“What lurks out there at night?” Yvette pressed.

The woman wrung her hands. “A friend of mine—drunkard though he was—swore he saw pale beasts ripping a beggar apart in the alleys. Eyes like witchfire, glowing in the dark. He fled, packed nothing, and vanished. We thought him mad… until the rest noticed: fewer vagrants, bloodstained rags, drag marks. None dare speak of it. Talk too loud, and you disappear next. The beasts hunt those foolish enough to wander after dark. Where they take the bodies? Best not to ask.”

Yvette offered a wedge of butter and slipped outside, where Randall waited, grim.

“Well?”

“White beasts with green eyes. Aurora’s doing?”

Randall’s brow furrowed. “Green eyes mean werewolf frenzy—when their humanity snaps. But white pelts? Unheard of. Their forms mirror common wolves, just… fouler.”

Yvette glanced at the remaining butter. “I’ll question others, but they’re terrified. Informants might lie. We’ll need your judgment.”

“If there are spies, who?”

“Likely werewolves posing as humans. The poor trust neighbors, not outsiders. Aurora’s bloodlust limits her pawns—she can’t control mortals long. Werewolves fit.”

Randall nodded. “Check laundry lines. Werewolves don’t keep families. Their young are raised by humans, then cast out. Humiliation fuels their rage until they snap. A house with varied clothes? Not theirs.”

Yvette bartered butter for rumors. Most repeated the same, but a “knocker-upper”—dawn worker rousing sleepers—spilled a clue:

At daybreak, he’d found blood and paw prints (“wolf-like, but bigger!”) leading to a sewer grate. He quit the neighborhood, fearing the worst.

With her butter gone, Yvette followed Randall into the stench-ridden tunnels. Dank walls gave way to musk and droppings. Randall, eyes sharp in the dark, quickened his pace.

They halted at a junction. There, a stone altar bore a claw-marked symbol—a jagged star—and a grotesque trophy: a severed head skewered on a spine, ribs splayed like broken spokes.

Randall tilted the head. The pointed ears confirmed it. “The Marquis’ enforcer. A loyal servant.” His voice chilled.

“Aurora’s nearby. Should we alert the Marquis—?”

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“No.” Randall’s fangs gleamed. “Her crimes disgrace us all. Exposing this shames him further. I end this.”

As he stormed off, Yvette lingered, repulsed by the star symbol—a dripping wound in stone.

The Marquis’ grief flashed in her mind: a father steeling himself to lose a daughter. What if Randall falls too?

She sprinted after him. In the gloom, his ears had sharpened, eyes blazing crimson.

“Eternity’s no blessing,” he said bitterly. “The stronger our blood, the heavier the moon’s curse. The Prince… tires of this world. Stays only to leash ambitious pups. Aurora—” His voice cracked. “She was meant to stand beside him. Now I’ll bury her myself, sister or not.”

The tunnel's dank walls bore witness to increasing signs of predation – fecal mounds steaming and desiccated, human remnants gnawed to splinters.

"Something's wrong," Randolph muttered, nostrils flaring. "These aren't regular lycanthropes." Rounding a moss-slick bend, they disturbed seven ghastly figures hunched over bones. Albino horrors turned in eerie unison, luminescent eyes piercing the gloom.

Nature's albinos often shimmer with unearthly grace – these aberrations radiated disease. Pus caked their muzzles. Translucent skin stretched over distended ribs like rotten parchment. Their ragged pelts hung in clumps, revealing weeping lesions.

Yvette's silver revolver snapped up, but Randolph stepped into her sightline. With ritualistic precision, he opened his wrist. Blood spiraled into existence as a wicked lance.

Chaos erupted. The white-furred pack attacked with rabid fury. Randolph moved like liquid shadow – a sweeping strike cleaving one skull while nicking another's leg. The wounded beast collapsed moments later, hemorrhaging impossibly from a shallow cut.

Survivors attacked in coordinated frenzy. Yvette staggered under their baleful gaze – that primordial fear of wolves howling in human DNA. Yet visions of cosmic truth burned away the terror: she'd stared into the Abyss itself.

Randolph's weapon dissolved into crimson mist. Blood needles pierced fur and flesh alike. The lycanthropes froze mid-pounce, veins bulging grotesquely until...

Wet explosions painted the walls.

Kneeling amidst gore, Randolph chanted. Blood rivers coalesced, reforging his weapon. Yvette observed clinically: typical vampire dramatics. The Spear of Longinus metaphor made sense now – holy wound transformed into cursed power. Vlad Tepes would approve.

"Marquis' duty done," Randolph rasped. "Stay if you will witness justice." He licked wolf-blood from his thumb and hissed. "Abominations! She's breeding mongrel get – mixing our blood with mangy curs!"

Understanding dawned. These plague-ridden mutants were hybrid failures. Divine magics rejecting each other, hence the suppurating flesh. That any survived Embrace proved miraculous – or hinted at darker forces.

The catacombs gave way to medieval stonework. Aurora awaited at a star-chalked altar, raven hair cascading over a gravid belly.

"Grandfather's attack dog arrives," she purred. "Still fetching his slippers?" The pregnant vampire turned poisoned sweetness on Yvette. "And you brought him here? How quaint. My brother playing knight-errant for mortal trinkets?"

Yvette blinked. So the ice-cold Randolph was considered naive? His past century locked in ancestral castles suddenly made sense. Aurora's venom flowed freely: "He microbes my actions while licking the Patriarch's boots! Where's the justice in--"

"Enough!" Randolph's lance hummed with pent blood-magic. "You desecrated sacred laws. Judgment comes."

As the siblings traded barbs, Yvette noticed the star symbols – constellations unknown to any earthly sky. The altar's geometry made her teeth ache. Whatever gods Aurora worshipped, they boded ill for London... and perhaps the world.