Kate stiffened in alarm. “Imogen!”
Simon whispered a word and smashed open the heavy door with a swift punch. Inside, the walls were stained with blood. A crumpled body lay in the middle of the room. Simon drew his stick sword and the blade flashed blue in the dim.
When Kate tried to rush past him into the room, she slammed against his arm like it was an iron pole. She was breathing wildly.
Simon stepped inside, his shoes squelching in the blood. He surveyed the sitting room, where blood covered nearly every inch of the floor like a repulsive carpet. Everything else seemed in place. Furniture upright. He noted a kettle burned black on a grate over the now-cold fire. There was a second door, but it was closed. He took another careful step, listening. He heard doors out in the hallway opening and voices raised in anger or curiosity.
The body in the center of the room had one of its arms ripped off. The clothes were peculiar for central London, a colorful dhoti wrapped around his waist and what was left of a smoking jacket. A pipe lay in the blood, and Simon smelled the faint hint of opium. The grey face had a moustache and very surprised eyes.
He turned back and shook his head to Kate. She seemed slightly relieved that the cadaver wasn’t her sister, but then she rushed for the closed door. Simon stopped her and she started to shove him aside with, “My sister is in there.”
“Miss Anstruther,” he hissed quietly. “Please stay here. We have no idea what may be inside that room.”
With a steady hand on the chipped-glass doorknob, Simon listened again, trying to block out the buzz of curiosity from outside. The sounds of the city reverberated louder behind the closed door.
He knelt quickly and ran his hand through the blood. With a dripping index finger, he began to scrawl runes on the door. After he completed several symbols, he drew a bloody circle around them. He whispered and the circle shimmered translucent and became a window into a bedroom. The bed was unmade but not tossed. Vases and lamps were sitting upright on tables.
Simon saw no bodies nor any great washes of blood. However, the rear window was open. Not broken, merely open. The dingy curtains danced in the wind. A wisp of silk snagged on the soft wood, splintered by time. Perhaps Imogen had time to flee.
“She is not here,” Simon reported. His attention was drawn back to the dead body on the floor. It lay within a circle of magic and Simon caught the faint whiff of brimstone. There was something about the man’s face. Simon stepped carefully through the blood and knelt next to the cadaver without putting his knee down. He used the tip of his walking stick to move the head from side to side, examining the features. “I know this man.”
“What?” Kate exclaimed with anger. “Why didn’t you say before that you knew Colonel Hibbert?”
“I didn’t know him as Colonel Hibbert. I encountered him years ago at a party. His name was Sunderland, and he was a doctor.”
Her voice rose an octave in distress. “He wasn’t an officer in the East India Company?”
“He was. He was a brilliant surgeon in their ranks, but deeply disturbed.” Simon rose and stepped carefully from the blood. “He was drummed out of the East India service for practices they would not even commit to a private report. It was said that he murdered numerous Indian women for his own amusement.”
Kate put a trembling hand to her cheek and stared at Simon in disbelief.
“And more,” he continued, “I assume you’re not aware that your father encountered Dr. Sunderland … Colonel Hibbert here, in India, and was instrumental in having him broken from the service and ruined in acceptable society.”
“Oh my God,” Kate whispered. “What has he done to Imogen?”
Simon crossed back to the rear door and threw it open. He saw a hint of blood on the floor leading toward the open window. Bloody footprints. They were close and regularly spaced. Walking, not running. They were the footprints of a huge hound.
A werewolf.
Chapter Eleven
The hackney cab clattered east along Oxford Street. Kate huddled under a blanket in the evening chill. She was silent and grim, and had been since they left the Boulware. She said for the tenth time, “Why can’t we go back to the Mercury Club and inquire after Hibbert’s other contacts?”
“Tomorrow,” Simon confirmed easily. “Hogarth has returned to Hartley Hall should she return there. I’ve put the word out. If someone has seen something of your sister, we’ll hear of it soon.”
“The lamplighter you spoke to?”
“Yes, they’re very helpful lads. There is no more we can do tonight.” He shouted up, “Cabbie, south on Crown.”
“Right, sir. Where’re we headed?”
“Gaunt Lane.”
There was a pause as gas lamps flashed by. “I don’t know any Gaunt Lane, sir.”