Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.

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The Lone Wolf

It might appear like a contradictory phrase, but in Selene's view, the most frustrating thing about the modern world was that it was so easy to find any lycan activity.

It made it straightforward enough to find lycans when the beasts showed themselves, even by something as simple as mysterious cattle deaths or anything like that, but those same connections meant that she knew when there was no legitimate sign of any lycan activity.

She was fairly sure that the lycans hadn't become extinct yet, as there were enough reported lycan attacks without any sign of an accompanying corpse to tie to them, but it had been so long since there had been a report worth following up that she was feeling particularly frustrated. With Kraven constantly inviting her to accompany him to some of those 'parties' he was always trying to set up, Selene would take any opportunity she could find to get out of the mansion, but there were times when she worried that she was using up even Khan's respect for her by following up so many potential leads.

Still, at the moment she was on a routine surveillance mission that even Kraven couldn't object to. For a veteran Death Dealer like Selene, one advantage of living in Budapest was that there would always be an opportunistic lycan or two who would try their luck against penetrating the mansion's defences to take out the sleeping Elders. With that in mind, it was important for them to keep a close eye on local hospitals in case lycans tried to raid the blood supply for quick food; lycans could eat raw meat, but blood was still a staple of their diet.

It was a relatively small-scale assignment, but with the recent lack of more public lycan activity, this was still Selene's best chance to find something interesting. One advantage to immortality was a sense of patience, and she refused to be like Kraven, who constantly favoured instant gratification without any real appreciation of the hardships required to do a proper job.

How he ever managed to be a Death Dealer for any length of time I'll never understand; he would have complained the minute he missed a chance to groom himself…

Selene's thoughts trailed off as a familiar scent reached her nose. Her thoughts shifted from berating Kraven to the task at hand, her eyes urgently scanning the area below her as she sought the source of the scent. After a few seconds, her gaze settled on a young man with long hair walking out of the hospital's rear door, wearing a dark coat and walking with his head facing downwards. On his own the figure was relatively unremarkable, but the scent of blood in his pockets would have been a clue even if the scent of lycan wasn't apparent once she concentrated on him.

A lycan working in a hospital?

Selene knew that a few vampires maintained some form of regular employment to avoid attracting too much attention, but most of those were in Ziodex and other affiliated agencies. The idea of a lycan actually working somewhere felt strange to Selene, even if she could see the logic of it; working in a hospital would give the lycan access to blood and body-parts, depending on their choice of diet.

For a moment her hands hovered over her Berettas, but she quickly dismissed that tentative plan; killing one lycan might be satisfying, but lycans never travelled alone in her experience. For all she knew, this man was just the immediate human contact for a larger group; shooting him would be satisfying, but it would leave his associates free and clear just because she was impatient.

Her mind made up, Selene began to move cautiously along the rooftops, until her target headed down the stairs into a subway. She jumped down to follow him onto the train, but remained at a cautious distance, staying on the other side of the station until he got into the next train. She followed him onto the train, but remained in a carriage at the opposite end of the train from her target, cautiously peering out of her carriage door at each stop just in case he got out. She attracted a couple of questioning looks from the humans on the train when she did that, but another advantage of her Death Dealer leathers was that it reinforced the impression that she wasn't someone who would react very well to being questioned.

Eventually her target got off the train and Selene followed his example, again taking care to maintain her distance while keeping him in sight. With the thick crowd masking her scent from a casual sniff, so long as the lycan didn't suspect he was being followed, it should theoretically be safe enough to keep an eye on him without being spotted herself, but she had to be careful…

After a few more minutes' walking, the lycan walked into an apartment block. Selene paused outside the building to consider her options; the building seemed an unlikely place for a lycan nest, and looked more like the kind of place that a mortal medical student would stay in, but she couldn't ignore the implications of that man walking into it. Eventually, she came to a decision and walked carefully into the building, hands hovering over her weapons without making it too obvious. Once inside, it was easy enough to confirm that her target was the only lycan in this building given the single distinct scent, which she followed up a few levels to Apartment 510, where the scent following ended. She paused in thought outside the door for a moment, but decided against it; charging into the room wouldn't help her determine if there was more to this whole situation than one apparently lone lycan.

She'd find out who this man was and then keep an eye on him for the next few weeks until she had worked out where his pack was and their size. Once she'd determined where the rest of his pack were, she and Kahn could lead an assault and take them all out in one go, and that would be that.

Anything to get me out of the mansion for a few nights with a legitimate excuse…

Mind made up, Selene walked briskly down the stairs and out of the apartment, glancing at her watch before she decided to take the train again; it wasn't that much quicker than walking, but she could use some time to consider her next steps in her new project, and it was easier to think sitting down in case she wanted to make any additional notes.

Obviously the first step would be to do some background research into her apparent target and see if that held any clues, but if she was careful, Selene might be able to find more out from a discreet visit before she 'had' to confront this man directly…