It was quiet the next morning despite Bates's hurry to leave once she had packed a few necessities. Josefine was quick to move out 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 on the matter, this was the closest she had to work for the time being.
Wolf snickered 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 somewhat with the pressure.
An odd feeling washed over her as she continued waiting—the kind that sent a chill down her spine and set the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end.
—the kind that had Wolf on high alert in the dark.
"Watching," its voice came as a low growl, barely recognizable as Josefine's still as the other voices 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 closely 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 inside 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 loud enough 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 took another drag on her cigarette. A short, mousy man with thick glasses entered her peripheral vision and stopped when he saw her face.
"Morning Doc."
Josefine glanced in his direction and realized how they knew each other. "Calabrese." Calabrese was a bookie for the Italians, small-time but she'd had to haul him in a handful of times before she'd moved over 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. "Maggie asked me to come by." That was enough to coax 2C out of his apartment into the hall with them and Calabrese seemed almost to deflate as he exhaled his relief.
"Is she—Is everything alright?" 2C's voice came low and thick with something Finnish. Josefine eyed him, taking a drag on her cigarette to by 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 blatant lie, "she's coming to stay with me for a while."
"Why?" 2C asked, showing more interest than Josefine felt was normal for neighbors.
"How long have you been in the building…?" She answered his question with one of her own.
"Klaus Bernstein," he introduced himself. Josefine nodded, filing the information away while still fully intending to never use the name. "I moved in a few weeks ago, why?" She made another mental note because the timelines matched.
"You seemed to really care about her," too much, she kept to herself, "so I thought I'd ask."
"I'm surprised she asked you," Calabrese broke his silence, Italian lilting over his words, and Josefine almost flinched as she realized he was still standing there, "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 tapped her index finger against her side as she took a moment to recall the information when she'd only been half-listening at the time, "Eugene Żukowski, right?" He nodded, snapping his fingers in recognition.
"That's right. 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 at 2C in surprise when he spoke up, "They were arguing the day I moved in, I remember because he bumped into me when he stormed off." He pulled a face, "He seemed a bit obsessive, she's probably better off without him." Josefine made a note to ask Bates about the breakup and to get in touch with Żukowski for his side of the story.
"Thank you for your time," she bid them both farewell as she heard Bates approach the door.
#
Josefine's apartment was once part of the offices on an old factory floor, with two little offices off one larger 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 older brother—was out of town, which was most of the time. She asked Bates about the break with Żukowski while the two of them moved the table and a couple of mostly empty filing cabinets out into the open space near her desk 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 '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.
"Would you make a list of the things that have gone missing from your apartment recently?" She paused as she straightened out the last filing cabinet so that it was lined up with the others, "Once you get settled, 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?" Josefine looked away, humming quietly to herself as if thinking it over as her fresh scar ached.
She 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 warding off demons, but Josefine was beginning to think they were never going to get along no matter how good she was at her job.
"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." It was a lie, but she'd think of something to speak with him about on the way to Zaftigs Deli. The worry didn't leave Bates's face but she pulled on her coat and got ready to leave anyway.
#
Another storm was rolling in as Bates and Josefine reached Zaftigs Deli, the rain just beginning to fall as Josefine opened the door for her. Dubicki 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 gray eyes trained on Bates as she eyed her on her way around the counter before she disappeared into the back.
"Bates's is 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?" Josefine figured it was good information to have before she went to Raven's Roost to ask about what the thing under Bates's bed was. "It probably would've started a few 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 what was going on.
"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."