The Bureau Files: Series 1

ooOoo

Episode 11: The Beastly Man (Part 1)

Jenny Hall, the Lion's Head Hotel landlady, prided herself on three aspects. One was her cooking, which was said to be the best in that corner of town, and another was her usually unshakable nature. The third was the respectability and good nature of her lodgers.

This latter aspect was threatening to fall apart.

She wasn't one to judge – or so she claimed – but there was something definitely off about her most recent lodger. It wasn't just that he was always covered (although it didn't help) or that his eyes were strangely un-human (although she couldn't pin down exactly what they were) or even that he always paid strictly in cash (although that was suspicious) – but it was an amalgamation of simply... everything.

But Jenny Hall was unshakable and she didn't let herself get carried away by flights of fancy, especially if the customer kept to himself and paid on time. No, until there was reason to worry, she wouldn't fret over such matters. No good came of poking one's nose in other people's business, at least as far as she was concerned.

Not all of the staff shared the same sentiment though.

There was Hiromi for one.

Hiromi was a good worker – and a dependable one – but she did like to ask questions. She liked to know. And just because the mysteriously-named Griffin was a paying guest didn't spare him from her scrutiny. She didn't let it interfere with her work – Jenny Hall would have no truck with that – but she could sense the curiosity rolling off the light brunette in waves. Hiromi could do that. She could ooze an emotion until it saturated the air.

"Why do you think he wears that scarf anyway? It's not like it's that cold and even if it was, you wouldn't wear it all the time. And not inside. Maybe he's disfigured – have you thought of that?" Working with Hiromi was more often than not bombarded with such chatter, and she idly wiled her way through making the guest's dinner while she waded through similar theories. Jenny Hall peered over her shoulder to check on the food.

"Not really, dear." Jenny Hall had done her best to avoid making assumptions on the matter of their sole lodger even if she had heard many theories like this from the young woman. She moved her attention onto the more pressing matter of dinner. "If you're finished with that, you can take the meal to our guest. Mind that you knock before entering, dear; you know how particular he is about his privacy."

Hiromi briefly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know. It's a little hard not to notice that."

"Just take the food."

Hiromi gave a wide grin that made it hard to ever stay annoyed at her for long, and disappeared out of the kitchen with the tray balanced in hand. The hotel was a small establishment and their guest was the only lodger they had at the moment and this had done nothing to reduce the mystery surrounding him. Not that he had attempted to reduce the mystery anyway. He had barely left his room since leaving – or, at least, they had rarely seen him leave.

She arrived upstairs, the tray against her hip, and the other side of her hip leaning against the door. She knocked once. "Dinner." There were several moments of silence and then she opened the door inwards and swung in. "Didn't you hear me? I said dinner's–"

There was the rattle of crockery as Hiromi's steps halted. She didn't do anything as stereotypical as scream and drop the tray; instead a strangled sound throttled her word and her fingers curled yet tighter around the tray's sides. She froze, a rabbit in the headlights. "M-Mr Griffin–?"

Their lodger stood by the desk, a maze of books and notes weaving monochromic patterns across the wooden surface. His lower face had been freed from the scarf, but upon his unexpected visitor entering, it was dragged roughly back. He spun on the spot, his strange, inhuman eyes flashing with an animal mixture of fear and rage. A teacup was picked up in the same motion and smashed against the wall to Hiromi's left.

"Get out!"

"I just–"

"I said GET OUT!"

A book was the next to hit the wall, this time noticeably closer to the young woman. Hiromi stumbled back, slamming the door shut behind her just as something else smashed against the other side. Her fingers were now white from clutching the tray and she fled to the kitchens, taking the stairs two at a time. Once back, the meal – still steaming – was dropped onto the kitchen table and she sunk to the floor, leaning her back against the cupboards and her head on her knees.

Her shoulders were shaking. She couldn't have seen that. She couldn't. She had to have been imagining things; it was the lamplight, the angle, the shadows... anything but what her brain was telling her. She had to have been imagining things.

Because, if not, the truth was impossible.

ooOoo

The man known as Griffin hadn't moved from his stand at the desk. He stood staring at the slammed door, his chest heaving from the drain of the shock. The scarf shuddered with each ragged breath, the strange bulge in the lower face moving in the action. He closed his eyes and his fingers curled at the top of the scarf, fingering the edge in contemplation of removing the obstruction. A resonating sigh moved through the material and he dropped his hand away, his lower face still hidden.

His eyes eased themselves open to glance down at his gloved hands. He slowly curled his fingers shut and dropped to the ground, kneeling on the thin carpet with his hand still resting on the desk now above. "I'm human," he whispered softly. "Human. I can control this – I will... I will... I will be human..."

ooOoo

When Jenny Hall returned to the kitchens, she was surprised to find their lodger's dinner rapidly cooling on the side. She scowled at Hiromi's back while the young woman busied herself with cleaning the mugs.

"Hiromi, didn't I ask you to take the food to Mr Griffin?"

She watched Hiromi's shoulders stiffen. "He wasn't hungry."

Jenny Hall's sharp eyes picked out the gravy which had spilled out of the plate and was oozing its way across the tray. She made no remark on the matter but looked back to Hiromi. "If you say so." She turned to leave, but suddenly Hiromi spoke up again.

"Do you really think it's just a disfigurement?"

Jenny paused. "I'm sorry?"

"His face – Griffin's face – do you think it could be a disfigurement?"

The older woman shrugged. "I can't say. Whatever the reason, I'm sure it's his business–"

"Yes, but it's obviously not... not normal."

Something in Hiromi's tone made Jenny pause. She was familiar with the woman's theories, but there was something different in the way she spoke now. Something that seemed out of joint with her usual merry way. "Well, it's true that he keeps his face covered and that his nose does stick out further than most–"

Hiromi released a strangely hollow laugh.

"–but either way," the landlady solidly continued, "it's not for us to comment."

"But what if there's something... you know..."

"No, I can't say I do."

"What if there's something wrong with him?"

Jenny's eyes turned steely. "Now, Hiromi, I won't have talk like that. The poor man probably suffers enough prejudice from whatever affliction he has; the least he needs is some ghastly rumour getting out of hand too. Come along now, you can see to the bar and I'll handle the kitchen. I'm sure Mr Griffin will find his appetite at some point this evening."

Hiromi left the kitchen silently, and as she entered the dim, alcohol-hazed air of the pub, her mind began to soften the memory. Reality flooded back, as so often happens after any shock, and numbed her to the truth of her eyes. Already she was discarding what she had saw in favour of what she believed she saw and manipulated the memory until it made sense. It had been a trick of the light, a mistake.

It had to be.

ooOoo

In the centre of a busy town, slipped between the thin folds between two realities – almost, but not quite a world in its own right – was a small, humble village. For the humans who lived near the doorway to this step off their world, the place was an oddity, an urban myth. The occasional wanderer would find their way into it, but on the second time – in their attempt to find it – the way back would be lost.

And so the Sanctuary was left unbothered by the Human World.

Today, this solidarity was biting back.

Baron stood in the heart of the Bureau, leaning on the desk that was hidden by layer upon layer of files. His normally crisp suit was ruffled by hours of fruitless searching and his shoulders were beginning to sag. He stared down at the notes in tired surrender.

Toto flew through the window and landed on the first floor* railing, his beaked face watching his Bureau companion.

"Any luck, Baron?"

"Unfortunately not. We simply do not have enough knowledge on the human town to locate this Griffin." He shuffled a few of his notes into a reasonably neat pile, only the tapping of his gloved fingers betraying an underlying nervousness. "I fear simply finding this man – this Griffin – will not be the end of our troubles."

"You mean we've still got to tackle whatever's in the other world?"

"If only that was all," Baron murmured.

"I don't quite follow."

"Akairo told us that this man knows how to reach this... Doctor's world; she gave us no indication that he would willingly help us." Baron moved away from the desk and approached the sideboard, somehow feeling that this was the right time for tea. Any time was good for tea, but this moment was in dire need of it.

The kettle was turned on without a thought.

"Akairo gave the impression that this man – if he is a man – came from the world that the animals came from; we have no way of knowing whether he is working for or against the cause of the animals' recent changes. All she told us is that he knew how to get to the world."

"It's been nearly three months since the birds' attack," Toto reminded him calmly. "If this Griffin fellow had been causing problems for that long, we would have heard of it. It looks to me, Baron, like our source wants to keep a low profile."

"Too low, apparently," Baron muttered. He stared back to the pile of useless files. "But the longer we take to find him, the more likely we're going to have another animal attack. We have to do something."

"Muta's already in town and Haru is doing some searching of her own," Toto informed him. "But I can do another sweep of the town, if you'd think it'd help."

"It might be a good idea."

Toto shifted on the railing so he faced the large balcony windows, but he paused before he took flight. He looked back to his friend. "You're welcome to join me."

Baron smiled softly, hollowly. "Not today, Toto."

The crow nodded sadly and took off into the evening air.

The cat Creation stared out into the twilight sky framed by the window, his mind lost with internal, circling thoughts. In the background, the kettle whistled its insistent cry, but was all but forgotten by Baron. He didn't hear the footsteps out in the courtyard, nor the knocking on the Bureau door. Eventually his guest gave up waiting and gently let herself in, but he didn't see this.

"The kettle's boiling."

Haru's soft voice cut through the kettle's whistle, and something in Baron's brain – or whatever he had in place of a brain – clicked back into place. He knew that voice, his head told him; it wasn't a voice he often – or ever – ignored, it said. So answer, that selfsame voice prompted. Wake up.

His feline eyes blinked and he finally took in the young brunette kneeling in the Bureau. He managed the ghost of a smile. "I'm sorry, Miss Haru?"

"I said the kettle's boiling," the human quietly repeated.

Baron's brain started to notice the steam rising in angry wisp from the kettle. He shuffled back into action, steadily falling back into his usual smooth movements, quickly but carefully pouring out a cup of tea and then look back to Haru. "Tea, Miss Haru?"

"Yes please. Just milk."

Baron nodded and poured out a second cup. All this took place without anything feeling out of place, but when it came to the cup being passed to Haru, the Creation hesitated just the briefest moment before moving close enough to let her take the drink. Haru made no remark, and she wouldn't have noticed it at all if she hadn't been looking for it. Looking and hoping that something might have changed since the kitsune incident.

It had been a week, and initially Haru had believed that everything had returned to normal. That they had all got through unharmed – but something had happened to Baron. Something, in those few hours stuck with the other humans, had changed him.

It had started with little things. Things Haru had initially ignored. He wouldn't meet her quite in the eye – he had preferred to watch his files, or his tea, or occasionally even his cane. She knew why – she knew that he was afraid to see the same spark of murderous fear he'd seen in the other humans. Humans who had very nearly – and would have – killed him, all in their terror. She had respected that. She knew this would take time and she could sense him trying to overcome this. She really could.

But the heart of the matter was that he was still nervous with her in the room. The heart of the matter was that he still hadn't left the Sanctuary since that day. The heart of the matter was that he was slowly breaking her heart.

"It's good tea, Baron," Haru numbly lied.

It wasn't.

Baron smiled gently, knowing she was lying, but still not meeting her eye. "Thank you, Miss Haru."

Haru, she wanted to correct. It's Haru. Not Miss.

But she didn't.

She finished her tea and carefully returned the cup to the sideboard, just on the edge so she didn't come too close to Baron. "I just came to see whether you had made any progress with this Griffin dilemma, but I see you haven't..." Her eyes flickered, merely for a second, to the pile of abandoned paperwork on the desk. "So... I guess I'll be going..." Moving away from the chest that served as her seat, she shuffled towards the door.

"Miss Haru, there is really no need for you to leave."

Haru turned, her eyes focusing on Baron's. Green met brown for a scarce few seconds, and then Baron dropped his gaze. He lowered his head in shame at the fear he couldn't conquer.

Haru's smile became grim, bitter at the victory she didn't want. "I think there is."

ooOoo

Half a week had passed since Hiromi had seen their guest without his scarf, and already she knew herself to be mistaken. She had accepted that. But, as most trick-of-the-light incidents, the wariness had yet to fade. She didn't let this get in the way of her job though; she still smiled and greeted their surly lodger on the few occasions she saw him, and when Jenny Hall asked her to fill in for some housekeeping duties, she dutifully accepted. She took up the trolley, full of cleaning equipment and bottles, and wheeled to Griffin's room.

Unlike before, she knocked and waited this time. She sighed when there was no immediate reply in return, and waited a little longer. There was no sign on the door – she doubted Griffin had even taken notice of the optional "do not disturb" door handle notice – and so, after a few more insistent knocks, she opened the door and let herself in.

"Housekeeping," she called.

There was only the oppressive silence in return.

She gradually made her way across the room, dragging the trailing trolley behind her like a dumb and drifting dog. The wheels squeaked as she walked, occasionally getting lodged on random bumps of carpet. Its uncoordinated trail slowed to a stop when Hiromi passed the desk.

She had noticed the books and notes before; it was hard not to by the way they acted as a second layer to the desk. But she hadn't come close enough to read them before. Now she could see the wild scribblings that danced violently over the pages, single words stabbed into the page and ink smeared where hands had slipped. She drifted closer, her eyes taking in the words.

Human. I am human. I will be human.

The symptoms have grown worse and maintaining this humanity is becoming a true burden. Mental capacities have broken down in momentary lapses. They are infrequent, but observations of other subjects have shown that the changes will become more severe as time passes. Unless I can find a cure, my time is running out.

This world is void of magic and so finding a cure will be difficult, if not impossible. However, it is quickly becoming clear that my first plan will not suffice. I am slipping, whether I like it or not. I cannot–

Here the words cut off abruptly, losing track of their flow and another train of thought followed – more or less – further down. Hiromi shuffled a few of the papers aside, barely able to comprehend the words and yet feeling a gut instinct that she had stumbled upon something... something big. Some of the notes and books looked to be focused on spells and the nature of humanity, while other paper contained the same rambling, circling round in the selfsame thoughts.

Everything I do just makes it worse. I'm losing control. Soon I will be no better than those who came before me. The spells don't work. Nothing works. Soon the anger will take over and I–

The words cut off abruptly, as if writing had become too difficult for his shaking hands.

And then, there were the blotted, angry words at the end.

Human. I am human.

I. Will. Be. Human.

Hiromi's nerves spiked. While she didn't understand what was written or even if she believed that the man might not be human, she knew that he believed himself dangerous and that was quite enough to worry about right now. Any person who believed themselves a danger would fulfil their own prophecy even as they tried to run from it.

And right now Hiromi needed to run from him...

Hiromi finally realised that the room wasn't entirely silent; in the en suite bathroom there came the whisper of running water. She had failed to notice so far since the locked door had muffled the sound, but now she listened she heard it. And now she'd heard it, it was impossible to ignore.

She was not alone.

She began to edge towards the bathroom door before she even realised what she was doing. When she did, she snapped her feet to a stop, acutely aware that the wisest thing would be to run... now. But something else – a morbid curiosity, an instinctive awareness – wouldn't let her. She dithered in the middle of the room, one hand still resting on the trolley for support even as she leaned closer to the door.

The door had only been partially closed; the hinge was half-resting in the jamb, so that the slightest interference made the door swing in a few precious inches. From this new vantage point, Hiromi saw the mystery man stooped over the sink, his constantly-worn gloves tossed to one side and his hands desperately engulfed in the tap's running water. He was muttering to himself, his scarf still wrapped around his mouth so that it shuddered with the rambling words, as he frantically cleaned his hands. He cleaned as if he was trying to scrub the skin from his hands.

Hiromi leant a little further. There was something not quite... right about his hands. They could pass for ordinary beneath the gloves; eight fingers and two thumbs and more-or-less the right proportions, but the light danced eerily over his skin. There was a patterning on the back of his palms that almost seemed to be 3-dimensional. It was more than simply warty or disfigured skin; this was something different. The roughness on his skin seemed almost to be like...

"Feathers," she whispered.

Suddenly she realised that what had originally been passed off as a trick of the light had been undeniably solid; that this man wasn't so much a man, as a mockery of a man. Almost human, but not quite. But all this went on in the back of Hiromi's mind; she wasn't one for flights of fancy and to jump to the inhuman conclusion was not one that comes easily to most people. Still, she sensed the change in her nerves and registered the fact that she had seen too much.

Her instincts changed track and began backpedalling her feet. She stumbled once too often and smacked into the trolley. It rattled.

Griffin spun on the spot, his eyes glittering with the same mixture of fear and rage as before, and as he moved his scarf began to come loose. "You again!" His voice was more guttural than before, dropping into the realms of animalistic growls. His hands were shaking even as he snatched up the discarded gloves, but his fingers were shaking too much to drag them over his strange hands. His strange, inhuman hands that were pockmarked with the shadow of feathers. Even as Hiromi tried to back away, her eyes kept flickering to them. Griffin noted her reaction.

"You just couldn't keep your beak out, could you?" he snarled, his strange vocabulary doing nothing to diffuse the tension. "You just HAD to investigate, didn't you? Stick your beak where it didn't belong. Make a mess of everything." His voice didn't rise into a shout, it never rose into the same shout as before, and somehow this was scarier than before. Hiromi edged around the cleaning trolley and continued to backtrack to the door.

"People like you make it so... so difficult to remain calm. You don't understand how hard I fight to keep my humanity; you just wander in and... and you've ruined everything." Griffin pushed the trolley aside. It skittered with a rattle and squeak of wheels.

"I... I didn't see anything – I don't understand what's going on," Hiromi said desperately. "I just – I just came in for housekeeping." Her hand waved weakly towards the discarded trolley. "There was no sign on the door, so I thought you were out and I just–"

"You just entered." Griffin walked past the trolley, the bottom of his trailing scarf catching on the corner of the cart. He continued to approach the young woman, unaware what had just happened.

"I did call," Hiromi said weakly.

"I didn't hear you."

"I'll call louder next time."

Griffin pinned Hiromi to the wall, his hands shaking. Hiromi could see the violence glimmering in those eerie eyes, but she could also sense the attempt to hold it back. Not for the first time, Hiromi wondered whether he was ever fully in control of himself. He always seemed to be struggling on a thin line between strange normality and ferocious violence. "See, we now have a problem," he growled, and his voice shifted between a flat tone and an all-out growl. "Even if you try, you won't be able to forget what you've seen and, as you've just shown, you're incapable of restraining your curiosity–"

"I'll learn–"

Griffin shook his head and a little more of the scarf came loose. Something smooth and hard – something that was certainly not skin – peeked into sight. Hiromi stared, more sure than ever that her eyes had not lied from before. There was something beneath that scarf and it certainly wasn't a nose.

"Why don't I believe you?" Griffin growled. His hold on her was shaking, as if he was trying to release her and keep her there at the same time. The instability did nothing to reassure Hiromi. "From now on, you're nothing more than a threat. A threat that must be eliminated..."

Hiromi twisted enough to get a hand free and jerked the scarf away from Griffin's face.

He reacted with a howl, one strange hand smashing into the side of Hiromi and sending her sprawling to the floor. She scrambled to her knees, clutching the side of her head and staring... staring at the place where a nose and mouth should be and yet... wasn't.

Griffin raised one shaking hand to his head and gingerly laid it over his beak. His eyes flickered to Hiromi. "Oh, now you've done it..."

Hiromi scrabbled backwards, shuffling across the carpet in terror. She had seen his exposed face before, but more in shadow than in light and so she'd never had the chance to fully appreciate the mutation.

His eyes – eyes that were clearly avian now – were sharp and angular and ferociously focused on the young woman before him. The previous fight to hold back the violence had broken and now only the rage remained. Where skin should have led to a nose, it instead shifted into the hard enamel of a beak – a predator's beak – that curved down and encompassed the whole of his lower face. It was impossible to imagine that the scarf had ever hidden the true nature of his face now that the true horror was staring out at her.

Hiromi backed into the desk and twisted round to hide behind it just as Griffin swung a chair into it. The desk rattled around Hiromi; notes filled with the wild scribbling flew off. She could hear Griffin coming closer to the desk; she could sense her time running out.

She rammed her shoulder into the desk, sending it toppling over. Now all the paper flew off and spun across the room like dirtied snowflakes, tainted by the dark ink. She fled towards the door while Griffin was struggling to re-orientate himself in the unexpected snowstorm, but he managed to grab her wrist before she got there. She was jolted to a halt that tripped her feet from under her. Griffin released her before he was dragged to the floor with her, but Hiromi hit the floor again with a thud.

Instinct more than reason made her roll away from the place she had dropped, just as the remains of the chair stabbed the carpet. She lumbered across the room, barely aware whether she was running to or from the door, only that she was fleeing from Griffin, until her side caught something metallic and shiny. She collapsed to one side and recognised the obstacle as the cleaning trolley. As Griffin approached, she clambered back to her feet and grabbed the nearest thing in the trolley – this turned out to be a huge bottle of cleaning liquid.

Griffin grinned as the weight caught her unawares and sent her suddenly kneeling. He, in turn, hoisted out a mop and snapped the blunt end to give the wood a splintered point. Even around the beak, he managed a smile, eyes still glittering with the disconnected hatred. While he had been doing this, Hiromi had been unscrewing the lid of the cleaning liquid. Griffin's grin widened.

"What are you doing now? Plan to give me a wash?"

"Something along those lines, yeah." Hiromi tugged the lid off and abruptly swung the bottle as to give Griffin a face full of disinfectant. She took in his agonised howl with a grim smile and swung the bottle again, this time catching the half-man in the side of the head with it. Blinded and bruised, he staggered back, giving Hiromi enough time to drop the cleaning liquid and race towards the door.

She got as far as the top of the stairway before Griffin had got even to the door. Hearing him, she glanced back, heart hammering as she realised that if she could only keep up this lead, she would be safe...

She missed the step.

Her shoes had been oiled by the cleaning fluid, so when she put her foot down it gave way. Her hand missed the banister and her other foot missed the next step. Suddenly she was falling and the ground and air spun into one continuous pain. Something akin to a scream was ripped from her lips and then stopped. She slumped at the bottom of the staircase, her eyes only managing to take in the blurred forms of people before it blacked out entirely.

At the stop of the landing stood Griffin. He was still framed by his doorway, and the rage was quickly subsiding into pure fear. Eyes of people turned from the crumpled form of Hiromi to him, and he backed away into his room. He slammed his door behind him and slumped against it. Even if they hadn't seen his beak, they had seen him; even if people didn't believe any accusation of avian traits from the girl, they'd still believe he'd attacked her.

He glanced down to his semi-human hands, still shaking with the distorted adrenaline rush. He clenched them shut, and yet still they shook.

He had to leave.

ooOoo

When Hiromi next woke, she woke to whitewashed walls and the unyielding stench of disinfectant. Her brain slowly caught onto these facts and informed her that she must be in a hospital of sorts. That was always good, she concluded; at least it meant she hadn't died.

Her brain took a moment longer to inform her of the form sitting to her right. Slowly she rolled her head to one side to see the familiar form of her best friend sitting beside her. She smiled weakly. "Heya."

Haru cracked a feeble smile back. "Hey."

"You look a little pale."

"Well, you don't look so hot yourself."

Hiromi released a cackling laugh. "Yeah, but I fell down a flight of stairs. I'm allowed to look not so hot." She pushed herself up, shifting the pillows so she could sit comfortably against the bedboard.

"So."

"So," Hiromi repeated.

"So you managed to get yourself attacked by a deranged lodger," Haru summarised. "Impressive."

"Hey, I thought you were coming to administer some well-deserved sympathy."

"Well, that too." Haru prodded her friend lightly. "I also came to cheer you up."

Hiromi glanced about the characterless room. "I guess this place is pretty dismal." She looked back to Haru, smiling wider this time. "I hope you brought some sympathy sweets though."

Haru dropped a bag of chocolates on the bed. "Of course." Haru's grin died a little as she watched her friend. While she hadn't gained anything fatal, she had still fractured a bone in her arm, and was sufficiently bruised from the fall and attack. Haru had heard a few rumours since arriving at the hospital, including the claim that the lodger had rushed at Hiromi with a sharpened stick – with something that betrayed more than just the intent to scare.

"Hiromi..."

Hiromi paused halfway through her raid of the chocolate. "Hm?"

"What exactly happened?"

Hiromi tried to shrug it off. "The guy attacked me. What is there to say?"

Haru sighed. "Hiromi, we've been friends since secondary school. I know when you're skimming over something. Anyway, it doesn't make sense – why would he attack you?"

"He's mad. Why do his actions have to make sense? Hey, did the police catch him?"

"No. He scarpered before anyone could stop him."

Hiromi shivered, staring out to the open window at the far side of the room. Her eyes glazed out, trying not to imagine the possibilities. "I can't believe that a man like Griffin is on the loose..."

There was the smashing of a glass. Hiromi swung her gaze to see Haru jolted upright in her chair. The glass of water she had been holding had slipped, but she hadn't even noticed. "Griffin?" she repeated.

"Well, yeah... That was the name of the man–"

"What was he like?" A new ferocity had entered Haru's gaze. She looked like she wanted to shake the information from her friend. "Hiromi, who was he?"

"Just – Just a man–"

"Just a man?" Haru repeated sceptically. "Are you sure?"

Hiromi opened her mouth to insist, but then she hesitated. There was something about Haru that implied she would perhaps – just perhaps – be open to hearing the truth. That perhaps Haru might not discard her as mad for seeing what she had. And... there was a desperation about Haru which implied a need to hear the truth. Hiromi sighed and shrugged. "Maybe not."

ooOoo

Progress on the Griffin dilemma was going slowly – in other words, nonexistent – in the Bureau when Haru appeared in the Sanctuary. She barrelled into the small office, her new revelation suddenly changing the game entirely.

"He's a bird!"

Baron looked up from his tea, the surprise at Haru's outburst enough to make him forgo his recent unease. "Miss Haru?"

Haru realised she'd have to slow down a little more to bring her companions up to speed. "Griffin," she started again. "He's a bird. Or, well, he was... He's human now and... He's another one of the transformed animals," she started again. "Only he's a lot more human, except for the fact he has a beak and his hands still look feathery, but apart from that he almost passes for human..."

She looked around at the Bureau members, all who were ranging from polite curiosity to outright confusion on Muta's part.

"Hey, Chicky, you feeling alright?"

"I'm feeling perfectly alright, Muta!" Haru snapped. "Listen, my friend just got attacked by Griffin, so it's clear he's a danger and we've got to find him before he harms anyone else!"

"He attacked your friend?" Baron asked.

Haru nodded, sobered slightly by the memory. "She's okay... Well, it's nothing that time won't heal," she softly amended. She met Baron's gaze, and this time he held it. "Griffin fled, but I don't know where. The later we leave this, the further he may have run. Please, we have to act."

Baron's gaze dropped to his tea, but this time he gave a decisive nod. "Alright. You and Muta should search together, while Toto and I... fly overhead." He waited for Haru and Muta to exit the Bureau before leaping up to the balcony where the crow Creation perched.

Toto looked back to Baron as he took a seat.

"Do you know what this means?" the crow asked.

Baron nodded grimly.

"Something else came from the Doctor's world..."

ooOoo

A/N:

* I know there's some confusion between the UK "first floor" and the USA "first floor" terminology. For future reference, I always use the UK terms, which means my use of the term "first floor" is your "second floor" – we call the USA "first floor" "ground floor".

Sorry for the delay - would you believe I forgot it was Friday?! It's just been absolute madness packing today; that's my excuse. So thank you for your continuing patience, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Cat.

ooOoo

Teaser: Haru woke with an unsettling prickling running all the way down her back. Her eyes snapped open just in time to see something shift in the darkness beyond her room. / Griffin's hand shot up and suddenly those disfigured fingers were around her neck. "Just out of curiosity, how easy do you think it is to crush the human windpipe?"