"Mr. Jonathan, we're leaving."

"Nod, what happened up there? We saw you disappear into the vent."

"One of Faust's minions was stupid enough to try and bribe me with the antidote. He's already begun to rot."

"What about razing the place to the ground?"

I shrugged.

"I don't see any reason to test our luck further. We have enough to make a killing from this vial. Besides, we can always come back with high explosives and wipe it out that way."

Manfred and Whitfield grinned at that, but everyone else stepped back a bit. Until I winked. Mr. Jonathan was the first to step forward again.

"Whatever you say boss."

I nodded. "I know. By the way, get some of that werewolf blood in a vial. Let's see if we can't sell it to the competition too."

Mr. Jonathan leaned down to the prone, whimpering, wheezing form of William. His razor was almost to the gray wolf's throat when I stopped him.

"Not that way. Off the floor," I said.

Mr. Jonathan frowned. "But..."

I waved my hand dismissively. "I know. Let him be. He'll die when the rest of the place goes up."

Mr. Jonathan glared at me from lidded eyes. I glared back at him and gnawed on the edge of my lip. Bloody hell. Don't make a mess of things now.

"Fine."

He dipped his razor into the spreading pools of blood, lifted it slightly, and let it drip down the edge in his flask.

"Are you satisfied now, Nod?"

"Yes, I am. Now let's get out of here and get Rebecca tended to."

We weren't three steps out the door, back into the snow, when Mr. Jonathan stopped in front of me.

"What in the hell was that about? Since when do we not finish a job we're being paid for? Especially when it concerns letting me dispense much needed behavioral adjustments."

"You were going to kill him."

"That's what we do for money. We even had honor to defend."

I took off my bowler and dusted the snow off of it with a smile.

"Worry not. You'll probably see him again. But for now, we have hot chocolate and brandy to drink."

He was confounded, wolf made sheep, ready to bleat any moment. I passed him his flask.

"Here, have a drink."

"From that thing's blood?"

"I've been thinking you and your brother would look good with a change of skin every now and again."

Trevor snickered.

"What does that have to do with that? They were maniacs and junkies, not skin-changers."

"Not when we got there."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

I just smiled.

I rearranged the pictures on my desk. I polished the name plate reading "Jorgensen: Security Officer." I toyed with the lamp on my desk. It was maddening. Caught in this grotesquely bulbous ink body, watching a plethora of cameras that didn't show me what I wanted to see. Nod hadn't followed through. It was thoroughly ridiculous. I ground my teeth inside my flabby persona.

Why? Why did he leave? The failed experiments were dead, or dead enough. Vic would have died after little more effort. And then I would collapse the entire facility through remote explosion and all would be well again. My city would be mine again. There were too many assassins on the market anymore. Nod. The lunatics out on Pier 451. This "Golgothan Security Services" crowd that materialized out of nowhere.

And now this.

I sighed and laid my fat ink head on the desk. And blinked. One of the werewolves was missing. The gray one. What was its name? William, was it? But where had it gone? A body couldn't just get up and walk away. Wasn't supposed to at any rate.

I machine-gunned my fingers across the keyboard, scrolling through every camera angle possible. Every other body was accounted for. I blinked. Except for the one I couldn't see.

Shit.

I hit the intercom button on my desk. "Vic."

"What?" I shivered. I hated that gurgled squeal.

"You have a problem."

"What are you talking about? That spooky little brat's gone."

"Just do me a favor Vic. Watch your screens. You see something out of the ordinary, tell me, all right? There was a burbled sigh on the other end.

"Fine Mr. J. What's all this about anyway?"

"We're missing a werewolf corpse."

Screen 13 showed just how much his eyebrow shot up, and 15 had his jowls shaking. "Missing? How are we missing it? That's impossible."

"I know. Don't worry though. It's probably just my eyes playing tricks on me."

"You're going to let me die."

I blinked. He was far more perceptive than I had ever given him credit.

"You're... you're just watching this to see what he did aren't you? You want me to call you so you can record it all. You son of a bitch."

"Take it easy, Vic."

"Take it easy? You're telling me a werewolf's loose in the complex and..."

"Not just a werewolf."

"Excuse me?"

"Hugh's still kicking around too."

"I thought he was dead in an air vent. Where is he?"

I looked at screen 32. "Don't look up."

He did. Not for long though. He was jerked from his chair up into the air vent and a rain of blood cascaded into the chair where he had been sitting. William strolled through the door behind it, caught an arm as it fell from the ceiling and began to gnaw on it.

"Boo."

I hit the demolition button and my screens went black. Nod was really beginning to aggravate the hell out of me.

I watched them crawl from the rubble as night fell. Gregor patted my shoulder and I straightened up. William and Hugh caught sight of me and froze, still half caught beneath chunks of mortar.

I tipped my hat. "I came to welcome you back into the world gentlemen. It's just Gregor and I. Everyone else has been forcibly preoccupied. I wanted to thank you for your contribution to our little scheme."

"Our pleasure. It is a good feeling, not being an addict or a half finished experiment anymore. How are the brothers responding?" Hugh asked.

"They'll enjoy the freedom. However, I think you should both avoid them like the plague," I explained.

They nodded and finished pulling themselves free. No one talked anymore. I watched them finish their escape without helping and didn't wave to them as they fled into the night.

"Nod, are you sure that was wise?" Gregor asked from behind me.

I stood, staring into the night. "A questionable business transaction, I know. But I feel it was, in the end, correct. Hugh's persuasiveness notwithstanding, I felt bad for a pair of odd brothers. If nothing else, they'll fatten our pocket later on down the road."

Gregor nodded. "Very good then. Shall we head home?"

"Absolutely. I still have a hot cocoa to locate."

Finally, a job worth celebrating.