Disclaimer: The concept for this story was not designed by me, I merely inserted my own character
If we hadn't been in a major metropolitan area, I would've thought the person had been attacked by a bear. Parts of their clothing were torn. They had cuts on their body where the clothing was ripped. Those cuts weren't what had killed him though, no that would have been the giant chunk taken out of his throat.
Something was off, however. Jack came up to me. "Standard Weevil attack it seems like. Notice anything strange?"
"Yeah, if he died from bleeding out of his neck, where's the puddle of blood?"
"Nice catch. That's exactly what I was thinking. This body was definitely dumped. The attack didn't happen here. Also, Weevils normally go straight for the neck, so why does he have all those wounds? Normally humans can't put up much of a fight against Weevils, they're too strong and this man doesn't exactly look like he does bear wrestling for fun on the weekends.
"Ianto, see if you can get a hold of Owen, tell him we're bringing a body back to the Hub. Tosh, scan the area for anything strange or signs of a Weevil. I doubt you'll encounter it now, they normally come out at night. Teegan, help me get this into the SUV. Oh and Tosh, let's see if we can get an ID on the body."
"On it," Toshiko responded, tapping away on her new scanner.
"Why do I have to help with the dead body?" I asked, mildly disgusted. I moved around to the man's legs, ready to pick up his ankles.
"Initiation," Jack smiled. "You're not really part of Torchwood until you've handled a dead body." Jack grabbed the man under the armpits as I lifted by the ankles. He was surprisingly heavy for a man who looked thin.
Seeing this dead man-made me think a bit. Here I was, complaining about people being able to see the device on my neck and he'd never be able to go shopping again. I wondered if he had a family.
We put him in the mini lab in the back of the SUV. "Toshiko?" Jack asked.
"I'm not picking anything up in the area. Any wallet or anything? I'd rather not have to do a database search."
Jack looked at me. "Don't look at me, I'm not checking him. I've messed with dead bodies enough for one day, sorry."
He just smiled at me and checked the pockets of the man's pockets. He turned to Toshiko with upturned hands. "Nothing, sorry. Ianto anything from Owen?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Great. Ok, Toshiko, Ianto go to the lab, see if you can get us some coordinates on that Weevil and an id on the man. Teegan, with me, we're going Weevil hunting."
Before Toshiko and Ianto went back to the lab, Jack grabbed two cans of Weevil spray and two pairs of hand clamps.
The sky was quickly becoming dark. By the time Toshiko rang us with a triangulated location the sun had completely set.
Jack set me loose on my own so we could quickly cover the area and find the Weevil before it moved.
"So how exactly am I supposed to find this thing?" I asked over the ear piece Jack had given me.
"Just listen for it. It'll probably sound like a rat, only much bigger."
I sighed and kept walking the streets. The area Toshiko had pointed us to was near some shops and a parking garage. There was no end to the alley ways to look down. Plenty of shops and businesses meant plenty of leftover food for the Weevil to scavenge.
I heard a dumpster slam in an alleyway a little up ahead. Probably just someone taking out the trash. But something odd stirred inside of me, something like a predator instinct. I shook the feeling off and went to go check out the source of the noise.
Lo and behold when I turned into the alleyway, there was a Weevil sniffing about the dumpster. My heart leapt. "Jack, I found it!" I called excitedly over the ear piece.
Wrong move. The Weevil snapped to attention at the sound of my voice. It sniffed the air a few time and came charging at me.
"Follow it! I'll be there in a minute."
"I don't think that'll be a problem..." I said, backing up. It was no good, the thing was charging too fast. It bowled me over and kept running.
I scrambled back to my feet, in pursuit.
"Head north!" Jack called over my ear piece, "We'll corner it!"
"Got it!" I raced through the alleyways. The Weevil wasn't very hard to track, it wasn't exactly a master of stealth. The stench alone would be enough to track it.
I reached a long stretch of alleyway and saw Jack at the other end, the Weevil between us. Everything paused for a second as the Weevil looked between us, trying to decide the best course of action. It roared into the air and darted forward. I leapt at it as Jack sprinted at us.
I immediately realized why the Weevil had paused. The alley way was a dead-end. The Weevil back up against the wall and growled at me. I pulled out my can of Weevil spray.
"I hate to break it to you, but you're not my first," Jack had finally caught up, "Anti-Weevil spray, hand clamps." The Weevil just darted around furiously, looking for an escape. "Do you wanna take a shot or should I show you how it's done?" he asked me.
I motioned for Jack to go on ahead. "C'mon, let's make this easy for all of us." The Weevil suddenly charged at Jack before he had a chance to spray it. They tussled for a second before the Weevil got Jack in the chest. Three long lines of red blood bloomed on his chest, his shirt ripped where the Weevil had got him.
"Professional, eh? You alright?" I asked, the cuts looked shallow, but who knew where those claws had been.
"Yeah, after it!" Jack called. I was off before he even finished the sentence. The Weevil was already at the end of the alley way by the time I had rounded the corner. No good, it's heading for a populated area. This spurred me on even faster.
"It's heading for a parking garage two blocks to the right at the end of the street when you get out of the alley way!" Jack called over my ear piece, "Go in at the north entrance, I'll head south. We'll try to corner it on the top level."
I raced in the direction Jack told me. There were people around now, I couldn't make my inhuman leaps without drawing attention.
"Jack, what level?" I asked.
"It's hard to tell, I think the second. I've got Gwen with me now. Be careful."
I headed up to the second level, slowly scanning now. I had lost track of the Weevil. There were only a few cars in the garage, they all looked deserted.
Soon, I spotted Jack and Gwen at the other side of the floor. Out of no where, a white van sprang to life and the Weevil darted out.
"Jack over there!" Gwen called. It was too late, people jumped out of the white van, tasers in hand, yelling at each other to grab the Weevil. All the men were wearing black ski masks and jump suits. Before we even had a chance to react, the men had the Weevil in the van.
"Hey!" Jack yelled. One of the men just gave Jack a nod, I couldn't see his face. The van pealed out of the parking garage, almost running me over on their way out. I tripped over my own feet trying to get out of the way.
Jack and Gwen came over to me, Gwen helped me up. "Who the hell were they?" Jack asked.
We both just shook our heads. "Come on, let's get back to the Hub."
We went back to the SUV, Jack was obviously deep in thought. I had to practically run to keep up with him. Now, I didn't know a whole lot about this occult world, but apparently this kind of thing didn't happen very often.
When we got to the SUV, I tried not to think about the body in the back, I just hoped Jack wouldn't ask me to help him carry it back into the Hub.
Gwen and Jack were silent on our drive back to the Hub. They were as deep in thought as I was. I may have been new, but this situation didn't sit well with me. Who would possibly want to kidnap these horrible creatures? What use did they even have? They couldn't be up to anything good.
Jack rushed back into the Hub, everyone but Owen was already there.
"One, since when did other people know about Weevils? Two, have they done this before and if so why didn't we know about it? Three, what do they want with them anyway?" Jack rattled off to no one in particular.
Ianto was standing near Jack's desk, manilla folder in hand. "It might not be connected, but we've noticed a surge of unusual injuries being reported at the A&E unit."
It took me a second to realize that was the British version of the emergency room.
Jack flipped through the file that Ianto had handed him, "Chunks taken out of legs and arms, deep wounds to backs and stomachs," I peered over Toshiko's shoulder to get a look at the photo she was holding. It was pretty gruesome. "So we have a wave of Weevil attacks to add to our problems. Oh and by the way, that spray we've used on them previously? They're becoming immune to it."
Fantastic, just as I join the team, mutant Weevils get added to the list. As if they weren''t bad enough already. That would be just great considering I might have a whole hive of them with a vendetta against me now.
Jack was picking up his phone to make a call.
"They're mutating?" Toshiko asked.
"Or evolving." Ianto added.
"Or maybe they just hate me that much now," I chimed in.
"So any sign of the one we lost earlier?" Jack asked, waiting for the person on the other to pick up.
Toshiko had the answer to that one, "I've run a trace on the van's number plate and it's fake. Two and a half thousand vans of that type registered in the Cardiff area. Widen that to a forty mile radius and the number doubles."
"So run a trace on-" Jack started.
"Route via traffic cameras?" Toshiko cut him off and started leaving the room, "Processing that now."
On the other end of Jack's phone I could hear Owen's voice mail pick up.
I went after Toshiko, "Anything I can help with?" I asked.
"No, I think I've got it all handled," she responded. I was hoping she would say yes. Out of everyone in the Torchwood team, she seemed the person I had most in common with. In college I had majored in computer science, Toshiko seemed to be the tech person on the team. I didn't want to be known as Torchwood's standing army.
I walked away and glanced up. Gwen was standing in the conference room, on her cell phone. She looked upset about something.
I just went to sit in the lounge area, unsure of what to do. Everyone seemed to have something to do about the Weevil case except me. I guess Jack would eventually give me something to do.
Gwen came down from the conference room, worry drawn on her face, "Owen's still not answering his phone."
"Well he's been even more erratic than usual since that thing with Diane." Toshiko answered.
My ears perked up at that. Could this be the thing that had upset him the other night?
"Since the what?" Gwen asked. So apparently I wasn't the only one out of the know. It must have happened fairly recently.
Toshiko got up and walked to another computer, Gwen followed her. "What thing? What thing, Tosh?" I wondered why Gwen cared so much. She had a fiance didn't she? What did it matter if Owen had a thing with the Diane girl?
I started to get up to find Ianto. Maybe he could use some help with the coffee. As I walked away I heard Toshiko answer, "Owen and Diane. Before she took the plane, they had a thing. You knew that right?"
Jack came out of his office as I was walking by, "Come with me, apparently the Weevil in the vault is acting funny."
I followed Jack to the vaults, "So what exactly am I supposed to do here, Jack? It seems like everyone on the team has something to do and I'm just... here."
"Well you can decide that. Have you asked Toshiko to show you around the computer system?"
"I asked tonight if she needed help, but she said no..."
"Yeah she can be like that sometimes. She'll warm up to you."
When we got down to the vaults, Ianto was standing outside the Weevil holding cell. There was an inhuman moan coming from the cell.
"It started ten minutes ago," Ianto informed us.
The Weevil was just hunched on its dirty cell floor, moaning and calling into the air, like a wounded animal.
"What do you think it's doing?" Ianto asked, perplexed.
"Could it be sick?" I asked.
"No," Jack listened for a few seconds, "I think it's weeping."
"Why?" Ianto asked.
"Owen's been studying this one. He thinks they have a low level of telepathic ability to share emotion across distance"
"You mean it might be feeling the pain of another Weevil?" I shuddered at that thought, thinking back to when I blew up a lot of them. I couldn't imagine how this one must have reacted if that were true. Jack just glanced at me.
"I kind of hope we're wrong though."
"Why?"
"Because that would mean somebody's not only kidnapping Weevils, they're causing them pain." Jack answered. He walked closer to the cell. The Weevil stood up as he approached and moaned at Jack. It almost sounded like a plea for help. I couldn't bear to listen to the sound anymore, but I didn't want to appear weak. I just back up as far as I could in the cell room.
"What do you feel?" Jack whispered to the Weevil. "What do you know?"
We stood there for a few more minutes, watching the Weevil. I kept getting more uneasy, feeling worse and worse about what I had done to the Weevil nest a few days before. Luckily I was saved when Toshiko came over the Torchwood intercom telling Jack to come back up to the main Hub.
"I've tracked the van's route. It went straight from the car park out to the dock." She had a lot of information up on her computer. The main screen showed a map with a CCTV camera. On the camera was the white van that we saw. "This was two hours ago," she informed us. The clip was short, the CCTV went to static almost immediately after the van arrived.
"What happened?" Jack asked.
"The CCTV went down." Toshiko replied.
"Do you think it was deliberate?" Gwen asked.
"It had to be. I mean it went down as soon as they pulled up." I said, looking at Toshiko for confirmation.
"She's right. I think these guys really don't like to be watched."
"See, and I know it's a character flaw, but that makes me all the more determined to find out what it is they're hiding." Jack had crossed his arms, a line of worry drawn between his brows, "Tosh, Teegan, tomorrow we're going to those docks. Right now, everyone head home and get some sleep, I have a feeling you're going to need it."
Everyone went to gather their things and said goodnight. Owen never showed up tonight. I wondered where he could've went and if this was a common thing for him. Everyone acted like it was. Everyone went through breakups, why was he acting like such a baby about this one? Could there have been something more about it? Something... uh... Torchwood..y?
One more thing was on my mind that I had to talk to Jack about. I hung back after the others had left. He was sitting at his desk, looking down at some papers. As I approached, I felt like a kid asking her dad for something.
"Yes?" he asked without looking up.
"I... uh... wanted to talk to you about getting my own apartment..."
"What about it? You get find an apartment and lease it. Just like America."
"It's just... I've never done it before. Everything has always been through school. I don't even know where to begin." I could feel my face flushing red out of embarrassment.
Jack sighed, "What're they teaching to kids in school these days? Ask Ianto tomorrow before he goes home for the night. I'm up to my neck in paperwork right now."
"Anything I can help with? I was a student worker in one of our office back in school."
"Oh so you can do office work, but not normal adult tasks?"
"I could do it if I was shown, it's just I've never had to do it before. I was shown how to do filing and fill out paper work before..."
"Relax, I'm kidding with you. Here, take this stack of papers, use that computer over there and look up any information you don't know. If you don't understand something, just ask. Hopefully with us both working at this, we'll be done by midnight," he chuckled, "Look at us, doing paperwork on the weekend. I've gone from intergalatic time travel to being Michael Scott. Although I hope I'm doing a better job managing than he was."
I laughed. The paperwork wasn't really that dull and it gave me an inside look at what they dealt with at Torchwood. By the time midnight came around, I was nodding off over my papers. I had finished the initial stack and had been working on some more. I guess my lack of sleep had finally started catching up with me.
When Jack finally tapped me on the shoulder (with a annoying smirk on his face, might I add), I trudged off to bed, grateful for some rest. Luckily, my sleep was dreamless that night.
The following morning was filled with a flurry of activity. Ianto made coffee and brought some muffins. Toshiko arrived shortly after him and Gwen was on her heels. We loaded up the SUV with a bunch of equipment (laptops it and testing kits mostly) and put our location into the GPS. Gwen stayed behind to monitor the CCTVs. Our destination was some docks on the bay.
We went to the furthest most warehouse located on the dock. We got out of the SUV quickly, flashlights in hand.
As soon as we did, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It felt like something was watching us, I didn't like it one bit.
"Looks like we missed them," Toshiko said.
I could feel she was wrong, but I didn't want to speak up. I couldn't explain the feeling anyway.
"Yeah, but if you quit places in a hurry, you tend to be forgetful."
We went inside one of the warehouses. As soon as we went in I scanned the place with my thermal vision.
"Any Weevil nests?" Jack asked.
"None that I can see. I don't like this place. Gives me a weird vibe," I said. The warehouse was dark and the flashlights brought little comfort. I felt like something was going to jump out from behind the miscellaneous junk piles any second.
"You know what they used these warehouses for during World War Two?" Jack asked. Toshiko and I shook our heads. "Storing the bodies of dead GIs." I felt a shiver run up my back.
I flicked on my thermal vision again, we had stopped walking. There was something lumped oddly ahead, "Jack," I half whispered. Suddenly a door slammed and Jack and Toshiko drew their guns. I looked at them longingly.
I noticed Toshiko and Jack looking at me strangely and I realized I was standing in a half crouch.
"Come on," Jack said.
After a few more minutes, the tension was pungent in the air. "There's nothing here," Toshiko said.
I remembered the lump I had seen earlier, the slamming door had distracted me. "Jack, " I half whispered again, but he was deep in his own thoughts.
"So what were they doing here? Why come all this way out?" he asked. I touched his elbow and pointed at the lump, now visible without my thermal vision.
"What is it?" Toshiko asked.
We walked towards the doorway it was in.
"Looks human," Jack said and looked at me for confirmation.
"It's cold. If it's human it's not alive."
"Looks to be male," Toshiko said.
"Hello?" Jack called anyway, "You ok there?" we walked closer. "We're looking for the people who were here last night. If you saw anything, now's a good time to speak up."
"Jack, he's bleeding!" Toshiko shouted. We rushed over, the man was lying in a puddle of his own blood. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, looking around. There were huge chunks taken out of the man, his shirt was ripped up. It was all eerily similar to the murder we saw yesterday.
"Weevil marks," Jack said, like it wasn't obvious.
"You don't think it's still here?" Toshiko asked.
"No we'd here it. Teegan, help me with the body," Jack said, his tone indicating this decision was final. I grimaced and started to reach down for the body when a gaudy ring tone started sounding.
"Is that his?" Toshiko asked. Jack and I just raised our eyebrows at her.
"You think I'd choose that ring tone?" Jack asked.
"If you ever hear that ring tone coming from my phone, lock me up cause I'll have gone full alien," I joked. Jack was searching the body for the phone.
"Don't answer it," Toshiko said. Jack answered it anyway.
"Hello?" Jack said.
The voice on the other end was loud enough for us to hear. It was distorted sounding, "I don't know who you are. Stay out of what doesn't concern you."
"Who killed this man?"
"Did you hear what I just said?"
"I have this selective deafness when I'm talking to cowards or murders."
"Don't interfere in things you don't understand," the voiced warned.
Jack finally reached his breaking point, "Oh, I understand this better than you, cause I know how this is going to end. We're going to hunt you down, we're going to ensure that you're punished for what happened here, and we're going to make you surrender that creature you kidnapped. Is that clear enough?"
The phone simply disconnected. Jack dialled a number on the phone, "Ianto, I need you to trace all calls to and from this number in the last 24 hours. Fast as you can. We're on our way back. Teegan, get the ankles."
I was startled when he finally addressed me. Jack was in full business mode at this point and completely pissed off. I could tell this wasn't good.
"Who was this man?" Toshiko asked.
"Don't know," Jack said. "We'll get Owen to ID the body when we get back. I'm getting really tired of hauling all these bodies back to the Hub."
When we finally got the body in the back of the van, Jack made another call on his phone. This time the voice wasn't loud enough to here.
"Nice try, Owen. I want you back at the Hub immediately. We've got a Weevil murder, so get your bony little ass over here now," we could here Jack say. I stifled a laugh, I could tell Toshiko was forcing herself not to smile as well.
The ride back was uneventful, although the body in the back unnerved me. I wasn't used to being around dead things. I couldn't even remember the last funeral I had been to. The last week brought me close to a lot more death than I would ever be comfortable with.
Luckily by the time we got back, Owen was waiting for us with a body trolley. I was grateful I wouldn't have to handle the body anymore. I followed everyone solemnly back to the main Hub.
Everyone except Ianto gathered in the autopsy room after Owen put the body on the table. He had stripped the body of all clothing (but luckily spared of his loins by covering him with a blanket). Gwen was going through the man's wallet.
"Dan Hodges, date of birth, 21st of January 1979. Salesman for web publishing software. Looks like he was married with a kid," she was showing us a picture of his wife and child from the wallet.
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Owen was holding up that man's hand, which had a wedding ring on it. He was obviously pissed off about something. "Right, definitely death by Weevil, but he took a right kicking before the throat was punctured. Weevils go for the kill, straight for the jugular. Look at his face; black eye, bruises to the cheekbones. Same across the back and ribs."
"Could he have been tortured?" Toshiko asked.
"Maybe, but I reckon these wounds were inflicted by humans. But why smack somebody about and then set the Weevil on them? Why not get the Weevil to do all the work for you?"
Ianto walked into the autopsy room.
"Any joy with the phone records," Jack asked.
"The last incoming number was blocked. The phone's call history has been erased," Ianto informed us.
"God they move fast," Toshiko said.
"You ask me, these guys are using Weevils to carry out the perfect murder. No fingerprints, no traces of recognizable DNA, a quick and guaranteed death. Nothing to connect anyone to the murder," Jack said.
"Right. Should be a piece of piss to find the killer, then," Owen said. I just rolled my eyes, reminding myself to stay out of his way today.
"What about this guy?" Gwen asked. "Someone's got to break it to his wife that he's dead."
Everyone simply looked at Gwen, "Fine I'll do it," she said and headed for the door. "Owen, want to come with me?"
"Not really," he said, "but if it gets me out of here," Owen continued, pulling off the scrubs he had put over his clothes, "I'll come."
The both left to find the man's family from his wallet. I had no desire to be apart of that.
I walked over to Jack's desk, where he was working on his computer, "Need something?" he asked.
"No, it's just, I noticed at the warehouse..." I started.
Jack stopped working on his computer and looked at me. Toshiko had come over as well. "Yes?" Jack asked.
"Well, there was no way that man made it there on his own. With the amount he was bleeding, he would've dripped blood and dragged it all over the floor. His body must've been carried and dumped. Which would mean the murder may not have taken place there."
Jack thought about that for a second. "Good observation, but what does that leave us with?"
"They must have known that warehouse wasn't being used," Toshiko chimed in. "Maybe someone on their team owns it. That means it would have a name to it. If we can find out who owns it, we can trace him, find out if they're up to anything unusual."
"I like you're thinking, Tosh. And good catch, Teegan. Let's get to work team." Jack said, clapping his hands.