The house was overgrown with half-dead ivy and perched at the top of a steep, craggy hill, which was decorated with twisted trees, wizened and dead. The only route to the summit was a narrow, winding road, also overgrown with tangles of weeds and withered roots, so she had to park her transport at its base and walk up with her backpack made heavy from all the extra equipment. Upon reaching the wrought-iron gates, she paused for a moment to admire the extent the owner had gone to in establishing the building's mood and presence. It was brilliantly Gothic and Victorian, right down to the elaborate gardens, choked with weeds and withering from neglect.

She reached out to push the gates open, and they swung in of their own accord, smooth as silk -- at least until the halfway point, where the right one stuck and squealed horribly with the effort of opening. A pained grimace flashed across her face, and she scuttled quickly past the wailing gate, stumbling over a miniature hedge in her haste to get away from the noise. When she reached the foot of the stairs that led to the heavy, oaken doors, the sound from the gates stopped suddenly, and she glanced back to see them closing sedately behind her.

Eyebrow arched, she turned back to the door and was startled to find it open -- and even more startled by the man who held it for her. His face was marred and brutish, as if some unseen sculptor had forced his human features halfway into the guise of a beast and left them there instead of completing the transformation. His hair was long, matted and tangled, and the hands that held the door were twisted halfway into paws and covered in patchy fur. Only the eyes remained human, glassy green and suspicious, watching her and waiting for her reaction.

If he had expected her to cry out and flee from his hideousness, he was sorely disappointed, as she only glanced down at the clipboard she held in her hands, turning a page back and reading it over quickly. "Duke Kindevough?" she asked, glancing up at him. "Called for an estimate on dissolving a malicious grimoire?"

Relief flooded his features, and he nodded, pulling the door wider to usher her inside. "I am glad you finally came," he said, running one paw-hand through his already disheveled hair. His voice was was also warped and guttural, words made clumsy by his distended jaw. "I had hoped it would dissolve on its own, but.." Here he waved his other hand ironically, letting the door fall closed with a sullen boom. "As you see, I remain ... affected."

"That's a pretty nasty one, all right," she agreed, glancing around to note that the house was in as much disarray as the yard. She revised her assumption that the design of the place had been originally intended as Gothic. Two staircases spiraled up and away from the central foyer, but given the dust, none of the upper rooms had been used in months. There were doors to the left and right, but one had broken furniture heaped in front of it, and the other hung crooked in its frame. The only light spilled from the hallway straight ahead, lit by small lamps and relatively clear of debris.

"So --" She turned to him, tucking her clipboard under one arm and offering her other hand to shake. "I'm Penny Gregory, and I hope I'll be able to provide you with a solution to your problem."

He took her hand with a grave nod, grasp firm and careful, causing her to wonder if the grimoire had also magnified his strength disproportionately. "As do I, Ms. Gregory," he said.

"Just call me Penny," she said absently, looking again around the massive hall. "Ah, is there a place where I can set up my equipment? We won't need a really big space, but it needs to be somewhere pretty comfortable, since you'll have to be still for the examination."

He eyed her with some trepidation, but he nodded, taking her arm in a gentlemanly fashion and drawing her toward the source of the light. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have withdrawn her arm and walked on her own, but he did it so absent-mindedly, she was sure it was long habit and not meant to be patronizing. They walked right past the first two lit rooms, one of which appeared to be a dining area that led off to a kitchen. The other she didn't see much of and guessed it to be where he slept. It led her to wonder where she was going to sleep if this examination took long.

He paused, drawing her attention back to the gloomy hallway. They were stopped in front of a relatively well-tended room that looked to have once been a study, judging from the books and armchairs. A fire crackled in the fireplace, next to which was a fairly large heap of wood. They stood there for several seconds before Penny realized he was allowing her to walk in before him. Blinking, she stepped inside, and he followed her, gesturing to one of the armchairs.

"That's all right. You're the one who's going to be sitting." She slung her backpack down in the middle of the floor, pushing a few books aside to make room for it.

He settled into the chair, watching her curiously and tucking his legs, also warped into a near-animal form, clumsily out of her way. "What manner of examination will this be?" he asked, appearing almost alarmed as she unfolded a large, steel tripod and set it on the floor.

"We'll start with a surface scan," she said, now tugging free a large, curved piece of glass and setting it in a holder on top of the tripod. She gave it a push, and she gave a satisfied nod when it spun freely in the holder. "Then sub-surface, and if we have to go deeper than that, I have to get my transport up here somehow."

He did not appear comforted by this. "Will it be at all.. invasive?"

She blinked, giving him a puzzled look, then grinning in amused understanding. "Not to worry, Mr. Kindevough. You won't feel a thing."

"Ah." He relaxed, but only slightly, clawed fingers tapping an uneasy rhythm on the arm of his chair. "And the cost..?"

"That's what the scan's for," she said cheerfully, unfolding a tarp of indeterminate material and pulling it between her hands. "Once we know what's got you, we can start figuring out how to get rid of it."

He nodded and settled back, content to let her finish setting up in silence. After several minutes, she sat back on her heels, stretching once before switched her portable generator on. Its whir filled the silent room, and her equipment slowly blinked to life. "So," she said, walking over to the glass and twisting one of the knobs on its stand, "tell me a little about the grimoire, if you can -- how much has it changed you?"

His stare spoke volumes.

"I'm sure you were devastatingly handsome before, Mr. Kindevough," she said tartly, "but that wasn't entirely what I meant."

An expression that might have been embarrassment flickered across his features, and he nodded understanding, clearing his throat in what sounded like an intimidating growl. "Some of my senses have become more acute, and I am stronger than I recall being in my proper form."

She nodded, writing quickly on her clipboard. "Anything else?"

"I eat more, and more often," he continued grudgingly. "And my other appetites.."

Here he trailed off, expression dark, and Penny decided that she didn't particularly want to know about his other appetites. "Do you have any idea who could have done this?" she asked, in an effort at redirecting the conversation.

He watched her move around to the side of the glass and flip a small switch, gaze fixed on a handheld computer, and didn't answer for several minutes. When she looked up, he appeared to be deep in thought. "No one specific," he said finally, meeting her gaze. "My servants all fled after my transformation, and my family is dead, aside from one brother, who as far as I know is still imprisoned north of Relfenna."

Penny watched the readouts without responding, one finger reaching up to twirl through a lock of dark hair that had escaped from the combs that kept it bound up and off her neck. One of the servants could have done it, she supposed. Most nobles, even self-appointed ones, had a gift for making enemies of the people who worked for them. The grimoire seemed too complex for a someone on a servant's wages to have acquired, however. The surface transformation was tied to something deeper, so obviously there would be more to this job than a simple dispelling.

"Why do you ask?" The Duke's voice startled her out of her reverie, and it took her a moment to remember what he was talking about.

"Oh." She scratched the back of her head, frowning, and reached over to turn off the surface scanner. "In case we need to track down whoever did it in order to dissolve the grimoire."

"I see." He didn't seem comfortable with the notion, and she could hardly blame him for that.

She stepped carefully around the equipment to adjust a tall, lamp-like device that hung over his head. "It's not often we have to do that," she assured him, stepping away again. "The one time we had to was a pretty extreme case."

"Extreme?" he asked her doubtfully, and she grinned at him.

"Believe me, Mr. Kindevough, I've seen people much worse off than you." She flicked another switch, eyes on the hand computer. "One girl got a grimoire that sent her into a coma every time she got into a relationship -- and that was only after we'd worked with her. Before that, she flopped every time she saw a guy she found remotely attractive. Took us months to sort her out." She glanced up at him, expression impish. "And then there was the one who coughed up frogs whenever she tried to talk. Of course, they aren't the most exotic ones."

Judging from his expression, however, he preferred not to hear about any of the exotic ones, so she fell silent and kept her attention on the scan readouts. After a few moments, she uttered a very soft curse, and the Duke shifted uneasily in his seat.

"Ms. Gregory?"

She looked up at him quickly, frown wrinkling her forehead. "Well, it's weird," she said finally, and he apparently did not like this answer at all.

"There's a masking on the surface," she began to explain, but before she could proceed and confuse him further, her hip buzzed, and she slapped a hand down to snatch a small communicator from her belt.

"Yo!" she spoke into the square speaker, unspooling a thin wire and inserting the earpiece in her ear. "Dad! Perfect! I need -- she what?" A scowl darkened her features as her father continued.

"I'm sorry, Penny, she's being absolutely impossible -- says she won't eat --"

Penny gritted her teeth, reaching her free hand up to tear through her hair in a motion of vicious frustration that succeeded primarily in dislodging her comb and letting her hair fall loose. "Look, tell her that if she starves herself, I'll be inconsolable --"

"I've already tried that! It isn't working this time -- she insists on speaking to you."

"No! I'm on a job --" Her gaze suddenly darted sideways toward her client, who was pretending politely not to listen to her half of the conversation -- or perhaps all of it, if his hearing had sharpened as he claimed. "-- what set her off?"

"I don't know," her father said, sounding suddenly weary. A crash, like silverware and porcelain meeting a tile floor, sounded in the distance, and he gave a sigh. "Something about you not saying good-bye..?"

"Oh, hell.." She gave Duke Kindevough an extremely apologetic look, and he waved a paw-hand at her to continue. "Well, then tell her I'm a horrible person and she can throw things at me personally when I get back."

There was a brief pause, and something else broke in the background. "When will that be?" he asked, a note of desperation in his voice.

Penny huffed a sigh. "I dunno, Dad. The grimoire's bound deeper than I thought it would be. My basic equipment can't find the core, and I can't get my transport up the path -- I need a pinpoint teleport, if you --"

"Those are expensive, Penny!"

"Yeah, I know!" She ran her hand through her hair again, scowl back in place. "It's that or have him walk all the way down --"

At this, the Duke cleared his throat in a sound that came out more like a guttural growl, and Penny looked at him sharply. "Hang on." She covered the mouthpiece. "You don't mind?"

"If it would be less trouble," the man-beast said, "I can easily make my way down the hill." He seemed slightly affronted that she assumed him lazy.

"Okay then." She turned back to the comm. "Never mind, he says he can walk it."

"Good -- no! Thorn, please, that's expensive equipment --"

Penny gave a faint grunt and clicked the comm off, removing the earpiece and spooling it away. "I'm sorry about that, Mr. Kindevough. He doesn't usually call when I'm on a job, but sometimes.." She ended with a shrug.

"A family emergency?" he asked warily, apparently uncertain whether he should pry.

"Sort of. A client."

"Ah," he said, and he did not inquire further.

"All right, then!" she said, dusting her hands off. "I guess it's a little late in the day, but I can run a few more tests without the major equipment." She paused, kneeling and digging into her backpack again. "You don't mind if I draw blood, take a hair sample? No religious or moral objections?"

He uttered a rasping chuckle, and she sat up, wagging a finger. "You scoff, but it's happened!" She brandished a syringe, grinning at him. "Okay?"

The chuckle became somewhat more hesitant, but he nodded, extending one arm for her to draw from. She did so in two swift motions; he barely felt the pinprick before the needle was removed and she was applying a swatch of gauze to the small wound. Setting the vial aside, she turned back to him with a pair of tweezers and proceeded to pluck three hairs from him, one from his head, one from his arm, and another from his chest. He bore the ordeal manfully, betraying no discomfort as she set the hairs away.

"How long have you been affected?" Penny asked suddenly, tucking the samples into her belt.

He stared at her blankly for a moment. "Ah.. I am not completely sure. Several months. Not more than a year."

"Mmkay." She had already turned back to her handheld, tapping in the information.