Chapter 127: The Detectives
An hour after the drowner attack, a funereal silence had fallen over the waterway. The entrance was now a fortress of officialdom, sealed by a cordon of peelers whose dark green uniforms stood out like poison in the gloom. Every access point was blocked, the scene made watertight against the city's prying eyes.
Normally, at this hour, these men would be off-duty, but this was an emergency summons, a grim overtime detail forced upon them by the night's horrors. A sour displeasure hung about them, but not a single man dared let it show on his face.
The reason for their impeccable discipline stood in their midst, a pipe clenched between his teeth like a promise of violence. He was an officer, his uniform a cut above the common cloth, its sleeves, collar, and cap all traced with exquisite gold embroidery that caught the last vestiges of twilight. Upon his shoulder, a shield-shaped crest bore the silver image of a griffin—the sigil of a noble house. His chest, a constellation of medals and ribbons, broadcast a status a world apart from the men who stood in his shadow.
His brow was a knot of fury, his face ashen. In the face of such a foul mood, not a single underling dared to cross him, and so they all feigned an air of the utmost gravity.
Several black, streamlined motorcars, gleaming like beetles, pulled up on the embankment. From them emerged a handful of gentlemen in fine, dark suits. The officer’s grim mask immediately fractured into a practiced smile, and he hurried to greet them. “I have been waiting a long time for you all. I must trouble you with tonight's affair, my esteemed detectives.”
“You are too kind, Officer Rothes,” said a round-faced detective with a magnificent handlebar mustache. “To summon us all at such an hour, it must be an important case, I presume?”
“But of course, otherwise I would not have troubled you. This is a major case, a truly singular one. The situation is… difficult to capture in mere words. You will understand as soon as you see for yourselves.” The officer wasted no more time on pleasantries, his impatience a sharp edge in his voice as he invited them directly to the scene.
The detectives exchanged wary glances. This noble-born officer was normally fond of lengthy, courteous briefings, a man who savored the slow unfurling of a case. His haste tonight was a clanging alarm bell; something terrible had happened.
And these were experienced men. The moment they had arrived, their minds had begun to sift through the ambient information of the scene. The peeler hounds strained at their leashes, their barks a frantic, incessant rhythm directed at the waterway, yet they were terrified, their bodies trembling, unwilling to approach the canal's edge. Some of the surrounding constables were pale, their faces slick with a cold sweat; others looked as if they had just been violently ill. These were hardened men, inured to the city’s routine butcheries. For them to be so shaken spoke of a horror beyond the pale. And beneath it all, a faint, foul odor drifted on the air—a stench the detectives knew all too well. It was the sweet, cloying perfume of rot, the scent of a secret left too long in the dark.
They formed their initial theories, a gallery of grim possibilities, before following the officer down the slick stone steps to the embankment. Peelers were already at work on both sides of the waterway, their lanterns casting long, dancing shadows. As they descended, the stench grew stronger, a physical presence that clung to the back of the throat.
And then they saw it.
“Oh, my God!” As the lantern light swept across the waterway, even these seasoned men, who had made their careers trafficking in the city’s darkest secrets, could not help but hold their breath. A few let out small, choked cries of alarm.
It was the most grotesque and bizarre crime scene any of them had ever witnessed. It could hardly be called a crime scene; it was an abattoir, the ruins of a small, forgotten war.
Corpses lay strewn like broken dolls, a chaotic tableau of death. Blood and black sewage mingled, forming a viscous, unholy river that flowed across the stones. Most of the bodies were mangled, some were pale and bloated as if they had been dredged from the water after weeks of decay, while others were withered and dry as husks, mummies from a forgotten desert tomb. A few had even been picked clean, reduced to stark, white bone.
“What in God’s name happened here?” a young detective asked, his voice a strangled whisper, his face the color of tallow. The others almost wanted to laugh at his naivety. If the officer could answer that question, he would not have summoned them. But after seeing the carnage for themselves, they found they wanted to ask the very same thing.
And to their profound surprise, the officer answered. “According to our preliminary assessment, it appears the undead have attacked this beggars’ gathering place.”
The detectives looked at each other, bewildered. If he already knew that, why call them? And was this what an undead attack was supposed to look like?
“However,” the officer continued, his voice grim, “it seems the paupers of this place rose up and fought back, killing a number of the undead. Then, according to witnesses, they fled the scene.”
“What? Officer Rothes, forgive me if I misheard,” one detective interrupted, his voice sharp with disbelief. “Are you saying that the undead attacked a slum, and were then beaten back by the paupers? And that these paupers escaped alive?”
The detective's incredulity was palpable. The very idea was a violation of the natural order of things. A common person, upon encountering the undead, would be paralyzed with fear, let alone rise up and fight back. A total massacre was the only logical outcome. Unless the undead were impossibly weak—a pair of shambling skeletons, perhaps, that could be overwhelmed by a mob. But the scene before them spoke of a battle of terrible, savage ferocity.
“Yes. The specific circumstances are far more complex. I need you to analyze the scene. And I can tell you this: seven peelers died in this incident. Therefore, this case is of the utmost importance. You must investigate it thoroughly,” the officer said gravely.
Hearing his words, the detectives felt a fresh wave of pressure. They could see several familiar faces among the peelers examining the scene—the force's own criminal investigation experts, men they had cooperated with several times before. They knew these men were highly skilled. While not as versatile as a private investigator, their specialization in analyzing major cases made them formidable in a standard murder investigation.
Unfortunately, this was clearly no ordinary murder case. It was far beyond the scope of anything they normally encountered, and likely beyond the scope of any typical detective's work.
At this point, one of them spoke up. “Officer Rothes, I believe you should be seeking the Lord Mayor's consultant on occult matters, or perhaps requesting aid from the Magician's Council in Madrid, not us. This is truly not our area of expertise.”
“I am but a minor knight,” the officer said, his voice laced with an anxious frustration. “Why would those high-and-mighty magicians listen to my request? The consultant is surely resting. I cannot disturb him until morning at the earliest, but by then, the trail will have gone cold.”
“For now, I can only rely on you, gentlemen. Please, examine the scene. I will provide you with all the information I can. Even the smallest clue would be useful. Mr. Sebastian, I'm counting on you.”
“Very well. We will do our best.” The detective who had spoken nodded. It was Sebastian, the man Parula knew. Having recently provided the key clue in the factory owner's murder, the officer now placed a great deal of trust in him.
The detectives descended into the waterway, pulling on thick gloves and rubber boots. They began their preliminary observation, but as their lanterns cut through the gloom, illuminating one horror after another, they discovered that the situation was far more complex, and far more terrifying, than they had ever imagined.
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