“Thanks for saving my boyfriend.” Michael sighed as he nodded at Brody.

“It’s really Rusty who did. I only helped at the end.” The man replied with a smile. Sat in the communal chair, he had taken watch duty as everyone else was busy preparing for the Hunt.

“I’ll thank you for Rusty then as well. It's not easy to face down a raging werewolf, let alone an Alpha.”

“Surprisingly enough, it’s not the scariest thing I’ve seen. It shocked me more how quickly he got angry. Neil has a talent.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was with Richard minutes before and he was fine. Tired, but fine. For him to get so angry so quickly, I have no idea what Neil said to him.”

“According to him, it was nothing. Just some disagreements that boiled over.” Michael shrugged. “Oh, I meant to ask, I’ve seen you read memories, but the calming thing is that also your power?”

Brody hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I’m an…” He seemed to search for the word as he tilted his head. “Empath.”

“You’re definitely versatile,” he laughed. “No wonder Witches’ Council keeps you around. Speaking of which, do you mind giving this stuff to the Council?” Michael gestured at the neat stacks of items. As much fun as it was playing the investigator, he feared playing around too much would compromise the evidence's integrity. Though he kept an extra log of notes for himself as a backup.

“Sure. It’s not really my department, but I have some contacts on the investigation team. They’ll be able to get it to the right people.”

“I don’t know who's working on the investigation now, but I wish them luck with this mess. Thanks for helping me again. Jesus, I’m going to end up owing you a favor after all of this.” Michael leaned back. “What could I even do for you? I’m sure between the Pack and the Council you’ve got plenty of favors piled up.”

“You think too much of me,” Brody shook his head. “I am only useful for psychic and animal summoner matters. Other than that, I’m just as lost as everyone else. Like these runes, I can’t tell top from bottom.” He motioned at the neat grimoire.

“Same. Though I’ve been wondering. Animal summoners, are they witches? I was looking them up in the Hunters’ Archive and I saw them classified under Werebeast. But you don’t have a form you shift into, do you?”

“Interesting thing to be researching.”

Michael smirked, “Giselle attacked me, so I was curious about what kind of magic she could do. Well, more curious about why she didn’t use any magic on me.”

Brody made an interested hum.

“I’ve seen her summon at least four beasts. I mean, sure, the raven is weak. But a wolf, gator, or panther are more than enough to kill. It’s not like they would die either. I’ve even seen her do basic magic. But,” he kissed his teeth, “nothing.”

“Odd, maybe she was trying to wound. After all, you guys often hunted together right?”

Michael gave him a strange look. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had a gun pulled on you, but I’ll tell you, it’s pretty clear what their intentions are. If she wanted to injury, she wouldn’t have used a gun. A knife, or even hand to hand, she could’ve outplayed me. With a gun, she wanted me dead.”

“I suppose I’m lucky then, I am not well versed in such situations, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Either way, that brings me back to my question. Is an animal summoner a werebeast or a witch?”

Brody paused, his pleasant features flickered and grew dull. He then nodded, “An animal summoner is born of Werebeast parents if that answers your question.”

“So the full moon…?”

“We can’t shift,” his reply was sharp, but he caught himself with a smile. “Instead, we summon our animals in our stead.”

“I’ve seen Giselle’s menagerie. Can you summon as many?”

“No, I’d say she is definitely an anomaly,” Brody looked at the window as his foot rapidly tapped in the air. “Myself, at best, I can summon a greyhound, though even that can be difficult.”

“I see,” Michael hummed. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but is it a situation where one power outweighs the other? Since your psychic talents are powerful, your summoning is weaker because of it?”

“I wouldn’t know. It’s not something I’ve thought much about. I prefer using my psychic skills anyway, they are a lot more reliable.”

“Well, if you’re ever curious, I’m sure Doc would be happy to run tests on you. Though, it probably wouldn't be pleasant.”

“Dr. Kulkarni?” Brody raised a confused eyebrow as he turned back to Michael.

“Dr. Wynne Redfield.” He flatly said. “I know once I’m out of here she’s going to drag me in.”

“Why?”

He laughed and shrugged his good shoulder. “Because I’m a weirdo. So, does silver work on you?”

“Technically yes. We inherit both the strengths and weaknesses of werebeasts.”

“What you're saying is that if I had punched Giselle with a pair of silver knuckles, she would have slowed down?” Michael made an affirmative noise. “I get why she hunts the fae then,” he laughed. “Now I have one more question if you don’t mind answering?”

“What is it?”

“Your folks are part of the Packland right?”

Once more Brody froze, though his hands slightly twitched before he shook his head. “No, they weren’t part of this pack.”

“Ah.” The atmosphere turned awkward as Michael rubbed the back of his head before giving a sorry smile. “My condolences.”

“No need,” he waved it off.

Their conversation died off shortly after and never recovered as Brody had to leave due to an emergency phone call. Roald was around, so he subbed in leaving Michael with the black-eyed, blue-haired werepenguin who spent most of his time shuffling paperwork.

Bored, Michael dug a new rabbit hole as he researched Giselle. For all the time that Hunter had hunted with her, he barely knew anything about her. He didn’t need to. Their interactions were always professional and in a career like theirs, they respected privacy. But to Michael, once you tried to kill him, you lost all privacy rights. He opened Alexander’s laptop and started his search.

He had just begun when the door swung open. Given his track record, he partially expected to see another injured Alexander. Instead, it was a familiar but unexpected face.

“Only a few scratches my ass!” Shelly shouted as she walked in. She tossed her massive canvas bag into a corner before approaching him with a click of her tongue.

“I’m fine!” Michael laughed, putting the laptop to the side. “I told you not to come.”

“Since when could a little brother tell an older sister what she could do? This ain’t opposite day.” She shook her head. “Had to see the damage myself and boy,” she nodded at his shoulder. “What the fuck did you get into?”

Caught in the scene, Roald wasn’t sure what to do as he stood and moved between the siblings, but Michael stopped him. “It’s fine, I guess she’s next on watch.”

“What watch?”

“Concussion,” he smirked.

“Jesus, busted arm and busted brain. What am I going to do with you?”

“Also busted leg, I’m an overachiever,” he motioned towards his covered leg.

Shelly smoothly took Roald’s seat with a whistle as she crossed her legs up on the recently repaired table. “What’s the chances of you dying?”

“About the same as you.”

“Well actually,” Roald cut in, “we’re worried about infection and decelerated healing. But Miss, are you allowed in here?”

“I quite am. I’m the older sister of the patient and friend of the pack. I have every right.”

“Since when?” Michael asked.

“Since two hours ago when my application was approved,” Shelly pulled out her nifty little official card. “Gets me all the permissions, including the ability to stay overnight with your punk ass. Someone’s gotta watch you when your dumbass boyfriend’s distracted by a laser pointer.”

“I don’t think that’s quite how the Hunt works…”

“I bet it would still work on him. He’s a giant cat…” She paused as something dawned on her. “Do you think catnip works on him?”

With Roald’s concerns successfully evaded, Shelly dragged Michael into a thirty-minute discussion of how cat-like his boyfriend potentially was. Unfortunately, they couldn’t reach a solid conclusion before he ended it with an excuse of having work to do. Unconvinced, she still let him have his quiet time, figuring it would be good for his bruised head.

Unlike Charlotte, Michael ignored Giselle’s potential social media presence. Instead, he took full advantage of having Alexander’s laptop to get into the Packland database. Their IT security, much like most of the supernatural community, lagged several years behind the rest of the world, which gave his husband almost complete unregulated access to the entire state network while developing the inter-pack server room.

It was perfect for searching up Giselle Ortega as she was Florida born and technically a werebeast. Still, he wasn’t sure what he was exactly looking for. Possibly a motivation or an explanation of why she attacked him. Or just some facts to add on top of everything else. Either way, what he found was less theatric and more tragic than he hoped.

The Ortegas had registered with a satellite branch of the much larger mixed Miami Dade pack until fifteen years ago when the subbranch disappeared. They only found three pack members, all of whom were children with differing accounts of the event. After the initial investigation, the kids were given to relatives. However, as he read, he found Giselle wasn’t among them. The only reason he tied her to this missing family was because she was registered as their child and an animal summoner. Michael put a pin in that as he looked over the incident.

There were several filled reports and a yearlong investigation by the Florida Werebeast Board, but nothing came of it. It was a cold case. Even what they could pull from the kids with aid from the Witches’ Council was unclear. Just flashes of sounds and scenes. He looked up where these kids were now, but found three missing person reports filed but ignored.

Concerned, he typed out what he had so far and turned back to Giselle’s information. He had seen her ID; he knew she was thirty, so at the time of the incident, she would have been fifteen. All the other children were under ten.

“What would do if you were fifteen and your parents were murdered?” Michael looked over at Shelly.

“Celebrate,” she didn’t hesitate.

“If it were mom and me.” He gave her a look.

“Find the bastards and get revenge then.” She replied just as fast. “I mean yea, I would call the police first. But depending on how they respond, I’d handle it myself. Might take a decade or two, but I’d get my revenge.”

Michael nodded, “good to know. Can you pass me that purse?” He motioned at Giselle’s black clutch and she handed it to him. He dug around until he pulled out her wallet. Earlier he had thought little about the photo and paper tucked into the well worn black leather wallet but now he examined the folded picture. Faded by time and crossed with creases, a family played in the front of a sun-bleached adobe house. He guessed the youngest was Giselle as she climbed over the shoulder of a man who shared her features. A woman stood on the other side, smiling as she helped wrangle their misbehaving daughter. There wasn’t much to the photo, just a snapshot of a peaceful time, but now he understood why she carried it.

He set down the picture and picked up the slip of paper. A series of names, dates, and locations had been written in sharp, tight handwriting. There were nine with the oldest date going back to the 70s. She had crossed three off, but he looked them all up, anyway.

He started with the newest dated two years ago. The Packland database came in handy as he found each name was a pack that was missing. Though unlike the Miami subbranch, there were no witnesses. Just completely gone and even when someone raised an investigation it went nowhere. All of them were in Florida except for the final one. The oldest one.

Watershed, Tennessee. He had never heard of the place before, but that wasn’t shocking. Unfortunately, that meant it was out of the database’s range. The first thing to come up in a regular search was an article about the deserted town. Then a lot of nothing until he found a small conspiracy thread on a defunct forum. Apparently, you can’t be an abandoned American town without being haunted at least once.

After quickly flipping through the thread, he was about to leave when a series of pictures caught his attention. The poster lived close to the decaying town and with the underwhelming skill of an amateur, he had taken a bunch of photos. He ignored all but two. One was of a partially burned down old house, but there was an array of incomplete shapes seared into the floor. The other was unimportant except for an object captured in the corner of the frame. The photographer was ignorant of what it was, but Michael recognized it well. It was a hunter’s tag.

“How far down the rabbit hole do you think I should go?” Michael asked.

Shelly looked up from the movie she was watching and pretended to consider it before she pulling up to his bed. “Is it interesting?”

“I think so.”

“Then keep digging. What’s the worst that can happen?” She joined him in his search.

There was one major credit he would give to the Hunters’ Organization, they kept extensive logs of everything. That included all their surviving documentation from the last century. Lovingly digitized, it was easy to find what he was looking for.

Dated from the summer of ‘74, the completed bounty was for a demon infestation on the edge of Watershed. The details were standard and while they did not capture the culprit; they did tag four demons and two blood beasts. At the end of the report, he found something interesting. The hunter had discovered a child while searching the location for the demonic spawn point. Locked up in a shack, the report didn’t go into much detail, but the child was in poor condition. Once the mission was over, they brought the kid back to HQ for assessment. More documentation followed including a medical report stating that the child was malnourished and injured. They finally got a name out of him after three days of silence. The kid was Broderick Acker, but before they could learn more about his situation, his parents took him away. The HQ staff tried to prevent it, but a set of old supernatural laws stopped them from being able to retain the kid without the proper paperwork since he belonged to the local Werebeast pack. They tried to follow up with the pack, but their request went unanswered.

“Huh, demon infestations are a thing?” Shelly frowned as she read over his shoulder.

“Imani’s part Deva. If divine beings exist, why wouldn’t demonic?”

“I guess it makes sense. Just never seen them.”

“That’s because they’re rare. At least infestations. I’m sure most demons who make it over try to blend in like everyone else.” Michael partially pulled this out of his ass. But even then, whatever demons were being summoned on this fragment were pale imitations of the demons that exist in the In-Between.

“I’ve probably met a demon before, haven’t I?”

“Totally. Don’t worry though. They aren’t too bad. They only bother you if they want your soul. Only then are they tedious.”

“How do you deal with them?”

Michael almost spoke but stopped, then smiled and shook his head. “Being stronger always works.”

“Some advice you’ve got there. I think I’d rather wrestle a Werebeast.”

“I don’t know. It’s surprisingly easy to handle them in a one on one.”

“Stop fucking with me,” she knocked on his good shoulder. “So did you find what you were looking for?”

“Kind of. Not really. All I know is that Giselle was tracking down reports of missing packs and that her family is dead.”

“Using my extensive movie knowledge,” Shelly leaned on the edge of the bed with her hands under her chin, “I’d say she had one of those pin walls in her house that connected all her evidence to something. All you need to do is break in and bam, you’d have your case right there.”

He blinked for a second, “You’re probably right. Unfortunately, I don’t have her address…” he paused, “but I do have her girlfriend’s number.”

“Perfect, let’s call,” she smiled.

But before they could, Trisha entered. Her gaze shifted from Michael to the unfamiliar face as she froze. Quick to react, he introduced Shelly, and the two chatted while Trisha put down a series of paper bags.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to have company. But I thought you might be hungry since Neil’s getting his ass whipped.”

A fragrant wave hit the siblings as their stomachs loudly growled. Michael looked at Shelly, “Did you skip breakfast?”

She shrugged, “I was focused, kind of forgot.”

“If you want more, I can always get it. It’s not like our cafeteria’s far away,” Trisha added as she pulled out the cardboard containers. The two bags were bottomless as she kept staking boxes until a tiny fort overtook the table.

“I don’t think we’ll need more,” Shelly laughed and explored the options. Stuffed to the brim with roasted and barbecued meat, the humans realized why it wasn’t best to let a carnivore pick the dishes. There was only a sad, forgotten container of soggy green beans and rice hidden behind the barrack of meat.

Hungry none the less, the two tried a bit of everything as Trisha took her plate.

After wolfing it down, Michael wiped his fingers and asked, “How bad is the hazing?”

Trisha gave a small laugh, “How much do you love your mate?”

“I love him, but I know him.”

“Another three hours at best. We convinced Richard to keep you on, but everyone knows that something major went down. They probably have him running the gambit right now.”

“Gambit?”

“It’s like an obstacle course, but worse. Most new pack members have to run it at least once before Hunt.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” he said.

“Ha, it depends on which one you run. The regular one’s nice. But they’ve got this gladiator run. Yea, it’ll be a bit.”

“I want to see this. Do they take video?” Shelly asked.

“I’ll get it for us later.” Trisha nodded. “He hasn’t changed much. Even when we were kids, he used to piss Auntie and Gran off so much that he looked like a weretiger after they were done switching him. Mother took after the both of them, but she never had a chance on me, I always behaved around them. Now, look how all that turned out.”

“Can’t get through life always behaving. Got to do right by you, you know.” Shelly smirked. “I got fast to get away from my folks. They can’t beat you if they can’t catch you.”

“That is true. There was a tree in the back with a thick canopy. Anytime I did anything that could get me in trouble, I would shimmy up there and wait it out until they forgot or someone else got in trouble. Tell the truth, it was shimmying up a tree that got me into the biggest trouble.” Trisha chuckled. “That’s where I found Rusty.”

“Rusty?” Shelly asked.

“My husband,” Trisha's appearance softened as she gazed out the window. “I had come to Packland for the first time on business for my clan and had a run in woods. Climbed up a nice-looking tree and found a handsome man at the top of it. Got right into trouble the following night and well, three kids later and I’m still thankful for that tree.”

“That’s sweet,” Shelly cooed, then turned to Michael. “Come to think of it, you never told me how you and Neil met. Did you also find your boyfriend up in a tree? He’s a cat after all, probably got stuck.”

“He didn’t tell you during the shotgun interrogation?” He raised an eyebrow and moved his half-eaten plate aside.

“Shotgun?” Trisha looked at Shelly, who raised her hands in playful defense.

“Look, we didn’t know he was a werebeast to begin with and it was a bit of a shock. The gun wasn’t loaded,” She defended herself.

“Except you said it was,” Alexander added as he entered the room. Shelly shot him a look as he stuck his tongue out at her.

Trisha eyed her cousin and gave a curt nod. “He probably could do with a pellet or two in his ass. Might make the lesson stick.”

“Baby, they’re bullying me again.” He nudged the two women over and took his spot next to Michael. “First the pack, now my own blood. What am I supposed to do?”

“Not cause trouble,” Michael petted his partner’s head. “I thought it would be another three hours before you were back.”

Alexander purred, “Early release for good behavior.”

“Do you want lunch then? We’ve got plenty,” he nodded towards the food fort.

“Can you feed me? I’m so tried—”

“Alright enough you two,” Shelly kicked in. “Some of us are trying to eat without gagging. Anyway, Hunter was answering a question. How did you meet?”

The partners exchanged glances and non-verbally debated who would tell the story this time.

“Fine, if you want to know,” Alexander finally sighed, resting the side of his head on the bed as he continued to kneel. He lazily looked over his gathered audience, “It all started with a car, a stripper, and two barrels of olive oil…”

The absurd tale did not have the same effect as it did in the past, as both women called him immediately on his bullshit. This didn’t stop them though. The troublemakers took turns to see who could get the farthest into their ridiculous fable before being called out.

“Your real first meeting was mundane, wasn’t it?” Shelly sighed as she sat through a fifth retelling that involved cross-dressing and a Chupacabra.

The couple feigned innocence. But before they could start another tale, a red blur rushed in.

Shelly was quick on her feet, pulling back just enough for Ester to zoom by her and headbutt straight into her uncle’s side. Alexander had no time to recover as she sent him sprawling onto his back and the nine-year-old jumped onto his stomach in triumph.

Michael held in his laugh, but when Shelly started bawling, he couldn’t win and laughed along with her.

“The full moon is tomorrow!” Ester shouted as she kept jumping. “I can’t wait! You’re gonna be hunting with us!”

Alexander made a choked noise as the heavy child continued to pulverize his rib cage.

“We’re gonna get five rabbits this time. Better than the others. And maybe even an iguana! I know there’s one out there, I know it.”

“Ester please, get off of your uncle,” Trisha scolded, but she couldn’t stop herself from chuckling.

“Yes, get off of me,” Alexander hissed.

Ester ignored them, “After that, we’ll do some ambushing. Last hunt, I caught daddy and took him down. This time I’m gonna try Roald. He dodged last time, but we’ve been making plans.”

“You’re crushing my lungs…” he gasped. Caught in her world, Ester kept jumping and talking about her plans.

Trisha and Shelly were veterans of werebeast children, they knew Neil would be fine, but Michael couldn’t help but feel sorry for his crushed partner. He had also noticed from the corner of his eye, that Rusty had come in with his two other children leaned in his arms. The youngest dozed while the other watched his older sister flatten their uncle.

With no one coming to help, Michael stepped in. “Ester, I know you’re excited, but I don’t think Neil can hear you. He’s passed out.”

That finally stopped Ester, not because of her uncle’s condition but because she had never met Michael before.

“You mentioned ambushing?” He smiled. “I can help you with that. I worked as a hunter in the past, so I have a lot of good trapping techniques.”

This successfully diverted her attention as she hopped off of Neil and ran over to the side of his bed. She was about to jump in when she remembered what her parents had told her about people in Dr. K’s den. She can’t tackle them until they were outside of the building.

“Tell me,” she nodded, and Michael laid out some traps he thought would be good for a child her age. Shelly also joined in. While she had no experience hunting the supernatural, she was quite the prankster and was always ready to train the next generation. It was only when they started to lay out a plan for an improvised explosive made out of soda and mentos that the responsible adults intervened.

Eventually, the room cleared out as Ester stole Shelly away to teach her how to build these traps, and Trisha followed along to make sure nobody lost any limbs. As for Rusty, he had already started home to put the kids to bed. Left alone, the husbands let out a sigh of relief. Alexander edged onto his bed and leaned into Michael's shoulder.

“Tired?”

“Completely. They made me run this dreadful obstacle course. These people are exhausting.”

Michael noticed the twigs still clung to his hair and began to pick them out as he smiled. “They’re just energetic. Either way, it’s now done and everything seems to have chilled out.”

“Thankfully, I’d hate to waste my charm on this group.” Alexander sighed. “So what did you get up to while I was away?”

Michael broke down his research, though his partner mostly purred and napped as he continued to pet his head. Even when he mentioned demonic infestation, Alexander barely reacted.

“I’d kill to run into one of those trashy things. It’s been a while since I’ve put the fear of god into a demon.”

“I thought you hated being around demons?”

“I do, which is why I’d be happy to scare one before killing it.”

Michael hummed, “I’d be happy if there weren’t any demons involved in this mess. One’s enough.”

“One’s all you need, baby. One’s all you need,” he smiled before kissing him.

“I’m still curious about those runes though.”

“What about them? They are just some fragment garbage font.”

“Not those,” Michael shook his head. So much had happened between the blood realm and now that he had almost forgotten the Triplet’s warning. “Remember what Dandelion mentioned? That weird energy signature.”

“What about it?” Alexander nonchalantly shrugged. “If it was something, it would have done something. But nothing's happened.”

“What if it was what gave those runes to Charlotte?”

“Ha, there’s no way that signature could be more than a splinter of essence. It's impossible for something that minute to have that many languages. If that were true, then it would be strong enough to be an actual presence. And either way, we would know it. You don’t learn the demonic scripts for free. Let alone Overseers' Cant. I don’t know how that woman got the symbols, but she didn’t get it from whatever that piece of debris was. I’ll eat my own tails if I’m wrong.”

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check in with Home Team, anyway. It’s been a week. Maybe they’ve made some progress.”

Alexander sighed but nodded. “Fine, I’ll call them after the full moon. The Pack seems more protective of that tree right now.”

“Thank you,” Michael purred.

A/N

The biggest weakness of writing something one chapter at a time is when you go to reread chapters you wrote like two months ago before you solidified your terminology and backgrounds, you feel like an idiot. I had to cross reference a few things with earlier chapters and I realized that I had changed several terms and explanation since then. I forgot I call the Director of the Agency ‘Big Boss’ in early chapters because I couldn’t think of a name for them at the time. I mean, most of the inconsistencies are around the Overworld/Agency stuff rather than the direct arc. Still, well, things should be stable from now on since the background machinations have solidified. Now there is a cosmology map! Another thing was that this was going to be 20 arcs, but now it’s going to be 9. I might also start a series of truly episodic short stories coming up, though I'll see after I finish this arc and move on to the next.