Chapter 119: The Peelers’ Inquiry
“What? Peelers?” I fought down the rising tide of mana in my body—a frantic, boiling sea, and stumbled to the entrance. Outside, the world was bleeding into dusk. Many of the poor had already emerged from their hovels, nervously watching the entrance to the waterway. In the dying, golden-red light of the sunset, the sharp, dark green uniforms of the men descending into our waterway stood out like shards of poison glass.
Bloody hell! It really was them.
Seven or eight peelers, moving with a predator’s confidence, came down the slick stone steps. Bartholomew was already there, his hulking form hunched in a posture of nervous deference, his words a useless, placating murmur. They brushed past him as if he were a piece of furniture and began their inspection of the outermost hovels.
“Brother Jared, didn’t you say they never come into the slums?” I asked, my voice a tight, panicked whisper. Our little cavern was a gallery of damning evidence: the freshly brewed potion, its arcane scent still clinging to the air; my stack of notes, covered in a script no one in this world should know.
And the rest. The witch’s grimoire. The dagger that had tasted her life’s blood. The potion ingredients. If they searched us, any one of those things would be enough to send me to the pyre.
“I don’t know! I’ve never seen them come this deep before!” Jared’s voice was laced with a panic that mirrored my own. He was still just a boy, his experience a thin shield against this kind of official, sanctioned menace.
“Sir, didn’t I already pay this month’s protection fee?” Bartholomew whined, trotting at the lead peeler’s elbow. “Was it not enough?” The swaggering gang leader of a moment ago now looked like a wronged, whimpering wife. His lackeys had been herded from their dens and were being lined up against the damp wall, forced to submit to a search. They were actually searching them. Oh no, we were finished.
“Hmph. Things are different now,” the peeler said, his voice hard as iron. “Something big has happened. We have our orders from on high. This case must be solved. That detective said the clues might lead here. Bartholomew, you’d best be clean, or I can’t protect you.”
“Of course, of course! How could I be any trouble? You know me, sir. I just do a bit of small business. I would never do anything big!” Bartholomew pleaded.
“It’s not your usual petty dealings! It’s something bigger. You’d best cooperate,” the peeler demanded, his eyes scanning the row of sullen, fearful faces. “Tell me, has anything strange happened among you recently? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Strange… a few days ago, a few of our men disappeared in the morning, just vanished. No one saw where they went. We still haven’t found them,” Bartholomew offered.
“I’m not asking you about such commonplace matters,” the peeler said with a sneer of impatience. “A few men gone missing, that happens every day. I’m asking if you’ve seen anything… unnatural. Supernatural.”
“Supernatural?” Bartholomew’s face went pale, a mask of pure terror. “You mean… wizards, witches? I’ve seen nothing of the sort! Absolutely nothing!”
“And you lot?” The peeler’s gaze swept over the lackeys. “Have any of you seen anything strange? There’s a reward for useful information!” He knew, of course, that these scoundrels, these rats who scurried through every dark corner of the city, were often the keepers of its most valuable secrets.
“Um, right, that hovel over there,” a ruffian suddenly piped up, his grimy finger pointing directly at our alcove. “It often gives off a strange light. And I think I heard a scream. And just now, a strange, sweet smell came from it.”
Damn it! I wanted to curse. I had no quarrel with this man; I didn’t even know him. Why was he pointing his finger at us? The drawbacks of living in the slums were becoming clearer by the second. There was no privacy, not even a door. Anything you did could be seen by prying, jealous eyes.
“Damn it! It’s Bass,” Jared cursed, his voice a furious whisper. “He wanted to move into our hovel before. I refused him several times. He wants to get us killed!” So it was jealousy. Simple, murderous greed.
But it was too late for that now. The peelers’ attention had turned to us. My heart leaped into my throat. It was too late to run; they had already noticed us. And we had no time to dispose of the evidence. If we were discovered, we would be hunted through every street and alley of this city.
Even though the peelers thought the report wasn't a big deal, likely just a minor issue meant to settle a personal score, since it was so close, they figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out.
As a peeler started to walk towards us, his face a mask of bored suspicion, my heart went cold. My path as a witch had barely begun, and already I was trapped. I couldn’t think of a single lie that could save us.
“Officer!” To my astonishment, Jared stepped forward to meet him, bowing respectfully. His posture was clumsy, but his deference was genuine enough to make the peeler pause.
“Hmm? Someone said there was a strange light coming from here. Is that true?”
“Yes, I have indeed seen something strange. Something unnatural.” I couldn’t believe it. Jared had admitted it. He put on an expression of eager, almost breathless excitement, the look of a boy with a grand secret to tell.
A guilty conscience makes a man furtive. And most of the lower class met the peelers with a look of either hatred or fear. Someone like Jared, so proactive and enthusiastic, was a rarity. The peeler, intrigued, concluded that he must truly know something.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“That waterway. Water flows out of it,” Jared said, pointing to the edge of the canal.
“Are you making a fool of me?!” the peeler roared. Water in a river, flowing. What could be more normal?
“No, no, officer, please let me explain. It’s not the normal kind of downward flow. It flows upwards,” Jared said, his voice a torrent of earnest explanation. “The water climbs from the river, up the stone slabs to the bank. And it continues to flow outwards.”
“That… is indeed a bit unusual,” the peeler conceded, his anger giving way to a grudging curiosity. He looked at the canal; the water was a good half-meter below the bank. For it to flow upwards was not normal. “You’re not making this up, are you?”
“No, it only flows out in one spot. We even found a handprint in the wet marks left by the water. And the men who disappeared a few days ago, there were also water marks near them, leading to the river,” Jared said. He was weaving my visions into his tale, a desperate, brilliant tapestry of lies. He was hoping to divert the peeler’s attention, to keep him from searching our hovel.
“This…” The peeler walked to the edge of the river to observe, his back to us. He could only see the black, greasy water flowing by. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Taking the opportunity, Jared turned to me. “Parula, quickly tidy up the room, at least… hmm?”
He stopped, his head cocked to one side. A strange, prickling sensation ran down my own spine.
“It seems… something very evil is approaching,” Jared whispered, his voice tight with a new kind of fear. “It’s about to come out!”
I looked out at the waterway. The sweet, cloying fragrance of the potion had drifted out from our hovel, and now it hung over the black water like a shroud, a silent, fragrant invitation to the things that lurked in the deep.
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