Agent Jane Doe suppressed a growl as she stepped past the officer at the door and into the run down hotel room. Her narrowed eyes swept across the team of techs, already hard at work, and her nose wrinkled in frustration- and at the lingering scents that were already beginning to irritate her sensitive nostrils... Not that anyone else here could detect such weak smells...

And she already knew what the techs would find: Nothing.

Just like the last two places she had tracked her target to, this room was undoubtedly scrubbed clean- down to the very tiles of the bathroom having been cleaned with bleach. She doubted that even a single hair would be found on a pillow case, a combination of the target not needing to sleep and taking great pains to remove every trace of their presence.

Worse yet, she could smell the cayenne pepper that was sprinkled into the carpet, an excellent method for hindering anything- or anyone- that could track by scent... A common countermeasure when being hunted by a werewolf like her, as the growing burn in her nostrils could attest to- which would be a hundred times worse if she made the mistake of transforming here.

"Find anything Janie?" Agent Smith said softly as he joined her in the room- only to visibly flinch at her answering growl. "Ah... Same as last time, I'm guessing-"

"Exactly the same." Jane snapped before spinning on her heels and exiting the room.

Leaning on the rail outside the room, she stared out over the crack asphalt of the parking lot and ignored the curious looks peeking out from the few occupied rooms. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply to clear her nose... and to push back the primal call that rose in her soul as the blood moon shone brightly overhead. The full moon was always a difficult time for her, as old instincts pushed to the surface, and something about the bloody haze that surrounding the celestial object during a lunar eclipse...

It urged her to hunt, to sink her teeth into her prey and taste its life blood upon her tongue-

"Reign it in, Jane." John said softly, his usual cocky and flirtatious tone subdued. "You're more than just those instincts- you're the best damn Agent we have. I know-"

"What do you know?" She growled, eyes snapping open and locking onto her partner with a wild gleam. "What is it you think you know, John?"

"I know-" He responded slowly, careful not to meet her eyes without seeming to back down- showing weakness in front of a predator like Jane was one of the worst thing he could do at the moment... second only to giving the impression that he was challenging her. Either could end badly, for him and everyone nearby- not that he really expected anything like that to happen, but it didn't hurt to be careful. "-that you're getting frustrated. Hell, I'm getting frustrated. But it's only been a month, and we both knew coming into this that it could take a while."

"She's been evading pursuit for decades; being after her for a month isn't that long in comparison."

For several seconds, Jane glared at her partner, without moving- or even blinking. Slowly she sighed, closing her eyes tightly and rolling her head side to side to try to ease the tension in her neck and regain control of her rioting emotions.

"Right." She nodded sharply as she straightened, mostly back in control of herself. "I'm guessing you got the same from the clerk that we got before?"

"Pretty much." John nodded in relief at her returning professional demeanor. "The room was booked online, paid for using a prepaid card. The clerk barely even spoke to her... Though we may have a better timeline, thanks to one of the cleaning ladies."

Where he would normally draw things out more in an effort to get a rise out of his partner, John knew this wasn't the best time for that, and so quickly pressed on before she could do more than arch an eyebrow. "While Ms. Hart didn't check out until Wednesday, the cleaning lady saw her drop her keys in the box on Monday."

"How sure is she? And is the cleaning lady reliable?"

"I would say she's reliable enough." John chuckled softly. "And she's pretty damn sure. She thought maybe it was some teenage prostitution thing, considering how short Hart is- even recognized her when I showed her the picture..."

"She even got us the make and model of the car Hart is driving, plus a partial plate-"

"The hell!" Jane snarled, spinning to face her partner. "I thought you said you didn't get anything!? That sounds like a hell of a lot of 'something', John!"

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"Ah..." John hesitated, sweat beading on his brow as he realized what he had said. "Well, I was talking about the clerk..." Seeing the intensity of her glare, he help up his hands apologetically. "I mean... My bad, Jane. You know how my mouth is; it just like to run off on its own!"

"And, really, I didn't get anything from the clerk! This was all from the cleaning lady!"

Her hands flexed, and Jane could feel her claws sharpening as they dug into the flesh of her palms. John's mouth really did have a tendency to run off in the worst ways- at least to her... But, as much as she wanted to rip his jaw off in the moment, she knew it wouldn't help anything.

If anything, it would only serve to have her pulled from the case and suspended... or fired, and she liked her job too much to throw it away just because her partner could be a jackass.

"Get someone working on finding that car." She growled, eyes narrowed at him. "And find out where the hell our tracker is! Hart is less than a week ahead of us, and I have every intention of catching up to her!"

John sighed as he hung up the phone. While he had gotten the ball rolling on someone tracking down the car, that was the only good news he had received... And, with Jane being on edge due to the blood moon, he wasn't looking forward to this conversation...

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he made his way past the local police that were running interference with the other hotel occupants and down to ground level where Jane was talking with the lead tech.

"Sorry ma'am, but there wasn't much to find in there. Some bleach in the drains-"

"And cayenne pepper in the carpet." Jane sighed. "Yeah, I expected that. Thank you for the quick turn around, and thank your people for me."

Stepping into the spot that was just vacated by the tech, John was relieved to see that Jane's agitation had lessened in the little bit of time he had spent on the phone- hopefully her reaction to his news wouldn't be as explosive now that she had calmed down.

"Bad news, Jane." He said softly, resisting the urge to flinch as her eyes locked onto his with intensity. "You're not going to like this..."

"Just spit it out, John." She said evenly... and the lack of anything in her voice, especially at being told there was bad news, was almost more concerning than her earlier anger and frustration.

"Our tracker has been diverted to a priority case..." Jane's annoyed huff was expected, and about the best response he could hope for- unfortunately, their department frequently had to make judgments on where to assign people due to limited resources.

"...and this assignment is being put on hold while we're redirected."

"Redirected where?" Jane ground out through clenched teeth, her frustration clearly rising once more.

John sighed once more, knowing how this rubbed Jane the wrong way. She hated nothing more than for a hunt to be interrupted- likely due in part to her predatory instincts. "There were reports of some missing people that line up with a report from-"

"The short version John."

John hid a smile, glad to see that his usual antics of drawing out whatever revelation he had was working to settle his partner a bit. "The Intelligence Department said they need us to deal with a possible dimensional incursion."

Jane froze at his explanation. If there really was an incursion, it made sense that Hart was relegated to a lower priority... Though it also raised a number of questions. "Do they have a classification for us? And why aren't they sending one of the teams set up specifically to handle an incursion?"

"Thankfully, they said it should be a Blue- while I'm sure you could handle a Red, just the reports on those things were enough to make me never want to see one..." John shuddered at the very mention of a Red; while every incursion could be dangerous, they were the worst- the creatures alone, and their tendency to eat people, was bad enough... But the reports of Agents losing their minds just from seeing the incursion point...

Blues were much better, even if it did still involve a life or death fight most of the time.

"As for why they're sending us... They said that Mikil did his thing to try to predict the outcome, and the only scenario that didn't end terribly was if you were assigned to handle it."

"Seriously?" Jane almost scoffed, but held back. Mikil was a seer, of sorts- an incredibly limited one that could only get vague impressions about how good or bad an idea was. While Jane didn't put much stock in his magic, he was the only seer they had on staff... And, if he said that all the other options ended terribly, then they probably would. "Fine. Where are we going?"

"That... is another point that I don't think you'll like." John shook his head slowly. "They don't know where, or even when exactly, the incursion will finish forming. Best guess is some time in the next few weeks, and somewhere in the Southeastern states..."

"So, it's 'hurry up and wait'?" Jane huffed. "I guess we're on hold until it happens, then..."

"Pretty much." John shrugged, not one to be against a bit of forced down time. "Kinda makes me wonder, though..."

"About what, John?" Jane asked as she climbed into their car, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Well... why does sending one of the incursion teams end terribly, but sending us doesn't? I mean, they're trained and geared towards handling these things, right? So, why is sending us the best option this time?"

Jane paused, hand on the ignition, as the question ran through her mind. It didn't really make sense to her, either. As capable as the two of them were, any one of the teams would be better for dealing with an incursion...

So what was it about them being there- about her being there- that made this particular incursion different?

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