Psychopathic Werewolf Tests Reality… and Crashes a Bentley | Dark Comedy Horror Podcast (Ep. 234)

What happens when you trust a psychopathic werewolf over your own reality?

In this episode of Werewolf the Podcast, Eleanor Rigby finds herself driving a luxury Bentley alongside Wil — a dangerous, sarcastic, and deeply unpredictable werewolf — and his invisible wolf soul, Fenrir.

What begins as a tense academic conversation about the nature of belief, science, and the supernatural quickly spirals into something far more dangerous.

When Wil challenges Eleanor to prove her theories — that belief shapes reality — the result is a catastrophic experiment involving a very real stone bollard… and a very expensive crash.

Meanwhile, back at the University, Professor Simon de Montfort prepares a forbidden ritual involving angels, sin, and a mysterious feather that may summon something far beyond human understanding.

In this episode:

• A werewolf tests the limits of reality
• Dark humour meets supernatural philosophy
• A Bentley crash caused by belief vs logic
• Introduction to the Fang Pact theory
• The growing threat of angels and divine intervention
• Eleanor Rigby’s first true lesson in surviving the supernatural world

Perfect for fans of:

• American Werewolf in London
• Good Omens
• Rivers of London

Welcome to a world where belief shapes reality…
and reality sometimes hits back. Hard.

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Transcript

Eleanor Rigby 

I had never driven a Bentley Bent... Bentay Bentayagaga Bentyayga before. To be honest, I never wanted to. In truth, a car like this hurt my feelings. 

In my earlier, more politically charged period, I would have been totally disgusted with someone owning something like this. 

Now I was driving it.

It... it was a lovely thing. 

I hate myself a little for thinking that, but it was... amazing. I can see the benefits of... wealth. I bet that the Professor had never had to resort to baked bean curry to get through the week.

It was a fantastic car. Although the name was stupid... Bentayga. Bentayga?

Until about twenty minutes ago, I hadn't been entirely sure how to pronounce it. 

In fact, I did not want to pronounce it. 

Let's give it a try. Bent-ay-ga. It felt like a car that should come with a Latin motto and a valet. Who names these bloody things? They spend so much time on how they look and perform and all that nonsense, then... Bentayga.

Sorry, mind fart. 

The Professor's driveway was five minutes of manicured gravel bordered by old oaks that had likely voted in several elections.

The kind of trees that could definitely hold grudges. 

I bet they all had postcodes attached to them for resident tree nymphs. 

I wonder how much of this estate's population was comprised of corporeal tested others. The Fae. Perhaps that is why this place felt the way it did. Not quite real, not quite not.

Wil was all cooly slumped Werewolf in man form in the passenger seat — all six feet odd of reluctant, fine-smelling... Does he possess some glamour that he uses to deceive my eye? I have read that the Surgut tribe doesn't, but there is something altogether intriguing about this man.

He had taken his Jacket off, and I noticed that, in deference to his wolf soul, he'd placed it in the footwell, rather than throwing it on the back seat, which was now inhabited by an invisible wolf soul.

Yep, you heard that right, too. Invisible wolf soul.

The man part of this duo sighed and lounged down in a plain white t-shirt that somehow managed to look like it had been designed by a gothic tailor. 

His hair was strangely damp from wherever he'd been brooding, and his eyes — those odd, gold-shot, coloured eyes — were fixed on the passing scenery like it had personally offended him. Maybe some of those tree nymphs had. 

In the back seat, though I couldn't see him, I could feel Fenrir — Wil's ancient, invisible wolf soul. His presence pressed against the air like static. It prickled the back of my neck every few seconds, just to remind me he was there.

We left the private road past the gatehouse. The giant gates opened by themselves at our approach.

'Did they open by magic or mechanics?' I said out loud. 

Wil laughed.

'Why'd you care?' He asked.

I sighed and ignored him. Of course, I cared. I was, by definition of being a student, a nosey person.

Wil was definitely was not cool; he was an utter cunt. Sorry, but it was more than appropriate for this man... thing. He exuded sexiness, but he was a proper nob. So narcissistic it would seem that the word had been created for his personality.

I returned my focus to the Bentley as it purred along the country road, smooth as cream. I was enjoying driving it. This was driving. In the old Aygo, Betty, this would be travelling. 

Wil spoiled my driving reflection. Of course he did. 

He spoke, he had to. He had not heard his own voice for at least 5 minutes. 

His words, as usual, were threaded with the kind of patronising amusement I'd already learned to brace for.

'So, Doctor Rigby-in-training,' he said, stretching the words like a cat disembowelling a mouse. Another little dig at me. 

I tutted. I could not help it. It just arrived at my tongue and teeth.

He smirked and had the audacity to carry on talking.

'Tell me — what does the modern scholar think about the supernatural these days? Do you believe in ghosts and monsters, or are you here to… rationalise us into footnotes?'

He asked with what seemed little interest. Did I think he could ever be interested in anything as tiny as humanity? 

I glanced at him. His smile was deliberate — testing. Like he was waiting for me to flinch or start quoting something embarrassingly outdated from a textbook.

But I didn't flinch. I would not give the monstrous man that pleasure. 

Instead, I took a slow breath, offering him the sensation that he was boring me and that his question was a little bit silly. At least that was what I wanted to display.

The Professor had warned me that talking to Wil was like fencing with sarcasm. I think he did Wil a great service by saying this was fencing. Wil just seemed to be trying to bludgeon me with it.

I decided to parry anyway. After all, I had always wanted to speak to him. Only now did I realise that he was what he was. Not a very nice thing. Fancy that Eleanor the Werewolf was not a very nice thing. Strange that?

I added a little bit of a patronising growl to my voice as I tried to act as though what he asked deserved a hint of ridicule at him asking such a silly, inept question.

'Belief, as you should know,' A nice addition to the sentence there. A riposte that he had walked into with his strike. 

'...and reality aren't opposites,' I said, keeping my eyes on the road. 

He was listening but turned to the front of the car and settled deeper into his seat. 

So I continued

'They're co-dependent. The supernatural isn't outside of the natural world — it's the part of it that refuses to fit in the boxes we've built.' 

Wil's smirk faltered — just slightly.

'Oh?' 

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/13JPGQKlRmcpCW2Co1YNV7?si=054a6e1b0e774a97#Life can be a lovely ray of sunshine at times. Or a horror-filled miasma of misery at others. If your life is going well and you need some #horror and nastiness in it, listen to...

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/13JPGQKlRmcpCW2Co1YNV7?si=054a6e1b0e774a97he said.

'And what does that mean, exactly?'

'It means,' I paused before I continued, 'that entities like you — werewolves, spirits, cryptids, angels — you don't defy physics. You expand it. 

'The same laws that make gravity work also govern possession and transformation — we just don't have ways to measure them... yet.'

From the back seat came a low growl — half amused, half sceptical.

That would be Fen.

'Your science thinks it can dissect the divine,' Wil murmured completely offhandedly.

'You think it's all equations waiting to be solved.'

I took a moment to consider this statement. I have learnt that the most intelligent always pause to consider before replying. 

'No,' I said.

'I think it's all relationships waiting to be understood. Energy, intention, myth, biology — they all interact. The old tribes of Surgut understood that. They called it the Pact of the Fang — the idea that the spirit and the body must remain in balance, or both go mad.'

He looked at me sharply then — surprise flickering behind the wolf in his eyes.

'The pact of the Fang?' He asked, bemused.

'Who called it that?'

I looked at his eyes briefly and then replied with an element of my own smugness.

'I did.' I smiled as I returned my eyes to the road ahead, enjoying his questions.

He stared at me. 

I could see things rushing through his head. 

I thought he might be angry. I thought he might admonish me for what he thought was a display of disrespect to him and his kin. 

I prepared an apology in my head.

Then he laughed.

'The fang pact. Rated R. At a cinema near you.'

'Sounds like a crappy B-movie to me.' He said

'Sorry.' I don't know why I did it, I apologised with a slightly humiliated 'sorry'.

He looked at me strangely. Then smiled. I saw the smile aimed at me via the rearview mirror. It was the first warm expression I had seen on that.. gorgeous face. Ahem!

'No... No... I do actually love it.' He said.

I had an internal shiver. I felt like he had patted me on my head and called me a good girl, which, in the moment, was wonderful. I was thrilled. 

Then I remembered I was a strong, independent woman and he was a shovanist dick. That kind of talk from a man should be seen as patronising and misogynistic, but I could not see that. I liked it.

'You know about the Fang Pact?' He said, breaking my spurious thoughts. 

'I've been studying your tribe for three years,' I said. 

I saw him purse his lips and nod.

'Your people didn't just survive in the Siberian wilderness — they thrived because they embraced coexistence with the metaphysical. You didn't just change under the moon; you conversed with it.'

There was silence for a moment. The road hummed beneath us.

'You're not what I expected,' Wil muttered, finally scratching the back of his neck. 

'Most humans who talk about the supernatural do it like they're talking about fairy tales or viruses.'

'And you're not what I expected,' I replied. 

'Most werewolves don't use the word metaphysical.'

He laughed.

'How many have you met?' He asked.

I ignored him.

'One then.'

From behind me came a snarl — deep, ancient, and faintly irritated.

Then, clear as thought, I heard a voice.

It wasn't Wil's.

'You talk too much, little scholar.'

The air seemed to shiver with the sound.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

'Hello, Fen,' I said softly. 'I was wondering when you'd join the conversation.'

Wil blinked and looked towards me. His normally unreadable face was showing surprise. 'You can hear him?'

'I can sort of... not hear him maybe, but feel what he says,' I said. 

'It's like being next to a radio tuned to the wrong century.'

That earned me a low, rumbling laugh from the wolf spirit.

'You are bold. That may save you… or doom you.'

'Most of my lecturers say that about my thesis,' I said, keeping my tone light.

Wil turned away, but I caught the faintest twitch of his mouth — not quite a smile, but close enough to count as progress.

The rest of the drive unfolded in a strange, charged quiet. 

The Bentley glided through the falling fog, carrying a werewolf, his invisible ancient soul, and one very nervous academic toward the University — where a certain Professor was waiting with answers none of us were ready for.

And somewhere between the hum of the engine and the soft whisper of the wind, I realised something unsettling:

I wasn't just studying the supernatural anymore.

I was living inside it.

We'd been driving for twenty minutes — the sky a bruised shade of violet, the Bentley droning contentedly beneath my hands — when Wil decided to get philosophical again. He'd obviously been thinking at some length.

That was my first mistake: assuming that a werewolf getting  fila sophical was a safe thing.

'So,' he said lazily, his head resting against the window, 'if belief defines reality, as you so confidently just claimed… then theoretically, reality bends to belief, yes?'

I glanced at him unsure with where this was going.

'In principle,' I said. 

'Observation affects phenomena. Belief influences energy. But reality has its own—'

'Ah,' he interrupted, that sly grin forming again, 'so it can bend.'

'I didn't say that,' I replied. 'I said it responds. Like a current. You can influence it, but you can't—'

'Eleanor,' he said, turning in his seat to face me fully, 'you trust your own mind, don't you?'

That was my second mistake: I said, 'Of course.'

He smiled then — not the polite kind, but the kind predators use when they're about to teach a lesson.

'Good,' he said softly. 

'See that bollard up ahead. Right ahead of us.' He pointed in its direction.

I blinked. 'What?'

'See it? End of the lane. Big, round, immovable, stone thingy. Perfect test subject.'

I squinted through the windshield. Sure enough — a large stone bollard sat in the middle of two others at the end of a turn on the road. I was sure that they hadn't been there before he had mentioned them.

'I'm not seeing things, am I?' I asked.

'No?' said Wil, far too calmly. 

'It's there. But here's the thing: if you truly believe it's not real — if your mind and your faith in unreality are absolute — then you can drive straight through it. No damage. No collision. Reality will yield. Won't it?'

From the back seat came Fen's low, ancient rumble — part warning, part growl.

'Do not do this, little scholar.'

I ignored him for the moment. My heart was already pounding.

'You're joking,' I said.

'Deadly serious,' Wil replied, eyes glittering. 

'You claim belief shapes the world. So shape it. Drive forward. Prove it. Let's see some... magic?'

'He toys with you,' Fen snarled. 'He would see how far you go before instinct betrays your mind.'

'The bollard is a simple illusion,' Wil said smoothly. 

'A trick of faith. If you doubt it, you'll crash. If you believe me, you won't.'

I stared ahead. The bollard sat there, perfectly ordinary and unthreatening — except for how solid and real it looked.

He must have worked some magical glamour to make me see it. He was testing me. I needed to pass this test. It was a petty trick to make me look stupid. I was not going to fail this test.

I gripped the wheel tighter.

'You wouldn't risk the car,' I said. 

'Not a Bentley. You love this thing.'

He laughed. 'It's not mine, but of course you're right, I would not be daft enough to let us have an accident to make a point, would I?' He laughed.

'And anyway, I'm not risking it. You are.' he said, leaning back, that grin widening.

'I love seeing how far a human will take an idea?'

The road narrowed. The air thickened. The rational part of my brain — the part trained in evidence, analysis, controlled variables — screamed stop.

But the other part — the one that studied ghosts and quantum consciousness and the edges of belief — whispered, 'whatif he's right?'

I eased my foot onto the accelerator.

The engine growled.

Wil laughed.

'Eleanor…' Fen's voice rippled through my mind like a cold wind. 'Do not give him this victory.'

'It's okay,' I whispered. 'He's not really going to let me crash. It's a trick he's testing me with.'

'Attagirl,' Wil murmured. 'Trust the unseen. Trust the murderous psychotic killer.'

The bollard loomed closer.

Wil was laughing.

Thirty metres. 

Twenty.

Ten.

The rationalist in me screamed that this was insane — that I was about to smash the Professor's car, my career, and possibly my face.

But the other voice — the one that believed in the shimmering, hidden structure of the supernatural world — said belief defines reality.

And for one mad, shining second, I believed the bollard wasn't real.

I hit the accelerator.

The Bentley surged forward.

The impact came with the sound of an explosion of air and metal.

The car lurched to an immediate, bone-jarring halt.

I woke. The airbags had deployed violently and had slammed into my chest and face. My ears rang. 

The smell of burnt rubber filled the cabin.

For a moment, there was silence — except for the ticking of the engine and the soft hiss of the airbags deflating.

'Ow,' I muttered.

Beside me, Wil was suspended in a cocoon of airbag, blinking slowly like a man who'd just witnessed divine retribution in action. 

He turned towards me silently until his laughter broke like a divinely created storm.

From the back seat came Fen's low, unmistakable laughter — dark, thunderous, and full of teeth.

'So much for belief, little one.'

I, as you may imagine, failed to see the joke. 

Prying the deflated airbag from my face, I glared at Wil. 

'You— you said—"

'I said reality bends to belief,' he said, rubbing his forehead and clenching and unclenching his jaw to test it for injury. 

'I didn't say you were ready to bend it.' He winked at me and gave that smile again. I hated him right now. 

Then faintly, he added:

'On the bright side, you proved that the car's safety features are immaculate.' He said, patting the now oddly shaped interior.

'You absolute—' I began.

'Genius?' he suggested helpfully.

I didn't answer. I just stared at the wrecked Bentley, the bollard that had most definitely not been an illusion, and thought:

This is what happens when fil osophy meets a complete dickhead.

Fen's voice echoed in my mind one last time, soft and amused.

'Next time, little scholar, trust the wolf over the man.'

'That was so fucking stupid of you.' Said the laughing... bastard sat next to me.

'Fucking brilliant, but so fucking stupid.' He carried on through the laughter.

He paused and wiped his eyes.

'Fucking funniest thing I have seen this week. Can't believe you believed me and that belief fucked you up.'

He coughed and settled a little, staring at my hard and angry face. 

'So what have we learnt, little intern?' he asked me. 

It slipped out before I could stop it. 

'That you are a total dick.' I spat.

'I am yes.' He said, pointing at me.

'That's a given.' He replied again, laughing.

I stared at him, and then a smile broke out on my face. There was a lot of adrenaline flowing through me. That's what I blame. 

'Maybe I put the Bent in Bentley or in that stupid fucking name. Bentayga bollocks?' I smirked. 

We were both laughing now as the sound of sirens filled the air. 

Eventually, I stopped laughing; I had to. I was now anti-adrenalised. I wiped away the tears from my face with a sleeve. 

The fucking reality of what had just happened hit me. I had done something very serious and dangerous. 

That sobered me in a moment. 

Wil continued to laugh. I started to worry. Why was he still laughing? I became very uncomfortable.

'It was not that funny. You could have killed us... Me' I said disapprovingly.

He looked at me and laughed harder as he acknowledged what I said with a nod of the head.

'He's not laughing at you, little one.' Came the Wolf's voice.

'He is laughing at the phone call you will have to make to the Professor.'

Wil turned in what remained of his seat to look at the empty rear one, still laughing and nodded again.

I looked on, horrified at this vulgar display of... of... Conceit?

'And now he is laughing because he is imagining the Professor's face when he sees what remains of his car.' Wil pointed at the invisible beast in the back seat.

'You're an utter bastard.' I told Wil.

He looked at me and nodded, still unable to talk.

'He agrees.' Said the calm voice of the wolf soul.

Professor

It is raining again.

Not the soft, contemplative drizzle one associates with University courtyards and good poetry, but the sort that hammers meaninglessly at the glass, as if Heaven itself were trying to make a point in Morse code.

I am alone in my office, and the clock insists on reminding me that it is nearly eleven. Eleven AM.

The lamplight has that late-hour quality — sharp on the papers before me, gentle on everything else, and utterly unforgiving on the feather lying across my notes.

Ah, yes, the feather.

I have turned it over in my hands so many times that I could almost imagine it breathing with the rhythm of my pulse.

It is not an ordinary thing. No bird, no matter how exotic, leaves behind plumage that shifts its hue in lamplight as though it resents being seen.

It hums faintly, as if caught between states of matter — physical and ethereal both — like something that remembers being light itself.

Ernest Wainwright, damn his bright and reckless mind, told me that to summon the Archangel Michael, one must commit a sin and burn a feather of Heaven.

A sin and a feather. Burning the feather is the sin itself. He told me.

Simple enough on paper.

Far too bloody simple. From my centuries of experience in these matters. This simplicity relit my paranoia.

I have studied angels for hundreds of years — through scripture, apocrypha, physics, and field evidence.

Oh, and every now and again, having a plain and simple chat with them. 

I have catalogued their appearances, traced their mythic interference across human history, and measured the psychic shockwaves they leave in their wake.

And not once, not once, has a legitimate case ever begun with something as convenient as 

'Oh look, a feather, which fell right into my lap.'

Coincidence, perhaps.

But coincidence has a flavour. And this one tastes deliberate, bitter and too good to be sound. 

(chuckling)

I suppose I ought to be utterly flattered. If it is the work of Providence, it means I've finally been noticed. 

No, it's not that. This is not the first time Michael has noticed me. We are already on first-name terms.

Someone is setting me up to fail spectacularly. 

Setting me up for a fall like Lucifer herself. 

Was it Lucifer? 

No, I am grasping a little. 

I sip the whisky that's been sweating on the desk for an hour. 

I know a little early, but I require some spiritual sustenance in all senses of the word spirit.

The glass has got warm — disappointing. Still, the gentle burn in my throat as it rinses my mouth, clears my sinuses and enters my oesophagus is grounding. Reminds me I am, regrettably and not regrettably, not mortal.

Ernest's conversation ran through my mind as I sipped.

'You must tempt him into proximity, Simon. Angels are drawn to the act of Judgement like moths to flame. Sin boldly, cleanly, and let the scent of it rise with the smoke of his own making. He will come to judge. They always come to judge. To burn the feather is both the sin and the invite.'

I trusted Ernest utterly. He was an old soul, and he knew his way in this weird world that we shared. His mind seemed centuries old to me, and he had experienced a lot of the unreal world in his lifetime. 

He had lost so much to it. 

His beautiful wife Annabelle. Was... gone. Not dead. 

Well, dead, yes, but undead. Cursed with vampirism. 

Gone from him as he aged, and she did not. 

His one true love. 

I was jealous of that. 

His one true love. 

Not many find that. 

He was lucky to find such a love... but unlucky to find such love too. 

Anyway, I trusted him.

A true rarity.

Ernest was incapable of doing me any sort of injustice. 

Although he always liked to blur the line between summoning and baiting. His actions were always quick and never circuitous. Maybe that was the short-lived mortal in him. He sadly was mortal. One day... I would lose him. Not the first person I loved that I would lose. 

I smile. More than capable of such nostalgia. 

I take my pen and write in the margin of my own notes:

'To tempt an angel is to court annihilation with impeccable manners.' -Ernest.

What a quote. A quote which I would put to good use in a publication or a future lecture. 

I smirk at that quotation, then underline it twice.

When you're my age, humour is the only thing that keeps the abyss tolerable. 

Perpetual survival is constant misery interspersed with moments of joy. 

Those moments of joy are few and far between and should be grasped when they raise their weary heads. 

Ernest was a source of many of those moments of joy.

Oh, and the whisky and the coffee. That helps. 

I have tried being sober and drug-free a few times. 

I also found that it was the incorrect thing to do for myself. Not for everyone.

For myself, it was not right to 'GIVE UP' on the drugs. 

With the correct concoctions, I could often blame them for my actions and... in their own way. 

They bring moments of joy. 

I rise from my desk and walk wearily across to the window. 

The courtyard below is slick and shining — a reflection of the storm clouds overhead. 

The people walking glisten, rushing through the rain, as if they need to escape the next mistake I'm about to make.

Very wise.

The University sleeps. It's an odd place, older than its records admit it to be.

The foundations beneath this very building are laid over a Templar crypt. I built the crypt. I put my friends in it. 

I used magical stones that I brought to the site. 

Stones which had symbols carved in them that predate the Templar Order by centuries. 

Those stones offered protection from magics and misgivings. This site was holy and unholy in equal parts. 

I chose this site for this academic institution somewhat selfishly. Lay lines and all that good paranormal nonsense all play a part in my choice. Sort of.

No, the reality is I chose it because the estate I have owned since 1746 is twelve miles away. 

At a good canter, a horse can do that in an hour to forty-five minutes, and I have spent a lot more years riding here than driving.

This office hums with my history, and on nights like this, I swear the walls themselves listen. 

Maybe it is the books. They do live a little.

Perhaps that's why I feel uneasy. 

The office is concerned about the unwanted visitors. 

The book and the feather that have arrived unexpectedly.  

I know it's ridiculous, but this place is like a home to me. 

My spirit has added its own pollution to this place. 

It knows me.

The feather sits where I left it, on my blotter — but every time I turn away, I imagine it moves a little closer to that god forsaken book. 

I turn quickly to catch it moving.

It's absurd, of course.

It doesn't move.

But even absurdity has never saved anyone from the impossible.

I reach for my dictation device — an old Bakerlite machine I've had since the Cold War.

It clicks and whirs to life, and I begin to speak in the dry tone I reserve for posterity.

'Field Log: November the Sixth. Preparations underway for invocation attempt — Class: Seraphic. Subject of interest: Michael, Archangel of the First Choir.

'Methodology: as described in Wainwright's correspondence — the Ritual of the Burning Sin.'

I pause, glance at the feather again.

'I remain unconvinced by the appearance of this artefact. The odds of its discovery should have been astronomically low.'

'It was found during the Walthamstow happening.'

I clicked off the recording device for a moment while I tried to order my thoughts...

...I started it again.

'Either Providence has a sense of humour, or something else has designs upon me.'

My voice sounds calm, but I feel the pulse behind my eyes — that quick, bright ache that comes when logic begins to fray.

I stop the recording.

'I hate it,' I mutter aloud, 'when the universe starts arranging coincidences. It means it's paying attention.'

And then the phone rings, smashing the thoughtful silence. 

That ancient phone bell rings out, far too loud. 

I nearly drop the pen before rushing to pick up the handset.

'De Montfort speaking.'

There's static — then Eleanor Rigby's voice, breathless and brittle at the edges.

'Professor?'

'Yes'

'Um… there's been a little bit of an accident...'

I could hear Wil's laughter in the background. What had the bastard done to?

'Shut up.' I heard her say. 

The decrease in her voice's volume must mean that it had been directed at Wil or someone else there. 

Wil's laughter increased.

I covered the handset with my hand so as not to be heard by Eleanor. 

This was the ancient method of muting your phone before mobile phones were invented. 

Holding it there, I sighed loudly to the heavens, knowing they would not help me, but it felt... right... ish.

I removed my hand and returned to the conversation.

'Define... bit,' I say automatically.

'The Bentley's… well, it's bent. It's mostly in one piece.'

'Aha.' I said.

My mind in horror.

Silence.

'What happened?' I asked as I grimace.

'Wil said something about testing the limits of belief and— well, the bollard didn't believe in us.'

I closed my eyes.

'Bollard.'

'Yes, big stone...'

'...very real bollard that was not supposed to be... real.'

God help me. That fucking Werewolf. Why does he do this shit?

'Please tell me no one's dead, but that Wil is incredibly badly injured and in agony.'

'No, sir. He, we are just a bit shaken.'

'Of course.'

'Fen's fine — though he's laughing himself sick — and Wil's pretending it was all a fila sophical exercise. While he laughs at my... apparent stupidity.'

'Good. Embarrassment, Miss Rigby, is a wound the ego can survive.' I reassured her

(sigh.)

'I'm so sorry. I really am... I should never have listened to...'

'I don't hold you to account for this, Eleanor... It's that utter cock-womble, Wil.' I partially lie.

'I have him securely in the crosshairs of my revenge rifle!'

Tears from the other end of the line.

'It's okay Eleanor. I should have known he would do something like this.'

The truth is, I really should have. 

More tears and sobbing. The poor girl is distraught. 

It was Wil's fault, and actually, it was my own for putting her in that position.

'It's fine. Honestly, it's just a...' 

I paused while I finished the sentence in my head with, 

'...a quarter of a million pound uninsured Bentley' 

I changed this unspoken thought to something else, which I muttered to the phone,

'It's just... a ca-ar.' 

I could not stop the slight stammer.

'Not a very important car either.' Again, I lied. 

Calling that Bentley a car was wrong, never mind saying it was not important.

'I will pay for it.' She offered.

'No need to.' I forced a laugh. Knowing in my head that was... simply an impossibility.

'I won it in a game of strip poker with... what's his face. 007 blokey. Ah yes. Daniel Craig.' I told her. This was actually true.

'I won't tell you what he'd have got if I hadn't had those five aces!' I laughed.

'Five aces?' Came as a question which I ignored.

'I will send someone to recover...' I swallowed hard the lump in my throat at the wreck of the Bentayga staying.

'... the car.'

'And I will send a taxi for your… passengers.' I paused.

'No... no. I'll have Fortescue fetch you. Even Wil can't fuck with Fortescue. Monty has no imagination for Wil to fuck with.'

'Oh, and do not listen to Wil or let him near anything inscribed with sigils. He has the moral restraint of a caffeinated raven.'

'Already learned that lesson, sir,' she returned — with a hint of gallows humour that almost makes me proud of her.

I could physically say no more, so I hung up the phone gently. 

Before I slammed both hands on either side of it. Letting my anger go.

'Shit!' I yelled. 

For a long while, I just stood there in disbelief.

'Fuck.' I said quietly. 'What an utter tosser.' *note* (I am sure you can think of something much better than this.)

'Why does he...' 

I laughed. 

It is because he is what he is. 

Acceptance.

The rain outside softened, and the thunder rolled away toward the sea.

I look at the feather again — its edges pulsing faintly in the lamplight — and I can't help but feel the timing is deliberate.

The ritual.

The sin.

The feather.

And now, my wayward little entourage crashing into reality like a Greek chorus of cosmic mischief.

I reach out and pick it up once more. It's warm to the touch — as if remembering light.

'So,' I murmur, half to it, half to the storm, 'a sin and a feather, is it? Well then, Michael… let's see if Heaven still answers its calls.'

The feather glimmers.

Somewhere, deep in the walls of the University, I swear I hear the faintest sound — not thunder, not rain — but something like wings brushing stone.

I pour another inch of whisky, smirk at the glass as though doing it a disservice and add another large measure. The clock ticks on.