Athena arched an eyebrow at the young werewolf hunter standing sentry. This call was strange; she was used to maulings with critical patients wailing about some horrible bite. Athena Marrowbone controlled hectic bloody attack scenes, she didn’t treat skinned knees. A bit of noise meant there was some life yet to save. This place felt like a morgue. This quiet was unsettling. She clicked her tongue.

"Right. Thanks."

She put on her most reassuring smile and moved to kneel down beside Figaro and Ji-Won and unpacked her bag as she began looking them over. "Morning, you two? Rough night I see. I'm Healer Marrowbone. What're your names? Want to tell me what happened?"

"Kim Ji-Won," Ji-Won said first shaky. "He - someone attacked me at start of my shift. Broke my leg with a spell, and I think he knocked. We woke up in the closet."

She still woudn’t look at Figaro, and Figaro was feeling unusually quiet about it. Athena shook her head and tsked.

"That's right nasty of him. And you too, young man? You’ve got a goose-egg on your top there. Feel like you've been Obliviated at all?" Athena spoke conversationally, working quickly to cut back Ji-Won’s trousers to expose the obviously broken leg. Ji-Won was taking short hissing breaths as the healer handled her, and Figaro couldn’t take his eyes off it. Her leg was badly bruised, swollen and bent where there was no joint. He figured his own would be just as bad.

Athena’s cheery demeanor only darkened a touch when she glanced up and got eye contact with both of them in turn. “No one bit you? Either of you? Not a nibble?”

Figaro and Ji-Won quickly shook their heads. “No, ma’am. We were out before night fall. Didn’t wake up until - what time is it?”

Ji-Won nodded to confirm. The glint in Athena’s eyes returned and she began snipping open Figaro’s trouser leg as well. He bit his tongue hard. Any little movement hurt and he realized that his foot had gone numb.

"There now, that’s a lovely pair of legs between you. Congratulations, eh? What else do I need to know? Anything else hurting ya? No? Right then, I can mend yer fiendly youthful bones right here, but straight after we're going to get you both out of here. I'll want you thoroughly checked over at the hospital proper, and we'll keep you for a few hours while your femurs set. Alright? Alright."  She clasped her hands and looked between them.

Time was a factor. With no objections, Athena got to work, Ji-Won than Figaro. She was practiced and deft. The spell to mend bones was nearly instantaneous, and even though the break would need rest they'd be able to stand enough for an Apparition.

"Slowly now, be smart about it,” she said. Athena was just about able to hoist them up to their feet, one on each arm.

“I don’t have my wand,” Figaro said, favoring his sore leg.

“Oh, sorry dear, they’ll have to get that back to you. Crime scene and all that. Ready? Hold in your sick, please.”

Exit Figaro, Ji-Won, and Athena. Expect Athena back in no less than three minutes.

A crack splintered off into the air as she, dressed in a short coat and red-gold scarf, appeared in front of the safehouse. When the green sparks had appeared she had to check the location; she wasn't so familiar with the north as she was with the rest of the country. Of course it had dawned on her exactly what the place was, but she had to go regardless of her personal opinions. Times hadn't changed back then, they certainly weren't going to change now. Adrianna showed her badge first and foremost regardless, even if it would have been a minor obstacle to a wild creature.

"What's going on?" she asked in an accented tone of the woman stationed in front of the safehouse door, resisting the urge to wrinkle her nose. "What happened here? Saw the sparks, sorry about being late, didn't really know where this was." She peered through the door, not wanting to go in. "What happened to the werewolves? Did someone get mauled?"

Of course something else other than a mauling could have happened, but she was taking no chances. Half of Level Two didn't know the scars on her face were from a werewolf attack, and she was content to keep it that way.

"Need help securing the area?" She rolled up her coat sleeves, wand out and at the ready; nervous glances here and there might betray her paranoia of a werewolf jumping out at them at any moment.

Oh good she got to stand behind the big bad werewolf hunter, Adrestia thought as she smiled wryly to herself while Bagnold pushed the door open all the way to let her out into the passageway. The smile dropped off her face. Tia looked down the corridor with her heart in her throat and she stepped back as reflex, seeing the blood first and then smelling it - mingled with the scent of stale cigarette smoke and something else. Sweat, musk. Something really really bad had happened here last night and all that stood between it and her had been a wall.

She turned her gaze, deliberately avoiding the sight so that she could follow Bagnold to room eleven. Behind it, Kissinger could be heard sobbing. Tia knew that leaving the cell wasn't going to change that.


Kissinger hadn't been too bad. Tia asked him what they discussed the last time they visited Lapin together (though she'd been careful not to actually mention the name of the night club) and he'd only started sobbing even louder when he saw the aftermath of the night before. In spite of the crying, he was amenable to being talked into coming with them. Her mentee, Santos, wasn't as manageable. Not because she was afraid but because she was furious, and outright aggressive towards Bagnold.

Adrestia couldn't blame her. This was Kariña's regular safe house, the one she'd been coming to for years. It was meant to be a comfort zone - a reliable rock in an otherwise erratic lifestyle. Dealing with other people's outbursts was making it easier to Tia to keep a hold on her own; she could feel it building though, the tremor inside of her. Didn't help that she didn't have her wand.

"Do we go on down?" she asked Kurby, taking Kariña's hand and allowing her own to be tightly gripped. All she wanted to do now was to leave for somewhere safe.

Tessa had been waiting anxiously as Sawbones worked, glancing again and again at the front door.  How long did it take to get from the Ministry to the safe house?!  In her head, she knew that it took time: time to gather a group together or send a Patronus to alert a field team, time to take the lift to the Atrium and apparate out.  It had only been a few minutes since she and Bagnold had arrived, but it felt like forever.

The healer finished her field treatment and gathered up her charges to apparate away.  As they vanished with a pop, Tessa took that as her cue that she had waited long enough.  She strode towards the front door, prepared to send up a flurry of red sparks just in case the Aurors watching from the Ministry hadn’t gotten the message.

But just as she approached the door, there was another crack of apparition, and one of the Aurors appeared.  Tessa didn’t recognize her immediately, but even so, she felt like she’d never been so relieved to see someone dressed in crimson flashing a MLE badge.

“Someone broke in last night,” she said hurriedly, stepping back to let the Auror inside.  “He attacked both of the attendants and dumped them in a closet.  Our medic just came and took them to Mungo’s.”

The Auror was moving a bit more tentatively than Tessa might have liked.  She looked back at her, impatient.  Bagnold had drilled into them that it was important to be cautious, but it was also important to act.

“Bagnold’s upstairs checking on the werewolves,” she told the Auror, as she crossed the room quickly back to the base of the stairs.

“Bagnold!” she shouted up the stairwell.  “Marrowbone took the others!  There’s an Auror here now!”

Kurby’s temper was fraying.  He’d kept himself from exploding outright at the third werewolf when she’d gotten in his face, but only just.  if Gamp hadn’t been there to mediate, Santos likely wouldn’t have made it down the stairs under her own power.

But the werewolf mentor had stepped up, although Kurby could tell that she was getting close to her own limit, too.  The atmosphere on the upper floor felt like there was some sort of invisible clock ticking down for each of them, and if they didn’t get out of here before it began to clang, they’d all explode.  He needed to locate the last three werewolves and get them out of here so at least none of them would be at immediate risk, so that the Ministry team could assess the scene and figure out what the hell had happened here.

When Gamp asked if they should go down, he gave a rough nod.  The werewolf mentor had been helpful, but at this point, he just wanted all of them out of this place. 

“Go,” he said shortly, opening the log book again to check it.

There were five names left on the register from check-in the night before, but he’d only picked up three other living bodies when he’d cast the Homenum spell.  Rooms 7 and 8, where Robert and Richard Dunnigan had been assigned for their monthly transformation, were at the end of the hall past the section of caved-in roof.  Kurby glanced down the corridor at the destruction, his jaw set, just as he heard a shout from below.

”Bagnold!” Fenneken called.  ”Marrowbone took the others!  There’s an Auror here now!”

“Grand!” he shouted down the stairs in reply.  “You’ve got three comin’ down who’re cleared!”

Three cleared, and three left to find, he thought grimly as he checked the register again.  He recognized the name of the werewolf in Room 2:  Phyllis Hampton, an older witch in her 70s or 80s who had thick round glasses and a kindly, grandmotherly air about her when she occasionally came to use the Ministry safe rooms.  He didn’t know her well enough to check that she wasn’t someone else using Polyjuice like he had Gamp, but at least he could her and the last two out and downstairs.

Sharp and swift, he started for the next door.

Crack!

The cottage was getting crowded.  Athena had to step around a red-robed Auror and Fenneken. Then three of the safe house's guests were coming down the stairs. They'd clearly been through an ordeal, faces red and tear-stained, one of them trembling. Athena recognized Tia Gamp one of the werewolf mentors. They looked shaken up, but not injured. Had they gotten that lucky? A safe house emergency and only a couple of burgled kids, they should always be so lucky.

"Alright, Tia? If you can sit tight a moment - I need to check upstairs."

Athena drew her wand and began climbing the stairs. "Coming up!"

She found Bagnold in the hall and she came up beside him. Some of the doors were open, but some were still closed. And then saw the end of the hall. It was a disaster, a complete scene. It looked like there'd been a savage tangle - blood, fur, and an odor. The cieling was caved in.

"Hell... where are they?" Athena asked Bagnold. The amount of blood, this was multiple victims, had to be. She drew her wand. 

”Homenum Revelio,” she said and began a sweep. There were three more people on the floor with them, but five closed doors. A knot formed in Athena's stomach. She was a healer and they were too late.

A safehouse break-in? For what reason? But she wasn't being paid to stand there and theorise. "I'll head upstairs and see if he needs help," she said, leaving the woman to keep her eyes on the three heading down.

The moment she reached the top of the steps she felt something had gone wrong. Death came with a special atmosphere that made itself felt without needing to see bodies. There was that stale, stilled air that used to have life in it. "How many have you found?" she asked Bagnold, casting her eyes around the mess, the place. None of this fazed her, only the fact that it hadn't been caused by a werewolf. She glanced down the hallway at the cave-in, then waved her wand at the mess... for a moment, wondering if anyone had left a possible trap. "Finite Incantatem." Her hands shaped a ball and she sent it down the corridor; there was a brief whoosh of air leaving the corridor before all went still again.

While the others went to escort the occupants of the other rooms, she stepped carefully across the blood, wand out, towards the closed doors. They were busy saving the living; she'd deal with the dead.

Old Missus Hampton, at least, responded without swearing at him when he pounded on her door.  When Kurby opened it, the old woman came limping out, her wispy gray hair looking disheveled and her mouth pressed into a tight, thin line. 

As he started to check the book again for the next name, Athena Marrowbone came pounding up the stairs.  He barely glanced at her as she performed the same spell that he had earlier.

"Two more," he told her, starting for the door labeled with a number 3.  He banged on it with his fist.  "Name?" he barked out at the person who was presumably inside.

There was a moment, and then a shaky voice called out in response.  "Mary Lawson?" the werewolf inside replied tentatively, sounding worried.

Kurby searched through his collection of keys, found the one with a matching 3 on it, and tossed it to Marrowbone.  "I'll get the last one," he told her brusquely, as he started further down the hallway to the door labeled with a number 5.

The Auror that Fenneken had shouted about had come up the stairs behind Athena.  He recognized her, but only as someone that he'd come across in passing; she wasn't one of the ones that he knew well, like Trevelyan or Pratt.

"There's six living," he said shortly, checking the register book again as he headed for the last door.  "Eight checked in last night.  I haven't looked for the other two."  With the caved-in ceiling and the destruction at the end of the hallway, he had a dark suspicion of where he was going to find them, though.

The Auror cast a spell, which went whooshing down the hallway past him.  Kurby's head whipped around sharply; seeing her follow in the spell's wake, he shot a horrified look past the Auror at Marrowbone.   Casting Finite Incantatem in a small space where werewolves could hypothetically be present seemed like an intensely bad idea, especially when some of the enchantments you might be ending were likely the ones designed to keep the 'wolves in place.

She caught his look and raised her eyebrows at him. The safehouse was compromised to begin with, and as much as she disliked werewolves she wasn't afraid of them. She'd faced worse, but if she said that right now that would just make her look like she was bragging and that was very much a No in her book.

Adrianna assumed a stance outside one of the closed doors, wand pointing at it. The door swung open, and her breath caught in her throat--

...nothing?

She lowered her wand slightly. The room was a mess and stank of wrongness, but there was no body within. Her hand went down to her belt to-- ah right, they didn't deal with clearing out bad energies here. But she had to admit that she'd been caught off-guard by the subversion of expectations.

"Open the other door," she said to the healer with them, someone she was not familiar with. "There's no one here. Check."

Adrianna was still confused, casting her gaze around the room as she stood at the door. Something wasn't right. Her mind sprung with reasons a body would not be here, especially that of a werewolf's. The door had been shut - locked? - and yet... there were too many potential answers and not enough evidence to support any of them.

Athena caught the key and approached door number three, the one with the timid voice of Mary Lawson.

"Mary, Healer coming in, alright love?" Athena announced as she fitted the key and turned the lock. Mary was standing back against the wall next to a barred window. She had one arm crossed over her chest with one hand in her hair.

"What's happened?" she asked staying put, clearly not expecting a witch of Athena's stature. Athena looked over her shoulder as she ushered out the shaken werewolf. Auror Xin was reacting to what she'd found in the first door.

"Something wretched, but you're alright. C'mon. Don't look. Right downstairs. Tessa will sort you out."

When Athena was sure Mrs. Lawson was down the steps, she came up beside Auror Xin and saw past her.

"Hell..." Seeing that, she quickly opened the other door. Empty. More blood. And in the middle of it all, an object. A knife. It as a comfortable size for a hand, the curved blade gleamed clean silver in the morning light.

"Bagnold, I've got something."

Athena knew better than to walk in, and she knew when her job was done. She wasn't a crime scene investigator, so without injuries or bodies she was out of work.

His efforts were starting to feel too much like a macabre version of one of his mother's favorite WWN game shows, where housewitches faced off against goblins to find treasure hidden behind locked doors.  Door 5, in this case, concealed a balding, thin-looking older werewolf with a bad cough, who scurried downstairs after Mary Lawson and Phyllis Hampton after Kurby checked and released him.

Marrowbone's call made him turn.  He'd put off examining the end of the hallway for long enough.  Taking a deep breath, Kurby grimly started for the last two rooms where the Healer and the Auror had gone.

He slowed his pace only for a beat as he passed the point where the walls had caved in.  It looked like they had crumbled inwards, the rubble spilling across the hallway.  The werewolf hunter's gaze flicked left and right as he stepped over the wreckage, careful not to disturb anything, and then headed for Marrowbone's side.

It smelled like a werewolf, but there wasn't a body here: just blood, more blood, and a flash of silver.  Kurby went still, something hard catching in his throat.  Laying in the middle of the floor, as if it had been left there just for them to find, was a silver knife with a long, arched blade that curved back until it came to a sharp point.

He'd already understood the context: Figaro and the other attendant stuffed in a closet but alive, the silver flakes all over the floor, blood everywhere, discarded cigarettes flicked about as mere byproducts of some unknown artisan's work.  Even the message that Figaro had relayed:  He said he wanted to eradicate werewolves!  All the pieces meant there could be only one outcome of this.

He whirled on his heel, his expression hard as he looked past the Auror into the second room.  This one, like the other, was a mess but empty, this time with no silver inside it.

It felt like a Concusso blast had gone off inside him.  The werewolf hunter let loose a solid string of swears, nearly swinging a fist at the nearby wall as he spun back on his heel.  With a snarl, he stalked through the door that Athena had opened and headed for the knife, dropping down into a crouch next to it to examine it more closely.

That the knife was clean sparked suspicion within her, more than the silver. Call it an Auror's suspicion, but it spoke more than just a murder or two. There had to be other clues somewhere. If their perp had deigned to leave behind a knife for their troubles, perhaps it would not be the only one. That would be, in her thoughts, too little effort on the criminal's part.

She turned and stepped carefully over the rubble back out of the hallway, raising her wand as the tip lit to flood her surroundings in light. There had to be something around that had been left over--

Something glinted in the corner of her eye. Her head whipped around, and she saw the faint outline of something less of a weapon but no less chilling.

"Found something here too," she said out loud, casting her gaze in the vicinity. There was no mistaking the outline - it was indeed a pair of manacles. Silver. Of course. They were meant to find these, and that was more disturbing than the items themselves. She stepped carefully around them, her eyes roving for anything else that she might have missed in her rush to establish the survivors of the place.

Athena felt sick. She sneered and shook her head. What the hell was this world coming to? How were they supposed to keep up with the accidents and petty explosions when there were sickos preying on the peaceful? It wasn't the grusome dislocations or the mangled fingers that made Athena question her occupation, it was shite like this.

Auror Xin had found something else but it was clear to tell it wasn't a person.  Athena began her way back down the hall.

"I'm going to check the grounds," she said, none of her spark left. "Then see if I'm needed at headquarters. Sparks if you need me."

All the werewolves had been taken in and ought to be checked out. Likely it was handled, but Athena had to get out of this cursed house.

Exit Athena

The blade was a bright, brilliant silver; it would have looked new, but up close, he could see small nicks along its edge that showed its use.  The spine of it curved outwards, with a small, sharp fishhook-like protrusion near the tip. A knife like that wasn't intended for slashing or defense.  It looked less like a weapon and more like a tool that a hunter would carry, for stripping flesh from bone and cutting through skin.

At the Auror's call, Kurby rose slowly to his feet again.  Marrowbone fled; for all that she was fascinated by guts and gore, the healer had no interest or role in the dealing of death.

He hadn't looked closely at the Auror before, but now her appearance caught his attention for a brief, flickering moment as he stepped back into the other room.  Two discolored scars ran across the left side of her face, parallel to each other.  Kurby glanced at them for the barest of moments before focusing his attention on what she'd spotted on the floor.  They looked like werewolf scars.

He stopped alongside her, expression unreadable as he stared down at the silver handcuffs. 

They looked bigger than the ones that had been sent to Harper Graves: intended for a grown werewolf and not a child.  Silently, Kurby dropped down to one knee, studying them carefully.  He didn't want to start casting spells here, not in the middle of what was ostensibly a crime scene, but aside from the size, the design looked similar to what he remembered.

"Equipment for werewolf hunting."  His voice was hard as he spoke.  Grimly, he rose to his feet, casting a look at the Auror.  "I need to get teams out to check the other safe houses."

She agreed with his idea, and not just because he was senior or a man. This was far too deliberate to take lightly. The auror stepped back to see if she'd stepped on anything else by accident, still casting her gaze around in a keen-eyed attempt for more clues. She might have to turn into a bird to get a better view, but it was fairly dark and magpies weren't famous for their night vision or wand-holding.

"You go and do that, I'll pick up what evidence I can find," she said, fishing out a folded evidence bag from her coat. "Pack them all up and bring them back for analysis. I'll put up a barrier so this place remains undisturbed, get Improper Use or whoever to look at it."

She looked up at him, reluctant but still knowing her curiosity would get the better of her. "How many did we lose, just the two? I know we don't like to say it but it doesn't mean I'll stop thinking about it."

Adrianna would watch him leave later, comparing notes to what she knew and trying to not think so hard about how this was already going to look when the press found out.