She was lying on the floor, panting hard. How long had they been at this? The pain from the wounds vanished after a few moments, whether she blacked out or not, but she was feeling cramped all over and exhausted from the repeated torment her body was being put through. As she placed her hand on the carpet to push herself back to her feet, it exuded blood. The carpet was ruined, that was for sure. Her clothes too, presumably.

She hadn't talked. Not yet, anyway. As she sat back in the chair, Greyback was gazing at her with what looked like wonder in his eyes. Thankfully, he hadn't done anything but tear her flesh apart, so far. That wasn't something she would normally be thankful for, but considering the alternative…

"Verdammt," he muttered. He didn't look so good himself. He'd removed his shirt a while ago and thrown the shreds in the garbage can. His massive chest was bloody and, although the gashes he'd opened recently had disappeared, he was riddled with older scars. It seemed his past had been as violent as his present was.

"Are you quite done?" she asked flatly. "I'm hungry."

He surprised her by bursting with sudden laughter. "You're unbelievable," he said, shaking his head. "Alright, let's call it a day," he added with a shrug. "You do realise I'll learn her name sooner or later, don't you? You can't protect her forever."

Apparently, he had decided that the Ancient whose identity she was preserving was a woman. That was good. She had not suffered in vain. "And you can't keep butchering yourself like that, you fucking demented Nazi," she countered wearily.

His face hardened, all trace of mirth vanished in an instant. She had been calling him names from the moment she set foot here, but never before had he reacted to it. "Do you call Nazi everyone with a German accent, or am I receiving special treatment?" he asked in a low growl.

She was blushing in shame before she could stop herself. She had only used that term as an insult once in her life, when she was too young to comprehend it. She hadn't understood what it meant, then, but her parents had explained, after chiding her. They had always explained why something was forbidden, unhealthy or otherwise advised against. She wasn't sure why she'd used it now. Perhaps it was the accent, she thought bashfully. But to be fair, the man had just spent the better part of the morning torturing her. And he was demented, at least. "No, not everyone," she replied coolly, "only those with a murderous streak."

Slowly, he raised his left arm and pointed to the tattoo that was inked there. He had several tattoos, the tasteless sort she disliked, large and with no meaning that she could see. The one he was showing her now was different, however. It was very poorly executed, quite faded, and represented a number.

A six-figure number. On the left arm. That's impossible, she thought incredulously. He's too young.

He must have sensed that she recognised it for what it was. "You should never use that word lightly, little girl."

"But it doesn't make any sense!" she exclaimed. "You're… what… forty-five? Fifty? You can't have been in Auschwitz during the War. Even if you were, you were just a kid. I doubt that they bothered to tattoo the children," she said.

"No, indeed not," he confirmed matter-of-factly. "The children were sent to the gas chambers. Unless they were twins," he added with a sour twist of his mouth.

Twins? Oh, of course. Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, had operated in Auschwitz in the last years of the Second War. He was a… doctor, a researcher. He was said to have a particular interest in genetics applied to twins, and Auschwitz provided him with plenty of human test subjects. "You… had a twin?" she asked uncertainly. Merlin, why was she pursuing the conversation? She didn't want to hear this.

"I had twin daughters," he replied softly.

Shit. She most definitely didn't want to know that. But… "How could you have had kids by that time?" she went on with a frown. It simply didn't add up.

"I was thirty-two when they took us to the camp. In 1943. I'm eighty-five." That delivered as if he was commenting the weather.

"What tosh," she whispered. "Werewolves are not slow-ageing, and they're certainly not immortal."

"Neither are vampires," he countered crookedly.

And then the Knut dropped. How had she missed it? He was not an ordinary werewolf. Damn, it should have been obvious from the beginning. Burn me, he's an Ancient. The thought filled her with dread.

"Well, we don't call ourselves that. For obvious reasons." She hadn't realised she had spoken out loud.

She tried to gather her wits. There were so many questions… But would he answer them? "What do you call yourselves? Elders, like in the children's books?"

"We don't really use that, either. We rarely refer to ourselves as a collective. Although some of us have decided that we should have nicknames, like the bloodsuckers."

"Greyback."

He smirked. "Can you think of anything more ridiculous?" he asked scornfully. "Honestly."

"That's why you call yourself Fenrir."

"Much more fitting, wouldn't you say?"

"What's your real name, then?" In spite of everything, she was becoming more curious by the minute.

"That is irrelevant," he answered dismissively.

"I suppose it is," she conceded. "I take it you didn't become a werewolf in Auschwitz. I know they studied werewolves there, at some point, but if you kept the appearance you had when you were turned…"

"I was bitten later, yes. In the late fifties. You seem to know your onions about concentration camps," he went on shrewdly. "Morbid fascination?"

"Duty of remembrance," she retorted. Greyback chuckled. "Did you kill him?" Evey went on, undeterred.

He scowled. "You'll have to be more specific, Süße. I've killed many people."

"Mengele. You tracked him down, didn't you?"

He was silent for a moment. "Yes," he admitted eventually. "How did you know?"

"Well, if I'd been turned into a werewolf with exceptional abilities and I knew exactly who was responsible for my kids' death… You had to know he was somewhere in South America. It would have been easy enough for you to hunt him down."

He grinned a very wolfish grin. "See, we're not so different, you and I," he said tauntingly. "I kept him alive for forty-two days. Not sure what got him in the end," he went on dispassionately. "Sceptic shock from one of the rat bites, perhaps."

He did realise that she was going to do the same thing to him, as soon as she found a way, didn't he? "How many Elders are there?" she asked, changing the subject once more.

"Fourteen, including me."

She frowned slightly. She hadn't expected him to answer. "And… who are they? Are they… historical figures, like the Ancients?"

He thought it over for a minute. "Yes, I suppose they are. But whereas the vampires became famous – or infamous – in their lifetime, most Wolves achieved recognition after being transformed. That is probably due to the fact that the leeches have to die in order to become what they are, and we don't."

"Who bit you?"

"Rasputin. They call him Goldeneyes."

Well, apparently they didn't have the same rules on secrecy as the Ancients. Or perhaps Greyback simply didn't care. Then her mind did a double take. "Grigori Rasputin? The Russian mystic? He's a werewolf?"

"Uh-huh. And if you think I'm demented, you clearly haven't met him," he added with a tight smile.

"Who else?" she asked. Unlike vampires, there weren't any 'famous' werewolves. They didn't have an equivalent to Dracula.

He counted off his fingers. "Attila, Erik the Red, Blackbeard, Miyamoto Musashi, Cortés, Hunac Ceel, Ivan the Terrible, Bill the Conqueror…" He trailed off with a frown. "Bah, I don't know. I always forget a few. Doesn't matter. You get the idea."

She stored the names away carefully for later reflection. "Do you have special abilities? Beyond the fact that you're immortal and can turn at any time, I mean."

Greyback laughed. "I can do everything a transformed werewolf can do, and more besides. But Wolves don't have any of those fancy abilities the Ancients have, if that's what you were asking. We can't control minds or fly or whatever it is they do." That didn't seem to bother him. He clearly wouldn't trade being a werewolf for any 'fancy ability'.

"Did you kill Hitler?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The coward committed suicide. Everyone knows that."

"Well, the history books don't mention you executing Mengele."

He chuckled softly. "True. But Hitler was dead before I was transformed," he pointed out.

"Right." What an odd conversation, she reflected. How much more would he let on about the Elders – or Wolves, as he called them? "You've bitten plenty of people. Does that mean you can turn as many people as you want?" Antonin, she knew, would only be allowed to transform one person into a vampire, and it had to be an Ancient. He or she would be the next to receive the invisibility power.

"Yes. There'll be only one like me, however. We pass on the gift from one Wolf to the next." He cocked his head sideways, his now-grey eyes gazing at her intensely. They changed colour at night, she'd noticed, turning a warm honey gold. "What is it you think to do with all that information, girl? You smell so smug, as if you'd pried it all from my mind yourself, but what good will it do you?"

None, she suspected. But, admittedly, she was asking more out of curiosity than any real hope to make a difference when – if – she returned to the Order. She chose to ignore the remark, however. "It changes everything, of course," she said instead. "The fact that you are a Wolf must have something to do with the fact that I am… whatever I am. Had you ever tried to turn a woman before? Maybe it's a perfectly normal consequence, but you wouldn't know because you only bite men, since – theoretically – only they can become werewolves."

"Do you really believe I've never bitten a woman before? That none of us have?" He let out a derisive snigger. "It always ended up with the same expected result. Death. You're the odd one out, girl, not me, or even that Gottverdammt parasite of an Ancient. You were something else before she or I even bit you. As to what that is… it remains a mystery, for now," he admitted reluctantly.

"I wonder what your family would think of you, if they could see you today," she speculated idly.

He looked confused by the abrupt change of topic. "What do you mean? I avenged them. They would have no reason to disapprove of me."

"And you killed about as many innocent people as Mengele ever did. And you're immortal, so it won't stop there. The way I see it, you're just as bad as the Nazis ever were." That would most likely earn her a fresh round of lacerations, but she was past caring. If he thought to appeal to her sympathy by victimising himself, he was a fool. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, wasn't that the saying? Of course, she was perfectly aware that she intended to act just as he had, in the name of what she liked to call justice. But it was different. She wasn't acting out of sheer personal revenge. She would be doing humankind a favour by ridding the Earth of his malevolent presence. She would sacrifice a part of soul, and possibly her life – if she couldn't figure a way around it – to save lives. Yes, that made all the difference.