“Welcome to Swindon, Officer! The town where anything can happen and probably will!”

He smiled broadly and jerked a thumb toward the rear of the car.

“Trunk’s open.”

The boot contained a lot of iron stakes, several mallets, a large crucifix and a pick and shovel. There was also a musty smell, the smell of mold and the long dead—I hurriedly threw in my bag and slammed the boot lid down. I walked around to the passenger door and got in.

“Shit!—” I cried out, suddenly noticing that in the back, pacing the rear seats behind a strong mesh screen, was a large Siberian wolf. The officer laughed loudly.

“Take no notice of the pup, ma’am! Officer Next, I’d like you to meet Mr. Meakle. Mr. Meakle, this is Officer Next.”

He was talking about the wolf. I stared at the wolf, which stared back at me with an intensity that I found disconcerting. The officer laughed like a drain and pulled away with a lurch and a squeal of tires. I had forgotten just how weird Swindon could be.

As we drove off, the Will-Speak machine came to an end, reciting the last part of its soliloquy to itself:

. . . Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, that I might see my shadow, as I pass.

There was a clicking and whirring and then the mannequin stopped abruptly, lifeless again until the next coin.

“Beautiful day,” I commented once we were under way.

“Every day is a beautiful day, Miss Next. The name’s Stoker—”

He pulled out onto the Stratton bypass.

“—SpecOps-17: Vampire and Werewolf Disposal Operations. Suckers and biters, they call us. My friends call me Spike. You,” he added with a broad grin, “can call me Spike.”

By way of explanation he tapped a mallet and stake that were clipped to the mesh partition.

“What do they call you, Miss Next?”

“Thursday.”

“Pleased to meet you, Thursday.”

He proffered a huge hand that I shook gratefully. I liked him immediately. He leaned against the door pillar to get the best out of the cooling breeze and tapped a beat out on the steering wheel. A recent scratch on his neck oozed a small amount of blood.

“You’re bleeding,” I observed.

Spike wiped it away with his hand.

“It’s nothing. He gave me a bit of a struggle!—”

I looked in the back seat again. The wolf was sitting down, scratching its ear with a hind leg.

“—but I’m immunized against lycanthropy. Mr. Meakle just won’t take his medication. Will you, Mr. Meakle?”

The wolf pricked up its ears as the last vestige of the human within him remembered his name. He started to pant in the heat. Spike went on:

“His neighbors called. All the cats in the neighborhood had gone missing; I found him rummaging in the bins behind SmileyBurger. He’ll be in for treatment, morph back and be on the streets again by Friday. He has rights, they tell me. What’s your posting?”