I knocked on the door of Victor’s office. “What?” he asked, growling as I opened the door. He tilted his glasses to his eyes and gave me a smile. “And what brings you to my office?” he said as he got up from his worn leather chair and pulled forward a wobbly-looking wooden chair. His office was littered with paintings, some were portraits of the professor while others showed faraway landscapes; painted by humans, I guessed. “Sit down, sit down,” he said, clearly pleased to see me.

I sat down in the creaking chair as he walked to a makeshift kitchen and poured me a mug of coffee; it gave off an overly bitter scent as he placed some sugar and milk on his desk. “Well, what brings you here?” he asked again as he sat back down in his chair and smiled.

I smiled back and thanked him for the coffee. “I’m here with another riddle, Victor,” I said. His eyes sparkled when I used his name; he was glad I had remembered it, it seemed.

He lifted his own coffee mug up to his lips and took a sip. “And what might that riddle be?” he asked. I reached into my pocket, took out the note Petra had made and handed it to him. He rubbed his chin with one large paw as he examined it. “Hmm, this is a typical one,” he said before reading it aloud. “Unmeasured I am still unknown, but still you miss me, when I have flown. What am I?” He peered at me over the rims of his glasses. “Why are you coming to me with this?” he asked. “I don’t think you are here to just humor an old lion, are you?”

I shook my head and took a sip from the vile coffee. “If it were only that simple,” I replied, putting the mug down. “No, I am here as part of a case. It’s important.”

He looked at me with his intense golden eyes, took a pipe from his desk and lit it. “And why do you come to me? Is there no person in the police force that could help you with this?” he said.

I got up and glared at him. “Look, if you don’t want to help me I don’t know why you let me in in the first place,” I said.
He stood up too, and growled at me. “Sit down, Miss Duluc.” His face was stern and gave me a small hint of his former glory.

“Why should I? You clearly don’t want to help me; there’s no point in me sitting back down.”
I sensed danger and reached for my gun, ready to draw it if he turned around and attacked me. “Yes, so?”

The professor got up and walked past me to a painting on the wall. “This one was from one of my students. A bright young girl, told me I reminded her of the African savannas, whatever those are. She died, in a ghoul cantina, drained of her blood.” His voice was sad.

“That was your case, was it not?”
“It was, but what has that to do with this? Are you a part of this?” I said.

Within seconds he was in front of me, his teeth inches from me, his growling breath hot in my face. “That would be an easy explanation, wouldn’t it? Poor old Professor Victor so struck with grief over a former student that he would do anything to stop the one who killed her murderer? Don’t be so daft.”

I was terrified as I looked at him. For an old lion he had been fast, faster than I had anticipated him to be; my hand was still on my gun. “Then what is it?” I asked in a soft voice.

“She was a promising art student, but then the books got hold of her and then that filthy wolf, Mikhail Fox. I warned her about him, and he got her killed.” He walked back to his desk and re-lit his pipe.

I shook my head. “No, that’s not how it went, Victor. They both were just pawns in a chess game played by the elder gods. She was murdered by a human police officer and a priest, trying to start a civil war in the city so they could come out victorious.” My hand was still on my gun.

He looked at me and there was fire in his eyes, a rage I had not seen in another’s eyes for a long time. “You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked as he reached into a file cabinet and took out a folder. “The evidence is all here. Why would they kill a human girl and blame the vampires, kill a vampire and blame the lycans, and so on?”
He chewed on his pipe. “Damn it, I didn’t see it that way,” he replied as he fell back in his seat.

“Quite simple,” I replied. “The humans mistrusted both the lycans and the vampires, so they would have aided the lycans in taking care of the vampires before turning on them.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see it that way?” I asked him as I also sat back down.

He smiled, and some of the fire and rage left his eyes. “I have been following your case in the newspapers since the beginning. I just never saw that angle you told me now.”

“Why did you follow the case then?”
“I wanted you to be wrong. The way it turned out to be, it never satisfied me.”

“Look, Victor, I no happier than you that’s how it turned out to be, but the city is saved. From those two, at least; that is a small win. The case I am on now, if you help me, you can save someone from death; in a way redeem yourself. You’re angry because you were unable to help her, you couldn’t keep her alive. Well, guess what? Even if she hadn’t gotten in with Mikhail Fox, and stayed with you, she would still have died.”

He slammed his fists on his desk and roared. “I could have kept her safe. I could have killed those that went after her, called it self-defense, but I failed. I failed her, I failed myself. She was talented but this place was swallowing her: the bullies, the fucking elves, everyone seemed to want to knock her down a peg. I told her I would not let that happen and see what did: she is dead.”
“Victor, listen. This is an opportunity to redeem yourself. You can save a girl, not the one you wanted, but a life nonetheless. Don’t do it for me or yourself, but do it for the promise you made to that girl, and trust me when I say you are not the only one who lost someone close to them on that case.” As I said this I opened my shirt and took out the necklace with the piece of Dragon’s horn on it. “This is a piece of the horn of my old partner. He was murdered for the same reason as your student. This shitty self-pity you’re living with now, I went through that too, wondering if I had been in the right place if I could have saved him; but I would have died there myself and the city would have burned and everyone I know and love would have died too … and I wouldn’t have let that happen. Yes, I lost one of my closest friends, but I saved many more lives. So if you don’t want to help me then I’m wasting my time here with you—”

I looked at him and felt pity for him. Her death had hurt him more than it had Mikhail Fox, who now spent his days on the park benches and sleeping in the homeless shelter. Risi had kicked him out of the pack and made him an honored outlaw. Normally if a lycan was kicked from the pack left alive until his number had run out and he would die of old age.

Before I could continue my ranting he stood up and looked at the note. “That’s it, that’s the answer to this one. Time. You can’t tell how late it is, or what time it is without looking at a clock; you can guess but you still don’t know for sure.” His voice was still raised as he spoke. “It seems you have given me a chance to redeem myself, Miss Duluc. Let’s go and save this girl of yours.” He stood up and stumbled to the coat rack, grabbing his coat and beret.

I looked at him as he stormed past me into the hallway. “Victor, the problem is that we now know the answer to the riddle, but not what it means yet. The other riddle only pointed to the day a metal container would open.”

His eyes lit up with pleasure. “No, the riddle pointed to Tomorrow,” he said. I nodded as I followed him. “Yes, and that is today,” I replied. He shook his head. “How are you so sure it is today?” he asked while pacing down the hallway.
“Well, the container opened today, so surely that means today is the ‘tomorrow’ of the riddle?” I replied as I hurried to follow him.

“No, Miss Duluc, that is not what it meant. Even if you had not solved it, the container would have opened whether you knew the answer or not. You see, Tomorrow never comes, because tomorrow will become today with a new tomorrow, and it keeps going, just as time does. Until that time is measured, it is unknown when this particular Tomorrow will happen.”

We had reached the door leading to the staircase. “Yes, so?”
He smiled at me. “We measure time with a clock, Miss Duluc.”
I shrugged. “I think there are more than ten million clocks in this city. You want to go look at all of them?” I asked as we hurried down the staircase.

“Yes, a clock is to measure time, and perhaps we don’t need to look at all of them, maybe just a few. Have you gone to the house of the person who has this girl?” he asked.

I looked at him and knew he was right. I hadn’t been there yet. “I think the police will have looked at the clocks, Victor,” I said as he held open the door to the main hall for me.

He smiled. “I expect they did, but they didn’t know what to look for except bombs or whatever. That isn’t what we are going to look for. We are going to look for Tomorrow.”

Next Chapter: Wigor