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."

"Is it my duty to settle the Dark Lord's accounts?"

"The tenant is the one who will be evicted even if it is another's responsibility to pay the rent."

Fenrir looked Blagojevic toe to head and back again. "So you wish for your... payment."

"Either my payment or you and your Dark Lord can go--"

"Take this," Fenrir said lazily, motioning to the boy on the floor lazily. "That will tie you over, surely."

Blagojevic looked the boy over, then nodded his head to one of the henchmen looking over his shoulder. The one nearest to him stepped forward, took hold of the boy's shoulder, plucking him off the ground. The boy looked confused and terrified as he was wrenched roughly to his feet and forced to stand before the Vampire. Blagojevic breathed deep, leaning close to the boy, smelling.

Across the room, unnoticed by Greyback, Blagojevic, or either henchman, a broad-shouldered man struggled to his feet, and moved quietly to the side of the nervous looking mother. He lay a palm on her shoulder, then bent to lift the young boy she'd been nervously watching over as she picked up the tiny girl beside him. They left the toys, the blankets and cots they'd been on, and they quietly slipped among the other people staring avidly toward the front of the room, and out the door.

Blagojevic's nose was nearly touching the boy's neck as he leaned in to inspect the scent of the blood moving through his veins. The teen, who was usually a very stoic, tough sort of person, had silent tears falling over his cheeks as Blagojevic breathed deep the scent of the blood congealing over the half-moon shaped wound - he could smell the venom coursing through the boy's veins.

Blagojevic made a face and drew away. "No the venom of your type is too strong. It smells putrid. His blood is useless to me."

Blagojevic's henchman dropped the boy back to the floor, where he landed, bracing his fall instinctively so that he landed on his bad wrist and let out a cry of pain, clutching the wrist to his chest and curling into a fetal possition at Greyback's feet.

"You knew the deal, Greyback. He was to set us loose in a place we are able to feed freely! We were to be provided blood. Unturned blood. Magical blood, even. Female preferred by the majority of my coven..." he grinned, "For the sweet tooth."

"We've turned all we had," Greyback shrugged.

"You know your mutt venom has an adverse taste to my kind." Blagojevic glowered at Greyback, "And you knew what was due to us. You knew your rent was due to us and you've neglected to save even one for us?"

Greyback thought of the girl they'd had the night of the fight at Covington Square, the one Voldemort had told the Death Eaters he would give over to Blagojevic to appease him until they could better establish the residency of the werewolves at the castle in Blackburn... Then she'd gone out the window and ruined everything, and now Blagojevic and his coven grew weary, the Ministry grew ever more interested in the goings on in Blackburn, the young werewolves uncontrollable on Full Moon nights so close to the station and the myriad of tourists that trickled around the castle on the hill... That blasted auror, Harry Underhill, was investigating and Greyback knew it was only a matter of time before they'd been found out unless they managed to lock down the castle properly, and overtake the larger portion of the village surrounding it... which would require fulfilling Blagojevic's request for blood, and allow the full pack to come... to migrate to Blackburn fully... creating a werewolf-run city where they could set up their own Ministry and he, Greyback, would be the High Alpha over the largest organized pack in the world. Then, his army would be obliged to assist Voldemort whose take over would force the wizarding world to recognize the Ministry of Werewolves and finally give the werewolves the rights that Greyback had hungered for for so long.

"I will return in one week's time," Blagojevic said, breaking into Greyback's thoughts, "And I expect there to be a better suited payment. Unturned. And if it is not provided, we will reach out to this... Dark Lord... of yours and cancel the deal."

Greyback sat up. "Don't do that."

"Then provide what you owe, and find alternative lodgings for at least some of this pack. The coven that owns this castle grows weary of your stench... your welcome wears thin. Go back to the woods, where you belong. Draw the Ministry away from here. My coven requires privacy more than they need the assistance of Voldemort. Thus far, we are unimpressed with his so called reign. He speaks more than he acts."

Greyback grinned, "Oh are you? Unimpressed? Tell him that to his face. Please. I'd love a snack... after all, I don't mind dining on your type."

Blagojevic rolled his eyes.

"Besides," Greyback said slyly, "I have orders that I intended to share with you later this very day that we have been entrusted with... orders which will sort the matter of payment and restore your confidence in my Lord."

Blagojevic's eyebrow raised in mild interest.

Greyback's teeth flashed as he grinned.

The family that had snuck away now hurried down the pathway into the village at the foot of the hill around the castle. The toddler girl clutched in her mother's arms cried and the young boy clung to his father's strong arms. Even the night after the full moon, the man's strength was great enough to carry his son, and moved with a slow but determined gait that luckily did not attract undue attention.

A majority of this part of town were members of Blagojevic's coven, after all. The last thing the family needed was to be noticed.

"This way," the man murmured, and his wife followed as he led them into a crowd of tourists - a public transit was collecting children from a school group from the sidewalk, pandemonium occurring as they were boarding. The man lowered his son to the ground, "We have had a lovely tour of the castle just now, haven't we?" the man said meaningfully, looking at each member of his family.

"The upholstery on those antique furnishings was absolutely divine," his wife answered, hiking the little one up on her hip. "What was your favorite part, Storm, darling?"

"I liked the suits of armor, mum," the boy replied, brown eyes wide.

"They were brilliant," agreed his father as they walked toward the bus, the father taking his son's hand and squeezing reassuringly. "Such a fascinating history..."

Talking about their "tour", the family mingled amongst the others on the tour, keeping low as possible, and slipped to the back of the bus, headed wherever the driver would take them - so long as it took them away.