Under the Bloodless Moon (attn: Torchwood!)

It was after midnight when they would have gotten the call, the Captain letting them know in clipped tones, obviously agitated, to move and get to a particular place. A street which, unusually, they would find closed off by police cordons at both ends. It was raining, a steady, thick curtain slamming down from thick clouds that almost, but not quite, obscured the thin sliver of moon. The streetlights sent scribbles of light out across the narrow lane, glistening and casting everything else into deep shadow. The police tape had already been run through on one end, the Torchwood SUV parked haphazardly somewhere to the left of the center of the road.

Captain Jack Harkness seemed oblivious to the rain, standing about a fifth of the way down the street from the north way - where the SUV was parked - hands in the pockets of his greatcoat and looking down at something.

It wasn't quite a 'something', though - it was, or had once been, a someone, now twisted and almost burnt-looking under the shallow light of a nearby lamp. They were clutching something to their chests with wizened, twisted hands, their body contorted into an almost fetal position. There was a wicked-looking gash in their back, just between the shoulder-blades, tearing cloth stained by blood and revealing flesh that resembled nothing so much as old, knotted wood.

"And I came into a place void of all light," he quoted, with a twisted sort of half-smile that did absolutely nothing to disguise his vague irritation. It had been at least two hours after finding the body that anyone at the police had thought to call in Torchwood, and by now, even if they could have correctly identified whatever had done... whatever to the person (human, he was quite sure, but sex couldn't be determined), they never would be able to find and catch it in a timely manner now. As if corpses showed up looking that old every day, sure.

It probably wasn't nice or entirely rational to be pissed off about it, but he would have liked a heads-up before the culprit could escape entirely. The trouble with tracking things of alien origin - and this had to be alien origin, to say nothing of fucking bizarre - was that they tended to get out of the way pretty quickly, and while they sometimes stood out, it wasn't always true, so losing track could have ramifications beyond just having to wait a couple of hours before you found them; it could be the difference between finding them at all and never seeing them again.

"Fourth of these in the last two weeks," he announced when the team had gotten there. Ah. That explained the frustration.

Owen was kneeling beside the body, prodding it inquisitively. "Looks like the others, same gash in the back, same positions, everything looks about the same. We should still get it back to the hub for a closer look." He put his tools back in his bag, pulling the collar on his leather jacket up to protect himself from the rain. "I can't tell you much more out here."

Ianto approached the location of the body slowly, not wanting to get too close. He wondered, of course, like everybody else, what had done such a thing. It was the most disgusting and intimidating thing he'd seen in a long while, which was saying a lot, considering.

He leaned down to look closer, but still not too close, and frowned.

"I hope it wasn't a human to do this, again..." Ianto muttered, retreating back to the SUV.

"Oh, I don't think a human could've done this," Owen said, looking back at the body. "I'd also say that we can count Weevils out, too." He bent back down beside the body. "This wound here, I'd say it's a weapon, Weevil's don't use weapons."

Gwen exited the SUV and walked to the boys, she placed a hand on Ianto's shoulder.
"You ok?"

The body was holding something to it's chest, almost as if it was praying in desperation.

Ianto glanced at Gwen's hand on his shoulder, and then and Gwen, with a slight smile.

"Yeah." He said, placing his hand on hers briefly. He then turned to Owen, curious. "I wonder what sort of weapon..."

He thought perhaps, once the body was brought back to the hub, if they could try and identify it, and maybe they would come up with some theory to start from.

Gwen smiled back at Ianto, their friendship had grown considersably in the time Jack was gone, and she knew how cases like this affected them all.
She turned her hand and squeezed his before pulling away.
"Right, I'll go grab a body-bag from the SUV."
She jogged back to the car and opened the boot, pulling out one of the stock of black bags they kept folded up behind the weapons and headed back to the boys.
She pouted slightly at the back of their heads, and coughed to get their attention, gracefully holding out the bag.

"I wonder what sort of weapon..."

"I can't tell out here, because of the rain, but once we get back to the hub, I'll let you know..." Owen said, gingerly helping Gwen lift the corpse into the body back, and then carry it back to the SUV.

"This wound here, I'd say it's a weapon, Weevil's don't use weapons."

"Weevils don't do that, either, and I'm pretty sure our friend didn't come like that," Jack said, indicating the wrinkled, wizened skin of the corpse as they loaded it into a body bag. He looked around, doing a brief and, he knew, ultimately futile search for any further clues. It had been way too long for that.

"Let's get back to the Hub and see if we can figure out anything new." Because the last four times had yielded exactly zero clues, except that something had happened and something not human was responsible.

And that each of the victims was found holding something. A spool of thread.

Gwen with Owen's help heaved the body bag in the back of the SUV.
She closed the boot and went to stand near Jack and Ianto.

Ianto looked over as Jack roamed the site for clues, looking frustrated.

"Anything, sir?" He asked, all the while knowing the answer would be no. He started walking back to the SUV, as he waited for an answer.

Owen finished placing the body in the SUV as gently as he could. Gwen closed the boot, and he got in the SUV.

As Owen and Gwen finished with the body and went into the SUV, so did Ianto, sighing as he sat down. "So..." He said, to nobody in particular.

"Nothing," Jack reported, heading back to the SUV himself. Getting in the driver's side - he had driven it there, so common sense said he drove back to the Hub. "As expected. We're gonna have to do something about this; it's starting to piss me off." He said it lightly, but it was an understatement. He didn't like it when something started killing people in Cardiff and he couldn't even find a goddamn clue.

Gwen got back in the car as well, they would leave her behind if she wasn't careful.
She leaned her head against the back seat, so much for a quiet night of paperwork.

(( OOC: tbc in the Hub ))