After leaving Hautville for a short rendezvousing at the palace, the ducal guard relayed the events leading up to Anna Henrietta's summoning. What was left of a body had been found at the amphitheater by a woman named Ygritte, a bar wench who worked the tavern Pheasantry Inn just across the Siedhe Llygad. The guard was unable to make a proper identification when he investigated the site, but Geralt could see the fear in the man's eyes, knew he made hardly an effort to survey the scene for fear the monster might return.
Subsequently, Geralt felt he had enough intel to return to the theater, but as he prepared to do so, the Duchess stopped him for a quiet word.
"You told me it was a vampire we were searching for," her voice sibilated. "What's this werewolf he speaks of?"
"That I don't know," the witcher muttered, tightening the belts around Roach's healthy girth. "But I'll soon find out when I get to the theater. Coming?"
"Absolutely not, Geralt. The knight's report is enough fuel for a week's worth of nightmares. Go, and when you find it, kill it. That's an order."
Despite the late hour, Geralt and the others found the square congregating with locals after the propagating news.
Arriving the square by horseback, they headed directly to the Pheasantry Inn where the murmuring crowd seemed to concentrate. Curious prattle of question regarding who died, where they were found, and who happened upon the human remains drifted among the crowd's thickening edges. The further they traversed, the more focused and coherent the rumors made themselves. More and more onlookers spotted the witcher moving across the square, straight for the Inn where the survivor was said to be waiting. By the time they reached the first cobblestones of the Pheasantry, Geralt had an accurate idea what happened, while also comparing it to what the guard found.
The witcher dismounted first, followed by Regis and Dettlaff silently emerging from a shadowy insert, unnoticed by the locals by their unnatural appearance.
"Master witcher!" A man holding his child called. The tyke turned her head, blotched red from tears clung to the lapel of her father's jerkin.
"The witcher's here!" someone young squealed with delight.
"Do something, sir!" another pleaded.
"We cannot keep living in constant fear!"
More words flew at him the closer they got to the tavern. Some scathing, few admirable.
"How long has he been here?" A young man grumbled under his breath. "What's taking him so bloody long?"
Another one spat contemptuously, muttering Geralt's favorite.
"Freak."
"Do your job, witcher!"
And the rare, "Ohh, Miri. Look how handsome the White Wolf is."
Suddenly, a commotion came from the front as a woman shoved her way through the crowd with sharp elbows, crying caustically and alerting the trio like a screeching gull.
"Witcher! Oh, dear witcher! The Beast of Beauclair!" she wept, flushed, and struggling to catch her breath as she stumbled to a stop before them. "A woman! Gutted at the amphitheater! You must! Cut it down! You must!"
"Where's the witness?" he asked.
The woman took Geralt firmly by the hand, nearly dragging him the remaining way. The vampires followed quietly behind.
The overcast had dispersed, leaving the town humid, hot, and uncomfortable. Inside, the crowded and noisy tavern was hardly better. Shouts and exclaims of the news resounded off the walls. Locals dreaming of pitchforks and torches swore to protect their duchy, threatened to assimilate their local militia if the ducal guards nor the witcher could not perform to standard.
All eyes fell on the witcher and the two vampires at once. The voiceless drone of their discussion stop, an unnatural silence followed.
In the furthest corner sat a voluptuous blonde, red and tense in the face. Across the blonde's chest was a bandage soaked in blood. By her side, a dull brunette coddled, wiping away the flood of tears falling quietly over her round cheeks.
With Dettlaff and Regis at his flanks, Geralt marched, shouldering his way through and ignoring the cutting remarks of those standing in his way. Regis quietly pardoned the witcher's behavior until they came before the two barmaids.
"Are you Ygritte?" Geralt asked at once.
She looked up with bloodshot eyes and nodded. Her bottom lip trembled as she tried to keep her composure.
"Aye," her voice rasped.
"My name's Geralt. I'm a witcher."
"I know who you are," her voice broke with a trembling lip. She could barely hold herself together. "You came by once before. I waited your table."
Regis looked over towards the brunette and spoke softly in her ear.
"Is there somewhere we can go for some peace?"
"Right this way."
Imogen was her name, and she led the trio and the witness upstairs where the room was in disarray.
"Start from the beginning," Geralt said, pulling up a chair and resting his elbows on his thighs. The five stood in a bedroom which had been tossed to pieces. A shattered looking glass littered the floor. The sharp jagged remains held by the wooden frame bisected Geralt's reflection morbidly.
Ygritte blinked and looked down shaking hands. "You'll think I'm mad."
"I assure you," said Regis politely. "Nothing you can say will surprise Geralt. He is a witcher after all."
Nodding, Ygritte took a deep, shaky breath and began.
But witcher was surprised after she recounted her story in such rich detail. Either the woman was well into her cups or ate mushrooms and now hallucinated it all.
"Horns?" Geralt repeated, glancing back at Regis. Even Dettlaff was listening intently.
"You promised not to think me insane!" she whined.
"What did her legs look like? This detail is important."
"Why, like yours or mine; normal, I suppose. I wasn't looking at her feet. Not with everything else to look at!"
"Nothing out of the ordinary? Perhaps, hirsute with hooves?"
The barmaid blinked and shook her head.
"What else? Her ears, what did they look like?"
"Pointed, like an elf's. I'm sorry, master witcher, but what does this have to do with the beast that killed her?"
"Identification purposes."
Ygritte nodded solemnly. "Then you should also know my friend had different colored eyes, said she was born that way. But after all the other stuff, they were the same color. She was like a completely different person, kept mentioning something about the Eye."
"Hmm. What else?"
"Also blamed her late mother for the strange affliction." Ygritte looked down at her soft hands regretfully. "I should mention I hit her rather hard across the head with a frying pan. She was rambling nonsense."
"Do you happen to know who her mother was?"
"Yes. Keira Metz. She was a sorceress from Velen, but she's dead now."
Geralt and the vampires found themselves crossing towards the western shores of Seidhe Llygad for tracks and other clues. The post-storm humidity provided miserable conditions for the witcher. Under the thick, hardened leather, he was sweating and irritated. Regis and Dettlaff were dandy, even if the latter was at ill-ease. Geralt presumed Dettlaff's presence was only by the fact that now the town believed a wolf was the culprit to all the slayings. In truth, he preferred to keep a watchful eye on the vampire even if it meant tethering him to Roach.
"Came by boat," the witcher repeated, "Walked the shores, but came running back."
He followed a trickle of blood, leading them right to a dead water hag sprawled next to a small beach shack. Her skull's crushed, and her throat ripped out.
"Must have run into the hag while she was fleeing. That's what scratched her chest. The wolf, pursuing her, got caught up, sidetracked, and stopped here."
Regis glanced over the corpse, scrunching his nose repugnantly. "Smells divine, wouldn't you say, Geralt?"
They followed the second set of tracks; pawprints as large as the witcher's head led to a rising path towards the theater.
"Ah, trails continues." Geralt knelt, placing his entire hand in track's depression with room to spare. "What did I say, Regis?"
"That it would be only a matter of time," the barber-surgeon muttered. The vampires shared a look but said nothing to the witcher. As they went on, he was about to continue his lecture on cursed beings until they came upon the theater's clearing, where the smell and sight forced a moment of quiet reconsideration.
The scene was nothing out of the witcher's scope of exposure, but it was unexpected. Behind, the vampires remained silent, observing both the grisly remains and the witcher at work.
Geralt took a sobering respire and knelt to pick up what was left of the victim's head by a black horn slick with blood. Ygritte had explained her belief thoroughly; her friend was afflicted by a curse. Black horns and a tail were provided to describe the woman, but all that remained of her now was hardly recognizable. A mortal fissure bisected the female's features, akin to a battle ax wound he'd seen far too many times, if not for one clue; the fragmented pieces still clinging bowed out, as if something blew her face open from the inside. One eye stared wide and fixed; the other was missing from its socket. An unhinged jaw hung open with broken teeth and split lips. Geralt tilted it, and blood spilled out like thick, red wine from her slackened mouth. He brushed the hair aside to check the ears; pointed, but elves did not sprout horns. He looked over and saw Regis eyeing the skull in his hands with a wounded expression. What words of consolation he could provide failed him. Perhaps Regis was right in believing she was harmless, but as a witcher came to learn quickly, cursed beings had a way of ruining their own lives.
The grizzled vampire looked up at the night sky. Dettlaff sternly observed the blood-spattered flagstone, attempting to understand but failing.
The Witcher got to work, keeping the skull in his possession for more than investigational purposes. Firstly, she had horns. Which, in any other typical and frequent occurrence, would indicate Laz was a succubus, if not for the very human legs, err, what was left of them. During their short and abrupt encounters, he also knew she had heterochromatic eyes. If that was indicative of anything, it wasn't known to him and therefore useless. Geralt had seen the wolf first hand, but no werewolf took the form of a woman with horns. Where did the horns come from? Why hadn't he seen them before now?
Furthermore, the mention of Keira Metz troubled his mind. The first day Geralt met Keira she'd openly shared with him her intention of becoming pregnant that very night. However, sorceresses are infertile. Had she managed somehow? Or had Keira stole in the night and retrieved a child from the cradle to claim for her own? Not at all impossible, but as Geralt knew personally, Keira could not be sat down for questioning. Which explained why Laz never liked him from the beginning but had overlooked it for the consensus that a good majority of people didn't like him period.
After several long, ponderous moments, frustration set in. More than the sweltering heat was getting to the witcher. The bustling town of Beauclair had now assigned an image to Beast of Beauclair who, Geralt knew, was not a wolf at all. But the duchy, as he also knew, wanted his efforts split two ways: between a vampire that stood several paces away and a wolf he'd yet to set eyes on.
"It must have been a fight for territory," he stated bluntly, after serious consideration. "One Lazarus obviously lost. That's the only explanation I have. Perhaps she's a changeling of some sort." But even those don't come with horns, he omitted. Still, he was unconvinced. It sounded good, but it was in pieces. Too much was missing. The moon was not in another ten days; how could a werewolf attack now? And what of Lazarus, who was not a werewolf nor a succubus. What of the Eye she'd recently come in contact with, revealing her true identity was the horns and all else? Moreover, where did Keira come into all this?
Were they dealing with multiple beasts in Beauclair? Highly possible.
"I think Ygritte might be mistaken. She couldn't have seen a werewolf, not without a full moon." Geralt concluded. "Tavern wenches are known to fabricate stories, to bring in more patrons."
"I don't believe that was her intention," Dettlaff muttered, staring at a twisted tail, naked as a rat's with a tuft of bloody white fur at the tip.
"Nonetheless, something killed her," Geralt added. "I need to hunt it down before it kills again."
Regis stared down at what was left of Lazarus and reflected. He'd seen this before, with her in fact. A vision showed a wolf eating human remains. At the time, he didn't understand what it all meant. Also, there'd been crows, but the hour was late, and no crows blotted the sky. But as Regis knew, they were intelligent creatures. Perhaps they saw something. While Geralt sought the wolf, he needed to return to the cemetery and find himself a willing corvid.
"Geralt," the barber-surgeon spoke, stopping the Witcher short of leaving. "I must ask before you go."
"What is it?"
"Is it true you killed Keira Metz?"