Denis was silenced for a time by the need to absorb the unlikely bit of information that the middle-aged woman beside him was an admitted witch.

"I'm feeling a little dazed here. I seem to be having difficulty understanding what's happening."

"I work for the Bureau of Magical Enforcement," said Mrs. Macready helpfully. "I suppose you're extremely curious to know about my employers." She had an expression of such benign pleasantness that Denis wondered if she intended to blast him with some magic if he decided to pursue the matter further.

Denis took a deep breath and, following her doggedly, flipped open his notebook and began taking notes.

"The Bureau is but one department in the Ministry of Magic which governs the magical community. The Ministry is well known to the regular government. The government lends its power to support the Ministry. One of the Ministry's primary concerns is to keep witches hidden from ordinary people, or laymen, as witches called them. Most wizards and witches are well integrated into the larger community and many lead quite normal lives except for their regular forays into magical recreations."

"Magical weekends in the country?" Denis queried.

"Something like that. The rest of the time they're dentists, lawyers, teachers, and so forth."

"Can anyone be a witch, then?"

"No, only those born with the power. Witches refer to it as 'The Calling'. I can remember when I first learned of my talent. It was at the annual charity fair held at Buxley House, a country mansion near my village of Granthorne in Somerset. On the lawns of the estate they set up merry-go-rounds, coconut shies, all sorts of tents and booths designed to enrapt a nine-year-old, as I was then. The fortune-teller's tent particularly attracted me. My friend Polly dared me to go in. Inside was a sinister old crone--."

"Not a Gypsy fortune-teller?" asked Denis skeptically.

"Well, I suppose not a real one. She was dressed up that way. She shot out a withered arm and grabbed hold of my wrist. She said, 'I have the Witch's Sight, and I can see that you have the power.'"

"Now you've lost me. What is Witch's Sight?"

"It's an ability some witches have to see magic in operation. Indeed, they can see the underlying resonances of ordinary objects as well. They see patterns of light and color emanating from ordinary objects. They see magical operations as disturbances in these patterns. Very few witches have this ability. I certainly don't. It's just as well, I've always thought; it must be terribly distracting in everyday life."

"Yes, imagine driving a car and seeing all these lights and colors flashing. But what happened with this Gypsy witch?"

"She felt it was her duty to develop my talent. She didn't want to see anyone waste it. She handed me a tiny book of spells and told me to practice when I was certain I was alone. I didn't think much of it at the time. I was just glad to get out of her tent because she was such a creepy old woman."

"And she never did tell you your fortune."

"No," Mrs. Macready laughed. "But I never gave her sixpence either! I was curious about what she said, of course, and later I did try some of the spells. I was delighted they worked. You might think that this was an enormous event in a young person's life to discover they had this talent, and in retrospect, I suppose it was, but at the time I took it for granted, just as other children could juggle or wiggle their ears.

"Now I've gotten off topic. You were wondering about my work. There are departments in the Ministry of Magic to deal with the various needs of the magical community. Not the least of these is the Ministry's efforts to control its own people."

"So you're something of a police officer among, um, your own kind?"

"No, not quite. I don't usually make arrests or deal with criminal matters. You see, a code of conduct for witches was drawn up at an international conference in 1739, the Code of Naples, it's called. All witches registered with the Ministry swear to live by the code before they are allowed to practice magic. They swear not to use magic against laymen, for example, except for self-defense or other pressing need. Violations of the code are not what you might consider crimes. I prefer to use moral suasion to try to get people to alter their ways. I try not to use the force of the law if I can help it. I assure you my role is a modest one and totally lacking in glamor."

"But you carry a gun."

Mrs. Macready laughed. "I almost never carry firearms. It was quite a struggle to convince the armaments people to hand one over. If I had to follow normal procedures I would still be filling out the forms now."

Her mind flashed back to the scene at the counter where she was arguing with the clerk. They couldn't believe that anyone would have the audacity to stand there and demand a gun when she was clearly lacking a proper form designating her current duty as hazardous, involving possibly hostile and uncooperative elements, signed by her supervisor. They weren't interested at all in hearing that a gun might prove useful when dealing with wolves. She despaired of wasting more time when the tall, lanky figure of Athanasius Kutcher chanced to enter the office. Kutcher had established a reputation as a fierce vampire hunter back in the Edwardian heyday of English bloodsuckers, before most of them emigrated to New Orleans. Few who saw him now could reconcile the white-haired man with a persistent tremor in his hands with the legendary vampire hunter. With his dull white skin it was tempting to joke that he looked more like a victim than a hunter. But there was no doubt he was still accorded great respect in the Bureau. To Mrs. Macready he was something of a mentor.

"What is this all about then, Macready?"

She seized the opportunity and explained the situation. Kutcher did not need much convincing. He slammed a pale, vein-lined fist on the counter and growled, "This woman needs to be properly armed." He never seemed to raise his voice above a mutter but he radiated an irascible energy. Mrs. Macready thanked him.

"You used silver bullets, I suppose."

Denis's comment took her out of her thoughts. She chuckled. "I don't know where you hear these silly superstitions. A bullet is a bullet." It seemed odd to her, now that she thought of it, that the Bureau used Walther pistols. They were supposed to be favored by German Army officers and the Luftwaffe.

For a few minutes Denis might have been naïve enough to think that the subject of his interview was feeling chatty that evening or that his charm was persuasive in encouraging her to talk. Then it occurred to him.

"Wait, if you witches are supposed to be kept secret, why are you telling me all this?"

Mrs. Macready smiled again but it didn't seem much of an affable one to Denis. "I don't mind saying these things to you because very shortly I plan to wipe them from your memory."

The crowd on the platform did not seem to have heard of anything unusual reported elsewhere in the station. There were tired-looking women with brown paper parcels wrapped in string under their arms. Men with briefcases going home from work late. Young couples dressed for the evening out. The normalcy of it made what Mrs. Macready and Denis had experienced in the abandoned section of the station seem dreamlike.

"You can't be serious about wiping out my memory!" exclaimed Denis. "I have a story to file."

Mrs. Macready wasn't listening to the steady drone of Denis's voice in her left ear. The level of concentration required to perform magic had consumed her energy. She shook her head to clear the sense of lethargy. The thought flashed in her mind. "They're shape-shifters. That means they could be…" Mrs. Macready scanned the platform from one end to the other. A train was pulling into the station, with its rubber wheels rumbling on the tracks, the brakes squealing, the air rushing by the body of the train, all combined in a familiar roar.

"Let's get on," Mrs. Macready muttered quietly to Denis. The familiar process of disembarking passengers and the crowd on the platform sifting past each other was proceeding in orderly fashion. "Don't stare, but glance over at the two men at the end of the platform." Mrs. Macready indicated with a slight tilt of her head as she and Denis stepped through the open doors.

There were two men wearing identical gray jumpsuits. "That's not unusual," argued Denis. "They're probably automotive mechanics. They wear those suits to cover their street clothes. I mean, I wouldn't wear such things on the subway, but--."

"They haven't been anywhere near a car," Mrs. Macready muttered. "Look how spotless they are."

The men met Denis's gaze. Hurriedly they stepped aboard the same car, through the next set of doors. They realized that their identity had been detected. They began to transform. Coarse gray hair sprouted from their skin. Their faces stretched outward. They pulled down the zipper of the suits and climbed out. Their heads rose in the air as their legs lengthened and they were raised up on their paws.

It took a few moments for the others in the car to be drawn from their newspapers and magazines and the general torpor that comes after a long day of work. A woman next to the werewolves began screaming and then a shockwave of panic passed through the passengers. The doors slid shut. The train pulled out of the station.

The passengers pressed against the walls of the car and ducked as low as they could in their seats. A wolf looked over the passengers near him. Then he snatched up a small boy. The mother rose from her seat to grab at her child but the other wolf roughly pushed her back, slamming her against the wall. The boy screamed and kicked his bare legs uselessly in the air as the wolf hoisted him up and advanced down through the car holding up his squirming human shield. Mrs. Macready re-holstered her gun. She retreated to the door between cars, Denis close behind her. The aisle in the subway car was too narrow for both wolves to advance together. The other wolf pulled a hoe from the hands of a hapless gentleman who was taking it home to his garden. The wolf hurled it like a javelin. It struck Denis on the back of the leg and he cried out in pain and crumpled to the floor. The advancing wolf threw the boy aside and made a leap for Denis. Denis was scrambling to his feet when he felt long, sharp claws puncturing his legs. He screamed in agony as he felt himself being dragged back by a tremendous strength. He did not see Mrs. Macready step forward nimbly, take up the hoe and twirl it like a staff. She struck at the wolf's head but he raised up his arm and the hoe caught him on the shoulder. Releasing his grip on Denis, the wolf faced Mrs. Macready and snatched the hoe away from her. He brought it down on his knee and easily snapped it into two like a twig. Then he tossed the shattered pieces aside and opened his jaws to growl and flash his teeth.

Mrs. Macready pulled out her wand and swirled it in figure eight patterns. The advertising poster for Vicks Cough Syrup for Children and a recruiting poster for air raid wardens were pulled off the walls of the car as if they had been sucked by a giant vacuum. They swirled around in the air then plastered themselves onto the wolf's chest; they burst into flames and ignited the wolf's fur. The wolf made a terrifying howling as he fell to the floor and rolled about to put out the flames. Mrs. Macready opened the door at the end of the car, put a hand under Denis's arm and pulled him over the connection between cars and through the door to the next car. She stepped through herself and slammed the door of their new car shut before the unburnt wolf could leap over his partner and reach them.

"Pull out my gun," Mrs. Macready ordered. Denis put aside his injuries and reached for the pistol. Mrs. Macready was aiming her wand at the door handle and holding the door shut by magical force. "You're going to have to shoot when you see him." She could not relax her attention on the door. There was a glass window in the door. Denis held the pistol in both hands with his arms outstretched in front of him. He twisted his head away and screwed up his face as if he expected the gun to explode when he pulled the trigger. "Keep your eyes on the window!" Mrs. Macready admonished. The wolf tried to force the handle but could not. He slammed his body into the door. Momentarily his body came into view through the glass opening. Denis fired. The glass shattered and an animal cry of pain came from the other side.

Mrs. Macready waited to see if the wolf would renew its efforts to open the door. When there was no sign of this she took her wand off the door. There was now a bright blue flame at the tip of her wand. She held it up to the high rail from which hung the leather straps that standing passengers held on to. The tip of the wand cut through the metal with only a tiny hiss and a stream of white smoke. A piece of railing about four feet long fell into her hands. She brought it across the door and sealed it to the wall of the car with blasts of blue light from her wand. "There," she said. Denis was alarmed to see how pale and exhausted she looked, even a bit sickly.

"That was fabulous," was all he could think of to say.

"We're not done yet. That was a good shot, by the way."

"Thanks. I'm getting unspeakable grime all over my linen suit. Not to mention the blood."

"That's why I wear black leather. It's easier to clean the blood off." She thought of her high leather boots and all the punishment she had put them through and all the mud and less pleasant fluids she had washed off them.

The werewolf in the first car that had been set alight had now put out his flames. He clambered onto the seats and deftly lifted up the window and popped it out. "He can read the emergency exit instructions," Mrs. Macready thought. That was better than some human passengers. As she approached the door to have a better look, a wolf's arm flashed through the shattered window. Mrs. Macready danced back with a sharp gasp. The claws scraped over her coat but couldn't catch hold of her. She was gathering herself to finish off the wolf when she saw him collapse onto the steel apron between the two cars. The body shook with the movement of the train but seemed lifeless.

The wolf that had popped out the train's window had pulled himself through. Mrs. Macready thought of trying a shot through both windows but the werewolf was too close to the passengers to permit it. With the strength and agility of a gymnast he vaulted onto the roof of the train.

The train pulled into the next station, Grove Road. The passengers in the two cars had recovered enough from their shock to escape. They shouted to the people on the platform not to get on. Mrs. Macready trained her gun on the car's doors in case the wolf on the roof tried to get in by jumping to the platform and switching cars, but there was no wolf to be seen. The doors closed and the train accelerated again. Mrs. Macready was annoyed with herself that she had allowed all those people to take their werewolf stories with them but there was no time to do anything about it.

They could hear the wolf's heavy steps on the roof of their car. Mrs. Macready allowed herself a moment's relaxation to recover her energy and concentration. As long as the wolf remained on the roof it wasn't a threat, she thought. She slumped into one of the seats. With no passengers left on the car she didn't care if this was an unladylike posture.

A window exploded inward in a shower of glass shards. So much for rest, she thought. She got up, drew her gun and waited by the window. With a shock of gray an arm reached in and snatched her right forearm. The wolf, hanging onto the top windowsill with his left arm, had swung its upper body through the window. Mrs. Macready was unprepared for the wolf's long reach and did not have a chance to step back. She tried to get off a shot with the gun, fighting against the wolf's grip. A shot flashed but the bullet was wildly astray. The gun was forced from her hand and fell with a clatter to the floor.

The wolf was now trying to drag Mrs. Macready out of the still-moving train. She tried to brace herself against the walls with her legs but there was no resisting the wolf's strength. The brakes of the train screeched. The wolf lurched to one side and had to release the witch to keep from pitching forward off the roof. Mrs. Macready fell into the seat. Denis had hit the emergency stop button and the train was squealing to a stop. Denis could hear the scratching of the wolf's claws on the roof. He picked up the pistol and fired upwards. There were loud roars of pain, then a heavy body slumped onto the roof. Denis kept shooting, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his brain. "That's enough," said Mrs. Macready and gestured for him to stop. Through the bullet holes thin trickles of blood fell and puddled on the floor of the car. As the train came to a complete stop they could hear the thud of the wolf's body sliding off the curved roof and behind the track.