Chapter 2: The Church’s Hound
1072 Words
Linus Clovis did not like the rain.
Rain washed away the traces of sin, diluted the scent of blood, and churned what should have been sharp, distinct clues into an unrecognizable slurry of mud. To an Inquisitor who lived by the creed of "Precision," it felt like nature’s own malicious mockery.
He came to a halt, his black military boots sinking heavily into a puddle, splashing murky water against his trousers.
The six Inquisitorial Knights behind him stopped in the same heartbeat. There was no whispering, no clatter of armor. In the chaotic, filthy slums of Silver Street, they stood like a black iron curtain—suffocatingly silent.
"Sir?" Silas, the adjutant, lowered his voice as rain dripped from his squared jaw. "The aetheric fluctuations here are faint. It might just be some black-market quack using low-grade alchemical powder."
Linus did not answer immediately.
He removed his pristine white deerskin gloves with a grace that suggested he was attending a funeral rather than a crime scene. He looked up, his deep-sea blue eyes piercing through the dense curtain of rain to lock onto the rickety attic ahead.
The fluctuations weren't "faint."
It was the residual heat. The air held a distinct scent—not the stench of sulfur, but something drier, sharper. It was the smell of air scorched by lightning during a thunderstorm, the lingering aftertaste of metal ions moving at extreme speeds.
"A quack cannot save the doomed, Silas," Linus’s voice was soft, yet it possessed a metallic quality—cold and crystal clear. "And a quack wouldn't leave behind the scent of 'Order'."
He stepped forward. He didn't knock, but simply pushed the half-open wooden door with a slender finger.
Inside, Mrs. Gable was about to pour out a basin of bloody water. When she saw the tall, dark silhouette looming in the doorway, the copper basin slipped from her hands and hit the floor with a deafening clang.
"M-my Lord..." The woman trembled like a leaf in a gale, her knees buckling as she collapsed to the floor. In Pyre City, a knock from an Inquisitor meant only two things: the gallows or the pyre.
Linus didn't look at her. His gaze, as sharp as a scalpel, dissected every detail of the cramped room.
The steaming water in the corner. The empty bottle of purification potion on the table (the quality of the glass suggested it came from an expensive shop in the Upper District). And that unremarkable, serrated black iron shard on the floor.
He walked to the center of the rug and knelt. The hem of his exquisite black trench coat brushed against the dusty floor, but he remained indifferent.
He reached out and pinched the iron shard between two fingers.
"How long was this inside the child’s stomach?" Linus asked, his tone as flat as if he were inquiring about the weather.
"T-the length of a meal, my Lord," Mrs. Gable stammered. "It was Miss Wylde... the apothecary. She saved Tom."
"Wylde."
Linus tasted the name on his tongue.
He held the shard up, inspecting it against the dim light of the kerosene lamp. The edges were razor-sharp; had it been forcibly pulled through the esophagus, the child would have bled to death or suffocated by now.
Yet the boy lay on the bed. Weak, yes, but his breathing was steady.
No wounds. No sutures.
This wasn't just "extraction." This was control.
Someone had made this dead object "alive," coaxing it to swim out like an obedient serpent. This level of microscopic control was far beyond the reach of some rural witch who merely brewed frog legs and bat wings.
This was a practitioner with a high education, perhaps even an academic background.
"Did she touch the boy?" Linus asked suddenly.
"She... no, she didn't seem to touch him at all," the woman recalled. "She held a pair of tweezers, eyes closed, and the metal just... flew out on its own."
Linus narrowed his eyes. Telekinesis. Metallic affinity.
Interesting.
In a city choked by steam, gears, and ignorant faith, there lived a "ghost" who understood the intricacies of surgery.
"Silas," Linus stood up, dropping the shard into an evidence bag held by his adjutant. He pulled his gloves back on. "Lock down this block. Investigate this woman named Wylde. I want to know her movements for every single day of the last ten years—even how many eggs she had for breakfast."
"Yes, sir!"
Linus turned to leave. He had no interest in the shivering woman on the floor. The Law did not care for tears, nor did it care for miracles. The Law only cared about the Crossing of Lines.
And that woman had crossed the line.
As he stepped out of the house and back into the rain, a cold gust swept across the porch.
His gaze inadvertently brushed past a stone crevice beneath the doorframe. Between the mud and the moss, a flash of inconsistent brightness caught his eye.
Linus stopped.
He bent down, unbothered by the muddy water staining his cuffs, and pried the small object from the c***k.
It was a copper button.
But it was more than just a button. Linus’s thumb traced its surface, feeling the minute striations caused by prolonged exposure to magical erosion. It was a characteristic found only on items worn for years by high-level alchemists—the metal itself had undergone a qualitative change, becoming heavier than gold.
Most importantly, the surface of the button was engraved with an intricate four-leaf clover motif. It wasn't a common stamp; it was hand-carved, every vein of every leaf visible with a proud, solitary craftsmanship.
"Wylde..."
Linus whispered the name again.
He closed his fist around the button, the cold copper seemingly retaining a trace of its previous owner’s warmth. It gave off a faint, static-like sting.
For some reason, in that heartbeat, Linus’s heart skipped a beat—an utter anomaly for him.
It was the feeling of a hound finally catching the scent of its most exhilarating prey. Not fear, not anger, but a... thrill. The shiver of meeting an equal.
"Sir?" Silas looked back at him, confused, from a distance.
Linus slid the button into his breast pocket, placing it right against his heart, his face a mask of cold indifference.
"It’s nothing," he said coldly, a dark, unreadable glint flashing in his azure eyes. "The rain is getting heavier. The hunt begins."
- Writer
