Yellow fog swallowed the gas lamps along Whitechapel Road, turning the night into a greasy, sulfurous soup. My boots sank into the wet soot covering the cobblestones, each step a heavy reminder of my failing joints. Behind me, Caleb kept pace, his leather-soled shoes making almost no sound against the damp earth. Cold air crawled under my woolen cassock, biting at my knees and reminding me of every winter I had wasted in this wretched city. A silver flask clinked against the heavy steel frame of the revolver nestled in my inner breast pocket. I reached inside, my fingers brushing the cold metal of Genesis, before wrapping around the warm, dented pewter of the flask instead. One long swallow of cheap gin burned away the chill, if only for a brief, fleeting moment. Caleb did not look at me as I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve. He knew better than to comment on the habits of a priest who had long since ceased to care about the state of his own soul, let alone his liver. "Are we close, Father?" he asked, his voice low and steady despite the wind. "Two alleys down," I muttered, my throat dry despite the liquor. Watchmen had moved the body to the parish mortuary room behind St. Jude’s after finding it in a butcher's yard. Soots and coal dust clung to the brickwork of the tenements, making the buildings look like they had been dragged through the fires of purgatory. We walked in silence, our breaths rising in white plumes that merged instantly with the yellow mist. London was choking on its own progress, and the things that hunted in its dark corners were only getting fatter on the refuse. Rumors of the "demon of Whitechapel" had already begun to circulate in the gin shops, but the bishops insisted on absolute discretion. Anglican priests did not carry heavy-caliber revolvers in public, and they certainly did not hunt monsters under the guise of administering last rites. Yet, here we were, two men in black coats carrying a brass censer and a pocketful of silver-jacketed cartridges. --- Rain began to drizzle, thin and icy, slicking the stone steps that led down to the mortuary basement. A small, hunched man stood by the heavy oak door, holding a sputtering oil lantern that cast a weak, green glow. His fingers trembled violently, grease from his job as a coal-heaver embedded deep in his knuckles and beneath his nails. "Father Greaves?" the man whispered, squinting through the gloom at my crooked clerical collar. "Inside," I said, pushing past him without waiting for an introduction or an explanation. Caleb followed, nodding politely to the shivering watchman before closing the heavy door behind us to shut out the street noise. Damp stone walls greeted us, smelling of wet earth, lime wash, and the unmistakable vinegar tang of cheap embalming fluid. Single candles flickered in iron sconces along the narrow corridor, casting long, distorted shapes on the whitewashed plaster. My knees creaked as we descended the three shallow steps into the basement room where the dead were kept. On a long pine table in the center of the room lay a shape covered by a rough, blood-stained gray wool sheet. This was our parish death house, a miserable holding pen where those who died without a name waited for the municipal carts. Caleb set his heavy leather bag on the stone floor with a dull, hollow thud. "Shall I prepare the censer, Father?" he asked, already unbuckling the thick brass straps of his carrying case. "Do it," I replied, leaning my back against the cold stone mantelpiece of an unlit fireplace. My chest felt tight, the weight of the Genesis revolver pressing against my ribs like a physical weight on my conscience. I pulled out my flask again, took another short pull, and let the cheap alcohol dull the edges of my racing thoughts. Caleb pretended not to notice, his focus entirely on the brass instrument he was assembling on the side table. He was a good lad, too loyal for his own good, and far too young to be spending his nights in the company of corpses and broken priests. Years ago, I had pulled him from the ruins of a burned-out tenement in Southwark, his family gone, his lungs full of ash. Now, he served as my verger, carrying the sacraments of iron and fire that the Church preferred to keep hidden from the congregation. Brass chains clinked as Caleb lifted the Censer of Authority from its velvet-lined box. It was a heavy, ornate sphere of solid brass, its surface etched with the ancient seal of the Order—a cross entwined with thorns. He opened the latch, exposing the small iron charcoal brazier nestled in its core. Using a pair of rusted iron tongs, he dropped a small, grey block of chemical fuel into the chamber. Matches scraped against the dry stone wall, a sudden flare of orange illuminating his lean, serious face and faded red hair. Touching the flame to the block, he watched the fuel catch and begin to glow with a dull, angry heat. A sharp, chemical hiss filled the room, followed immediately by a thick, white smoke that smelled of sulfur, dried lavender, and vinegar. "Ready, Father," Caleb murmured, latching the censer shut and testing the weight of the chains. He began to swing it in slow, measured arcs, the heavy brass sphere whistling through the damp air. White clouds rolled over the cold stone floor, clinging to the damp walls and masking the faint, sweet rot of the corpse. My lungs burned as I breathed in the treated smoke, my throat tightening against the harsh, alkaline vapor. It was designed to neutralize the foul humors that beasts left behind—what the parish pamphlets politely termed demonic miasma. To me, it just smelled like the bottom of an alchemist's crucible, a reminder that our holy weapons were born of science, not miracles. "Let us see what we have," I said, stepping toward the pine table and pulling my collar straight. I reached out and pulled the rough gray sheet down to the dead man's chest, exposing his pale, cold skin. Cold flesh, mottled with purple post-mortem staining, stared back at us under the flickering candlelight. He was a docker, likely in his thirties, with thick calluses on his hands and a faded anchor tattooed on his forearm. His throat was gone, torn open from ear to ear in a ragged, jagged crescent. Ragged, torn flesh flapped outward like torn leather, the edges of the wound blackened as if they had been seared with a hot branding iron. "No ordinary blade did this," Caleb whispered, holding the censer steady as the white smoke swirled around his boots. "A beast," I said, my voice dropping to a dry, deadpan murmur. "Some walk on two legs when it suits them, and they do not leave clean cuts." "Do you think it was a werewolf, Father?" Caleb asked, his gray eyes wide with a quiet, intense curiosity. "We call them demons in the parish bulletins, Caleb," I replied, leaning closer to the wound. "Remember the catechism; it keeps the sheep from asking why the police cannot protect them." I pulled a pair of silver tweezers from my cassock pocket, the metal cold against my calloused fingers. Gently, I pried apart the torn edges of the dead man's throat, ignoring the foul odor that escaped the cavity. Deep inside the laceration, something shimmered against the dark tissue. It was not blood. Red blood had pooled and dried into a dark crust hours ago, but this substance was thick, heavy, and metallic. A thick, viscous fluid, the color of molten black gold, oozed slowly from a severed artery deep in the neck. It looked like quicksilver, shimmering with an unnatural luster, moving against gravity as if it had a mind of its own. I froze, my hand hovering over the corpse, my breath catching in my throat. Never in twenty years of hunting for the Order had I seen anything like this in a beast's victim. This fluid pulsed once, a tiny, slow throb of dark light, and then dried instantly into a dull, leaden gray crust. "Father?" Caleb stepped closer, his boots scraping on the stone, his eyes darting to my hands. "What is that in the wound?" he asked, his voice tightening with suspicion. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my face remained a mask of dull indifference as I stared down at the gray crust. I knew what the Church taught about the blood of beasts—it was foul, dark, and simple. But gold? Gold belonged to the forbidden texts, the ancient alchemical heresies that the bishops claimed to have burned centuries ago. If Caleb saw this, he would have to report it in the parish ledger, and the ledger went directly to the Archbishop's men. If he reported it, the higher-ups in the Order would take notice, and men like us did not survive that kind of scrutiny. I fold the shroud back before Caleb can speak. "Burn the censer twice. Then wait outside." He hesitates, then asks, "Father, what was that?" I answer, "Damp air. Go."

Chapter 1: The Empty Confessional