~2 a.m.

This was the sort of disaster a department head hoped never happened.  Thirty minutes ago he had been in his study at his flat finishing up a last minute report and getting ready to turn in when he received word that something had gone wrong with one of the DoM experiments.

There had not been a great deal of information.  He had been informed a lower level underling had brought an unauthorized guest into the DoM, apparently to show off a creature being used in one of their experiments while giving the creature its nightly snack.  Around 1 a.m. something had gone horribly wrong and the creature had managed to escape leaving the underling severely injured and fighting for life at St. Mungo's.  The guest had managed to escape into the floo network, but judging from the badly mutilated body that had been found in the streets of Diagon Alley, she had not been alone.

Examining the wounds he knew the creature had to be big...and extremely strong.  Plans to test possible cures for lycanthropy on animals had crossed his desk a while back, but he had not heard anything further from anyone involved with the project.  It seemed that somehow work had been carried out in his department without his knowledge or complete consent.  And now he would have to do damage control and hope that no one else was injured or killed before the creature was subdued.

Recovering the body to keep it out of sight, he stood, retrieving his wand from his pocket.  This was going to take a lot of explaining to clean up this mess, but the first priority was to take down whatever had escaped from the DoM.

"The creature must be stopped by whatever means necessary," he said to the others who had gathered, "and quickly."

It was the biggest fear of any member of the Department of Mysteries: knowledge escaping their grasps. The biggest part of their mystery was that they were so tightlipped about things, and a breach this large scale was simply disastrous. Someone would be losing their job. When Jacqueline had received the distress call, she’d been lying in bed, drooling into her pillow as dreams of sugar plums and rainbows danced through her head. She’d been out of bed and dressed in mere minutes and was slipping into the shadows before the minutes had even reached the double digits.

The Unspeakable’s wand was clutched tightly in hand, and as she stood before Dante, her insides were quivering. This would be the first time anyone in the office had seen the French witch without her trademark heels. Though she was loathe to admit it, this event was inadvertently her fault. She’d never liked getting Ward’s approval on things – he was a crap boss at any rate, and she felt that her judgment was much fairer than his. Perhaps if she’d actually spoken to her superior about her projects, they wouldn’t be in this predicament.

She wasn’t stupid though – she’d gone through the proper channels. She’d gotten his permission… though not in ways he’d have wanted. She’d placed forms in his inbox, mixed in with mundane sheets to sign off and she knew that he wouldn’t pay too much attention to it. She couldn’t get fired for this… but she would certainly regret it – especially if someone died.

They’d been injecting the poor creature with werewolf blood for weeks, and though the experiment wasn’t going exactly according to plan, she’d never thought that things would escalade to this! Jacqueline opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, “It’ll be bloodthirsty. It’s probably allergic to silver – though that’s yet to be tested. Other than that, it’ll be difficult. The creature’s mostly impervious to magical threats, much like a cursed lycanthrope. Be careful,” Her accent came out thick and heavy, but steady. She was terrified inside, but on the outside, she was the epitome of composed.

Dante watched Jacqueline as she spoke, a few of his questions were answered without being asked.  This creature was a part of the experiment she had informed him of via a report some time ago.  Of course, he had made his reservations known at the times, but had ultimately given his approval.  He had expected further detail...although he couldn't remember seeing anything further.

A review of the paperwork process was something he could ponder later though, when the creature was captured or dead.  He preferred dead.  Ward hated surprises, and he especially hated surprises that meant leaked secrets and time spent jumping through bureaucratic hoops.  He couldn't yet be certain the body of the young woman they had found was indeed their unregistered guest, but he was hoping this would be the only tragedy caused by incompetence within his department that evening.

"As I said, by whatever means necessary," he said to the group.  "Stay in groups...no one needs to play hero tonight.  The last thing we need is an attempt at heroics leading to more injuries."

With the job of an unspeakable came a commitment to keep any research and experiments a secret from basically anyone not working in the Department of Mysteries. They naturally had a chain of command where projects had to be signed off on by their Department Head. Due this hold on the information, any breach of information, creatures, or whatever else they held for their experiments resulted in a big disaster and chaos. It meant damage control. Something like that was happening right now.

One of the unfortunate side effects of a big breach like this, was that the unspeakables were then contacted of the breach no matter what time it was. Chris was contacted about this breach after 1 am, and he was in the middle of a sound sleep full of frolicking around with Theta in different muggle and magical locations. They were both giddy and happy about these events in his mind. Needless to say, he was rather grouchy to be awoken from such a wonderful dream.

Now, standing among his undoubtedly tired coworkers, they were tasked to stop this creature by any means necessary. Thankfully, his research didn't deal with this creature at all. Rather, it sounded like it was the byproduct of some odd research completed by Lumpkin. After all, she appeared to know the most about it. Ward cautioned them not attempt a heroic move. In his case, it was rather unlikely.

Yet, per Lumpkin's description, it sounded like this creature would have characteristics closer to a werewolf. Thankfully, the full moon was still about a week away, but there was always the possibility of different creatures running around. "Do we have a general description of the creature, so we're not chasing every creature we see?" he asked. It would help those unspeakables who weren't apart of Lumpkin's project.

"Are we expectin' to see more than one bleedin' creature that might be tryin' to rip our heads off tonight?" a harsh voice cut in sarcastically.  "Because if there is, you geniuses on Level Nine ought to be puttin' in for more overtime."

Normally, the last week before a full moon consisted solely of time for preparation.  There were assignments to make; equipment to check.  Investigative leads to follow up on.  In the two months since the disastrous December full moon,[1] there had also been pep talks to give and quiet moments where Kurby felt like all he could do was hold his head in his hands. 

What there was not supposed to be, though, was ignominious wake up calls in the middle of the goddamned night, along with hurried summons for him and whoever he could muster from his team to report to Diagon Alley to deal with a possible werewolf-like entity.

To say that Kurby Bagnold looked annoyed would have been an understatement.  Irritation was radiating off the werewolf hunter in waves, and he was directing most of it into the angry glare that he was giving Dante Ward.  The message had been vague, but when it came to the Department of Mysteries, everyone in the Ministry knew where the buck was allegedly supposed to stop.  If he was going to get woken up in the middle of the night to come clean up someone else's mess, then everyone present was going to know that he was decidedly not happy.

Not that the Department of Mysteries' superteam was doing much to improve his mood at the moment.

"It's probably allergic to silver?" he repeated incredulously, looking from Ward to Lumpkin to the kid trainee and back again.  The sarcasm was so heavy in his voice that it could have single-handedly sunk the Titanic.  "What the hell is this?  See who can get the whole lot of us killed the fastest, and you get to be Unspeakable of the Month?"

1.	Only the Moon Howls

"I don't intend to get anyone else killed tonight," Ward shot back.  "Level Nine is my responsibility and one dead girl on my head is one too many.  There will be a thorough investigation when this is done, I assure you, and we can worry about pointing fingers then.  Right now, I don't want more innocent blood on my hands, directly or indirectly."

This was a nightmare.  He signed off one everything.  Lumpkin had submitted some paperwork on a project similar to this, but there had been virtually no communication after that.  He felt the weight of the responsibility for the life of the girl who had no ties to the Ministry other then the underling she had been with in the DoM.  If he had been more concerned with what Lumpkin was up to and less with finding a project the Minister would sign off on funding for they might have prevented this and she would have still be alive.

The sound of a commotion, likely among some trash bins in a side alley drew his attention.  Drawing a vile of potion from his pocket he said, "It'll be a primate...or it was at one time.  As I said, use any means necessary."  He had a few tricks up his sleeves, experiments no one knew about, things he had worked on in the late hours after everyone else had gone home and left the DoM virtually empty.  Of course he wasn't sure if any of them would work in this case.

"One group go around the back," he said, pointing to another alley, "the rest of you with me."  He started moving in the direction of the noise, prepared for anything.