Mrs. Macready sighed. "It's beyond my power to stop all those passengers from telling their stories. And then there'll be an investigation by the transit authorities, and all that. This has been quite a fiasco." She sighed. She seemed exhausted by her evening's work. There were times when she felt her age and this was one of them. If she had been fresh she might have tried a befuddlement spell. The passengers would still have had stories to tell but they would have been different stories and the investigation might have been given up as hopeless. As it was, there was nothing more she could do about it. She would have to hope the Bureau could exercise some influence over the investigations.
She could sense the fear and uncertainty in the rest of the train, stalled as it was in the semi-darkness of the tunnel. Even a witch of rudimentary powers could have sensed such strong emotions emanating from so many.
"I suppose I should clean up that mess of blood they left behind." She stood up with the creakiness of an old woman. "Oh, well, we'll see what we can do."
She took a look at Denis and added, "And the blood you left behind, as well." She looked with a pained expression at his blood-stained trouser legs. He took a brief glance down but was too squeamish for the sight of his own blood.
"I don't suppose you could heal it magically?" he asked.
"I don't have the medical skill, I'm afraid. It would take a wizard with specialized training. Not to say that you haven't earned it with what you did tonight. That was some timely shooting. I have to thank you."
Denis nodded modestly in acknowledgement but said nothing more about it. "Could I settle for a suit-cleaning spell?"
She laughed. "Has anyone ever told you that that suit isn't really the right attire for your line of work? And beige does get dirty so easily."
"All the time. But I'm a stubborn nonconformist."
"At least you don't go about your office wearing a red carnation in your lapel."
"I did that in college."
"I can well imagine you did."
At that point the driver, having walked through the train from the front car, came through the door. "What in Heaven's name is going on back here?" he blustered.
Mrs. Macready looked him squarely in the eye. A vacant look came to his face as if he were mesmerized. She tapped him lightly on the temple with her wand. Without a word he turned around and walked back the way he came.
She and Denis dragged the body of the wolf that had died between the cars through the doors and left it with its companion beside the tracks. In death the werewolves had reverted to their natural wolf form. Mrs. Macready put a spell on the bodies. It wasn't quite invisibility—it was more like a magical camouflage that made the bodies blend into the background—but it worked well enough in the dark tunnel.
She undid some of the damage to the metalwork of the cars but there was nothing she could do about the windows. "I'm afraid it isn't possible to repair the damage to the cars." She shook her head sadly. "Well, they'll have a puzzle on their hands."
The train started again. When it pulled into Aldwych station they could see police constables and an array of transit personnel gathered on the platform.
"We're going to walk off and mix into the crowd," Mrs. Macready told Denis. "I'll see if I can make them not notice us."
The spell worked as Mrs. Macready had hoped. The train was held at the station, no passengers were allowed on, and transit security men boarded to examine it, but no one paid any attention to Mrs. Macready or Denis.
They took a train back to Down Street station. A host of police constables and tracking dogs were milling about the station. A familiar face was with them—Eliphas Dunleavy. He wore a green and blue tie that clashed with his brown overcoat. Mrs. Macready was certain that it was a whim of his to deliberately wear jarring colors, for what purpose she did not know. His white hair was short and slightly curly. He looked like he could be an affable grandfather which, in fact, he was. With Dunleavy were a number of men in overcoats who, though less familiar, Mrs. Macready recognized as criminal investigators for the Bureau. "I'm sorry about all this fuss," her supervisor explained. "I couldn't quite persuade the constabulary to leave matters to us. However, they are cooperative. It got rather out of hand what with all the reports coming from hysterical people in the Underground. Hopefully we can keep those dogs out of the way. That barking does get on my nerves.
"Look, I've brought down Athanasius Kutcher and some of the lads from Criminal Investigations. We're a little short-handed in Werewolf Relations these days. I'll tell him to clear the matter up as quickly as possible. As it is, the story will be in all the newspapers tomorrow." He frowned at her.
The thought of Dunleavy and Kutcher working together surprised Mrs. Macready. Her thoughts flashed back to what Athanasius Kutcher had said weeks earlier when the old vampire hunter had taken her aside for a confidential discussion.
"Are you still working for that Eliphas Dunleavy?" Mrs. Macready nodded. "You had better keep a close eye on him. I've long suspected him of being in sympathy with the Enemy, even being a mole for them, in the heart of the Bureau." Mrs. Macready had long known of Athanasius's antipathy toward her supervisor but this suspicion was new to her.
"Which Enemy is that?"
"Our Enemy is all one and the same."
There was not much to be said in reply to such a portentous pronouncement, and Mrs. Macready kept silent.
"I've heard great things of you, Mrs. Macready. You'll go far in the Bureau. I was wondering if you might be interested in joining my little circle of like-minded agents. Strictly informal, of course, and outside work." Mrs. Macready had heard rumors of Athanasius holding these secret meetings. Athanasius found Bureau rules too limiting in his pursuit of the enemy. She politely declined the offer.
Mrs. Macready eyed her supervisor and thought he was waiting for something. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep things under better control," she admitted.
"Never mind. We'll get the police out of here soon enough. Then our boys will get on with the real investigation."
Mrs. Macready knew that the Bureau had liaisons high up in the various police departments across the land. If cooperation could be obtained and all went well, the police would pretend to go through the usual routines, but, in fact, they would leave it to the Bureau to take care of. In due course the police would make sure the right reports were filed and the matter was tidied up and closed.
"I hope you're not thinking of handing this case over to Athanasius. I know it's not my purview but you asked me to be involved and I'm staying until it's resolved."
"Oh, very well. I know you're too stubborn to change your mind and I don't have the energy to argue." Dunleavy's positions and orders always seemed to prove as watery as his gray eyes.
Mrs. Macready explained as succinctly as she could the events of that night. "The wolves have probably already moved to a new location. I think they're keen to maintain their secrecy."
"Sounds like renegade shape-shifters. Then it's a criminal matter after all," Dunleavy mused. "But you make it sound as if they have some scheme in mind."
"I can't guess what they have in mind, but if they only wanted to kill and create havoc they could have done a horrendous amount of it tonight. Instead they were focused on chasing me down. And why would they care about me? Only because I have an idea where the rest of them are, or were."
"Then you think they're plotting something. An invasion of England, is it? Well, one of the tube supervisors told me he had heard other stories of wolves running in the stations over the past two weeks. No one reported it to the police so we didn't hear of it. Wait, wait. Who is that man?" Dunleavy asked peevishly, looking at Denis. "He's been listening to us."
"He's a journalist I met down here. He's investigating the story too."
"Well, get rid of him." Dunleavy waved his fingers as if to drive off an annoying insect.
Mrs. Macready went over to Denis. "I must have another look at that wall." As they turned, Mrs. Macready gave Dunleavy a look to reassure him that she would take care of Denis in due course.
"Renegade shape-shifters, eh? Is that a common problem among you magical lot?"
Mrs. Macready frowned. "There are two matters that still need to be explained. First, there's the fact that these wolves were not affected by my magic at all."
"That's not normal for shape-shifters?"
"That's not normal for anything. Second, they materialized out of a solid wall. I'd like to know how they pulled that off."
By this time they were approaching the station's ticketing area and the wall was in sight. A man was standing there, a tiny, stooped figure. He was mostly bald with some long strands of lank gray hair falling haphazardly. Mrs. Macready and Denis stood at some distance to observe him. As if mimicking Mrs. Macready's actions of earlier in the evening he too seemed to be going over the wall in minute detail. When he was satisfied with what he had found or not found he reached into his coat pocket and snapped open what appeared to be a large golden pocket watch which he held in the palm of his hand. He paced back and forth in front of the wall looking down at the watch face. Finally, having finished his investigation he snapped the lid shut, frowned and hurriedly walked towards a station exit.
"It looks like, well, a golden compass," suggested Denis.
"Oh, don't be silly. What would a man be doing with a compass inside a tube station?"
"Fine, then. You explain it."
Mrs. Macready regretted how curt she was. She knew it seemed rude and overbearing to others. She declined to offer an alternate explanation. "I think we need to follow him."