Chapter 3: The Grey Death
1284 Words
Lillian felt as though she were being cooked from the inside out.
She stumbled into the private living quarters behind the apothecary. Without even pausing to light a lamp, she fumbled in the darkness, frantically tearing at the intricate lace ties of her high collar.
The copper button that should have secured her waist was gone. Her leather apron hung askew over her hips, feeling like a heavy, suffocating shackle.
"Hot..."
Her breath came in ragged, broken gasps. This heat didn't come from a hearth; it seeped from the very marrow of her bones. Every heartbeat pumped searing lava through her veins.
This was the price of forced metallic micro-manipulation: Aetheric Overload. Her nervous system was like a tungsten filament surging with too much current—fragile, raw, and hyper-sensitive.
Every sound in her surroundings was amplified a thousandfold.
The faint vibration of the brass scales on her desk sounded like a tolling bell; the rain lashing against the iron window bars felt like razors scraping glass. Even the rhythmic clank of a Church guard’s armor two blocks away was as clear as a scream against her ear.
Lillian lunged toward the corner sink and wrenched the tap open.
Icy well water gushed out. She plunged her entire head into the stream. The cold water cascaded through her silver-grey hair and over the burning nape of her neck, sending up a faint, white mist of steam.
The violent shock of ice meeting fire forced a muffled whimper from her throat. Her toes curled tight against the wooden floorboards.
"Damn it..." She lifted her head, water dripping from her pale chin.
In the mirror, the woman staring back was flushed a vivid crimson. Her usually cool amber eyes were dilated, shimmering with the glazed look of an addict. Her hand trembled as she grabbed a bottle of blue sedative from the cabinet. Before she could pull the cork, a rhythmic tapping echoed from the door.
Three long, two short.
A secret code known only to a few.
Lillian took a sharp breath, forcibly suppressing the waves of heat surging within her. She wiped her face with her sleeve, trying to make her voice sound like something other than a dying patient.
"It’s unlocked."
The back door creaked open, letting in a gust of damp air smelling of tobacco and cheap perfume.
"It’s like a portal to hell opened out there."
Eleanor Vance collapsed her dripping black umbrella and stepped over the threshold, her long legs clad in fishnet stockings. She tossed her mane of fiery red curls and scanned the room with a sharp, discerning gaze.
As the proprietor of The Black Cat Tavern and the most notorious information broker in Pyre City, Eleanor rarely wore such a grim expression.
"What happened to you?" Eleanor pinned Lillian with a stare. "You’re flushed like a boiled lobster."
"Fever. Just a cold," Lillian lied, turning her back to feign tidying the shelves. "You’d better have something valuable to tell me at this hour."
"Valuable? This is life-saving, darling."
Eleanor didn't push the lie. She moved to the window, peering through the slats. "Listen, something big happened. Half an hour ago, a body was found at the docks."
"People die in Pyre City every day."
"No, not like this." Eleanor’s voice dropped, tinged with a rare trace of fear. "The man... he turned to stone."
Lillian’s fingers froze on a glass vial. "What do you mean?"
"Literally. From skin to eyeballs—solid, grey granite. As if Medusa herself took a stroll through the harbor." Eleanor shuddered. "The streets are crawling with rumors of a 'Witch’s Curse.' That madwoman Agatha is raving in the square about the apocalypse and 'Holy Fire' being the only cure."
Lillian felt a different kind of chill. Petrification? That wasn't common magic. It was a forced restructuring of matter.
"What does the Church say?" Lillian asked.
"What do they always say? The hounds are out," Eleanor whispered. "That new Captain of the Inquisitors—Linus something—has locked down all of Silver Street. He’s not just looking for a killer. He’s conducting a 'Sweep'."
At that same moment, in the heart of Silver Street.
The rain showed no sign of relenting. Linus Clovis stood before a blacksmith’s shop, his white gloves now flecked with mud.
"The thirteenth one," Adjutant Silas reported, emerging from the forge and shaking his head. "Only crude hammer marks. No trace of a refined resonance reaction."
Linus stared impassively at the map in his hand.
With a charcoal stick, he crossed out one circle after another. The remaining area was shrinking—a noose tightening slowly but surely.
The copper button in his breast pocket felt warm. That strange, static-like pull hadn't vanished; instead, it grew clearer with every step he took.
It was guiding him.
"Sir, there are only a few general stores left, and that..." Silas pointed to a rickety sign at the corner. "That apothecary."
"The Silver Gull Apothecary," Linus read the name aloud.
In his mind, he rapidly constructed a profile: A young female proprietor. Lives alone. Skilled with chemicals. Steady, slender fingers. Sensitive to scents.
A perfect match.
"Move out." Linus took a long stride forward, his black trench coat billowing in the rain like the wings of a hawk swooping on its prey.
Inside the apothecary.
Lillian was still processing the news of the "stone corpse" when a sudden, violent sense of crisis stung her nerves.
It wasn't her hearing. It was her Resonance.
She sensed an overbearing, frigid metallic presence approaching at high speed. The man was carrying too many weapons—the firing pins of his pistols, the brass buckles on his belt, the rune-etched blade at his hip.
To her perception, he was a moving Metal Storm.
It was him. The man who had lingered in the alley.
"Eleanor, get out. Now." Lillian’s face drained of color as she shoved her friend toward the back door. "Go. Out the back. Fast."
"What? What’s wrong?" Eleanor stumbled, startled.
"The Inquisitor is here."
Before the words could fully leave Lillian's lips, a series of heavy, measured footsteps came to a halt right outside the front door.
No polite inquiry. No warning.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The heavy oak door shuddered under the strike of a deerskin-gloved fist. Each blow echoed like a hammer against Lillian’s frayed nerves.
"Holy Flame Church. Routine inspection."
The voice cut through the rain. Cold, low, and possessing that distinct metallic edge.
Lillian felt a wave of dizziness. The overload heat was still rampaging through her body, turning her legs to water. She had three seconds to steady her breathing and disguise her deathly flush as mere panic or maidenly shyness.
She gave Eleanor a final, silent warning look. Eleanor gritted her teeth, glanced one last time at her friend, and vanished into the shadows of the rear exit.
Lillian took a deep breath. She grabbed a damp cloth, pressed it to her burning forehead, and then stumbled toward the main door.
****** (She drew back the bolt).
The wind and rain howled inside.
Linus Clovis stood there. His black hair was plastered to his pale temples by the rain. His deep-sea blue eyes swept past Lillian’s shoulder, dissecting everything in the room like a blade.
Finally, his gaze settled on Lillian—on her unnaturally flushed face, and on her partially unfastened collar, where a patch of delicate, pink-tinged collarbone was exposed.
Linus’s Adam’s apple gave a nearly imperceptible twitch.
"Good evening, Miss Wylde."
He raised a hand, his fingers holding that still-muddied copper button. His lips curled into a cold, mirthless smile.
"I believe I have something that belongs to you.
- Writer
