ONCE BITTEN

MEGHAN WREN

i

The werewolf slunk like he was a part of the shadow world, only visiting the mortal creatures to feed. The heart cold and the mind with no room for pity. For its heaven remained one with many victims to consume, victims who became paralyzed with fear before dined on their soft flesh.

Their cries were music to the ears, their blood the finest perfume. To watch them suffer became serenity, and joy. But the greatest satisfaction lay in taking away loved ones, tasting the difference.

Knowing a blow into the lives of their families and friends was sickly sweet, intoxicating, more addictive even than the flesh.

*

The arrest of Trevor Marshall brightened the mood around the SID offices . A victory is always best for the team, even a pointless one. Spirits remained significantly raised when, a week later, another call came in, and this time, they had a witness.

Limehouse was a mile or two east of Whitechapel. An unpleasant, marshy district rife with slums, docks, and opium dens. Crime remained a constant background noise, and outside the Ripper's hunting ground. The fact this case should be forwarded urgently to Detective Inspector Bitten strengthened his belief this was far outside the norm.

On the 26th of April, the Inspector called Dr Loup and Constable Wilk, and the three of them crammed into a Hansom cab to the Combs Ford Leatherworks, the defunct tannery. On the way, Bitten examined the notes received with the case, and filled his compatriots in on the relevant details.

The girl's discovery reported in the morning to a patrolling bobby by a disheveled, semi-sober dock hand who'd declined to give his name and vanished into a warren of side streets.

Following up the report, the constable discovered a dead girl. His description of the state of the body rung a number of bells, and his sergeant dispatched a runner to take word to the SID.

According to the report of Constable Wiltshire, the man who approached him appeared sturdy enough, but his eyes were as red as a rat's, and his breath remained a blast of pure Scotch. Wiltshire stated he gave the impression of being a haunted man though.

"You police?"

The man said.

"A dead woman, mate. That tannery. She dead inside. Like a fish, yah?"

He made an alarming motion with his hands that appeared like he was peering through curtains. I asked him for his name, and he peered at me, blinked twice, and scarpered.

"By the time I got to the alley entrance, no sight of him, and too many footsteps to be sure which was his. I judged likely an opium dream, but since he told me the location, and I remembered the place all closed up, like, I went for a look-see. I found a corpse all right. In a tub, no less. Her throat slit for her, poor girl. Her clothes been ripped off around her, and sliced up the middle, with bits of her insides pulled out. Looked like a word is cut into her forehead, but appeared to be too much blood to make out, what the word was. I didn't want to touch her, did I? A bloke who worked in the wood shop next door been hanging around, and he told me he's seen something odd. I told him to keep anyone from going in, and came back here sharp."

An accompanying note from the sergeant mentioned that a young woman by the name of Meghan Wren was reported missing the previous evening. Although the original statement described her as a seamstress, police records suggested she may be a prostitute and occasional pilferer. A physical description of the missing woman been attached. Additionally, the sergeant noted that Constable Wiltshire headed back to the crime scene to keep the area properly secured.

After a moderately unpleasant fifteen minutes, the cab delivered Bitten and his team to the yard of the Leatherworks. The place, as advertised, no longer in business, and while some residual stench remained, not unbearable. The yard appeared to be empty of crates or other signs of commerce, and the building itself in a state of some disrepair. A big door confronted them on the front wall, slightly open. Sash windows sat either side, painted over in the small ageing, ugly green shade with the door covered in.

A chubby, middle-aged policeman of average height stood by the entrance to the gate, talking to an old fellow in a dusty apron. The Inspector went up to the pair.

"I am Detective Inspector Bitten of the Special Investigative Division."

He said.

"The body is inside the tannery?"

The policeman straightened himself.

"Constable Alfred Wiltshire. I'm at your disposal, sir."

He sounded eager to be helpful.

The old fellow just peered at the new arrivals.

"Special Investigative Division? Never heard of you."

Bitten nodded.

"Thank you, Mr...?"

The old man's eyes narrowed.

"Bob. Bob John, and no compliment, Inspector. I don't know what's wrong with you police any more, sprouting new names all the damn time. Like weeds. I don't like too much change."

"Mr John here might have seen the killer."

Constable Wiltshire stated.

"This is important."

Bitten added.

John waggled his hairy white eyebrows.

"Some movement going on in the tannery yesterday, late afternoon. Not full dark, yet. Half five, maybe. Bloke who owned this place was, and I don't want people mucking about. So, I stamped out into my yard, and yelled for them to clear out. Next thing something bursts out through the front doors."

"Something?"

"Yes, something!"

"Well? What did you see?"

"A bloody great dog."

"A dog? What sort of dog?"

"More like a wolf with white-silvery fur, glossy and thick. Blood around its mouth, fresh blood, dripping. I tell you now, its paws kissed the earth with a lightness that I almost found hypnotizing. Stared at me and left the yard, as if something the dog did every day."

"Did you give chase?"

"He ran off out of the yard, but by the time I got to the yard gate, the damned thing had gone."

"Anyone else about?"

"Just a man on the other side of the street, wearing a hooded cloak, and holding the front closed with one hand, and tugging the hood down with the other."

"Did you get a glimpse of his face?"

"I thought I saw a bit of a dark moustache and a beard past his arm. I pegged him at about five foot eleven, and from what I saw of his trousers a trim calf. His fingers were thin too, and long. Almost like claws."

"What did you do next?"

"I checked the door. Unlocked. I shut the damn thing. I might lock the door back up if the owner's son had given me a key, but he hadn't, so I didn't. I did not fancy going in, on my own right. Curiosity kills the cats, especially near the docks, and thankfully your Constable Wiltshire arrived."

"The door was locked?"

Bitten paused.

"Yes. The owner's son came round here last week, with some clerk. He used the padlock on his way out. He's not been back since."

"Have you a back door?"

Bob John spat onto the pavement.

"You count the stinking sewer creek that the tannery uses?"

"Was he covered in sewer filth?"

"Exactly. Sides and back are solid brick, and the roof is all slate."

Constable Wiltshire leapt in.

"I'm sure he just went through the window."

The old man sneered.

"Did he buggery."

"I have to agree with Mr Smith."

Bitten said.

"He didn't use the window."

"How do you know, sir?"

Wiltshire pressed.

"The window is painted over, so is held shut by the paint. Had the intruder forced the window open, the paint would have visibly cracked and flaked, particularly since ageing."

ii

Bob John gave a grudging nod of approval at Inspector Bitten's agreement.

"So, you're not as green as you are cabbage-looking, Inspector. That's a start."

"I do try."

Bitten said, straight-faced.

"You said his hands were busy, Mr John. I'm thinking you'd have mentioned a case or a sack or the like if anything of the sort had been seen."

"That I would."

"Was he wearing gloves?"

"They seemed like kid leather. His sleeve had fallen down a little from where he'd raised his hand to his cowl, though, I caught sight of his wrists. Appeared to be a glint that may have been gold or bronze cuffs. The cloak is normal wear, round here any day, but his trouser legs and shoes were a fair pricier than that. Lad like that though, maybe he knows his way around a lock."

The Inspector nodded.

"Would you know him again?"

"If you swaddle him up and make him hurry along all furtive and crabwise, I'll allow a small possibility. I wouldn't know him from Adam otherwise."

"Mr John, you've given us more than I might have hoped for."

Bitten said.

"Thank you very much."

"Just doing my bit."

John said.

"The owner was an excellent man, even if his son is a horse's arse, and I'll bet my right arm that the woman, deserved nothing worse than a hot meal and somewhere warm to call her own. I've got some lacquering that needs a spot of care, so I'll bid you good morning."

The Inspector nodded.

"Good day, Mr John."

The old man stomped off heavily towards his own workshop, muttering indistinctively to himself. Bitten watched him go, and turned to Loup and Wilk.

"It's a parcel more than we had, gentlemen. Constable Wiltshire, it's possible that our mystery fellow dropped something in his hurry to leave, or left other useful traces. I do with your help in scouring his path from the doors onwards, to check if anything turns up. It's also worth a quick glance around the yard and the back of the building."

"Be a pleasure, Detective Inspector."

Wiltshire said.

"If I find anything, do you want me to leave the item as is and tell you, or bring it over?"

"As is, I think."

"Capital. Wilk, Loup, we'll take the inside."

They followed Wiltshire over to the tannery doors, and while the man started his search, they threw the doors open and went in.

Although the tannery remained out of use, the stench inside subsisted, a blend of excrement and rotting meat that cut at the back of the mouth. Smelt reminiscent of a pile of week-old corpses, but with an extra sharpness.

The open expanse of floor had been dotted with, square pools of what only be described as filth. They ran down the entire right-hand side of the workshop, the pitch-black surface of the fluids within a six inches beneath floor level.

On the other side long, heavy-looking wedges of stone protruded upwards from the floor. A variety of curved blades, maybe two feet in length, sat near them on a wooden rock. Barrels, buckets, tubs, and other bits of equipment were scattered around haphazardly.

A heavy wooden table sat near the centre of the room, a clear of instrumentation. At the very back, a stout bucket hanging from a winched rope over an empty space. Faint gurgles coming marked the sewer crosscurrent that Bob John had mentioned.

Weeks of dust covered available surface, and the trio stopped just inside the door. Although the dust was disturbed near the doors, clear paw-prints were visible in places further in. Several strings of footprints converged on a wooden tub next to one wall. Footprints of a huge dog.

White hands hung limp and bloodless from the sides.

Bitten sighed, and tried not to breathe in through his nose.

"Loup, the girl is yours. Wilk, I want you to start at this end and check up and down for anything out of place. Gently, though. I'm going to trace some of these footprints where one minute the footprints of a big dog, that become the footprints of a man."

As the other men started on their tasks, the Inspector picked his way carefully down the warehouse, trying not to disturb the dust too much further. On the far side of the table, the dust was less churned. Certainly, appeared that someone or something, had walked alongside the tanning pools and down to the back of the room, and back up the other side.

From the prints, the man wore size nines with a bit of a heel to them. As for the footprints of the dog, they didn't show any pattern or other distinguishing marks.

Looking back at the table, he spotted several marks indented into the dust on its surface. Again, paw prints, handprints, and footprints, as if the killer had been on the table on all fours. Also, traces of blood-stained saliva.

This was near a rectangle of about eight by eighteen inches that easily have been from the bottom of a doctor's case, and several long, slim spots nearby, somewhat like slender knives or scalpels.

The killer had laid out his tools.

"Wilk, keep an eye out for that dog and a medical bag."

He called.

"Or fine cutting implements. Someone rested them here recently, and Mr John said the killer didn't leave with them."

The constable straightened up from examining a scraping-horse and stared dolefully at the nearest pool of filth.

"I've not seen the like so far, sir. I'm going to have to search all of those, aren't I?"

"Chin up."

Bitten said.

"No bag in the room, another option before the tanning pits."

"Sir?"

"Check the hole in the floor onto the sewer stream beneath. The bag may have been hastily thrown away in haste."

III

Wilk nodded glumly to the Inspector.

"Sewer before tanning vats. Right you are, sir."

Bitten took another long inspection at the table. The dust appeared to be definitely thinner than on the floor, but the recent marks were quite clear. He sketched a quick impression of them in his notebook, swept the top clear with his pocket handkerchief.

The wood beneath was stained and pitted, but appeared to be no indication that any would be recent. The patch on the wood too black even for old, dried blood. Seemed likely that the discoloration would be from tanning solutions.

Past the well space at the back of the warehouse, lines in the wall suggested the possibility of a door. He headed down, watching his step, trying to ignore the clinging foetor, starting to make Bitten's head swim.

How any poor devil managed to stand day in, and day out remained truly a thing of wonder. As he approached, he saw that a door existed, with a small metal handle. He gave tried, and the door opened .

Inside, the Inspector found a modest office space, with a plain desk and chair, a cabinet, and a bookshelf. Three of the office's walls held windows, and appeared considerably less dingy than the tannery had been.

The air smelt cleaner too, and his nose almost seemed to throb at the sudden influx of untainted air. The dust here showed to be as thick as the warehouse. An arc of cleaner floor in the doors' path showed that the door had been opened before him, but impossible to guess whether this had been the owner or the killer.

Apart from the furniture, the office appeared to be empty. No papers, no writing implements and no decorations. No evidence of disturbance anywhere. He squatted down to take a shallower inspection of the top of the desk, but the dust appeared as crisp and even as fresh countryside snowfall.

Made sense. Why would the killer bother with a space that provided such visibility from the outside, when the room was so much less open? He retreated back into the vile embrace of the tannery floor, closing the office door behind him.

After giving his eyes moment to re-accustom themselves to the warehouse's light, and his nose a chance to be stunned again into horrified numbness, he started picking his way back up the room towards the tub were Loup worked.

"The doctor glanced up as he approached, his eyes appearing to gleam in the half-light.

"Ah, Inspector."

"Oh. Something interesting?"

"Every patient is interesting, Inspector."

The doctor said with a tone of disapproval.

"Fascinating, in fact. Death is universal, the simple truth of all existence, amongst the greatest of constants in all our lives. A transformation without equal. And we know so little. We flicker and vanish, but from where, to where? Why does this meat one instant possess a personality, and the next not? Despite the proud claims of the rationalists, we have no actual idea of what consciousness is. Where does your soul go?"

"Into the arms of God, I hope."

Bitten said, his voice extremely dry.

"But that is a little outside my authority. I'm more interested in our killers than in the end of all things."

"And he is evidently interested in you."

Loup replied, watching the Inspector intently. Expectation and dark amusement fought for control of his expression.

A cold little bead popped into existence between Bitten's shoulder blades and started wiggling its way down his spine.

"Why on earth would you say that?"

"Why, Inspector, pay my patient the attention she so richly deserves and the answer to that will be evident."

Feeling uncertain, Bitten peered past the doctor and down at the girl. She remained half-sitting, half-lying in the tube, which had been part-filled with tanning agents. The same chemicals had been sloshed liberally over her body, so that beneath the blood, her skin stained an odd grey-brown.

Her face seemed to be ruin of blood, but a patch of gore had been freshly cleaned off her forehead to reveal a word sliced delicately into the skin.

"BITTEN."

The inspector reeled and had to grab the edge of the tub to steady himself.

"Wh..."

He managed, before realizing that here nothing meaningful to ask.

Loup nodded, his expression settling on satisfaction.

"Yes. 'Bitten'. Our quarry has noticed our efforts. I'm a little surprised he took so long, in all frankness. But, please, don't get conceited at his attentions. Our patients bear my name as well, and third one too. One, I don't recognize."

Constable Wilk's sudden sigh of relief was audible from fifteen feet away.

"Show me the other name."

The Inspector demanded.

The doctor did as bidden, folding a flap of cheek skin over to reveal what had been written.

Bitten nodded.

"As I thought. For your personal sake I urge you to forget that name entirely, Dr Loup. No bearing here."

The doctor arched an eyebrow.

"Very well, Inspector."

"What else can you tell me about the...uh, your patient?"

"As with our other guests, killed by a strong s***h to the throat, left to right. Death is swift in such a manner. On some occasions, the s***h is deep enough to open the windpipe, even to almost sever the spine. Lighter this time, but still perfectly sufficient to kill her in seconds. You have seen the damage to her forehead and the peeling off of her cheeks. Beneath her eyelids, her eyes had been bisected laterally, which is new, a pun on him now 'seeing' us, I would think. Her tongue had been cut into five ribbons of approximately equal width, which might be extending towards 'see no evil, speak no evil' or the like. Not seem hilarious."

"God's teeth!"

Bitten muttered.

"I'd say not."

"Below her throat, less damage than usual. He opened her torso with a long cut, and pulled the flesh apart. Her got as far as parting her peritoneum and lifting her lungs and stomach out of the way, but no further. At that point, I surmise that Mr John's disturbance became evident, and that he had to curtail his work. From her decomposition, I'd say she's been barely twelve hours dead."

The Inspector blinked.

"It's eleven a.m. now. Are you saying he brought her here alive."

Loup frowned.

"Do try to pay attention, Inspector. I'm not saying anything of the sort."

"What are you saying, doctor?"

Loup sighed.

"The body is doused in tanning chemicals and left in a tub partly filled with them. Signs of decomposition have been rendered highly inaccurate in determining the time of death."