Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
The Lone Wolf
After a few nights of searching for anything new on Michael Corvin, Selene wasn't sure how far this private little enterprise was going to take her.
Once she'd returned to the mansion, it had been easy enough to access the city records and establish from property records that her new lycan target was Michael Corvin, an American medical student who had moved to Budapest from Long Island in New York less than a year ago. His nationality had been a surprise, but it wasn't as though the lycans had confined themselves to Europe any more than the vampires had. There were even rumours of one or two older lycans over in America building up a power base for themselves, but as these rumoured leaders seemed content to wait and gather their strength, Amelia had concluded that it was best to focus on the more active threat in Europe before turning their attention to a group that seemed content to be left alone so far.
That said, even if it was possible that Corvin was some representative of the American lycan packs, Selene wasn't going to attack him until she knew for certain what to expect. His scent confirmed that he was a lycan, and once or twice she'd seen him react to such close calls as a cyclist passing too close to him to be sure that he had lycan instincts, but he had yet to actually do anything that might suggest he was in contact with more lycans. A quick check of his personal history didn't reveal anything more significant than a brief period in the United States Marine Corps that ended with a discharge after less than a year, and she couldn't find out more about that without drawing more attention to this endeavour than she was ready to. Apart from that, the only thing that stood out in his personal history was the car accident that had killed his fiancé shortly before he moved, and that could be easily explained as the catalyst for his move.
If she brought in more of the coven's resources, she might be able to better tap Corvin's communications and other details, but once she approached Kahn about her suspicions of a lycan presence he would be obligated to tell Kraven about her activities. She appreciated that Kraven would have to learn the truth eventually, but if she brought Corvin up now she was concerned that Kraven would just dismiss her concerns as her looking for trouble and have Corvin killed as a lone lycan before she could find out anything more.
The first few nights had been nothing but fairly standard surveillance, with Corvin working night shifts at the hospital and occasionally making calls when he returned to his apartment before bed. On her first night tracking him, Selene had infiltrated his apartment by the window and spent some time taking in his scent so that she could track him more easily in future, as well as a quick check of his computer system. When Corvin arrived home earlier than expected, Selene had managed to find a good position to listen to some of his phone calls while she waited just outside his window, but everything she heard seemed to be nothing more distinctive than an American medical intern catching up with a few old friends back in his home country. As much as she suspected that he was talking to his lycan colleagues, just interrupting Corvin's phone call to try and question someone that way would be stupid at best, and tapping the line was another thing that would require more focus being paid to this search than she was ready to draw in yet.
As the night of the full moon approached, however, Selene knew that she would have to change her tactics. Most lycans active in the present could control their transformations, but they still had some kind of reaction to the full moon, and Selene couldn't afford to lose track of Corvin at any point around this stage. She had managed to track his daily activities easily enough so far, but she couldn't afford to take the chance that the American lycan would get away from her if he changed his tactics during the day when she couldn't follow him.
Fortunately, one advantage of Selene's focus on her role as a Death Dealer over her social status in the coven was that she had a very large bank account that was used for relatively little apart from keeping her equipment in order; even her few fancy clothes were mainly there because it was easier to appease Kraven's insistence that she join him by giving him such occasional small victories. With that in mind, Selene had done some research and decided to hire a private detective to follow Corvin during the days of the full moon, taking her time to find a suitably skilled person before she made her choice, as well as buying a burner phone so that they could talk without anyone else in the mansion being aware of it. With a suitably large amount of money on hand, Selene had called the detective's office and hired him to follow Corvin over the few days leading up to the night of the full moon. She had affirmed that she had no reason to believe that Corvin was explicitly dangerous in the sense that he wasn't attacking humans at random, but it would be best for the detective to remain at a distance and keep track of his activities from sunrise to sunset.
It had been a very involved assignment for the agency, but that was another advantage of the current time of year, as the sun rose so late and set so relatively early that they didn't have to follow Corvin for long. Selene had agreed to get in touch with the detectives an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise, claiming that she wasn't as concerned about Corvin's nightly activities. In practical terms, she appreciated that this could still be a risk in terms of exposing mortals to their existence, but she had to know what Corvin was doing during those days.
On one level, Selene was ashamed to acknowledge that she didn't know exactly how lycans were affected by the full moon if they still lacked control of their transformations, since every lycan she tracked was an experienced enemy, but she saw no harm in taking precautions by having Corvin followed for the days immediately preceding it just in case. She could track him during the nights for most of the month without any problem, but she needed to be absolutely certain of his activities around the time of the full moon, which meant that she had to know for a fact what he did in the daylight on those days. She made it clear to the detective that he should have a man on Corvin every hour of daylight available, phrasing it in a manner that simply suggested Corvin's activities at night shouldn't concern him that the man could interpret as he wished.
The first couple of days' reports met with nothing more interesting than the news that Corvin was working a couple of morning shifts at the hospital as well as the night shift Selene had already known about. It was a surprise, but it wasn't entirely unexpected; Corvin's lycan nature would mean that he didn't have to sleep as much as a human, so he probably took on extra shifts now to make up for what he'd miss when transformed.
In a strange way, Selene had to admire that part of Corvin's life; she maintained a certain distance from humans for their own safety, but there was something commendable in how he maintained the responsibilities of his human identity.
Finally, on the night of the full moon itself, Selene received a text message on her burner that Corvin had finished a morning shift at the hospital and then spent a few hours in his apartment before leaving for a storage facility. Selene had run a search and found that Corvin had rented a storage locker in that facility for the last few months, but that didn't explain to her why he had it. On the bright side, a check of the building's schematics confirmed that there were only a couple of doors that could allow anyone to enter or exit the building, and there was no sign that Corvin had the skills to get out of a place like that without being seen, particularly given the shape he'd be in tonight. She had no idea why he was staying in a storage facility, but at least it looked like he was going to some lengths to keep himself contained on the night of the full moon.
As the sun began to set, Selene left the mansion and made her way to the storage facility; all the coven's cars were equipped with tinted windows if they had to make any urgent daytime trips, but most of the time they only went to specific locations where they could be sure of being protected from the sunlight. When she reached the storage facility, Selene called the detective, confirming that Corvin had gone inside and hadn't left yet. Once the man had been dismissed with promises of a bonus, Selene got out of the Jaguar and examined the building to confirm the accuracy of the plans she'd studied, before she quickly picked the lock and walked into the facility. She took a few moments to confirm that the interior layout matched the plans she'd found before she set off down the corridor and up the stairs towards Corvin's assigned locker.
From what Selene had seen of this place's design, she had a sneaking suspicion about what Corvin was doing here, but it was hard to imagine that she could be right. The mere idea that a lycan that young could hold down a job in the human world and still have trouble with his true self…
When she heard the faint roar from further up the stairs, Selene picked up the pace until she reached the right level, but paused outside the door to the relevant corridor to look through the glass window. Seeing no sign of anything in the corridor, she picked the lock once again and carefully made her way down it, keeping an eye on the numbers on either side of the lockers until she was close to Corvin's locker. As she heard a familiar growling, she paused a couple of doors down from the relevant locker; the doors were fairly solid from what she had seen in the plans, but she didn't want to risk the possibility that the doors couldn't withstand an enraged lycan who was having a bad reaction to the scent of a vampire…
After waiting patiently for a few minutes in the corridor, Selene was surprised to find that nothing was actually happening. The lycan that Corvin had become was still growling, but compared to the noises she'd heard from enraged lycans in the past, Corvin actually seemed to be almost… Selene hesitated to use the word 'tame' to describe a lycan, but he definitely wasn't acting like the raging monster she had come to expect.
Was it possible that Corvin was everything he seemed to be? That he really was just an American medical student whose status as a lycan had no greater impact on his life beyond him needing to lock himself up to stop himself hurting anyone else?
The idea that any lycan could be capable of that kind of selflessness flew in the face of most of what Selene had believed she knew about her enemies, but she couldn't ignore the gathering evidence.
She looked at the door to Corvin's storage locker for a moment, but soon decided to leave it for the moment; the lycan seemed tame enough at the moment, but she doubted that trying to talk to him in that state would accomplish anything.
She'd give it a couple of days for her to work out the best way to approach him, and then…