Jekyll & Hyde Inc.

Jekyll & Hyde Inc.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed

in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people

or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Simon R. Green

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book

or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 978-1-9821-2528-8

Cover art by Todd Lockwood

First printing, September 2021

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Green, Simon R., 1955- author.

Title: Jekyll & Hyde Inc. / by Simon Green.

Other titles: Jekyll and Hyde Inc.

Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen Books, [2021]

Identifiers: LCCN 2021029297 | ISBN 9781982125288 (hardcover)

Subjects: GSAFD: Horror fiction. | LCGFT: Paranormal fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6107.R44 J43 2021 | DDC 823/.92--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021029297

Printed in the United States of America

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Whatever happened to all the monsters?

For as long as there have been people, there have been creatures who preyed on them. Lurking in the least-traveled parts of the forest, or hanging around on street corners in the worst parts of town; watching for the weak and the vulnerable, with hungry eyes . . . The drinkers of blood and the tearers of flesh, the things that reek of the tomb but aren’t nearly dead enough, the hunters and the liers in wait.

The really wild things, without conscience or limits.

Everyone knows the names: vampires, werewolves, ghouls. Monsters who preyed on Humanity for centuries, striking from the shadows and then disappearing back into the night . . . But as first gas and then electricity filled the world with light, shadows became harder to find and the night concealed less and less.

By the end of the nineteenth century, it had become clear to the monsters that they couldn’t hope to survive the sharp clear light of the scientific age. Growing mass communications meant everyone knew about garlic and wolfsbane, wooden stakes and silver bullets. So the monsters went underground, disappearing into the underworld of crime; civilization’s shadow. Looking for new ways to prey upon the weak and the vulnerable.

And everyone forgot that monsters had ever been real.

In the white-hot glare of the twenty-first century, no one believes in monsters any more. But they’re still here, more dangerous and more powerful than ever. Someone has to save us.

It takes a thief to catch a thief . . . And a monster to kill a monster.