Within moments, the boy’s bones cracked and twisted, morphing into a towering werewolf with grizzled fur that shimmered like quicksilver beneath the moon’s chill gaze.
Yvette hesitated. Had this been any ordinary beast, her blade would have severed its spine without remorse. But the pleading eyes of the ragged street urchin — the child who had clutched her coat while recounting his sister’s disappearance — lingered in her mind.
Her fingers brushed the engraved surface of Mr. White Rabbit’s watch. There might be another way.
Sword abandoned, she let her fists fly. Her strikes lacked killing intent, thudding harmlessly against the werewolf’s barrel-thick ribs. Eddie reeled clumsily, not yet acclimated to his elongated limbs. The creature’s hide resisted even steel — a trait Yvette exploited, aiming to subdue rather than maim.
Pain quickened the beast’s instincts. By the third exchange, its swipes gained predatory precision. Yvette ducked beneath a scything claw and pivoted, her enhanced strength propelling a kick that sent the hulking wolf skidding through sludge.
It rose snarling, frost steaming from its maw. Patches of mud matted its pelt, revealing scrawny haunches belying its feral might. For an instant, Yvette faltered beneath the primal hunger in its amber eyes.
The air crackled. Ice needles sprouted across the wolf’s back, glinting like a thousand shattered mirrors. The frost-coated creature lunged.
Far enough from the body now. Yvette drew her blade in a rasp of steel, bracing as the wolf charged on all fours before rearing upright — half-tactic, half-instinct. Her thrust pierced its shoulder, pinning it against brickwork.
Through the watch’s fractured-glass surface, she dove into the fevered mind. Recent memories flickered like damaged film reels — rain-soaked alley, a pale arm protruding from trash, silver hair matted with blood. Yvette severed the thread of that horrific image before surfacing.
The werewolf stilled briefly… then erupted in fresh fury, ripping free of the sword.
Church doctrine demanded discretion, yet how long until some drunk stumbled upon this duel? Her blade trembled.
“Require assistance, hunter?”
Kobelev’s voice cut through the downpour. The Urals-born werewolf dropped a pair of antlers into the muck. “Drive it here. Two seconds’ contact.”
What followed was a grotesque ballet. Yvette parried with her blade’s flat, herding the snapping creature over Kobelev’s totem. The antlers exploded into knotted bone, snaring the wolf in a cage of ivory thorns.
“Silver nitrate solution,” Kobelev answered her unspoken question, injecting the thrashing beast. “Cheaper than bullets.”
Eddie emerged human — shivering, sweat-drenched. His widened eyes fixed on Kobelev’s half-transformed claws creeping toward the cage.
“Full-moon spawn sense death coming,” Kobelev murmured. His grin revealed lengthening canines. “A shame... but necessary.”
Yvette’s hand flew to her sword. “Wait—”
The boy pressed against the bone bars, whimpering. Frost still clung to his eyelashes.
Yvette’s grip tightened around Kobalev’s wrist the instant his claws emerged—a hairbreadth from slaughter.
“Explain.” Her voice cut through the rain.
The alpha werewolf bared yellowed teeth. “Spare the dramatics. Our pact stands—I’ll still help catch your killer. But this…” He jerked his chin toward the cowering boy. “…is clan business. Moonborn whelps go mad. You’d thank me later.”
“That’s why you called him a ‘pity’ earlier?” Her fingers dug into his pulse point. “Protect him if useful, butcher him if not. How efficient.”
“Survival isn’t pretty.” Kobalev’s chuckle rasped like gravel. “In the woods, we’d exile him. Here? Your Church executes rabid dogs. I’m doing us both favors.”
Logic ice-cold. Flawless. Yvette’s hand stayed locked.
Different rules for different monsters, she knew. Vampires purged bloodline flaws. Wolves culled unstable cubs. She’d never mourned their casualties before—names without faces, tragedies too foreign.
But this trembling boy…
Somewhere, a dying girl had cherished him. Made him irreplaceable.
“How noble.” Kobalev leaned close, breath reeking of wet fur. “Leave. I’ll make it quick once you’re gone. Out of sight, out of conscience—eh?”
Yvette didn’t blink. “Mark him exiled. Walk away.”
“And risk him howling through Parliament Square?”
“London. My territory.”
The alpha’s amusement faded. “…Your funeral. Frostwolf blood’s wildfire—each frenzy burns his mind. Keep him? You’ll raise a beast.”
“Noted.”
As Kobalev’s claws retracted, the boy—Eddie—whimpered. The werewolf mock-petted air where he’d flinched away. “Lucky little mongrel.”
Yvette knelt in the mud, extending a hand. The child shook like a soaked sparrow. Silver nitrate poisoned his veins; she carried him through the downpour, tarp draped over them both.
Eddie hid his face against her nape. A floral scent—bergamot and gunpowder soap—flooded his sharpened senses. Memories surfaced: frostbite nights clutching his sister’s patched shawl. Why did Mr. Fisher smell like… like…
Raindrops blended with salt on Yvette’s skin. White Rabbit’s memory-warping watch couldn’t erase grief’s ghost.
Lantern light speared the dark ahead.
“Miss Fisher!” Father Franz’s umbrella glowed like a halo. “Out assisting strays, I see?”
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Her spine stiffened. His cassock’s back is soaked—as if kneeling recently.
“An orphan,” she lied. “I’m fostering him.”
“The Lord smiles on kind hearts. Come dry at the rectory?”
“We’re expected home.”
As they edged past, the priest’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. Yvette counted heartbeats—
One. Two.
—when the trap sprung.
The moment her quarry twitched suspiciously, Yvette reacted—blanket fluttering like a raven’s wing as steel gleamed coldly. Her guard-positioned blade clashed against the ambush, rhombus forte resonating with a metallic shrill.
The strike hadn’t aimed for her, but for Eddie strapped to her back.
Father Franz, now wielding an impossible weapon, stood transformed. The silver crucifix—formerly pendant-sized around his neck—had unfurled into a two-handed sword, its hilt clutched in his fist while a solidified beam of holy light formed the shimmering blade. Yvette’s relic-steel met the sanctified edge in a shower of sparks.
“That creature must remain here.”
Muscle corded beneath the priest’s cassock as he pressed downward. Yvette’s boots scuffed against flagstones, her thermokinetic gifts converting air’s warmth into raw force to match him.
“By what madness do you judge him?”
“The lantern’s glow shriveled his pupils—bestial corruption.” Though the priest’s voice retained its honeyed calm, something slithered beneath its cadence. “But you’ve been deceived, child. Repent, and mercy awaits.”
“He’s under my protection now.” Crushing a concealed vial, Yvette felt flame-cloak energies surge through her veins.
Their brief clangorous exchange revealed the priest’s swordsmanship—methodical bind-and-strike forms meant to exhaust opponents. Time to escalate.
A pyroclastic ring erupted around her boots. Empowered, Yvette hammered Franz’s guard backward. Their locked blades shrieked like tormented spirits, sparks cascading where sanctified steel met alchemical alloy.
“Heresy propagates as mycelia through rotten fruit...” Franz’s eyes glazed over, lips moving with catechismic fervor. “Each spore begets apocalypse. Thus we burn the orchard.”
Yvette probed for weaknesses, finding none. She pressed harder.
By rights, their duel defied logic—her nimble rapier overpowering his brutish holy blade through arcane augmentation. Yet even dominating the exchange, she circled cautiously, edge skating across his guard in testing feints.
The priest’s serenity unnerved her.
At their next clash, her blade met empty air. Training overruled thought—a burst of supernatural strength launched her backward as Franz’s blade phantomed through space... then solidified where her neck had been.
Severed hair spiraled downward. Yvette’s breath caught—the sanctified steel could phase through defenses. A near-fatal lesson: materializing after bypassing her guard. Had she stood firm, mutual impalement might’ve occurred. Did holy flames mend such wounds?
Three gunshots cracked.
Two bullets sparked against Franz’s blurring blade. The third grazed his forearm—and golden fire geysered from the wound, licking stonework to ash before subsiding. Yvette memorized the combustion range.
“Through tribulation, resolve.” Franz’s wound still glowed ominously. “The Spirit’s blade knows no fatigue.”
“He... reeks of crypts...” Eddie whispered, trembling. Where others exuded sweat and life-stench, the priest emitted nothing—a void to Eddie’s predator senses.
Medieval protocols flooded Yvette’s memory: Church assassins bred to destroy night-creatures, their presence masked from prey. Franz’s lineage once stalked werewolves through shadowed keeps—now turned upon a frightened boy.
“Surrender the beast.”
“Declined.”
Regret softened Franz’s marble features. “Then I must risk harming you. No cost outweighs purging monsters.”
Yvette measured her disadvantages: Eddie’s weight restricted movement; her swordsmanship couldn’t account for two bodies. To free him meant leaving him defenseless. One path remained—make herself the primary threat.
“A wager, Father. The boy as prize.”
“Unnecessary odds. Presently, I hold advantage.”
Yvette’s smile cut like her blade. “What if London’s Midnight Butcher stands before me?”
No pupil dilation. No twitch. Only serene inquiry: “You presume?”
“Daisy Johnson—seventh victim—died blocks from your chapel. Her murderer left no trace. Coincidence? Or when you caught Pierce mid-kill and silenced him? How much stolen jewelry lies buried in your sacristy?”
“Baseless speculation.”
“Your cassock’s soaked.” Her blade-tip traced his damp shoulders. “An umbrella-user with drenched back? Out praying in horizontal rain earlier... or butchering number eight?”
Hot rage threatened her mask of calm. Those women—the poorest, most broken—deserved vengeance.
Father Franz inclined his head. “To prosecute me, you must prevail. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise Eddie dies, and I’ll vanish into gaslit streets where you dare not unleash holy flames. The Met will hear of a murderous priest. The Society’s enforcers will attend.” Her blade leveled at his heart. “But offer me this: Stand. Down.”
Father Franz’s lips twisted into a ghastly rictus. Moonlight bleached his features into a death-mask, the jagged slash of his smile oozing with rabid loathing.
“Corrupted by monsters, I see. By the Holy Virgin’s grace, I name you heretic! Let heaven’s fire purge your taint—the sword obeys angels, flames scourge abominations, and judgment falls upon you!”
His voice rang with zealous delirium, eyes glazed as if drowning in visions. Yet his sword arm moved with lethal precision, fiercer than before.
This lunatic’s even madder than I guessed, Yvette realized.
She lowered the boy and drew her rapier. Two bullets left—no time to reload. Save them.
Steel shrieked as they collided. Their earlier clash had laid bare their strengths: her brute force against his holy blade’s phasing trickery. Every parry risked his weapon ghosting through hers—a mutual stab would favor him. Her slender rapier faltered in slashes, and god knew what the blessed steel’s touch might do.
Sparks flew like molten hail, holy flames hissing in the rain. A human advantage, that—vampires would’ve been cinders by now.
“Why...no effect? Ah! Your soul’s half-sold to devils. The light can’t burn you...not yet.”
Father Franz slashed his palm, blood smearing his blade. “Life-blood bears sacred fire—death to the corrupted!”
Golden flames curdled crimson. His broadsword swung with renewed fury, each strike echoing damned souls’ screams in Yvette’s skull.
Visions assailed her: rotting flesh peeling, sanguine fruit bursting, an ocean of blood—
Focus!
She jerked back as the sanguine blade grazed her chest, shredding cloth. Bandages peeked through the rent. Almost spilled my guts.
“Witch!” Father Franz howled, face contorting between piety and madness. “Satan’s harlot! Spreading ruin with your cursed wiles!”
His berserk assault drove her backward, blade emitting psychic static she had to dodge. Step by step, she yielded, hunting an opening. But desperation frayed her guard. A jarring slam from his blade—amplified by spectral shrieks—sent her reeling.
She “stumbled” right. The priest pounced, shark-like, targeting her airborne form.
A feint.
Her true power lay in her mind—psychic strings overriding flesh. Even mangled muscles obeyed.
From her feigned fall, she twisted under his swing and rammed into his chest, inhumanly swift.
Grappling his sword arm, she skewered his heart.
The blade slid in cold. No pain—just an arctic gust hollowing him out. His holy sword clattered down, a silver cross now.
“Death...won’t...stop...God’s work...”
Yvette recoiled. The wound gaped dry—dusty rags in a bellows. As he spat curses, she tried wrenching free, but his free hand vise-gripped her wrist.
Trapped. She clawed for her gun.
Too late. The priest’s eyes whitened, mouth unhinged. Writhing roots burst from his skin, forming a clawed monstrosity lunging for her face.
BAM! BAM!
Her final shots: a hollow-point obliterated half his mutated skull; the second snapped his neck, head dangling backward.
No blood. No stink. Just cloying roses.
The corpse shriveled, flesh dissolving. Thorned vines sprouted from orifices, sprouting leafless stems heavy with blood-red roses that bloomed and withered in seconds.
Beneath the priest’s robes: a papery husk over bones webbed with desiccated roots.
Yvette retrieved her blade. A rustle—bone crevices bristled with dead tendrils, some drilled into marrow.
Backlash? Parasite? Or a curse from his victims?
Sheathing her sword, a sting bit her palm—a black thorn. When did that—? She plucked it. A bead of blood.
After stashing the bones in a coal cart and a derelict shed, she returned to Eddie. The boy gaped at her torn shirt.
“Miss Fisher! You’re—you’re hurt!”
“Scratches.” She adjusted her scarf. “Rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Hoisting him up, he yelped. “You’re bleeding bad!”
She glanced down. Her palm wept a steady rivulet. A thorn prick...why won’t it clot?
