The Case of the Evaporating Blood

It was a decidedly indecent hour for a house call, even for an officer of the Metropolitan police force. The young man straightened the navy blue jacket and matching hat which marked him as a constable, hoping to look as official and presentable as possible before knocking at the darkened door at 9 Dorset Street.  Behind him, the carriage waited, its driver and horses seeming equally put out by the moisture that lingered in the night air and made the cold that much more intolerable.  

He waited an appropriate time before clearing his throat and knocking again, somewhat louder than before. A gentle flicker of candlelight brightened the thick pane of glass beside the door a minute later as a thin face peered out from the space between the curtains and the window frame. The constable shifted his weight, giving the occupant a good look at him. At last, the door was unlocked from within and drawn open just far enough for the constable to look in and see a face staring back at him. The candle was kept back, letting only the wan glow of raincloud-filtered moonlight to mark the features of the home’s occupant. 

Clearing his voice again, the constable did his level best to present himself in the most official and respectable presence. “Begging your pardon, sir, but would this be the home of one Doctor Allister Montclair?” 

“I trust you can read, boy, yes?” The man seemed notably ill-tempered; a reasonable state at having been awakened at such an hour by an officer of the law. Before the constable could respond, the man pointed a thin finger up towards a bronze placard fastened to the center of the door. It read:  

Allister Montclair, Doctor and Inventor 

Scientist of the Para-normal and the Occult 

“Well, yes, th-that is,” the young officer stammered. “It’s just that…” 

“Yes?” There was an impatience to the man’s voice which ought to have proven sufficient to answer the constable’s question. Had the young man not been so flustered, he might have noticed. 

“What I mean to say,” he tried again, “is that I mean to know if you are in fact the Doctor Montclair who resides at this address.” 

“As no one else lives here but myself,” the Doctor sighed, “then I suppose I had best hope you have found me to be the man in question.” After a long moment of staring into the blankness of the constable’s features, he shook his head. “Yes. I am he. Serving the process of elimination, we can conclude thus that you are NOT me, which leaves the obvious question: Who might you be?” 

“I, er, sorry, sir, but I am a constable from the Metropolitan Police,” he began, but was interrupted quickly by the doctor. 

“I can see that, but who are you?” 

“Officer John Grady, sir.” John had the fleeting sensation of being grilled by his parents at whether or not he had stolen an apple from old widow Tennison’s market stand. 

“Well, then, Officer John Grady, what need have you of me at this devil’s hour?” 

The constable’s randomly associated relief at not being in trouble with his parents was replaced almost instantly by an even greater sense of discomfort. “I am sorry, sir, but your presence has been requested at Scotland Yard, by Sergeant Pritchett of the Metropolitan Police. It is a matter of some urgency.” 

The doctor’s eyes moved from the constable to the carriage and back again, a slight smudge of a shadow appearing on the doctor’s otherwise smooth forehead. “Urgent enough for me to put some clothes on, or is it your intention to parade me through the streets of London in my nightshirt? Am I to be placed under arrest? I am too tired to bear such a scandal.” 

Though only the Doctor’s head, arm and shoulder were visible through the doorway, the Constable could see that he was, clearly clad only in his bed-clothes, and shook his head emphatically. “Oh no, sir, it is nothing like that. I’m not at liberty to discuss details, I was only tasked to bring you to the Yard on account of your own special expertise.” 

“Expertise?” It was the Doctor’s turn for astonishment. “Good lord, man, what could the Police force want with a scientist at, what, two in the morning?” 

“One, sir,” the young man offered. “And begging your pardon, sir, it’s not for science that they need you. You see, sir, there’s been a murder.” The young constable said the final word with such a pronounced whisper that the Doctor did not respond at first, as if struggling to believe his ears. If he had expected the doctor to recoil in horror and dread at such a declaration, he was to be disappointed.  

The doctor leaned closer, his voice losing all its former fatigue. “A murder, you say? But what on earth could that have to do with me? How could I be of any use in matters of a criminal investigation?” 

Grady looked nervously to each side, even though the street was clearly empty of other listening ears besides that of the horses and driver. He kept his voice low. “It’s the strangest thing, sir. You see, the body… is bone dry, like it’s been left out in the sun. Like a puddle after a summer’s day, if you take my meaning.” 

The doctor stood staring at the young constable for several more moments, as if he was searching for a sign that the man was having a laugh at his expense. Regardless, the concept alone seemed to trigger something in him, some insatiable curiosity or demand for knowledge. 

“I shall dress at once,” the Doctor said, abruptly closing the door in the constable’s face. 

As the carriage bounded through the empty London streets, the hooves and carriage wheels echoed madly upon the buildings. It felt for several moments as if the world had somehow gone empty, leaving them the sole survivors of some inexplicable devastation.

Across from the constable sat Doctor Montclair, and the constable used these fleeting moments to get a better understanding of the man he had been sent to deliver to his superiors. The lantern set in the carriage gave Grady the first He seemed young for a doctor, unlike all the white-bearded professors with whom he had come into contact, with a head of thick dark hair combed back beneath his rounded top hat and reaching just past the top of his collar. His skin was pale, and lacked even the barest shadow of beard on his chin, giving him an even more boyish face, but was countered by the dark grey jacket and waistcoat. Were it not for the educated and professional manner in which the doctor presented himself, John thought that Montclair might as easily pass for a young man in his middle teens. Beside him on the thin cushion of the carriage bench, he rested one hand on a leather briefcase he had insisted on bringing.

“Is something the matter, Officer Grady?”

John realized that he had been staring, and felt himself blush at being called out on his poor manners. “Begging your pardon, sir, I was just…” he struggled to find a way to explain himself that didn’t come across poorly. Clearly, however, it was something the doctor had dealt with before.

Smiling, Montclair waved his hand. “You think me too young to be an expert in my field, correct? No need to attempt a denial, I recognize that look all too well. I assure you, I graduated Oxford quite young, but am simply affected by a young man’s features. I am well into my twenty-fifth year, and suppose I have you beaten by three or four in that regard, yes?”

Grady nodded. “Twenty-two last March, sir.”

“Married, judging by the press of your clothing with at least one child still in napkins, if the smell is any indication.”

The young man’s eyes widened. “Yes, and yes. Quite marvelous!”

Montclair shrugged non-committally. “Mere observations, Officer Grady. As a member of the police, you should yourself be more observant, as well. Such a degree of analytical perception should be equipment as critical to you as your night-stick and rattle.” With a wan smile, he added, “I know well enough what people may think of my appearance, but I assure you I am older than you are.”

Before John could respond, the carriage slowed to a halt. Out the carriage door was the rear entryway to the headquarters for the police, and a pair of officers were standing by to escort them inside.

Montclair stepped down onto the stone pavings of Great Scotland Yard, adjusting his hat and looking around him. He had passed this way once or twice in the past, curious about the policing force organized only a decade or so earlier. In that time, however, they had made impressive strides in the gradual reduction of crime in the greater London area. But traveling past so reputable a structure was not the same as being invited inside. He took a slow breath and nodded to the young officer Grady. His hand tightened around the hardened handle of his case. “Very well, lad, let us go see what all the fuss is about.”

The hallways of the Metropolitan Police force were smoky but well lit by the frequently spaced oil lamps, and were quickly filled with the buzz of discussion as Doctor Montclair was escorted into the examination room where Sergeant Pritchett and several other officers waited.

Officer Grady stepped into the room first, gesturing towards the doctor and making quick introductions. “Sergeant, sir, this is Doctor Montclair himself, as requested.”

Pritchett was a hard man, with grey in his thick moustache, and several small scars across his jawline. He was clearly a man who did not back down from a fight, as the man of the force had quickly come to know, and the scars upon his knuckles showed that he had known to give as well as he got. But there was a quiet patience visible in his dark blue eyes that waited like a winter sky, cautioning any who met him against mistaking him for a common thug. His hair, kept cropped short above his ears, was nevertheless unkempt, suggesting that he had been roused from his own sleep, and not likely much longer ago than Montclair had been. He nodded curtly to one of the constables who had opened the door for them; the man closed it again, leaving Grady and Montclair inside with Pritchett and a fair dozen other men.

“You’re the scientist?” the Sergeant growled.

Montclair nodded silently. He glanced briefly over at Grady, certain that the constable was remembering their own brief conversation in the carriage ride to the station. “How may I assist, sir?”

The other men had been standing shoulder to shoulder around a table set in the middle of the room. At Pritchett’s gesture, the men moved away, revealing a body concealed beneath a thin white sheet. Though the sheet was pulled completely over the body, Montclair could discern it to be of a woman of average height and weight. On the opposite side of the table stood a man in a suit with a white apron, who Pritchett identified as Doctor Samson Palmer. Palmer and Montclair nodded to each other in professional respect.

“A pleasure to meet you at last, Doctor Montclair,” the other doctor, easily a fair thirty years Montclair’s senior, said. “Your recent paper on the employment of steam engines to break the barrier of sound and gravity, I believed to be…quite imaginative.”

Allister knew well enough what the older generation in the scientific fields felt of his work, but chose to accept the superficiality of the older man’s compliment in which it was only thinly intended. “I thank you, Doctor, and offer my congratulations as well for completing your seventeenth year of professorial duties at the University.” He was careful to make no references to any published works Palmer had written; for in fact the older doctor had not written an original paper in more than ten years. The two had never known one another socially, but Montclair knew most of the people in the scientific and medical community of the United Kingdom by name and reputation. Many of them knew Montclair as well, though few respected him or those philosophies of which he studied and pursued. He knew it must be of profound annoyance to Palmer to be in the same room with him, but for the sake of this case, Montclair kept his more offensive observations to himself.

With a slight gesture of his hand towards the body, Montclair asked instead, “What have your observations learned, Doctor?”

Palmer flinched slightly, as if he had been expecting an argument. “Of course, right. The body is of a nineteen to twenty year old woman, found in Saint James’ Park, within sight of Buckingham Palace.”

Montclair stepped closer. “That close to the royal family,” he said softly. “I see now the reason for your sense of urgency. You will have my cooperation and discretion. Show me, then.”

Doctor Palmer paused, glancing over at Pritchett, who nodded his consent. Palmer reached down and folded the sheet over, exposing the woman down to just below her shoulders. Her eyes were open, pale blue and staring lifelessly towards the ceiling, an expression of abject terror frozen on her face. Behind him, Montclair could hear Grady gasp softly in surprise.

He hadn’t been the only one to hear it. The sergeant glared at the young man as though he had forgotten Grady was still present.

Allister moved closer, his eyes moving quickly from the woman’s expression to the darkly stained wound upon her neck.

“I presume you equate this wound with the cause of her death, then,” Montclair said. He leaned forward, looking more closely at the jagged edges of the flesh where something – or someone – had torn into her skin. Tissues and cartilage were visible, reminding Montclair instantly of several of the cadavers he had examined in his education, though where those had been carefully treated and prepared for examination, this corpse had been crudely destroyed, discarded. Careful not to touch the body or the cloth that covered her, he looked as closely as he dared, even giving as thorough an examination as he could to the hair and underside of her shoulders and neck.

“You found her unclothed, I assume?”

Doctor Palmer blanched. “Yes, even so. How did you--?”

“The soil stains and grass clippings in her hair and staining the skin where she was left indicates that she was left naked upon the ground for several hours; her hair was wet when you brought her here, though it has not rained since yesterday morning. It would have taken several hours in this humid air to have gathered so much moisture and yet still be wet after an hour of your examining her, but her hair would have been dry if she had been left there prior to that time.”

Montclair set his bag down, opened it and drew out a pair of lensed goggles. Handing his top hat back to Grady, he pulled the goggles over his eyes and flicked through a series of lenses until his eyes appeared almost comically large through the apertures. Looking back at the wound, however, Montclair could now see the damage in much greater detail. “I see almost no blood whatsoever in the body; no bruising as would be consistent with a corpse of this age, nor of pooling of the humours. I see no coagulation in the subsurface of the dermis, nor in the esophageal cavity, and only microscopic spattering of blood upon the epidermis itself. The wounds itself appear organic in nature, and not mechanical nor industrial. However, the patterns of damage do not appear consistent with any creature common to London nor the British Empire. Are these findings aligned with your own conclusions, Doctor Palmer?”

Montclair stood up again, slipping the goggles from his face while waiting for Palmer to respond.

“Why…that is to say, how…” the old man seemed at a loss. “I mean, yes. Those were my findings as well.”

The room turned its attention at once to Sergeant Pritchett, who chewed for a moment on the inside of his cheek. He’s a smoker, that one, Montclair recognized. Doesn’t like to make a decision without his pipe. After a short silence, Pritchett thanked Doctor Palmer for his time and had one of the other officers escort him back to his home.

After Palmer was gone, Montclair turned towards the sergeant. “How long did it take Palmer to reach those same conclusions?”

“What do you mean?”

Carefully keeping the satisfied smile from his lips, Montclair affected a slight shrug of his shoulders. “The hair is dry, meaning she’s been here for several hours, and since you summoned me for my own…unique…qualifications, I can only assume that I was able to come to his same results in a fairly more reduced period of time, and you hope I can help you in ways that Doctor Palmer clearly could not.”

Pritchett sighed. “So tell me something new, then,” he said.

“I shall need to examine the body,” Montclair said.

“One of my officers will remain with you.”

Montclair couldn’t blame the man for not trusting him. He knew they all judged him by his appearance – much too boyish for serious things. And what’s more, a body found murdered a stone’s throw from the royal family? Dark times, indeed. “Grady can stay.”

Pritchett looked at the young officer, and shrugged. “That’s well by me. Everyone else, clear the room. We’ll be next door when you’ve completed your study. And, doctor?” he added, as the men began to file out.

“Yes, sergeant?”

“We need answers,” he said, a hint of sincere desperation in his voice. “And we need them soon.”

Once the room was cleared, Allister picked up his case and set it on a stool on the opposite side of the table where the body had been placed. He removed his jacket and placed it carefully across one of the chairs at the edge of the room, plucked out his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. The cuff links were dropped into one of the pockets of his waistcoat, opposite a thin silver chain that was attached to a pocket watch he had been given by his grandfather on his seventh birthday. He patted it briefly, as much out of a comforting sense of simply knowing it was there in a good fortune capacity as anything, and took a deep and cleansing breath.

“So what do you think, Doctor?”

Allister looked up at Grady. “I think you shall need to give me a moment to start my examination. All I know right now is that a poor young – no, strike that – a well to do young woman has been slain, by some manner of beast unknown to the public at large.”

“Begging your pardon, but…?”

Montclair held up a hand to interrupt the man’s question. “Her skin is clean and healthy, her teeth well cared for. I assume when we look at her hands as well, we shall see simply more smooth skin, untainted by years of hard work and unhealthy living. Her hair, however, would indicate that she is not of the aristocracy – note the clean lines of its cut and where it has been brushed well but not braided or adorned – and then again, were she of the elite your police force would already have her identity known. Thus, a reputable family, likely well off and among those who own industry and are not subject to it. “

Looking back up to the young man, he placed a hand on the edge of the sheet. “You may wish to look away, now, young man, as I assume you have seen no other woman as god made her other than your young wife.”

Grady blushed, but conceded the point, turning to one side before Montclair pulled the sheet back further from the woman’s corpse.

He noticed that the Doctor returned to his bag more than once, fetching several items he neither recognized nor understood, while making notes in a thin leather bound book he had placed on the table by the woman’s head. The doctor frequently made use of his strange optical contraption, flicking the hinged lenses up and down in seemingly random order. Grady counted no less than ten adjustable lenses on each side of the goggles’ apertures, and busied himself with attempting to count the number of permutations that could be managed using all potential combinations of all of the lenses.

“Please stop that,” the doctor said, sternly but softly.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“I said to please stop that.”

Grady was confused. He had not been fidgeting or moving at all, he had not said anything, and he wasn’t even breathing loudly.

“The counting,” Montclair explained, seeing Grady’s expression. “It is quite distracting.”

Blinking in surprise, the young man didn’t quite know what to say.

“And if you must know,” the doctor continued, “there are precisely one thousand and twenty four different settings on these lenses, assuming I am not attempting to save time by combining the combinations between both lenses independently, which would suggest more than one million different possible settings.”

Before Grady could respond further, Montclair added, “One million forty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-six, to be precise. But I try not to use such extravagant combinations, it tends to give me a migraine.”

“Begging your pardon, but… what are those?” Grady asked at last, gesturing to the doctor’s spectacles.

The doctor paused in his examination just long enough to offer a response. “They are truth, young man. Truth, as opposed to Justice, who as I am told is most often blind. I have named them my Spectaculars – they allow me to see as man most often cannot. From the tiniest fleck of evidence to the patterns of the waves of the cosmos. Temperature, electricity, magnetism, and so forth. Some of these lenses do things even I do not understand, and in some combinations, the effect has rendered me quite speechless. And, speaking of speechless, I must ask you to remain thus so that I may continue my examination.” And with that, Doctor Montclair re-adjusted his Spectaculars and continued his study of the corpse.

Grady, for his part, continued to observe the doctor, all the while careful to never look directly at the woman on the table. He wondered, silently, what manner of man could so freely look upon the naked body of a dead woman, and yet be so clinical and scientific about it. Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to do so.

After what felt like an hour, Montclair pulled the sheet once more to the end of the table, returning the young woman’s corpse to her former concealed state. The doctor glanced over the pages he had written on, nodding to himself. At last, he looked back towards constable Grady and nodded his head.

“Let us go speak with your sergeant,” he said softly. “I have some very bad news for him.”

At the doctor’s behest, Sergeant Pritchett had assembled, two hours later, a large quantity of the Metropolitan Police Force in their largest meeting halls – really, little more than a mucked-out stable, still smelling faintly of its previous inhabitants. As per their brief discussion, Pritchett had the men line up, ten across and four deep, the last few men standing along the back. When they were at last gathered, Pritchett stood at the front with officer Grady, while doctor Montclair walked along the rows of officers, looking at each of them with his unusual goggles.

“And you are certain, these are all the men under your governance who meet with my requirements?” the doctor asked. “No others might be still left unaccounted-for?”

“These are the men, exactly as you indicated.” Sergeant Pritchett was clearly troubled by this, but was still willing to go along with whatever confusing stage of the investigation Montclair’s evidence had brought to light. His request had been mostly a logical enough one: he had asked the sergeant to gather all the men who had either worked on the day of the body’s discovery or the night before, or who lived alone, but his following conditions seemed more random: all officers who had relatives in either the medical or butcher’s professions, who preferred to work nights, or who had travelled abroad in the previous two years. Pritchett had been as confused by these criteria as Grady had, but he complied nonetheless.   

The doctor studied them all for several minutes, again making random notes on his small pad of paper. Finally, he returned to the front, and stood to one side of the sergeant, conversing privately. Even in this dimly lit room, Grady could see the sergeant’s face pale slightly.

“Are you sure?” he heard the man say to the doctor. Montclair looked at him for a moment as if he couldn’t believe the question’s existence, let alone its utterance, but nodded patiently, nonetheless.

Pritchett sighed heavily, slowly turning back to his constables.

“Very well, men, we have what we need, I’m going to ask you to return to your duties, and for those of you who were not scheduled for work, I thank you for your time, and please see the stationmaster as you leave to ensure you are compensated for your time. However, I am going to require the following individuals remain here so that I may acquire some additional information: Matthews, Porter, Varney and MacTiernon.”

The four men looked quizzically at one another as their names were called, but aside from a bit of amused interplay with their associates as they left, the four men remained behind with no additional issues.

“’Scuse me, sir,” Porter, a large man with oily black hair and dull grey eyes said. His voice was gruff, and the darkened stubble on his slightly crooked jaw gave him the appearance of having been equally qualified as a street thug. “Wha’s this all abou’, eh?”

  “If you please, gentlemen,” Doctor Montclair said, accepting a brief nod of allowance from the sergeant. “I have a few brief questions to ask of you before we get this all sorted out for you. Please do respond honestly and without obfuscation or deception or do as I ask as quickly as you may and with a modicum of forbearance and compliance…” He cleared his throat. “Just do as I ask and this will go quickly.”

Referring to his notes, he asked, “Please extend your left hands out, palms down, thank you.” After a few more nervous glances at their superior officer, the constables complied. Montclair passed down the line, once again looking at each of their hands through his bizarre goggles. He made a few notes on whatever findings he uncovered, and then returned to his satchel. Fishing through the bag for a moment, he pulled out a small metal box with a thin tube on one end and several small protrusions on the sides. He attached a rounded cylinder to a metal nipple on the back, which snapped into place with a brief hiss of steam. He then affixed a canister to the top and a metal crank to the left side of the box and stepped forward.

Sergeant Pritchett was clearly concerned by the strange contraption. “Doctor, I must protest, this seems highly unorthodox…”

“What we are dealing with is highly unorthodox,” Montclair said abruptly, cutting him off. “We are dealing with no common criminal, no mere act of violence. Those victims – and I tell you now I know that there have been many more about which you have been reluctant to admit – have not had their vitreous humours scattered into the wind like steam from the surface of a pond as you would prefer to believe. These victims have been drunk dry like wine from a skin. I repeat,” he said, not taking his eyes from the four police men, “your victims were fed upon.”

The room fell painfully silent until at last the sergeant spoke again. “You must be mad, Doctor. What – what manner of creature would do such a thing?”

“That,” Montclair replied softly, “is what I intend to find out.”

Noting the constables’ general expressions of concern, he smiled in what he hoped was a kindly manner. “Just this one test, if you please, and we shall have our answer.” He began turning the crank, releasing a mixture of chemical components stored in the canister to be mixed with the compressed air and projected outwards; one full rotation of the crank for each constable, four cranks for four clouds of pungent air blown in their faces. Three of the men looked almost instantly nauseated by the smell, and began coughing powerfully. The fourth, however, remained perfectly still.

Doctor Montclair looked at the man curiously.

“This man should stay,” the doctor said. “Varney, yes? The other three may go.”

Sergeant Pritchett took a slow step forward, looking cautiously at constable Varney. He gestured towards the door, dismissing the others who were all too happy to comply, closing the door again behind them. Varney, however, stood stock-still and unflinching.

“What was in that machine, Doctor?” the sergeant said as he approached. Varney had not moved, was still staring at the point of the wall opposite him, unblinking.

Montclair shrugged, taking a step back to stand beside the much taller Pritchett. “Nothing, actually, but it caused this Varney chap to hold his breath and take on a defensive posture. Only a guilty monster would think to do such a thing.”

Blinking in disbelief, Grady moved to stand on the other side of the doctor. “So you didn’t do anything to him – it – whatever?”

Montclair shook his head.

“So how long will he be like this?” Pritchett pulled his pistol out of its holster and began to load it; powder, ball, and readied in an impressive period of time.

Montclair opened his mouth to respond, but Varney moved first. Instantly, his features paled and shifted, looking at once less living and more like that of a corpse himself, his skin turned sallow and clung to the bones like there was little else inside him.

Pritchett leveled the pistol. “Make no movement, creature!” he ordered. Montclair raised his arm to caution restraint, but the creature was again too fast.

It shifted again in the blink of an eye, appearing now to be more feminine in aspect, as its eyes glowed a deep red, the color of blood. A pulse of heat radiated out from the creature, bathing the creature’s three captors in the smell of jasmine and sandalwood. For several moments, no one moved, until the creature slowly moved from where it stood, until it was close enough to the doctor and the constables that it could touch them.

“So clever you are, mortals,” it said, its voice sounding like a cold wind blowing through the autumn leaves. “But alas, you men are all so simple to ensnare, unlike your women. They, I have no choice but to feed upon, since my enchantments have so little power over them. I had hoped to remain hidden among you, feeding undetected for several years more, but you have proven more clever than I had suspected. Now I must find a new city, a new face, a new life to claim as my own. Perhaps Paris.”

It moved closer, until its fetid breath flowed across them all as it spoke. Finally, it stopped directly in front of Pritchett, sizing the man up. “It is so great a path to Paris,” it whispered. “I shall require the three of you to keep me sated until I can secure myself in my new home.”

“I’m afraid I simply cannot allow that,” Montclair said. The doctor’s thin hand snaked out towards Pritchett’s pistol, gripping and raising the sergeant’s hand with his own. Pressing the barrel up to the surprised creature’s face, he pulled the trigger. The barrel spat out a cloud of smoke and fire, though the sound was all but muffled by its proximity to the creature’s face. The concussion, however, drove the iron ball powerfully into the creature’s face and driving it back several feet.

“My apologies, Sergeant,” Montclair said, “but I shall endeavor to explain. You see, I …  ah, the explanation shall have to wait, I’m afraid. It would appear the creature is not yet slain.”

Montclair released the pistol and slowly walked back over to his satchel, while the pale creature slowly crawled back from them, its body already reforming around the horrific hole that still marked the center of its face.

As he rummaged through his things, Montclair attempting to refine his theories on the creature’s nature, cataloguing what he knew aloud for the monster to hear. “I can already narrow down the list of your possible origins due to your feeding style and your preferred terrain. You are not a nature spirit, else you would not frequent the cities, which narrows the field considerably. You do not feed upon the flesh, but only the blood, which narrows it further. You can alter your appearance, bringing me to only nine possible creatures. A wound to the face does not kill you, meaning that you cannot be one of the kishi or the odmience. I had thought you to be one of the gancanagh, but I see now your seduction only works on men. The churel are only female, and the draugr have no power of mesmerism. An er gui would never be harmed by anything less than an enchanted blade, and the ördög would likely have killed every living being in this room the moment it thought its life were in danger. That leaves us only two choices, depending on whether you were born thus, or were later created.”

At first, Montclair suspected the creature was choking, but soon realized it was laughing, the sound sending flecks of discarded bone and rotted flesh onto the floor.

“I am older than your wisdom, infant,” it wheezed. “Your kind has a thousand names for me and mine. We, who were birthed in your first fearful cry, conceived in your first misery. We are the creatures of lost blood, the demons of and abandoned soul, and the harbingers of the undead. We are…” The creature’s voice paused, distracted to silence by the small silver-bladed dagger which suddenly appeared just to one side of the center of its chest. On the other side of the room, Montclair lowered his hand, frowning as he flexed his fingers slightly.

“Apparently, I have fallen out of form,” the doctor said in a stage whisper. “This is what comes from too long a time spent in literary pursuits, and too little time in the field.”

A loud hiss erupted from the dagger’s wound, clearly causing the creature great agony, but when it attempted to wrest the blade free, even touching the hilt made it scream in pain. It turned its attention on Montclair, cursing the doctor’s parentage and existence in a stream of the most vile language heard by most of the room’s occupants.

“I say,” Montclair winced, taking a quick step back towards the non-descript leather satchel. “I can’t decide whether your language or your breath is the more foul. Either way, I believe I have a simple remedy.” Reaching in and pulling out a walking stick, the doctor paused for the anticipated reaction of surprise at the simple act of prestidigitation. Sighing at the reminder that the only people who had witnessed the little magic trick were either paralyzed or a monster, Montclair shrugged. “Very well, then, but you all owe me a round of applause.”

A soft click emanated from the cane as Allister thumbed the tiny trigger, releasing the hidden blade from its sheath and slid the two pieces of the cane apart. Holding the sheath in one hand and the rapier in the other, Montclair turned once again to the creature.

“The city of London is no longer your pool of blood, monster,” Montclair said evenly. “I give you this one chance to surrender.”

The creature cackled. “You would show me mercy? Your kind only fears what it does not understand. You only destroy what you fear. What mercy could I expect from you?”

It did not await an answer. Instead, it lunged at the slender doctor, mistaking him for easy prey. Its speed and strength were no match for the doctor’s perceptions, however. Even as it leapt, the doctor had shifted towards the right, bringing the rapier’s sheath up and across the creature’s field of vision, even striking it across the face as it passed harmlessly by.

Montclair used the moment to take note of several changes that were occurring to the creature’s body. Its limbs were extending, resulting in thin, long arms and fingers, with bony protuberances jutting sharply from the ends of each fingertip. Its face was stretching, too, and its nose was becoming more flattened as its ears and teeth become longer and more pointed.

It is transforming, Montclair realized. There is no time to spare. Eyeing the dagger, still sticking out of the creature’s chest, the doctor grimaced.  This is going to hurt, I expect.

The two sparred briefly, with neither combatant gaining observable ground on the other. Montclair continued to lead the creature back to the center of the room, doing what was possible to keep the creature away from both the room’s only exit and from the two constables. Suddenly, however, Montclair landed awkwardly in a follow up from one of the creature’s swings, and the moment of distraction proved disastrous.

The creature quickly slapped the scabbard aside, reaching in to both block the rapier arm and curl its claws around the doctor’s exposed throat.

“And now, gentleman scientist,” the creature said, its voice a terrible cocktail of malevolent hunger and putrescent odors, “I shall take my time devouring you.”

The doctor dropped the sword and extended both arms suddenly, pulling the creature forward more quickly than it had expected. As it had anticipated resistance, the sudden motion pulled it off balance and Montclair used the momentum to plunge the dagger deeper into the creature’s chest, at last piercing the creature’s blackened heart.

“I appear to have misjudged the tensile durability of post mortem tissues,” Montclair mused, recognizing that the creature was now fully in a state of immobility. The doctor leaned down so as to more carefully examine the dagger and ensure it remained solidly in place. “Excellent,” he said, a slight smile of satisfaction crossing his features as he turned back to the two constables. “So good to see I haven’t completely lost my touch.”

Reaching again into his bag, he withdrew a vial of concentrated coriander mixed with alangium and waved it briefly beneath the noses of Pritchett and Grady. “One moment more, gentlemen, this should help counteract the paralysis you are feeling.”

A few minutes later, the two men were once again able to move their limbs and astonish at the things they had seen.

“Explain yourself, doctor,” the sergeant ordered, pointing at the still-immobilized body of the constable they had known as Thomas Varney. “I demand to know what is going on?”

“Of course you do, sergeant,” Montclair conceded. “But I cannot promise that you will believe it. You see, there are monsters in London.”

“In London?”

“Quite so,” the doctor confirmed. “And London is not alone. Across the face of the world, creatures both dark and light exist, resolved to either destroy or protect humanity. What you may dismiss as mere figments of superstition and fancy, I assure you, exist. There are some who have studied these things and have dedicated their lives to keeping the balance tipped in favor of humanity.”

“Like yourself?” Grady asked, his voice still weakened by fear and the last vestiges of the paralysis with which he had been stricken.

“Indeed,” the doctor replied, reaching once more into the satchel and drawing out a glass jar and a curved surgical saw.

“One moment!” Pritchett ordered, once he deduced the doctor’s target. “What do you mean to do with that?”

“This creature,” Montclair said, indicating the creature’s inert form, “is one of a series of similar strains of monster, and I must analyze it to see where it came from. If there is one, there could be more. Or do you really want more of these running about London, drinking up the citizenry?”

Pritchett gnawed on his lip. “First, tell me how you knew there had been other victims.”

Montclair looked over at the sergeant. “These creatures feed, but would not be so brazen as to leave a corpse so close to a population’s critical center like the palace. Had this been the only body, you would have presumed it to be the solitary act of a madman; you summoned me because you realized that this was something more, merely the latest and boldest in a pattern of death. When Doctor Palmer confirmed it was not a wild animal, you turned to me because you had exhausted all other alternative explanations. You came to me because you knew this had been done by a monster.”

The sergeant, finding no fault in the doctor’s logic, stepped aside and left him to his work. With a few quick cuts from the blade, Montclair carved a simple circle around the hilt of the dagger, deep enough to expose the heart. Withdrawing the blade carefully, the heart remained suspended upon the gleaming and rune-carved dagger; holding this over the glass jar, he drew the dagger’s blade against the lip of the jar and deposited the blackened heart into the vessel, and sealed it quickly. Instantly, the body of the creature faded to a greenish grey hue and crumbled like a column of ash.

Behind him, Grady made the sign of the cross, and Pritchett, though not normally a devout man, followed suit. Montclair seemed to ignore their gestures, instead placing the dagger and glass jar carefully back into his satchel, along with his other items.

“What if there are more?” Grady said nervously.

“Oh, I am most certain that there are.” Montclair’s tone was matter-of-fact, as if speaking about the color of the London skies in winter. “I will go now to this Varney’s home, if you will have one of your officers escort me, sergeant. Assuming there are others, I shall do my best to remove their threat as well, and if there are none there, I shall likely find clues to lead me to them, if they exist within the city.”

“You’re going now?” the sergeant seemed, to his part, genuinely concerned for the doctor.

Montclair smiled. “Yes, of course. Creatures such as this operate quite frequently under a hive mindset, similar to bees and the Turkish Karakoncolos, which is….well, another creature altogether. At any rate, they will doubtless notice the death of their own and may scurry off if we do not crush them quickly. Varney’s kind also frequently travel with mesmerized servants, and I shall endeavor to restore them, as well, or ensure that they surrender to your Metropolitan Police Force.”

“You keep referring to his kind, doctor,” Pritchett said. “What is it that you speak of? Does it have a name?”

“It has many. But judging by a faint accent and the set of his jaw, I would assume Varney is by his origin of an eastern stock, likely out of the Ottomans. Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania, perhaps. In that region, they refer to his kind as Vampyr.”

Pritchett took this all in, nodding somberly. It felt as if his very sense of reason was teetering on the edge of a very dark precipice, and feared asking any additional questions might send it down into the depths of its unforgiving shadow. “Very… well, Doctor, I’ll send Grady here along with you. I’ll even send a couple more along as well, for good measure.”

Montclair shrugged as if it mattered little, but then paused and nodded slightly. “Ah, I see.”

Pritchett blinked. “See what?”

“I see that you’ve worked it all out, now, yes? The clues were too obvious, I’m afraid. I had hoped to be gone before you put them all together.”

When his sergeant did not respond, Grady took a step forward. “Begging your pardon, doctor, I don’t understand what you mean.”

The doctor looked to Pritchett, giving the sergeant the chance to respond.

“So that’s it, then,” Pritchett said uncomfortably. “You don’t deny it?”

“And why would I? I merely hide the truth so that I may be of greater assistance,” the doctor said sincerely. “If you had known what I am, would you have sought my help? Furthermore, if this creature had known me for what I am, we might have lost the element of surprise.”

Pritchett couldn’t deny the logic, but refused to do so aloud.

Grady’s eyes widened. “You mean…. You mean you’re one of those… vampires, too?”

Montclair stared at the young constable for a full three seconds before bursting out laughing. Pritchett soon joined as well. Meanwhile, Grady stood confused and demoralized by his apparently misguided leap of logic.

“Doctor Montclair is a woman, you young idiot,” Pritchett said when he was once again able to speak. “He’s a she.”

Grady was gobsmacked. “A…. a woman?”

The doctor bowed, swinging her hat low before placing it back on her head. “Doctor Alice Montclair, if you please, and I would very greatly appreciate it if you could manage not to inform the entire city of London as to the truth.”

Grady felt at once a fool for having not realized it before: the smooth and beardless face of her skin, the deceptively youthful appearance and the comparably shorter stature, the delicate fingers. He could feel the blood rushing into his face.

“My lady, I apologize, I…” he began, but she shook her head.

“Shush now. This is my secret to keep,” she insisted. “As it is now yours as well. I can be of great assistance to you and the police force, should you have need of me, but I demand that you safeguard this secret. This is the price of my assistance: no one can know I am what I am.”

With the young constable still speechless, the sergeant replied for him. “I understand, Doctor,” he said. “And we will keep your secret.”

“Splendid,” Montclair said, resuming at once the voice of a slightly lower register.  “Come along, then, constable. We have more monsters to destroy, I suspect, and it is still too soon for tea.”

Pritchett stood alone in the room for several long minutes, his eyes returning to the pile of ash upon the floor which was, even as he watched, continuing to dissolve and fade away. Eventually, it left no trace at all, no evidence of its appearance, leaving him to wrestle with whether it had been there at all.

Monsters in London, he thought. Creatures across the face of the known world. Not twenty four hours ago, he had felt that he was the man to lead this young police force as a structure of order and justice in this great jewel of a city in the Queen’s crown.

Now, he realized, he was not certain of anything, anymore. Also, he needed his pipe.