undergrounds | The Newcomer Affair

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The Newcomer Affair

i) The security
Redbright Institute, early January

Overall, he had no strong opinion of the woman in charge of the Redbright Institute. He had been sent to observe and carefully decide what he thought of everything. That was what he was to report to UNCLE. So superficial meetings? Weren't important. In a few months, he'd be more certain.

The school was interesting. Russia had their own, but they tended to be more segmented. After his father had been arrested, he'd attended one that could closely be called a military school. Still, it seemed like a proper way to educate young people able the abilities they were born with.

His job in and of itself was uneventful. He basically only had to stand in the hallways and make eye contact with the obvious troublemakers. Everyone else understood not to even try. With his fellow staff, he was just as quiet, but he didn't look at them like he was daring them to attempt making trouble. If anything, at times, he ignored them more often than not.

ii) The scout
Enfield, early January

Part of his real job was to monitor the situation in London as a whole. Which was why he found his way to the borough claimed by Circle Midnight.

On the outside, it looked no different than anything else in London. The supernatural community kept their heads down, and he approved.

Magic wasn't something he could sense, so he could do nothing but walk the streets, casually sipping a cup of coffee. It would take some time to gain access to the varying groups, but it was what he needed to do.

However, it had been easy enough to follow a trail of paperwork. Not that it hadn't been well done, plenty of proxies and the like. But with a computer and time (both of which he had and knew how to properly use), it could be traced.

Which was how he came to the Seven Sisters. A cute little psychic shop that was a front for the Shadow Coven. The outside was entirely unassuming, and he looked at it like a proper sceptic. Which was why it was easy enough to glance to the side, where someone else was.

"Have you ever been here?"

iii) The renter
Ealing, mid January

"I'm sorry, sir," the girl at the counter said. "That card isn't working."

Even though he knew that it was likely Waverly who had figured the budget incorrectly, Illya's first inclination was to blame Solo. To be sure it was the thief who'd somehow 'changed' where his funds were.

"Do you have another form of payment?"

"No," he replied, a bit more sharply than he meant to. "I'm sorry."

Even if he didn't sound like he meant it, he did.

But he stepped out of line and some distance away before he began texting on his phone, swearing under his breath in Russian.

iv) The observant
Westminster, mid January

The Night Council headquarters had a small, somewhat expensive little deli across from them. It was there that Illya sat, enjoying his light lunch. A bit of soup to keep the chill out, and a sandwich to fortify the meal further. For a drink, he had only ice water.

From his seat inside, he could see the building across the way. He watched the people come and go, made mental notes of who he saw talking to whom, and who seemed to be intentionally avoiding people. The game was ancient, but London was a different board, and he had little information about the players. Whatever files UNCLE could provide were useless for really knowing someone.

After all, there had been a lot his files hand't said about Miss Teller and Mister Solo.

All he could do now was watch and learn. His presence at the Institute would help, he thought. Establish him and let him learn about all of these people.

v) The watchful
Croydon, late January

Fae were disinclined to ignore insults. And from what he'd heard of the matters in this borough? The fae were no doubt thoroughly insulted. Which made the small victory gained recently an indication of danger to come. At least to him.

So, he walked the streets after dark with only a few days until the full moon. His nerves were frayed, and his senses were sharpened. Every corner threatened to have something dangerous around it. Of course, he also knew he was probably just as threatening to quite a few people.

But he heard something. A little hint of noise that certainly didn't come from a car or the like.

"Who's there? Show yourself."

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Alex still felt out of her depth in London. In part, she supposed, that was because she'd made such an effort for the first month to be alone, convinced she wouldn't be in town long. But now she had a pack, and like it or not, she was being pulled into the politics of this city. So she was trying to get to know the city better.

For her, that meant a lot of skulking around, trying to get a feel for the various boroughs, who lived there, how unstable the situation was, and places she could hide if she needed to leave the pack for some reason. She'd heard that the fae had recently been ousted from Croyden, but that didn't mean there weren't any threats here. Her silver knife was hidden in her jacket pocket, and this close to the full moon every shadow seemed like a reason to pull it out.

As she walked quietly down a dark alley, her foot hit a crumpled bit of paper. It wasn't a loud noise, but somebody heard it. She frowned, recognizing the accent. It couldn't be someone from her father's old pack, could it? No one in Russia knew she was alive. Still, better safe than sorry.

"You first." The voice had come from just outside the entrance to the alley, out of her line of sight. She pressed her back against the wall where the speaker hopefully wouldn't be able to see her, and reached for her knife.

Illya's own blade was ceramic. Less useful against vampires and fae, yes, but easier to get past most forms of security. Metal detectors didn't pick up zirconium, after all. The answer to his demand has him pulling it out, pressing his thumb against the flat of the blade. Just in case he needs to use it.

Sure, it's a young woman speaking. But he knows all too well that there is no guarantee of a harmless girl.

When he steps around the corner, his hands are both visible. Even though he's still holding the knife. He isn't going to try and conceal it. She deserves to know that he's armed. It might change her mind about any kind of attack she has in mind.

"Your turn."

Alex decided to leave her knife in her pocket. The man wasn't posing an immediate threat - the fact that he wasn't trying to hide his own weapon made her actually trust him a little - and if he decided to attack she'd have something to surprise him with. She stepped away from the wall, hands lowered but slightly away from her body, easily visible.

"Who are you? What're you doing here?" Not subtle, but she was more concerned with making sure he wasn't working for her father's enemies than with keeping up any pretense of just being a normal girl out for a walk.

"Illya Kuryakin," he responded. Near-absolute honesty would be best here. Give the cover story he had been told to give, even if he usually didn't pass it around. "FSB. I am here to assist in the removal of dark magical artefacts and practices."

Alex nodded. She didn't recognize the name, but of course that, along with everything else he was saying, could be a lie. At least it was a plausible lie. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really had nothing to do with her and running into him was just a coincidence.

"Alex Winslow," she said, watching carefully for his reaction, trying to tell whether he knew that name was fake. "You're from Russia, right? What part?"

"My family is from Saint Petersburg," he replied. As for himself, well. He'd been moved across the country multiple times during his life, and much of his adulthood had been spent going in and out of the country. So, his family would do.

He looked at her. There was no point in either of them pretending, especially with his knife out and how she'd answered him, that they were simply both walking. So. "What brings you out? It is quite late."

That wasn't much of an answer. Where his family was from and where he was from could be two different things, but, if he was telling the truth, at least Saint Petersburg wasn't Moscow.

She glanced around, instinctively double-checking for anyone who might be eavesdropping before she answered him. She didn't see any movement, and she couldn't hear or smell anything either. "I'm new in town, just trying to figure out where everything is. I prefer being out late." There was a higher chance of running into vampires at night, but there were also a lot fewer humans, and Alex liked solitude. "Where're you staying?"

"Ealing," which put him far from his flat. Whether she knew that or not, he'd accepted telling her. But there was a faint scent. From her? Or merely on her? Difficult to say. Though he took a step forward to try and get it clearer.

If it was her, she was likely to smell the same thing on him. The scent of a wolf.

Alex narrowed her eyes as she tried to decide whether she believed him or not. As he stepped closer, she braced for an attack, planting her feet. She smelled the wolf on him immediately, and her hand instinctively reached for the knife in her pocket, for all the good it would do. Maybe he owned a dog, or spent a lot of time with werewolves, but she doubted that was the case.

The coincidence of running into a Russian werewolf in the middle of the night was too much for her to accept. He had to be working for Semak. "If you're gonna try to kill me, just get it over with."

"You're very young to have so many enemies."

It was said carefully, almost contemplatively. She was a stranger to him entirely, but he knew the tone. The way someone who had fought too many times spoke. Which interested him, at the very least.

"But I am not one of them."

Alex shook her head. She couldn't take the chance that he'd tell Semak where she was, or follow her back to her apartment and try to kill her in her sleep.

"Prove it." Her hand tightened on the hilt of her knife, but she didn't draw it out of her pocket yet. "Prove you're FSB and you're really here because of dark magic."

"FSB wouldn't carry identification to that effect," Illya said with a faint smile. "And if I wanted to hurt you, I would not still be standing here, talking."

"Fine." She still didn't trust him. But maybe she could follow him, see where he went and what he did. And she could ask around tomorrow, find out if anybody else knew about him and his supposed mission here.

She let go of the knife and drew her hand slowly out of her pocket, letting him see that she wasn't pulling a weapon on him. "You can put that away, then," she said, nodding towards his knife.

When she showed her hand, Illya nodded and folded his own blade back into its casing before he put it in his pocket and drew out his empty hand. Then, he asked the question he knew both of them had to be thinking.

"You're a wolf?"

Alex nodded. There was no point in lying about that, he could obviously smell what she was.

"So're you." It wasn't a question. She was confident in her assumption about him. It occurred to her that a werewolf openly working for an official branch of the Russian government was a bit unusual, especially since the FSB, as far as Alex knew, was mostly a counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism agency. Sending one of their agents overseas to deal with dark magic in the UK seemed strange.

"How'd you end up working for the government?" If he was lying, she hoped to catch him out, but if he was telling the truth, she was genuinely curious.

"Special branch of FSB. Like Night Council here. They recruited me when I was young."

It was strange to bring it up, but it was true. Besides, it wasn't the greatest secret of their government. Every government had their supernatural aspects or, at least, their supernatural counterparts.

"So you don't have a pack?" Alex had never met another wolf without a pack before. And while she had one now, for however long she was in London anyway, she'd spent six years on her own. Maybe this guy knew what that was like.

"My division is my pack."

They're not all werewolves, but, to him, it's the same thing. He owes his allegiance to his handler. Which is as good as owing it to an alpha.

"But I do not spend much time with them, no."

She nodded. That still sounded lonely, and she felt a little pang of sympathy for him before reminding herself that he might be under orders to kill her.

There was nothing more she wanted to say or ask. If he was telling the truth, there wasn't much else to know, and if he was lying he would just keep lying. But she was going to follow him, or at least try to. Where he went and what he did after this would hopefully either confirm his story or make it obvious that he really was here for her.

She craned her neck up to look him in the eye, silently challenging him to a fight if he didn't stand aside. "Are you gonna let me by?"

"Take care of yourself," he said.

It was all he offered, but it was sincere enough, quietly as he gave it. Without anything else, he took a few steps away from the alley. Then, he turned away and headed back down the street.

His words, and the apparent sincerity behind them, was unexpected. Alex frowned up at him before nodding once to acknowledge what he'd said without really responding, since she wasn't sure what to make of it. It was a bizarrely kind thing to say, even if he wasn't here to kill her.

Once he stepped aside, she walked past him and turned in the direction she thought he'd come from, trying to lose herself in the shadows before turning around to follow him. She was fairly stealthy, and she knew to keep her distance. She'd stay with him until he reached a destination or until he realized she was there.

For about ten minutes, he let her follow. Altered his path, actually, because he did know she was behind him. Yet, he also paid attention to how she did it. Her step was light, and she concealed herself well. She was very, very good at what she did.

He had simply had more time learning to be a soldier, tracker, and spy.

Finally, he paused at a stop light across the street from a small diner that boasted it was open all night. Then, he glanced back toward where he could approximate her as being, and said, "It's cold out. Would you like a warm meal?"

Alex froze when he looked back, instinctively drawing closer to the nearest wall despite knowing she'd already been made. She really wasn't expecting an offer of food.

He hadn't tried to conceal his weapon from her, he'd been patient with all her questions, and now he didn't even seem upset that she'd been tailing him. None of that made him seem like the kind of guy who would spring a surprise attack over late-night pancakes. She didn't know what he wanted, but for now she was willing to assume it wasn't her immediate death.

"Fine," she said tentatively, stepping out of the shadows and moving towards the diner.

Illya waited until she was closer, falling into step with her before opening the door to the diner, ushering her in first.

"You're very good," he murmured. "Tracking. Concealing."

And it was a sincere enough compliment. She was good. More than just a natural hunting instinct. But he wouldn't press that point yet. Instead, he would wait. Let her eat a bit. Talk a small amount first.

Alex walked through the door ahead of him, but glanced back to make sure he wasn't taking the opportunity to do anything to her while her back was to him.

"I have to be. Like you said, I have many enemies." She had no intention of telling him who those enemies were, but there didn't seem to be any point in denying their existence.

There was probably a back way out through the kitchen, so she pointed towards a booth near it that wasn't readily visible from the front door. She didn't think anyone else had been following them, and they were unlikely to be randomly attacked here, but it was a habit to sit out of view and near an exit.

Edited 2016-01-17 21:08 (UTC)

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