Driving Needs, part twelve

No Dark Armor today, sorry. There's a lot going on and my brain's not in that place. I'll try to get back to it next week. Meanwhile....

"Jesus, Lili." The man looking around the crime scene was white-haired, with pale blue eyes and skin wrinkled with age, but he stood and moved like a man in his thirties. "What the hell happened here?"

"Tom," she acknowledged. "You brought a squad?"

He nodded towards a van that was parked at the edge of the street, and the side door opened. Six people slipped out, formed up, and approached as a group. Watching them, Chris thought that five were magi and the sixth a wolf... No, he corrected himself a moment later, a fox. He'd only ever met one such fox, and it had very nearly been his undoing; he hoped this one was less observant even as he immediately doubted the possibility.

The older man turned back to Captain Saintcrow. "Where should we start?"

"Start with the skin-stealer over there," Saintcrow answered immediately. "The wolf--" she nodded at Elyssa "--ripped out its heart, but I don't know enough about them to make sure it's dead. I've got a skinless corpse on the street here, and a murder scene in a room on the eighth floor, but before you get to those I've also got a conference room with five or six dead magi who I think summoned the skin-stealer." 

The spry old man nodded. "We'll confirm that once we're sure the skin-stealer is dead. Cleanup left about ten minutes behind me, but they drive the speed limit... could be a bit before they're here."

Captain Saintcrow nodded. "I've got the scene. You and your team should do their thing, and then Cleanup can spend the next few headache-inducing hours figuring out whose memories need to be modified, what stories should go out, and why none of us actually exist." 

"As per fucking usual," the white-haired man acknowledged, before turning back to his team. "All right. You heard the priorities. Get to it, and keep me informed."