I'll call you Bill, I thought. Short for William. Short for Willy. Because you're a dick.
I was standing in an impressively large room. Just about everything that can conceivably be made of glass, was. Glass lamps, glass tables, glass chairs. A large, elaborate chandelier swung gently from the ceiling. Finely woven tapestries hung from the walls, which were littered with pictures of Fenrus himself, sunning himself on various holidays.
It's something I've noticed about the rich and powerful. They often have these sorts of pictures scattered around the place, almost as if they have to remind themselves that they've done these things. Perhaps they're worried that visitors, admirers, won't take their word for it. A nice quiet trip to Cornwall is never enough; they have to be seen with their arms round half naked women on a beach somewhere, because they're just that much better than you. I imagined Fenrus to be the kind of man who had Shakespeare plays inscribed on his bathroom wallpaper.
Fenrus himself was sitting on a large leather sofa in front of a fifty inch plasma screen, eating from a platter piled high with food. Beyond him, the Dwarven city buzzed and clattered about its business, visible through the large windows at the end of the room. As I took a step towards him, he turned the TV off and turned to face me.
"Daric." he grinned. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I wasn't aware you'd be pleasured." I said, before realising I probably phrased that badly.
"I'm sorry?"
I took the liberty of sitting lightly on the leather armchair opposite him, near the TV. He was a handsome man, there was no denying it, and he was in good shape for fifty, the mountain of food notwithstanding. He wore jeans and a plain black T-shirt, the latter of which was tightly fitting, showing off his muscles. His light, silver hair was swept back above his blue eyes.
"Mr Daric?"
I realised I'd been staring slightly. Homosexual I was most definitely not, but Fenrus was one of those people you only ever saw on magazines, and I couldn't quite believe he was here, in real life. Surgery must have had a hand, somewhere. People just don't look that good. I shook my head.
"I didn't think you'd remember me."
He smiled easily. "Of course I remember you. I remember anyone who works for me. Does me well, in case they ever come back and try to screw me out of any money."
"Well, you'll be pleased to know I'm not here for that. I'm here to try and stop a war."
He nodded, biting into some chicken. So he didn't deny knowledge, which was interesting.
"I know what you're referring to. I may see quite a good return on it."
It was at that point I realised that yes, I had in fact come back to try and screw him out of quite a lot of money. While I considered the best approach, he finished his chicken, and immediately started on another. I looked at the mountains of food.
"Transforming soon?"
"Tomorrow." he nodded, around a mouthful of chicken. "Started eating too late, as ever, so I'm not likely to be going far. Only been at it two weeks."
Werewolves needed to bulk themselves up before a transformation. They are far stronger and faster when they're in wolf form, but more crucially, bigger. All that energy and muscle has to come from somewhere. Werewolves who fail to eat before a transformation tend to be thin and weak as a wolf, and it's not unheard of for them to die of starvation on returning to their normal shapes.
"I've missed it a bit, truth be told." he mumbled through a mouthful of food. "I don't get to see too many rolling hills in my day job."
"Is that why you're financing this invasion?" I asked. "To see a bit of the country?"
There was a silence.
"You're very direct." Fenrus said finally.
"Millions of people are going to die." I said. "Doesn't seem much point tiptoeing around it."
"It's generally polite to make a bit of conversation first. Ask a few questions, maybe answer a few."
"That would be true if we were old friends, Mr Fenrus." I noted. "But we're not. I came here to do something, and I'm not leaving until I've done it. Besides which, I had a gun pointed in my face by one of your employees not two minutes ago. I'm not sure you're on the best moral high ground to be talking about politeness."
"That seems fair enough."
There was a silence. I waited for him to talk. He didn't. I sighed.
"Are you going to give me what I want?"
"What do you want?"
"I want you to withdraw financial support for Hraat and this...this crusade."
He looked at me, hard. The smile was gone.
"And why should I do that?"
"Have you ever seen a war up close, Mr Fenrus?"
"If you're asking whether I've fought, the answer is no."
"Neither have I. But I've seen the remains of the people who have. You're going to devastate an entire civilisation. Can your conscience cope with that?"
He frowned. "You've grown a heart. Last time I saw you, I was paying you quite a lot of money to kill a man barely out of his teens."
"This is different. This concerns home. My people."
"Oh, so when it matters to you, that's when killing suddenly becomes taboo, is it? What about the mother of the person you killed?"
I shrugged. "There's a difference between one death and millions. And yes, I'm hypocritical. Most decent beings are, to a point."
He stood, wandering over to the windows on the far side of the room, and gazed down at the city.
"The British government are in a very difficult position. From an international standpoint, they need to be seen to be doing something about the war in the US. The Americans rely on us as an ally."
"Let me tell you about the British government." I stood, too. I was angry now. "The British government, Mr Fenrus, are greedy. They've had their eye on the Green Line for decades now. They tried for it once, and failed. Now they're using the US war to try again. And they're determined. You finance this war, you're financing an attempted genocide."
He shrugged. "It's not genocide. The Elves can defend themselves ably enough, can't they?"
"If you know that, then what's the point? Isn't this all a massive gamble for you?"
That got him. He was silent for a while.
"It's worth the risk." he said finally.
"Is it worth the risk of me killing you right here, right now?"
He turned around, and pierced me with those blue eyes.
"Mr Daric, don't threaten me. I click my fingers, and you could die in a dozen ways. I have a media empire spanning most of England. I am a member of Mensa, I possess more money than several generations of your family combined, and I am well beyond human. Tell me, what have you done with your life today?"
"At least I haven't been punched." I retorted.
He frowned. "Neither have -"
My fist caught him sharply on the jaw, and he fell to the ground. I leaned over him.
"You may be a member of Mensa, Mr Fenrus, but you've clearly never watched an episode of Blackadder." I smiled.
He snarled.
Ah, hell.
I could see black hairs spreading on his arm, almost like a virus. His eyes were white, the pupils tiny, and I could hear cracking from the bones of his fingers. He was accelerating his transformation. That was the diplomatic route exhausted then.
I sprinted back across the room (which suddenly seemed twice as large), to Bill.
"Do you have any tranquillisers in that gun?" I asked him breathlessly.
"No." he replied, glancing over my shoulder. "But I have a door."
"What -"
He opened it, darted through it, and locked it.
I slammed my fist against it. "MotherFUCKER."
It wasn't an ordinary door. Fenrus had clearly considered the possibility of being locked in his penthouse. I tried to use the forced-entry spell on it, but I couldn't get my mind to focus. It was almost like I was distracted by the nine-foot bulk of death itself picking itself up off the floor behind me.
I heard a roar behind me, and before I'd even had time to process what I was doing, I'd already thrown myself to the side, drawing my pistol. Fenrus slammed into the door with enough force to make several pictures fall off the wall. If doors could flinch, this door still wouldn't have done. I unloaded six bullets into him. (All that stuff about silver bullets is rubbish. A bullet is a bullet.) Unfortunately, they only seemed to irritate him.
I'd like to say I led him on a merry dance around that room, ducking and dodging while our surroundings gradually fell to pieces in slow motion. I'd like to say after a particularly acrobatic dodge by me, Fenrus slammed straight through a wall while glass rained down on him, and I made a smart quip from the other side of the room.
I'd like to say I came out of it with bruises, but no lasting damage.
However, none of that happened.
What happened was that immediately after I shot him, Fenrus hammered into me with the force of a freight train with lots of claws and teeth. I died.

So they tell me.