Cold grease and copper hung in the damp air of St. Jude. My knees popped as I knelt beside the heap on the chancel steps, my cassock soaking up the black-gold fluid pooling on the stone. Shattered fragments of the south window lay scattered around us, reflecting the dim moonlight in sharp, jagged teeth. Caleb stood three paces back, his breath coming in short, white bursts that vanished into the darkness of the rafters. Slowly, he unbuckled the heavy brass harness of the Purifier, letting the spent canister settle onto the stone with a heavy, hollow clang. His left glove was gone, melted down to a sticky ruin of scorched leather, though his skin remained whole underneath. "Is it dead, Father?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of the silence. Instead of answering, I reached out and peeled back the creature's upper lip. Yellowed fangs, no longer than my thumb, stared back at me from gums that had already begun to turn the color of wet slate. I pressed my thumb against the flat of its skull, feeling the soft, unformed seam where the bone had not yet fused. "Father?" Caleb prompted again, shifting his feet among the splinters of the ruined pews. Quietly, I took hold of one front paw, extending the blunt, curved talons with a squeeze of my fingers. They were brittle. One of them snapped under the pressure of my grip, flaking away like dry pine bark. My chest loosened, a tight knot of dread unraveling behind my ribs. "Just a cub," I murmured, the words scraping past my throat like gravel. "Only a cub, Caleb." "It felt larger," he said, rubbing his bare wrist where the steam had reddened his flesh. "They always feel larger when they are trying to tear your throat out." I stood up, wiping my bloody fingers on a rag I kept in my coat pocket. Genesis felt heavy against my ribs, six empty chambers clicking as I moved. "Help me cover it," I said, pointing to the heavy canvas tarpaulin we kept folded behind the altar. Together, we dragged the rough cloth over the carcass, hiding the wet gold gleam of its blood from the stained glass above. We left the broken south window to the wind. Parish funds would have to cover the repair; we had paid our dues in sweat and silver. --- Fog swallowed us the moment we stepped through the heavy oak doors of the church. Yellow and thick, it rolled off the Thames, smelling of coal smoke and rotting timber. Dampness seeped through the soles of my boots, finding the old ache in my right knee that always flared before a hard frost. Our boots clicked against the wet cobblestones, a rhythmic, lonely sound in the empty street. Caleb walked a half-step behind me, his head ducked against the chill. Every few yards, he looked back over his shoulder, his eyes darting toward the dark alleys branching off the main thoroughfare. "Stop that," I muttered, not turning around. "You'll give yourself a crick in the neck." "I thought I heard something, Father," he whispered, his teeth chattering. "You heard the river." "It sounded like..." "It was the river, Caleb." My own fingers were stiff inside my pockets, my right hand curled around the small, cracked red stone I had carved from the creature's heart. Warmth still radiated from it. Not with life, but with a strange, unnatural heat that seemed to mock the damp chill of the night. It was a flawed gem, rough and uneven, nothing like the smooth, polished stones we usually recovered from the adult beasts. We turned down a narrow lane where the houses leaned so close they nearly blocked out the black sky. A single gas lamp flickered ahead, its glass pane cracked and coated in soot. Beneath it hung a painted wooden sign, swollen with damp: *The Black Dog*. --- Warmth hit us like a physical blow when I pushed the door open. A low fire crackled in the hearth, throwing long, amber light across the clean sawdust on the floor. Only two patrons remained, hunched over their mugs in the far corner, their faces hidden beneath the brims of their caps. Behind the heavy oak bar stood Iona. Sleeves rolled to her elbows, she was wiping down a pewter tankard with a dry cloth. Her dark hair was pinned back with a pewter comb, a few loose curls framing a face that had seen its share of winters but refused to harden. "You look like two drownded rats," she said, her voice rich and steady. "More the parson than the boy." "We had a long service," I said, sliding onto a stool at the far end of the bar. Caleb remained standing, his posture suddenly rigid, his hands tucked firmly into his pockets as if he were trying to hide the ruined glove. "Good evening, Mrs. Marsh," he stammered, his cheeks flaring a bright, sudden crimson. "We are... we are sorry to disturb you so late." "No disturbance at all, young Caleb," she said, offering him a warm, easy smile that made him look down at his boots. "Sit down before your legs turn to ice." I watched them with quiet amusement, the corner of my mouth twitching upward. She reached under the counter and pulled out a green glass bottle of gin, along with two clean glasses. "Usual drink, Father?" "Make it a double, Iona." She poured the clear spirit, her eyes lingering on the dark stains on my cuffs. Questions never crossed her lips, which was why I spent my pennies here instead of the dozen other establishments between here and the rectory. "And for the hero?" she asked, turning her gaze back to Caleb. "Just tea, please," Caleb said quickly, his voice rising an octave. "If it is no trouble." "Never a trouble for you," she murmured, setting a kettle on the iron hob over the fire. I lifted my glass, the sharp scent of juniper clearing the copper taste from the back of my tongue. First swallow burned, a welcome fire that spread down my throat and settled into my empty stomach. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpane, a low, mourning sound that brought back the image of the chancel steps. My mind drifted back to a different church, fifteen years ago, in a tiny Yorkshire village whose name I had spent a decade trying to forget. No immature cub had faced us there. Instead, a monster of full, terrible strength had torn through the rafters, its hide thick enough to turn away lead, its claws long enough to open a man from collarbone to hip. "Last full one..." I muttered, my voice barely more than a breath. "What was that, Father?" Caleb asked, leaning in. I stared into the empty glass, watching the way the lamplight refracted through the cheap, thick glass. "Nothing," I said, my voice hardening as I set the glass down with a sharp clink. "Just old men's nonsense." Iona set a steaming mug of tea in front of Caleb, her hand brushing his sleeve. He flinched as if he had been burned, then immediately looked guilty for doing so. "Thank you," he mumbled, staring into the dark brown liquid as if it held the secrets of the liturgy. "You're shivering, Caleb," she said softly, reaching out to touch his forehead. He leaned back slightly, his face now the color of a ripe beet. "I am quite well, Mrs. Marsh." "He is young," I chimed in, sliding my glass toward her for a refill. "Their blood runs hot, even when their brains are cold." She gave me a sharp, knowing look but poured the gin without another word. Silence settled over our corner of the bar, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant, muffled laughter of the two patrons in the corner. Caleb wrapped both hands around his mug, his shoulders hunched as he avoided looking at the woman behind the counter. I watched him over the rim of my glass. Young and earnest, he had none of the cynicism that usually rotted those who served the Order. "You like them already ripened, do you?" I murmured, leaning close so my voice wouldn't carry across the room. Caleb nearly choked on his tea. He coughed, sputtering into his fist, his gray eyes wide with horror as he looked at me. "Father!" he hissed, his voice a frantic whisper. "She is... she is a respectable widow!" "I did not say she wasn't," I replied, my tone dry as bone. My observation was merely that you have a preference for women who know how to clean a counter without breaking the glasses. "I do not have a... a preference," he stammered, his fingers tightening around his mug until his knuckles turned white. "I respect Mrs. Marsh. She has been very kind to us." "Kindness is a rare commodity in our line of work, Caleb." "Yes, Father." "Do not mistake it for anything else, but do not throw it away either." He looked down, his red hair falling forward to hide his face. "I know," he said quietly. Iona returned from the other end of the bar, having cleared the empty mugs from the two patrons who were now shuffling out into the fog. "You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, Edmund," she said, leaning her hip against the counter. "Only the parish," I said, draining my second glass. Parish life is a heavy thing. "Especially when the sheep start biting back," she said, her voice dropping to a level only we could hear. I did not answer. I laid two silver coins on the wet wood of the bar and stood up, my knees aching from the damp. "We must be going," I said. Rector expects us early. "Take care of yourselves," she said, her eyes lingering on Caleb. "And you, young man, get some sleep." "I will, Mrs. Marsh," Caleb said, giving her a stiff, formal bow that would have looked more at home in a drawing-room than a riverside tavern. She laughed, a low, warm sound that followed us out into the cold. Cold air hit us like a bucket of well-water, clearing the gin from my head but leaving the ache in my bones. The fog thickened on the walk back. Caleb kept his eyes forward, still red at the ears. I smiled faintly and said nothing. The cracked stone lay heavy in my pocket, unfinished as the thing we had killed.

Chapter 7: A Quiet Drink