The corpse slapped the cobbles, falling like a loose-jointed dummy.

Elsaesser got a good grip on the spike and stepped forwards.

Impossibly quick, the Beast was coming for him.

He raised the spike, but the killer had his wrist in a shackle-like grip.

The Beast pushed him and they both fell back through the barrel door.

Elsaesser felt something sharp slice across his stomach and then his neck. He heard rather than felt his throat opening.

He had failed. He had failed everyone.

The Beast picked him up and swung him around. He felt his shins strike wood and then he was dropped.

The Beast had shoved him into the barrel.

He was pushed down. His front was soaked with blood and he couldn't cry out. He just made a 'gack gack' noise as he gasped for breath.

The lid came down on the barrel and he heard the blows of the cooper's hammer.

He was forced down into a squatting position, his knees up against his chest. Blood was pooling around him.

He was seeing colours in the dark.

Mrs. Bierbichler had been right. He could die.

But he would die having seen the face of the Beast.

PART FIVE.

BESTIALITY.

I.

The Commission of Inquiry decided officially that the Great Fog Riots petered out sometime soon after sunrise. Actually, the incidents continued for several days, as stragglers from various factions set about each other with leftover weapons, and the Hooks carried out a series of opportunist robberies. The fires in the East End were finally brought under control in the late afternoon, and a lot of people returned home to find their homes weren't there any more. The Commission more or less decided that this was their own fault for getting mixed up with a riot and, upon the advice of the one-thumbed minister Mornan Tybalt, opted not to crack open the treasury to provide the newly-homeless with funds for food, shelter and refuge. Whereupon there were a few more riots and the Imperial Militia, by now a great deal better experienced, moved in and restored order with a modicum of unnecessary brutality. By the end of the week, the city's population of beggars had increased by one-third and there were nightly scuffles outside the Temples of Shallya as indigents fought over the limited number of cots made available by the Clerics of Mercy.

The riots ended mainly through confusion of purpose. Rumour and counter-rumour spread through Altdorf with a supernatural rapidity. However, it was almost immediately general knowledge that Yevgeny Yefimovich was an altered and a devotee of the Ruinous Powers, and that he was also the murderer of Ulrike Blumenschein, the Angel of the Revolution. This was a heavy blow to the radical movement and Prince Kloszowski dashed off several poems excoriating the fiend in human shape who had perverted a just cause and a good woman to his own diabolical purposes. There were a few die-hard Yefimovites, but they tended to get more involved in violent feuds with the Kloszowskists than with the authorities. Professor Brustellin's body was found in the street and buried outside the city walls, a permanent shrine erected above his remains as a reminder of his great works. The watch mainly left the radicals to their own quarrels and concentrated on sorting out the debris.

It was clear that Yefimovich had killed Ulrike in an attempt to stir up the people against the Imperial court, and the Commission ruled that it was therefore proven beyond all manner of doubt that the revolutionist monster was also the murderer known as the Beast. Popular resentment against the aristocracy dwindled to its usual level of mild seething and it was safe again to walk the streets of the docklands in a green velvet cloak.

The fog began to thin, but only slightly.

Cleric-Captain Adrian Hoven finally managed to get into a room with the relevant commanders of the city watch and the Imperial Militia, and various disputes of jurisdiction were settled to everyone's satisfaction. A joint action was mounted and any remaining disorder was speedily quelled. The last disorder was ended when a discreet bribe was passed into the hands of Willy Pick, and the Hooks ceased their campaign of outright looting and vandalism.

The Commission would abandon its attempt to list all the casualties of the Great Fog Riots and no two estimates of the damage would ever tally. The Emperor Karl-Franz was reported to be 'most upset' by the whole affair and called for all the citizens of Altdorf 'to display that old Imperial spirit and rally through just as Sigmar would have wanted us to.' Grand Prince Hergard von Tasseninck lobbied for the flogging of all people suspected to have been involved in the rioting, but this suggestion was rejected on the grounds that it was 'too impractical.' In the end, Rickard Stieglitz was caught, then tried for and convicted of insurrection, and given a public ear-clipping before being imprisoned in Mundsen Keep. Nineteen other individuals were jailed for various crimes, ranging from arson to seditious libel, committed during the riots. Prince Kloszowski left the city before the watch could take him and continued to write. His epic, The Blood of Innocents, would become an underground classic, especially after it was banned in every city and state of the Empire.

A list was posted in the Konigsplatz of all the watchmen, Templars and militiamen killed or injured. Buried in the roll of honour was the name of Helmut Elsaesser.

The Beast, of course, was still at large.

II.

The Beast had come for her. It seemed to be made of solidified fog, draped in an enveloping cloak of green velvet, complete with a hood. Evil eyes stared out of the blackness where the face should have been. She could feel its rage, its hate, its violence. It moved not like a human being, not like an animal. It had a queer grace, a delicacy of gesture, and yet it radiated strength, menace, hostility. In its clouded mind, the lust for killing burned as fiercely as the weirdroot addict's need for his dream-drug. Fixed to the spot, she could not run. The fog was as thick as cotton and she could not fight through it. She was a little girl again, far from Altdorf, somewhere in the forested mountains. Behind the Beast, she sensed her parents, making no move to save their daughter. They were thinking that it would be best if the witch cuckoo were dead. Then, they could stop blaming each other for the freak. They could be part of the village again. Father could return to the tavern and hoist tankards with his friends, mother could supervise her other daughtersher real daughtersand turn them into good little dressmakers. They urged the Beast on. Rosanna was sweating, already feeling the pain the Beast would visit upon her. Her sisters were there too, with their pinching fingers and slapping hands, like the Beast's attendants. The fog stung her eyes like woodsmoke. They were in the alleyway now, between the two inns, and the murderer's hand was around her throat, its knife slicing upwards.

Rosanna woke up, her heart kicking like a baby in her chest.

There was no Beast, except in the memories she had sampled. The memories of the killer's victims.

She had been dreaming it over again, scrambled up with her own dreams.

She was crouched against a wall in the Matthias II, with a cloakgreen velvet, of courseflung over her. She could not remember going to sleep.

Baron Johann von Mecklenberg was pouring out cups of tea. Harald Kleindeinst was sitting down, carving bread with a knife less impressive than the one slung on his hip.

It would have been a cosy breakfast scene were it not for all the men-at-arms milling about and the annoyed dignitaries huddled together.

The baron had thought it wisest that everyone stay in the inn for the night, under guard. Obviously, he was as much interested in penning up potential suspects as in keeping de la Rougierre's guests safe from the rioters.

Of course, Wolf was gone. And so was Yefimovich.

The Countess Emmanuelle, still in last night's ball gown, was posed like a statue, attended by her brother and the Lector. She was looking irritated, as much because the Beast was drawing attention away from her as for the inconvenience and indignity of spending a night away from her luxurious accommodation at the palace.

Some time last night, Mikael Hasselstein had given Rosanna a gold crown and told her to stay close by. The gesture annoyed her and she was reconsidering her future at the Temple. It was becoming obvious that there might be conflicts of interest between the causes of Justice and the cult of Sigmar. And the cause of the cult was especially vague just now, overlapping unnervingly with that of the Lector. The whores whose minds Rosanna had shared all charged a lot less than a gold crown for their services, but their clients had not pretended to be buying anything other than the temporary use of their bodies. Hasselstein seemed to think he could own her outright.

The Bretonnian dwarf was up and shouting, abusing various servants and militiamen for their clumsiness. The Celestial simply sipped tea and smiled.

The function room was a mess. The guest rooms upstairs had been turned over to Luitpold and his instantly-assembled guard and so everyone else had had to spend the night downstairs. Some of them must have relished the chance not to be alone, but the countess, at least, was steeped in a cold fury.

The baron smiled and brought Rosanna some tea in a goblet. The inn was running low on cups and there was broken crockery underfoot.

'Well?' she asked.

'Wolf is gone.'

'Baron, was he the Beast?'

The baron looked pained and she read genuine confusion.

'Call me Johann,' he said.

'You don't know?'

'No. I fear, but I don't know.'

'Last night, someone was saying it was Yefimovich.'

Harald said, 'He's not human.'

Hasselstein, overhearing, stepped in. 'The fire-breather tried to kill the countess. Then he escaped, killing the dancer in the alley. He is the Beast.'

Rosanna tried to think, tried to scry. She had only seen Yefimovich briefly and had not had time to probe him. There had been the aura of an inferno about him.

'Miss Ophuls will confirm his guilt,' Hasselstein said.

Johann looked at Rosanna.

She thought carefully. Yefimovich had been an altered and, she scryed, an initiate of one of the Proscribed Cults. She fixed on the memory of his bright presence. Even trying to recall him made her eyes hurt, as fires appeared to dance in her vision. He had left a very strong impression behind him. She felt his devotion to the Dark Powers, to Tzeentch. There were countless crimes to his credit, each a flame in his body. But she could not fix him as the shadowed Beast she had scried from the dead women. Yefimovich was fire, while the Beast was darkness.

'No,' she said, 'I'm not sure I do not think Yefimovich is the Beast.'

The Lector looked at her as if she were the Beast herself, and his lips went tight, all colour squeezed out. She felt his anger boiling. He had thought he could count on her, and now he was feeling betrayed. He was prepared to be quite self-righteous about it. He could enforce all manner of penances upon her.

'Yefimovich was the Beast,' he said.

The Lector stared at her, trying to force his will into her mind. All he wanted was for her to agree with him, to wrap up the mystery, to end the investigation. It would have been so easy, and it would have satisfied everyone. She could not be sure of her intuitions. Maybe Yefimovich was the killer. He was certainly a killer.

'Yefimovich was the Beast,' Hasselstein repeated.

Rosanna gave him back his crown and answered, 'No.'

Anger flared in the Lector's mind and he gripped his coin in a tight fist. Had Harald and Johann not been there, he would have struck out at the impudent scryer. He was not used to being defied and he did not like the taste of it. He turned and walked back to the countesshis secret mistress, Rosanna realizedtrailing his wrath behind him like a kite.

'What was that about?' Johann asked.

'I think I've just been excommunicated from the Cult of Sigmar.'

For the first time since she left her village, she felt free. It was a dizzying, slightly scary feeling, like walking a rope in a carnival with no safety net. She was, she realized, homeless, masterless, unemployed 'Don't worry,' said the elector, 'you have my protection.'

Rosanna wasn't sure about Baron Johann's sudden offer, sincerely meant though it was. Practically, it might serve some use if Hasselstein were to prove vindictive. But she had relished her taste of liberty and the prospect of serving again, under the colours of a noble house rather than a religion, was disappointing. Besides, she bristled at his casual assumption of her helplessness.

But the men were thinking of other things now. She could see the same name in each of their minds. Wolf. Johann was seeing a lost youth, confused and afraid. Harald was remembering the twisted young man, barely containing his animal heart, they had encountered last night.

'Yefimovich is not the Beast,' Rosanna said. 'The mystery is not solved.'

'You're sure?' Johann asked.

Rosanna nodded.

'A pity,' said the baron. 'It would have been simple.'

Rosanna shrugged.

'The Blumenschein woman,' said Harald, 'the so-called Angel of the Revolution?'

Rosanna concentrated. There had been blood in Yefimovich's mind. New blood. He was a strong presence. She had been able to read a lottoo muchfrom him during their brief contact.

'I think he killed her. But not the others.'

Harald swore and the baron looked troubled. They all knew that Rosanna's intuitions would not prevent the authorities from misidentifying the Revolutionist Monster as the Beast. That left them on their own against the real murderer.

'Baron,' said Harald, 'if the Beast is your brother, then what?'

'Then he must be stopped. That is all.'

'Is it?'

Johann was trying to do the right thing, Rosanna saw. It was something bred deep into him.

'No,' he answered the captain, 'of course it isn't. Wolf is my brother and I shall do all I can for him.'

Harald was grim. 'If it comes down to it, would you stand between us?'

'Probably Would you go through me to catch him?'

'Probably.'

'Then we understand each other, captain.'

De la Rougierre, who had quickly forgotten his dalliance with the dead dancer, was insisting that his guests be allowed free. He called Harald 'a stupid policeman,' and then backed off.

The streets had been quiet for a few hours now. Johann had sent a Templar to the palace for carriages. The coaches the guests had come in were burned-out wrecks and the horses fled.

Finally, the coaches came and de la Rougierre's guests were ferried back to their secure walls and well-armed retainers.

The last to leave was Leos von Liebewitz. The youth seemed torn. 'Johann,' he asked, 'can I help here?'

It was difficult for him, but he felt some obligation, if not to the commoner who had died then to the aristocrats who had not.

'No, Leos,' the baron answered, 'perhaps later.'

With the guests shepherded out, they were left alone at the inn.