Marauders - Always - Part One

Blagojevic's Payment

Fenrir Greyback sat across a lounge chair, sprawled, one leg up and the other trailing to the floor. He had one arm covering his eyes, a headache throbbing horribly like a kick drum in his mind. The room was dark and cool, underground, but he groaned as the faint sound of footsteps now and again overhead thundered as tour groups moved through the old landmark whose belly had been converted to housing for this particular branch of his pack.

He drew his wand - a collective unease settled upon the room, a soft gasp as the others recovering from the full moon night reacted to the sight of it. "Relax," he growled, "I am merely silencing that fucking ceiling..." and he flicked his wrist, and the magic hit the ceiling, giving it a faint blue glow before the color, and the noise, faded off. Greyback listened intently a moment, smiled in appreciation, and then sank back against the couch again.

The room was littered with cots and piles of blankets and pillows, men and women and children of all ages were set upon them in clusters. Some were obviously families, others alone. A group of scraggly looking men were in a variety of chairs around a short table playing cards in one corner, wincing and sipping beer from bottles that fizzed and looked greenish gold in the low light. A couple of small children played with toys in the corner quietly together, a nervous looking mother glancing between them and Greyback's reclined body. The air tasted like fear.

A young teen - maybe thirteen or fourteen - sat on the floor near Greyback's shoulder, pulling bandage wrapping around his wrist. His shoulder was oozing blood from a partially congealed wound - left uncovered. He was the newest turned victim, turned over to Greyback by the one who had bitten him to assimilate into the pack.

A door far across the room from Greyback creaked open and everyone but Greyback himself looked at the door in surprise. A man in a fine suit stepped into the room, flanked on two sides by other men in equally fine suits, and walked carefully through the cots, glancing at them as they passed, lingering by those with especially bad wounds. The three men had pale skin and dull expressions, and when they finally reached Greyback and stood before him, shoulder to shoulder, the man in the center cleared his throat to gain the pack Alpha's attention.

Greyback opened his eyes, languidly staring up at the men - Matija Blagojevic and his two body guards. "What do you want?" Greyback asked.

"What do I want? You know what I want." Matija Blagojevic laughed lowly and his two men mimicked the sound. Blagojevic smiled, and his teeth showed - the canines as pointed as Fenrir's, though the vampire had not made his so by widdling them into fangs, as Greyback had done. His were naturally sharp, and seemed twice as ferocious as Greyback's for they were longer and much more lethal than Fenrir's human form could ever be. "For six months you and your pack have hidden here beneath our floors --"

"Now, now, I've told you. This is not all of my pack. You haven't seen the full of the werewolves under my command, my control. I have an entire army. These are locals.

"I don't care if you have half of the British Isle under your command, Greyback," hissed Blagojevic, "I care only about the inconvenience and the strain you have caused my family by staying here; in our castle." He waved his arms about the room, "Your numbers grow each full moon night, you're getting more numerous than my walls can properly contain, there are rogue bitings --" he pointed at the teenager sitting on the floor beside Greyback's couch, "And the Ministry takes more and more notice every Moon. Soon their investigations will zero on us and what are my coven to do when the Aurors come hunting your type and find ours? We have extended this hospitality only in good faith that your Master --"

"I have no Master," growled Greyback. "I am no common dog."

"Your Dark Lord, then, to whose whim you are bound like a common bitch," Blagojevic corrected, coldly, and, ignoring Greyback's growling protest, he continued, "We extended the hospitality in good faith that the Lord Voldemort would provide the amenities we need, if we would provide help to his cause and his friends." He paused, then said coldly, "We have seen nothing of this good faith agreement, nothing."