Kezia reread the line, her fingers tightening around the cheap plastic of the phone. The words blurred, then sharpened, each character a spike driven into her chest. *Murdered.* The old pathologist who had patiently drilled her on cellular stains, whose cuffs always carried the reek of formaldehyde and dry black tea. Not a sudden, silent heart attack in his sleep, as the Hargrove bulletin had claimed. Not a natural end. A deliberate one.
A cold rage, slow and simmering, began to coil in her gut. She looked up, the lecture hall a buzzing blur of oblivious students. Garvyn Fane, still nursing his humiliation, shot her a resentful glare from across the aisle. Kezia ignored him. The biometric watch on her wrist felt like a manacle, pulsing faintly with her rising heart rate. Let it spike. Let Vossik Rhent see her fury.
She slipped her phone back into her tunic pocket, the screen still searing the information into her mind. There was only one place to go. His private research lab, tucked into an alley behind the Old Docks. A place few knew about, an oasis of independent thought in a city choked by corporate patents. It was a long shot, but if anyone had left a clue, it would be there.
The rain had intensified to a relentless drumming by the time Kezia hailed a grimy auto-cab. Chert, her three-legged terrier, whined softly at her feet, sensing her agitation. He hated the rain, but he hated being left alone more. She stroked his wiry fur, the movement a small anchor in her churning thoughts. The cab rattled through the gleaming corporate thoroughfares, then veered sharply into the older sectors of Mirehollow. Here, the brutalist towers gave way to skeletal Victorian architecture, their ornate facades crumbling under layers of grime and neglect. Gargoyles wept perpetual streaks down stained stone, and the streetlamps flickered like dying embers.
The structure sat squat and brick-faced behind an abandoned dispensary, its glass milky with decades of coal grime and sea mist. A rusted plate above the warped zinc door read *Elmsworth Pathology*. A cold knot tightened below her ribs. She dug out the spare latchkey handed to her during autumn dissection rounds, the notched brass biting her palm. The lock was stiff, protesting with a groan before finally yielding. Chert nudged the door open wider with his snout, limping in ahead of her.
The air inside was thick with the scent of damp earth, mildew, and something else—a faint, metallic tang. Kezia took in the ransacked floor. The lab was a disaster. Equipment lay toppled, shards of shattered glass glinted under the dim emergency lights that pulsed erratically. Drawers were yanked open, their contents spilled across the floor. Papers, notebooks, petri dishes—everything was scattered, violated. This wasn't a casual burglary. This was a ransacking, a desperate search for something specific.
She moved deeper into the wreckage, her boots crunching on broken vials. Chert began to growl, a low, guttural sound that vibrated through the floorboards. His hackles rose, his three legs braced. Kezia froze. The metallic tang in the air sharpened. It wasn't rust. It was blood.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom near the back wall. Then another. And another. Three figures, hulking and indistinct in the flickering light, emerged from behind overturned benches. They wore heavy, oil-slicked rain gear, their faces obscured by deep hoods. One held a wicked-looking stun baton, another a short-barreled carbine. The third carried a small, insulated case with a biometric scanner.
“Well, well,” a gravelly voice rumbled, heavily distorted by the hood. “Look what the tide dragged in. The little barista plays detective.”
Kezia instinctively stepped in front of Chert, her hand reaching for nothing. There was no escape. She was trapped. “Who are you?” Her voice was tight, betraying none of the fear that was now a cold knot in her stomach.
“Doesn’t matter who we are,” another voice cut in, sharper, with an edge of impatience. “What matters is what you are carrying. The package.” The man with the insulated case took a step forward. “We just need a small sample. A drop. From the source.” He gestured with the case towards her abdomen.
A surge of heat burned through her throat, driving back the chill. “You’re not getting anything from me.” She took a defiant step back, her eyes darting for an exit, a weapon, anything.
The man with the stun baton chuckled. “That’s not really up to you, darling.” He lunged. Kezia reacted purely on instinct, a flash of training from Hargrove. She ducked under his wild swing, sweeping her leg out. He stumbled, giving her a precious second. She kicked a stack of unstable crates towards him, sending them toppling. Chert, snarling, launched himself at the nearest attacker, sinking his teeth into the man’s shin.
A shot rang out, muffled by the rain outside, impacting the wall beside Kezia’s head. She scrambled behind a thick, stainless steel workbench, pulling Chert close. He whimpered, blood matting his fur from a graze on his flank. “Stay down, boy,” she whispered, her voice raw. The air crackled with the reek of ozone and gunpowder.
Suddenly, the front door of the lab, which she had thought secured, exploded inwards with a deafening crash. Splinters of ancient wood flew through the air. A black, armored town car, gleaming wetly in the streetlights, had rammed through the entire facade, its reinforced bumper embedded in the rubble. The impact sent a shockwave through the building, throwing the attackers off balance.
The driver’s side door of the sleek vehicle swung open. Vossik Rhent emerged, his expensive suit coat already soaked, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. His face was a mask of cold fury, his eyes like chips of obsidian. He didn't speak. He simply moved.
The man with the carbine, still recovering from the impact, raised his weapon. Vossik was on him in an instant, a blur of motion. A bone-jarring crack echoed through the lab as Vossik’s fist connected with the man’s jaw. The carbine clattered across the flagstones, and the hireling crumpled. Vossik pivoted, his gaze locked onto the man with the stun baton, who was scrambling to his feet. There was a primal, almost feral intensity in Vossik’s movements, an animalistic grace that belied his controlled demeanor. He seized the man by the lapels of his rain gear, slamming him against a remaining section of wall. The armed man groaned, trying to bring the baton up, but Vossik’s other hand snapped forward, seizing the wrist. Cartilage gave with a sharp pop. The rod dropped, and the man screamed, a raw, ragged shriek.
Vossik didn’t stop. He unleashed a barrage of rapid, brutal strikes, each one precise and devastating. He beat the man to the pavement, methodically, relentlessly, a silent, terrifying display of power. Kezia watched, horrified and mesmerized, as the man’s struggles grew weaker, until he lay still in a spreading puddle of black rain and something else—a dark, viscous fluid that looked eerily like the blood Vossik had shed on the day they met.
The third operative, holding the lockbox, had frozen, his earlier swagger broken. He dropped the case and began to back away, stumbling over the debris.
“You…” he stammered, his voice barely a whisper. “You’re the… the Blood-Cursed.”
Vossik turned his head slowly, his gaze glacial, utterly devoid of mercy. The technician scrambled backward through the breach in the brickwork, bolting into the downpour.
Vossik’s eyes scanned the chaos, finally landing on Kezia, who was still huddled behind the workbench, Chert whimpering softly beside her. The ferocity in his expression did not immediately soften, but rather coalesced into a rigid, possessive focus. He walked towards her, his footsteps crunching over glass, his gaze never leaving her. “Are you injured, Corbel?” His voice was low, strained, a barely contained tremor beneath the calm.
Kezia could only shake her head, her throat tight. Chert gave a low, questioning bark, then nudged her hand.
A slow clap echoed from the shadows of the street, cutting through the drumming rain and the quiet aftermath. A figure stepped forward, emerging from the obscurity of a nearby alley. He was tall, impeccably dressed in a tailored, charcoal-grey coat, a stark contrast to the ruined surroundings. Bramwell Croy. A thin, predatory smile stretched across his face, his eyes gleaming with unsettling amusement. “See you at the Gala, mother of the weapon.”