Fog rolled off the Thames like grease, thick and smelling of coal dust and dead fish. Walking through Wapping at night always felt like wading through wet soot. My boots sank into the river mud with a heavy, sucking sound that echoed off the empty warehouse walls. Caleb kept half a pace behind me, his collar turned up against the damp. He carried our heavy leather satchel, his knuckles white where his fingers wrapped around the brass handle, his gray eyes constantly scanning the dark corners. "Father, we should have brought a sturdier lantern," Caleb muttered, his breath blooming in the yellow light of a distant gas lamp. My fingers brushed the cold grip of Genesis beneath my cassock. "A bright light only invites questions we aren't prepared to answer. We are here to observe, not to advertise our presence to the parish watch." Turning down the narrow slit of an alley where the body had been dragged three nights ago, I felt the air grow even colder. Brick walls pressed close on either side, dripping with condensation that looked like sweat under the dim sky. A figure huddled near the coal-wharf entrance, shivering beneath a pile of wet, grease-stained sacks that smelled of coal oil and damp wool. "That's the boy," Caleb whispered, pointing toward the heap. "He sweeps the timber yard. He was here when the watch found the body, hiding behind the salt barrels." Approaching slowly, I let my boots click against the cobblestones so I wouldn't startle him. The boy shrank back, his face a pale, terrified smear in the darkness, his small hands clutching the filthy sacks to his chest. "Get lost," the boy croaked, pulling a greasy cap low over his eyes. "I told the officers everything. I don't know nothing else about the gentleman or what bit him." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silver shilling, letting it catch what little light filtered down from the street. "The officers don't pay for details, lad. I do. Tell me what you saw before they arrived." His eyes darted to the coin, his dirty fingers twitching with a mixture of greed and terror. He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat tightening in desperate hunger before he snatched the silver. "It weren't a dog," the boy whispered, tucking the shilling deep into his collar. "Dogs don't walk like that. It was too tall, Father. Like a man bent double, but with joints that bent the wrong way, cracking like dry pine." "Did it make any sound?" I asked, leaning closer. The smell of cheap gin on my own breath mingled with the stench of rotting timber and river mud. "A clicking," the boy said, shivering violently as he looked toward the dark river. "Like fingernails on a slate. Tap, tap, tap. Then it made a wet, heavy sound, like someone throwing a sack of turnips off a wagon. That was the gentleman's throat going." "Which way did it run?" Caleb asked, his voice steady but his eyes wide in the gloom. Pointing a trembling finger toward the river wall, the boy didn't look up. "Into the dark. It jumped. No man could jump that high, not from a standing start. It went right over the timber gate without touching the top." I nodded and gestured for Caleb to follow me deeper into the alley, tossing another copper coin onto the boy's lap. "Go home, boy. Buy some hot soup and stay off the wharves after sundown. This alley has no mercy left in it." We left him shivering in his wet sacks and moved toward the spot where the brickwork met the river wall. Cold air blew off the black water, carrying the taste of salt, iron, and the deep rot of the low tide. I knelt in the mud, my cassock dragging in the filth without my caring. "Hold the lantern low, Caleb," I ordered, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Right against the brick where the boy said it jumped." Striking a match, Caleb shielded the tiny flame with his palm until the wick of our small bullseye lantern caught. A narrow beam of yellow light cut through the fog, illuminating the damp, soot-blackened stone. Three deep gouges scarred the brickwork about four feet off the ground. They were fresh, the red clay underneath the black soot showing bright and raw, like fresh cuts on old skin. "Look at the depth," Caleb murmured, leaning in until his nose almost touched the wall. "Whatever made these had immense power. It drove its claws straight through the fired brick." My fingers traced the grooves, feeling the grit of the crushed clay. "Power, yes, but look closer at the edges. They are ragged. Unfinished." I leaned my cheek almost against the cold brick, observing the angle of the strike. "The claw didn't cut clean. It tore the stone. A mature beast has talons like tempered steel, leaving smooth, sheared cuts. These claws were soft, uncalcified, splitting under the pressure of the beast's own weight." "Father, look here," Caleb reached down, his fingers hovering over a small crack in the lime mortar. Caught in the rough lime mortar were several coarse strands of hair. They weren't black, nor were they gold, but a strange, shifting combination of both that seemed to absorb the lantern light rather than reflect it. Carefully, I pulled a small glass vial from my pocket and used a silver scalpel to scrape the hairs inside. "Residue. The follicles are still weeping. A mature hound has dry, hollow hair that insulates its heat. This is still wet with birth fluid." Below the hair, on the flat surface of a cobblestone, lay a dark, greasy smear. It looked like spilled carriage grease at first glance, but under the yellow lantern light, it had a dull, sickly metallic sheen. I touched it with the tip of my gloved finger. The fluid was already dry, but it flaked away into a fine, gray powder that smelled of sulfur, sour milk, and old copper. "Unstable," I muttered, shaking my head and rubbing the gray powder between my fingertips. "If this were a fully formed demon, the fluid would remain liquid for hours, burning through the stone like oil. This is breaking down too fast." "Could the cold river air have dried it so quickly?" Caleb asked, watching me seal the powder into a second vial. "No," I said, standing up and brushing the wet mud from my knees. "The rate of decay is wrong. The vital force of the creature is leaking out because its outer shell isn't sealed. It's hemorrhaging its own life-force with every step." We measured the distance between the claw marks and the footprints in the river mud. The stride was erratic—one print deep and dragged, the next shallow and short, showing no consistent rhythm. "It's limping," Caleb observed, pointing his pencil at the uneven spacing. "Not limping," I corrected him. "It doesn't know how to use its legs yet. It's like a newborn colt, testing its bones. But this colt has teeth that can tear a man's throat out before he can scream." "But who would let such a thing loose?" Caleb's voice carried a rare note of hesitation. "If it's unformed, it should still be kept somewhere safe, under lock and key. It shouldn't be wandering Wapping." "That is the question Bishop Marlowe's friends in the registry aren't asking," I said grimly, looking back toward the main road. "Come. We have what we need here. The air is getting thick, and I don't want to be caught in the open if it decides to double back." --- Back inside the vestry of St. Jude, the air was warm but stale, smelling of candle wax, wet wool, and the gin I had left in my glass before we departed. Caleb locked the heavy oak door behind us, dropping the iron bolt with a loud clang that echoed in the empty church. I walked straight to my desk, ignoring the dull ache throbbing behind my temples. My flask was empty, but there was a bottle of cheap port in the bottom drawer that I pulled out with a steady hand. "Father, the notes," Caleb reminded me, standing by the cold coal grate. "Should I fetch the book from the press?" "Yes," I said, pouring a measure of the dark red wine into my glass. "And bring the magnifying glass. My eyes are shot tonight, and the ink is small." Moving with quiet efficiency, Caleb stepped to the wood-paneled wall behind the vestment press. He pressed a hidden latch in the molding, and a narrow board swung outward with a dry, familiar creak. Out came the bestiary. It was a thick, heavy volume bound in scarred pigskin, its corners brass-bound and green with age, containing two decades of forbidden observations. I cleared a space on the cluttered desk, pushing aside piles of unpaid parish bills, half-written sermons, and a small stack of parish registers. Placing the book under the lamp, Caleb opened it carefully. The pages were thick, handmade paper, covered in my own crabbed handwriting and detailed anatomical sketches. I turned the pages, the dry paper whispering against my fingers. Here were drawings of things the Church called devils, but which we knew by cleaner, colder names, categorized by genus and species. My fingers stopped on a page headed Canis Alchemicus. The sketch showed a beast with a massive jaw, elongated forelimbs, and a spine that protruded in sharp, bony ridges like the teeth of a saw. "Hound," Caleb murmured, leaning over my shoulder until his breath stirred the candle flame. "But look at the teeth in your drawing. They are fully formed, overlapping like shears." "Precisely," I said, tapping the ink drawing. "A mature hound has forty-two teeth, all of them dense as iron. The corpse we saw in the morgue had ragged wounds, more like tearing from a broken saw than clean bites." I pointed to my handwritten notes below the sketch. "Fluid analysis: Black-gold, highly acidic, stable up to forty-eight hours. Follicles show high iron content." "Our fluid sample disintegrated in minutes," Caleb noted, his gray eyes dark with worry as he held up the vial. "And the hair we collected is brittle. It snapped when I touched the vial with the tweezers." "Because it's an unfinished birth," I said, my voice dropping to a low murmur. "Dragged into the open before its shell could harden. It's unfinished, Caleb." Caleb rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed in deep thought. "But why would anyone release an unfinished hound? It's wild. Uncontrollable. It will kill anything it meets, without purpose or direction." "Perhaps it wasn't released," I said, staring at the sketch of the beast's skull. "Perhaps it escaped. Or perhaps whoever made it is getting desperate." "Desperate for what?" Caleb asked, his voice barely a whisper in the quiet study. "Results," I replied, my jaw tightening as I thought of the bishop. "The Diocesan Office is asking too many questions about our graves. Marlowe isn't here to count our pennies. He's looking for where the ash goes, and someone is running out of time." I reached for my wine, but my hand stopped halfway. The implications of an immature hound running loose in the East End were worse than a mature one. A mature beast is a weapon; it has a handler, a purpose, a boundary. An immature beast is a disease, a bleeding wound in the fabric of the city, driven mad by its own unformed nerves and constant, burning pain. "If it's still growing," Caleb said slowly, looking at the drawings of the beast's muscular system, "its hide won't be hardened yet. We won't need the heavy silver rounds to pierce its flanks." "No," I agreed, looking up at him. "But its skin will be covered in the birth-slime. It's highly corrosive, Caleb. If it touches your skin, it will eat down to the bone before you can even think of screaming." I leaned back in my chair, the wood groaning under my weight. The hunt was no longer a matter of waiting for the Church to give us our orders. We had to act before the beast grew strong enough to seal its skin. "We must strip the armor first," I muttered. "Before we can put a bullet in its heart. We need something that will dissolve the slime without detonating the gold inside its blood." Caleb nodded, his expression turning grim as he realized what that meant. "The Purifier?" "Purifier," I confirmed. "We'll need the brass cylinder from the cellar. Make sure the pressure valves are clean and the leather gaskets are greased with lard. If the acid leaks, we'll both end up in the ash yard." Moving toward the door that led to the crypt, Caleb paused, his hand on the heavy iron ring. "Do you think Marlowe knows what they are doing?" "Marlowe knows how to read ledgers," I said, my voice deadpan. "But he doesn't know what it smells like when a man's throat is dissolved by holy vitriol. Let's keep it that way." I closed the bestiary and set my hand over the worn leather cover. "It is a hound," I said. "Not a full one. Prepare the Purifier, Caleb." He did not ask again.

Chapter 4: The Hound's Mark