Grimshaw continued walking ahead of me until we came to a small bookshelf against a wall in the short hall between the library and the foyer. On either side of the shelf were large black iron candle sconces.

As Grimshaw began to reach for the sconce on the left, I laughed and said, “You gotta be kidding me.”

But he wasn’t. Grimshaw pulled the sconces and a secret passage was revealed. I was impressed. Of all the weird shit I’d seen, this was the first secret passage door. I was kind of excited.

I followed Grimshaw down a winding cement stairwell until we hit a really short corridor leading to a large wooden door with a second door made of thick black iron covering the wood. There were three locks: a huge steel padlock and two huge bolts. It was clear that these weren’t locks to keep anyone from getting in; any half-assed lock-pick could bust it open in ten seconds. These locks were to keep someone or something from getting out.

As Grimshaw popped the locks, I noticed that his twitching was getting worse by the minute and thick black hairs were sprouting on the nape of his neck. He was trying his damnedest to hide it, maybe even fight it, but the lycanthrope virus was strong. From the looks of him, he might fall apart any time.

Great, I thought, I’m heading into a locked dungeon with a werewolf on the verge of a complete breakdown. Good plan.

Grimshaw unlocked the lock and unbolted the bolts and pulled back the iron gate, then used a large skeleton key to unlock the door itself. After a loud click the thick wood door squeaked open and I could see a huge, low-ceilinged room beyond.

Grimshaw stepped inside. I followed. The room was a long cement bunker lined with shelves on either side. On the shelves, stacked five high, were unusually long wooden barrels. They were big enough to hold a man inside them.

Only one barrel, the closest to the door, was open and emptied. This must have been the one Grimshaw emerged from.

“I have been watching over these capsules for many years,” Grimshaw said as he twitched. “Now, with my losing control, I wanted to hand off the duty to someone else.”

“What if that someone else doesn’t want the job?”

Grimshaw smiled and I could see his teeth were turning to fangs as he spoke. “I had nowhere else to turn.”

“They should be destroyed,” I said bluntly.

Grimshaw was covered with hair, his hands were clawed. “I realize that now but—”

I shook my head. “You weren’t sure it was such a bad idea.”

The werewolf looked sheepish for an instant. “They are marvelous creatures . . . it is hard to destroy such beauty.”