Brockmann just stared at it. He should not have been shocked, but after twenty years he almost felt as if he had stopped believing in them himself. The shock, there was no less embarrassing word for it, cost him precious seconds as the thing stepped back from the door. Too late, Brockmann realized what it was about to do. He leaped aside and landed on the floor, as the monster ripped through the door as if it was made of paper and landed in the flat.

Brockmann felt every bone in his body ache and every nerve burn. He knew he could not give in to pain now. With a clumpy gesture, he turned and did the only two things he could do to survive.

As the monster turned towards him, he began to shoot and scream.

****

The landing stage was behind the legendary Hamburg fish market, which was nowadays a hall for dance events. That night it had not been booked, and even if it had, there would not have been anybody at this hour. Neither did anyone have a reason to go to the landing bridge, as the last ferry had brought people to the other side of Hamburg about an hour ago.

Well, there was one reason, but apart from Brockmann and Fornby, nobody seemed to appreciate the sensational view one had over the giant shipyards of Blohm & Voss directly opposite of the landing bridge.

“Nice spot for a conspiratorial meeting after midnight. My wife will probably divorce me after this,” Fornby said. He was wearing a thick black coat and his glasses. Brockmann could not believe he still had that silly mustache.

“Twenty years is a lot of time to find some good meeting spots,” Brockmann said.

“Or a life?” Fornby asked and looked at Brockmann.

“I had a life and I had my orders,” Brockmann replied.

“God, Brockmann.” That was all that Fornby said, before reaching into his coat and getting out a big etui made of black leather. He opened it and inside were two cigars. He took the first, cut the end with a stainless-steel cutter, and handed it to Brockmann.

The older man was surprised by the gesture.

“I hate the smell of cigarettes, but I assume you are still a chain smoker?” Fornby said, to which Brockmann nodded.

“Thanks,” he replied, taking the matches Fornby offered him while he prepared his cigar. He had never done anything this civil or even remotely nice to Brockmann. The gesture was surprising and also a bit concerning.

“Enjoy it, I get them handmade in Cuba and shipped over here,” Fornby explained as if such things impressed Brockmann. “So did you talk to the girl?” Fornby asked. He lit his cigar with a match.

Brockmann nodded. “I did. Now she's dead too.”

Fornby raised a brow and looked at Brockmann. “You killed her? Jesus, Brockmann!” he said. Brockmann shrugged as he took his first breath of the cigar. It tasted bitter, expensive, and overpriced. It was pretty good though.

“It was more like a suicide involving me,” he said, “But that's not what matters. There was a subject.” Brockmann looked at Fornby.

“A subject? Brockmann there’s been no subject in twenty years and you know …”

“There was one,” Brockmann said. “It attacked me. It was not a hazy view from afar, I saw it and I fought it and it was a subject,” he insisted. Fornby nodded.

“Alright. I believe you.” Fornby looked forward. “A Class-3?”

“As Class-3 as these things can fucking get,” Brockmann said.

Fornby nodded.

“We need more men,” Brockmann said. “We need a team on this.”

Fornby smiled, a sad smile, and then looked at his cigar and finally at Brockmann again.

“There is nobody else,” Fornby finally admitted.

“What does that mean? Someone has to be there.” Brockmann shook his head. “Berlin? Bremen? Munich?”

Fornby sighed. “Not everybody has 20 years of patience.” He shook his head. “Munich and Berlin I had to close down after nobody took care of it. I had to chase away vagrants living in the garden house.” Fornby took another breath of his cigar.

“Bremen?” Brockmann asked. Schubert was running it. A good man.

“Reported less and less. When Schubert died from a stroke, it went completely silent.” Fornby shrugged. “Sold the building and now an office tower stands on our old grounds.”

“Then we need to call the Home Office.” Brockmann could not believe it. How could nobody be there? Had he waited for twenty years for orders from an organization that didn’t exist anymore?

“London has not answered since 2002,” Fornby said.

“The headquarters went silent 17 years ago? What, have they turned into a gold club or something?” Brockmann was getting furious about how he was left in the dark like this. For twenty years, he had imagined the Organization to be sleeping, but somehow intact.

“No, something went wrong there. The Sanctum was still active, mainly cataloging things and hunting down occult tomes. Then some of the members were investigated for murder and Blackwell killed himself. I guess to save the Nocturne Society, really. I sent Huber over, my last active agent. He was committed to a mental hospital where he died off an overdose on drugs and a previously undiagnosed heart illness.” Fornby turned to Brockmann.

“USA?” Brockmann finally asked.

“The last thing Blackwell told me was to never ask about the USA,” Fornby said.

“Which you did?” Brockmann raised his brow.

“Of course not. I found Johnson in Dallas. He was scared shitless. Heard Reynolds is still active. But they seem to have been absorbed by more independent agencies mostly,” Fornby shrugged. “It was costly research, so I left it be.”

“What happened to the vaults?” Brockmann asked.

“I secured as many as I could. Munich and Berlin, Madrid, Paris. Tried to get my hands on Barcelona, but failed.” Fornby sighed. “Lost Warsaw and Prague.”

“Oh dammit,” Brockmann remembered those. The thought of someone less responsible for holding those kinds of secrets and power was making even him uncomfortable. “So, there is nothing out there. The Nocturne Society is dead.” Brockmann looked at him.

Fornby smirked. “Pretty much, yeah. What did you expect, a pep-talk that as long as we’re around it will always live?” Fornby laughed and Brockmann had to chuckle slightly.

“Tell me about the subject. What was it?” Fornby asked.

Brockmann looked at him. He grew absolutely serious again.

“It was nothing like I have ever seen, Fornby.”

****

Being thrown through a window was not what he imagined today’s worst-case scenario to be. No, it was considerably worse.

He landed on some table set down there for picnics or evening beers and the wood broke upon his impact. Even in his younger days, a fall like this would have hurt badly, now it was pure agony. He was happy to be alive but almost regretted it as every bone in his body hurt. Above him, he saw the monstrosity put its head out of the window. His eyes had problems focusing, his arm was not strong enough to raise and aim. It withdrew before it was seen. So, it cared about being seen, at least.

His shots had slowed it down for a second before the arm, which was really a blend of tentacles, had grabbed him and hurled him away with ease. He might have died if he had hit the wall instead of the window. The roar of the thing was something he would never forget. People would have heard it too.

Brockmann turned on his arm, which was fortunately not broken, and felt his torso hurt. He hoped none of those ribs that were certainly broken had pierced his lungs, or he would not even have time to make it to a hospital. He forced himself up and stumbled out of the backyard. If this thing didn’t want to be seen, he hoped there were enough people out there in the streets to allow him escape. Putting his gun under his coat he stumbled on weak legs to the light.

There was a line waiting to get into House 73, but the people looked at him with a certain pity and disgust. He had not coughed up blood yet, so the lungs were probably okay. They thought he was homeless, probably lost. He felt lost.

****

Fornby and Brockmann sat there for a long moment. They didn’t say anything, only smoked cigars. Fornby waited for Brockmann to come to terms with the fact that they were all there was for now. The Nocturne Society of old was gone, not diminished or dwarfed, but truly gone.

“We need to find the monster,” Brockmann finally said.

“The two of us?” Fornby asked him and raised his brows.

“Yes, the two of us,” Brockmann said.

“You are old, injured from what I see, and probably don’t even have a computer,” Fornby said.

“It won’t write me an email.” He said the word email as if it was some sort of witchcraft. Fornby nodded.

“Brockmann, you were not good at dealing with those things. You never were good at finding them.”

Brockmann nodded. Fair enough, he knew what his job was. But nobody would believe them, and this thing would kill again. The reason why Nocturne had ever existed and found so many members dedicated to its cause had been to stop these things from hurting people. This thing was going to hurt people. Lots of people.

“I’m all you’ve got left, I’d say.” He stood up. “And that was not my fault.” He threw the cigar into the water and looked at Fornby. “So shall I find it or not?”

Fornby looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.

“I'll get you the whole report from the police, maybe there is something in there. Anything else you need?” Fornby asked.

“There was another person living there. A guy called Bleicher. Her lover, I think.” Brockmann turned. “Find him.”

Fornby looked back at him. “Sure.”

****

It took them a week to identify Simon Bleicher, and they eventually did through a request to the landlord while posing as a repo officer. Finding him was even more complicated, as he was not registered anywhere within the city. They wasted a week drilling into phone books, post registers, and such things. Brockmann kept an eye on Sandra’s flat. He watched the police come and go, their CSI taking blood-smeared furniture out of the flat. Whatever the monster had done, it must have been pretty nasty. Even at the risk of being spotted, it had taken the time to mutilate the poor girl’s body.

Once the police were gone, the clean-up team came and went. Finally, when he was sure nobody else would come, he climbed up the stairs, ripped the police tape, signaling it was a crime scene, down and entered the flat again. It was smashed inside. The table was lying in pieces everywhere and white signs on the ground indicated the spot they had found the body. The shape of these white lines looked horrific. Her legs were twisted; an arm was ripped off and found a few meters away. The monster had taken out the frustration of not getting Brockmann on her body, obviously. If Brockmann was lucky, they wouldn’t even find his projectiles.

The flat still smelled like death and cleaning fluids. He took out the small bottle of vodka he was carrying with him and took a sip, before smearing some of it under his nose. The pictures were still there. Sandra and the bulky old man and Sandra with the boy. That would be Bleicher, he assumed. He took them both and wondered how the police didn’t consider them interesting enough to take. Maybe they had been too busy puzzling together her remains. Cops in Germany didn’t see such things. They would not spend more time here than necessary. He searched her cupboards, looked for her computer. They had taken that one, of course. He would have needed Fornby to access it anyway.

He was about to have a look at her bedroom, the one room he had never seen when he recognized something. A movement. Light. He turned to the door and saw the cone of light of a flashlight out there in the corridor. Quickly, he looked around and then slipped into the small bathroom, closing the door and drawing his gun.

It took a moment before the cone of light changed directions and illuminated the room. A dark shape entered the flat and looked around. It was a female shape. Slim, sporty, moving gracefully through the flat. Then for a moment, the light hit the mirror and, in the reflection, Brockmann saw who it was. To his surprise he recognized her. Alexa? Alexis? Alex? She had talked to him in his favorite bar, right after Landau. She looked different, entirely in black and with a face that showed no signs of her youth, but cold determination.

Brockmann considered pushing the door of the bathroom open and surprising her, but he was not fully healed, and he was not ready for another fight. But more than anything, he wanted answers and he had the strong feeling that a confrontation would not get him any. He waited until she went to the bedroom and then he took off his shoes and sneaked out of the flat as silently as possible. She was ripping something in there apart, so he had enough noise to go unheard. Outside, he took a position where he could see what he had ascertained as the only exit to the house and waited. Alex, he thought that was her name, came out ten minutes later, carrying a backpack that she didn’t have before and looked around. He withdrew into the shadows and waited for her to move away with quick steps. He gave her somewhat of a head start and then followed her. She knew exactly where she was going, taking the quickest route to Sternschanze, the nearest subway station. He followed her through the streets where small bistros and bars lined up and took a turn every time she checked for followers. She checked regularly. Like a well-trained soldier or spy would do. She didn’t look the part, but she clearly was no amateur. Quite the contrary.

Brockmann dared not to enter the same cabin she was in the subway, but took one to her left; keeping an eye on the doors at every station they passed. She left at Altona, not far away from where he had been hunting Landau, and then picked another line. He repeated the procedure. She was getting sloppier, having assumed that anyone following would do so from Sandra’s flat. She was arrogant enough to assume she would have spotted him by now. Arrogance was a sign of youth, Brockmann thought.

She got out at Jungfernstieg, the glamorous part of town where the shopping streets lined up. By day, lines of stupid consumer herds blocked the way by waiting for their turn to enter some electronic store with a fruit as a symbol. Now at night it was mostly empty, which made following her dangerous. Brockmann used the first chance he got to change the sides of the large four-way street and followed her from there. She went straight to the Four Seasons Hotel and walked in, politely greeted by the concierge. Not the place expected of her to stay. Brockmann sighed and knew she would probably not be coming out so quickly again. He found a kiosk still open and asked for coffee. They instead sold him something called an energy drink. He was familiar with those. They always kept him awake, and they tasted like someone had pissed into a can after eating a lot of gum.

The night was long. Brockmann had once been used to staying awake for two or even three days and remaining functional, but that had been a long time ago. He drank three cans of this piss and felt his heart pound. It brought him through the night. Withdrawal helped too as he was out of cigarettes before sunlight.

When the sun came up, he looked over the large pond of water, called the Alster that was in the center of what would otherwise have been a plaza. The birds began to sing, and the city cleaners showed up, picking up trash before the first tourist arrived. Peaceful. Peace was a dangerous illusion. Brockmann knew there was something out there that was not peaceful.

Finally, around noon, she left the hotel, wearing another suit of youthful alternative clothes with an envelope under her arm. She threw it into the next post box. Brockmann would have loved to break it open and retrieve the envelope. So, she didn’t trust electronic mail either. Either that or what she sent was physical. He had to leave it behind so as not to lose her. She went back to the subway, as he had expected. In the subway, she took out her phone. Brockmann dared to come a little closer. She seemed much more relaxed today, and he wanted to try and overhear her conversation.

“Sure, we meet at the cafe,” she said and then checked something on her mobile. Then she took out another mobile and made a call. “He knows. I am on my way to him.” She stopped for a moment and then grinned and turned around. Brockmann turned towards a window full of sportswear, just in time to avoid being seen. She passed him and entered the labyrinth of the Jungfernstieg subway at another entrance. Again, he followed her down and took the subway she took, almost missing it.

This was one of the old subways where there were doors between the compartments that had windows. Brockmann watched her typing things into her mobile. She got out at Eppendorf, one of the finer parts of town for families and well-situated people. Hamburg had a lot of those. She hurried as if she was afraid to miss something. It made her easier to follow. She had checked out of routine, but in general, she felt safe, obviously believing she wasn’t being watched. No detours, no attempts to shake him. She entered a cafe finally and Brockmann took his position outside. It had begun raining. A tree was the best protection he found, but he was getting wet anyway. He grunted and stood there when he saw the boy.

He came slouching down the street, wiping tears from his eyes. It was Bleicher. The boy in the photo. To be sure, Brockmann got out the polaroid and checked, but yes, it was him. They met. Alex and the boyfriend of Sandra met in a cafe and chatted.

Brockmann raised a brow and wiped the water off his face. He could barely see them now because the rain had gotten heavier and was leaving the window barely visible, but when he saw them, it looked as if she was comforting him. What did she have to do with him? What did she have to do with Sandra? Who was she?

Suddenly, Brockmann saw her leaving while Bleicher remained. He knew where she lived and would be able to pick up her trace again, but he still didn’t know where Bleicher lived, and he was eager to talk to the boy. He looked authentically devastated, so he was probably not in league with any monsters, but he was not so sure about her. She was a different breed.

Bleicher got out and Brockmann followed him to his flat. The label at the bell said, Simon Bleicher. There was also a Theodor Bleicher under this address. Brockmann cursed himself for not checking Bleicher’s parents.

Considering his options, he decided to go ahead with the one promising the fastest results. He waited for someone to enter the house and went up to the second floor where Bleicher was living. He waited for a second, and then he knocked.

That had been how he met Simon Bleicher.

At the end of their conversation, he had the feeling that Simon Bleicher had found out more than he had, but at least he now knew that the boy had seen the monster too. He was still alive. Then again, he had been hard to find. Once the monster caught up, it might change that.

Then there was the mysterious Alex. He had not mentioned her but assumed she was the female presence he had felt in the flat. She was fucking Sandra’s ex-boyfriend. The boy certainly liked to live a dangerous life.

****

After Brockmann had suddenly left, Simon considered slipping into his sneakers and following him. He considered it for too long, and, when he decided against it, he kicked the couch in anger. He screamed in pain as he realized this thing was harder than he thought.

Dropping on it instead of attacking it again, he fought down tears.

He had to adjust to this new reality. This was a world in which a monster existed, Sandra was dead, and some organization called the Nocturne Society was behind it all.

He thought for a second about the last one and opened his pad again. He searched for Nocturne Society and found nothing. Nocturne. That one produced several rock bands and Wikipedia pieces about the musical form. It was rather strange that nobody on the internet seemed to have ever posted about the organization.

He went to the only place that had so far produced any results. The Cryptozoology website. Simon entered the website again and posted:

ANYONE KNOW ABOUT THE NOCTURNE SOCIETY?

He waited for answers, but there came none. It was early morning in the US, and most of the users seemed to be Americans. So, he waited and began searching the news again. Looking for monster sightings again was not very fruitful. He checked the police reports for anything unusual. He found endless streams of violent crimes, unauthorized demonstrations, and natural death. One caught his attention. A mutilated body was found in the harbor, probably a night swimmer, who got caught in a propeller by a passing boat. How likely was that? He searched for MUTILATED BODY HAMBURG and found a newspaper article in the local paper. It said the body was not yet identified, but that it was the second case this month and the police strongly suggested that people should not go swimming in the harbor at night; reminding everyone that it was a no swimming zone.

Simon leaned back on his couch. The harbor was where the monster had been seen by Sandra and him. The place they found the bodies in the water was not ten minutes away from where they had listened to the punk band.

Was it possible that there was a monster in the city, and nobody knew? That it killed people, and nobody cared? Well, what would he have thought had someone at a party explained to him that there was a monster that killed those swimmers, and not boats? He would have considered the person insane, or at least a little unusual. So why would anyone even consider a monster as being responsible for this? As long as it could stay invisible, it would not be considered real. Whoever saw it would find nobody who believed him. Being a monster made killing unnaturally easy, he thought.

He grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge and wondered why Sandra had reacted the way she had. What did she know that he didn’t? He knew so little about her. She had been raised in South America, and once mentioned being from a wealthy family.

When he returned, he opened a document and started making notes. Origins of the monster was his first point. He put in: Alien, Occult Ritual, Were-octopus.

He felt incredibly stupid but didn’t know what else he could do but to dig into his geeky knowledge of movie monsters. Well, he could research. It was not a known crypto-zoology phenomenon, but maybe it had appeared somewhere else? He began browsing Wikipedia. Monsters. Real ones, mythological ones, fictional ones.

He came across many examples, much to his surprise. Monsters with tentacles, sometimes humanoid and sometimes not. Computer games and movies were full of them. They were usually all traced back to H.P. Lovecraft, a writer from the early twentieth century who had written a series of short horror stories and died young. Simon knew Lovecraft, of course. He had devoured his spooky tales when he had been a teenager. His type of beasts was usually Gods and more Godzilla in size than what he had seen. Yet, he also remembered unnatural mutations and such things playing a role in them. There was no hint that Lovecraft believed these monsters to be real, but one had to wonder what might have inspired him.

Simon checked the forum again and the first answers were coming in.

NO. NEVER.

NOPE.

IS THAT JAPANESE?

He leaned back and felt like screaming. So, he searched for the next thing he had. BROCKMANN. There were thousands of people with that name; if it was even his real name. None of them looked like the man he had just talked to. None of them seemed to be even close.

His mobile hummed. Alex was asking if it was still going to be tonight. She had a surprise for him. He didn’t answer, feeling distracted by the question. Instead, he checked the board again.

A private message by a user called NEVADASPHINX112 was in his inbox.

WHY ARE YOU ASKING ABOUT NOCTURNE SOCIETY?

Simon leaned forward.

I JUST MET SOMEONE WORKING FOR THEM AND I WANT TO KNOW IF I CAN TRUST HIM.

The answer came almost right away.

WITH WHAT?

Simon leaned back and wondered how much he wanted to tell a stranger.

MY LIFE.

That was true and dramatic enough. It took a moment before the answer came.

NOCTURNE SOCIETY WAS FOUNDED IN 1865 BY FORMER MEMBERS OF THE EAST INDIA TRADING COMPANY AND SPREAD ITS INFLUENCE VIA CHAPTERS THROUGH ALL OF EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD WITHIN THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS.

THE GOAL OF THE SOCIETY WAS TO RESEARCH AND, IF NECESSARY, CONTAIN CREATURES AND PHENOMENONS CONSIDERED TO BE OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF CONVENTIONAL SCIENCE.

Simon smiled. At least he was getting somewhere.

YOU MEAN SUPERNATURAL?

The answer came right away.

THE NOCTURNE SOCIETY DIDN’T BELIEVE ANYTHING TO BE SUPERNATURAL, THEY JUST ASSUMED THERE WAS A HIDDEN SIDE OF NATURE THAT DEMANDED THEIR ATTENTION.

Simon wondered what hidden side of nature had brought forth the creature he had seen, and what Sandra had known about such things.

WHERE CAN I FIND THEM?

The answer took a moment.

NOWHERE. DISBANDED IN 2001.

That made little sense. Why would it after 140 years?

WHY?

Again, the answer came quickly.

NOBODY KNOWS.

Brockmann had been part of this society, then, and Sandra had known about it. In 2001, she had been no older than what? One? Two?

HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM?

There was no answer for a long time. Then, finally, the person on the other side answered when Simon was about to give up.

MY DAD WAS A MEMBER. I NEED TO GO.

Simon quickly wrote.

WHO WAS YOUR DAD?

He didn’t get an answer. He waited for almost an hour and NEVADASPHINX112 didn’t show up again. Finally, he gave up and instead looked into the user’s history. Female. 21 years from Candlewood, Washington State, USA. Joined the boards 21 days ago. Had written 11 posts. Simon looked at them. They were mostly commenting on user’s requests to report sightings in certain regions. One post caught his attention.

ANYONE OUT THERE FAMILIAR WITH THE WENDIGO SYNDROME?

She was then bashed for mixing serious science like Cryptozoology with folklore and bad Hollywood science. She had reacted by posting a picture of a bunny with horns, saying she would cry and cuddle her Jackalope.

Simon had to smile. It was the first time today that he had genuinely smiled. He searched for the Jackalope and found some ridiculous pictures of Antelope and rabbit hybrids. He kinda liked that girl. Whoever she was, she had at least helped him.

Finally, out of questions he could ask the internet, he sighed deeply and made himself a coffee. Looking out of the kitchen window, he saw something move outside. His heart began pounding as he realized it was on the roof of the neighborhood building. He slowly approached the window and wiped off the condensation. It was the black flag of a local football team that someone had put up there. It didn’t look like a monster at all.

Giving a deep sigh, he realized that he was going to look over his shoulder from now on. He would never feel safe until the thing was dead or at least gone. He was considering catching the next flight out of Hamburg. Maybe that’s the smart thing to do. It also meant this old fart of Brockmann who didn’t even know that the internet existed would be the only person around to know this thing existed. Besides, he looked like he might die any day from lung cancer or heart disease or simply because the world was getting rid of all outdated Homo sapiens through natural selection. No. He was not yet ready to run.

The second thing he realized was that he didn’t want to be alone. So he went back to his mobile and answered Alex.

SURE.

****

Brockmann went to the phone booth he had used to call Fornby over the last few weeks. He dialed the number he had memorized and as usual was surprised at how quickly Fornby picked up the phone.

“Yes?” The British man answered.

“Found the kid, Bleicher,” Brockmann said.

“And? Is he still alive?” Fornby asked.

“Very funny,” Brockmann replied. The phone booth gave him protection against the pouring rain. “Too smart for his own good.”

“They all are nowadays. Speaking of too smart, I got Sandra Folkert’s police file. Going through it right now, but it seems she has predicted three murders. Landau, her own and you'll never believe who number three is.” Fornby smiled. Brockmann could hear it.

“Me,” he answered. He had understood that for quite some time now. If Sandra had to die because she knew too much, so did he.

Hanging up, he left the phone booth, walking home through the pouring rain, trying to figure out what to do next.