The expression on Klein's face cooled immediately. "I don't enjoy it. Sherman — what I am now was an accident. I had no idea becoming an Assassin would have anything to do with becoming a woman. If I could take it back, I'd have stayed an ordinary person."
"Right — right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Sherman bowed quickly in apology. He himself had always wanted to become a woman, and Alice — whom he'd been spending a lot of time around recently — seemed to genuinely enjoy her female identity. He'd assumed too much.
Right. A normal man… there was no reason on earth he'd want to become a woman.
He hesitated, then said: "I… I've heard that once we reach Sequence 6, the potion starts to change you — more and more like a real woman. Not just physically, but mentally too."
"If you're really averse to that — you need to think carefully about whether you want to keep going."
Klein gave a mild nod. "I know."
They walked on for several dozen metres through the pitch-dark alley, rounding to the front of a building with not a single light showing. Sherman produced a mask with a rough stick-figure sketch painted on it and held it out. "Put this on. Most Beyonders who attend these gatherings choose to hide their identities — saves trouble."
"Right."
Sherman put on his own mask. Then he knocked on the door in a specific rhythm. Seven or eight seconds later, a small wooden panel in the door slid open, revealing a pair of dark brown eyes on the other side.
Another moment, and the door swung inward.
Sherman nodded to the doorman and led Klein through the dark front room into the first-floor sitting room. A single candle burned on the low table at the centre, casting a dim, unsteady glow that left most of the room in shifting shadow. On the sofas and chairs ranged around the table sat ten or so figures — all hooded cloaks, all iron-coloured masks.
Klein had barely sat down beside Sherman when a heavyset man across the room burst out in furious tones: "I only stepped away for two weeks — two weeks — and someone completely destroyed the herbs I'd been cultivating in the sewer. I want to know who did it! They're going to pay for this!"
The moment he finished, a voice responded: "Two hundred pounds. I'll find your culprit."
"..."
The fat man sputtered. "You know what, I suddenly don't want to know anymore." — His herbs had cost him all of twelve pounds to grow in the first place. Paying two hundred pounds to find the "culprit" — he'd have to be out of his mind. Besides, everything he'd had in his pocket had already gone toward settling with the police officer he'd "assaulted." Right now he couldn't scrape together enough coins to fill a thimble. He just wanted to sell a decent amount of product tonight.
"Ahem. Finding culprits can wait. First let me offer a batch of medicines — haemostatic, wound-healing, accelerated tissue recovery, and bone-repair. Oh, and two bottles for gentlemen who'd like to feel seventeen again — shall we say, exceptional performers, if you catch my meaning." He gave a short, suggestive laugh.
A few of the assembled figures played along with knowing chuckles.
Klein's mind sparked. Cultivates herbs, makes medicines — isn't that exactly what Miss Daly said about the Sanguine?
He thought it over and asked aloud: "If someone had both legs severed — completely severed — do you have anything that could restore them to full health?"
"???"
The fat man clicked his tongue. "Are you simple? If I had anything that could regrow severed limbs, do you think I'd be sitting here selling medicine? Someone else could do it, for that matter."
"What if the legs were preserved intact the whole time? Is reattachment possible?"
"That…"
He hesitated. "I have heard of people who can manage that. But I'm not one of them. Honestly, for something like that, you'd be better off with a surgeon. They might have a way."
Dunn's injury had, of course, already been brought to doctors long ago. Their assessment had been that even if the legs were reattached, he'd be able to do little more than walk with difficulty — returning to his prior level of ability was completely out of the question. Which was exactly why Miss Daly was trying to find the Sanguine.
"Alright. Thank you."
Sherman leaned over. "Do you have a friend who was hurt?"
"Yes. Both legs taken off in a fight with a Beyonder."
"That's horrific."
Klein resisted the urge to point out that Sherman himself had put a dagger through someone's throat without a second's concern. You weren't worried about horrific then, were you.
"Actually — if I wanted to find the Sanguine, could I put out a commission for it here?"
"Of course."
Sherman nodded. "What do you need them for? Alice mentioned — that lot are extremely clannish. Go after one of them and you've picked a fight with all of them."
"I just mentioned it — a friend was badly hurt. They might be the only ones who can treat it."
Sherman thought about it. "Hmm. In that case — you might try the Harvest Church down in the Bridge District south."
"There are Sanguine there?"
"Not sure. But I've heard the bishop of the Harvest Church has some kind of healing ability. A lot of poor people with injuries go there looking for help."
Klein nodded thoughtfully. "I'll keep that in mind."
Just then, the man who had offered two hundred pounds to find the fat man's culprit announced: "I have here a remarkable item — it allows you to hear the voice of a great and mighty being…only four…no, three hundred and eighty pounds."
...
On the other side of things.
After dinner, Vincent received a message from the "Nightingale of Despair," Panadia — she said she'd already made contact with the Psychology Alchemists' representative, and the three-way cooperation contract could be signed that very evening.
"Do you think this is a Hongmen Banquet?"
"A what?"
"Ah — roughly speaking: they've set a trap, and the moment we walk in they move to kill us."
Bernadette considered for a moment. "If she genuinely intends that, it's tantamount to declaring war on the Aurora Order. That doesn't seem to serve their interests."
True enough — the Aurora Order's people would do whatever it took to get what they wanted, but they weren't so shameless as to be murdered by the Demoness Sect and then turn around and enthusiastically cooperate with them.
"But keeping us around to run the cooperation — doesn't that go against their interests too?"
Although neither of them had yet determined what the Demoness Sect, the Psychology Alchemists, and the Loen royal family were really after, it was obvious enough that they planned to use the Aurora Order as their convenient fall-guy.
"Right — which is why I think we find a plausible excuse, decline for now, and go once you're back in control of the body two days from now."
"Agreed."
Vincent summoned an Invisible Servant, had it relay the message to Mr. Z, and handed all further contact with the Demoness Sect back to him while they waited out the soul swap.
Mr. Z's reaction, upon receiving the handoff, was immediate and transparent — a complete "you have got to be kidding me" face. First you say it's entirely in my hands, then you change your mind and say handle the Demoness Sect liaison yourself?
And now — should I go after Lanevus? Or go manage the Demoness Sect? You can't want both, can you?
In that moment, Mr. Z experienced first-hand the specific misery of being managed by an indecisive superior who reversed their instructions every five minutes.
...
In the small hours before dawn, the sky's cloud cover swallowed the deep crimson moon whole. Backlund sank into unbroken darkness.
Vincent — lying in bed — snapped his eyes open.
A stab of spirituality, sharp as a needle, had just lanced through him. He immediately activated the Witch's ring and went invisible, then dissolved into shadow and slipped out of the building fast.
"Bernadette — do you feel that?"
She gave a quiet sound of confirmation. Her voice was immediate. "St. Samuel's Cathedral."
So it's come to that. Clinging to the Evernight Goddess's coat-tails after all.
He dove into a shadow-jump, springing from darkness to darkness toward the cathedral — and had barely cleared two streets when a man's low voice landed somewhere just ahead of him:
"Shadow transformation is forbidden here."
Vincent was expelled from the shadow mid-jump — he simply popped back out into the open. In the same instant, several coins sliced through the air at him with the force of steam-rifle rounds.
Crack.
His body took several coins across it, and shattered — like a mirror dropped on stone — into scattered fragments. His real body snapped back into existence roughly ten metres away.
He got his first clear look at the attacker: a man in black formal wear, hair cropped short, wearing a mask, hovering in mid-air as if gravity had decided he was someone else's problem. One hand loosely formed a grip, pointing toward him.
"Deprive!"
Vincent felt it immediately — his Mirror Double ability, simply gone.
He didn't hesitate for another second. He reached into his coat, pulled out one of the grey fragments he'd brought down from the Nation of Disorder, threw it, and spoke:
"You murder — you are guilty!"
"You breathe — you are guilty!"
"You wear clothes — you are guilty!"
"In summary — you are guilty! Guilty enough to die!"
To be continued…
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