Chapter 2

Not a beast, but a man. The hunter stared into Catherine's eyes. His grey dull eye looked sad, while his left green eye looked determined and serious.

"so I take it you're Bergy then?" Catherine questioned the hunter. She looked around the shack a bit more. There were plenty of trophies hanging on the wall: a bears head, a moose, more deer.

Bergy nodded, "yes, they call me Bergy, short for biggy, which is short for big game hunter, as you've probably already figured out. The other two who came before asked the same questions. Whats in the woods? Why does it only happen at the full moon, is it faster to skin a pig or a deer. I always tell them the same thing..." He kept carving away at the deer.

Catherine wasn't expecting a pig, she was going to ask if the bear or the moose took longer actually. She shook her head at the thought, "although I would like an answer to all those questions, I think I would like to know what exactly happened to my peers... And why I hadn't heard about them..." Catherine was bothered by the idea that the order had hidden some very important details from her.

Bergy started peeling the skin off the deer and with one pull was able to remove the entire pelt. "I suppose you were probably pulled off an other case and told this one was an emergency too weren't ya?" He hooked the deer on the wall to drain it's blood.

Catherine was speechless. Was he saying that the other two just so happened to be in the exact same situation as her? They were all sent here during another case and they were also told that it was an emergency? Why would the order do that?

Bergy kept talking, "I bet you were awfully close to solving that other case too weren't ya?" He winked at her with his good eye and sat down. He grabbed a drink that was splattered with blood and took a swig.

Catherine glared at Bergy, "what are you saying? The order wouldn't have sent me here just to shut me up..." She believed that too, but how could Bergy be so certain of her exact situation?

The hunter swirled his drink and put his feet up on the table, "a disappearance case, a bloody scene, a scandal? Likely all related to one culprit I imagine, but the others never really told me much about what happened... Sworn to an oath of secrecy or something like that." His chair tilted back as he got comfy.

Catherine was getting a head ache. She stood up and turned towards the door. "I'm going to find a place to sleep."

As she left the shack Bergy called to her, "I'm telling you this for your own good, but sticking your nose in things, like your kind does, only gets you killed."

The town was silent. The cold wind breezed by and made the wooden doors creak. Catherine marched away from the lonely shack and found an inn.

As she laid in bed that night she couldn't help but consider the possibility that she was sent here to die.

"but I also swore an oath of secrecy... Why would the order want to kill-...." As if answering her own question she stopped herself. "You're getting ahead of yourself Catherine, just do your job, he's probably just trying to scare you." she muttered to herself. She closed her eyes and refocused on her mission.

A howl came from the forest, Catherine looked out the window to see a wolf-like creature in the distance. It stared at her with glowing eyes as it stood on two feet. Just beyond the gate at the edge of the forest it glared in her direction. Then it ran back into the forest.