Present Day London, England 19XX. The room was dark and circular, barely six feet in diameter. He knew. He'd paced it many times, that tiny floor. These stone walls went high, though, almost too high to see but for a small window that let in the feeble light from the full moon. Tonight was his change, but he had not the energy to care. He hadn't had the energy to do anything for years. The number of years had passed him by long ago, after his guard had left and never returned. He was starved but no longer hungry, eternally sleepless and yet wide awake at this dark hour of midnight. His body was wasted and weak and covered in the finest layer of dust, his clothes and bindings rotten but still there, keeping his too-thin arms wrapped tightly around his chest. He had passed the point of stench, ignoring his body as it let itself die slowly, even though his mind was as active as ever, swirling dizzily around the thorn in his thoughts ever as a tongue exploring the cavity of a tooth, worrying the pain only worse in an attempt to discover its reason for existence. He had passed boredom, coherent thought beyond his reach as if tossed up on a shelf and ignored. His glassy eyes lacked their old luster and stared absently at the wall he faced, his back propped eternally against a wall. He had stopped wondering why the eternal youth spell his master had set on him had stopped working and he had begun to age again. It could only mean his master was dead, right? No, if his master were dead, his mind would have been destroyed along with the eternity spell. That meant his master was wasting away as he had…that had to be the only reason. He vaguely heard footsteps down the corridor, the muttering of a woman and the swish of clothing. He heard the scurrying of spiders as they tried to escape the feet of the passers by, smelled the smoke of what had to be a cigar, although he hadn't known the scent for longer than his imprisonment. And then he felt it. The tugging on the thorn that bound him to his master, the sensation so familiar and welcome it flooded him with relief. Here he had been worrying about the state of his master when he was indeed well. He was happy and angry at once, wondering how long his master had been playing this joke on him and why. He tugged back weakly and let the connection go, sinking back into his own thoughts, no longer possessing his former attention span. The footsteps stopped in front of his cell's door and he heard a quiet conversation on the other side, but still he could not muster the will to move. He had the strength? He was a werewolf! His kind had always possessed such strength…but…he was tired. He did not even try. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Sir Integra?" a voice came, an elderly voice, masculine and defiantly possessing the roughness of a human throat. English, he identified next. Ah yes…he could understand most of it, but could not speak it himself. The lessons that his master had wanted him to take had stopped after his imprisonment. "We can use him for our cause," the woman replied, her voice impeded only slightly as she chewed on a cigar. So she was the one that smoked? But he remembered a man smoking before her…long ago… "You must keep him in order, Phoenix or else he will be going back into his cell…permanently," the woman added. Phoenix? Who was Phoenix? Bump? Hmm who is Phoenix indeed?