Let's have some fun with the girl. After all, I'm a monster...

The girls eyes fluttered open and she sat up as if to scream, but when she saw where she was she stopped. They were no longer in the Phantom's lair but instead in William's hotel room, a tiny rattrap in one of the city's worst quarters. He was in the middle of pulling his boots off. Confused, she tugged the blankets over herself. "Qui êtes-vous?" she said, and when he didn't respond she tried again in thin English: "Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter," William said.

"You rescued me..."

"I wasn't there for you. I was there for this." He showed her the cylindrical case with a brass cap. Inside was an ancient piece of papyrus, the paint of its sacred hieroglyphs still bright despite its fantastic age. "The Scroll of Thoth. The man who kidnapped you picked it up in a museum robbery a few years back. I found it in a secret panel under the pipe organ. That wasn't the only thing I found." He held up his hands; the cuts from the booby traps were still there. The girl gasped but William shrugged. They would heal.

The girl sat up a little more. Her legs dangled over the side of the bed. "Even so, you rescued me..."

"I had my reasons," William said. And before she could react, he pounced. With a few strong tugs he ripped her dress down and away, revealing smooth white flesh. He growled deep in his throat. Some part of him still hesitated, but the animal urges welled up. She tried to cry out but he clapped a hand over her mouth and snarled, "Don't scream." When he did he felt himself begin to change; the animal inside was coming out. His hands became gnarled paws, and his teeth grew long and sharp, and in the darkness of the tiny room his eyes gleamed yellow. The girl thrashed, panicked, but William pinned her down. The scent of her ripe flesh was too much for him. He bent his muzzle to her throat, ready to bite it in two in hopes that, somehow, the curse would be satisfied at least for a little while. He could taste her sweat...

But he pulled away. Stumbling and falling, he covered his face, waiting for the blood to stop pounding in his ears, waiting to become human again. It took a long time, and the entire while he was shaking, not daring to move lest he lose control again. My God, he thought, what did I almost do? The curse was getting harder to control. If he didn't hurry and finish this job for the Countess, it might be too late for him...

He jumped when the girl touched his shoulder. She cradled his head against her. "You poor man," she said. "What have they done to you?" The sound of her heartbeat almost set him on edge again. William's thoughts raced. He had to get out of here; out of this room, out of this city, on to the next part of the job, and then, hopefully, back to Transylvania, where the Countess had promised him the one thing in the world that really mattered. If only it could really be his...