Résumé: Brian Li Sung is devastated after the death of Christine Spar, but he stays in her home town of New York to study her journals from when she was Grendel. He hates the city--it is cold, physically and spiritually. He works in a low-budget theater company but hates all the other people who work there. They constantly harass him. He finds a Kabuki mask, similar to the one that Tujiro XIV would have worn, and becomes obsessed with the evil it represents. He feels constantly put upon by his work and by the other people of the city. He feels like he has no control in his life any more.
He writes about his constant depression and revulsion in a notebook, but doesn't realize that Grendel has begun to possess him, and is making him write more sinister notes on the backs of the pages. He makes a Grendel mask, not even realizing what he's doing. He starts having hallucinations about Christine. Finally he breaks, in a desperate act of self-direction and action: he puts on the mask and beats up the theater security guard, who has constantly insulted him.
Then he rushes home, repulsed with what he has done. Right then, Regina, whom he hasn't seen for months, knocks on his door.