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“This is not a night to be out.”
It feels more like a warning than a threat, and between the weather and seeing a strange man running through the streets,I’m inclined to agree with this phantom voice. Until the silent cry comes again.
Please. Anyone.
Suddenly, I’m hurrying back the way I came, climbing down poles and hopping across reed and wicker platforms, driven by a compulsion I cannot explain. Once on the ground, I jog in the direction the cloaked man came from. In the back of my mind, I know this is stupid to do alone. But while Perrete is surely gone by now, Magister Thomas would never agree to prowl the streets at this hour, especially with such flimsy reasoning.
I turn down the road connecting the Sanctum Square to the centuries-old Temple of the Sun, a relic of the Hadrian Empire which established our Faith. While the street’s official name is the Pathway of Prayer, it’s more commonly known as Pleasure Road due to the high number of brothels along the way. Many of Collis’s orphaned or foundling girls are raised in convents, but those who decline to take vows as Sisters of Light unfortunately often have trouble finding reputable employment. Many end up here.
I’m panting as I pass the fourth block of row houses, and a sudden assault on my senses makes me stop to look around. The brightness of the moon creates harsh, angular shadows that cut the scene into jagged pieces, but it’s the sweet metallic tang hanging in the air which makes me shudder. The last time I smelled it this strongly was when passing a butcher shop as a hog was being slaughtered on the front steps.
Blood. Lots of it.
But I don’t see any.
A chilling gust blows dead leaves past my ankles, drawing my eyes down to a large, muddy footprint. Several more continue in the direction of the Sanctum, fading at some point not far away,but they came from the dark alley on my right. I slide under the awning of the building next to it and peer cautiously around the corner.
“Hello?” I call softly.
There is no answer. A slash of moonlight shines on the opposite wall, so bright I can see nothing outside it. I can’t recall ever being here, but a strange familiarity draws me forward into the shadowed mouth of the alley.
Darkness closes around me like a curtain. The smell of blood is now overwhelming, and I cover my mouth and nose with one hand and stretch the other out in front of me into the pitch black. I take one hesitant step toward the light, then another, my toes pushing aside what I hope is rubbish. When I reach the illuminated wall, I find an arc of crimson spatter at eye level, eerily similar to what I saw as I fell from the gargoyle’s back.
That’s impossible. Yet now I also recall my vision then hadn’t been of the immaculate limestone of the Sanctum—it was rough and grimy. Like the wattle and daub in front of me.
There is also one place where the pattern differs. It’s smeared in the middle, like a grasping hand was dragged across the wet stain. The fingertips on my left hand ache as though they had done this, and I reach out, hypnotized, needing to know if the feel of the wall matches my memory.
When I’m only inches away, the alley suddenly bursts into light with the strength of a thousand candles. Everything around me becomes visible—walls, crates, barrels spilling over with refuse, scurrying rats… and the shape of a woman lying on the ground.
She’s on her back with her feet toward me, with pale, white calves and worn, wooden heeled shoes exposed beneath a rumpled skirt. Blood pools like black ink around her head and shoulders, so much that the packed dirt can’t absorb it all, leaving aflat liquid surface which reflects the stars and scudding clouds above. Her stomach is a mess of torn fabric and internal parts I’ve only seen in butchered animals.
All that is horrible, but it’s not the worst.
The woman’s jaw hangs open in a silent scream, half the teeth missing or broken. Her face has collapsed inward, crushed, and her eyes are a hollow mess of ravaged tissue. A stream of blood trails from the gory sockets, running like a tear past the beauty mark on her cheek.
I gasp, inhaling so deeply that the floral perfume layered under the thick scent of blood becomes recognizable, but I already know who this is.
Perrete.
