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Henri Fairclough was, in the words of the old groundskeeper who first discovered his remains, “very dead.” The only untouched skin was that of the gentleman’s face, torn from its skull and hanging frayed from a bare December branch, the wind frosting its flat, purple lips. A confetti of Fairclough’s flesh and sinew painted the ex-man’s gardens, and the plants, if they could speak, would sing praises to the bloody meal. Scotland Yard only wished this were possible: the plants would forever remain the murder’s sole witnesses.

“The work of a monster,” the townsfolk would say tomorrow.

“The work of a maniac,” the country would say in fifty years.

“The work of a cult,” the world would say in a century.

“The work of a demon,” would be the eternal explanation.

But a demon was not to blame. And neither was the boy who commanded what was once a demon. The true culprit was the grotesque, beautiful, ruined, handsome, blood-bathed chimera born from their bond.

He answered to the name Sebastian. And he hadn’t always been this.