He's run the program fifty-seven times; he's working on fifty-eight. All the facial marks match perfectly. The bridge of his nose, the eye socket circumference, the only part that's different is the eye color and that could be inaccurate since there's such a thing as colored contacts. What is it with people and looking like Tony!? Well, at the very least this time… they can find Tony and… dear god, he knows there are things out there that can mimic anyone's appearance… more likely it's just a guy who looks a lot like Tony. It's not like they've never had a case where something supernatural had popped up but that part of the world tends to hide better than anything. Simply because that part of the world has had over hundreds of thousands of years of practice in 'hiding'. Along with the fact that there are these things called 'hunters', but that's a whole other story altogether.

Normally humans aren't necessarily in these affairs… he's going off subject. If the guy was a shape-shifter of some kind wouldn't the DNA be different? He'd guess, McGee lets a sigh escape him. The program's confirmed the identity again, officially he's run it fifty-eight times… and it still says this is Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo. This isn't Maurice, it could be fake but there wouldn't be much of a point to faking a picture for an ID. The information is usually faked and then insert your own picture here. So what would the point be of them both being as fake as clay ducks?

This isn't making any sense; at this point, the only thing that's going to result in this investigation is a cold case. Unless… minimizing the program he grabs his phone and heads to the morgue. If he's right about this, this won't be much of a case anymore.

…

When Ducky and Palmer leave the morgue McGee sets off the blank hall loop along with the dark morgue one and walks in. It's easy to spot the mauled, mutilated thing that was once a person among the other two. Tim scrunches up his nose as the almost stagnant air fills his nostrils. The hinted scents almost assaulting him more than any human or beast ever has. He's never liked the smell in here, it smells of spoiled flesh and cleaning supplies, he's never found either to be a nice, flattering smell. Together is just down-right disgusting.

He chokes a gag easy enough as he approaches the long dead thing. The lacking scent of blood keeps the flesh unappealing to his more animal side. Along with the fact that he's never really had a taste for human flesh even if they do taste a bit like pork rather than an ape. The thought crosses his mind that he probably should've had lunch before he came here. McGee straightens himself up at the thought. He's reminded why exactly he came down here, to begin with.

Maurice could be a werewolf, possibly a daylight one. Or whatever they tend to call werewolves that don't change back to humans after daybreak, can't consciously change back and when they do it's worse than a train wreck. The guy could easily be mistaken as a druggie when wondering the streets without much left of his clothes. It's possible when he left the Maurine corps he wasn't entirely aware of it, especially since he had the sinking suspicion that if he is one of few that tend not to change back, he was indeed bitten. Naturally born ones tend not to have any of these issues. The whole identity thing could easily be his realization moment, got himself a fake ID and ran from anything he'd ever known. It's even possible he never was a Maurine, to begin with, it could of easily just been part of his cover. Well, whatever he could get as a cover. His moments as a human were short and sparse; he wouldn't have much time to get a very complex identity.

That still didn't explain why he looked exactly like Tony but it may be a start. But then, there's no sure way to tell whether or not he was a werewolf, none of the DNA that they contain when they're wolves is kept when they appear human. If so, it would have to be very little and unrecognizable, the only real way would be if those gnaw marks are what he thinks they are. Originally, when they're kind had no need to change into humans, when one of their pack died the flesh would be torn away from the bone, the supposed 'source' of their transformational powers. These bones were then inscribed with the dead's story, how they came to be, their deeds and powers, their place in the pack and usually their lineage. Rarely were their names ever inscribed.

Of course, this ritual hadn't been used in hundreds and possibly thousands of years since mankind spread. Curious but he couldn't ponder too long on that now. He'd need to translate what the bones said and perhaps he could get somewhere as to who 'Maurice' actually was. Explaining where he got the information could be complicated but he'd figure something out along the way. He'd done it before; hopefully, this wouldn't involve hacking the Pentagon again and creating a person who never existed. Tedious and probably more work than he should put into his job, but he still did it.

Taking out his phone and snapping a couple close-up pictures since the ones they'd taken at the scene, as he was well aware, were too far away to read the inscriptions correctly. He just hoped the ones he got now were high enough quality to read them. The main writing should be on the skull, the story about transition should be on the ribs and everything else on the upper arms and thigh bones. Carefully rotating the bone he took a few more pictures careful to steady his hand. The snapped in half ones could be a problem but hopefully not too bad of one, the break didn't seem to have many missing pieces, they couldn't be missing but a few words. Moving to the skull he noted the messiness of the scripture work. The notches weren't very deep or very precise, done by a wolf that wasn't experienced in the writing or with the technique.

But as he moved to the ribs the scriptures were almost perfect. Different wolves had done them, perhaps the pack he'd met in the forest? The older wolf looked around the age to maybe know the technique but there wasn't a real way of knowing. Managing to get the majority of the marks McGee turned off the lights and quickly walked out, turning off the security loop.

Now the great debate about calling himself sick and going home to decipher this or wait until the work day's over. No one else was at the bullpen currently so there wouldn't be many questions and it would take a while to translate the inscriptions. Well, that depended on the dialect and language they were written in. If he was lucky it'd be an easy one, he'd rather not have to go track down a werewolf that actually knew the language. Tracking them down would be complicated enough, getting them to do anything for him, on the other hand, would be even more difficult.

God if this wasn't something he could translate this was going to be a pain in the ass.

…

He'd gone the whole workday without anyone else at the bullpen besides himself and other cubicles that surrounded them. But he tended not to count them that much anyway. For Special Agents, they didn't seem to be very observant of their workspace. Perhaps it was because they thought they didn't need to be? He didn't know. The team had been out scouting the woods beyond the perfectly mowed park looking for any sign of a murder weapon or maybe some clue as to where their killer went. They'd come up with nothing long after sundown and had gone home after McGee had left the office.

McGee blinked and looked back at the pictures he'd taken that were now displayed on the computer screen in from of him. Blown up and edited to where he could see the inscriptions clear as day. He'd gone through about three dialects trying to decipher what they might say. Each had made no sense and he moved on. His fear might actually come true. He was halfway through the list of six that could be translated with the use of a book. Hopefully, he was just having a stroke of bad luck.

If not, well, it was safe to say this case might just end up being cold or possibly more work than he was cut out for. Tim glances at the clock on the screen, he got home at around six and it is twelve now. Stretching out, he puts his hands on his head and sighs. He's so tired.

He can't ignore this dilemma, though, no matter how hard he tries. It's going to bug him for the rest of the night if he tries to go to bed. But in the end, if he's too tired he's not going to be able to decipher the markings. Much less work with a clear head in the morning. Stretching again Tim minimizes his work and puts the computer on hibernate, he'll continue tomorrow. For now, he'll just have to try and get some sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED…