A/N. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, it is much appreciated.
I couldn't think of a good convincing name for my new alien so i'm just refering to it as a shifter. Enjoy the new chapter, and cookies to reviewers. :)
Chapter 16.
Jack, Gwen, Ianto and Jamie spent the majority of the evening searching the areas around where the shape shifters had come through the Rift, looking for any sign of unusual animal activity. The only problem was they had no way of knowing from a distance if an animal was an ordinary animal, or what had come from the Rift. To get a reading on the trace Rift energy, they had to get fairly close to whatever they saw, and most of the time the animals ran before they got anywhere near.
Molly had been using the databases they had at their disposal to try and work out what type of shifter they were dealing with, as Jack had said that there were many entities that can do this. It did not make for pleasant reading and Molly was hopeful that she would never have to confront this thing. It was getting late when Molly was alerted to a 999 call that could be linked to what they were investigating.
'Jack.' she said over her comms. 'I think I may have something.'
'Where?'
'A call came into emergency services about, and I quote "a wild dog attack" on the outskirts of the park. Victims name is Tom Smith, he's en route to the hospital now.'
'Ok we'll go and check it out. Any luck trying to trace the residual Rift energy?'
'It's faint, but there are some traces around the park. Other than that I can only detect signals around the area the Rift was breeched.'
'Fine, let me know if you find anything else.' Jack said before he cut off the comms.
'Gwen, I'll drop you and Jamie off at the hospital to see if you can get in to see Tom Smith. Ianto and I will head to where the attack took place'
When they reached the hospital, Gwen and Jamie headed straight into accident and emergency where they saw two uniformed police officers stood near the reception desk. Gwen went over to them.
'We're with Torchwood' she said pointing to herself and Jamie. 'I need to see Tom Smith.'
'They are working on him at the moment, and it doesn't look good,' said one of the officers.
'Ok, so then can you tell me what happened?'
'According to the one witness we have, three large dogs appeared near to where Mr Smith was walking his dog and they started to attack him, she said that it also looked like his own dog joined in.'
'His own dog?' Gwen questioned.
'So she said, although she's currently undergoing treatment too, for the trauma all this caused her.'
'What was the witnesses name?' asked Gwen, making a mental note to deal with her later.
'Jane Mason.'
'What happened to the dogs after, did she say.'
'She said she saw them all run off.'
'Ok thank you.' Gwen turned and walked away from the officers and over to Jamie, who had been talking to a nurse while Gwen had been busy.
'Get anything from the nurse?' she asked.
'Yeah, I don't think the guys going to make it. Apparently he has extensive bite marks all over him, some that have severed arteries.'
Gwen felt sick at that thought. 'The strange thing is though,' Jamie continued, 'the nurse said that some of the marks don't look like dog bites, the shapes all wrong.'
'Well Jack did say that they attacked in their true form, maybe it changed when it went for him.'
'I've asked them to send me a copy of everything when they have finished, so I can look through it.'
'Good, I'll let the others know what we've found, then we can get back to the Hub.'
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jack and Ianto were on the edge of the park when Gwen contacted them to let them know what she and Jamie had found out at the hospital, and that they were now on their way back to the Hub. When Gwen had finished giving them the information and hung up her comms, Ianto said, 'That's strange.'
Jack looked at him, 'Strange, how?'
'Gwen just said that three dogs attacked Tom Smith, and that was before his own turned on him too, but only two things came through the Rift.'
'Best case scenario the witness was confused and she counted his own dog as the third. She would have been in shock, events could of got jumbled in her mind.'
'So, what's the worst case scenario?' asked Ianto, anticipating an answer he didn't want to hear.
'Depending on what it actually is that came through, certain entities can multiply as they get more powerful, and others can control other animals. There's one that can do both.'
'Hence Tom Smiths own dog turning on him.' said Ianto. 'Great.'
They then started to scan the area following what residual energy there was. It started to trail off once they reached the main road, so they headed back to the SUV to go back to the Hub. As it was getting really late, Jack contacted the others on the way back to tell them to call it a night, but to be back early the next morning.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
By 8am the next morning they were all back at the Hub and sitting round the table in the boardroom. Jack stood at the head of the table and said, 'Are we any closer to identifying what type of shifter this is?'.
'I think I have an idea,' said Molly. 'I was looking through the databases last night and I found one that fits the profile of what we are looking for. There is always more than one, they have a tendency to attack people, and while in their animal form they can control other animals of that type. The only thing is they tend to attack in more crowded areas, they cause a distraction using the animals they control and then can change into their true form and get someone unnoticed as there is panic going on around them. I can only guess that it went for Tom Smith because it was late and it was hungry.'
'Do you know what there true form is?' said Gwen.
'There are no real accurate descriptions, because no one who sees it tends to survive. Apparently they look like shadows, but they do have a solid form, because there is an old Torchwood record that says they killed one. I think the shadow idea is just because they move pretty quick in their real form.'
'These things sound worse than those other aliens we dealt with.' said Jamie.
'It's because they can change, you don't know what it is until it's too late.' said Jack.
'So can they turn into any animal?' asked Jamie.
'It seems that way, but they tend to stick with something unobtrusive so that they don't draw attention to themselves. That's why it's been dogs and cats, no one takes any notice, if they turned into a monkey and went into the centre of Cardiff they would get a lot of unwanted attention.' said Molly.
'That would probably cause a panic, because everyone would think the animals have escaped from the zoo.' said Ianto.
'The zoo', said Jamie with a hint of fear in his voice, although Molly was the only one who picked up on this.
'What about it?' asked Jack.
'You don't think they would go there do you? I mean there would be a lot of people, they could cause a disruption by shifting into something and grab someone there.'
'I doubt it's any more likely than it appearing anywhere else.' said Jack wondering why Jamie was so concerned about this particular place.
Jamie sat looking down at the table for a minute, as if he was having some kind of internal battle within himself. He got up and started to leave the room, 'I'll be back in a minute.' he said as he started to walk away.
'Damn.' said Molly, 'Wait,' she called as she too got up and followed him out of the room, leaving the other three looking on in confusion.
'Am I missing something?' said Jack.
'I think we all are.' said Ianto. 'Obviously it's something only they know about. I'm sure they will be back soon.'
It didn't take Molly long to catch Jamie up. When she did she could see that he was stood with his phone in his hand, but she could tell he was still deciding what to do.
'Don't do it.' said Molly as she walked up to him.
'You don't know what I'm going to do.' he said.
'Yeah I do. You're considering whether or not to ring Jess and tell her not to go to that party today, I knew it as soon as you asked whether or not that shifter would go to the zoo.'
Jamie didn't answer her straight away, she had seen right through him and he knew it.
'What would you even say to her? You certainly can't tell her the truth and if you try and stop her she's going to get upset and probably won't talk to you for a while. Trust me I was good at the silent treatment when my parents said something I didn't like.'
Jamie sighed. 'Call me overprotective, but between working with the police and working here I've found a lot to worry about. All that stuff last year didn't help.'
Molly assumed by that he was talking about the 456, but she wasn't going to ask. She moved closer to him and took his free hand in hers and squeezed it gently. 'The best thing you can do, is to help find a way to stop this. That way you will know she's safe.'
Jamie smiled, 'I suppose your right.'
'I usually am.' said Molly, she then kissed him lightly on the cheek. 'Come on the others will wonder what's going on.'
Jamie followed her back towards the boardroom, still smiling at the brief moment they had just shared, and also hopeful that they could come up with a plan of action.
