At ten thirty-four, a jet black van whipped around the corner, its engine growling. Not a wasp on wheels, but a black bear waking up from its winter slumber. With skidding tyres, Mo braked. He shot a few metres past Vidar.

Pizza box in hand, Vidar sprinted towards the van. Through the tinted back windows, only Mo's outline showed.

The door opened automatically. "Hop in, Wolfie."

Vidar sat down, plenty of space for his legs. He could look up without the roof scratching his forehead.

"Nice ride," he said.

"It's old as dirt, but it has a few interesting features," Mo said. He pressed a black button next to the radio. Instantly, an ear-piercing alarm began to blare. "A human looking at the source of the sound will see a police car, ambulance, or a firetruck."

Vidar hummed. A headache pounded at the base of his skull.

Mo made a sharp u-turn, then sped out of the street. "Don't ask me how I got this car—I did what I had to do to help a friend in need. This baby plus your Norse mumbo-jumbo should get us close to Reynaert. But be prepared. The place will be crawling with officers."

"Just me will be enough," Vidar grumbled. He pushed the now blue button, watching it grow yellow then red before turning back to black. "Let's not draw attention to ourselves."

"If you say so, Wolfie," Mo said. Then, as Vidar opened the box, he shrieked, "Hey, where's the rest of my pizza?"

"I ate it."

Mo folded the last remaining slice. "Last night before the full moon?"

"Uh-huh."

Pizza in his mouth, Mo jumped a red light, driving ninety where the speed limit was fifty kilometres per hour. 

Vidar swallowed as acid burnt his throat. If anything, the Ifrit's driving style would suppress the insatiable hunger for a while.

Masses of humans had gathered on the Green Square, the city's old cemetery, and now the beating heart of Antwerp's historic centre. The van shuffled through the street; the slowest Mo had driven since making that u-turn in Hoboken.

People stood outside the adjacent bars and restaurants, drinks in one hand, their phone in the other. Two teenaged boys climbing up the statue of Rubens received a scolding from a muscled security guard coming from the Hilton Hotel. They leapt down, right in a big puddle. The ground was still damp; it had rained earlier. As though this was an ordinary evening, the bells of the Cathedral of Our Lady chimed eleven times.

A police offer with an elaborate moustache beckoned Mo to stop.

"This is your moment to shine, Wolfie. His name's Maes," he said before lowering the car window.

"Good evening," Vidar said. He searched for the man's eyes, but the officer was too busy scrutinising Mo.

"Good evening, gentlemen. What's your purpose?"

In the flash that the man laid his eyes on Vidar, he got him. "Animal Control at your service, officer Maes."

"Animal Control? Didn't you go extinct—I was expecting your colleagues from the animal police?"

Allfather, the animal police. How could he have forgotten that department? He had even signed a petition for it, using a fake name and a fake signature. He thought of a quick lie. "Officer, it's my boss who's involved in those kinds of discussions. The mayor called us, said it was urgent. I'm only here to do my job."

"We wouldn't want to disappoint Bartje. Go ahead, gentlemen. So much racket over a dead fox. At least the newspapers will know what to write about."

Vidar clenched his fists, annoyed at the disrespect. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Thank you, we'll take care of him."

The car window slid up as Mo pressed a button on the steering wheel. 

"We should have pretended to be cops." The Ifrit turned into the otherwise traffic-free zone, the street so narrow even he couldn't drive over twenty.

Vidar grunted, "I talked us out of the situation."

"Would have been easier, though."

He bit his tongue—this wasn't the moment to snap. Inside the van, they could have pretended to be officers. But they had no badges or uniforms. He could enchant one person but not fool a square full of cops. His lie was a much better one; if the guy managing the traffic was a good indicator, the humans mostly wanted to get rid of Reynaert and continue their evening. A dead female was a sin, a dead animal vermin.

Mo parked the van in between two blue and white patrol cars near the entrance of the cathedral.

"Follow my lead," Vidar said.

He stepped out of the car and walked up to the white tent erected over the statue of Nelo and Patrasche with a confident stride, Mo trailing right behind him. He was a God, a friend of nature, and guardian of Antwerp's paranormal community. Ragnarök may come again, but he wouldn't leave without Reynaert.

His lupine eyes quickly found the two white crowns on a woman's left pocket flap. The chief inspector stood with her hands behind her back and had a slightly sour expression on her face, like she wanted to be everywhere but here. Most of her resources were occupied keeping the crowd coming from the Great Market Square behind the police tape.

All he had to do was repeat the same trick that had fooled Officer Maes. Chief Inspector Peeters was easy bait and took them to the tent.

"The gentlemen are coming to take the fox," she said in a thick local accent.

A police officer sitting on his knees looked up at her, his youthful eyes peering from underneath the dark blue uniform cap. "There's a slight issue, Chief," he said with a trembling voice.

"What issue—it's a dead animal!" the woman sneered. "I swear if it's one of the students' guilds again. I'm sick of their clowning around."

"It's not so much the animal, Chief," said the young man. "The..."

Vidar only half-listened, his focus shifting towards the large fox lying on his side, more a bag of bones and a dull coat than the criminal mastermind of yore. His right hind leg gone; another clean cut. What an unfortunate, disrespectful way for a legend to die.

"What do you mean—you found a bronze leg?" Mo asked. He raised his hands apologetically. "Bit of an art lover... appreciator. I guess," he mumbled at her.

"The cobblestones have been risen to look like a blanket for the boy and the dog," the police officer said, showing the hole. Sure, the marble goes beyond what people can see, but only for a good ten centimetres. The rest is cement. Except, when we pulled out the fox, there was a bronze leg behind him, separately."

"Antigone." Vidar gasped.

"Can it belong to the missing giant?" asked the Chief Inspector.

"Our colleagues from Art Theft will have to investigate that."

"Good, then it's no longer my problem." She squared her shoulder, tilting her head. "The leg can go to the federal police, while these gentlemen take this thing off my hands."

"Your wish is my command," said Mo. Through his sunglasses, the Ifrit's eyes were burning with fire.

They brought Reynaert's body to Vidar's place. Though Mo was quick to place him on the kitchen table, Vidar cleared the table in the living room instead. He didn't want Kira to enjoy her breakfast where he and Mo dissected a fox's corpse. In one sweep, old newspapers, magazines, and the book on Lange Wapper were moved to the couch.

"Your little lady isn't here?" Mo asked.

"Kira? No, she doesn't live here."

"The clips she posts online make it seem like she does."

"Yeah, she's good for business," Vidar said. "What can you say about our friend?"

"Friend, friend." Mo shook his head. "I've barely heard you speak a word about this guy until a few weeks ago."

Vidar snorted. "Getting jealous, Mo?"

"No, it's strange—that's all."

A peculiar case for sure. Reynaert didn't appear to be sleeping; he had a tormented look on his face. Fear, even. Vidar ground his teeth. How much time had he wasted while Reynaert had been starving?

A slight howl no more than a cry escaped his lips. As a wolf, his emotions were so much stronger. With the moon so close to being full, he could feel them bubbling beneath the surface. Allfather, he should have done better, should have done more. Reynaert's passing was on his hands.

He sniffed, composing himself, and turned on his desk lamp, providing Mo with extra light. "So what do you think?"

"Patience, Wolfie. On TV, the coroner may bat one eye at the body and tell the inspector the victim's life story. Besides, it doesn't matter how he was killed, how and when he was found tells us more."

"It didn't happen in the middle of the night."

"No, but Reynaert was found minutes after a heavy shower drenched the city centre. It was supposed to be a sunny evening, so anyone sitting on the terrace fled inside. Only the eyes of Our Lady saw what happened. Then, the bronze leg of Antigone pops up and Reynaert missing his. That can't be a coincidence."

"So, where's Patrasche?"

"Irrelevant." The Ifrit's eyes darted back and forth. "Whoever is behind this has meticulously planned this."

"Are you sure Eshu's innocent?"

"The guy's clear," Mo said, distracted. Flashes of his smoky, demonic self alternated with his plumper human cover. A side-effect of overthinking. "He's in the yam business and wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes. No important toes, anyway. He might pull a few strings or the occasional muscle to get a good deal, but that's business."

Vidar ignored the last statement. He lifted the creature's paw and sniffed. The round wound around his wrist had a metallic scent that wasn't blood. "Reynaert must have been locked up. That's why neither the newspapers nor those people on Facebook talked about missing chickens or fox prints."

Mo's eyes flicked wide open, his appearance more demon than human. "Hang on, since when do you have a Facebook account?"

"I never created an account," Vidar said. "I already had one—it was on the phone Kira gave me."

"Kira," Mo mused. "When did you hire her?"

"What?"

"The girl—when did she start working in your shop?"

Vidar rubbed his forehead. "About a month ago, I guess. Danny left a few days before the last full moon. Then Kira came into the store a few days later. Yeah, she wanted to buy a book on Antigone but couldn't afford it."

"And you've never seen her before that?"

"I don't know. I might, perhaps, when she didn't have blue hair. She's a skater girl, like so many of them hanging around the half-pipe. Besides, you're not suggesting that she might have anything to do with this? She's just a girl looking to make some extra cash. And thanks to her, my sales have tripled. It's like I'm back in the golden mid to late 2000s when everybody wanted to read about either that wizard lad or the sparkling vampire."

"Alright, Wolfie. No need to bark," Mo said. "Whether she has anything to do with the case or not, I have finally found a way to connect the evidence. It's clear as a smog-free day."

Vidar raised an eyebrow.

"A giant, a halfling, a dog. And then Reynaert presented to us as another halfling, part animal, part giant. Does that ring a bell?"

The muscles in Vidar's neck clacked as he nodded. 

The pieces of the puzzle clicked: He was the linking pin. Half giant, half wolf. The crimes a trail to get to him. A message to grab his attention.

But who was sending it?

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