Bloodline Descents

Chapter Four

The streets lay empty by the time Cloud reached the edge of Pale Garden. The approaching night had driven every decent soul indoors, leaving only mist to roam freely. A massive rusted gate loomed ahead. The hinges were corroded and brittle. He watched it from a distance, weighing his options.

Walking through the front would have been foolish. If anyone had been watching, that was where they would have expected a man to show himself. Besides, the old fortune-teller's warning gnawed at the back of his skull like a persistent rat. Subtlety was no longer a mere precaution — it had become necessity.

Cloud edged left, keeping to the deeper murk where the mist clung thick. He reached a stretch of the fence where the timber posts were warped and split. Without pause, he slipped through the gap, careful not to catch the brambles twisted around the frame.

Inside, the graveyard stretched before him. It was a dismal patchwork of crude wooden markers and neglected plots. Faint oil lamps hung from rotten posts; their light was barely enough to pierce the mist that swirled around him.

It remained a mystery who lit the lamps each night... Perhaps it was the hooded figure the drunkard claimed to have seen — the same one who had approached him as well.

Cloud kept his pace steady as his gaze swept across the ground as he walked through. The place was in worse condition than even Elias's memories had suggested.

A crooked grin tugged at his lips.

If anything's lurking, it had better bloody announce itself before I bury this rod in its skull.

He moved deeper into the gloom, holding his weapon at the ready.

Cloud reached the centre of Pale Garden and slowed his pace. The mist, which had inhabited the edges, began to thicken, curling swiftly across the ground. It gathered around his boots in dense, restless coils, far too quickly for natural fog. He stopped, a guarded look overtook his gaze as the pale vapour crept through the crooked markers and around the leaning graves. His grip tightened around the iron rod.

A soft rustle stirred within the mist. A parchment scroll drifted into view, unfurling itself mid-air, and then a battered ink pen floated beside it, the nib already scratching out hurried, uneven script. There was no eerie glow nor chorus of ghostly wails, only old paper and ink behaving as though it ruled the place.

Cloud watched it steadily and raised the iron rod with a scowl.

"You talk too much. Or write too much. Whatever."

He swung the rod sideways, knocking the pen aside. It tumbled, hung in mid-air like a sulky servant, then steadied itself and resumed scratching across the parchment without protest. Cloud prodded the scroll with the tip of the rod, half-expecting it to dissolve. It remained solid, as tangible as any parchment.

The scroll scratched out a line in sharp, hurried strokes:

'Elias Warden. Three other Descendants have stood before this record in months past. None crossed paths with another. This archive remains at your service. Ask what you will.'

Cloud stared at the words, his brow twitching with dry irritation. His lips pulled into a sly smirk, though it lacked any warmth.

He muttered, half to himself, "So this thing's like medieval Google or something?"

"Okay."

"Forget the cryptic shite — two questions, plain and simple. Who's the pale-haired girl who visited me months ago? And who's the hooded figure that comes here?"

The pen resumed at once.

'Unknown by name, but belongs to the fifth seat of the Hollow Chapel. A lesser inquisitor of Bloodlines, tasked with rooting out latent heirs to extinct houses. Her orders were to find the Samurai Descendant before the Month of Frost ended. She failed. I don't have an answer for the second question.'

Cloud's mind clicked into motion.

If the Hollow Chapel was sniffing out bloodline heirs, then he was already living on borrowed time. And if that pale-haired lass had failed, she was either dead, reassigned, or lying low. Either way, it meant there were witnesses or loose ends, and both were worth chasing.

Secondly, it seems this thing hasn't a clue who the hooded figure is either. But if I want answers, I'll have to play detective... Bloody marvellous.

He leaned in, ready for the next question.

"Where would be the best place to track her movements, or her network?"

The scroll scratched out a new line.

'The Ashward Manse on Gloomrise Street. Old records vault. Her reports were archived there before the turn of the season.'

Cloud's expression tightened. Ashward Manse. He etched the name firmly into his memory. It would be the first place he went after collecting his wage tomorrow and quitting this hellhole of a mine before they strung him up for backtalk. He no longer cared how it might affect his daily life. The place was a cesspit, and he had seen enough of it with his own eyes to confirm what he already suspected. The Manse could wait until then, but not a moment longer.

He caught the pen as it drifted past, flipped the letter over, and scribbled the answer onto the back. Once finished, he tossed the pen aside and left it to float back to its place.

"How do I find the other three Descendants?"

The pen scratched again.

'They will be drawn to the city's deepest bleeding wound. Watch the rivers, the docks, and the South Quarter's plague ward, where you read. Blood calls to blood.'

Cloud read it and scoffed inwardly at the riddling vagueness, but filed it away. It was too obscure for tonight, though something worth gnawing at later.

"That's enough for tonight," he voiced flatly. "I've a graveyard's worth of shite to untangle already."

The scroll dissolved into mist, vanishing without rustle or farewell. The fog recoiled, thinning in silent retreat. Then he exhaled.

It was better than nothing. At least he had leads now. The other Descendants would come in time. And his bloody wage — always the wage — remained first on the list. He needed that to survive and be on the move.

A thin, humourless smile crept onto his face.

"If I've got to leave a trail of corpses, I'll at least do it in style."

Rod in hand, Cloud stepped out of the graveyard and quickened his pace, eager to reach his flat before curfew and prepare for tomorrow's list of missions.

A low chuckle escaped him. "I should take that name… Elias Warden. Heh."