Free Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan

some demonic marvel, I followed at a little distance. What then should I see as the full moon crossed the meridian, but the hideous beast transform itself into the likeness of a man! At first, I thought this must be the devil himself. But no. As I watched, this poor sinner, naked and covered in gore, sat himself down upon the grass atop a little ridge and, holding his face in his two hands, began weeping piteously and crying out, ‘My love! My love! It is for you I am become an abomination!’ Father Jacob [a local priest] later explained to me that this was the wandering spirit of a medicine man, who had rescued his lady from a werewolf only to be himself transformed into such a beast by the creature’s bite.”
    Though the transformed wolf is referred to as a “medicine man,” Korchinski points out that many executioners doubled as healers, their medical skills enhanced by the anatomical knowledge they had acquired in the torture chamber and at the gallows. This and the fact that “poor sinner” was a common locution for referring to a victim of capital punishment indicates, according to. . . .
    Zach was chewing on his ice at this point, his bourbon gone and he a damn sight more relaxed than he had been on takeoff—and he was thinking What the hell is this? This Dankl dame must be crazier than a bull-bat! , shaking his head at the pages on the fold-out table. He had to remind himself of Professor Dankl’s phone message—how she’d known about Dominic Abend—her academic credentials—her tone of urgency—Mickey Paz with his “stoomp bassard”—in other words, all the stuff he’d brought to bear when arguing for this trip in the first place. He had to remind himself that there really was a good reason for him to be traveling four thousand-some-odd miles on the taxpayer’s dime. Because otherwise, he’d be forced to admit that this thing—this paper or report or whatever it was that Dankl had sent him—was the screwiest and most irrelevant load of bull slop he’d ever read. Werewolves. Executioners. The Thirty Years War, whatever that was. What the hell did any of it have to do with a murdered New York fence and a German uber-gangster?
    From here on, he began to skim the pages:
    But while Hans the executioner faded from memory, not so his dagger. . . . Weapons used by executioners commonly thought to possess magical powers . . . mixture of werewolf’s blood with holy water on the blade . . . transforming the blood of human sacrifice into a panacea, curing every disease, and retarding the aging process . . . its owner slowly gaining magical powers over beasts and insects . . . mind-control abilities . . . a sort of black communion with demons or perhaps the devil himself . . .
    Zach snorted. And then there was this:
    . . . dagger referred to in the journal of several executioners during the witch panic of the early 17th century . . . half a dozen reported appearances of the dagger during the Thirty Years War . . . legend that Mozart witnessed the use of the dagger in a secret Masonic ceremony . . . long period when the talisman was forgotten . . . interest in the legend revived among the Nazis . . . Nazi fascination with the supernatural . . . Hitler’s desperate attempt to recover the dagger and enlist its demonic powers on his behalf. . . .
    Zach’s chin began to sink to his chest. His eyes began to sink shut. He forced himself awake. He didn’t want to fall asleep. He wanted to have another drink. He wanted to enjoy as much of this time in the air as he possibly could . . . far away from his worries . . . from Margo’s outstretched claws. . . .
    The meaning of the dagger is intertwined with the political-religious implications of the Stumpf trial. During the period of Stumpf’s worst crimes, the electorate of Cologne was torn by Catholic–Protestant warfare. The wealthy farmers sided with the Protestants