13 Mink Street

“I have to return.” Karon steadied his voice as best he could. With Tiz nearby, his confidence grew more stable than before. While his fate undoubtedly rested in Tiz’s hands, that was absolutely preferable to wandering about untethered, vulnerable to every passing draft. Even so, Karon couldn’t ignore the fact that everything remained an act; The lie persisted, no matter how well it might be told. That was why, when he spoke, he followed his claim with a question, “Is there anything else you wish to say?”

Alfred pulled out a business card and offered it with careful reverence. Karon accepted it, reading “Host, Roja Broadcasting Station,” as well as a set of phone numbers.

“I look forward to your call,” Alfred said. He stepped back to open up a bit of space, before continuing, “You may call that number, or simply appear at the door, whenever you wish. Your summons will be as inevitable as dawn and dusk to me; a law I must obey.”

Karon tucked the card away and let out a slow, grateful breath. There were no requests, no demands; that was best. He found himself at a loss as to what he could have offered for negotiations; his stash of twenty thousand rupi, the Miffett gold watch, or perhaps a discount at Immers Funeral Home in case of untimely death? Thankfully, he heard nothing remotely close to any sort of demands. There was not even the smallest request at all.

And then, without warning, Ms. Molly dropped to her knees before him.

Normally, having someone kneel would induce a feeling of control, given the quiet authority of being placed above another. Yet with Ms. Molly, no such feeling manifested within Karon. She knelt with her eyes raised, her gaze unwavering. It did not feel as though she was bowing to him, but as though she was appraising him.

“Forgive my breach of reason,” she said. “But I beg you, Great One, grant me a purified body”

A body? A corpse?

There were already three in the basement back home. Obtaining more would not be difficult. But a “purified body” meant something more, which he did not understand. Clearly, there were specific requirements; Jeff’s body and Mrs. Hughes’s had not sufficed, given that Ms. Molly had chosen neither.

To ask “What exactly is a purified body?” would have destroyed the illusion he had managed to create. It would be like seeing a scholar falter over the simplest symbol scrawled on a chalkboard. For the moment, it was best simply to leave.

“Wait,” Karon ordered.

“Thank you, Great One. I will forever prostrate at your feet, offering you all my loyalty,” Molly replied.

He gave no response further than a slight nod. He carefully packed Mrs. Hughes’s few belongings into the backpack which he then hoisted onto his shoulder. With that, he moved for the door at a deliberately unhurried pace.

Upon stepping out of the master bedroom, he noticed Alfred and Molly did not follow.

He started down the stairs. One step at a time, his calm drained away; the ease, the detachment, the illusion of control.

Perhaps he had concentrated too hard on maintaining the facade, because halfway down, his body faltered. His rhythm broke. For a moment, he couldn’t remember whether his left foot or his right should move next. He misstepped.

His foot dropped two steps at once. The weight of the backpack pulled at his center of gravity, pitching him forward, forcing him to hurry his steps just to avoid falling.

Du-du-du-du...

At last, his right hand caught the banister. He twisted, landing heavily.

To mask his awkwardness, Karon let out a loud, forced laugh. It was too loud and too brief, but he tried to play things off as a child’s clumsy act.

He pushed the door open and stepped out. Midnight hung heavy in the courtyard as he crossed it. He refused to look back at the window above. He made his way straight for the gate, step by step, not stopping until he stood before Tiz.

Karon let out a trembling sigh, then drew in a deep breath. Such powerful relief flooded him that he nearly grew lightheaded. Tiz briefly appraised the young man without a word, and then stepped closer to the gate. “Mr. Alfred.”

Alfred’s reply drifted down from the upper window, soft and thin, “Inquisitor.”

“Remember our agreement,” Tiz stated.

“I have never broken it,” Alfred replied. “Ms. Molly remains within, and though another has died tonight, I assure you, she, too, died guilty.”

Tiz turned to Karon, who gestured at Mrs. Hughes’s red Caymon. “I can explain.”

Tiz offered no objection, so Karon opened the door of the car and slipped his bag onto the seat before climbing in. Tiz took the passenger side, while Pu’er leapt through a window onto the backseat. Karon started the engine.

From the upstairs window, Alfred watched the car slide down the street and vanish from sight. He coughed softly and glanced at the three cigarette butts at his feet. “I still can’t understand why humans came up with this slow poison. It’s as if they wish to nudge themselves ever closer to death.”

Ms. Molly answered, “From the moment they’re born, they’re already walking towards death.”

Alfred’s mouth curved to form the shadow of a smile. “Your replies have grown unusually philosophical, Ms. Molly. Perhaps I’ll invite you to be a guest on my show one day. The audience would never catch so much as a glimpse of your true appearance anyway.”

She studied him for a moment. “Aren’t you going to put away your Succubus Eye?”

“Oh? Ah, haha.” With a quiet exhale, the vivid red faded from Alfred’s eyes. They returned to an ordinary shade, yet a smoky gray mist still floated behind his gaze.

“Alfred, I just don’t understand you; You were the first to sense his great presence, and also the first to show proper humility, so why did you keep your Succubus Eye out before the Great One?”

The Succubus Eye allowed its bearer to see through illusions, to peer into hearts and strip away all falsehood. Among demonkin, and far beyond, succubi had earned a reputation for intelligence and being difficult to mislead. Sometimes, simply refusing deception was wisdom itself.

Karon had felt that much himself; Before Alfred, it became impossible to lie. Throughout their conversation, no matter how much Alfred had lowered himself, Karon had only been able to speak the unvarnished truth.

Alfred shook his head. “That was a gesture of respect. I wanted the great one to see the truest side of me; a sign of loyalty.”

Ms. Molly’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t believe you.”

He gave a slight shrug. “The more you believe in something, the more suspicion seeps in. It’s why, in the end, so many great scientists’ thoughts turn to theology.”

She hesitated, as though weighing her next words. “So you still doubt him? I thought you would have surrendered yourself completely to that great one by now.”

Alfred laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Do you know what I doubt most?” His tone was sharp with self-mockery. “It’s the fact that, with him, there’s nothing to doubt.”

“You told me once about hymns and scriptures.”

“It’s more than that.” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Do you remember a month ago, when I left Roja for Belwyn?”

“I remember.”

“The churches sent their people. The Swillen government called in the military to seal off an entire district. Do you know why?”

“What happened?”

“A divine descent ritual was held on the outskirts of Belwyn.”

Ms. Molly’s expression remained unreadable. “A divine descent ritual? Is that all?”

Such rituals were not uncommon among the churches. They were an appeal to higher powers for light and will, a call to guide the lost.

Alfred’s voice fell to nearly a whisper, “This time, the divinity that answered was an heretical god. Unnamed. Unknown.”

A heretical god was not a singular being, nor some specific identity, but a category.

The great orthodox churches, entrenched in their authority and sustained by long, unbroken legacies, worshipped what they acknowledged as the only true gods. Their gods had nothing to do with heretical gods, because anyone who dared label their deities as such would be eradicated without exception.

Outside of the orthodox powers existed smaller churches. Their congregations were lesser, and their influence limited, but as long as their gods endured and their worship survived, those gods would still be recognized and accorded a measure of respect.

There were also subordinate gods, deities which had emerged from the orthodox systems; disciples of true gods or entities who had once been tied to the major churches before gradually evolving into independent targets of worship. Structurally, these subordinates could still be reconciled within the broader theological framework.

Even some so-called evil gods did not qualify as heretical gods. Faiths with extreme doctrines, ruthless followers, or histories of persecution and eventual eradication were not, by definition, heretical. Their beliefs and the beings they served still rested upon faith.

A heretical god was something else entirely. A heretical god had no faithful and did not exist through faith. The definition was crude and absolute: a solitary existence, untethered. They drifted between heaven and earth, or were sealed away in some forgotten corner of myth, and yet a divine descent could draw them back into the world.

Such an act was a violation of Order; a breach that invited catastrophe, because no one could know what, exactly, might answer the call.

Despite that, across many years, true calamities of that sort had been rare. Ancient records contained only scattered references. The reason was simple: scale.

The scale of a divine descent ritual was something that needed to be prepared, and that was what determined the nature of what was summoned. This scale did not primarily rely on the material offerings. Such things were comparatively easy to gather, as even holy relics could be acquired with sufficient wealth. What truly mattered was the ability of the ritual’s officiant.

The stronger the officiant, the greater the scale of the ritual, and those who were capable of conducting high-scale divine descent rituals almost exclusively belonged to the orthodox churches. Only they possessed the institutional foundations required to cultivate such individuals.

A priest from a minor church performing the same rite would be fortunate to summon even a faint radiance, and would be grateful beyond words for that much. Priests of the great churches, by contrast, invoked miracles as a matter of course. Above them, Archbishops and High Cardinals had, according to ancient texts, been able to summon divine artifacts themselves.

At the lowest level, so-called heretical god rituals were little more than parlor tricks, such as spirit boards or pen divination. At best, they might lure a nearby, wandering demonkin. Even the weakest demonkin, while rarely lethal, was enough to terrify ordinary people beyond reason.

As the scale increased, the strength and nature of the summoned demonkin rose as well.

Still, all of this remained tolerable. The appearance of a powerful demonkin was not, in itself, an existential threat. The orthodox churches possessed the means to erase such beings with ease. For that reason, demonkin either withdrew into uninhabited regions or cautiously moved about within human society, careful to never draw too much attention.

Those who did were swiftly eliminated, particularly the mindless, low-grade entities, such the one which had possessed Mrs. Hughes.

What the great churches could not tolerate was what lay beyond: high-scale heretical god divine descent rituals.

That was because the orthodox churches monopolized rituals of that scale. Every instance recorded in ancient texts involved high-ranking insiders. Those individuals were considered rebels. They had not only betrayed their own churches, but had sought to overturn the very framework of Order itself.

By day, such men could invoke miracles.

By night, they might summon beings who exceeded the limits of tolerance, entities known as heretical gods.

Each such divine descent was a calamity, a disaster capable of annihilating an orthodox church outright. Summoned heretical gods were often beings who had once battled true gods in earlier epochs, or had been suppressed and sealed by them. Upon returning, even weakened, their hatred for the descendants of their former enemies was immeasurable.

Most unsettling of all, across the entire epoch, no orthodox church, no matter how powerful, had managed to summon a true god again. At best, they had invoked divine artifacts or brief manifestations, but never a true divine descent.

With the true gods no longer able to descend, suppressing a heretical god necessitated a price beyond comprehension.

At last, a look of shock appeared on Ms. Molly’s face. “A heretical god!”

She hesitated, then pressed on, “Did they succeed?”

Alfred seemed almost pleased with her disbelief. “If they had failed, would it have drawn such attention? Clearly, this was no ordinary ritual. Summoning another like you or me is of no real consequence.”

“No, Alfred, I mean—are you saying...”

Alfred nodded.

“An Inquisitor whose strength borders on the absurd,” he said with a dry laugh. “After that clash, do you know what truly unsettled me? On the surface, it appeared to be a draw, as both of us were wounded, but the more I examined it, the clearer things became. Every divine incantation he used belonged strictly to the Inquisitor rank of the Church of Order, and yet his actual power was far beyond that.”

There was a pause. “A member of the Church of Order whose strength vastly exceeds that of an Inquisitor, and yet who deliberately fights with only Inquisitor-grade authority. There’s only one explanation: he was hiding his power.”

“So, you truly couldn’t have defeated him?” Ms. Molly asked.

“That isn’t the point, Ms. Molly.”

“All right, I’m sorry.”

“Besides, I was also holding back, for fear of being purged by the Church of Order.”

“All right,” she said. “Go on.”

“Tonight, I finally understand.”

“Was it him?” Ms. Molly asked, “The Great One’s grandfather? But the ritual took place in Belwyn...”

Almost immediately Ms. Molly fell silent, the implication clear. How naïve would one have to be to carry out a ritual of such scale in their own city, beneath everyone’s eyes? Of course it would have taken place elsewhere.

“So you see, Ms. Molly, I do not doubt his greatness—he is certainly a true power. What I fear is this: beneath the guise of a true god, what if his essence is that of a heretical god?

“A heretical god... even we demonkin would tremble before such an existence.”

Alfred glanced at the last place Mrs. Hughes had been seen, where she had been erased, and murmured, “The Light of Order. Perhaps he is a terror who was once suppressed by the God of Order himself.”

Ms. Molly hesitated. “Then... what about my body?”

Alfred lowered the brim of his hat. “Don’t worry. In the presence of such a master—true god or heretical god—it makes no difference. All we need to do is fulfill our roles. No noise. No disturbance. No questions. When he calls for us, we go, and we give everything.”

“Alfred, could you describe our role more clearly?” she asked. “I worry I will make a mess of things.”

“Very well. Listen closely.” Alfred spread his arms wide and barked, “Woof! Woof! Woof!”

***

“Here’s how it happened.” From behind the wheel, Karon recounted every detail of the night’s events for Tiz.

He didn’t know why, but each time he caught a glimpse of Pu’er in the back seat through the rearview mirror, a peculiar restlessness rose within him. He tried to reassure himself. He was not one to lose his composure, and certainly not the type to take anything out on a cat.

“Grandpa, those two... do you think they’re a little foolish?” he asked. “I was terrified, honestly. It’s a wonder I managed to get through that and even save myself.”

In the passenger seat, Tiz remained silent. In the back, Pu’er’s disturbingly human smile only seemed to grow brighter.

Eventually, the car rolled to a stop in front of the locked gates of Hughes Crematorium. The place had been shut down since Old Darcy’s death. Even if it had remained open, at such an hour, it would still have been dark and empty. Tiz finally broke the silence, “Why are we here?”

Karon explained, “Inspector Duke’s people will soon have enough evidence. They’ll realize Mrs. Hughes was the real killer.”

Unless Inspector Duke was absolutely incompetent—in fact, even if he was a donkey—the police would be able to solve this case.

“She’s gone, so I’m putting Mrs. Hughes’s things and her car back at the crematorium. This will make it look like she realized she was exposed and simply fled. After all, it’s not as if we can bring her back.” The woman was simply gone.

Tiz nodded. Karon stepped out, gathering Mrs. Hughes’s clothing. Her car remained parked. He found a ring of keys among her belongings and used them to open the gate before walking inside. Tiz followed close behind. Pu’er trailed the two men with delicate steps, her shadow long and sinuous in the wash of moonlight.

Karon went to the office, separated from the incineration room by only a wall. The late hour made the crematorium feel heavy, smothered in soundless air.

He scattered Mrs. Hughes’s clothes about the floor and desk before opening his backpack and setting out what felt like an endless supply of art materials. Whatever her talents, Mrs. Hughes had certainly been well-equipped, much the way a failing student can’t resist buying new stationery before a last attempt at studying.

He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Grandpa, the police will figure things out quickly and will send people here first thing in the morning. If for some reason they don’t, you could call and report that your grandson took Mrs. Hughes home last night and then disappeared. Also... could you tie me to this chair? Making it look like I was her next victim? As for Mrs. Hughes, I’ll just tell them that she bolted when she heard the police. Aunt Mary, Mrs. Hughes, and I, our movements won’t escape notice, so this is the only way to tie things off neatly.”

Tiz nodded and quietly circled behind. He selected a knife from among the scattered tools, turning it in his hand.

In the seat, Karon waited for his grandfather to begin tying him up, unaware of the movement behind him. In front of him, Pu’er looked up from the floor, her unsettlingly human smile growing sharper by the moment.

“Grandpa, another option would be to knock me out with something,” Karon went on. “That way, when the police discover me, it will look even more convincing, and I can play along. Or perhaps we could find some sleeping pills here. That would make it easy to explain things to them later.”

“There’s no need.” Tiz stepped back into view.

Karon smiled. “Of course, Grandpa. However you want to handle it, I—”

A sudden, staggering pain ripped through him.

Karon looked down in disbelief. There, deep in his chest, a knife was buried.

Right at his ear, he heard Tiz’s voice, “The mistake I started, I’ll be the one to end it.”