It was Commissioner Swift. He had slid down to one knee with his legs splayed stiffly, the iron braces only barely accommodating the position. His charcoal gray coat wrinkled as its hem brushed the ground. He had removed his hat, and from behind him I could see his graying hair and small bald spot as he bowed his head reverently over the body of the fallen officer. Contrary to his public bluster and bravado, his reaction to the grisly tragedy was heartbreakingly human.There came a shuffling of leaves in the nearby bushes, and I was jolted back to the reality of the situation. This was not the time to mourn. I crept toward Swift, doing my best to stay to the shadows, scanning the dark branches and creeping vines around us for any sign of the beast. “Commissioner!” I called in an urgent whisper. “Please, sir. It isn’t safe. The monster is close and still on the hunt.”

The commissioner slowly slid his hat back on to his head. “You’re right. Of course, young lady.” His voice was quiet and very low. The red velvet of the derby was a grim echo of the pool spreading at his feet. Swift steadied himself on his cane and began to turn and rise, but with agonizing slowness. His leg braces squealed and clinked in objection to the motion. And then an alarm sounded in the deep recesses of my brain. The sole of the man’s shoe, to which the brace attached by little screws, was not stiff leather. It bounced the moonlight across my eyes like a polished mirror, and I saw that it looked like the flat of an iron, pointed at the toe and made entirely of metal. As he stood, the shoes sank heavily into the mossy sod, and the braces straightened with a soft clink-clink.

The derby glistened and its brim dripped crimson as he straightened it, gradually raising his eyes to me. The hat cast a shadowy mask across the top half of his face, but his eyes cut through, bloodshot and full of venom and fire. A spray of dark red had splashed across his chin and up his cheek, and his lips parted in a wide, wicked, sharp-toothed grin. “Yes, right you are,” he said. “The hunt is still very much on.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I stumbled backward, the forest spinning around me. I turned to flee, but the commissioner was already beside me. I threw myself into a staggering run in the opposite direction, but he was there at once, moving with inhuman speed. Only the clank and squeak of his metal braces revealed that he was moving at all, and not simply appearing in each new location by magic.