A familiar face appeared at the doorway and its owner leant its long body casually against the doorframe to the lab.
"What?" she asked, tipping a chemical through a funnel and into a beaker, she was bent to its level to ensure the right amount was measured out. If not the consequences could be disastrous.
"This came for you," Jay answered sauntering into the room and waving an envelope about. She didn't look up whilst she trickled a few flakes of silver metal into the same beaker and grinned as it started smoking slightly, "by owl." he added.
She nearly knocked over her concoction as she straightened. "Owl?" she pushed her goggles to the top of her head and reached to snatch the letter. Jay held it out of her reach, an entire head taller than her and raised a brow.
"Who sends letters by owls Gray?" he questioned, his eyes burning.
"Wizards do Jay. Wizards and witches." she answered, ripping it from him and tearing it open, hoping it wasn't who she thought it was. As her eyes scanned over the slanted writing her mentor walked around the lab, inspecting labelled vials of ingredients and completed poisons and potions.
"You've been busy." he commented "Am I not sending you on enough assignments?" he smirked. She sneered back absently as her blood ran cold. He leant over the beaker and sniffed the solution she'd mixed, making sure not to inhale the pale blue smoke emitting from it, it stank. So he moved rapidly, in case it exploded in his face, he had never taken much stock in poisons and liquids, but Gray had taken a particular interest and had since perfected the art. So much so he had sacrificed one of his rooms to create a lab for her to mix all sorts to her heart's content. It had proved a useful tactic for his agents, another weapon to complete their operations. He did complain, however, about the amount of time Gray spent with the magical side of the brews. His small amount of UAS' and ever diminishing use for them did not justify her sleepless nights and wasted time testing and trying potions she came across in ancient spell books and lists salvaged and pillaged from prior operations.
"What is this?" he said, gesturing to the brewing liquid on the bench.
"Wolfsbane." she answered, slipping the letter into her back pocket, counting on his disinterest in potions to be unable to identify it. The product sitting on the bench was indeed Wolfsbane, but she was intent on tampering with it until she achieved a complete cure for lycanthropy. It was like finding a cure for the common cold. Impossible.
"What does it do?" she winced at the question. Jay's interest in non-dangerous potions was non -existent. In his eyes if it didn't kill someone, it was a waste of time. She had her answer carefully worded.
"It prevents the psychological transformation of lycanthropy." she said, plugging a Bunsen burner into a gas tap that she had convinced Jay was essential to install, and striking a match.
"English," he growled.
"Lycanthropes are werewolves." she elaborated, "When they turn into wolves in the full moon their minds are no longer their own. They belong entirely to the animal they become. However that animal is still part human, retaining all that advanced fury, hatred and underlying desire to kill once it has transformed. The combination of human cunning and animal ferocity is what makes them so dangerous." she flicked the gas switch, opened the air hole at the base of the burner and held her lit match above it. "Wolfsbane does not prevent the physical transformation, that's a permanent change, but the psychological transfiguration- that is something that can be altered."
Gray sounded so passionate about her work that Jay found himself almost caring. "And how could that possibly help eliminate targets?" his eyes flashed a warning to her. This man was fearsome when provoked, and she wasn't foolish enough to provoke him, she had seen the Wall of Shame.
"Have you ever shot a wolf? A normal wolf?" He shook his head. "It's not that difficult, hunters do it all the time, I've seen them. The target drinks this every night for a week before the full moon, when they turn they're just a normal wolf, bigger true but," she shrugged "that just means more mass to shoot at right?" she inwardly congratulated herself on blagging her way through that. In reality she was looking for a way to prevent the transformation physically too. Not to make it simpler to kill those infected by lycanthropy, but to cure them entirely. Jay nodded.
"Good work," he said sloshing the material around in the beaker "thinking outside the box. I like it." he stepped closer to her, the beaker still in his hand. "So how would the target be persuaded to drink this every night for a week?" he asked.
"Well most werewolves already take it. It's quite common in their world. But it's difficult to brew, so they usually require a skilled potions master," she waved her hand before her face, "If not they're in a little trouble. Having a few vials spare can get you pretty far with werewolves." she grinned "Alternatively for a skilled Assassin slipping the potion into the target's drink will not be a problem." she purposely failed to mention that the potion would have to be laced in such small quantities that it would take about three months for the target to consume enough Wolfsbane for the effects to take place. The foul taste of the potion needed to be cleverly concealed, difficult when the addition of sugar rendered it ineffective, so drip feeding was the only way to slip it in, and into a drink that did not include sugar. Jay didn't need to know that small detail. She wished he would leave, the letter was burning a hole in her pocket, and she needed a quiet room and a CD player to concentrate on what she would do.
"Jay, I've got work to do." she said grabbing the beaker and taking it over to another work bench to check the thermometer she had put in the oven a half hour before.
"Hmph." he said watching her back. "We have some new recruits." he added before leaving "If you don't have a job I'd like you to show them the ropes."
She groaned inwardly, training the new recruits was the worst thing he could have asked her to do.
"I'm not sure yet Jay, things have a way of…rearing their ugly heads." she murmured. He rose his brows and left her to contemplate if liquid silver would work better. But considering the melting point of silver was 962°C, liquefying and storing it at that temperature would kill the drinker. Maybe not.