Vincard slipped through the mist like a phantom, a walking anomaly of shadow and haze. The effect of the vial was intoxicating and repulsive at the same time; it felt as if his bones were made of frozen ash, while his flesh was nothing more than a vague memory. He reached the yard, where the hunter's remains lay in the mud.
He knelt down, but what he saw was no longer a body. It was a puzzle of raw flesh and torn leather. The creature had done a good job; limbs had been severed, the rib cage broken open like a rotten box.
Vincard stared at the face, or what was left of it. A pulp of blood and dirt, rendered unrecognizable by the brutal force of the beast.
„Is that Bartho?" The question hammered in his head. His silver-gray eyes searched frantically over the tattered remains, looking for a badge, a scar, anything. But the corpse was too disfigured to find anything. Despair, thick and black like the oil in the puddles, rose up inside him. If this was Bartho, his job was done and he could pursue his own interests. But if not, he would have to keep searching, and who knew how long that would take. "A dilemma..." he muttered to himself.
A sound broke the silence.
*Clack* *Clack* *Clack*
Boots on metal. A rhythm so unnatural and jerky, as if someone were dragging a marionette across the cobblestones. Vincard froze. His shadow form flickered like a dying candle. With one fluid movement, he swung himself onto a pile of rusty beams hanging over the courtyard and squeezed himself into a niche of darkness.
Then someone emerged from the fog.
The figure was gaunt, almost skeletal, wrapped in a heavy, tattered cloak that seemed to dissolve into the mist. A wide-brimmed hat shaded the face, but the long, gray hair blew like death silk in the wind. Every movement of the figure was an insult to anatomy; jerky, unpredictable, followed by uncontrolled tremors that made the countless leather straps of his garb rattle softly.
Vincard held his breath. The air around the stranger seemed to boil, metal corroded in its mere presence, and the flickering light of the distant lanterns bent around him.
The figure stopped in front of the dismembered corpse and raised its head. Beneath the hat, two tiny, glowing red galaxies shone, eyes that no longer knew humanity, but breathed the madness of the infinite cosmos.
"What a shame," said the figure. He sounded like someone telling a joke that only he could understand. "So much potential wasted in such an... ordinary form."
The stranger stretched his bony hand, its skin the color of cracked limestone. He brought a finger to his own wrist and scratched the skin with a black fingernail.
A single drop of blood fell.
It wasn't red. It was a deep, shimmering black, heavier than lead. The moment the drop touched the corpse's flesh, something strange happened. The stranger's blood began to proliferate. It formed razor-sharp threads that wove through the dead hunter's flesh like the needles of a sewing machine.
Bones cracked and shifted into new positions. Muscles grew in grotesque twists from the boots of the dead man. In seconds, the lifeless heap transformed into something horrific: a beast whose body was fused from the mechanical parts of the yard and the flesh of the hunter, a thing of teeth, pistons, and screaming corruption.
The stranger stared directly into the darkness, right where Vincard was hiding. A manic giggle escaped his throat, a sound that cut into Vincard's mind like a scalpel.
"That's interesting," he whispered into the wind. "Looks like we have a guest, a most curious guest..."
Vincard looked into the glowing galaxies of the stranger and felt his own shadow threatening to tear apart.
Vincard moved reflexively, dagger half-drawn, the fog around him still thick enough to perhaps escape, when the stranger simply... vanished.
No backward step, no swirl of mist, and no sound. He was there, in the middle of the courtyard, and the next moment he was gone.
„What the..." Panic, real, sheer panic shot through Vincard's chest like a cold current. His form flickered more violently, the shadows around him trembled. He jumped up, spun around once, and scanning the darkness. But nothing. Only the rain pattering on rusty iron and the distant dripping from broken pipes.
Then he ran, not blindly, but desperately. The bandolier banged against his ribs, the vials clinking softly like a warning tune. He ducked around a crushed press, jumped over a chain lying on the floor like a snake, and crouched behind an overturned boiler. His breath came in gasps. The watch in his vest suddenly started ticking again, irregularly, loudly, as if it wanted to betray him.
Then he felt it. A hand, cold, bony, heavier than it should have been, rested on his shoulder. The fog, his cover, suddenly dissipated.
Not slowly, nor gradually. He simply exploded, as if someone had thrown open a window. Vincard's body became tangible, visible, vulnerable again. The coldness of the vial gave way to a painful tingling sensation, as if his skin were being reborn.
He froze. Completely.
The hand remained on his shoulders. Lightly, almost tenderly. "You smell like me," said the voice behind him. Close, way too close. "And yet... not quite."
Vincard couldn't move. Not a single muscle. It wasn't paralysis caused by poison or potions; it was worse than that. It was the realization that his body suddenly no longer belonged to him. Every fiber, every nerve knew that if he moved now, he would die instantly. It was an instinctive fear that he had no power to resist.
His scar burned with such heat, that he thought it must be burning through his glove. The watch in his pocket made a single, shrill chime, then fell silent.
The stranger slowly took his hand away. Vincard remained frozen nonetheless. He couldn't turn his head or lift his eyes.
"A scar," he murmured, as if talking to himself, or to several versions of himself. His voice changed pitch mid-sentence, sometimes deep and calm, sometimes high-pitched and childishly amused. "Under the glove. Small and old. But... alive. And a clock. Tick-tock. Tick... tock. She recognizes me. She remembers."
He laughed softly, a sound like breaking glass in an empty room. "My blood. My own blood. How... poetic. How disgustingly poetic."
He took a step to the side, still in the shadow of his hat, so that Vincard could only see the lower half of his face: chalk-white skin, cracked like dry riverbeds, and the lips twisted into a crooked smile. "You have it in you, boy. Not much. Just a drop. But enough to smell me. Enough to make me... curious."
He leaned slightly forward, as if studying Vincard's face. "I could take you now. Open you up. See how deep the scar really goes. But..."
He straightened up again. His smile grew wider. "...where would be the fun in that?"
His voice suddenly softened, becoming almost fatherly. "I can see the full potential right before me. Real, brutal potential. Not just another victim who will be drenched in blood. But something… better."
He stretched out his hand, not threateningly, but invitingly. His fingers trembled slightly, as if he were struggling to keep them together. "Come with me. Just a few little experiments. A few nights in the depths." His galaxy eyes glowed brighter, piercing right through Vincard.