The burner display blinked once before the backlight timed out. Piotr Kasprzak, the rival magnate who’d paid her to dismantle Damyan Borowicz, now wanted her to save him. Not out of altruism, she was certain, but because something larger, something more dangerous, was at play. This was no longer corporate espionage; it was an active homicide investigation staged inside an armed manor. She slipped the phone back into its shielded pouch. Her mission had shapeshifted, but her methods remained the same: observation, infiltration, calculated manipulation. Her reputation wasn’t built on sentimentality, but on results. And now, the result required her to navigate a labyrinth designed by a killer who might still be lurking in the shadows of this very estate. Downstairs, the grand dining hall was a study in austere luxury. Damyan sat at the head of a long, polished obsidian table, his fingers curled around a porcelain teacup. The morning light, filtered through tall, unadorned windows, cast a cold sheen on his chiseled profile. Serafima sat two chairs down, slicing a pear with measured cuts. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe knot, revealing a face that seemed perpetually on the verge of expressing mild sorrow. Halina took the seat opposite Damyan, her expression unreadable. “So, Borowicz,” she began, her voice crisp, “about your offer.” Damyan lowered his cup, his eyes, the colour of deep coal, fixing on her. A flicker of something – hope, perhaps? – crossed his face, quickly masked. “Decided my wire clears faster than Kasprzak’s, Hyena?” he challenged, dry and mocking. “Your money is just money,” Halina replied, leaning back slightly, crossing one leg over the other. “Kasprzak paid to strip your conglomerate down to bare gears and expose every illicit ledger. Given the current… situation, it seems more efficient to work from the inside. Your offer of access, combined with a substantially larger retainer, makes a convincing argument for accelerated information gathering.” She offered a predatory smile. “Consider me your very expensive, very temporary in-house auditor. If I find enough dirt to bury you, Kasprzak still gets his intel. If I find the real killer, you get to walk. Either way, I win.” Damyan studied her, a slow, grudging acknowledgment dawning in his eyes. He knew her game, or at least, he thought he did. “Very well, Hyena. The funds will be transferred by noon. You have carte blanche – within Zalesie’s confines. My staff will be instructed to cooperate. Start with the servers. Our digital infrastructure is supposed to be impenetrable.” Halina gave a single nod. Her first move was to commandeer a small, unused study on the second floor, a room with a heavy oak door and a view of the manicured, bleak winter gardens. She set up her equipment: a signal tester and a ruggedized terminal. The household system was robust, layers of legacy ciphers mixed with proprietary firewalls. But 'impenetrable' was a challenge, not a fact. Within an hour, she had established a baseline, mapping local server architecture and external access points. She then began her circuit of the staff. First, Old Man Jaromir, the groundskeeper, whose face was a roadmap of etched lines. He spoke in clipped sentences, his gaze constantly sweeping the frost-covered lawns. He hadn’t seen anything unusual the night of the murder, claimed he was asleep, his cottage a distant dot beyond the main gates. His alibi was too neat, too rehearsed. Next, Ms. Krystyna, the head housekeeper, a woman whose starched apron seemed as unyielding as her demeanor. She reported a normal night, everyone retired by eleven. No strange visitors, no unusual noises. “Just the usual silence here,” she’d stated, hands clasped tight before her apron. The interviews yielded little, but Halina wasn’t looking for confessions, only inconsistencies, micro-expressions, shifts in posture. Everyone here had a role to play, and everyone seemed to be playing it too well. Serafima Borowicz was next. Halina found her in a glass conservatory, trimming an orchid with miniature brass shears. Her mourning attire was impeccable, a deep aubergine that softened her features. Halina’s presence seemed to startle her, a slight tremor in her hands as she snipped a faded bloom. “Halina Voroń,” Serafima said, her voice a reedy whisper. “I’ve heard so much about you. A true force, they say.” Her pale grey eyes fixed on Halina without blinking. Halina offered a neutral smile. “Just doing my job, Miss Borowicz. I wanted to ask about your brother, Konstanty. Your relationship with him.” Serafima sighed, a fragile sound. She gestured to a wrought-iron table, already set with tea. “Of course. My late brother was complex. Brilliant, but volatile. Especially where Damyan was concerned. There was always a rivalry, you understand. For Father’s approval, for control of the company.” “And Damyan’s feelings toward Konstanty?” Halina prompted, watching the younger woman intently. Serafima paused, pouring tea with a hand that trembled almost imperceptibly. “Damyan was always so intensely jealous. Konstanty was the golden boy, charming, persuasive. Damyan… he was the rough diamond, abrasive. Konstanty often pushed his buttons, knowing exactly how to provoke him.” She looked up, her grey eyes filled with what looked like genuine distress. “I often worried it would come to a head. Their arguments… they were terrible to witness.” As Serafima spoke, her hand, holding a thin crystal water goblet, tilted toward Halina's open computer on the wrought-iron table. The glass tilted, and a splash of deep crimson liquid spread across the keyboard, staining the keys, seeping into the gaps. “Oh!” Serafima gasped, reaching with a linen napkin and smearing water over the chassis. “How careless of me. Is the screen damaged?” Halina jerked the notebook out of reach and snapped the lid shut. “It’s fine,” she said, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. Her eyes, however, were not. They narrowed, taking in the wide, panicked gaze of Serafima. Too wide. Too panicked. The spill had been too perfectly aimed, too conveniently timed. She saw the glint of calculated fear beneath the veneer of remorse. “We can continue this later,” Halina said, rising with the machine under her arm. “After I’ve ensured no permanent damage.” Back in her temporary study, Halina dried the casing with microfiber cloth. The spill had been deliberate. Serafima knew she was looking for something. But what? And why sabotage her now? She ran a quick diagnostic. The hardware was unharmed, sealed behind water-resistant gaskets. She reopened the network map. Zooming in on an isolated branch of the local server array, she noticed an anomalous file. It was fragmented, incomplete, but its header screamed 'Security Log, Main Gate Camera, Night of…'. The timestamp matched the night of the murder, quarantined from the standard directory. Halina attacked it, her fingers flying across the keyboard. Algorithm after algorithm. The cipher was custom-built. Not a standard corporate key. She tried common family names, birth dates, company slogans. Nothing. This wasn't just a password; it was a phrase, a personal identifier. Something deeply ingrained. A memory. A secret. The syntax of the key rejected random hash patterns, pointing toward a structured string. A poem? A lullaby? Something from childhood. Something only a Borowicz, or someone intimately familiar with their history, would know. The breach hadn't come from an outside intruder; someone inside the family had coded the lockout. Hours later, the winter sun had long dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and greys. Halina was still working the code strings when a shadow fell across the threshold. She looked up. Damyan stood in the doorframe, collar unbuttoned, breath tight. “What have you found, Hyena?” he demanded, his voice low, a tremor of desperation beneath the usual arrogance. “Tell me. Everything.”

A Symphony of Vultures