The five of them spaced out in Viktor’s room. The walls had been stripped of charred drywall and were newly ready for either paint or wallpaper. The smell remained, but the site was clean and all materials had been moved aside for safekeeping. Sir Owensby peered over his shoulder at Jaq. “You must be doing these repairs yourself. I can never get work done so quickly in my house while still keeping the place clean.”

Mrs. Wroll cleared her throat. “Your back door was not disturbed until the night the intruder entered, correct?”

Viktor stared at her. “All of you’ve been watching my house, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” the three replied.

He rolled his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Are you all right?” Jaq asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he answered sharply. “Can we make this any quicker?”

Thomas made a gruff sound as he inspected the charred dresser in the hallway. “Touchy. Any who, no match or fuel started this fire.”

Viktor sighed. “Magic is a primitive conclusion,” he scoffed.

“We are knights of the realm, Doctor Teagan,” Owensby declared. “We must prepare for every possible offense.”

“You’re a hematologist,” Viktor retorted.

Owensby held up a mighty finger. “And one of the greatest weapons of the ages has been science!” He strode past them into the guest room. “Now, tell us what happened, precisely.”

“Regarding the fire or the attack?”

“The fire is old news. The intruder,” Owensby declared as he let himself in to the guest room Viktor had been using.

“I came home, sat on the bed to remove my shoes, and something attacked me. We tumbled off the bed, and at this point…Jaq shot it. The creature screamed and jumped out the window.”

“Creature, you say. Not a man. This is its blood, here?” Owensby inquired energetically. He examined the splatters on the windowsill and began scraping the dried flakes into a petri dish. “Were you injured?”

“Yes.”

The three of them stared at him. “Where?” Mrs. Wroll demanded.

“On my chest…” Viktor answered warily. “The open wound allowed the poison to work quickly.”

“Poison?” Thomas inquired.

“Let us see,” she ordered. Thomas was behind him and gripped his collar before tearing through Viktor’s shirt. He was going through garments at an alarming rate. Mrs. Wroll pulled the fabric off his arms and carefully began undoing his bandages.

“They looked worse covered in blood, I assure you,” he muttered when they seemed disappointed. The lacerations were but four shallow tears that stretched from the start of his throat to the top of his abdomen.

“They are not inflamed,” Owensby approved.

“They only ache when agitated,” Viktor confirmed.

“That’s the cleanest were-wound I’ve ever seen,” Thomas commented.

“A what?” Viktor interjected.

“These should look far worse,” Vanessa agreed, awestruck. “You said you were poisoned.”

Viktor balled his destroyed shirt. “I experienced nausea and dizziness before fainting. Two days later I awoke. I suppose if it had been more, something as subtle as a different blood type would have killed me.”

“It’s nothing to do with blood type,” Owensby said. “More of a contagious species.”

“That’s some proper healing,” Thomas commended, glancing at Jaq.

“Indeed…” Mrs. Wroll murmured. “How did you combat the poison?”

“Only a person knowledgeable of weres could know,” Thomas said.

Jaq stood calmly off to the side. She shook her head. “I don’t know what that is. I learned an antidote for poisons some time ago and used it.”

“Antidotes don’t work that way,” Owensby said. “You must know the exact poison to counteract it. An antidote can be just as lethal as poison.”

She replied stoically, “Not this time.”

“What did you use?” Vanessa asked, her tone growing stern.

“What is a were?” Jaq countered effortlessly.

“A monster out of various legends.” Everyone’s attention turned to Sir Owensby. Viktor donned yet another shirt as the man explained. “Drawings of wolf-men have been found for ages in any place where wolves are native, but now, these creatures are being spotted in cities. We always disregarded them as cultural deities, demons, or ancient twaddle. Our ignorance is resulting in deaths the world is not ready to understand. This lupine creature jumped from your window, injured, but has not been seen since. And this is only the beginning. We are dealing with powerful beings unknown to us.”

“Lupine,” Viktor repeated. “A wolf dismantled my door?”

Thomas answered, “These are not man or wolf, but both. They have the intelligence of man but the rabidity of an animal. And something’s making them come out of the woodwork after all this time. We need to find out what that is.”

“We’ll have to journey underground,” Sir Owensby stated. “Starting tonight. Gather your things. Miss Jaq, load your guns. The hunt begins!”

“I’ve never hunted before,” Viktor declined. “I’m a doctor.”

“You’re a knight!” Owensby bellowed. “Act like one!”

Thomas clapped him on the shoulder, causing him to wince. “Oh,” he laughed. “Sorry. You’re stronger than you look, though.” He gripped his slender shoulder and arm. “Do you lift your own cadavers?”

“Yes.”

Thomas’s mustache drooped with his frown. Mrs. Wroll laughed. “He is stern, our doctor. Be patient with him.”

Jaq intercepted, “I only have the late butler’s rifle.”

“Hmm,” Owensby pondered. “That’s too large to wander the streets with…”

“Are we actually going underground?” Viktor inquired, slightly intrigued, mostly not.

“Claustrophobic?” Thomas asked as he handed Jaq one of his revolvers.

“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. “I’m not curious to find out.”

“Not to worry, we will protect you,” Owensby shoved him out of the room. Viktor bumped into Jaq and he recovered himself before they went down the stairs and she helped him into his coat.

“What am I contributing to this venture?” he murmured, carefully traversing over the uneven cobblestones of the city.

“Perhaps you can find the science in all of this,” Mrs. Wroll answered, striding confidently in her long, bustled skirts. They were elegantly hitched out of the way of her stride, her petticoats modestly hiding her legs. “Once we discern tangible facts, we can understand the things we are dealing with better.”

Sir Owensby’s coat tails flapped behind him and Thomas’s shoes clicked loudly on the stones. Viktor was surprised to find Jaq right behind him when he glanced around, easily keeping up with the group. He buttoned his coat high over his throat as it began to drizzle once more. The longer they walked, the more winded he became. He squinted against the gaslight of the street lamps and the electric bulbs of late night establishments.

“Where are we going?” he finally asked.

“Do you need to rest?” Mrs. Wroll inquired.

He declined and Owensby contemplated aloud, “What do wolf and man have in common? Where would they both dwell?”

“The butcher’s,” Viktor answered halfheartedly.

Owensby guffawed. Viktor hoped this was not meant to be a covert operation. “Man and beast must eat!”

“There must be two dozen meat shops on this side of the city,” Viktor complained.

“Then we will visit all two dozen of them,” Mrs. Wroll hushed. They approached the building. It was a squat place, compacted over years of building around and on top of it. Around the back of it, Thomas picked the lock and they entered. Owensby lit the lantern mounted on the wall.

“No growls yet,” he muttered. “A healthy sign.”

“We are not looking for healthy,” Mrs. Wroll reminded.

The front room reeked of spices and the back room had the sour musk of molding salamis, but nothing large, clawed, or hairy showed its self. The second butcher shop was the same, as was the third. The fourth was right next to a burlesque establishment, the exterior illuminated by bright bulbs and the sounds of music and joviality.

“A bit loud for a pack of wolves, isn’t it?” Jaq considered.

“All the more reason to check it,” Mrs. Wroll said. Thomas once again gained access inside. Viktor’s headache was pounding to the rhythm of the music next door.

“Apologies for cutting this night short, but I won’t make it to the next shop.”

“I daresay you won’t have to,” Owensby answered nervously. “I smell urine.”

He lit a candle, found a glass bowl to distribute the light, and they all flinched. Viktor’s complexion went from pale to grey. Jaq held a hand over her mouth and nose.

A body—presumably the butcher’s—was dismembered and splayed across the floor. The smell of his fear and bowels wafted in the air. Blood was everywhere.

“Normally…everything is still inside the body when it comes to me,” Viktor commented dryly. He had lost the feeling in the back of his throat. That was probably for the best.

“Miss Jaq,” Thomas said, bending down to pick up something. “Is this your bullet from that night?”

Owensby’s breathing grew louder. “Best take that with us, Tom. We can’t give the Yard excuses to put us in prison… Is that my breathing? Am I so out of shape?”

Mrs. Wroll gasped sharply and Jaq fired. A massive body of bone, muscle, and hair landed in the center of them. They scattered, Jaq quickly running out of bullets and Owensby dropping his candle. She grabbed Viktor, shoving him out of the building.

Suddenly, Thomas’s gunfire fell silent. They glanced back and Mrs. Wroll was relighting the candle. The creature lay dead on the mass of human innards.

Sir Owensby exhaled, relieved. “Everyone safe and mostly sound? All right there, Teagan?”

He nodded, standing on his own as his head cleared with the fresher air outdoors.

“Jaq, take your employer home,” Owensby finished. “I will handle the body. When you are ready, Doctor, you may have a look at it.”

Viktor only nodded and marched back to the main road. “We need to stay out of sight,” Jaq said. He looked at her and realized she was right. She was smudged with blood and other bodily fluids from slipping on the floor, and so was he. His butler led him through side streets that were safely lit but otherwise empty.

Jaq discreetly opened the back door of his house and locked it behind him. “Leave your clothes in the wash basin,” she told him. “I’ll burn them.”

“I will be needing new shirts tomorrow,” he said absentmindedly.

“Anything else?”

“No callers. I will receive no one,” he added breathlessly.

“Understood.”