Former FBI Alienist Dr. Josefine Wolfe left her apartment that day expecting it to pass like every other since she’d lost her job, but instead found herself a case to feed her severe addiction to puzzles at her regular cafe. She would’ve preferred a serial killer—those were her specialty, after all—but when the case began with the words “There is someone under my bed every night,” she couldn’t resist. She arrived at her regular cafe—a little Jewish place by the name of Zaftigs Deli located conveniently between her place and the local Bureau office—in time to beat the lunch rush, the collar of her long coat turned up against the wind and the rain and the rim of her hat pulled low over her eyes. In hindsight, she supposed it didn’t matter how close Zaftigs Deli was to the local Bureau office considering they’d “politely” requested she never come back and she was really only there because it was a force of habit by now. The door closed behind her and Josefine paused to fold the collar of her long coat back down—it was well-worn army green wool but it still kept her plenty warm even after years of use—and removed her hat now that she was in out of the rain. There was music playing, smooth jazz from a record player somewhere behind the counter almost lost in the sound of rain hitting the windows and the low hum of chatter in the sparsely populated seating area—she supposed the rain had either slowed or deterred all except the most… adventurous patrons today. “Welcome back Doc, it has been a couple of weeks, how are you?” Dubicki waved from behind the counter before returning both large hands to changing out the coffee; Josefine inhaled quietly, the scent registering as fresh grounds before returning his smile with a very convincing one of her own. “Good, good,” she approached the counter in two long strides, “better now I get to have your coffee,” she spoke with the same charming lilt to her words she always used when she actually cared about appearing normal and Dubicki laughed, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his belly; it was almost enough to distract Josefine from the dark chuckle in the back of her mind. “Your regular then?” she nodded slightly, waiting for him to finish up so that she could hand him the dime for her first cup of coffee and a refill later. His customer service smile never wavered and the coin quickly vanished into the register, “I’ll send Maggie right over with it.” “Thank you,” Josefine turned again to survey the chairs and tables arranged almost haphazardly across the open space, resisting the impulse to straighten them out as she passed on the way to her usual table by the window, creature of habit that she was. People watching, she’d always called it when she sat watching them hurry by outside, but the Monster in her head—Wolf always had a darker word for it: hunting. The dark thing chuckled in the back of her mind again, but Josefine continued to ignore it as Margaret “Maggie” Bates—or Ma?gorzata Bartosz back home in Baligród, Poland as she’d once shared unasked with her—approached with a steaming cup of dark roast coffee black as night. Josefine took the mug and napkin with a quiet thanks and Bates hurried on, uncharacteristically quiet and hurried despite the lack of customers, as if working to keep her mind off of something, but that suited Josefine just fine; she wasn’t exactly in the mood to listen to idle chatter when she was too busy itching for a puzzle or some other way of distracting herself and Wolf, who was presently whispering in her head about all the different ways they could turn the little deli into a bloodbath —how easy it’d be —how fragile normal humans are. Josefine started to set the mug down on the napkin after the first sip of too-hot coffee, but neat writing scrawled stark on the tissue made her pause. Please help me, it read in familiar, normally bubbly writing full of fear now, so she turned it over, looking for more information and finding nothing before her brow furrowed and she looked again to Bates. Josefine watched her, tucking the napkin into an inside coat pocket with her notepad before taking another sip of the coffee and taking some time to study her in a way she usually didn’t bother with unless it was for work she no longer had. Even Wolf was murmuring its curiosity. # An extra 15¢ of coffee later and it was midafternoon as Bates’s shift came to an end, at which point Josefine had come to the conclusion she was incredibly sleep-deprived—forgetting orders she’d just written down, stifling yawns, occasionally stumbling around chairs and the like—and absolutely terrified of something—someone dropped a plate in the kitchen earlier and Bates had looked about to jump through the roof. She said her goodbyes to Dubicki and the rest of the staff and paused, lingering there in the entry as if she wasn’t keen on the idea of going home, so Josefine caught her attention and waved her over as she finally allowed curiosity to get the better of her. “You are still here?” Bates sounded too tired to really be surprised, but traces were still there as she took the seat across from her. “Of course I am,” Josefine schooled her mask into her best impression of concern, “you asked me for help.” She set the napkin on the table between them, tapping her fingers on the note as Wolf chuckled at her act. “You just wanted to know what the puzzle was.” She took another sip of her coffee and ignored it as she watched Bates swallow hard on whatever was bothering her, wringing her hands a moment before she met Josefine’s gaze; it was an admirable attempt, she counted three whole seconds before Bates had to look away again. It didn’t matter much to her, Josefine was used to no one holding her gaze by now as if some subconscious, instinctual part of them could see Wolf there in the grey fog. Wolf snickered. “There…” Bates took a deep breath as Josefine returned the note to an inside coat pocket, waiting to see whether she’d win her struggle to speak the problem aloud, “There is someone under my bed every night.” She’d already had her curiosity, but those words and the way she’d phrased it had Josefine sitting up straighter in her chair and leaning forward with rapt interest. “I went to the police, but they just said I was being hysterical and it was in my head.” Josefine swallowed hard, resisting the chill that ran down her spine at the rather vivid memory of nearly drowning while sealed into a tub of ice water. “But it is real, I swear.” Bates’s oath almost sounded like her own, one she’d screamed until her voice was raw so many times she’d rather not count, so she shook out of the memories in favor of analyzing Bates’s sincerity, reading her while she weighed possibilities with what she knew of hallucinations and the like, which was far more than she usually cared to consider. There were dark circles beneath Bates’s eyes and the light make up where she’d no doubt tried to hide them and wringing her hands together didn’t hide the evidence she’d been picking at her nails so Josefine swallowed down her skepticism and leaned forward to rest her arms on the table because, at the very least, Bates was convinced there was something and it’d cost her nothing but the time of which she’d suddenly found herself with a surplus to at least look into it. Wolf scoffed at the excuse. “How do you know?” Bates flinched, her expression twisting into disappointment for a moment so Josefine considered how to soften the question; she’d never been good about abandoning puzzles once she knew about them and her curiosity had been piqued, she wanted answers now maybe as much as Bates did. That’d been one of her other problems at the Bureau. “Details, I mean, things you can’t write off as coincidence,” Josefine continued, ignoring Wolf when there was another snicker from the dark at the back of her mind. “Som—Sometimes I get home from work and…” Bates squeezed her hands tight as if to stop the shaking as she swallowed; her blue eyes were a little wet and red-tinged and briefly, Josefine hoped she wouldn’t start crying, “and things are missing, private things, like jewelry or brushes or makeup or…” she leaned close enough to whisper, short blond hair falling forward in an uncharacteristically disheveled look, “or undergarments.” She sat back in her chair again, taking a moment to look out the window and watch the rain run down the glass beside us, “At night I hear him whispering to me,” a dry, humorless laugh escaped her lips, “it is a mercy I can never quite make out the words, I think.” Josefine tented her fingers together, gaze slipping out of focus as she internally reviewed what Bates had told her and compared it to cases she’d handled or at least studied in the past, looking for similarities and statistics, patterns of habit that might help her determine how to proceed. “Him,” Wolf hummed from the dark, echoed and whispered voices all bleeding impatience and Josefine nodded slightly in agreement; if Bates couldn’t make out the words, why did she speak with so much certainty when she referred to the… potential stalker as ‘him’? “You say you can’t make out the words, so it can’t be that clear,” Josefine looked up to study her, drumming her fingers one beat per second on the side of her mug. Tap. Ta— 1.6 seconds and Bates’s gaze quickly flicked away from hers. “So then why did you refer to this… entity, what or whoever it may be, as ‘him’?” Bates blinked in surprise at the question, as if she hadn’t even thought about it when she’d spoken. “I am…” she frowned at herself for a moment, “not sure exactly, it is somewhat muffled by the mattress, but even then his voice sounds sort of low and rough.” Josefine hummed quietly to herself, fingers drumming together for a moment. “It’s true that it’s far less common for a woman’s voice to display such characteristics.” The murmured confirmation came as almost an afterthought. Then both her speech and drumming paused as Josefine decided she wanted a better idea of what the scene looked like, “Would you mind if I came home with you to take a look?” Relief flooded her face at the question and, finally, Bates seemed to relax even if it was only a little. “Would you really?” A smile broke over her face so Josefine finished off her coffee, “Oh, that would be just berries, to me.” They rose from their seats and Josefine gestured for her to lead the way as she pulled the long coat back on and returned the hat to her head. 2: Chapter Two

Bates’s place was small, just enough space for a kitchenette with her bed and a dresser tucked behind a screen and a closet size bathroom off one side, but Josefine could guess the place was cheap enough Bates got it all to herself, which wasn’t all that common here in Otsha proper even with the smaller population compared to other cities. Josefine paused in the doorway to study the lock, looking for the telltale signs of a break-in, her head cocked almost unconsciously to one side in thought when she found a lock and deadbolt that looked almost new. “When did you get the locks changed?” Bates looked back to where she’d paused, wringing her hands together again in what Josefine was starting to think was a nervous habit, though she couldn’t quite be sure if it was at her presence or at being in the apartment. “About a week ago, that older Irishman you meet for coffee sometimes,” Bates trailed off, trying to remember the name. “Finn something—he did the work for me.” “Finnén MacNéill?” Her eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s right. He was real nice about it too, and quick, he changed the locks and added a deadbolt all under an hour.” Considering Finn makes his living breaking locks and cracking safes for the Irish mob, it wasn’t much of a surprise he managed it at that speed. “He’s good at what he does, yes.” Josefine made a mental note to contact him about the spare key he had no doubt made. “So this started more than a week ago?” Bates nodded slightly, relaxing slightly when she finally came inside and closed the door behind her, though she remained tense; Josefine supposed it was the apartment itself making her skittish, then. “Such a naive little creature,” Wolf’s voice echoed in her head with a twisted sort of amusement to its tone, “can she not see the blood on your hands?” Josefine didn’t look down at her hands despite its coaxing, she already knew she’d find them stained red with blood that wasn’t there, it’d shown her that image enough times she sometimes thought the doctors had been right. “‘Better the devil you know’,” Josefine quoted the words back to it under her breath, earning a deranged laugh from the darkness that faded into a low chuckle as she continued further inside to crouch beside the bed. The bed wasn’t very high, maybe a little more than right inches in space as an estimate; most men wouldn’t fit in such a small space if they could get down there in the first place, especially as they got older, so that put a rough cap on the age range for whoever it might be. Could be a ghost of some sort, the thought flickered through the back of her mind quickly, would explain how it got in even after the locks had been changed. It wouldn’t have been the first time Josefine had determined a stalker to be of the restless dead variety, though it was a bit out of her wheelhouse. She dropped down, shifting her long coat out of the way as she lay flat on the floor to peer into the dark beneath the bed. No holes, no loose floorboards when she reached out to check, nothing caught on the frame’s underside as far as she could tell in the fading light. Scuff marks though. Black, from the rubber sole of a shoe. Not a ghost this time. That might be the worse of the two possibilities, Josefine hummed to herself. “What’s wrong?” Bates asked from behind her, a mix of fear and hope in her expression when Josefine looked back before she climbed to her feet. “Just collecting information,” Josefine spoke as she dusted herself off, glancing out the skylight at the quickly fading daylight, “Would you mind if I stayed here for the night? I can sleep in one of the chairs,” she gestured toward the solid wood chairs at the small table in the kitchenette; there would be no sleep in such chairs, but considering the situation, that was for the best, “then you can come to stay with me until we get this figured out for you, we can head there in the morning.” Bates looked like she might start crying at the suggestion and Josefine swallowed hard as she found herself praying she didn’t; she wasn’t religious but she didn’t know how to deal with people crying, that level of emotion was far beyond her understanding with far too many possibilities for a cause. “Thank you, Doc,” Bates instead did one of the handful of other things she doubted she would ever understand, rushing forward to wrap her in a hug, “I was so frightened.” Josefine stiffened under the contact, a small, instinctual part of her still expecting pain to come with it even after so many years. Bates seemed far less tense now that she’d been offered a solution, as odd as it was to have someone who wasn’t ‘family’ willingly get this close to Josefine for no other reason than to seek comfort. It was basic psychology when she thought about it; given the situation, Bates was bound to be relieved—and likely equally as trusting—around anyone who offered hope of a solution. Maybe it was good she’d asked her, Josefine had nothing to gain from ripping her off regardless of how easy a mark she would be. “She offered a puzzle,” Wolf laughed as Josefine extracted herself from Bates’s grip, “you would not trade a puzzle for anything.” She ignored its voice, focusing instead on the night ahead. # It was dark that night, storm clouds still hanging over Otsha even if the rain had died down for the time being. Josefine sat wrapped in her coat with her hands stuffed into the pockets and legs crossed at the ankles still wide awake thanks to years of long nights and Wolf’s near-constant chatter. She’d started humming Gjendines Bånsull at some point to distract it—it was the only thing she had of her parents’ homeland, though even it had things she’d rather forget attached to it now. There was a sound from beyond one of the walls, enough for Josefine to pause in her humming, but not clear enough for her to quite recognize what or where even as she listened closer. Whatever it was didn’t move again for a long time, long enough she suspected it might have simply been someone shifting in their sleep in one of the apartments on either side. The walls were thin there, after all, she could break into either with little more necessary than a penknife. Wolf snickered at the thought and the death that would follow if it had its way. Josefine shifted in her chair and started humming again; she’d ask the neighbors about the noise in the morning. 3: Chapter Three

It was a quiet morning despite Bates’s insistence Josefine have breakfast with her before she packed some necessities to bring with her to Josefine’s home. Josefine was quick to escape into the hall, lighting a cigarette and leaning against the wall beside the door to wait. It was still early when she checked her watch, enough so there was a part of her trying to tell her she needed to be getting ready for work. Another part of her—the still relatively fresh scar on the side of her abdomen that seemed to itch with the still stormy weather—remembered quite keenly that regardless of how she felt about the situation, this was the closest she had to work for the time being. Wolf laughed at her as Josefine exhaled smoke and folded an arm across herself to press that hand firmly to her abdomen over the scar too high on that side to be comfortable, but at least the itch was dulled some with the pressure. An odd feeling washed over her as she continued waiting—the kind that sent a chill down her spine and the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end. —the kind that had Wolf shifting to its feet in the dark. “Watching,” its voice came as a low growl, barely recognizable as Josefine’s still as the others distorted and echoed the word in the cavernous void of its home and Josefine felt herself tense, lingering on the edge of fight or flight as she listened closer to her surroundings. She was waiting, trying to pinpoint the source of the feeling without giving away that she knew they were there. Floorboards creaked on all sides, various tenants moving in their apartments to prepare for the day, but that was all Josefine heard for a long while, long enough she was starting to relax—to hush Wolf and her own paranoia. The door to 2C shifted in the corner of her eye, the hinges groaning just a little, but enough to be loud in the quiet and she looked toward it to find a young man hidden mostly behind the door. He stared at Josefine with curiosity and something else she couldn’t quite place in his expression when she met his gaze. Another low, rumbling growl echoed from the dark in her head and Josefine almost agreed with it as his gaze shifted pointedly to her nose; he’d seen Wolf it seemed. He was suntanned and likely younger than his weathered skin made him look from what she could tell through the gap in the door. Another door opened and closed behind her, the one at the end of the hall marked 2E, as Josefine exhaled smoke. A short, squirrelly man with thick glasses entered her peripheral vision and stopped when he saw her face. “M—Morning Doc.” Josefine glanced in his direction and realized how they knew each other. “Calabrese.” Giuseppe Calabrese was a bookie for the Italians in the city, small-time but she’d had to haul him in a handful of times before she moved up to violent crimes. “It—It’s a bit early for a raid today, right?” Apparently, Josefine still scared him, because he didn’t even try to meet her gaze. “I’m not here for that, Maggie asked me to come by.” That was enough to coax 2C out of his apartment into the hall with them and Calabrese seemed to shrink a few inches as he exhaled his relief. “Is she—Is everything alright?” 2C’s voice came low and thick with something Slavic. Josefine eyed him, taking a drag on her cigarette to buy herself some time to look him over again now that he wasn’t hiding behind the door; he was lean but well-muscled with thick calluses on his hands—hard labor in all likelihood, smuggling, maybe—would explain his relief that she wasn't there in an official capacity. “She’s fine,” Josefine exhaled smoke and ignored Wolf’s snicker at the lie, “she’s coming to stay with me for a while.” She paused, chewing on the noise from last night, “While I have you two, do you know what the noises in the walls at night are?” “Oh,” Calabrese shivered, “we get rats.” 2C nodded his agreement. “They die in there sometimes and the smell is terrible, but the noise is not too bad once you get used to it.” Josefine nodded slightly; it was probably nothing then, she’d occasionally get animals in the walls of her apartment as well, it’s a common problem in buildings that were converted from something else. “I’m surprised she asked you, normally she asks that boyfriend of hers if she needs help,” Calabrese nodded toward Bates’s door. “She’s told me about him a few times,” Josefine drummed her fingers against her side for a moment as she tried to remember the name of someone she’d only half paid attention to Bates’s stories about, “Eugeniusz ?ukowski, right?” He nodded, snapping his fingers in recognition. “That’s right, Eugene. I haven’t seen him around in a while though.” Josefine hummed in thought at the comment. “They split up a few weeks ago.” Calabrese and Josefine looked to 2C in surprise when he broke his silence again, “I—I heard them arguing the day I moved in,” he pulled a face, “he seemed a bit obsessive, she’s probably better off without him.” She made a mental note to ask Bates about the breakup and get in touch with ?ukowski, statistics are what they are for a reason, after all. # Josefine’s apartment was once part of the offices on an old factory floor, with two little offices off one large space with a desk in one corner and a kitchenette in the one across. She’d been using the second office mostly as storage while Neirin Elisedd—her self-proclaimed brother—was out of town, which was most of the time. She asked Bates about the break with ?ukowski while the two of them moved the table and the couple of mostly empty filing cabinets out into the open space so that Bates could get settled in. “Oh, we stopped seeing each other a few weeks ago,” Bates flashed a strained smile, “I think perhaps, we knew each other too well, there was no… magic left.” If not knowing a person was the source of the ‘magic’, Josefine doubted she’d ever be in a relationship, but rather than dwell on that too long, she kept her focus on the case at hand. “Before the… nightly visits started?” Bates’s blue eyes went wide at the question. “You do not think it is Eugeniusz, do you? He was protective of me, but he would never…” she trailed off as she thought it over. Statistically speaking, most stalkers are exes but Josefine doubted that information would do her any sort of good. “Look at you,” Wolf crooned from in the dark of her head, its smile too wide with amusement, “pretending to be a good human,” it was a tone that could only sound mocking coming from it. Josefine changed the subject. “Would you make a list of the things that have gone missing from your apartment recently?” A pause as she straightened out the last filing cabinet so that it was lined up with the others, “Once you get settled in, of course.” “Yes, anything you need,” Bates sounded distant, so Josefine looked up again to find her checking her watch. “Are you alright for time or am I making you late for work?” She looked away, humming quietly to herself as if thinking it over as her fresh scar ached. Josefine remembered coming back from medical leave “too soon”—after the same amount of time that would’ve been assigned for a male agent with the same stab wound, an injury that takes the same amount of time for her to heal from as it would a man regardless of her being of “the fairer sex” and regardless of her supervisor’s opinion on the matter. In hindsight, “breeze off, buttons,” was probably the wrong thing to say to him when he told her to make him some coffee instead of doing her research on cult practices, but Josefine was beginning to think they were never going to get along no matter how good her mask of normalcy. “I’ll give you a ride to work,” she shook off the thought and reached for her long coat as she changed the subject, “I’d like to speak with Dubicki.” The worry didn’t leave Bates’s face but she pulled her coat on and got ready to go anyway. # Another storm was rolling in just as Bates and Josefine reached Zaftigs Deli, the rain just beginning to fall as Josefine opened the door for her. Dubiki looked up from checking the register as the bell over the door rang, a bright smile on his face. “Ah, good morning Maggie,” the Polish was thicker in his accent now—Josefine suspected he deliberately toned it down around customers, “and Doc, what brings you so early?” She waited, keeping grey eyes trained on Bates until she’d circled the counter and disappeared into the back before turning her focus to Dubicki. “Maggie’s staying with me at the moment while I look into something for her,” she leaned on the counter and lowered her voice, keeping an eye on the doorway into the kitchen just in case, “I need to ask if you’ve seen anyone loitering around the shop or the street outside lately? It would have started about three weeks ago.” Worry robbed the smile from his lips as he studied her, as if gauging how serious the question was. “No, not that I’ve noticed,” he paused, setting the money he’d been counting aside, “Is everything alright?” Josefine hesitated; it wasn’t her place to say, really, what was going on exactly. “Since when did you care where your place is?” Wolf shifted in the dark and she closed her eyes for a moment against the impending headache its renewed pressure would bring before she looked up at Dubicki again. “Everything will be fine, I’m probably just being overcautious,” she glanced up as Bates came out again and went to straighten out tables and chairs for the day, waiting until she was out of earshot again to continue, “keep an eye on her for me while she’s here?” Dubicki nodded his agreement without hesitation. “That girl is like my own blood, you don’t have to worry while she’s here.” A con artist’s smile spread across her lips as Josefine straightened up. “Thank you,” she flipped her collar up against what looked like driving rain outside, “I’ll be back when her shift is over.” 4: Chapter Four

Josefine had spent most of her morning trying to get in touch with Eugeniusz ?ukowski but with little in the way of luck. He wasn’t at home and hadn’t been for a while from what she could tell after letting herself into his little apartment across town. So she’d moved on for now. Pluto’s was one of the Irish’s places, a speakeasy underneath Pluto’s Hardware and Accessories where the ‘Accessories’ referred to the liquor. Josefine approached the underground bar as if she belonged, and maybe part of her did considering how much time she’d spent growing up working back rooms at places just like it. “Little early, but what can I getcha?” The bartender barely looked up from wiping glasses down before open when she leaned on the glossy wood. “I’m looking for Uncle Finn.” That got his attention but based on the confusion twisted across his face, not the way Josefine had intended. “You lost your uncle here? Sorry lass, I cannae help you with that one.” She nodded slowly as she realized where the problem lay. “His name is Finnén MacNéill,” she pressed the matter despite the wary look he wore now, “I’m in need of a locksmith, see?” “I thought I told you to call me Uncle Finn.” Josefine turned at the voice just in time for Finnén MacNéill—a solid man with a rough goatee—to sweep her up into a tight hug. “How’s my favorite niece doing?” The brogue was thick in his accent and his voice warm—this, she’s been told, is what family is meant to feel like, so she at least managed a believable laugh and a soft smile. “I thought I was your only niece,” there was a teasing lilt to her words as he set her back on her feet and she earned a hearty laugh. “Manhattan’s in today, did you want to come say hello?” Anna Manhattan was the Irish queen of Otsha and ran every speakeasy, smuggling operation, and gambling den the Italians didn’t, which usually accounted for about half of them. Finnén MacNéill is one of her “b’ys”, an older gent who decided back when Josefine was a kid that he’d be her uncle shortly before Anna had decided enough of her people liked her, Josefine was one of hers too. “No, I’m here on business I’m afraid. I heard you changed the lock for one Margaret Bates a couple of weeks ago, wanted to come and thank you for helping out a friend of mine.” Uncle Finn raised an eyebrow at the words; he’d known Josefine since she was a kid—he probably knew she wasn’t just there to say thanks and she didn’t exactly have much in the way of friends, just Anthony Cain who sometimes played stand up bass with one of the swing bands who played the Irish-run speakeasies. “You’re here about the spare, aren’t you?” she nodded slightly and he sighed, shaking his head, but the smile never left his face, “A’ight little lass, you know me too well. I’ll get your friend’s key for you.” “Thank you very much.” # It’d been a little under a week since Bates had come to stay with her and Josefine had kept busy trying and failing to contact ?ukowsky in between taking Bates to and from work on the back of her motorcycle every day. So far, that day had been passing much the same as the bell rang over the door to Zaftigs Deli and she held it for Bates. Maybe he could read the frustration on her face because as soon Bates was in the back, Dubiki called her to the counter. “Good morning Dubiki, everything alright on your end?” Rather than his usual jovial manner, the large man wore a rather serious expression as he pulled a thin bundle of letters from an apron pocket. “Someone started sending letters here addressed to Maggie.” Josefine took the bundle and leafed through the envelopes—cheap postage with ‘Margaret Bates’ and ‘Zaftigs Deli’ the only notation on each one, one for each day since Bates moved in. “Who delivers them?” Dubiki shrugged. “They come by courier, not post officer.” She nodded slightly, drawing a quarter from her pocket and setting it on the counter between them. “I’ll stay today and go through these, I have a few questions for that courier.” He nodded and the coin disappeared into the register. “Hunting,” Wolf’s echoed voice came from the dark as Josefine made her way across the seating area to her usual table in the corner next to the window—she had a clear sightline to the door and the counter from there, which served to ease her naturally high levels of paranoia. “Yeah, hunting,” she murmured back as she took her seat and opened the first letter. Dearest kotku, How can you do this to us? How could you go to that g-man suka? How? How? How? How can you abandon our love? How can you abandon our future together? HOW????? I cannot be without you. I WON’T be without you. I would follow you to hell, I NEED you to know that! I will find you and bring you BACK. FOR US. I see I need to take control. I wanted to wait for you but I see that like other women, you need your man to take charge. So I am writing to you. Expressing my love. The world is ending soon. We have to be together soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Together. Soon. Dearest kotku, I forgive you, I do. Really. What a pleasant sight you are. So beautifully designed. Amazing! A godsend I tell you. Your luscious golden hair and the way it lays perfectly against your white pillows. I love you. I love you. Oh, what a gift you are! A godsend I tell you! Godsend! Dearest kotku, I love you. Is it okay that I love you? I love you a lot. I love you so very much. I love when you speak. I love you. I love your eyelashes. That g-man suka. Why will you not let me love you? I will dig your eyes out. I love you a lot. You’re the best. I love your hair. I love you. I love you. I want to snap your neck. Is it okay that I love you? Do you love me too? I want to kill you. Do you love me too? I know you will not mind staying home to raise our children properly. It is what all women are made for, after all. I understand you need to work now but do not worry my love, I will take care of you the second you are ready. I will lavish you with all you need to support, love, and cherish me and our future children. Dearest kotku, Such pretty eyes you have. Your eyes are so beautiful. Such pretty eyes you have. Can I pluck your eyes out? You are beautiful! Your skin is like silk! So beautiful. Beautiful silk. Do you like me too? I love you. I am obsessed with you. I want you? I love you. I am obsessed with you. I want you? Do you love me too? I love you. Do you love me too? I love you. You will love me. Soon! Dearest kotku, Fine I get it. I understand. You want me to take control. I understand that you want me to stop you. A GRAND GESTURE just for you. I am getting everything set up so that soon, we can be together at last. Everything is almost ready, it needs to be perfect. Immaculate. Like you. Josefine had the letters laid out across the table, her third cup of coffee half-finished and set aside to pin down a couple of corners so that she could scan all five at once. Overall, the writing was messy and erratic, the word choice was simplistic pointing to lower levels of English education. “He’s obsessive,” she murmured to Wolf as her fingers skimmed the line calling her ‘g-man suka’ in the first letter. “Takes one to know one,” the voices sang the words in a childish taunt. “And he knows who I am—” “Who you were,” Wolf corrected. “Who I was, or at least that I worked for the Bureau,” Josefine paused to finish off her coffee and set the mug aside again, drumming her fingers on the table as she analyzed each letter in turn. The first told her he was angry in both the pressure used to write each word and the frantic nature of the dense letters. Clearly, he took her removing Bates from her apartment as something of a challenge or call for proof of his ‘devotion’ to save whatever relationship he believed them to have. By the second, his obsession with Bates was clear along with his visits to her room while she slept, the handwriting was lighter, almost jovial in nature—maybe he saw her that day, or spoke to her. His mental state seems to be devolving in the third letter and his reference to Josefine and working made her think he was watching when she dropped Bates off at Zaftigs that day. The stalker’s obsession seemed to be slipping into the territory of ‘no one else can have you’ by that point with intermittent threats of physical harm. “Territorial,” Wolf growled the word as if in a challenge and Josefine almost agreed with it; taking Bates away seemed to have triggered a psychotic break that continued into the fourth letter. By the fifth, the writer almost seemed back to his beginning state, his writing less erratic and unstable, instead solidifying the mildly concerning idea that Bates left because she wanted proof of his love for her. “No love left,” Wolf paraphrased Bates’s explanation on why she and ?ukowsky broke up as Josefine downed half of a fourth cup of coffee she hadn’t seen poured. “Are those for work?” She looked up at Bates’s question as she lingered beside the table. “Not exactly,” Josefine tapped her fingers on one of the letters, “they’re from an old case similar to yours so I thought I’d refresh my memory.” It was an easy lie and believable when Bates knew very little of what exactly she did for the Bureau. Josefine’s mug was empty again when she went for more. “What are you doing with the letters?” Bates was updated in her head to "caffeine-bearing angel" as she refilled the mug. “Using details from the letters I can put together a rough profile of the stalker,” she trailed off as Bates sat across from her, discreetly tucking the envelopes under one of the letters even face down as they already were. “Can you show me?” Josefine hesitated for a moment, debating the ethics of it with herself until Wolf’s laughter derailed those thoughts. “You hunt your own kind for amusement, what morals have you?” She ignored the question, looking back at Bates’s curiosity. “Alright,” Josefine began pointing out places where a native English speaker or someone with a few years of practice would’ve used a contraction, “these and other places where he didn’t use contractions tell me it’s likely English was not his first language and the use of ‘kotku’,” she pointed to the greeting, “and ‘suka’,” and to where the stalker had referenced her, “point to someone from one of the Slavic countries.” Josefine shuffled the letters together as she drank down her fifth and final cup of coffee. The bell over the door rang and Dubiki waved her over as the courier approached the counter. Josefine was most of the way across the room when he opened his bag. “Letter for Margaret Bates?” Bates looked up at her name. “For me?” Josefine had been caught in her lie it seemed. “Liar, liar,” Wolf snickered at her dilemma and she exhaled through her teeth as she closed the distance and took the envelope in question—the same handwriting and the same cheap envelope. “Can you tell me who’s sending these? What he looks like, anything like that?” The courier met her gaze—tap—for one second before Wolf moved and he looked away. “I dunno, lady, they get dropped off at one of the pickup stations a couple blocks over, I dunno why they don’t deliver it themself.” Josefine nodded slightly, tapping the envelope against her other hand in her disappointment. “Thank you.” He tipped his hat and was gone as quickly as he’d come. “What’s this about letters?” Bates had her arms folded across her chest and tapped a foot impatiently on the floor as Josefine turned back to her. “Were you lying to me, Doc?” “Yes,” Wolf giggled. “I had a good reason,” Josefine finally answered, “there’s no reason you should have to suffer his whims.” Bates looked torn as if she wanted to be angry that it’d been decided for her, but couldn’t find it in her to stay that way given the situation. “I read one of the letters while you were explaining,” she spoke softly, her foot going still, “tell me honestly Doc, do you think he’s dangerous?” The question required little thought from someone who considered everyone a danger. “I think removing you from that apartment threatened the image he has of your relationship and if he’s pushed further, he very well could be.” She swallowed hard, wringing her hands. “What does this one say?” Josefine’s apprehension must have been clear in her expression because Bates’s frown deepened further. “Well, Doc?” “He’s mine, I want him,” Wolf growled as Josefine slid her thumb under the flap and opened the envelope. We’ll see, she soothed it before unfolding the letter and taking a deep breath. “‘Dearest kotku’,” it began, “‘I hope you like the gift I left you. I made it especially for you. I hope you love it. Do you love it?’” “What gift?” Dubiki broke the silence when she looked up from the letter and her gaze flicked to Bates, reading her reaction—fear was the predominant emotion in her wide blue eyes and the wringing of her hands, but confusion was there too in the press of her brows. “Do you know what he’s talking about, Doc?” Sweet, innocent Bates didn’t see danger in other people, maybe that was why she seemed to lead a fairly happy life. “Trap,” Wolf confirmed Josefine’s suspicion that the gift mentioned was likely a lure meant to bring Bates back to the apartment. “I have a hunch,” she began, “but I don’t think you should go with me to check.” 5: Chapter Five

Bates went with Josefine back to her apartment after questioning how she’d get in otherwise—picking the lock or using the spare from Uncle Finn weren’t viable answers so Josefine had simply agreed. The door unlocked and opened with a quiet click and the boards groaned even under her slight weight. Then Josefine saw the pool of blood. At first, she blinked and expected it to be gone—another of Wolf’s little tricks, but it wasn’t. The floor creaked behind her and she reached back to stop Bates from entering. Josefine didn’t stop her fast enough, she’d seen the body—bent and broken—under her bed staring out with milky eyes and fair hair stained red. Bates nearly doubled over the arm Josefine had wrapped around her waist, wailing a name over and over through her tears—Eugene, that body was once Eugeniusz ?ukowsky. # Josefine had hauled Bates back out into the hallway and phoned the police so now she took what time she had to look over the scene. There were multiple stab wounds in the torso and a knife was missing from the kitchen, which meant this had likely been a spur-of-the-moment decision. [The blood trail started near the door—the first wound—with more beginning somewhere in the middle—the second and third wounds—and then began to pour—the fourth and fatal wound, but not the last—and finally, there was evidence the body had been dragged over to the bed and stuffed underneath—postmortem scrapes from where he’d gone against the bed’s iron frame.] “Hide,” Wolf observed and Josefine nodded slightly. “I don’t think ?ukowsky was the gift, I don’t think he was meant to be there,” and many people learn from childhood that beneath the bed is the best place to hide, be it themselves or what they’ve done. A bouquet of lilac roses—stained with blood but set carefully on the kitchen table—caught her eye and she approached, ignoring the sense of ?ukowsky’s glassy eyes on her back. “Lilac?” Wolf purred as Josefine checked over the flowers. “Traditionally, they represent love at first sight,” or so she’d read in a book once years ago while researching for another case, “maybe he’d just met Bates when this started,” but that was too many people when she waitressed at Dubiki’s. Her fingers drummed on a note beside the flowers with ‘Maggie’ scrawled hastily across it—it was nicer paper, a sheet from Bates’s desk and her collection of stationery. Josefine unfolded the paper to find one line of similarly hasty penmanship. “‘I did it for us’,” she read the words aloud and sighed, she was back at roughly square one. “Company,” Wolf shifted to attention at the sound of approaching sirens, and Josefine breathed another sigh, pressing her fingers to her temples at an impending headache. # “Neighbor’s a known felon with mob ties,” one of the detectives looked over his notepad while Josefine leaned against the table, “this could be a mob hit.” Her brows creased into a frown as she briefly pictured Calabrese carrying out a mob hit. “If this were a mob hit, it’d be displayed somewhere public—somewhere it’d be sure to send a message.” “What kind of message does a body send?” The other Detective eyed her with apprehension. “Depends on the body. In the case of mob hits, they usually say ‘Don’t cross the mob’.” They seemed to concede that point before the first began to look around. “No sign of forced entry, so the killer was either let in or had a key,” he scanned a critical eye over the scene starting at the handle of the door, “and a recent breakup, who’s to say she didn’t get angry he wouldn’t leave her alone—because she did report a stalker—stabbed him and tried to hide the body; writing that note for a cover?” Josefine raised an eyebrow at his assessment of the crime. “That’s all well and fine at a glance, but Bates has been staying with me while I look into her stalker.” He laughed, a rather condescending look in his eyes as his gaze skated across her. “Well I don’t know if a dame like you would know this, but it’s usually an ex in those cases.” Maybe it was the inadequate level of caffeine in her system but Wolf’s smile twisted across her lips before she could stop it—too wide, like the cat in that story about the girl who fell down the rabbit hole but more sinister. “I do know that actually as I’ve spent the last almost ten years with the Bureau as something of an alienist.” Josefine pulled the first note—Bates’s plea for help—from an inside coat pocket with her notepad and set it on the table next to the note left with the flowers, “even if it were true that ?ukowsky was the stalker, the handwriting doesn’t match.” The detective made a show of casting a critical eye between the two notes as if humoring a child. “How do we know you didn’t write that one?” “Can I have him?” As if sensing her rising frustration, Wolf growled from the dark, and for a moment, Josefine was tempted. Then she exhaled slowly, pressing at her temple with her eyes closed, ignoring the itch for a smoke for the moment. “Would you like me to write something down for you to compare?” Josefine hadn’t meant it to sound so much like she was asking if the detective had any sort of brain at all, but her patience was wearing thin and that’s how the words slipped out. The detective’s gaze narrowed into a glare and he waved a couple of officers into the apartment. “Get her out of here,” he gave the order and the two complied, gripping both of her arms to steer her out of the apartment. “I can walk myself, bulls, let go o’ me,” she jerked her arms free of them and started walking, pulling the pack of cigarettes from a pocket as she went. 6: Chapter Six

Bates, ever the little worker bee like it was some sort of coping mechanism, was back at work, so Josefine sat copying the list of stolen effects from memory; she’d handed the original in to the police. Then, when she probably should’ve left well enough alone, she’d called in a favor from Detective Janzen Andries—probably the only person on the force she got on alright with—to get a copy of ?ukowsky’s personal effects. Even just skimming the list, she didn’t find any crossover between the two. “Still missing,” Wolf hummed from her head, sounding almost bored. “Yeah,” Josefine agreed, “but they have to be somewhere.” She was debating another trip to ?ukowsky’s to search the place when there was a muffled crash in the wall behind her, followed by a thud against the drywall and the frantic flapping of wings. Maybe she was more annoyed by her earlier conversation with the police than she’d thought because Josefine found herself taking a bookend—a weighty gear—and putting a hole in the drywall before tearing out the panel. There was more space back there than expected when she stepped through the hole. “Rats in the walls,” Josefine murmured Calabrese’s explanation for the noises she’d heard at Bates’s place. “Or one big rat,” Wolf snickered from some dark corner of her mind, shifting against the walls there. “One big rat,” she knelt to lift the dusty white raven that’d gotten caught in a mess of broken glass and cobwebs, carefully dusting it off, “yes, I suppose that’s a good way to put it.” # The quick ride to Bates’s place was windy and wet enough Josefine nearly dumped her motorcycle on a couple of corners, but she made it in one piece. Her coat dripped a trail as she darted up the stairs two at a time, pulling Uncle Finn’s spare key from a pocket so that she wouldn’t need to pick the lock. They’d moved the body but the room still smelled enough of blood to make Wolf purr. Long strides carried her to the back wall where she examined the drywall. Josefine pressed an ear to the wall and knocked, listening to the echo in what sounded like a decently sized space. From there she felt along the wall until she found a seam at which she pulled out her penknife to pry into the gap. A piece of drywall about the size of a door came loose so she shifted it aside and stepped through. There were faint footprints in the dust, the same black soled shoes that left the scuff marks under the bed based on the scuffs Josefine found there. She followed the prints to the end where she found a small shrine. It smelled of blood. Inside the shrine of Bates’s missing effects, like some sort of sacrificial piece, was the missing murder weapon—a kitchen knife matching the ones in Bates’s kitchen and still stained with ?ukowsky’s blood. At this point, Josefine figured she should be phone the police, but she had in her hands the perfect bait and Wolf was pestering her to lay out a trap of their own. So that night, she made a big show of taking Bates home before letting herself into the gap and pulling the panel back in place. Perched as she was in the beams above, she blended into the dark and settled with Wolf to wait. # Wolf saw 2C creep into the gap, watching with grey eyes flecked with red. It shifted to its feet in Josefine’s body, balanced on the beam in a low crouch to wait while he approached. His hands found the panel in the drywall beneath it and Wolf dropped and caught hold. The man struggled against its grip, but its grip was iron and solid with hysterical strength flooding demi-human veins. “How lucky you are,” it crooned, its grip on the back of his neck tightening enough it would no doubt leave bruises, “the police will keep you safe from me,” it giggled. Josefine—sweet calculating little Josefine—had been explicit in her instructions; Wolf was allowed to capture, maybe even injure 2C, but he had to be walked out and handed over to the police now they were involved. She’d promised to find Wolf someone to truly play with—someone for it to break—at a later date. So Wolf wrenched his arms back and handcuffed him with the pair Josefine always had on hand before half-dragging and half-marching him through Bates’s apartment and into the hall to wait for the police while the little human child made the call. # The blood-red flecks were gone from Josefine’s grey eyes by the time she and Bates had returned to her apartment office. Bates had made herself busy pacing off the space by the door since they’d arrived and was talking to herself in low tones when Josefine looked up from the makeshift nest she was putting together for the injured white raven from behind the wall. “What are you doing over there?” She reached up to settle the nest carefully on a space on one of the bookshelves behind the desk with the raven comfortably inside. “I am measuring out a waiting area.” Bates didn’t look back from her measuring and Josefine paused somewhere between back in her desk chair and still standing as she tried to figure out what she was talking about. “Pardon?” Now Bates looked back at her, though she still didn’t meet her gaze. “A waiting area. You will need one for a private investigations office, no?” Josefine blinked. “A private investigations office.” Bates nodded emphatically. “I am thinking you should call it W?den, he is your ancestor’s god of wisdom after all.” “I’m opening a private investigation office?” “You lost your job did you not?” Bates had her arms folded across her chest and was tapping her foot again as if she’d caught Josefine in another lie. “I mean…” Josefine trailed off because technically, she hadn’t lied about not having to go to work, she simply hadn’t answered the question at the time. Her scar itched. Her joints ached as they always did after Wolf took over. Josefine sat back down and massaged her hand with enough force it probably looked like she was trying to dislocate something, “Alright, yes, I’m currently out of a job.” “You must do what you are good at then, helping people.” She paused in her massaging to take a long drink of what she thought was her fourth cup of coffee of the night. “You’re a nice person Maggie.” Bates’s foot-tapping stopped as confusion wrote itself across her face. “In all likelihood that’s what started this in the first place.” “I’m sorry?” Her brows creased now in what looked like indignant anger. “You’re not playing the nice human?” Wolf crooned from the back of Josefine’s head and her joints ached again as it pressed against the psychological walls she kept it behind. Josefine ignored it, she needed Bates to hear these words regardless of whether or not she was willing. “You’re welcome to continue to be too kind for your own good; in fact, that’s something I sort of admire about you, but I need you to understand something going forward: everyone in the world has a dark side, some are just better at hiding it,” Josefine felt the bones in her hand shift and creak and quickly balled it up into a tight fist. “You are a good person, Doc,” Bates smiled, “and I truly believe you can help people. You are good at solving puzzles, you can help where police cannot.” Josefine opened her mouth to argue when a smile and a laugh—both of mild disbelief—split her lips instead. “You Maggie—you might be the only one who thinks I’m a good person,” but Bates made a good point: if Josefine started an investigation service, cases—puzzles would come to her, however intermittent they might be at first, “but you might be onto something.” Her smile turned more wolfish, “W?den Private Investigations. It has a rather nice ring to it.”