“Come back, Fido!”

— Nigel



 

Ravenscraig, Scotland

A call for help from the police is never good. This one came from Scotland. Something terrible was taking place in the town of Ravenscraig. People had been turning up comatose, in a state unlike any coma the doctors have ever seen. The case report said seven so far, and medics could find no cause for it. None of the victims showed any sign of injury or disease. All appeared in perfect health but utterly unresponsive. Nothing identifiable connected the victims, although none was younger than the age of 40. Neither police nor medics could discern any pattern to gender, race, or other obvious categorisations. One victim was found on a park bench. One was lying next to a duck pond. One was discovered in a shopping trolley in a supermarket car park. The police searched CCTV after the last victim was found slumped next to a bus stop and saw what appeared to be some kind of animal leaving the victim there, before it disappeared into shadow.

 

An ape=like shape obscured by shadow near a bus stop at night

 

Keira, Ana, and Thomson were joined by the Rt. Hon. Nigel Fotherington Molesworth-Thomas III, who had seen what looked like the shadow of an animal he hadn’t yet bagged on some of the grainy CCTV footage. On arrival in Ravenscraig, the team went to the hospital to find out what they could from the existing patients. This involved Keira… distracting handsome Dr Ben Kidd in the supplies cupboard while the others checked charts. Ana sniffed some clothing and detected a strange chemical odour, a bit like death mixed in with the smell of magic plastic.

The team decided to try searching for the odour and used the locations of victims from the case file to decide on a search area. This led them to the park, where Ana had to contend with passers-by, Nigel’s comments of, “There’s a good doggy,” and having to get changed into wolf form in a bush. Not to mention the yapping little bichon that took an interest.

They lost the trail where it crossed the main road out of town, and went to the police station to have a look at their files and view the video.

Thomson, not being comfortable in the presence of authority, hung around outside, and met with Stu Collins, formerly of the police, but invalided out with PTSD after being bitten by a vampire. That was Thomson’s first mission, and Collin’s recognised them. After a detailed discussion on whether UFOs were more supernatural than vampires, Collins revealed that there had once been a tannery locally, owned by the Hartley family. They were pretty rich, he said, and kept themselves to themselves. Hartley House was out to the east side of town — in the direction the scent trail had led Ana, on the other side of the main road.

Inside, Keir was chatting up PC Amrit Khatri, who told her all about how the local crime boss, Big Tam, wouldn’t let any of his people try to rob Hartley House. Laughing, he explained that Big Tam thought it was haunted or something. Although Keira would have liked to chat to Big Tam, at the time he was serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Manchester, and wasn’t liable to be out for a few years.

Ana and Nigel spoke with DCI Mhari McLeod, who was in charge of the case. She gave them access to all the videos, including some CCTV footage that showed a suspicious shadow passing by the CCTV on the industrial estate on the eastern edge of town.

Reunited, the team headed out in that direction. At the gates to the Hartley estate, Keira pressed the buzzer. And kept pressing. It was eventually answered by a posh English accent that said they were not interested. Keira kept buzzing, but their ability to ignore an annoying noise outlasted her patience. Also, several large dogs came trotting over to the gate. Ana picked up the scent again, and it was clear there must be another entrance, as whoever left the trail wasn’t using the gate.

The dogs followed the team as they tracked the scent to a hole in the wall. Ana got a whiff of them, and realised that the dogs had the same chemical scent as the one they were trailing, although it wasn’t quite the same — whatever she could smell, the dogs were something else. While they were discussing how to get in, the dogs scrabbled their way through the hole in the wall, but they were reluctant to approach Ana, so wouldn’t come any closer.

Nigel phoned his batman, Jenkins, and ordered him to bring them some tranquiliser-laced sausages. These arrived only twenty minutes later, and Nigel and Keira tossed the doped meat to the dogs. Ana had to resist the temptation to eat one herself.

Once inside, the team entered the house through the French windows into a sitting room. It was old-fashioned, and chintzy, apart from the head mounted on the wall which, on closer examination, turned out to be a chimera of a deer and a bison with a human face. The face was warm, and the eyes moved. Shocked and horrified, the team levered the head off the wall, and it immediately oozed a stinking greenish ichor before dying.

Ana promptly rolled in it. Keira had to stop her.

When they opened the door into the main hallway, they were attacked by several large buck rabbits with antlers and wings. Ana let her wolf nature take over and quickly dispatched them, although she was then reluctant to leave her prey.

On the stairs, the team met Jeeves, a chimpanzee with the mannerisms, voice and dress of an aristocrat’s butler. They realised this was the animal shape they had seen in the CCTV videos, carrying the victims away. Above him, on a higher floor, they saw Cecil Hartley, the Hartley scion. Jeeves was not to be talked round, and before the team could go any further, they were attacked by several chimeras, including a lizard-headed man with the muscles of a blacksmith, a bear with a human face, several antelope with human faces, and a deer with a wolf’s teeth. Despite bringing heavy firepower in the form of Nigel, each team member was injured in the fighting, Keira seriously.

Once they had fought their way to the top floor, they found a taxidermy workshop where Hartley had clearly been making the chimeras. Hartley himself was just disappearing through a door at the far end. Jeeves tried to prevent them following, and the team killed him.

Two blue rings with eerie strands of light stretched between themThrough the door, they found stairs leading to an attic, where they found what appeared to be a dozen crow heads braided together on a fleshy stalk. The heads spoke in a language none of them could understand. Hartley was using a crystal lens to focus energy onto humself from a huge, shimmering orb. Without waiting to see anymore, Nigel shot the orb. Hartley withered before their eyes, and the orb began to give off a painful, high-pitched whine.

The team made a hasty exit, although Keira took the opportunity to grab the crow heads on her way out. When they reached the garden, the entire top floor of the house exploded in blue light that seemed to warp reality for a split second.

Next stop: the nearest place to give Ana a B A T H.