Death.

Valkyrie clutched eleven inches of Phoenix and holly in her right hand, while her left hand held five inches of cold Beretta steel. She was clad in magically reinforced armor, a mixture of the most modern carbon nanotube fabrics and dragon leather, stitched in with more runes than one could count (and could see with the naked eye). Beside her, codename Mystique sat in similar armor, wearing the magical body-suit, cloak, hood and visor, all of it black or a very dark blue.

Aside from Mystique, there were eight others in the passenger cabin; Hyperion, Dragon, Morgana, Odin, Providence, as well as three wardbreakers. Valkyrie couldn't see their faces, as encased in shadow and armor as they were. She wanted to know if the rest of the Special Operations Unit were as nervous as her. Knowing the crazy fuckers in the Unit, perhaps not; the only telltale sign of nervousness was Dragon's fidgeting, and he was the newest recruit.

Valkyrie looked out of the cabin and saw a ruined landscape. The Plymouth region was a mess, having been the target of artillery bombardments, as the Dark Lord's final stronghold. Mortars had blown holes into buildings, the rare ones that remained standing. Valkyrie could see a few flashes of spellfire and the echoes of gunfire; the struggle was almost constant in this region. At least it had fared better than central London; an IRA explosives expert had managed to recreate a 'dirty' nuclear bomb with the assistance of the Death Eaters, which went off and leveled everything in a half-mile radius and then severely damaged everything within one more mile.

They coasted over the crumbling maze of steel and concrete just high enough that the mild thrumming of the Huey and the Apache would not be detected by lookouts on the ground. The heavily modified helicopters were muffled, disillusioned, and minimized how much heat the engine produced, so to prevent unexpected assaults from infrared surface-to-air missiles.

"We're going to descend," the co-pilot of the Huey, a battle-hardened Muggleborn, spoke to them. "Wardbreakers, this is your stop. You have four minutes to take down the anti-personnel wards and put up the anti-teleportation matrix."

The helicopter slowly descended until it was grazing the street and the three wardbreakers shared one desperate glance with the SOU - which were promptly ignored - before they hopped off. The helicopter quickly ascended to the Apache again, which had begun to circle the massive ward scheme that undoubtedly hid Voldemort and his top lieutenants. It covered a complex about the size of a shopping center. In fact, it probably had been one, before, and had now turned into a barracks of some sort.

After one minute, Providence was dropped about five hundred meters from the target on the rooftop of a mostly stable apartment block. He shouldered his magically silenced L96A1 and hopped off the edge of the helicopter, deftly rolling on the concrete three meters below. He gave a thumbs-up to indicate everything was fine, and Valkyrie saw him, as he shrunk into the distance, prop up his sniper rifle on the edge of the building and go through his checks.

The remaining three minutes passed in agonizing silence. Throughout, Valkyrie and the other operatives etched the image into their minds as a sculptor would with a chisel and a hammer, and noted entry points and possible traps, thoroughly putting to use the observational skills they'd been drilled in by Mad-Eye Moody until they became second nature. After the four minutes, a single red flare erupted from the ground and sizzled in the waning light for all to see.

The Apache turned around and let loose.

The newly set up anti-teleportation matrix would not be affected, since it only blocked magical movement. The main target of the assault was the heavy kinetic barriers that Voldemort put up, likely after predicting that this very sort of full-scale assault might occur. However, no matter how formidable Voldemort might be, he had designed the wards to counter against magical attacks like the explosive curse, and furthermore stretched the ward over a large area. He might have prepared for a squad of top Aurors to assault his shields, but he had clearly not had eight screaming Hellfire missiles in mind when he set up these barriers.

The barriers collapsed after the first three missiles, leaving the other five to raze the southern quarter of this former shopping center. Valkyrie watched in grim satisfaction, imagining the Death Eaters running scared shitless as they realized they couldn't apparate out of there to escape the fire and brimstone. As soon as the dust raised from the Hellfires settled, the Apache began unloading all of its Hydra-70 rockets with deadly precision, taking out crucial structural support with four and a half pounds of high explosive.

When the last of the rockets whistled through the air, the Huey went into a steep dive, pushing through the newly set up anti-teleportation network. Valkyrie clutched at the nearest handholds as the hidden helicopter went into a ridiculous but undeniably very fast maneuver in an attempt to land them inside the compound before the Death Eaters gathered their wits again. It eventually forced itself back into a hover, the engine whining with effort, and Valkyrie quickly jumped off the vehicle from a height of about four meters.

She felt the shock of the landing running through her legs before she rolled. Beside her, Mystique and Hyperion landed, doing the same, while the other three had jumped from the other side of the vehicle. She could make out the faint outlines of the disillusioned aircraft ascending again. She and her team rushed toward one of the two remaining exits, the other of which the Apache was already covering from an angle, as the thunder of the machineguns roared over the occasional crackling of fire and the sound of architecture crumbling.

Valkyrie ran, jumping over a pitifully moaning Death Eater half trapped under tons of concrete. If there were any threats to her wellbeing, such as the Death Eater who was missing both legs but still carried their wand in their hand, she shot them.

They encountered brief resistance at the only remaining entrance of the compound. Hyperion weaved his considerable size effortlessly between several bone-breakers sent his way. As Valkyrie replied in kind, she could hear more echoes of gunfire; the SAS squadron they'd partnered with were now surrounding the perimeter to prevent escape.

Valkyrie ducked under a sickly violet spell and popped back up, only to be staring at another one as it flew on its way. A shield materialized in front of her and she glanced behind her, where Dragon was pointing his wand at her. She nodded quickly in thanks before moving again. She, Hyperion and Morgana led the charge into what remained of the compound. She heard the staccato of automatic weapons and a few feet away from Hyperion, a Death Eater was blown to the ground without ceremony.

Morgana led the way with a high-powered stupefy, a variant that covered a large area of effect. Using some sort of kinetic spell like bombarda was not a good idea when the building was crumbling as it was. Morgana jumped into the building without hesitation, followed by Hyperion and Valkyrie herself. Behind her, the other three also jumped through, though only after confirming they wouldn't be flanked and putting up a rough Dark Mark-denial ward.

The six operatives charged through the labyrinth of fallen concrete and broken magic, never stopping except on the rare occasions where magical traps or wards had remained intact after the barrage. They tore through ranks of Death Eaters using coordinated attacks, ripping a hole in their shields and quickly dismantling them from there. It also helped that they were much more experienced with melee combat compared to the Death Eaters, since they were trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare of a warzone.

Really, the main downfall of the Death Eater movement was their ridiculous pride and arrogance. Valkyrie firmly planted her combat knife into the eye-slit of a silver Death Eater mask, whereupon its owner fell to the ground, his brain scrambled inside his skull. It was their pride that prevented them from learning about so-called 'Muggle dueling' techniques, and their pride that prevented them from Muggle anti-government paramilitaries such as those from the IRA until it was all too late and Her Majesty's Regiment had the upper hand.

Valkyrie drew up her pistol and pumped two rounds, cutting off a half-spoken curse, and after sharing a glance with Hyperion and Morgana, charged through. After a few more fights with Death Eaters, the three of them switched places with Mystique, Odin and Dragon, to conserve their own magic where possible. The grunts were therefore handled by the other three while Morgana, Hyperion and Valkyrie followed, occasionally downing pepper-up potions and reloading their handguns.

After about ten minutes of struggle and a grand total of twenty-six enemy fatalities, they arrived at a heavily fortified panic room. The heavy, steel door was covered in numerous dark wards that would undoubtedly peel their skin off or turn their blood into smoothie or something ridiculously diabolical. The operatives nodded to each other after taking a moment to survey the wards. Then, they attached plenty of plastic explosive around the door and hid behind two layers of concrete as it was detonated.

When they returned, the two-feet thick concrete wall was fragile enough to be destroyed with explosive curses. The thick, steel door deafened them as it crashed into the ground; the operatives stepped through, taking care not to place their feet directly on top of the felled door, examining the room. They had about a dozen wands pointed at them, belonging to Voldemort's most powerful lieutenants, and Voldemort's own.

"You dare," Voldemort hissed, rage obvious even through his snake-ish face. "You think you can defeat me?"

No witty comebacks, no casual banter. The six members gave a quick flick of their wands. Six quickly spoken, simultaneous 'Avada Kedavra' led to five Death Eater bodies landing on the ground with a dull thud. The last had managed to dodge the sickly green beam that splashed on the wall, leaving behind a circle of rapidly corroding concrete.

Voldemort screamed in rage as he retaliated with death curses of his own. The six fanned out, quickly decapitating or lethally maiming their enemies. Valkyrie saw Odin push one Death Eater into the way of an oncoming AK. Valkyrie ducked under the wand of her own opponent and stood up, the crown of her skull crashing into their jaw. Valkyrie stifled a hiss; her opponent's mask would have undoubtedly cut her head open if not for her dragonhide clothing. She used the moment in which the Death Eater was stunned to press the still-warm barrel of her Beretta under the soft part of the man's jaw and blew his face and frontal lobe into the ceiling.

"I am Lord Voldemort!" The Dark Lord howled. "You will kneel before me and I will have your heads!"

Valkyrie sincerely wanted to mock him but she knew the drill. Any moron caught monologuing, bragging, or bantering with the enemy in the heat of battle would be forced to run around the training compound naked until their feet bled and they either threw up or lost consciousness. Many Dark Lords had an ego trumping their common sense, which led to mistakes. The Special Operations Unit would make no such mistakes. Even when under intense mental and emotional pressure - like now.

She watched her best friend, Mystique, get caught with an Entrail-expelling curse. Valkyrie's mind was screaming, her head filled with meaningless white noise, and she could feel time slow to a crawl as the once beautiful, curvaceous figure (which she shamelessly ogled in the changing rooms) slowly toppled, but the effects of inertia left her guts suspended for a brief moment until they followed its owner to the ground. She wanted to rush to Mystique's side. But she was conditioned too well.

Valkyrie dodged behind some rubble as a Death Curse came flying their way. She watched Morgana execute the killer of Mystique in her favorite method; she cast a sticking charm that formed between her victim's face and mask, then cast an overpowered Accio at the mask such that one could hear the skin literally ripping off the skull of the victim before their screams drowned everything out. Even Voldemort looked surprised as a now unidentifiable Death Eater clutched at his bloody face, gibbering incoherently until Morgana saw fit to blow a 9mm-wide hole in his head.

The five remaining operatives smoothly raised their firearms in unison at Voldemort and emptied their clips.

Bullets crashed and fell to the floor as they crashed into Voldemort's shield. Voldemort screamed and struck back with the ferocity of someone who was cornered and had no escape except to kill his way out. Even outnumbered five-to-one by a group specifically engineered to kill off Dark Lords like this one, Voldemort was pushing them.

Voldemort decided he would take out all of them as quickly as he could, and cast Fiendfyre. Hyperion, the most magically powerful of the group, retaliated by summoning forth cursed ice, through a spell obscure enough that it didn't have any official name and powerful enough that it was able to counteract Fiendfyre, for a time. A basilisk-shaped mass of white-hot flame reared its head and screeched, preparing to strike; in retaliation, Hyperion's gigantic Mûmakil (he really was one for dramatics) roared its defiance. The flame came crashing down and the frost golem used its four tusks to lock it in place.

Voldemort's vertically-slit eyes were bugging out by now, and his shield, no longer being attended, crashed down in a matter of moments under bombardment from the other four. Voldemort howled in rage, losing control of his cursed fire as he was struck with multiple body-bind charms. Hyperion struggled against the now out-of-control flames, his Oliphaunt struggling against the intense heat.

Valkyrie crossed the chamber in several powerful leaps before crashing into Voldemort. She tore off her mask, the one that separated Valkyrie from Iris Potter, and hissed in his face. Voldemort's eyes widened as he recognized the lightning-bolt scar and the enraged green eyes.

"You've lost everything," Iris whispered. "Your followers, your ideology… and your conviction. You pitched your power against ours, and you weren't enough. You've lost, Tom."

Voldemort's screech of rage and fear was cut short by a single green curse.

Having lost its biggest source of magical fuel, the flaming basilisk withered and was quickly subdued by Hyperion's beast. That too quickly crumbled into nothingness as Hyperion collapsed from magical exhaustion. Valkyrie stumbled away, dazed, and crashed into Dragon's arms. Dragon also removed his mask, revealing the pale, scarred face of Draco Malfoy.

"You alright?" He asked, concerned. Their mission was over, and most, if not all, the Death Eaters should be dead at this point. Morgana kept watch just in case, as Odin was busy checking Hyperion.

"M'fine," Iris mumbled. "Dora…"

Draco helped Iris stumble over to Mystique, whereupon she removed the mask that contained - or used to, anyway - Nymphadora Tonks. Her face was pale, having been drained of blood, and the guts that had spilled out of her body stunk of shit. On the floor nearby, there were four bloody lines painted by her slick red fingers, showing that she probably struggled for a bit before dying. As long as Iris had known war, she could never get over how… how quick and unexpected one's death could be. No chance to exchange last words.

"Nymphadora," Iris urged quietly. "Please come back."

Nymphadora didn't respond.

Iris sighed and closed her former best friend's eyes. She pulled out a small object from her toolbag which, with a tap of her wand, enlarged into a stretcher. She rolled Dora's stiff body onto it, relieved the corpse of her wand, gun, ammo, and jewelry, before magicking the stretcher outside. Once Morgana and Odin saw she was done, they followed her out. Voldemort's body was mangled by some falling concrete, leaving only the reptilian skin of his undamaged hand visible.

However, nobody realized the Elder Wand, which should have by all means remained clutched tightly in Voldemort's stiff claws, had disappeared.

Tonks did not enjoy turning her back to a potential assailant, but she couldn't make tea without the use of her eyes. So she grudgingly turned her back (Mad-Eye would be furious) and made the two of them tea. Goodness knew she needed it.

Once the liquid was the color of amber, Tonks plucked out the teabags, threw them out, and carefully levitated the steaming mugs towards the table. The girl, Archangel, sat cross-legged on the cheap sofa. She grinned, forming dimples on her cheeks, and brushed her autumn-colored hair out of the way as she sipped at her mug.

Tonks lowered her eyes to the girl's hands, clutching the mug. Her mannerisms seemed extremely normal; the way she tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she held the mug in two hands, the way she seemed to wear a slight smile while deep in thought; all of these screamed unremarkable to her, even girlish. If Tonks had not seen her power - and had not seen her un-glamoured form in her mind - she might even consider Archangel to be a rather normal teenage girl.

But she wasn't.

Tonks forced her Occlumency shields up to 120%, clamping down on her emotions so hard that she may as well be an android at this point. She wasn't going to have yet another repeat performance of getting so scared that her hair literally turned white. Only with absolute surety and coldness did she look up to meet the Archangel's eyes.

The cold green eyes glittered back.

"Who the hell are you?" Tonks asked, her Occlumency dropping her voice below zero and shocking herself, even through the very shields that caused this uncharacteristic chill.

"I'm Iris," the girl said, smirking nonchalantly.

The two stared each other down in a battle of wills; Tonks, with her completely unemotional face trying to find any measure of information about her opponent, while this so-called Iris sat there with a slight smile that betrayed no discomfort or awkwardness - although she probably hadn't blinked once. Tonks stared straight into her. Iris didn't seem to care.

"What is your relationship with me?" Tonks asked.

"Co-worker. Also, a romantic partner, as brief as that was," Iris said.

Tonks was not exactly a veteran of the force. She'd only graduated from the Auror Academy a few years ago. However, she had graduated from the academy with top marks, and she'd proven herself a capable Auror time and time again. She wasn't about to be one-upped by some brat that fell through the veil.

"What is your purpose in coming here?" Tonks said. "Why did you come to this world?"

"I don't know," Iris replied. For the first time, Tonks detected a foreign emotion in her tone that was not amusement; a hint of irritation and confusion. "I don't know how I got here, though I'm not complaining. It wasn't exactly la-la land where I came from."

Oh, Tonks was sure. She'd only gotten a glimpse of the woman's real form, when her mind had been invaded, but it had been enough. Scars, years-old and days-new, some easily healed and others deep enough to have been near-fatal. Tonks still didn't even want to consider how Iris had managed to get that ugly, ring-shaped scar across her throat and toward the back of her neck.

"And what have you been doing once you realized you were in a different world?" Tonks asked.

Iris shrugged. "Running. Hiding. Stealing. Why do you ask?"

As if Tonks was going to answer that. She may as well go out and say, 'oh, I'm just gathering intelligence for the Auror squad and Dumbledore, both of whom would very much like to see you in Azkaban.'

"I understand my life seems rather interesting to you now, but I assure you it's rather bleak," Iris said, sipping more of her tea.

"Why did you choose to come speak to me?" Tonks asked, one of the questions that burned brightest in her mind.

Iris smiled, a small smile that was genuine but didn't contain much happiness; full of melancholy and regret and pain. "I wanted to see you again. We used to be close."

Tonks continued to watch her face for any trace of falsehood, but she found none, for now. The woman had known her before, and they had been close, and they were close enough for this seemingly psychopathic killer to suffer greatly for it. Even now, excluding moments where she gave that mocking smirk, she struggled to meet Tonks' eyes and converse properly.

"Why don't you show me a memory of us?" Some emotion crept through Tonks' now slightly relaxed Occlumency barriers. "It'd be easier for me to trust you that way."

Iris hesitated. Tonks knew it was an unreasonable request, and she wanted mostly to see how Iris would react. Would she come up with a real reason why, or would she come up with an excuse?

"Do you have a pensieve?" She finally asked, and Tonks was surprised.

"I reckon Dumbledore would lend me his if I asked," Tonks said thoughtfully. Then she smiled hesitantly. "What are you going to show me?"

"The time we went to the beach together," Iris grinned.

Tonks pushed down the rising guilt in her stomach. She had no intention of being buddy-buddy with a killer who seemed to have no remorse. It was clear this woman, despite being an adept of legilimency, had no idea that Tonks didn't feel comfortable being here at all. She was like a puppy, giving Tonks unconditional love, even though Tonks didn't want to return it because she was less of a puppy and more of a Xenomorph from that terrifying movie her dad tricked her into watching.

Tonks smiled, hoping it didn't look too much like a grimace. This girl was terrifying and was the worst person to have a crush on Tonks, but she needed to pull through. If Tonks did nothing now, Harry and Headmaster Dumbledore would continue to be vilified by the press and government, Voldemort would build up his army, and hamstrung Auror Department would not be able to stop his resurrection.

Tonks sipped her tea, only to find it tasted like ash.

Iris was many things. She was the Devil of the Thames - particularly proud of that one, actually - the Butcher. She was of questionable sanity, a serial killer, she was bisexual, she was often quite forgetful, a spy, an assassin, a thug, a poor student, a rebel, an outcast. But an idiot was not one of them.

Tonks was staring at Iris' forehead the entire time and she did not really think it was a conscious move on Tonks' part to avoid legilimency. Tonks occasionally couldn't keep her disgusted expression in when she did not think Iris was paying attention or when she hid half her face behind her mug. She sounded friendly enough, but there was always that undertone of fear.

Iris…

She wasn't what she used to be.

Not the bright-eyed child who'd discovered magic for the first time and tried to devour the entire Hogwarts library in her first and second years. Not the champion of light that Dumbledore was grooming her to be. She was not the shy girl who had a crush on Oliver Wood when she joined the Quidditch team in first year and thought she had a crush on Katie Bell in third year but didn't quite know. She was not the girl who got angry on her friends' behalf on even the tiniest offenses from Malfoy. She was not the girl who hated every Slytherin and glorified every Gryffindor and appeal to her friends' senses of right and wrong.

She was also not the girl who'd given in to her dark desires. She was not the girl who cracked under pressure and delved into dark magic. She was not the girl who needed Dumbledore's support, Remus' support, the girl who needed Tonks to hold her while she slept so she didn't have nightmares. She wasn't the girl who needed their sympathy and their aid.

What she was, was the girl who manipulated people and didn't really care for the consequences. The girl who went out of her way to appease her dark desires, who went out of her way to hurt people even if it were both a waste of her time and energy. She was the girl who'd willingly gone too far, abandoned her own morals and justifying it by saying that she lived in a different, post-apocalyptic world now. She had gone from Fonda to Frank and there was no turning away.

Would she ever be able to reconnect with her friends? With Tonks? With Sirius? With Hermione?

It was as she was walking from Tonks' flat, wondering what it would be like to get some cheesecake for the first time in however many years, that she was realized something was off.

Pierce Montgomery had never seen anything like this in his career, anything like this in his bloody life.

The militant side of the Unspeakables was equipped to deal with very specific threats, often of an unknown nature. Supernatural threats, such as malicious poltergeists that made Peeves look like a golden retriever, old gods come to reclaim their kingdoms, and acted as emissaries whenever higher order beings came to visit.

In all of these situations, the nine-man team he had under his command were well-equipped to deal with them. Eight fighters, one medic, and one cursebreaker. They were more than knowledgeable and all of them had graduated the Auror academies at the top of their cohorts. So when the Magical Forensics department finally managed to pin down the apparition signatures of the unknown who killed Goyle in broad daylight and went away, the Unspeakables were sent in.

Laid in front of him was a large sheet of parchment, outlining the criss-cross of streets, as well as other basic topographical features. Nine sets of footprints spread out as they got into position. This was the gem of the Unspeakables - the idea, secretly stolen from the infamous Marauder's Map (why use such an invention for something so juvenile as pranks?), was used to develop a very accurate map able to display to movements of their agents, and the map was capable of zooming in and out of every nook and cranny of Britain.

And their prized map was now showing an oozing, inky blackness in the middle of one street.

They weren't really able to pin down the movements of anyone who wasn't keyed into the map. Instead, they would appear as a 'cloud' of magical residue, which was why their target showed up as something akin to spilled ink. But in this case… it was so black, so dark, that it felt blacker than the ink used to make the map in the first place. It was a telltale sign of dark magic, and danger.

Montgomery watched one of his men be quickly flanked by this threat. The black tendrils reached out to the silhouettes of his footsteps, and-

Milo Farbes crept out from behind the corner, and his quick glance told him nobody was there. He took a closer look, cataloging every detail he could spot, and turned the corner. This dimension-traveler had given them a lot of trouble over the past few months, but the brutal string of murders would finally end and peace - or at least, as much of it they could get - would return to Magical Britain.

He was too late when he decided to give any thought to the burning sensation in his back. He paused, turned around, and stared into the most brilliant green eyes he'd ever seen until his field of vision was dominated by a flash of sickly blue.

'Milo Forbes' disappeared from the map. Montgomery's coffee mug shook in his fingers.

Richard Bonds and James Bulstrode rushed towards the source of the sound, whatever it was. If their dreaded suspicions were confirmed, the sound of one of their allies' bodies hitting the ground. If it had been the target, there would have been a signal sent up by now.

Richard raised a shield while James gathered a powerful stunner at wandtip. They turned the corner and immediately, the former's shield was assaulted by a powerful concussion curse, shattering it. James unleashed his stunner, only to be deflected by a small but dense shield that the enemy used to angle away the red bolt.

The two agents began dueling in tandem, but the target, somehow, was too powerful for them. And too fast. She only blocked about a tenth of the spells that came screaming at her, the other nine, she'd dodge with minimal effort. Somehow, the small figure looked like a massive predator when it came rushing at the two of them. She held out her left hand in front of her and somehow used wandless magic to block any incoming spells, while she gathered power in the wand in her right hand.

In that moment, James wished he hadn't argued with his mother the day before.

Richard felt oddly calm as a wave of pulsing green washed over them.

Two more agents disappeared from the map. Montgomery somehow didn't think that his agents had apparated to safety.

Stephen Crebain paused in front of the corpse of his dead comrade, feeling sick. Everything appeared to be fine, except the neck up, which was either a bloody fountain or a gory mess. Probably got hit in the face with an explosive curse of some sort.

He pocketed the man's wand. It would be of little comfort to the family they'd send it to, but it was better than trying to give them a glimpse of the body. He felt rage, but also desperation. They were an elite team, trained specifically to handle extra-powerful threats. They were being culled with so little effort on the enemy's part that they may as well be sitting ducks.

He'd seen all eight corpses of all eight coworkers, now.

Stephen paused. Then he turned around. As soon as he caught a glimpse of that black outfit, he sent a powerful banishing hex at it. The figure crossed their arms to block the force, and cars parked nearby wailed in alarm as they were sent skidding several feet out of position or rolled over. Stephen fuelled his spells with rage and hate, but it didn't seem to help. The figure, smaller than he'd first thought, sent a Jeep flying at him.

Stephen cursed, only able to deflect the angle that the vehicle was flying in. How did this thing become so powerful? He didn't think he'd be able to keep up for long, and he wasn't naive enough to think any sort of last stand-esque spell would be able to stop the monster in its tracks.

He raised a dust storm and used to cover to sprint away as fast as he could, randomly shooting spells behind him to keep them occupied. He jumped behind a corner and continued to run until his breath gave way and he collapsed onto the sidewalk with shaking knees. He panted, barely able to keep himself sitting up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Stephen looked up in panic, only to see an armor-clad knee swinging up at his chin; pain flared through his jaw as he was tossed backward from the sheer force of the attack. He fumbled his wand only for his assailant to stomp on his wrist hard enough to break it; he grunted, but his fingers no longer felt like they were under his control to make wand movements.

"So, agent," the figure crouched down, keeping him pinned. Stephen fought not to shiver. "You're going to tell me everything you know."

Montgomery threw his coffee mug in as eight footsteps blinked out of the map and the blackness disappeared. He breathed hard, watching the dark liquid trickle down the wall. His hands shook. Not from rage, but from fear.

There was a monster walking through the streets - the same streets that he walked to work, the same streets his wife walked to go shopping, the same streets his daughters occasionally played in. And it was stronger than any fighters the Unspeakables could produce.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?