded in agreement and Rabe's good humor vanished as he sat himself at the table, his back to the group.

"How long will you be here?" Jones' voice had a hard edge to it as she eyed the stranger with a new interest.

A shrug was the answer. "I don't know the client. The whole contract was negotiated through an intermediary. Whoever it is will notify Mâitre Faucon when they arrive. I'll leave then to act as protection for a timed duration. The contract currently is for three days or my death. I get 60% of the fee and the City of Paris takes the rest - or the whole thing if I die." Loup crossed her arms and faced Jones. "If it's a problem, I can sleep here. I just need access to a shower." The women stared each other down until Jones looked away.

"Your handler called you 'Loup'. Is that what we call you? I prefer to know the names of the people who stay here." Rabe still sounded peevish.

She snorted, "Ah, the power of a name... Sure. Call me 'Loup'. Whatever. I worked for six months for a man who called me 'Hey you'. My card says "Loup de l'ombre ", but that's only because there already was a 'Loup noir' registered in Paris."

Ever nosy, Jones asked, "Your card?"

With a knowing smile, Loup reached into a fold of her robe and pulled out a card case. It was made of some sort of polished black stone. It seemed to shimmer as she tapped it once, producing a card. The card was black, like everything else that Loup seemed to have. With a flourish, she handed it over to Jones whose touch activated a spell. A sigil of a howling wolf's head hovered above the card while a voice intoned that to contact le loup de l'ombre, one needed to first contact the City of Paris and they would contact the black mage.

Jones nodded, impressed. "What's your specialty?"

Barking a laugh, Loup replied, "What do you think? With eyes like these? Until a year ago, I did a lot of blood spells, both fatal and non, warding, dispersal spells, non-voluntary binding. These days, I do mostly line-of-sight killing spells, protection work, some things best left unsaid. The usual."

Gregorov smiled again and began to stir a sugar cube into his tea. "Blood spells are Professor Jones' specialty as well. She frequently tells of her days in Seattle as the most powerful of dark witches there." He sipped his tea and moved slightly to stand behind the visitor. For anyone who had been around when Petrov and Tal were alive, the scene looked very familiar.