Even with no hint of a magical net overhead in the sky, he knew as soon as they got there that something was wrong.

Alec Carter's small London townhouse was eerily reminiscent of the safe house that morning.  There, he'd apparated in to sounds of a young witch screaming and the fading sign of red sparks overhead.  Carter's house was preternaturally still, and there seemed to be no movement up and down the Muggle street.  But even as they stood at the edge of the property, he could see broken bushes in the garden, faint signs of a path where something had beaten its way up to their boss's front door.

Ballentyne motioned for him to take point.  Without a word, he obeyed the silent signal and stepped in front of her, just like he would have in the old days.  Unhooking the silver chain from his belt, he led the way up the steps.

The front door had been broken inwards, and as he stepped up onto the stoop, he could see deep gouges dug into the wood that would have been at its base.  Silently, Kurby dropped into a crouch, spreading the fingers of his left hand as he pressed them against the claw marks to get a measure of the creature's size.  If the gashes were any indication, whatever had broken down Alec Carter's door had been huge.

He rose to his feet again with barely a glance at Bruce.  There was a solid knot forming in his stomach again, just like it had at the safe house.  They both knew what they were going to find here.  Pressing his mouth tightly shut, he raised his wand again and started inside.

It hadn't been a large house.  This front room had served as both entryway and living area; there was a sofa, two large stuffed chairs, a coffee table, all of which had been overturned and thrown asunder.  The front door was laying in the middle of the floor, ripped off its hinges.  The pillows on the furniture had been slashed open and shredded, the feathers that had once been inside scattered about.  There were deep scratch marks on the coffee table that matched what he'd spotted on the stoop, gouges in the wall.

And there, tracing a path across the middle of the floor, were a line of bloody canine footprints, leading from a side room back to the front door.

Kurby stopped and looked at Ballentyne, his expression unreadable as his dark eyes met hers.  Silently, he started forward again, carefully stepping around the footprints and the fallen door as he made his way towards the room that appeared to be the source of the bloody prints.

M - Mature Content to follow.

And just like that, the silver was out. Bruce followed him carefully, not crouching down. She didn’t need to get closer to see the enormous claw marks etched into the wood of the front door. This was no ordinary werewolf. It was an enormous beast, one she’d never seen before. A direwolf, she suspected.

Conscious of what they were going to find, Bruce found herself feeling even more nauseous, bile rising from her stomach and throat. She could taste it, the dread.

The struggle was clear through the living room, sofa cushions torn apart, a side lamp knocked down. Glass had smashed on the wooden floor. But it was the trail of blood that caught Bruce’s attention. Pushing down the sickness in her stomach, she followed Bagnold, careful not to step on anything that made this a crime scene. Her breath was almost non-existent, short shallow rasps as the anticipation for what they were about to find held it in like a vice.

After a quick exchange of both unreadable glances, the two progressed cautiously in the direction of the bloody footprints.

This door was partly open, and when Bagnold opened it fully, they saw far worse than what her worst imagination may have dreamt up.

The stench hit her first, almost sending her recoiling.
Alec Carter had faired far worst than the sofa cushion in the living room. What had been their boss was lying in a pool of dark blood. His entire abdomen had been ripped open, claws slashing through deeply. Blood had clearly gushed out complete with a metre or two of intestine. His left arm had been completely ripped from his body, clearly torn off in the jaws of whatever beast had had such enormous claws. His back was at an awkward angle, evidently broken in some sort of struggle. Bruce could only surmise that he’d been flung against something. He’d been a plaything, prey for the beast that had come for him.

The worst part was the look in Alec Carter’s dark brown eyes, still wide open. It was a paralysing look of terror.

Iona Ballentyne, unable to contain it any longer, hurled, emptying whatever was left in her stomach onto the floor in front of her.

Alec Carter had died in his study.

He'd mentally prepared himself for what they were going to find here, but even preparing himself -- knowing what they were likely to find on the other side of that door, standing as witness to dozens and dozens of maulings -- didn't take away the shock of seeing it again.  Kurby told himself sometimes, steely and resolute after a particularly bad attack, that he didn't want that to change.  If he ever got to the point where observing the victim of a werewolf attack didn't rattle him, then he'd stayed too long in his profession.  Knowing the horror of what a werewolf could inflict was what kept him driven.

Their boss had died alone in a pool of his own blood, missing a limb and with a look of utmost horror on his face.  Kurby stared at the body, his jaw set and an icy cold feeling in his stomach.  Carter had died because they hadn't thought to protect him.

Next to him, Bruce doubled over and began to retch.  The werewolf hunter glanced at her, brows knitting as something uncomfortable flickered over his expression.  She'd been moving much more gingerly since she'd limped into the Capture Unit office that morning, with noticeably more pain than the regular hitch that had been in her step since she came back to the Werewolf Wing in December. 

He would have instinctively reached for her arm to help stabilize her, but then he remembered all the silver.

Kurby glanced down at his gloved right hand, flexing his fingers.  Silently, he tugged off the dark leather glove laced with silver that he wore before a hunt, and then twisted all of the rings on that hand off, one by one.  Gripping them tightly in his left fist, he laid a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"We should send for Three," he said at last, breaking through the silence.  It was quiet in the study -- too quiet, considering the tragedy that they stood here to witness.  He couldn't even hear the ticking of the enormous magical grandfather clock that stood next to the book shelf, one of the few items in the house that looked untouched from the struggle.  "That Muggle street was too goddamned quiet outside.  Something else could be wrong."

Her stomach now undoubtedly empty, Bruce clutched at the doorframe with her left hand, still doubled over. Beads of cold sweat had formed on her brow as she struggled to catch her breath back. Several moments of silence followed her retching, when a hand suddenly fell, heavy on her shoulder. It was Bagnold’s hand, steady and reassuring. She said nothing, but it was appreciated.

It was a terrifying prospect, to be so out of control. Last night, while she had been locked in a safe house cell, a furry monster howling at the moon, determined to liberate itself, Alec Carter had been ripped apart and murdered by a fellow witch or wizard who hadn’t been confined to a cage. She’d been safe. Those werewolves at another safe house had not. This was more personal than it ever had been in her 22-year career.

When Bagnold spoke, Bruce’s eyes flashed back open once more, landing on the devastation before her. Carter’s eyes, staring ahead with such fright. It was as if she could see the reflection of the wolf in his chestnut gaze. After a moment, Bruce pointed her wand at the floor, clearing the bile with a swipe of her wand. She straightened herself and stepped carefully into the room, careful to keep the tip of her cane out of the pool of blood. With difficulty, she bent down near Carter’s head, left hand reaching out to gently close his eyes. To hell with crime scene desecration, he needed his dignity in death.

“And Level 4. Get someone from your team to stay here until we talk with Two.” Before the aurors swarmed the scene, Bruce needed to get her head straight. As she struggled to straighten back up, she glanced back at Bagnold, noting he’d removed the glove and his rings. “We need to account for every staff member on four.” They’d been targeted.

A dark look crossed her gaze, a furious anger building in her gut. She wanted to scream and make something explode, but the struggle to keep that anger inside only caused tears of frustrated fury to prick her eyes. “Kurb…” Her voice broke, shaking her head. There was nothing to say, was there?

It was easier to move past the warring fury and exhaustion now that he had something to deal with in front of him.  The werewolf hunter straightened, automatically hooking his silver chain back on his belt.  He took a moment to fit the silver rings back on his fingers, and then pulled the leather glove back over them. 

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath in, held it for a few beats, and then let it out slowly again.  He forced his thoughts to drift to brunch with Rosheen, to spending Christmas with Rafe and Zelda, to Donnan McBoid's outrageous story about his comrade and friend, even to Nemo finally slinking over to make spaghetti with him in his flat.

Kurby lifted his wand and quietly said, "Expecto patronum."

Silver mist swirled out of the tip of his wand, solidifying into the form of an eight-legged wolf spider, about a foot and a half in circumference.  Silently, it hovered in the air in front of him, its legs poised as if ready to spring into battle.

Kurby stared steadily at it; even past it at Gervais Bellingham, to whom the message would be delivered.  "Call the rest of the team back in," he instructed firmly.  "We need you, Li, and Smith at Carter's house. Notify Level Three that they need to send a unit here, too.  Immediately."

He gave a flick of his wand to send the spider racing off, and then glanced at Ballentyne, his jaw set.

There was nothing else that could be said.  The room was still eerily quiet, this study-turned-tomb for Alec Carter, and the heavy silence felt like it was starting to penetrate into his brain.  Uncomfortable, Kurby stepped past Bruce and around the body over to the taciturn grandfather clock that stood near the bookshelf.

"I don't think it was the werewolves that were taken earlier," he informed Bruce matter-of-factly, his back to her now as he examined the clock.  He could see himself in the reflection of the glass.  There were several different faces: one tracking the time, another the phases of the moon, another showing what looked to be the weather in London.  The hour hand on the regular clock face was pointed halfway between eleven and twelve, eleven and midnight, seemingly frozen in place.  "The spacing between the claw marks was too large.  The gouges I saw in the safe house were much smaller."

Bruce hadn't already come to a similar conclusion when Bagnold suggested that it hadn’t been the werewolves who’d been taken. Those claw marks were enormous as a regular werewolf but she, in fact, had a rather perfect comparison across her abdomen. Now healed, neat scars tracing across her stomach.

Carefully, the werewolf stepped back from her boss’ body, moving towards the window to glance out.
“You think it was a direwolf?” It was the only explanation. It even made sense, the wolf obviously having come for a target. "I'm not so sure, Kurb."

The tip of her wand touched the curtain, pulling it back slightly more to see out at the empty street. A perfectly average street, muggle, nondescript.

“I had traces set on anyone on duty last night.” They’d all agreed it at the meeting last week. Level 3 had arranged it. “I hadn’t even considered he might be at risk.” Did that make this her fault? How could she have not considered their boss?

A moment later, 3 figures suddenly popped into thin air and began to approach the house. Ballentyne released the curtain and called out. “In here!” But this was Kurby’s team, now. Not hers. She glanced sideward at him as Bellingham, Li and Smith came to the doorway. He could give his instructions.

Kurby could see the intricacy of the craftsmanship as he examined the grandfather clock: there was gold lattice across the face of it, and the hands on the normal timepiece portion of the clock looked like they had been elegantly crafted.  The dial below looked like it had shown an animated scene of the London weather, but it had dulled into a sort of gray, mundane cityscape.  A faded image of the full moon was immortalized on the third face, as still and unmoving as the pendulum that hung in the lower half of the clock.

Brows knitting, Kurby examined the clock with a slowly deepening frown. Had it died at the same moment as its owner?  His fingers tightened around his wand, but he couldn't cast Specialis Revelio or any other spell to examine it further until his patronus had reached its destination and delivered the message.

Bruce was talking, but her words were only half-registering.  He could almost imagine the events of the night before.  Carter's body looked like he was wearing what might have been bedclothes; they hadn't seem any lamps on throughout the house.  He'd probably been in bed when he'd heard something at the door.  He'd crept down to see what it was, and then the direwolf had come crashing through.  There would have been no time to send up red sparks, no time to even cast a spell to defend himself...

Ballentyne's call made him look up sharply.  Kurby closed his eyes for a brief moment, taking a deep breath to steady himself.  He didn't want his team to come crashing into this place like he and Bruce had, unprepared for what they were about to see.

Level Four had never been untouchable.  They'd lost plenty of colleagues over the years: at one point, he'd counted Bruce among the fallen.  But this felt different.  First had come the assault on the safe house, an unexpected strike on werewolves who had trusted themselves to the Werewolf Wing's protection.  Now, Carter's brutal murder.  These weren't the normal hazards that they encountered in the course of doing dangerous jobs; these were targeted attacks, aimed at their department in a way that they never had been before.

But there would be time to process and sort through all of that once they were back at the Ministry, once they had dealt with the immediate disaster and he was alone and had time to think.  Kurby let out the breath he'd been holding, and then grimly started for the front of the house, determined to intercept Bellingham and the rest of their team.