When I stood back up I smiled and handed Paul Grimshaw his monocle. “Here. You dropped this.”

“Thank you, “he said, “But why the smile?”

“You don’t want to die. You’re just sick of being the caretaker of all this death.”

“Perhaps.”

“When was the last time you ate a human?”

Grimshaw placed his hand on his chest and opened his mouth. “Human flesh?! Never! I have killed in self-defense, but I have never eaten a person!” He was missing a tooth.

I nodded. “That’s what I thought. Otherwise I’d have killed you back at my place.”

Grimshaw lowered his head. I was right and it embarrassed him.

“The twitching was a nice touch though. The shotgun rig too,” I said. “In fact the whole thing was a pretty nice production.”

Grimshaw shrugged. “Thank you.”

I turned away from him and turned my attention the barrels. “Have you ever opened one of these?”

“Good Lord no!”

I approached one of the barrels and surveyed the round cover. There was a latch on four sides. “I think the wood barrel is just a cover,” I said, and reached for the first latch.

“I wouldn’t do that if—”

I ignored Grimshaw, popped the latches, and removed the wooden cover. Inside there was a steel container with a thickly glassed portal window. Most of the glass was fogged from years of steam and condensation. I couldn’t make out what was inside. I used my lighter to shed some light and what I saw inside was just about the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.

But it made me smile.

I turned to Grimshaw. “So, you never looked inside any of these.”

“No . . . uh . . . why?”

“Look for yourself.”

I held the lighter to the glass so Grimshaw could see the skeleton inside, virtually covered with fossilized maggots and mold. Whatever the fuck was in this canister was long dead. I suspected the same of the others.

I pulled the lighter away just as it started to burn my hand.

Grimshaw looked like a man who’d just been told he was going to live, but in a very reserved, proper manner. “Well, this changes everything, does it not?”

“Yes, it does, but I suggest you get rid of these things just in case.”

The werewolf shrugged. “How? Believe me I would have done so decades ago if I’d had an idea.”

I slapped his shoulder. “You’re going to feel very stupid when I tell you my plan.”

“Oh dear.”

I told Paul Grimshaw my idea and he admitted he felt pretty stupid considering he’d been living in Los Angeles since the end of World War II. But once he’d slapped his forehead, he moved into action, eager to remove the canisters from his house for good.