A cadaverous old man in a lab coat wobbled into view. His beady eyes were magnified ridiculously by his coke-bottle glasses, his skin parchment thin with shriveled blue veins running underneath.

“This is Dr. Hoven,” Winters said. “He did groundbreaking work in the field of vampire anatomy in Germany in the Forties.”

The old man greedily rubbed his hands together.

“What the fuck has any of this got to do with me?” Alec spat.

“Five years ago,” Winters explained, “yourself and two others were at the site of a major extra-dimensional breach. I have reason to believe that some sort of contagion escaped through that breach and used you as a host while it incubated. Dr. Hoven is going to examine you to discover if there is a cure for that contagion.”

“So he needs me to piss in a cup?”

“I’m afraid this examination will be far more invasive,” Winters said as an electric saw started up in the background.

“Machen Sie sich keine Sorgen,” Dr. Hoven said cheerfully, reciprocating saw in hand, “Dieses tut wenig weh.”