Stacy busied herself spreading cream cheese on another bagel. ‘My husband. He was a brilliant man, a top surgeon. Some lupine rich bitch in the Meat Packing District wanted him for a mate, so one night he was turned.’ She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Perhaps that’s why lupines don’t scare me. The dark mystique of a creature of legend kinda lessens when you have to wash his underpants each week.’

‘What happened?’ Tom asked quietly.

‘He stayed true to his vows … True to me – in spite of all she offered him. He hated what he’d become, but was powerless to fight it.’ There was something hard in Stacy’s eyes as she looked at Tom. ‘Unlike you, unlike Rico, he had no resistance. Oh, he tried, sure … Tried not to kill … But in the end the ’wolf grew too strong.’

Tom watched as she gouged big, doughy chunks from the bagel with her fingernails.

‘I watched him suffer, day after day. Watched him try to cope. But I couldn’t help him.’ She flashed a small and watery smile around the table. ‘He took his own life. So now I try to help the other victims of this … condition. As best I can.’

A heavy silence had fallen like a shroud over the table.

‘I’m sorry, you did want a side order of sob-story with your breakfast, didn’t you?’ she joked. ‘Come on. Finish off and let’s get to work. Rico, I’ll write you a ’script for your asthma if you give me some blood, OK?’

He grimaced. ‘Some deal.’

‘And Tom,’ said Stacy, ‘I’d like to test some of yours too, see how it compares. Kate, you want to do your hair while you’re waiting?’

‘I guess,’ said Kate doubtfully.

‘I’ll fetch you that henna. And some surgical gloves.’

Kate looked alarmed. ‘Huh?’

‘The stuff stains your skin if you’re not careful,’ explained Stacy, ‘so gloves are a must. And plentiful around here.’

‘I wondered why you’d dye your hair in the hospital and not at home,’ Tom said.

Stacy smiled tightly. ‘That’s mainly because this place is my home, pretty much. I don’t even remember the inside of my own bathroom.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, don’t get me started. Hey, Jasmine, you going to help Kate with her hair?’

Jasmine and Kate looked at each other.

‘Mmm, that sounds like fun,’ said Jasmine.

Kate scowled. ‘I can manage by myself, thanks.’

Oh, brother, Tom thought.

g

‘So what is it you’re trying to achieve with your work?’ Tom asked, watching the silver needle-point slip under his skin.

Stacy gently eased out the plunger of the syringe, and it filled with his blood. ‘I’m working to isolate what I call the “’wolf factor” –the gene in lupine cells responsible for the metamorphosis. Once I’ve isolated it, I can work on a way of neutralising it.’