The Grafter attack on Reading Police Station turns Graaf Gerd de Leeuwen’s threat into an immediate crisis for Myfanwy Thomas and the Checquy: a lone attacker overwhelms the station, civilians are trapped inside, and the organization must contain an incident in the middle of a town. The crisis is also a pointed message. De Leeuwen describes the violence as a demonstration of Grafter capabilities and links it to Rook John Perry, whose past role in stopping the Grafter invasion of the Isle of Wight explains the attack’s personal edge.

Causes and Warning

The episode begins with an ornate fax addressed to Rook Thomas. Its copperplate script carries a concise threat from Graaf Gerd de Leeuwen: he has unleashed a small horror in Reading to demonstrate what his side can do, warns that little may remain of John Perry’s home if the Checquy does not hurry, and says he looks forward to seeing Graaf Ernst von Suchtlen on Tuesday. The message joins a threatened civilian location to a meeting involving de Leeuwen and von Suchtlen, making the Reading violence both an operational emergency and part of a larger confrontation.

Myfanwy has already been trying to trace de Leeuwen’s call and find his partner. She acknowledges that she had promised to find the partner, but Ingrid Woodhouse points out that Myfanwy had not meant to comply with de Leeuwen’s demand: she had been tracing him and intended to hunt him down before the time ran out. The fax and the attack that follows show the consequence of that failed attempt to control the encounter. De Leeuwen has chosen the site and the timing of a demonstration that the Checquy cannot treat as private negotiation.

The Outbreak and the Checquy Response

As Myfanwy reads the fax, the lights flicker, warning chimes sound, and the telephone on Ingrid’s desk rings with a flashing red light. Ingrid takes the incident report and begins to tell Myfanwy that there has been an outbreak; Myfanwy correctly anticipates the location as Reading. When she asks whether the incident is contained and discreet, Ingrid replies that it is at a police station. The station is in the middle of town, but its occupants have sealed off the building. Portable operation centers are being prepared, and the Barghests are mobilizing to rendezvous with the Checquy team at the site.

Myfanwy orders the communications employee to accompany them, forbids him to discuss what he has heard, and tells him not to leave her sight without permission. The order makes the journey part of the organization’s containment effort as well as a response to the immediate danger. Ingrid assigns Myfanwy’s two bodyguards to provide on-site security for the Rook, then gathers her coat and laptop. On the helicopter, Myfanwy tries to learn whether anyone has been hurt and how the threat is developing. She is told that seven police officers, three clerical staff, and a couple of dozen civilians are caught inside. Their presence turns de Leeuwen’s demonstration into a crisis involving people with no stated connection to the conflict.

Events Inside the Station

The account of the attack reaches Myfanwy through reports relayed by Cyrus West. A nondescript man enters the station, kills the person nearest to him, and locks the door behind him. When a constable confronts him with a collapsible baton, the attacker kills him as well. The station’s personnel then mobilize, bring out weapons, and confront the intruder with guns and Tasers. He ignores orders to surrender and is not stopped by the gunfire.

The attacker then produces fleshy extensions from his arms, which strike people in the room and draw them into his body. As more people are taken in, he grows larger and visibly changes shape. The attack’s escalation—from an apparently ordinary man entering a police station to a threat that incorporates its victims—makes clear why the response is treated as a major incident rather than an ordinary crime. The available account identifies a power associated with making people’s skin burst from their torsos, but does not establish the attacker’s name or explain how he was made or sent to Reading.

The gunfire, screams, and visible blood drive many residents away from the surrounding streets on a Saturday afternoon. The Reading Checquy Situation Response Team arrives rapidly, isolates the area, guides the remaining onlookers away, and deters media attention. Cyrus explains that the Barghests were automatically summoned and that Myfanwy was notified because the incident had reached a color crisis level; Pawn Alan Summerhill supplies the designation, chartreuse. The response therefore combines direct mobilization at the scene with efforts to keep the event from becoming a public spectacle.

John Perry and the Attack’s Stakes

At first, Myfanwy does not recognize John Perry. She has forgotten to bring her purple binder, and no one in the helicopter can identify him from the name alone. Ingrid searches online but finds people with that name who do not appear connected to the incident or to Reading; she also confirms that no John Perry is a Checquy member. With civilians already inside the station, Myfanwy is frustrated that de Leeuwen has made them part of a threat, especially since she had told him she would find his partner.

The apparent mystery is resolved when Cyrus specifies that the threatened man is Rook John Perry, a celebrated Checquy operative from Reading. He was instrumental in stopping the Grafter invasion of the Isle of Wight. The disclosure recasts the fax: the reference to Perry is not simply a threat against an unknown resident but an attack connected to a significant earlier defeat of the Grafters. Myfanwy, who has amnesia, must have the history explained to her, while the other Checquy personnel fall silent at their failure to recognize a name that carries such weight. Cyrus’s reaction combines offense at their ignorance with concern about the prospect of the Grafters in his own town.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

The evidence establishes the immediate consequences as a large-scale emergency: station personnel and civilians are trapped, the town center must be isolated, the Barghests and Checquy response teams are mobilized, and the organization works to discourage public and media attention. It does not establish the final fate of the people inside the station, the attacker’s capture, or the outcome for John Perry’s home. The warning about that home remains a threat in the account, not a confirmed result.

The incident also sharpens the contrast between Myfanwy’s official position and the limits imposed by her lost memory. She can issue orders, recognize the likely destination from Ingrid’s report, and direct an operation, yet must ask who John Perry is and rely on others to supply the history that gives de Leeuwen’s message its meaning. The attack thus makes the Checquy’s operational urgency and Myfanwy’s personal uncertainty visible at the same time. De Leeuwen’s demonstration is designed to be legible: Reading is the threatened place, the trapped civilians are the immediate stakes, and Perry’s earlier role against the Grafters is the past that gives the violence its pointed significance.