The transformed Dr. Lepton stared hungrily at his unexpected guest.

  For too long, he had starved. Now, it was time to feed. How had he never realized it before? A world of flesh and blood lay ripe beyond his doorstep. The moment he yielded to his urge to hunt, his body twisted to match his desires—and he felt the tantalizing life pulsing within this stranger.

  What succulent meat… If only he could peel away the skin like a peach, sip the nectar beneath, then scrape clean every tendon before sinking his teeth into the muscle beneath. What shade would it be?

  The mere thought of rosy, glistening flesh made his stomach howl. He burned to consume this man, to make him part of himself.

  Yvette stood rigid, eyes clenched shut.

  Every inch of her radiated tension—from her furrowed brow to the tremors wracking her frame.

  Too long had passed since her last offering. Tonight was the Hunt, the Night of Slaughter, when she was to mete out the sleeping Creator’s wrath upon His enemies.

  Blood. I need blood. If I surrender to instinct, the god and I will both be satisfied.

  No—that whisper—was that truly her voice?

  Her right hand barely clutched her sword, just shy of dropping it, while the other pressed against her face, fingers quaking.

  The ghoul seized its chance. With a guttural snarl, it lunged, talons slashing toward the seemingly defenseless woman.

  Yvette’s grip on her blade looked laughably weak; the steel wavered like a wounded bird in her grasp. Yet the instant those claws neared her, her body tilted—impossibly, unnaturally—sidestepping the attack before snapping back upright as if jerked by unseen strings.

  Then, with deceptive laziness, her sword carved an arc through the air—slipping under the ghoul’s shoulder blade, slicing through tendons with surgical precision.

  Ghouls were smarter than zombies but frailer. Disable key limbs, and their threat vanished.

  “Guh… No pain… I feel nothing!” Dr. Lepton’s grin remained feverish, his right arm now limp. Fear was beyond him. Hunger was all that mattered—his sole purpose now.

  Yvette didn’t pause. The ghoul had been no match even with both arms. Now, she dismantled him with ease.

  Ten seconds. That was all it took. Dr. Lepton’s limbs hung useless, disarticulated—his left arm severed at the elbow, a stroke born of Yvette’s slipping control. Blood sheeted from the stump, splattering across upturned stones before vanishing into the undergrowth.

  A crimson streak smeared Yvette’s cheek. Her face was ice, but her voice writhed like a thing caged:

  “Speak. When did this change happen?”

  A cough-wracked chuckle. “After a failed climb, I think… Ah, Mont Blanc—the Alps’ crown. Every mountaineer’s dream…”

  Bit by lurid bit, his story spilled forth—trapped in a blizzard, his guides perishing one by one, starvation driving him to eat the last survivor.

  A fever-dream showed him truth: Meat was life.

  Back in “civilization,” he’d smuggled home cadavers—then fresh kills—each bite restoring vitality. His peers marveled at his ageless energy, begging for his secrets…

  Through it all, no remorse. Not for victims, nor even the infants he’d devoured.

  Yvette’s head throbbed. Was this madness hers or his?

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  The ghoul—no, the thing wearing Dr. Lepton’s face—leered.

  “All rivers flow to the sea… Come, consume me!”

  Whispers swelled in Yvette’s skull:

  Life feeds on death. The devoured wait within the devourer, craving rebirth.

  A doorway creaked in her mind—one never meant to open.

  She remembered.

  This was her right.

  The sword fell.

  5:00 AM, South Bank, London

  Yvette’s unsteady footsteps echoed through the cobbled streets of the shabby district. Few constables patrolled here at this hour, and those who did barely glanced at the lone figure swaying in the predawn gloom. One approached, sniffed for liquor, then dismissed her with a wave. No drunkard. No obvious distress. Not their problem.

  Autumn in Albion meant darkness clung stubbornly until half past eight. The gaslights cast long shadows, her only companion the rhythmic tap of her own boots.

  That blade never pierced Leptorn’s heart.

  Would killing him have been worse? The question gnawed at her as she’d struck downward—not at the doctor, but at the chapel floor. Her sword had sliced through tendril-covered tombstones embedded like paving stones, a morbid fixture in Albion’s houses of worship.

  Three tiers of burial existed in this age. Paupers filled churchyards in layered graves until the earth bulged like rising dough. The moderately privileged rested beneath chapel floors, their memorials reduced to footnotes under worshippers’ heels. Only the elite warranted full coffins on display, marble effigies frozen in pious repose.

  This particular chapel held no lords. After cleaving through the roots, Yvette had pried up a slab, shoved Leptorn into the waiting void, and sealed it like a macabre pantry.

  “My arm,” he’d pleaded when she refused to devour him, eyes gleaming with something between shame and hunger. “I’ve never tasted... myself.”

  She kicked the severed limb into the crypt. Before the slab settled, wet crunching sounds rose—teeth meeting phalanges. The noise didn’t revolt her. What chilled her blood was the realization: This is what happens when the Tree of Life’s higher branches touch mortal minds.

  Reason anchored the Tree’s roots. Madness bloomed in its canopy. The Enlightenment had turned men toward logic, yet place a logician on a crumbling bridge, and suddenly he’d imagine the abyss in exquisite detail—every splintering plank, every shattered bone awaiting below. Imagination, the mind’s own ghoul, would feast on his composure.

  Now she stood on such a bridge. Forward meant embracing truths that might unmoor her sanity. Retreat offered false safety. And paralysis? A slow surrender to creeping dread.

  Leptorn couldn’t be killed, nor handed to the Order. His transformation predated his daughter’s conception—should they learn of ghouls’ hereditary taint, little Mary’s life would be forfeit. Yet a missing physician of standing would raise questions no knife could silence.

  Lost in thought, Yvette barely noticed the footsteps behind her—until a woolen cloak settled over her shoulders, still warm from its owner.

  “Your Gr—?”

  “Arthur,” corrected the Duke of Lancaster, gloved finger to lips. The gaslight carved shadows under his cheekbones, emphasizing a smile too sharp for dawn’s gentleness.

  “Mr. Glossmort,” she acquiesced, using the simplified form of his ludicrously hyphenated name. This dockland slum was no place for dukes, yet here he stood in tweeds, reeking of conspiracy.

  “Cruel, to deny me familiarity after all we’ve shared.” His sigh fogged the air. “Now, why does my dear Yves haunt the South Bank at this ghastly hour?”

  Says the aristocrat playing vigilante. She eyed the lump beneath his coat—sword? Pistol? Both? “Your presence is far more noteworthy.”

  “Hunting.” His grin widened. “A lord’s ancient duty: patrolling his demesne, protecting the weak from marauders and, ah... wild beasts.”

  No wolves prowled London’s streets. His “beasts” wore human skin. This was a thinly veiled admission of meddling with the supernatural, likely hoping to stumble upon some horror to sate his twisted curiosity.

  “Autumn’s end nears,” he lamented, “and my trophies case yawns empty. My ancestors would brand me a sloth.”

  They’d brand you an idiot, Yvette thought, recalling the Duke’s infamous entanglement with a werewolf last winter. His club of thrill-seeking aristocrats treated the occult as sport, collecting teeth and scars like boyhood marbles.

  “No quarry is better than dead quarry,” she said flatly.

  “Spoken like a true professional.” He leaned in, breath fogging her ear. “But suppose I told you my carriage contains tools to handle any specimen? Discretion guaranteed. Why, just last month, a colleague’s unfortunate ‘hunting accident’ required certain edits to the parish registry...”

  A solution presented itself. Leptorn’s disappearance could be laundered through this reckless noble’s resources.

  “There’s... a creature,” Yvette murmured. “Contained. But if word escapes—”

  “I swear.” His voice dripped honeyed venom. “No whispers. No traces. Just vanish—” his fingers mimicked steam dissipating “—like morning dew.”

  She gave the chapel’s location and slipped into an alley, leaving the Duke staring at the pavement. In his cursed vision, crimson footprints glistened where she’d stood—another cryptic omen only he could see.

  Cloak flaring, Lancaster turned toward his unmarked carriage. The footprints intrigued him less than the mask.

  Always, always, he’d seen it stitched to Yvette’s face: nails rusted with age, sutures black with old blood. Yet tonight, one thread had frayed loose.

  The Duke licked his lips.

  At long last, the mask was cracking.