Josie caught sight of her father at the end of the hall and then caught sight of his face. 
“What’s wrong?” she asked as he passed her, turning around to keep walking with him.
“Isn’t it past curfew?” Alaric frowned down at his watch. 
“I was getting a snack. Again, I ask: what’s wrong?” 
“It’s nothing you need to worry about.” Alaric stopped, not wanting his daughter to follow him any further. 
Josie crossed her arms and planted her feet. “If it’s nothing I need to worry about, then why won’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t say it was something you wouldn’t worry about.” Alaric pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and walked around her. “You have class in the morning!” he called as he walked away.
Dorian waited for him at the end of the hallway, jacket and grim expression on. “What is it this time?”
“Bar full of victims,”Alaric said lowly, ushering them both out of the school and out of earshot of the students. His face grew even more serious. “Some of them were left alive, and half the bodies weren’t even drained completely.”
Dorian furrowed his eyebrows. “What kind of a vampire doesn’t drain a victim they already killed?”
“The kind that’s there for the kill as much as the feed.”
“A ripper.”
“Exactly.” Alaric shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “But Hope Mikaelson’s not a ripper.”
“Maybe she’s evolving,” Dorian offered. “Serial killers evolve all the time.”
“No, no, no. I know Hope, and this isn’t her. She has a partner now.”
By the time they got to the bar, someone else was waiting there. 
“Can I help you two?” the man asked, turning to look them up and down.
“Can we help you?” Dorian asked. 
“I’m an agent, and this is my crime scene.” He motioned to the gore spread across the bar. “Agent Clarke, by the way.” He shook both their hands.
“We’re here on behalf of the sheriff’s station,” Alaric said, eyeing the mess left on the walls and the countertop. “Who sent you?”
Clarke laughed. “Someone way above the sheriff’s station.” He looked them over again, reading them easily. “Are we calling this one an animal attack too? A tipsy mountain lion?” 
Alaric and Dorian exchanged a pain glance and a silent question.