Bernard had been gracious enough to let him question any emerged that came into the establishment that night, but with the slight caveat of him not being allowed to cause a scene. It was an awkward stipulation yet there very was little he could do about it. The establishment was theirs and that meant their rules were the only ones that mattered.

  "Harry, you look ridiculous," Gabriella said to him as he adjusted his trilby hat.

  "I have to look the part though, and I think it's actually quite stylish as well as fitting!"

  There were plenty of ordinaires around, which would have been a problem if not for the fact the vampires running the place didn't care all that much for the compacts. They enforced their own rules among themselves and so long as their existence wasn't revealed to the public at large they really couldn't care less if a few ordinaires knew of their existence. Still it would be wise of him to avoid dragging too many ordinaires into his mess.

  "Now is there anything I can work with here?" he asked himself as he observed the patrons of the nightclub.

  Most of the emerged that he could sense were no more than common magic users. The sort of people that had emerged but still maintained a relatively ordinary existence. The employees at the establishment were associated with Bernard and wouldn't be able to give him any more information than Bernard already had. That left only a few of the remaining mages and nonhumans in the club as viable targets for questioning.

  He moved closer to one of the mages in the midst of ordering drinks at the bar. The power within them was restrained, but the little power he did sense marked them as well above average in every way. As he was about to speak up and introduce himself they turned around and stared him dead in the eye causing him to immediately avert his gaze as he felt his skin crawl.

  "What's your first name?" they said in a cold monotonous tone as their dark eyes tracked his every movement.

  "It's Harry," he said as quickly as he could.

  "Then I want nothing from you and you won't be getting anything from me," they muttered as they walked off.

  The first target had been a bust, but there were still plenty of viable options left. Most of the mages he questioned throughout the night ended up giving him little to work with, which left the nonhumans in the club as the only remaining targets for questioning.

  It had been expected, but he would have preferred if the mages could have given him something to work with. Nonhumans were incredibly varied and were usually far more powerful than most magic users. They were far stronger than even the strongest of athletes on average, and their psychology could vary from near human to utterly alien. They were unpredictable by nature and there was no way of knowing what kind of nonhuman they were without observing them for an extended period of time.

  The club would only be open until about four in the morning and that meant he didn't have nearly enough time to properly identify more than few of them. He would have to go in blind and do his best to figure them out while questioning them. A daunting task, but not one beyond his abilities by any means.

  There was a tall nonhuman man with a sort of rugged wildness about them leaning back in a couch near the dance floor. They would be his first target and he already had some assumptions about what kind of monstrosity they were. Their overall hairiness, highly developed muscularity, and their unconscious movements as they observed their surroundings marked them as some sort of werecreature. Lycanthrope most likely.

  He started moving closer and spoke up when they turned to look at him, "Hello, werewolf, mind if I ask you some questions?"

  "Close, but not quite on the mark," they said quietly, yet even when they kept their voice down it still came across as deep and powerful, "You some kind of budding mage detective or something?"

  His observations had been close, but not correct. The man in front of him was no lycanthrope, yet the observation had still been quite astute. They were a werecreature, a werebear to be exact. It was a good sign because while werebears were highly territorial they weren't nearly as aggressive as werewolves. They were a kinder sort of werecreature.

  "If you don't mind, mister bear, may I proceed with the questioning?"

  "Knock yourself out, but I doubt I know anything of use," they chuckled.

  "Great! Then I'll start right away," he said as he grabbed his notepad, "Have you encountered or become aware of any predatory monstrosity that is venomous or poisonous in the last few weeks?"

  "Not that I know of? I mean there are practically no reptilian werecreatures on Avalon as far as I'm aware."

  It was a lucky break that he had encountered a talkative werecreature. Just like vampires they tended to keep track of other monstrosities similar to themselves, but unlike vampires they were far less formal yet also far more effective in some ways. Respect was important in the animal kingdom and as a result it was a cornerstone of werecreature psychology.

  "Do you know of any werecreature that has succumbed to or displayed signs of lunacy this month?"

  Lunacy was a psychological condition that affected most kinds of werecreatures. Since they had originally been chimera that inbred to the point of becoming true monstrosities it meant some of them expressed some of the negative recessive traits of their ancient monstrous ancestors. One of them was a psychological condition that caused their aggressiveness to spike when exposed to moonlight, which is why that condition was referred to as lunacy.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Not any new cases as far as I'm aware," they muttered, "Those we do know of have already been dealt with or are managing their symptoms just fine."

  "Then I've only really got one more question left," he said as he closed the notepad and studied them, "What are your thoughts about the recent string of killings taking place in the city?"

  "Me and a few others suspected that it might be one of us werecreatures for a while, but none we know of have been discovered hunting illegally these last few weeks so we just let it be," they said slowly while scratching their chin.

  "Thank you for answering my questions, and I'd like to wish you a pleasant evening, sir."

  As he walked away he gave his notepad a quick once over. The werebear had given him a lot of useful information and had helped him eliminate some possibilities. Werecreatures were predatory and there were some that were venomous and or poisonous, but the relative rarity of reptilian werecreatures on Avalon as well as the fact they kept track of others of their kind made it quite unlikely that the perpetrator was one of them.

  The next few nonhumans he questioned ended up either not being cooperative or simply didn't have anything useful to tell him. He had expected that some of them would be unwilling to talk fearing that he might be working for overseer, but plenty of them still talked if only to make it less likely for him to look deeper into their own activities. Hunting was only natural for a lot of them and he could care less if they did it illegally every once in a while, but a monstrosity on a killing spree was troublesome for all of them.

  "It's been hours, Harry, please tell me you've discovered something useful," Gabriella said as he walked away from yet another questioning.

  "It's probably not a werecreature, the feeding patterns don't match vampires, and I'm no closer to actually figuring out what we're looking for," he sighed.

  There had been some useful things that he had discovered. Most of the nonhumans he had talked to genuinely believed that it wasn't one of their kind that was hunting indiscriminately, but at the same time he had little reason to suspect any common kind of monstrosity to begin with. The perpetrator could well be some kind of exotic monstrosity or even a throwback of some kind, yet if that were the case it would only complicate his investigation further.

  "Harry, why are you so caught up on this?" she asked him slowly.

  There was a simple reason for it. It was because no one ever took him seriously. Never in his life had people seen him as anything more than a weirdo or a burden. He was something that they pitied or tried to ignore when all he had ever wanted was to be seen and to be recognized. The fact he was odd wasn't his fault seeing as he had been like that since birth.

  "You wouldn't get it," he muttered as he stared at the ground, "People only give a crap about me when I'm being useful to them and they throw me away the moment I become a burden."

  "Harry, I'm sorry..."

  "It's fine!" he said as he looked up at her with a big smile plastered on his face, "Everyone's the same in that regard so clearly that's all I deserve in this life."

  In the end it wasn't the fact that people didn't understand him that was the problem. They simply couldn't no matter how hard they tried, but the fact some pretended that they did was even worse. Everyone thought he was stupid or gullible so it was all too common that others would try to deceive him. Unluckily for them he was always aware of their deceit.

  Gabriella's expression told him that all too common story. She had realized that she might be taking advantage of him in some way and now her emotions were dragging her deeper into that mire of guilt. There really was no cause for guilt in the end though. He was at peace with the fact he only mattered when he was useful to others even if it had infuriated him all his life. People like him simply weren't meant to exist because their very presence displeased the world around them.

  Slowly with a drawn out sigh he began walking towards the last of his targets. It was a man of average height and build, but when it came to nonhumans appearance wasn't exactly a great metric for gauging relative strength. There was a nervous quality to their eyes and the way they fidgeted indicated some amount of stress or anxiety. They had realized he was approaching them, yet their body language told him they had no idea what he wanted from them.

  "I'd like to ask you some questions if you don't mind," he said as he flashed them the friendliest smile possible.

  The probability line ahead of him went black within his mind's eye. It was a dead end, which meant he would have to create a new branch or explore alternate futures. Because whatever currently lay ahead of him could only mean the end of his life. He could see their hand flexing and the dead end was getting closer with every second. The future had to be altered and he had very little time to do so because taking his time thinking it through would mean the end.

  "Hello! My name is Harry, and you killed my father," he said with complete certainty in his voice, "Prepare to die."

  The princess bride was one of his favorite movies. Not even the table flying towards him at breakneck speeds could take that away from him. He channeled his power as he ducked the improvised projectile coming for his head. The man that had thrown it ran past him at breakneck speeds at the very same moment he invoked his spell.

  "Trace lines to five!"

  Within his mind's eye he saw five alternate futures playing themselves out. While all of them were good candidates there was only one that looked to have any real promise. There really was no point in giving it any more thought than that when he had so little time to think.

  "Line locked, trace actions!" he declared as his body started automatically repeating every action of the illusory Harry ahead of him, "Gabriella, get Ken and tell him to find me!"

  Quickly he leaned his head to the side as a glass bottle came flying towards him. It was meant to be a distraction, but he had already chosen the future where he managed to follow them all the way outside the club.

  He grabbed his trilby and threw it at the floor ahead of the man. Just like the future had shown him they ended up tripping on it and allowing him to close the distance somewhat.

  The moment he burst through the doors of the club he took a left and ran into the alley behind the building. He already knew they were hanging from the fire escape ladder waiting to pounce on him so all he had to do was dodge when they inevitably pounced on him.

  He reached the end of the locked line just as he threw himself out of the way as they leap towards him from up above. After taking a short step back he raised his leg and kicked them in the chest to knock them off balance, but as they quickly regained their balance he realized they had no intention of actually holding back.

  They let out a guttural roar as their skin turned a pallid rubbery grey and their features lengthened into something distinctly predatory with two glowing red dots for eyes in their sunken eye sockets. Their fingers ended in jagged long talons that could easily carve through flesh while their teeth grew into large uneven fangs that could easily crush bone.

  "Ghoul huh?" he said as he narrowly avoided their claws heading right for his throat, "See I would be worried, but I've got a secret weapon!"

  "What might that be, mage?" they spat as they walked towards him slowly.

  "A very pissed off vampire," he chuckled as he saw another dark silhouette with glowing red eyes step into the alley.