Chapter One: Searching the Slaughter House

Author note: This story is the fifty-first in the Magical Flashpoint series. It follows "Tower of Babel".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin. I also do not own Criminal Minds, which I've temporarily imported up north. I trust any Criminal Minds fans have seen why I did a bit of mixing and matching of the FBI Agents – I break canon, that's what I do. *innocent author smile*

Previously

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner arched a dark brow at the man behind the desk, his expression skeptical. "Your top SWAT team wants to work on our case?"

"Officer down," Parker snapped.

"Don't move!" Wordy yelled. "Put him down now!"

Spike's body flew at him, followed by a flash of light, and a rusty tin can.

"Portkey!"

Gulping, Spike held out his smartphone, his other hand pointing first to the phone and then to his teammate.

The brunet took the phone, set the language back to English, then nodded in confirmation as he gave it back. Yes, he could read the writing.

Fear blazed across Spike's face, his Adam's apple bobbing at the force of his terrified gulp. His hand trembled and he nearly dropped the phone as he pointed to it and shook his head.

Wordy darted towards the open doorway, Spike right on his heels. About to steal a glance back, the brunet felt his power armlet pulse and his peripheral vision caught a flash of gray; instinct screamed and he rammed himself sideways into his teammate, hurtling them both to the ground. Spike struggled and Wordy hastily covered the other man's mouth, craning his neck to see through the doorway.

Inferi. Wordy worked an incendiary grenade free from his belt, brought the grenade up, using his teeth to yank the pin out, then lobbed it into the next room. Fire boomed, echoing in the tiny area, and Inferi howled agony. Wordy turned his face away, focusing on his trembling, terrified teammate, and waited for the screaming to stop.

It took a very long time.

Greg went for his weapon. "SRU! Don't move!" he yelled. His sidearm rose, snapping on target even as the wizard started to Disapparate again.

The gryphon snarled and Parker's gun went off, striking the subject's left shoulder.

"Bedyrene me! Astyre me thanonweard!" Wind roared, whipping around the wizard, and then he was gone, leaving the Aurors in the dust and Greg at the mercy of a trio of death glares from the FBI agents.

What have I done?

He was injured, Wyrdig was injured – they'd both been stung by poisonous scorpions and Wyrdig was bleeding out from the Death Eater's curse. Oh, yes, that was right: he was doing the same. Scéaþ closed his eyes in exhaustion and regret. They'd made it this far and they were just going to die here…meters from safety and freedom.

"I'm sorry, guys," Scéaþ whispered. "We tried, but it just wasn't enough…"

A sound drew him up and around.

A wand lifted.

Blackness took him.

Now

Sergeant Greg Parker stared determinedly at the ground, avoiding glares from both the wizards and the profilers. The officer worked his right hand, dismay welling up from his soul. He'd tried to go lethal on a subject with hostages. No attempt to negotiate or capture the subject, not even an attempt to switch to less lethal. He'd just gone straight for the subject's throat. Like a predator, a gryphon. Even now, his wild side was smugly content with the outcome, not seeming to care that Spike and Wordy were still missing. Not seeming to care that they had no more Apparition trail to follow.

"Greg?"

Eddie. Shame shone in gryphon eyes as Parker lifted his head. His team leader inhaled sharply, taking the inhuman gaze in. Then he held out one hand, not saying anything.

He didn't have to. Greg countered gryphon indignation with his own fury at his feral half for influencing him and forcing his hand, and pulled his sidearm, briskly ejecting the magazine, racking the slide to remove the chambered round, and passing both gun and magazine to his team leader. Softly, he added, "You have command, Ed."

"Copy." Lane reassembled the weapon before stowing it, but didn't move away. "Boss, we're gonna find them."

"How?" Self-disgust rang. "I just shot our best lead."

"And maybe that gives Word and Spike the opening they need to get away," Ed countered. "Don't give up on 'em, Boss." Noting Parker's sidelong glance at the infuriated profilers, the bald sniper snorted. "You'd think as good as they're supposed to be, they'd have caught onto the magic before we did."

"That's not fair, Ed; they get treated the way we were that first year," Greg scolded gently. "They know about magic, yes, but only generalities, I'm sure."

"So everyone else gets a blind spot except you?"

Parker flinched at the question, his gaze shifting downwards again. "I should have this under control by now," he whispered.

"And Word should be a wizard," Ed retorted. "But he's not and that's the first time you've lost control in months."

"Got something," Simmons called, drawing both men around. The Senior Auror's expression was a curious mix the negotiator couldn't quite read, but the determination was evident.

"A lead?" Agent Rossi inquired.

"Yes," the blond confirmed. "Possible location, from a very reliable source."

"A source." Agent Hotchner was skeptical, something Parker understood. They were dealing with a lone serial killer that hadn't even been positively identified yet. How in the world did Simmons have a 'source'?

The Auror ignored the skepticism in favor of turning to his men. "Okay, you lot, one more jump!" he roared. "Let's bring our people home!"

Ed Lane's grimace had nothing – very little – okay, maybe more than a little – to do with his umpteenth Side-Along Apparition of the day. It didn't make sense. How could his boss go from firm, solid control over his wild side to virtually no control? Shouldn't it have been the other way 'round? And more than that, why would Greg's wild side disregard the threat to Spike and Wordy in favor of revenge? Aside from those first few minutes in McKean, the gryphon had steadfastly protected Team One – why stop now?

The acting Sergeant glanced up at where they'd arrived, his frown deepening. Technically, the rundown building in front of them was magic-side. On the other hand, it was an old factory of some kind and the sniper was pretty sure wizard factories were few and far between. "What's the story here?" he asked.

One of Simmons' wizards grunted. "Twenty years ago, all this was Muggle," he replied. "When the Muggles moved out, a couple entrepreneurs moved in. They were able to fix up most of the area, but a few buildings never got renovated."

"So they're just abandoned?" Lou inquired, head cocking to the side.

The wizard shrugged. "Don't know; been awhile since I had a case out this way."

Rossi arched a brow. "Where was your case, Auror?"

After a minute of thinking, the Auror pointed south. "Three factories that way, I think. I got called in about a month before the wards went up around the area – a couple Muggle gang members broke in and started making Muggle potions."

"Drugs," Sam put in, translating for the confused profilers. "Meth?"

"How should I know?" the Auror snipped. "We ran them off, got Muggle-Repelling Charms on all the buildings until the wards went up and that was the end of it."

"Unlikely to be related," Hotchner mused.

"Got a door here, guys," Jules called; the brunette constable had scouted for a way into the factory while her now chagrined colleagues debated ancient history.

"Rookie."

"Yes, sir," Onasi said, already moving forward with his wand up. Jules moved sideways to let the Auror scan for any magical booby traps, pulling her sidearm as she moved. Her teammates and the profilers followed suit; the wizards drew their wands, most of them already shifting to be behind their techie colleagues.

The profilers looked unhappy at being in front, but Ed knew better. Put a wizard in front of a techie and you'd be jostling for a shot and praying you didn't hit your own ally. But put that same wizard behind a techie and watch the baddies flail against a two-pronged attack they weren't equipped to counter. Eventually, the sniper knew, the criminals would smarten up and figure out how to handle techie Aurors, but for now…hunting season was open and very, very good.

Just inside the door, Onasi and Roy halted, both men freezing at the sight in front of them. Then the detective ducked back as his partner cast a shield; the magic shimmered as it flexed into a visible barrier. "Sir! Scorpions!"

Simmons swore. "Nasty buggers," he growled. "You good, rookie?"

"Fine, sir."

With a nod, the blond waved his men forward. "Reverse Bubble-Head Charms," he ordered. "Rookie's got 'em contained on this side; Indra, get a barrier up on the other side! The rest of you, pick your targets and call 'em out."

Team One fell back, pulling the profilers with them while the wizards dealt with the scorpions. Roy stayed where he was, gun at the ready, unwilling to accidentally get in the way. Ed used the brief interlude to pair his teammates up, leaving only himself as 'free-range'. He paired his boss with Sam, trusting the ex-military sniper to keep Sarge's feral side under control. Lou and Jules slid together at a brief glance, the brunette giving him a thumbs up. She would keep Lou's spirits up in his best friend's absence.

The three profilers grouped together, wary and ready for action. Ed met Hotchner's gaze, arching one brow in silent inquiry; the FBI agent frowned in Parker's direction, but inclined his head. Ready.

Lane shifted back toward the factory door, shoulders tensing and breathing slowing as the sniper prepped for action. In the doorway, Simmons barked orders, directing the battle against the scorpions with as much intensity as if he was fighting human opponents. Giles' barrier flared as a stinger lashed it, but otherwise gleamed a steady translucent, opaque hue. Roy was in a half-crouch, out of the way and gun drawn should any of the scorpions somehow make it through his partner's defense.

It took over five minutes, but Simmons finally gestured his techie colleagues closer, reorganizing his wizards with a curt, "Form up." The profilers managed to hang back, but Ed didn't care. If they wanted to cripple their own lines of fire, that was not his problem. Simmons closed with the acting Sergeant, wand at the ready as he and Lane led the way into the factory, past a score of dead scorpions.

"Stairs," the wizard grunted.

"I see 'em," Ed breathed. "Let's clear this room by room."

A sharp nod.

Slowly, carefully, the Aurors moved, covering each other with gun and wand. The bald Auror scowled at the sight of a metal autopsy table, slick with fresh gore. The images his imagination presented him with were…grotesque. If that had been used for living victims…he shuddered.

"Man down," Lou called, drawing his superiors' eyes to a sight just a meter or so past the table. Jules grimaced, but hung close as Young covered the distance between himself and the fallen man in seconds. Ed, looking closer, swallowed hard. The dead man lay in a pool of blood, livid bruising standing out around his neck; his left shoulder had been torn apart by…something. His wand was still clutched in the other hand, in a death grip. He had not died easily, that much was plain.

"That's our subject." The Boss's voice was toneless, his expression impossible to read as he joined his constables around the fallen man.

Ed's jaw dropped, accented by Sam's incredulous, "Your gun did that, Boss?"

Remorse and sorrow gazed back at them. "The round was…enhanced."

Translation: Greg's magic had imparted its own blow to the subject, a fact that significantly heightened the team leader's concerns over his boss's magical control. However… The sniper stepped closer, frown reappearing as he looked the dead man over again. "You didn't choke him."

Hazel lightened in surprise; Parker swiveled back, eyebrows reaching for a long absent hairline. "No, I didn't," he agreed softly.

"So who did?" Lou wondered aloud.

"And where are Spike and Wordy?" Jules interjected. "If this is our subject, then this has got to be our location."

The team leader snapped around, but Simmons shook his head. "No one here but us, Lane. Indra checked. He picked up their magical signatures, but they're not here anymore."

Both the SRU cops and the profilers gawked, the latter astonished that No-Maj Aurors had magical signatures and the former shocked that Spike had a magical signature. Ed noticed his boss's eyes narrow thoughtfully, but the Sergeant didn't voice his suspicions. Instead, he turned back to the dead subject and studied the bruising, sorrow flashing across his face.

"Sir!" Heads came around as another member of Simmons' squad appeared, his face pale. "I found something."

'Something' turned out to be an elaborate surveillance setup. Over a dozen magical mirrors, all connected to a Pensieve with some sort of spell to capture the images in artificial memories. The mirrors displayed different areas of the factory, most with deadly traps, one with scorch marks, and one with a pack of dead dogs.

"Crups," Nathan spat, the word itself voiced like a curse.

"Crups?" Agent Gideon asked lightly.

A pale Onasi filled in the details. "Wizard-bred magical dogs, sir. You need a license to have them in techie areas 'cause they'll," he gulped, "…they'll attack techies."

"Muggles," Simmons tacked on at the puzzled expressions from the profilers.

"Giles?" The Aurors and profilers turned towards Jules as she examined the Pensieve, her expression thoughtful. "Can we watch this?"

The brunet cocked his head to the side, stepping closer to the stone basin. "I don't think so…"

"You can, sir," the Auror who'd found the room piped up. He tapped a sequence of glowing runes and the mirrors lit up.

Greg swung back to the mirrors, then stiffened. "There." His colleagues followed his point to one of the mirrors, where two familiar forms had just appeared out of thin air. "Stop it," the Sergeant ordered; startled, the young Auror obeyed. Hazel shifted to Young. "Lou, can we record this?"

"Sure, Sarge," the tan-skinned constable acknowledged. "I'll go get a camera."

"Grab 'em all," Ed countered. "Let's see if we can get one on each mirror."

"Copy."

Greg focused on helping Lou set the cameras up, forcing his mind away from the dead subject in the next room. The forensic Aurors had been called to catalog the gruesome scene, but the Sergeant had a feeling they were about to find out exactly what had happened inside this…horror house.

"Done," Lou announced, setting the last camera's focus. "I've got them slaved together; if one starts recording, they all will."

"We could pass it off as surveillance footage," Agent Rossi suggested. "Get a wider read on this."

"Let's watch it first," Onasi countered softly.

Though Greg agreed, he dreaded the experience. The wards had blocked his ability to sense his constables' emotions – a mercy, he now suspected. But he had to watch, had to know what his men were going to be dealing with for the foreseeable future. And so, when Ed glanced over at him, question clear, Parker inclined his head.

At first, as they focused on the first mirror, it wasn't that bad; Wordy checking his unconscious, injured teammate over and securing their position as best he could. The oddities started when Spike regained consciousness. Greg kept his expression utterly still as the two constables struggled to communicate. Why were they struggling? Both Spike and Wordy's sentences were clear, easy to comprehend.

"What's Spike saying?" Lou asked.

Giles shook his head. "I don't know. It's not Latin."

"Not Italian either," the tan-skinned constable muttered.

The negotiator didn't permit so much as a twitch as he leaned forward, watching Spike's mouth move. His team was right; it wasn't English, Italian, or Latin. So what language was the bomb tech speaking? And how was he able to understand a language he'd never even heard before?

Despite the language barrier, Wordy and Spike were still teammates – they managed, in fairly short order, to jury-rig a way to 'talk'; Greg beamed proudly and Eddie nodded approval from his position at his boss's shoulder.

The watchers winced at the room of broken glass, but it wasn't much of a trap. Greg eyed the next three mirrors, wondering why the first two were showing an empty corridor and the last had an overhead wide-angle shot of three visible traps. Spike's yell for Wordy to run made him jump; the deadly wall of spikes drew gasps and several explicit swears from Eddie and Lewis.

What followed was, in the Sergeant's opinion, nothing less than a horror movie as his constables struggled past traps that still bore the stains of prior victims and fought desperately to survive. Eliminated a room full of Inferi and took on a feral pack of Crups. And just when it seemed they'd made it, the scorpions and their master descended to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

On the final mirror, Spike's screams rang in their ears as Wordy's form blazed blue and he rolled to his feet, lunging at the subject with a snarl of inhuman fury. Giles gasped softly and Parker knew why. Wordy had just used his magic with no visible signs of pain. Had just broken a body-bind with nothing more than raw power from a Squib-sized – and crippled – magical core. Greg felt tears prickle as his gentle giant of a constable choked the life out of his opponent, taking a brutal Cutting Curse to the chest as he did so. A monster their subject might have been, but this was going to hit Wordy like a sledgehammer. Even though he'd only killed to save his life. To save Spike's life.

Parker himself still had nightmares from McKean. He'd lost count of how many times he'd woken in a cold sweat, re-living his kills at McKean Magical Prison – and never mind that he'd been mentally incapacitated or that he'd saved his team by killing their attackers. He'd never wanted any of his teammates to live with similar nightmares. Never.

The tears trickled down unnoticed as the gravely injured constable staggered to his teammate's side and broke the second body-bind with the last of his strength. At the edge of the mirror a new figure appeared. Furious growls and hisses rang out as the figure knocked Spike out and disappeared with both constables.

"Back that up," Ed ordered.

"Ed, I got it," Lou intervened, his voice intense. "I'll get this back to the truck and clean the images up, see if I can ID our new subject."

Parker lifted a hand, stilling his team's movements. "Lou, swap out all the memory cards for new ones." He gestured towards the Pensieve. "He didn't set this up for Spike and Wordy."

"There are more," Jules breathed in horror.

"At least fifteen," Agent Hotchner rumbled.

Greg nodded once. "Lou, can you put the camera angles together? Make it look like one video?"

"Sure thing, Boss."

Simmons turned his attention to the Pensieve. "Lot more than sixteen memories in here," he observed sourly. "I can get the next one set up." He glanced up and around. "This might take a while."

The Auror Sergeant met his colleague's gaze. "Then let's get started."