Author's Notes: Homecoming took it out of me. Sort of glad it's over now. I need to focus on getting my crap grades up. Enjoy the chapter and please review!

"What's the diagnosis, Doc?" Dean watched as the body slid out in front of the two doctors and himself. Not that one could actually call it a body anymore. It was more of a hunk of bloody flesh with a couple of internal organs torn to shreds. Even Dean felt the need to wince a little. This brutality was arguably some of the worst he's seen.

"Well, we can safely say death from physical trauma." Doctor Watson observed. Dean glanced at him, unsure if he was trying to lighten the mood or not. He didn't seem as terrified or sick as most civilians would. He was examining the remains with a cool professional glaze over his eyes. Dean swallowed down his queasiness and did the same.

"Was there a heart recovered from the body?" He asked the coroner, glancing up at him.

"Not that I could see." The man replied, poking a probe into the soupy mess that was the stomach of the poor woman. He pushed aside bits of flesh to show the insides which had been turned to slop. Dean peered in. He had seen something like this before. Nothing so savage but still with similar traits.

"These are claw marks." Watson echoed Dean's thoughts. He looked over at the man, impressed.

"So, mountain lion?" Dean asked him, curious to see what he would think.

"Well, that was the first assumption, but why is it only going after women then?" Watson turned to him, exerting a confidence that Dean had rarely seen.

"Could be a coincidence." Dean didn't know why he was bothering. This man would never guess there could be a monster at work. Yet there was something about him that Dean liked. Maybe it was that he was a fellow soldier. Maybe it was though he looked like he had seen hell he was still okay, still sane and that gave Dean hope for himself. Or maybe Dean was just spoiling for a good argument.

"I've learned that coincidences are lies people tell themselves to make sense of things they don't understand." Dean looked down on this man who must have been at least half a foot shorter than him. Yet the way he stood, you would have thought they were the same height. Dean couldn't help but like this man.

"You're smart, I'll give you that. But why don't you leave this one to the cops." He turned back to the coroner. "I'll take a copy of your autopsy." The man handed it to him and Dean saluted to the pair. "Gentlemen." He left the building looking over the reports. Again, no heart. The lunar cycle was still correct. Claw marks all over the victim. Seems they had a werewolf on their hands.

"Yeah, Sherlock, I'm on my way. Yes, I've got the reports right here. Sherlock? Hello?" John sighed and clicked his phone off. That man couldn't say goodbye properly if it was the last thing he ever did. He shifted the reports in his hands. That agent, what was his name? Smith? He had pointed out a pattern that John had missed entirely. Sherlock had picked up on it but at the time the two hadn't thought it meant anything.

No heart. John hadn't taken notice because the insides had been so thoroughly destroyed it was hard to tell the difference between organs any how. But both men were correct. None of the hearts were present. All these women, all their hearts missing. John had meant what he had said earlier. He didn't believe in coincidence. There was something going on here and if his best friend was correct, it meant a serial killer. And Sherlock was almost always correct.

He turned the corner down the street to see his dark haired best friend speaking to a woman with a bounty of blonde hair. He smiled as he approached and the woman looked him over appreciatively. He coughed and Sherlock turned to him.

"This is my partner, John." Sherlock waved a hand in his direction and John nodded at her. She smiled at him, batting her eyelashes as she extended a hand.

"Michelle." She introduced. He shook her hand a little roughly, much more concerned with the case at hand. "I saw the whole thing." She told him, observing him from under heavily made up eyelids. She still hadn't let go of his hand and he had to pull it away from her. "I was just telling Detective Sherly here all about it."

Sherlock's jaw tightened as she nicknamed him but he said nothing about it. "Tell him about where she had been." He asked her, controlled anger obviously under the words. Michelle didn't seem to notice as she was still looking over the blonde man.

"Well, she was leaving the Magnolia Hotel to go out for an early breakfast. She's a writer and I supposed she wanted to take an early morning hike for inspiration or something. I met her yesterday and she said something about it. What do you like to do in the early morning, John?" She ran her tongue over her slightly crooked teeth.

"Can you tell us anything about the attack?" He tried to turn the conversation back around. He was attempting not to be queasy about this woman's affections.

"Sure. This black thing came out of no where and jumped her. I couldn't see what it was because it was so dark. I was out to get an early morning drink and I saw it from behind. I ran into that alley off the side so I couldn't see much. Eventually the thing went off and poor girl was just a lump of dead. That shadow just vanished after that. I didn't know what it was but it was gone. Mysterious, huh?" She bit her lip as she stared up at him.

"Yes fascinating." Sherlock commented before he began walking away. John hurried after him, listening as Sherlock began to speak. "Now, I didn't notice it before but there is a connection that we over looked." He said under his breath.

"What is it?"

"Wait!" Michelle called after them. Sherlock tried to keep walking but she caught them by their arms. "Hey!" She spun them around to face her. "I haven't given you my phone number." She began scribbling on John's hand with a pen, the numbers smudged but legible. Then she caught him by the edge of his sweater and pulled his face to hers.

Sherlock tried to keep the amused look off his face as he saw the distressed expression on John's. When she finally pulled away, there was cheap pink lipstick smeared over his face. She winked at him. "Call me, John." She turned on her heel and swayed her hips as she walked. John stared at her incredulously.

"The Magnolia, John." Sherlock snapped his attention back to the problem at hand.

"Sorry, what?" John blinked at him.

"The Magnolia. It's the connection."

"Oh. Oh, of course." Sam breathed, shuffling through the pages.

"What?" Amy's head popped up from behind the book she was reading.

"The Magnolia Hotel. All these women have connections to the Magnolia."

"What do you mean?" Dean slid off of his bed to pad across the floor to his brother's side. His brow furrowed as he examined the paper and he felt rather than heard Amy come up beside him. His breath caught for a moment before he focused on what his brother was saying.

"So get this, the first woman, her brother owns the Magnolia. Then there's these others. This one had just gotten fired from there, one of them visited a relative there, and this most recent one was staying the night there. That's where it must be hiding. It's targeting women that visit the Magnolia. It must be hiding there."

"Solid theory, little brother." Dean clapped a hand on his shoulder and Sam couldn't stop a smile at the pride on Dean's face. "So what's the plan? We go in at midnight and gank the thing?"

"Looks like it."

"Do we actually have to kill it?" Amy whispered into Dean's ear. Her lips tickled his ear and a slight queasy feeling worked in his stomach. Another twist of guilt smothered what little other emotion her proximity elicited in him.

"What else are supposed to do with it? It's killing off civilians." He muttered back.

"Killing it seems a bit extreme."

"We got no other choice, princess." He moved forward down the dark hallway, ending the conversation. Amy followed along, trying to minimize the sounds her boots made as she walked. The cement basement floor nearly gave them away as it made their footsteps echo slightly. Shadows danced in the doorways and Amy found her hand curling around the sleeve of Dean's jacket.

"What?" He asked automatically, his ears turning slightly pink. He became extremely grateful for the dark lighting so that Amy couldn't see. She had grabbed onto his gun arm and unfortunately, he couldn't have that at the moment.

"Nothing." Amy removed her hand once she realized what she was doing. "Let's go find your werewolf." Amy walked almost beside him, trying to show that she wasn't afraid. Dean grinned a little at this. "Which door?" She mouthed at him as she looked around.

He pointed at the doors on the end. They were a double set and quite heavy looking. "Hey." Sam breathed as he joined them in the hall. Amy jumped a little but Dean had heard his gigantic brother coming from a mile off. "We good?" Dean nodded and the three of them advanced on the entrance to the monster's lair.

Dean felt better with Sam at his back, always guarding him, always protecting. The group stood around the doors. Dean held up three fingers as a signal and Sam nodded. Amy glanced between them, unsure of what he meant. Sam pulled her gently by the arm out of Dean's way. Her ginger hair bounced as she jumped when Dean kicked the door open.

Sam raced in after his brother and Amy followed a little more hesitantly. Dean's gun pointed around the room, looking for a target. Sam mimicked his movements and all of them jumped as another set of doors on the other side of the room burst open. In rushed a dark haired man and a shorter blond man, both trailing weapons on the bizarre sight in the center of the room.

Amy pushed Dean aside and he glanced at her in surprise. Her form was confident as she ran up to the strange happenings in the middle of the room. "Doctor!" She called out, a smile blooming on her flawless face. Dean and Sam exchanged glances. The Doctor?