From a stone’s throw away I could see that Gilbert’s been pulled into a street fight near the town inn. My eyes search for Alan and find him lying belly-down by the tree roots, heavily breathing.

A marginally middle-aged man climbs onto Gilbert’s back with a lasso of rope. He attempts to use the rope to bind and choke Gilbert, but Easterner tosses him off like a ragdoll. Gilbert’s assailant slams into a pile of crates near the tree. Another man, one surprisingly bigger than Gilbert, swings a broken bottle at him but Gilbert deftly dodges.

Thomas rushes towards them, balling up his right fist high over his shoulder. Caught off guard, his target takes a full hit at the jaw and stumbles a step. The man lifts his heel to kick Thomas in the groin, but his effort fails when Thomas grabs his ankle.

With no better opportunity than this, Gilbert punches the man square in the liver. His gaped mouth widens and spills out bile before his colossal body crumbles over.

With the two men now out of commission, the danger is now clear. Alan drags himself up clutching the trunk of the tree. His face sports a purple-bruised cheek.

Gilbert leans over with heavy breaths, hands on his knees. Despite his injury, Alan limps to him with a lambskin flask, attempting to offer him water.

“Cerna’s balls, Alan, could you give it a rest? You’re hurt!”

Thomas snatches the skin flask from Alan and tosses it to me. Thomas grabs Alan’s face between his palms to examine his wound.

“It’s just a bruise-”

“Bruise my ass! Commander-”

I walk up, flask under my arm while tugging the buckles loose from my right gauntlet. I remove the gauntlet and my leather glove before handing it to Thomas.

“Come here, Alan.”

I place the lambskin flask onto Alan’s bruised cheek. I close my eyes to enter the shadows of my mind and a barely audible hum vibrates from my fingertips. Once I open my eyes, Alan initially grimaces but he holds the flask up for himself. The water inside has solidified into a block of ice.

“I assume you were both in better shape a moment ago? Where’s Mr. Cromley?”

Gilbert scoffs with a half-laugh. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the outer side of his wrist. There’s a visible boot print on his cheek but he is not bruised.

“Alan was still conscious when I went down, as expected of an Arius. He had to use a convincing method to wake me up. As for Mr. Cromley...”

Alan’s face twists with guilt as he touches his own bruise, but Gilbert smiles at him and pats one of his shoulders in assurance.

“I saw a few men take off with him but I couldn’t stop them. I’m sorry.”

I shake my head.

“You kept Gilbert safe, that’s more than enough. What else did they do?”

Gilbert tugs and pulls at rope left hanging around his chest, tossing them onto the ground. There is soft green plant fiber intertwined within the weave of the rope. Gilbert points to the large tree above us. A frayed noose dangles from a thick outstretched limb.

“They tried hanging us from that tree.”

“This town seems to like playing to our strengths. If they wanted to challenge themselves they should’ve cuffed poor Alan in irons.”

“Only you’d want to see me in irons, Thomas.”

A wide grin crosses Thomas’ face.

“You’re the spitting image of a sweet puppy, dear Alan, only the heartless would ever dare. To be honest, I’d be more curious to see Gilbert in chains. I’m sure the Creche sisters would love to see his grand physique bound up, all glistening with-”

I feel heat rise to my cheeks and smack Thomas’ shoulder. He laughs it off knowing full well it was worth my reaction.

It’s not to discredit Thomas, though, Gilbert is handsome. His dark features and full lips would turn many a delicate lady’s eyes. However his cool indifference to any meek sign of advances, from women and even men, has left many in the Creche discouraged.

I do, however, share a kinship with him as we are both pragmatic. Romantic overtures in the Creche have no real future. It’d be a waste of precious effort to engage in such things, no matter how much your heart desires it.

“If you have nothing else to report, Gilbert, Alan, then we are done here.”

“Right. Nothing more to report, Commander.”

“Alan?”

Alan nods while he lowers the lambskin flask. If he had left it unattended, I’m sure that the bruise would’ve deepened in color.

  “Then let us go. I’m sure we all have questions for a particular mayor in mind.”

---

My black gauntlet chips off a few pieces of wood while I rap my fist on a door.

“Mr. Barnes!”

Silence is the door’s reply.

“You are under suspicion of conspiracy against the Empire. We have evidence of your treachery. Come out!”

Thomas looks up and down at the door. He cocks his head sideways while making eye contact with Gilbert. The Easterner braces himself before taking a few steps back. In an instant his hulking body springs forward, shoulder first. The loud impact shatters the wooden door into splinters.

We enter through the threshold. The home appears empty, though a trio of lit kerosene lamps hang above us. We walk through the parlor, our boots thud and click against the floor. But other than our own footsteps, it’s deathly silent.

Thomas and Alan survey slick smears of blood on the floor, stepping lightly around it. A faint noise breaks the quiet.

“Augh.”

We pause and look at one another. It’s coming from underneath us. More moaning. We follow the trail of blood and it runs under the cellar door. Gilbert busts the door open, but the darkness below swallows any sense of life.

I signal to my covey brothers and they closely follow me. Alan pulls on his goggles and a glow emits from his lens, lighting the precarious way down. We carefully step away from the streaks of blood knowing that it’d be much too easy to slip and fall.

Soon, the four of us reach the bottom but my boot toe grazes a black fire iron resting by the stairwell. It’s mostly coated in blue slick with bits of mangled pink flesh stuck on its surface. Alan’s light shines in the darkness and settles his focus on a man sprawled in a corner. The area beneath his knee is bloodied and indiscernible.

Alan gasps. As he’s our covey’s physician, I step aside for him to rush through and begin treatment. His usually soft voice cracks over our discovery.

“Cerna Almighty, Mr. Cromley!”

The large man groggily looks up at us, his mouth barely moving. His voice is dry and hoarse.

“...Creche?”

Alan holds the liquidator’s chin in his hands, staring intently through his lens. After a few moments, he swiftly digs into his knapsack, pulling out small glass vials and a roll of cotton gauze. He lays them out on a section of the floor clear and free of blood.

“What do you see, Alan? What can we do to help?”

“Site of contact is right below this knee. I see the bite, but there seems to be impact wounds too.”

His fingers hover above Mr. Cromley’s leg. His voice softens.

“The infection is spreading fast.”

Alan douses his open wounds with the contents of the vials and presses onto it firmly with the cotton gauze.

Gilbert glances at the black fire iron by the landing and the blood trail leading up the stairs. He steps further into the darkness until his head bumps into something. A metallic jingle echoes in the room. Thomas rushes over to him and finds an oil lamp in the center of the room. He snaps his thimbles over the wick to light it.

Once the basement is lit, Gilbert, Thomas, and I look around and our eyes end up staring at the thing that hit his head: not an oil lamp, but meat hooks. They innocently hang near the frosted glass pane in the basement.

”It looks like it was feeding and someone tried to off Mr. Cromley’s limb.”

I cover my mouth, halfway in disgust and halfway in thought. We need to make haste. If the Fiend is on the run, then-

“S-save me...”

My eyes rest on Mr. Cromley.

“Where did the Fiend go? Was Mr. Barnes with it?”

Mr. Cromley swallows a dry breath and shakes his head weakly. He doesn’t know.

“My guess is that the mayor would skip town if he had anything to do with the Fiend.”

“The blood trails likely signify that. I saw it lead out the back pantry.”

“Would you be able to track it, Gil?”

“As long as we have a point of last known location and it’s on soil, yes.”

The liquidator grunts and grabs his thigh. The red-soaked gauze begins to deepen into a violet color, nearly matching the strange blue color on the fire iron. His eyes roll back and he’s losing consciousness.

“Oh no, he’s changing! We need to seal off the source!”

Thomas’ steel eyes dart at me.

"We need to make a decision, Commander. Either we help Alan treat him or we-”

He waves a pointed finger at his throat with a tongue click.