Thomas Bond, the head police surgeon was commonly considered one of the greatest surgeons in London and was in charge of the autopsy. He was dressed in a usual tan suit vest with the sleeves of his undershirt rolled up. His hair was matted back with some kind of oil that made it shine and his face was clean all except for his five o’ clock shadow.

“So, what can you tell me?” Elysif asked.

“There are two cuts to her throat. One of which goes down to her vertebrae and there is a jagged cut to her abdomen.”

“Well, I can see that.” she replied looking at the corpse.

“On the right side of her abdomen there are more lacerations all caused by a downward strike from the same knife. I am not entirely certain but I believe a razor of some kind was used. The cuts on the side and on the throat aren’t very wide.” he said giving her an overzealous look. She ignored it and started rubbing a piece of silver over all of the wounds.

“That will help. Do you know why they cut into the abdomen in the first place?” she asked after the silver gave no reaction.

“You Agency folk are the experts on monsters not me but it seemed like they were trying to remove some of the organs. My guess is they were only able to do this much before they ran away out of fear of getting caught.” he said while attempting to balance a scalpel on his finger.

“Thank you, I’ll tell Scott. Maybe he’ll know something. Oh, and before I forget. You should have your secretary let me in next time.” she said with a smile.   

“Will do. Also I have the victims clothes as well and behind one of the buttons was a note. I think you should read it.” he said, pulling out a small yellowish paper.

She accepted it and unfolded the paper to read it’s contents. “What the hell?”

* * *

The old man turned to me and grabbed my arm. Then pulled me close enough to be able to whisper something to me. I started to draw the knife from my sheathe before he whispered “Help me!”.

“What do you mean?” I whispered back.

“I want to apologize for stabbing your stomach, it was only business. Although it seems I have gotten myself in a jam with my most recent job.” He whispered harshly.

“Wait, stabbed me in the stomach? You’re the Changeling?” I whispered in surprise as I drew my knife even more.

“Yes, and I admit to killing ms. Nichols but she will only be the first if my employer is not stopped. He wants me to cause chaos in London by creating more of my kind in excess. However I was unable to remove the organs for the ritual this time.” He stated in a hushed tone.

“Wouldn’t you want that?” I asked.

“Of course I want that, but I have a strict code of only killing those that no longer have the will to live for the creation of my kind. The one who hired me or should I say forced me to do this is making me break that code. I want you to stop him as well as myself before to many people get involved” 

“Okay, but why can’t I just arrest you now and we can work together to stop your employer?”

“He would kill me as soon as I was captured. He has people inside the Agency.”

“Who is your employer?”

“... The masked man. He is still alive and he is forcing me to do this, so please stop us both. It was divine fate that brought us together today. Wouldn’t want to waste that would we?”

“One other thing. If you are pretending to be the man that helped me then I assume you killed him?”

“No, I simply saw him as a good fit for a disguise. It’s not like I can just change into whatever or whoever I want, they have to meet a certain criteria. Plus I only kill if I am being paid to.” He said standing up from his barstool. “Hanbury Street within the week. Stop me.” and with a tip of his hat he walked out the door into the pouring rain.

I thought about stopping him but what he said about him being killed before we could stop this masked man made me think. Who was the masked man really? If he was still alive like Merlin and Mordred then what was his goal?