oOo

Owen knew why he had gone into forensic medicine – he simply was no good with the living. Much less so if they were injured and bleeding. During the seemingly endless nights he'd spent working A&E, he had come to dread the times when a child ended up in his care. The only thing worse than having children as patients was having to deal with their parents. Luckily, it seemed like he was going to dodge that bullet. However, when it occurred to him that he might have to tell a six-year-old that her parents had been murdered, that didn't seem to be that much of a blessing anymore. Fortunately, the girl had taken to Gwen, clinging on to her as if her life depended on it.

As for her physical condition, Owen was fairly sure that her injuries were only superficial. Her clothes were soaked and smeared with mud and lots of blood, but aside from a gash on her forehead, Owen couldn't see any obvious injuries. Nothing like a gaping gut wound or anything like that. She did seem pretty traumatized, which, in Owen's unprofessional opinion didn't seem too surprising.

"Okay, Anne. I told you about my friend Owen. Remember?" Gwen said to Anne and tried to sit her down on the desk in the coroner's office. Anne emitted a wail and clung tighter to Gwen. "It's okay. I promise it's okay. I'll be right there with you. I'll be holding your hand the entire time, I promise." This time, Anne let Gwen manoeuvre her over to the desk. She clung to Gwen's good hand and her enormous green eyes didn't leave the former police officer, but Gwen didn't seem to mind.

Owen supposed she had probably dealt with her share of traumatized youngsters during her time on the beat, or being female, possessed some mysterious connection to children that was lost to Owen. Gwen had talked to her in soft tones the entire long way to the police station, but Anne had told them nothing else about what had happened, and Gwen hadn't pushed her.

Owen checked the girl over, coming to pretty much the same conclusion as earlier – psychological damage aside, she was essentially fine. Still, there was something odd about her. Something that sent shivers down Owen's back that had nothing to do with walking five miles in streaming rain.

Maybe it was his work with Torchwood that made him more suspicious, aware to the possibilities that something non-human could lurk behind the most innocent façade. He would never admit it, but he began to suspect that there was a possibility that Jack had been right back on the road. This girl was creeping him out. The way she followed every one of his movements with her huge green eyes, eyes that seemed hollow and dead. It was laughable, but she reminded him of a cat, studying her prey and waiting for the moment to pounce.

There was a knock on the door. The door opened a second later and the young woman from the holding cell walked in.

"Uh, hi. Your boss sent me here. He thinks I should have my arm looked at." The young woman indicated her right arm, which was smeared with dried blood and sported a three-inch-long gash. It had probably been pretty painful, but it was clearly a few hours old already and had long since stopped bleeding. There was still some risk from infection, but Owen had no idea since when Jack was this perceptive, let alone caring when it came to potentially other worldly knife-wielding killers.

"I'm Rose, by the way," she introduced herself with a smile. Under different circumstances, Owen would have taken an active interest in Rose, even if she was a bit young for him. But the girl was an effective distraction; her gaze was keeping Owen on alert, making him feel like his every move was being watched.

"I'll have a look at it," Owen told Rose dismissively, still distracted by the strange child.

"It's not really all that bad," Rose agreed amicably and leaned against a shelf on the other side of the room. Owen had already turned back to Anne, when he caught a glimpse of something glowing green out of the corner of his eyes. Alarmed, he turned back.

"Can I see that cut again?" he asked more sharply than he had intended, but Rose only shrugged.

"Sure." She rolled up her sleeve. It was reddened by beginning infection, but there was a faint green trace around the wound. "It doesn't really hurt anymore."

"Rose? Where did you get that injury?" Owen asked.

Rose seemed surprised by the question. "I tripped on the stairs," she replied after a pause and regarded Owen with a look of suspicion.

"At the hostel where the murders happened?" Owen asked, feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

"Yes. But we had nothing to do with them. They were already dead when we found them," Rose told him angrily. "We didn't do anything, you have to believe me." She looked him in the eyes and the same empty green eyes looked back at him.

"Yes," Owen replied, his thoughts racing. If they were dealing with a contagion – the question was how it spread. At the worst, it was something airborne and they'd probably all have been infected by now. If they were lucky, it spread by blood contact, and then they still had a chance of containing the outbreak.

"Gwen," Owen said, his tones measured. Gwen looked at him, an expression of surprise on her face. To Owen's great relief, her eyes still had their natural colour. "Owen, what is it?"

"We could use some clothes for Anne. Maybe you could go and ask Jack." Gwen had to realize that something was off. Hopefully, she would tell Jack and figure it all out, before he got stabbed to pieces. Even in Owen's mind the whole thing appeared to be a bit of a stretch.

"Why would…." Gwen started, but then plastered a smile on her face, obviously realizing that Owen was trying to tell her something.

"Anne," She said as she kneeled down to Anne's eyelevel. "I'm going to find you some fresh clothes. Owen and Rose are going to stay right there with you. Is that okay?"

"I think so." Anne let go of Gwen's hand, immediately wrapping both her arms around her green backpack like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning. If Owen hadn't suspected her to be responsible for at least five murders, he would almost have felt sorry for her. Gwen left.

"Rose." Owen turned to the young woman, forcing himself not to flinch at the vacant look in her eyes. "Would it be possible for me to take a blood sample from you?"

"Why?" she asked, but there was no trace of hostility in her voice.

"Making sure there is nothing more to these murders than meets the eye," Owen told her.

"You aren't with the police, are you?" she asked, keeping her arms wrapped tight around herself-

"No, I'm with Torchwood. We investigate alien activity on Earth."

The expression of utter shock on Rose's face was not what Owen had expected.

"I need to go," she finally managed, lunging for the door. She never got to the door.

She fell down to her knees, clutching her left side. Blood was streaming down over her hand, onto her clothes and onto the floor. A knife was buried deep just under her ribcage. Standing in front of Rose stood Anne, the empty backpack smeared with blood on the inside next to her on the floor.

Owen jumped to assist her, but Anne had already pulled out the knife and started stabbing her repeatedly with inhuman speed and strength. Rose had long crumbled to the floor on her side, but Anne kept hacking at her in frenzy. Owen was trying to drag Rose away from the attack, not daring to get between Rose in the knife for fear for being stabbed and potentially infected.

The moment Owen had pulled Rose clear, Gwen, who must have come back in attracted by the noise, came down hard on top of Anne, burying the girl under her. Anne clearly possessed super-human strength, but her size and weight were major disadvantages. She went down, pinned down under Gwen's much higher weight.

Panting, Gwen looked up at Owen.

"What the hell happened, Owen?" she asked, wiping specks of blood from her face, and Anne seemingly unconscious on the floor.

Owen turned Rose on her back. He felt for a pulse on her neck, but he already knew it was too late. Side and stomach were almost hacked to pieces, a bloody mess held together by scraps of clothing. No one could survive such injuries. First shock, then blood loss. Rose would have died within seconds. Her body probably wouldn't even have had time to register pain.

His eyes met Gwen's as they were both trying the process the impossible.

A dark, heavy silence had settled over the office in the aftermaths of horrible bloodshed. Then Owen could hear rushed footfalls coming down the corridor outside, no doubt attracted by the screams. The door crashed open a moment later and, turning his head, Owen saw Jack standing in the doorway, brandishing a futuristic weapon. Owen idly wondered where that had come from.

"Everyone all…" Jack fell silent. He swooped down next to Owen, falling on his knees next to Rose's body.

"Rose. Oh, no. This wasn't supposed to happen." Jack stared at her in silence, finally pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "You weren't supposed to die. I was. This is all wrong."

"I'm sorry, Jack." The voice wasn't human, not any more than the creatures speaking the words. Rose sat up straight, heedless of the bloody mess that was her abdomen. Her appearance was changing rapidly – skin was greying, taking on a silvery shine. Her eyes, already an unnatural shade of green, turned almost black.

"Who are you?" Jack jumped to his feet, holding whomever – whatever she was at gunpoint. She wasn't deterred. She effortlessly rose to her feet, a smile forming on her face. "I'd love to tell you, but that would ruin the surprise."

The next moment, Rose lunged at Jack, knife in hand. They both went down in a heap, struggling for control of the knife. Under ordinary circumstances, Jack would easily have been able to wrestle it from her hand, but again this creature, he didn't stand a chance. She ripped the weapon from his hand and with one clean slice, slit his throat.

A spray of blood hit Owen in the face. He rushed to where Jack was lying, but it was already too late. In less than five seconds, Jack had bled out and his eyes had settled on whatever it was that only the dead could see. The door slammed. Owen looked up and realized he was alone in the office turned abattoir. Gwen! They had to have taken her. Owen reached for his gun and got up. He shot one last look at Jack's dead body, before heading for the door. He managed to take two steps when a gasping breath behind him made the hairs on the back of his head stand up. Jack was coming back to life, just as Rose had. Owen whirled around, pointing his gun at Jack's fallen figure.

Before Owen's unbelieving eyes, Jack pushed himself up on his elbows, rubbed his throat and coughed, before he noticed Owen.

"Put that thing away. Where'd they take her?"

"Uh…" Owen fumbled, his mind having gone totally blank, as if overloaded by the sheer number of impossible things he'd seen in the past few minutes.

Jack didn't wait for a reply. Grabbing his blaster from the floor, he got to his feet and pushed his way past Owen out the door.

oOo

Dying was always bound to ruin Jack's day. It usually hurt like hell and the recovery left him exhausted and in sore need of a drink. Still, he'd been lucky this time. Unlike the time when he'd accidentally fallen off a four-story building or the time he'd been shot in the head, this time hadn't even hurt that much. The whole thing had been over before he'd realized that he was once again going to die.

Jack walked down the long hallway linking the clinic and morgue in the back with the police post in the front of the old building. He could hear loud voices through the closed door of the squad room, but the wood was too thick to let sound through.

Jack pressed his ear against the wooden door, finally able to make out some of the words being spoken inside.

"Please….please," a woman, Travis probably was begging in between sobs.

There was a slab, followed by a cry. Gwen?

"You didn't have to do this! Leave her alone!" That had to be Jordan. Rather Travis, than Gwen, Jack speculated.

"I don't know who you are. I'm going to take a guess and say that you are here for me." The Doctor's calm voice became audible. "Rose, can I call you Rose?"

Jack carefully leaned down on the door handle and pushed it down and opened the door a fraction of an inch. Not really enough to see what was going on, but now he could hear every word being spoken in the squad room.

"I guess that is a fitting name," the creature in Rose's body replied. "I am her, after all."

"You know that is not true," the Doctor said. "If I promise to do what you want, will you let the woman go?"

"I will let her go…if everyone complies with my instructions to the letter. And that includes Captain Harness." Dragging Gwen with her, Rose turned towards the door, which still stood ajar. "You may come in."

Jack opened the door, plastering his best grin on his face, before he fired his blaster at Rose and Gwen.

Gwen crumpled in Rose's grip, but the creature hardly flinched.

"That was not a nice thing to do," the creature chided softly.

Jordan and Travis were in a corner by the window, Jordan comforting the younger woman who was bleeding heavily from a wound on her forehead. But she was still sitting up and conscious and appeared in no immediate danger from her injuries.

Rose was in the middle of the room. She was holding Gwen pressed against her body, the knife Anne had stabbed her with earlier held far too close to Gwen's throat for Jack's liking. Gwen stared at him, her eyes wide with shock.

"What are your demands?" the Doctor asked before Jack got the chance to say anything.

"Give Anne your weapons…all of them," Rose instructed.

Anne did as told and collected the weapons from the two police officers before approaching Jack. Jack handed her the blaster, at the same time as he drew his antique gun. He pulled the trigger, shooting the girl straight into the head. Anne stared at him with bottomless eyes before she collapsed to the floor, dark liquid leaking from the bullet hole in her forehead. Whatever she had been once, she wasn't human anymore.

"I would drop that weapon if I were you," the creature holding Gwen hostage said. She pulled Gwen's lifeless body tighter, tracing the bloody knife across her throat, leaving a line of blood behind. "Just as easy," the creature hissed.

Jack dropped his firearm. There was no one left to pick it up, so it remained on the floor. Rose didn't seem to care.

"Travis, bring me the keys to the squad car. Give the captain the key to the holding cell. Then, you and Jordan will go inside and the good captain will lock you in and throw the key out of the window."

Travis got up. She was shaky on her feet, blood covering the left half of her face. With trepidation, she approached the creature. Her hand was trembling so much that she dropped the key on the floor. A furious scowl formed on the creature's face.

"Pick it up," she ordered at the same moment Jack dove for his fallen gun. He had the shot for a second when the creature was turned, her attention on the sobbing Travis. Jack pulled the trigger, but he was too late and the bullet only tore through the creature's upper arm. Like when he had shot Anne, dark liquid started dripping from the wound. The creature smiled evilly and brought the knife up to Gwen's throat. Slowly, as Jack was forced to watch, she increased the pressure until blood welled up around the blade.

"Stop! Stop it!" the Doctor screamed, his voice pleading. "Tell me what you want from me!"

Rose pulled away the knife. "You know what to do." She eyed Travis and Jordan. The police officers hurried into their own holding cell. Travis was crying openly and there were traces of tears on Jordan's face."

"Go ahead, captain. Lock them in. You should know better than to try anything this time." Jack did as he was told. He walked over to the cell and accepted the keys from Travis. Holding her hand cupped so that the creature couldn't see, she slipped not just one, but two keys in Jack's hand. Jack used the large one to lock the holding cell, concealing the smaller one in his hand. He walked over to the window and tossed out the larger key into the night. He had his back turned to the creature for only a second, but when he turned after closing the window, they were gone. His gaze flew over to the Doctor, who was frantically trying to wriggle his wrists out of the handcuffs, savaging his wrists in the process.

Outside, a car took off.

"You are just going to let them get away?" the Doctor accused Jack. "Where are the keys to these things?"

In that moment Jack realized what the small key Travis had given him was. He tossed it to the Doctor. Without looking back, but certain that the Doctor would follow him, Jack ran outside.