Lou bolted upright, his lungs seizing as a strangled gasp tore from his throat. His heart was a frantic hammer against his ribs, and his nightshirt was plastered to his skin with cold, acrid sweat.
"What the fuck... what the fuck—" he wheezed, his hands flying to his forehead.
He felt for the entry wound.
He felt for the shattered bone and the wet warmth of blood.
Nothing.
His skin was intact. The air in the room was stale and quiet, smelling of old wood instead of death.
"Just a dream," he choked out, a sharp, hysterical laugh bubbling up in his chest. "A fucking dream. Jesus."
He slumped back against the headboard, trying to steady his breathing, but then he looked at his hands. They were vibrating with a residual terror that wouldn't fade.
The images began to replay behind his eyelids, vivid as a high-definition recording. The severed girl with the silver eyes. The skeletal remains of the Cathedral. The woman in black with the obsidian lips.
The Gods are dead. Worship the Mother of Ruin before it's too late.
The fear crawled into his bones.
Klaus's memories, the ones Lou had inherited suggested that for a Seer, a nightmare wasn't just a bad brain-file, but a preview.
An entire city erased. Everyone he knew, including Rachel and the Doctor, reduced to ash, though he hadn't seen them in the dream.
And finally, a bullet to his own brain.
May 1, 1776.
That date from the newspaper was burned into his mind. It was a ticking clock.
Who was that woman? Was she the architect of the apocalypse, or just its herald? And why did she know the name "Lou"?
He looked toward the window. The oppressive ink of the night was finally bleeding into a pale, sickly gray. Dawn was coming, but for the first time since he'd woken up in this world, the light didn't feel like safety. It felt like a countdown.
Lou let out a long, weary sigh, the weight of the nightmare still pressing on his chest. "Did I really transmigrate just to be a casualty? This world is a trip."
The floorboards groaned in the hallway. Heavy, purposeful footsteps heading straight for his door.
Rachel?
The door swung open, but it wasn't his sister.
A man in his early thirties stood framed in the entrance. He looked sharp, clean-shaven except for a meticulously maintained mustache that reminded Lou of William's, with piercing brown eyes that seemed to scan the room like a diagnostic tool.
It was Gregor, the doctor. Rachel's fiancé.
"By the gods..." Gregor breathed, his voice a mix of shock and irritation. He turned his head toward the hallway and bellowed, "Rachel! Rachel! Get up here, now!"
What is his problem? Lou thought, his eyebrow twitching. I'm in my bed, not a morgue.
He heard Rachel's frantic footsteps pounding up the stairs. She burst into the room, breathless and pale. "What? What is it? Is he..."
"The boy," Gregor interrupted, gesturing toward the bed. "He's alive. He's right here."
Lou's jaw tightened. He's alive? Are you kidding me? They're acting like I pulled a vanishing act for a decade. I was gone for, what, eight hours? Talk about a flair for the dramatic.
Rachel froze at the threshold, her eyes instantly welling up with tears. Lou braced himself. Here we go. The lecture of a lifetime is incoming.
Instead of a scold, he got a collision. Rachel rushed forward, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. She was shaking, her sobs muffled by his nightshirt.
"Do you have any idea how worried we were, Klein?" she wept. "Gregor and I spent the entire night scouring the district. We thought... we thought the bakery wasn't the end of it."
She pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes, her face a mask of desperation. "Where were you? Where did you go, Klein?"
Lou felt a familiar, cold prickle of guilt.
He'd been lying to this woman since the moment he'd opened his eyes in this body, the "flu" that covered the rope burns on his neck, the visions, the voice in his head.
And now, he was about to do it again.
There was no way she'd believe the truth: that he'd spent the night hunting a Death Spirit and watching a witch get vaporized.
"I was at the docks," Lou said, his voice dropping into a practiced, somber tone. "I just needed air... fresh air."
He hated himself for what he was about to say next.
He forced a haunted, distant expression onto his face. "Mr. Albert... seeing him like that. What was left of him... I couldn't bear it. I just started walking and didn't stop."
Using the old man's death as an alibi felt dirty, but the memory of the explosion that leveled Debra's cottage eased his conscience.
The person who actually killed him is ash now. That counts for something, right?
Rachel's resolve crumbled again, and she pulled him into another suffocating embrace. Over her shoulder, Lou found himself locking eyes with Gregor.
The doctor wasn't crying. He wasn't even smiling. His face was a complete blank, expressionless, clinical, and unnervingly still.
He just stared at Lou with those brown eyes, as if he were trying to peer through Lou's skull to find the lie hiding underneath.
After a long, silent beat, Gregor looked away toward the window. "I'll leave you two to it, then," he said flatly.
What is his deal? Lou wondered. Is he jealous, or does he smell my lie?
They listened to the heavy rhythm of Gregor's footsteps fading down the stairs until the front door clicked shut. Rachel finally pulled back, her tear-streaked face turning serious. She leaned in close, making sure they were truly alone.
"Tell me the truth, Klein," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Did you have a vision? Did you see Albert's death before it happened?"
--------
It had taken a masterful performance to settle Rachel's nerves.
Lou had leaned into the traumatized youth persona, convincing her that the visions had finally gone silent, a mercy, he claimed, after the horrors at the bakery.
He even managed to talk her into taking a day off, spinning a yarn about needing a clear mind to process the grief.
She had squeezed his hand, eyes misty, and told him to take all the time he needed.
She thought he was going to spend the day napping or staring at the garden.
He had other plans.
-------
Two hours later, Lou was standing in front of a building that looked like it was held together by dust and ancient spite.
Inside, row after row of towering wooden shelves groaned under the weight of leather-bound volumes that probably hadn't been touched for a long time.
Behind a scarred oak desk sat a woman who looked like she had been carved out of a particularly grumpy tree.
"Good morning, ma'am," Lou said, trying for his most polite innocent boy voice. "I'm looking for a gentleman who goes by the name William?"
The old woman didn't even blink.
She continued stacking heavy folios with a rhythmic thwack, her face a mask of bored hostility.
Strange, Lou thought, glancing at the card in his pocket. This is definitely the address. Is this a front?
He decided to skip the pleasantries. "Okay, let's try a different approach."
Lou reached into his pocket and flicked the Joker card onto the desk.
The thwacking stopped instantly. The woman froze, her eyes darting to the card with a sudden, sharp suspicion that made her look twenty years younger.
"Where did you get that?" she snapped, her voice like grinding gravel.
"William gave it to me," Lou said, meeting her gaze. "Personally."
She stared at him for a long beat, as if measuring his soul against the ink on the card.
Finally, she jerked a gnarled thumb toward a small, rickety wooden stool in the corner.
"Sit there. Wait. And don't let your fingers wander, boy," she growled. "If a single page goes missing, I'll know. And you won't like how I find out."
She vanished behind a massive shelf, her footsteps silent despite her heavy boots.
A few minutes later, the sound of a hidden latch clicking echoed through the stacks.
The woman emerged, followed by a familiar silhouette. William looked significantly more rested than he had at 2:00 a.m., his coat mended and his mustache perfectly waxed.
He flashed Lou a wide grin. "Ah, Klaus! I didn't expect a house call so soon. I take it those 'extra pences' are calling your name louder than a good night's sleep?"