by ThePaperWarden
Some monsters need killing. Others need saving. Elias is about to learn the difference.In 1887 London, Elias Crowther is a Merciful hunter trained to decide which monsters need killing. When a mutilated body in Whitechapel leads him to a transformed man who can still speak, reason, and recognise his daughter, Elias is forced to consider whether the monster in front of him is still a person. Beneath foundries, churches, and forgotten tunnels, he uncovers ancient Grey blood, modern Merciful alchemy, and evidence that someone is deliberately altering people. The trail leads through illegal excavations and black markets to buried family history and a dead physician whose work should have vanished twelve years ago. The deeper Elias digs, the closer the evidence comes to House Crowther and to a part of Merciful history no one has been willing to explain. As more altered victims prove capable of choice, Elias must decide when sparing someone endangers others and when killing them would simply mean murdering a victim. Something older than the Merciful is waking beneath London, and someone called the Shepherd is making sure it wakes. And as the trail closes around his own family, Elias may find that pulling the trigger is the easiest decision left.
