'I shall close A Farce of the Fog at the end of the month and present something else.'

'Horror,' Genevieve said, almost under her breath.

'Yes, that's a good idea. If they can't laugh, perhaps they can still scream. We have done Drachenfels to death, but there is still the story of the Wittgenstein family and its monster. Or of the horrid fate of the von Diehl brothers. Either of those would make a play that would curdle the spine and shiver the blood'

Genevieve mumbled.

'You know what I mean, Gene.'

Detlef thought some more. 'Of course, those are stories of monsters and daemons. Perhaps the Beast requires something a little closer to home, a little more intimate in its horror.'

Genevieve's eyes were closed, but she could still hear him.

The Beast suggests the story of a man who is outwardly a mild, devout, conscientious individual, but inwardly a fiend thirsting for blood no offence, Gene. Some citizens say our murderer is a beast-man or a daemon, but my informants in the watch tell me they are definitely looking for a human culprit. There's that old Kislevite play by V. I. Tiodorov, The Strange Case of Dr Zhiekhill and Mr. Chaida. It is the story of a humble, respectable cleric of Shallya who samples the forbidden potion and becomes a raging, animalistic libertine. It's dross, of course, but I can prepare a loose translation, with some improvements. Some major improvements.'

The vampire was asleep but Detlef was seized by his idea.

'Of course, the transformation scenes will require all my stagecraft. I want a scene to make people forget the Beast, to make them confront their real horrors, the horrors that come from inside. It will be a masterpiece of the macabre. The critics will quake and foul their britches, women will faint all over the house and strong men will be reduced to abject terror. It will be wonderful. Gene, my darling, this will frighten even you'

IV.

Graf Volker von Tuchtenhagen looked less arrogant this morning.

'Surely, there is some other way we can settle this?'

He had obviously been dragged from his drunken bed by his second and could barely remember the grave offence he had given the family of von Liebewitz.

Leos slashed the air with his rapier. It felt like an extension of his body. Bassanio Bassarde had once jested that it was the only sexual organ the viscount possessed. The noted Marienburg wit was dead now, his windpipe laid open by an elegant manoeuvre.

'We are all gentlemen here,' von Tuchtenhagen blathered as his seconds stripped his jacket. 'No offence was meant.'

Leos said nothing. He had risen early, untired after his late night in the fog, and taken his usual run around the palace grounds. Men who neglected their bodies were fools.

'Whatever it was that I said, I retract.'

Leos stood, arms loose, ready. That calm that always came upon him before combat was like a cloak. He never felt more alive.

'Ambassador,' he said to Dien Ch'ing, the Celestial who had consented to serve as referee, 'convey to my honoured opponent my apologies'

Von Tuchtenhagen sighed with relief, stepping forwards.

'this is no longer a personal matter. It gives me great regret to kill him'

Von Tuchtenhagen froze, his flabby face a mask of fear. Tears were trickling from the corners of his eyes. He was unprepared. The sleep was still in his eyes, the stubble on his face. Leos rubbed his own smooth, beardless chin with the back of his hand.

'but this is a matter of the honour of a lady.'

Last night, at the von Tasseninck ball, Leos had overheard von Tuchtenhagen discussing the Countess Emmanuelle with a cleric of Ranald. The graf had suggested that Leos's sister resembled a rabbit, not in appearance but in conduct.

'And of my family.'

The Celestial nodded gravely. He did not need to relay the message.

'Leos, I have money' said his opponent. 'This need not happen'

A cold fury burned in the viscount's breast. The suggestion was unworthy even of von Tuchtenhagen. The family were new to the register, elevated by Matthias IV a short century ago and still striving to obscure the memory of the merchants and tradespeople they had been. Von Liebewitzes had fought alongside Sigmar at the birth of the Empire.

Leos brought up his foil, bent at the knees and hung his left hand in the air.

'You have accepted the terms of this combat,' Dien Ch'ing said in his high, musical voice. 'This is a matter between gentleman and no other may intervene.'

Von Tuchtenhagen brought up his shaking sword and Dien Ch'ing held its point against Leos's weapon.

'The duellists shall fight until the matter is settled.'

'First blood?' Von Tuchtenhagen suggested, a flare of hope in his tone. Leos shook his head, impatient to get on with it.

'The victor shall be the gentleman left alive at the end of the duel.'

Dien Ch'ing took a handkerchief from his sleeve. It was silk, embroidered with dragons.

When the silk touched the polished wooden floor, the duel would commence.

The Celestial's hand went up.

Countess Emmanuelle von Liebewitz, elector, lady mayoress and Chancellor of the University of Nuln, examined her face minutely in the ornate mirror and plucked a stray hair from her arched eyebrows. 'There,' she said, 'perfect.'

Yevgeny Yefimovich was getting tired of wearing his hood. He had sent Respighi out late last night to get him a new face, but his servant had not yet returned.

In his upstairs rooms at the Holy Hammer of Sigmar, he addressed his most fervent followers in the Revolutionary Movement. Prince Kloszowski, the radical poet, lolled as usual, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his beard a studied mess. Stieglitz, a former mercenary who had served with Vastarien's Vanquishers, was fingering the stump where his left arm had been and groaning softly, as was his habit. The man's face was a mass of scars, the result of a few too many brushes with the aristocratic oppressor. Professor Brustellin, recently forced to resign in disgrace from the University, was polishing his round eyeglasses and drinking steadily from his ever-present, never-emptied silver bottle. And Ulrike Blumenschein, the angel of the masses, was combing out her long, tangled hair before a mirror. Between them, these people would bring down an Emperor. They believed this would usher in an age of justice for the common people, but Yefimovich knew it would lead only to a power vacuum which would allow for the triumph of Tzeentch.

'We must seize the opportunity,' he told them, 'and exploit it for all we can'

'But what proof is there,' put in Brustellin, 'that the Beast is of the hated classes?'

Yefimovich explained patiently, 'None, of course. It was destroyed by the lackeys of the Emperor.'

'Proof that has been destroyed is the best kind,' said Kloszowski, with a sardonic smile, 'one never has to produce it.'

'Remember, Dickon of the Dock Watch was seen to burn something at the site of the last killing,' Yefimovich said. 'That was our proof.'

'The Ashes of Shame,' declared Kloszowski. 'That shall be the title of my next work. I'll have it written, copied and distributed by nightfall. It'll be sung in every tavern, to a dozen different tunes, by this time tomorrow.'

Brustellin, disenchanted with words, sneered, 'More poems, just what the revolution needs!'

The poet was angered. 'Clothhead academic! My poems do more for the cause than your dusty tracts. Poetry is for the people, not for ink-blotched scholars and dried-up prunes of clerics.'

'I was flogged, you know,' said Brustellin, loosening his cravat, preparing to bare his back to exhibit yet again the marks left by the punishment that had preceded his expulsion. 'Twenty years of teaching and that young dolt Scheydt had me flogged and thrown into the streets.'

He was down to his shirt and everyone was telling him not to go further. They had all seen a sight too much of Brustellin's ravaged back.

'You were flogged and Stieglitz here was mutilated and crippled,' spat Kloszowski. 'But only I have been hanged by the hated classes'

Dramatically, with a practiced movement, the poet pulled his scarf away to reveal the burn. The rope had been rotten and snapped itself instead of Kloszowski's neck. He had written several poems about the experience. 'I was face to face with the gods,' he claimed, 'and they were working men like ourselves. Not a plutocrat or popinjay in the lot of them.'

Brustellin muttered something about the arrogance of princes. Kloszowski stamped his feet like a child in a temper tantrum. He hated to be reminded of his noble origins, although he was reluctant to drop the title from his name.

'You cannot argue that I have not suffered with my working brothers, professor. My soul has been dragged through the dirt with the best of them.'

Yefimovich spread his hands and the revolutionaries stopped arguing.

'The Beast is the best thing to happen to this city since the thumb tax, my friends,' he said. 'For once, the people are angry with their masters. That anger is our strength.'

'It's a shame that the Beast has killed only worthless drabs,' said Ulrike. 'The people would be more inflamed if he were to prey on decent, humble womenfolk. A good mother, or a precious daughter. Maybe a priestess of Verena.'

'That can be arranged, my dear,' Yefimovich said. 'People are putting every crime in the city off on the Beast. If a few deaths would prove politically useful, we have people who can take care of them.'

Ulrike nodded, pleased that her idea had been taken up.

These people all had their reasons. Stieglitz had seen too much injustice, Brustellin had thought it through and reasoned that the rule of the Emperor was wrong, and Kloszowski thought the revolution sounded romantic, but Ulrike Blumenschein roused the rabble because she was mad. That made her the only one in the group who could pose a threat to Yefimovich. The mad often have insights that a sane person would not. If he were swept away, she would become the figurehead of the movement and, her hair trailing and eyes shining, would lead them all to be happily slaughtered by the Imperial Guard outside the gates of the palace.

'Be ready to move at a moment's notice,' he said. 'The day is coming soon.'

Kloszowski clapped, tobacco ash falling onto his loose shirt. He pulled on his workingman's coat and hatYefimovich was sure he had spent an afternoon rubbing his clothes between two stones to get that authentically proletarian tattered lookand left the room. Yefimovich nodded and the bent professor and the one-armed mercenary went after him. They all had their orders for the day. By nightfall, the city would be rumbling with dissent. The fog helped. It made everyone angry. Yefimovich fancied that he could deliver a speech blaming the Emperor for the fog and everyone would believe him.

Ulrike was the last to go. She had taken to lingering around him lately. Being an Angel of the Revolution was a lonely job. Eventually she followed the others, on her way to the underground chambers where her trained scribes copied out the movement's pamphlets and poems, and she posed for inspirational pictures to be distributed on cards and posters.

. Yefimovich only had to wait a few minutes before a rat-like scratching at the window told him that Respighi was back.

He unlatched the window and his assistant crawled in. Respighi was an extraordinary mix of races. His father, it was said, had been a dwarf trollslayer and his mother a human woman under the influence of warpstone. He could usually pass for a dwarf if he wore loose pantaloons to cover his tail, although his face was pushing out recently, becoming more rodentlike. With his boots off he could climb walls and with his tail out he could hang from the ceiling. The creature loved Tzeentch as much as he hated his long-lost father.

For the moment, he was the high priest's servant and it was his job to find Yefimovich the skins which concealed his true nature from the world.

Respighi laid a pouch on the table.

'How fresh is it?'

The altered shrugged and whistled. 'Some time late last night. I've been on the dodge. Lots of watchmen out.'

Yefimovich knew Respighi had just got lost in the fog. It didn't matter. It would be fresh enough.

Yefimovich doffed his hood and enjoyed the slight flinch Respighi gave as he saw the high priest's face of fire. Then he pulled the new face out of the pouch and pressed it over his own.

His flesh tingled as the magic worked, binding the stolen skin to his own. When it was fixed, he wiped the traces of blood away from around his still-burning eyes and licked his new lips. He tasted rouge.

'What did you get me, Respighi? A man's face or a woman's?'

The altered shrugged. 'Who knows? It was foggy.'

Yefimovich felt his face. The mask was shifting, settling on to his old features. His skin was smooth, unstubbled.

'I can tell you one thing,' Respighi muttered. 'It's human.'

Dickon had known Schygulla for years. The dock manager had been a war chief in the Hooks long before Willy Pick's day when the watchman had been walking the waterfront with his eyes closed and his hand out. They had stroked and threatened each other many times, and the Beloved of Manann still sent him cases of wine and sweetmeats every festival day. The company brought in more goods and paid less excise than any other crew on the docks.

When the body was discovered, Schygulla had sent a runner not to Dickon's family house but to the rooms of his mistress. The Hooks knew him too well, he reflected as Francoise 'Fifi' Messaen berated him for having her early morning despoiled by the interloper. The great Detlef Sierck had kicked Fifi out of his repertory company for being 'a talentless slut,' but the actor-manager had been wrong: Fifi was a girl of many talents, most of them horizontal. After a night with her, Dickon needed to go home to his wife and get some rest and a cup of tea. But today that wasn't going to happen.

The runner had guided him through the fog to the wharf, where the Beast's leavings had been dragged up and gathered together on a sheet of soaked canvas. This one was worse than the others.

'Merciful Shallya,' Dickon swore.

A young man was sobbing at one corner of the dock. Schygulla looked at him with contempt and spat. 'That's Buttgereit,' he said. 'He found the thing.'

Dickon understood why Schygulla called the corpse a thing. It was hard to imagine that it had ever been alive, much less a woman.

'Do you know her?' he asked the dock manager.

Schygulla looked disgusted. 'Are you kidding me, captain? Her own true love wouldn't recognize her after a night with our Beast.'

It was true.

The fog was getting into his bones. It would be time soon for Dickon to go into the back room at the Luitpoldstrasse Station and take his savings out from the hollowed statue of Verena. He had been supplementing his salary very well and should have enough to take Fifi and the children and retire to the country, somewhere far away from Hooks and Fish and smugglers and slashers.

'Let's get some coppers down here and clear this up, captain,' Schygulla said. 'I'm losing business.'

Dickon agreed.

V.

The gymnasium doors opened and a huge man strode in, his heavy bootsteps like bass drumbeats.

Dien Ch'ing paused, his arm still upraised. His kerchief fluttered but remained in his grip, hanging.