Page 69 of Master Wolf

Alys was here then.

“The creature is muzzled in the cellar.”

Drew swallowed hard, nerves shivering.

Just then, a knock at the door sounded. At Bainbridge’s “Enter,” a large, rough fellow came in. He was unshaven and slovenly-looking and did not even remove his cap from his head as he waited for Bainbridge’s order. His rough, hard-wearing clothes appeared more suitable for industrial labour than domestic service and he gave off a sour scent of angry resentment as he steadily watched his employer with small, oddly porcine eyes.

This was not a man who saw himself as a servant. He had all the hallmarks of a paid thug.

“Ah, Donald,” Bainbridge said. “If you could kindly fetch Mrs. Niven a pot of tea, she is going to wait here while Mr. Niven and I conduct our business downstairs.”

Donald glanced at Marguerite and his small eyes gleamed in a way Drew did not like. He nodded and lumbered out again.

“So, Niven,” Bainbridge said, straightening his cuffs, “Shall we get to the business at hand?”

Chapter Twenty-One

“We keepthe beast in the cellar,” Bainbridge said by way of explanation, handing Drew the lantern he’d just lit and lighting a second for himself.

The beast.

The creature.

It.

Drew’s skin crawled with uneasiness. He dreaded what he was about to see, and with his wolf pacing anxiously inside him, he was worried as to how he would react when he entered the cellar. He, Marguerite and Wynne had all agreed that Bainbridge must be kept alive for questioning, but without the steadying influence of the others, Drew worried how his unruly wolf would react when he saw Alys. Muzzled.

And then there was the thug-manservant. Drew had not liked how the man had looked at Marguerite, and even knowing that she could eviscerate him without breaking a sweat did not entirely relieve Drew’s qualms about leaving her alone, particularly when there was a second man at large somewhere. Two men who might well know about their kind.

“What can I expect to see?” he asked Bainbridge, as the man fiddled with the hook on the door of his own lantern. “The beast is a werewolf, is it not? Will it look like a wolf? Or a man? The skeleton I was shown had a human body, though the head was canine.”

Bainbridge met his eyes. His smile was disturbing, knowing and amused. The smile of a man who knew he was about to shock his audience.

“This beast is not like the skeleton—that was clearly some other sort of hybrid creature,” he said. “This beast—which I can assure you is a werewolf—has two distinct and separate forms: a wolf form, and the form of… a human female.”

Drew did not have to feign shock. Despite everything, having that confirmed aloud rocked him to his core and he felt himself pale.

Bainbridge’s eyes gleamed with pleasure.

“What form is she in now?” he asked faintly.

“Presently,itis in its human form,” Bainbridge said, adding, “My apologies for correcting you but it is important that you do not anthropomorphise these creatures. They will take advantage of any pity you show.”

Swallowing back nausea, Drew said, “How am I to know it is a wolf? For all I know you may just have some woman chained up to trick me.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bainbridge said, “When we unmuzzle the beast, it will transform near enough immediately to its wolf form. They do that when they are weak, you see, to heal their injuries. We can leave it in its wolf form for a few hours before we must bind it again.”

“Bind it?”

“They can be trapped in their human forms with bonds made of silver. But you will see all of this momentarily. Come—follow me.”

Lifting his lantern. Bainbridge led Drew to the rear of the kitchen where there was a hatch in the floor. Taking hold of the heavy brass ring, he lifted the wooden hatch, the underside of which was marked with a number of complicated glyphs daubed in what looked like dried blood.

“What’s that?” Drew asked.

“A protective spell,” Bainbridge said, his tone matter-of-fact. He stood aside, revealing a flight of narrow stone steps—or at least the first few steps, before the profound darkness from below swallowed them up.

A wordless groan came from the gloom below, a terrible noise that made the hair on the back of Drew’s neck stand up. It sounded like some dumb creature in agony, pleading for death. He glanced at Bainbridge in alarm but the man only quirked a brow.