Caius clips his new sheath to his belt and untucks his shirt, successfully hiding the knife.

“Get ready to leave,” Faust says, shutting the lid of the chest with a heavy thump and standing up, checking his wristwatch. “We’re going out.”

“Where?” Caius asks.

Faust glances at him.

“You wanted to know what’s happening with those throat-rippings, right?” He says, already moving back towards his bedroom. He crosses the threshold and closes the door behind him. 

Caius looks at it for a moment before dropping his gaze back to the second knife in his hand, hefting it, checking its weight against his palm. The weapon from tip to hilt is pure metal with intricate workings lining the grip - he wonders how much of it is silver and how much of it is alloyed.

Faust re-emerges from his bedroom in a fresh dress shirt and slacks. He nods towards the front door.

“Let’s go,” he says, and Caius follows.

--

Coming out of the main door of Faust’s apartment building, Caius catches sight of a distinctive head of white hair across the square. Alban is sitting at one of the small tables in front of his bookstore, one leg elegantly crossed over the other at the knee, radiating a casually refined air from the slight slouch of his shoulders to the polished tip of his black leather shoe.

Alban looks up, again, as though he can tell when he’s being watched - he catches sight of Caius across the crowded square. 

Caius waves at him. Alban waves back with a slender hand.

Faust looks over - he sees Caius, then follows his gaze towards Alban across the square, and continues down the street without Caius. Caius jogs to catch up.

“Who’s that?” Faust asks.

“The owner of the bookstore I went to this morning.” Caius replies, coming even with Faust’s long strides again. “Alban Mathes. Have you never seen him in all the time you’ve lived here?”

Faust scoffs.

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” he says, “but I’m not one for unneccesary socializing.”

Before Caius can reply, they reach the main street - Faust flags down a cab. They climb into the backseat, the familiar smell of worn leather and gasoline surrounding them.

“To the city morgue, please,” Faust says, and the taxi lurches forward again.

--

Faust pushes open the heavy double doors of the city morgue. The first thing that hits Caius is the smell of formaldyhyde - it suffuses the air and seeps through the halls as though it’s soaked in the walls. He grimaces without thinking as they make their way into the building.

Faust glances at him.

“Are you the queasy type?” He asks, and Caius wrinkles his nose.

“I’ll be fine,” he replies, but he must have a funny exprpession on his face, because he sees one corner of Faust’s mouth curl up in an almost-smile before he turns to head deeper into the morgue.

Faust leads them through the halls, picking and navigating the corridors easily, as though he’s been here many times before. He comes to a heavy-seeming silver door with a small window at eye-level - Faust grips the handle and swings it open, and the stale and chloric scent of preservatives reaches a high. He steps into the room. 

Caius follows him and stops in his tracks - there’s a body on the table, its skin an almost sickly, waxy grey. There are two men standing over it, frowns marring both their faces, one in a white lab coat that nearly brushes the floor and the other in a rumpled dress shirt with a pen sticking out of the pocket.

“He struck again last night,” the man in the dress shirt says, rubbing the stubble on his chin with one calloused hand.

“No doubt about it.” The man in the white coat replies, expression drawn. 

Faust stops in front of the table.

“What do you have?” He asks, and the two men look up at him.

“It’s self-evident,” the man in the white coat - the coroner, presumably - says, gesturing at the body. “Another victim of the throat-ripper.”

“No copycat could invoke injuries this grave.” The man in the dress shirt says grimly. “No, the police commissioner is doing her best to keep a lid on this insane situation, but if we keep having corpses turn up like this…”

Faust leans over the body, getting close to the victim’s face. Caius, swallowing his apprehension, steels himself and ventures closer.

The coroner looks at Caius, then turns to Faust.

“I didn’t know you took apprentices,” he says, like it’s normal to start conversations over a corpse.

“He’s not my apprentice,” Faust says.

“I’m his apprentice,” Caius says, at the same time. “Caius.”

The coroner and the other man trade glances. They break out into laughter. Faust’s gaze shifts away from the body to glare at them over it.

Steeling himself, Caius takes a proper look at the dead man.

The man’s throat is torn out. He doesn’t know what he’d expected - it’s a mangled mess of cold, shredded, waxy-pale skin, all the blood already drained from the area. He can see the edge of a vertebrae through the front of the wound. Aside from that, the only marks on the body are the incised autopsy Y, cut by the coroner, that draws from the point of shoulder where it meets the chest, trailing all the way down to the navel.

Caius leans closer to Faust.

“How do you know this is a vampire attack?” He whispers.

Faust glances at him, the back at the body.

“It’s simple,” he says, gesturing at the wound. “Can’t you see? There’s almost no blood in him at all.”