Cordelia stayed behind at the cabin with Sarah, while, Connor and Abby went with Xander.
"I'm a veterinarian." Abby told him. "If the animal is injured, I can help it. We try to get the animals that come out of the anomalies back though.
"From what I saw of this thing, I'd be more worried about anything it decides looks tasty. When I say too many teeth, I mean big, sharp teeth."
"Describe the creature you saw." Connor suggested. "Besides the teeth."
"Well, I can tell you it wasn't a saber toothed cat. More doglike. Around the size of a wolf. Ran fast."
"The Americas had several canids that existed around the time of the terror birds." Abby said. "They're generally described as like. Fox like, wolf like, bear like. Then there were the actual wolf and fox species. North America even had its own hyena. It crossed the Bering Land Bridge at one point."
"Hyenas, in North America." Xander muttered. "Oh, the irony."
"And then there was the Hyenadon, which wasn't actually a Hyena." Abby continued lecturing.
"You know, tracking is best done silently." Xander pointed out. "Given you don't want to risk scaring off what you're tracking."
"You haven't started tracking yet." She pointed out. "We're trying to get an idea of what we're looking for."
"Something large, dog or wolf like, with alot of teeth." Xander summed it up. "You said you like to catch them and send them back though those anomalies. I can't help noticing the lack of any equipment."
"Well, we had to leave in a hurry. We'll have to improvise." Danny told him.
"And if it's a matter of life or death is anyone going to object to me killing it?" Xander asked.
"Not if it's a matter of life and death." Danny assured him.
"Do you have a gun?" Xander asked. "Being a cop and all."
"Most British police officers don't carry guns on the job. And we did have to leave in a hurry, so no, I don't have a gun with me. Where's the flame thrower you used on the terror birds?"
"I didn't use a flame thrower. Let's go, the longer we spend talking, the farther that thing is going to get. And if it finds people, I have no doubt it will consider them a tasty treat."
The four set off in silence following Xander as he tracked the creature.
After more then a mile they found it eating a deer. Its head came up and it sniffed the air.
"Damn, the wind shifted." Xander murmured. "It might have caught our scent." Which proved to be true when the creature turned its head in their direction. "This was a stupid idea. What the Hell were we thinking tracking that thing without equipment to contain it or weapons."
"We have to use what we have right now. That thing can not be allowed to encounter people." Connor reminded him. "We just have to figure something - ."
With a roar, it charged them. Xander immediately went on the defensive. His hackles rose, his teeth thicken and sharpened, his eyes went black and his nails also thickened and sharpened. The creature sprang towards the group and Xander stepped in front of them, taking the impact of the creature on himself and falling back onto the ground. One hand grabbing its throat and the other raking across its belly. The claws on the hand at its throat dug in, drawing blood. He barely managed to keep its teeth from ripping his face off. Connor grabbed a tree branch and hit it across its back. It snarled at him. He hit it again. Xander pulsed fire from his hand into the creature from his prone position and smelled the burning flesh. The others stopped and stared. What was going on? With a final snarl the creature collapsed on top of Xander, bleeding from its belly where Xander's claws had raked it, its neck wounds cauterized by the fire he'd pulsed into it. Xander lay still, hoping it wasn't playing possum. Danny and Connor approached slowly and pushed it off of Xander. He lay still, his hand hurting from being so close to the fire he'd pulsed into the creature's neck. To the others amazement, his hand was healing right in front of their eyes. Xander rolled over and pushed himself up.
"How?" Abby managed to get out.
"Unless you're going to believe the explanation of Magic, then it falls under Top Secret itself." He answered. "Do you think there's anymore?"
"We'll have a team out here searching as soon as we report in." Danny told him. "If you're not going to tell us how you did that, can you at least show us where you found the anomaly? We need to close it."
"Yeah, let's get back to the cabin and Cordelia and I can show you from there. It's not far." Leaving the burned carcass where it was, since carrying it would have been very difficult, the four made their way back to the cabin, where they collected Cordelia and Sarah.
"That's an unusual looking animal." Abby commented. "I didn't have a chance to ask you before. Where did you get it?"
"Oh we found him a couple of days ago. A stray dog, we decide to adopt him. What do you mean, unusual looking?"
"I mean his coloring. It's reminds me of a brown hyena cub."
"Oh boy." Xander said softly. "Come on, let's go. Like I said, this anomaly thing isn't far." He led them to it and then stepped back and took Cordelia's hand in his. While Danny, Connor, Abby and Sarah were examining the anomaly, Xander quietly pressed the button on the control device.
"Hey, you never did say what you where doing in these woods in the first place." Danny turned to look and discovered, the two had simply disappeared.
