The Underground

Evening in the Black Bear Tavern, and someone had set up what looked like an oversized game of Battleship on one of the tables, with one major exception: all the ships had gleaming shot glasses carefully set into them at even intervals.

The bar was dark. The board was illuminated. There were cheesy underwater sonar noises involved. And Heiji stood on the other side of the board. "So. You ready?"

Handy Battleshots board here. Gameplay video here.

( The rules of Battleshots: )

Heiji could be found throughout August in regular libraries throughout the city -- and libraries-underneath-libraries as well, looking through records and old archived newspapers. Or, occasionally, falling asleep with his face in a book or pressed against a handy keyboard. His topic of investigation? The East End Pack, and in particular one Derek Hale. It was all a matter of public record, which meant this was A-OK and totally aboveboard, right?

Right.

Lewisham was not a particularly safe place for the faint of heart -- in fact, it was a no man's land, a veritable hive of scum and villainy. But during a few evenings in mid-August, there was one extra supernatural beastie about: a black fox the size of a full-grown tiger, lurking about the rooftops and getting the size of the activity there. Heiji was doing a little reconnaissance work, though he could also be found scoping out the neighborhood in Havering.