The carpet was completely soaked in crimson. As were the drapes, the furniture, and the walls. Not even the ceiling had been spared the devastation. Every inch of the apartment had been covered in the blood of its former inhabitants.

  "Was this the work of Empty Heart?" the junior agent asked her as she stepped out of the apartment.

  "No, he only targets the Autumn witches or their associates," Lola muttered.

  That and she would have recognized the traces of Al's magic in an instant. It had such a distinctly vile characteristic that made her skin crawl quite unlike anything else, but the crime scene this time was practically void of any remnant magic. She might have even assumed it to be the work of a particularly twisted ordinaire if not for the fact the bodies were all half eaten.

  "It's a monstrosity of some sort, but I really can't tell what kind with this little to go on."

  "Monstrosity?" Eben said with a raised eyebrow.

  "Right you're green," she sighed, "Monstrosity is the term we use when we're referring to pureblooded nonhumans."

  Eben was still in training, but the young man had shown quite a bit promise so far. He was a talented magic user who would surely become a proper mage in no time and he possessed a keen analytical mind, but the young man had some disconcerting similarities to Al. Just like the unfortunate young warlock, Eben had a nasty violent streak and not a day went by without him driving those around him up a wall with his extremely unpleasant personality.

  "Think the thing had a bit of fun with them before tearing them apart?" he said with a leering grin and a nasty glint in his eye, "If the portrait in the hallway is anything to go on the wife was quite a looker before they ate her face."

  "Do you always have to say the worst possible things at the worst possible moment?"

  "I mean waste not want not, right?"

  While Eben's statements were completely inappropriate and utterly disgusting to boot. There was something to what he had just said. Whatever the thing was it had only killed and eaten them, which meant it had most likely been ferociously hungry and that it was acting somewhat like predators did in the wild. The common deranged nonhuman would have done things way worse than just tearing their prey apart and devouring them after all.

  "I hate to admit that you have a point, Eben, it only killed and ate them."

  "Told you I was bright, hot stuff," he chuckled.

  "There were no signs of forced entry and it never gave them a chance to fight back before it devoured them, which would indicate it's trying to avoid injury just like carnivorous animals do in the wild," she said to herself.

  "It's acting like a common predator and avoiding anything that could leave it too weak to hunt, but monstrosities are usually quite durable and they tend to heal insanely quickly," she continued as she sorted all the available information in her head.

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  "Any brilliant conclusion, Lola?"

  "Its entire methodology is different from most nonhumans since it seems to be very risk avoidant, but it didn't finish its meal despite the fact it probably would've had plenty of time to do so," she said as the cogs turned in her head, "It seems like it hasn't fully reconciled its own nature and is instead mimicking the hunting strategies of an ordinary animal, but it also comprehends urban areas just as well as the common ordinaire and uses that to its advantage."

  This was bad, real bad. Whatever the thing was it had only recently emerged and was still figuring out how to hunt. It didn't know its own limits, but once it figured them out it would become a far more dangerous adversary than most. If it realized that they were tracking its movements, then it would probably use that near human mind to switch up the pattern and send them on a wild goose chase.

  "I don't believe it's an ordinary monstrosity..."

  "Oh yes! A common monstrosity like the vampire in the apartment next door or the werewolf plumber fixing your pipes," Eben quipped.

  "They usually hunt in ways dictated by their natural instincts, but this thing doesn't understand its own instincts yet," she said as she threw him a disapproving glance.

  She took a deep breath as all the pieces finally fell into place, "We're either dealing with a particularly powerful chimera or something the likes of which we've never seen before."

  "Why does it feel like you're going to make me do a ton of paper work?"

  "Just shut up and get back in the car..."

  Eben threw his hands up with an expression of feigned innocence on his face before he started making his way back to the car. It was better if he wasn't there to witness what she was about to do. She awkwardly sat herself down in the stairwell as she reached for her phone. Making that call was the last thing she wanted to do, but no one else could solve a mystery faster than them. Even if they were extremely eccentric they still had an uncanny ability to put clues together.

  "Hello, Harry," she said the moment the call connected.

  "You've got a crap hand so you're clearly bluffing!" he shouted, "Oh right I'm on the phone, what's up Lola?"

  "I've got a mystery for you, Harry, and I'm willing to let you work it without any oversight."

  "Oh I already knew that and I'm already looking into some leads, but I'm going to need a gun, a ton of cash, and everything in your glove compartment."

  "Why do you need the crap I keep in my glove compartment?"

  "There is a non zero chance that there are gloves there and I've always wanted a pair."

  "You could just go to a store you know..."

  "No I can't because the security guards at the mall have a non zero chance of shooting me!"

  "They're not even armed!" she exclaimed.

  "There is a non zero chance of them being armed the day I decide to go to the store to buy a nice pair of gloves!"

  "I'm hanging up, Harry, I'll drop the gloves off at your place tomorrow, but you're not getting a fucking gun."

  "Sweet! New gloves."

  Unleashing Harry could have unimaginable consequences, but if she was lucky he would bumble his way into solving the mystery and unintentionally resolving the entire situation on accident. In the end it was better if she sent him to solve the mystery rather than letting him stumble upon a crime scene on his own and coming to all sorts of strange conclusions.

  "What have I done," she muttered as she left the apartment building.

  Command would have a field day if they figured out she had let Harry in on an investigation, but the man got results and would probably end up solving it much faster than even they could. His methods usually resulted in some unintended side effects and he always ruffled some feathers whenever he left his home. But Harry was unpredictable and the monstrosity out there wouldn't have a chance in hell of escaping him.

  "You look like you just saw a ghost, Lola, what's up?"

  "I might have just made a horrible mistake..."