The smell hit me first.
That's how it always went in my line of work—the olfactory assault before the visual confirmation. Three years as Lagos's youngest forensic pathologist, and I still hadn't grown immune to the particular sweetness of decomposition mixed with the antiseptic bite of formaldehyde. Some of my colleagues at the Victoria Island lab claimed they didn't notice it anymore. I thought they were either liars or had burned out their nerve endings with pure denial.
I preferred honesty, even when it stank.
"Dr. Okafor, you ready?" Blessing's voice crackled through the intercom from the observation room. My lab partner had been with me since my first week, and she'd learned to give me those extra thirty seconds before an autopsy. The moment when I cataloged every detail, built my mental framework, prepared to meet death on professional terms.
"Ready," I said, pressing the foot pedal to activate my recording system. "Monday, November fourth, 2024. Time is 0847 hours. Subject is male, approximately thirty-five to forty years of age, presenting with multiple traumatic injuries. Case file indicates death occurred during armed robbery in Ikoyi three nights ago."
I approached the steel table where the body waited beneath white sheeting. Lagos Metropolitan Police had delivered him at dawn, along with the usual paperwork that told me everything except what I actually needed to know. Armed robbery. That's what they always called it when the truth was too complicated or too embarrassing. When the wounds didn't match the story, but the story was easier than asking questions.
My gloved hands pulled back the sheet.
"Jesus," I muttered, forgetting the microphone was live.
The man's throat had been torn open—not cut, not slashed, but *torn*. Ragged edges of tissue, trauma patterns inconsistent with any blade I'd ever cataloged. His chest bore similar wounds, deep gouges that had shredded through his polo shirt and the muscle beneath. Defense wounds marked both forearms, the kind you got when you raised your hands to protect your face from something coming at you fast and low.
Something with teeth.
"Blessing, are you seeing this?" I asked, knowing the camera feed transmitted everything to her station.
"I'm seeing it," she confirmed, her voice tight. "Okafor, that doesn't look like—"
"I know what it doesn't look like." I circled the table slowly, my mind clicking through possibilities with the methodical precision that had earned me this position at twenty-eight. "It looks like an animal attack. Canine dentition patterns. But there are no wild dogs in Ikoyi, and the force required to create these wounds would suggest something much larger."
I leaned closer, examining the throat wound. The bite radius was wrong—too wide, too powerful. And the edges...
My hand paused, hovering over the damaged tissue. In my three years doing this work, I'd seen what Nigerian wildlife could do to a human body. Bush pigs, the occasional aggressive monkey, once a crocodile attack from Epe. This was different. The precision suggested intelligence. The savagery suggested rage.
"Let's start with evidence collection," I said, forcing my voice back to professional neutrality. "Close-up photographs of all major trauma sites, then we'll take tissue samples for analysis."
The next two hours passed in familiar ritual. Measurements, photographs, tissue collection, fluid samples. I narrated every observation into the microphone, building the evidence chain that would eventually land on some police commander's desk. They'd ignore most of it, I knew. They always did. Lagos had more important problems than one dead businessman in Ikoyi, even if his wounds told an impossible story.
But evidence never lied. People did.
By the time I finished the external examination, my shoulders ached and my stomach was demanding the breakfast I'd skipped. I straightened, rolling my neck until it cracked, and glanced at the wall clock. Nearly noon. The lab's fluorescent lights hummed overhead, that perpetual buzz that formed the soundtrack to my life these days.
Three years in this lab. Seven years since my world ended.
I pushed the thought away before it could take root. That's what grief did if you let it—colonized your brain when you weren't looking, turned every quiet moment into an ambush. My twin sister Adaeze vanished seven years ago while our father was investigating a series of "animal attacks" around Lagos. Six months later, my parents died in what police called a robbery gone wrong.
Armed robbery. The Lagos catch-all for deaths too complicated to investigate.
"Taking a break," I announced, stripping off my gloves and gown. "Running preliminary DNA analysis on the tissue samples."
"Want me to order lunch?" Blessing asked through the intercom. "That jollof place you like?"
"Not hungry." It was a lie. My stomach was eating itself, but food felt like a luxury I hadn't earned yet. Not until I understood what I was looking at.
The DNA lab occupied a smaller room adjacent to the main autopsy suite, all gleaming equipment and computer monitors that had cost the government more than they'd wanted to spend. I'd fought for every piece of machinery, every upgrade, leveraging my international training and the publications I'd managed to produce even while drowning in casework.
They'd given me the equipment because I made them look good. I'd taken it because evidence deserved the best tools available.
I loaded the tissue samples into the sequencer, watching the familiar startup process with something approaching meditation. This was the part I loved—the moment when biology became data, when the messy reality of flesh transformed into clean, indisputable information. In the digital readout, there was only truth.
The preliminary scan would take twenty minutes. I used the time to pull up the case file on my computer, reading through what little information the police had provided. Victim: Chinedu Okonkwo, 38, investment banker, found in his gated community driveway at 0300 hours. Neighbors reported hearing screams, then silence. By the time security arrived, he was dead. No witnesses. No suspects. No motive.
And according to the file, no unusual circumstances.
I snorted. Right. Nothing unusual about a man being mauled to death in the middle of Ikoyi.
My phone buzzed. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.
With a sigh, I checked the screen. Folake. My best friend since university, one of the few people who still called regularly despite my tendency to ghost for weeks at a time when I got wrapped up in work. She was a lawyer now, successful and social in all the ways I wasn't.
"I'm alive, Folake," I answered without preamble.
"That's what you said three weeks ago when I last dragged you out for drinks." Her voice was warm but exasperated. "Amara, you can't just disappear into your lab and expect the world to pause for you."
"The world doesn't pause for anyone. That's why I stay in the lab."
"That's called depression, babe. Have you talked to that therapist I recommended?"
I had not talked to that therapist. I had no intention of talking to that therapist. What I needed wasn't in some office in Lekki, talking about my feelings and my childhood and all the ways grief had hollowed me out.
What I needed was in the tissue samples currently being analyzed three feet from where I stood.
"I'm fine," I said, which was the lie I told everyone. "Just busy. New case."
"It's always a new case with you." Folake's sigh crackled through the connection. "When was the last time you did something that wasn't work? Went to church? Saw your parents' graves? Lived?"
The tissue analyzer beeped, saving me from having to answer.
"I have to go," I said quickly. "Results are in. I'll call you later."
"You won't, but I love you anyway. Be careful, Amara."
I ended the call and turned to the monitor, expecting the usual straightforward results. Human DNA from the victim, possibly some environmental contamination, maybe bacterial markers if infection had begun before death.
Instead, I got the impossible.
The screen displayed a complex genetic profile—human markers consistent with the victim, but mixed with something else. Something that made my breath catch and my pulse kick up with a spike of adrenaline that had nothing to do with caffeine withdrawal.
Canine DNA. Canis lupus markers, specifically. Wolf.
"That's not right," I muttered, running the analysis again. Same results. I isolated the foreign DNA sample, expanded the genetic map, cross-referenced with every database I had access to.
The markers were unmistakable. Wolf genetics in the saliva samples I'd collected from the victim's wounds. Not dog, not any domesticated canine—wolf.
There were no wolves in Lagos. No wolves in Nigeria, period. They'd been extinct from West Africa for over a century.
I checked the sample chain again, looking for contamination. Nothing. The samples were clean, properly handled, isolated. I'd collected them myself, logged them myself.
The evidence didn't lie.
But this couldn't be true.
I was still staring at the screen, my rational mind fighting with the data in front of me, when I heard the main lab door open. Blessing's startled voice filtered through: "I'm sorry, sir, but this is a restricted area—"
"Dr. Amara Okafor?" A man's voice, deep and authoritative, carrying the particular tone that said law enforcement or military. "I'm Federal Agent Yusuf Abdullahi. I need to speak with you immediately regarding your current case."
My spine straightened instinctively. Federal agents didn't show up to Lagos pathology labs for routine inquiries. They certainly didn't show up within hours of me discovering impossible DNA results.
I saved my data, locked my computer, and walked back into the main lab.
The man standing beside Blessing's desk wore a perfectly tailored suit and an expression that gave away nothing. Late forties, maybe, with the kind of presence that made rooms feel smaller. He held a leather portfolio in one hand and what looked like classified credentials in the other.
"Dr. Okafor," he said, looking me over with an assessment that felt too thorough, too knowing. "We need to discuss your findings. In private, if you please."
"My findings are preliminary," I said carefully. "And confidential until the official report is filed with Lagos Metro."
"This supersedes Lagos Metro." He produced a document from his portfolio, handed it to me. Official federal seal, classification markings, authorization for evidence seizure in matters of national security.
National security. For an armed robbery victim in Ikoyi.
"Agent Abdullahi," I said slowly, "what exactly is this about?"
He glanced at Blessing, then back to me. "Is there somewhere we can speak privately, Doctor? What I'm about to tell you is classified at the highest level. For your ears only."
Every instinct I had screamed warning. This wasn't protocol. This wasn't normal. But the document was legitimate, and those DNA results were still burning in my mind, demanding explanation.
"Blessing, take an early lunch," I said quietly.
She looked between me and the agent, worry clear on her face. "Dr. Okafor—"
"It's fine. I'll call if I need anything."
She gathered her things slowly, reluctance in every movement, but ultimately left. The lab door sealed behind her with a pneumatic hiss that sounded too final.
Agent Yusuf Abdullahi locked the door.
"Doctor Okafor," he began, "how much do you know about the supernatural?"
I stared at him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Werewolves, specifically." He said it like he was asking about the weather. "Your current victim was killed by one. And according to our intelligence, you may be more connected to this case than you realize."
My laugh came out sharp and humorless. "Agent Abdullahi, I think you've made a mistake. Werewolves aren't real. They're folklore. Fantasy. And I don't have time for—"
He opened his portfolio again, pulling out a tablet. Tapped the screen, turned it toward me.
The video showed a dark street, security camera footage, grainy but unmistakable. A figure walked into frame—human shaped, normal. Then, in the space between one step and the next, it changed. The body elongated, limbs shifting, face restructuring. Within seconds, a massive wolf-like creature stood where a person had been.
Then it attacked.
I watched the savagery unfold in silent horror. Watched the creature move with impossible speed. Watched it tear through its victim with the same pattern of wounds I'd just spent hours cataloging.
"This footage is from last year," Yusuf said quietly. "Different victim, same perpetrator. We've been tracking this particular pack for three years now."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't process. My brain—my rational, scientific, evidence-based brain—was rejecting everything I'd just seen even as my pathologist's eye confirmed: those wounds matched. The bite patterns matched. Everything matched.
"This isn't possible," I whispered.
"Doctor Okafor, I'm afraid we need to have a conversation about your family. Specifically about what your father was investigating seven years ago when he disappeared." Yusuf's expression softened slightly. "And about why your DNA appears in our supernatural database."
The room tilted. "My... what?"
"Your DNA, Doctor. Mixed with werewolf markers. Found at multiple crime scenes over the past seven years." He paused, letting that sink in. "Including at the scene where your sister vanished."
The fluorescent lights hummed. The air conditioning cycled. My heart beat three times, four, five.
"Dr. Okafor," Agent Yusuf Abdullahi said quietly, "we need to talk about what you are."