On any given night in Bharncair, you’ll find a drunkard preaching to a gutter rat, a chem-fiend confessing sins to a cuttlefish, or a leper sharing secrets with a corpse-fattened gull. They speak in slurred riddles, whispered conspiracies, and laughter wet with blood.

  The beasts listen patiently, for in this City of Plagues, only vermin and the dead have time to spare.

  And sometimes—just sometimes—the beasts answer back.

  – From ‘Tales of the Muck-Mad’ by Veric Holloway, Chronicler of the Unwell

  The night streets of Bharncair stretched before them in a maze of filth and flickering gaslight, but Gael barely paid attention to them. None of them did.

  His boots scuffed over damp cobblestones as he led the girls north, his mind floating pleasantly in that warm, buzzing haze that came from just the right mix of cheap liquor and reckless decision-making. Oh, he needed to be a little drunk to do what he was about to do, because he definitely wasn’t going to be caught breaking and entering in sound mind.

  If I’m getting caught, I’d rather be too drunk to care when they bash my skull in.

  It was certainly suspicious, three young lads and lasses sneaking across the city at this hour of night, but nobody stopped them. Nobody saw them vaulting over a shoddy wall of fences onto private property. About an hour’s walk away from the clinic, they started climbing an inclined, muddy slope in the middle of a forest, weaving through dark trees and wet marshes until the ground suddenly dipped away in front of them.

  The three of them crouched at the edge of a crater, peering down as the forest opened up into a giant clearing around them.

  A cemetery lay sprawled below them, nestled inside a giant crater two hundred meters wide. It was a dead pit of about two thousand cracked tombstones scattered across a pale, sickly green meadow, all wreathed in mist, not a single gaslamp in sight. Right in the center of the cemetery, a three-storey-high mansion sat in eerie silence—and it was a hulking, decaying thing, its windows black and empty. Half of its pointy roofs were caved in, and there were more moss, vines, and glowing fungi infesting the brick walls than there were growing in the corners of their clinic.

  It was abandoned. Or not well taken care of. The iron-barred fences surrounding the mansion may be standing tall, and the front gate leading up to the mansion may be flanked by an overgrown cobblestone path, but even from a distance, Gael could tell he didn’t have to be a little drunk to break in easily.

  Now, Gael had been here many times before to pick flowers and herbs from the cemetery below, but Maeve—knelt beside him—was flicking her sharp eyes across the crater, her face tight with awe.

  Cara noticed.

  “This is the Fellstar Cemetery,” she explained, her voice hushed. “The Inquisitors of the Church say that ages ago, a Dark Star fell from the Black Beyond and landed right there.” She pointed down at the mansion in the distance. “They say the Dark Star made this crater. It turned the earth soft and fertile, easy to manipulate, so the people of Bharncair decided it’d be a good place to bury their dead. They say if you’re buried here—”

  “You’d be reborn as a Dark Star amongst the Black Beyond and float right back up to the sky,” Gael muttered, swinging his satchel off his back as he started rummaging inside for his tools. “Pretty story, but it’s a load of bull. People die when people die, and the only ones who go on are the ones doing the burying.”

  Cara rolled her eyes. “But that is the legend, and it’s no more improbable than the fact that the bioarcane exists, and so do the wretched Nightspawn that brought it here in the first place.”

  “Bah.”

  Maeve frowned, still staring down into the mist-laden graveyard. “But if it’s such a sacred cemetery, then why does it look like no one’s been here in decades?”

  “Because ain’t nobody gives a rat’s ass about being reborn into the Black Beyond anymore,” Gael said simply. “Folklore fades, legends wane, and people dump their dead wherever there’s room.”

  “Or burn them,” Cara added.

  “Or eat them,” Gael finished, winking at Maeve. “The Repossessors would certainly argue corpses are better off in people’s bellies than put into the ground.”

  Maeve shuddered. Gael only grinned, stretching his arms behind his head as he swept his gaze over the cemetery. The exiled baron’s mansion was certainly dark and lifeless. There weren’t any torches, no candlelight, no gaslight, no movement inside the windows. Not a single soul in sight.

  “And well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “The rumors might just be true. The old baron really did dismiss all of his guards. He’s probably sick and dying and wants to be left alone.” His smile widened as he turned to grin back at the girls. “Which is exactly why we ain’t gonna leave him the fuck alone.”

  Maeve looked unconvinced. She shifted where she knelt, arms crossed, the lines of her mouth tight, and it was clear as day she was still feeling a bit on edge. Gael couldn’t have that in the middle of a robbery, so he sighed, reaching into the back of his jacket.

  “And you’re tense like a rusty spring in a rat trap,” he grumbled, pulling out a bottle of alcohol and holding it up. The label gleamed faintly in the moonlight: ‘52% alcohol’. He gave it a little shake. “Here. I ain’t gonna charge you for a few swigs. This’ll take the edge off—”

  Cara whacked him on the back of his head. “Don’t make her drink that.”

  “It’s barely a drink. Fifty-two percent is a child’s drink. Why, I almost feel bad giving this watered-down shit to her. It’s like I’m giving milk of the sunborn to a baby goat—”

  “Stop it.” Maeve ignored them, eyeing the fences below. “How, exactly, are we sneaking past those? Even if there aren’t any guards, we don’t want the old baron to discover us, right? And won’t there be traps to stop people like us from breaking in?”

  Gael’s grin sharpened. “True. And we all know childrenless old men love making traps in their own front yard when they’ve got nothing better to do, but you’re right. We ain’t gonna break in from the ground.”

  With that, he reached into his satchel and—with an almost giddy excitement—pulled out one of his toys: a bulky, custom-made harpoon gun, its polished rectangular barrel gleaming.

  “We’re flying over those damned fences,” he smacked the side of the harpoon gun with a grin, “by sliding down on this beauty.”

  Cara gave him a long, weary look. “And pray tell, dearest brother, why is it that you have such a firearm in your possession?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “How much did you spend on it?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “When did you buy it?”

  “Years ago, when I was trying to rob the Hoarder’s Ban… look—” he said hurriedly, holding up his palms as Cara threatened to whack him again. “We’ve got two shots. Two firing cartridges.” He patted the side of the gun where a small square cartridge poked out the side of the barrel, finger on the trigger. “This thing’s gas-powered, three hundred Marks a piece, capable of launching a cabled harpoon over a hundred meters. The harpoon itself is cheap shit, so it’s fine if we miss the first shot while we’re practising our aim, but if we miss the second shot, we’ll be the ones in deep shi—”

  Something rustled in the bushes next to them, making the girls jump and making him whirl on it, pulling the trigger at the exact same time.

  Poof. Whizz. The harpoon flew straight and true, stabbing into the earth next to an adorably meaty bunny with fur green as gulch-washed moss.

  The bunny tilted its head at them in confusion.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Then it ran off into the forest while the spent cartridge ejected from the harpoon barrel with a soft pop, leaking viscous black fluid into the earth.

  The silence stretched. Nobody said a thing, nobody moved a single. There were only the faint thrums of the metal cable still vibrating between the harpoon and the barrel.

  After a long moment, Gael glanced around and lifted a single finger, grinning at the girls. “Still got one shot—”

  Cara raked a claw across her throat as though saying ‘I’ll kill you’, but Maeve simply narrowed her eyes. “Let me do it. I’m the Hunter to your Host. I’ve been trained to use all types of weapons, and while I haven’t handled a harpoon gun before, it seems similar enough to the bolt anchor gun I’ve been allowed to fire once before.”

  Gael snorted as he started yanking the cable and the harpoon back, having to give it a good tug to dislodge it from the earth. “Oh, so now you wanna play with it? You’re the Hunter to my Host, but of all the weapons you could’ve picked, you fight with a damn umbrella—”

  Maeve snatched the gun from him, scowling, and he scowled back as he continued reeling the cable in. As she shouldered the bulky gun, adjusting her grip, he hovered beside her.

  “Not like that. Keep your elbows steady—”

  “Shut up,” Maeve muttered, eyeing the sight.

  “Yeah, shut up,” Cara echoed.

  Gael raised his hands in mock surrender.

  Maeve took a slow breath, then pulled the trigger.

  The harpoon shot through the air, dragging the seemingly endless cable behind it, and after what felt like a good ten seconds of travel time, punctured a weak section of the mansion’s roof. A soft crack echoed as a portion of the rotted wood gave way, collapsing inward.

  They all stiffened, eyes locked on the manor.

  Still nothing. No guards, no movement. No reaction to the sound Just that eerie, unbroken silence.

  Gael snatched his gun back and gave it a final shove toward Cara, shrugging. “Maybe the old baron is asleep. Or dead. Either way, he won’t mind a few uninvited guests.”

  With that, he flicked his cane to his belt and slung his arms around Maeve’s waist tightly.

  The Exorcist stiffened immediately. “What… are you doing?”

  “Holding on for dear life,” he said, grinning. “You’re the stronger one, yeah? The tough, trained Hunter? You’ll slide down that cable with the curved handle of your umbrella, and I—the humble, fragile, back-alley Plagueplain Doctor—will cling to you for dear life.”

  “Fucking idiot,” Cara, busy jamming the harpoon into the dirt as an anchor, mumbled behind them. “You bought a harpoon gun, but you didn’t buy anything that’d let you slide down the cable?”

  Gael scowled. “Well, I didn’t exactly have the Marks to buy proper gear, now did I? You think clothes hangers and hooks just grow on trees? I already spent loads of Marks buying this thing a few years ago, and that was when I first found Croaky dying in our back alley as well, so what’d you think I'd prioritized back then? Hooks or food and medicine for Croaky?”

  Cara paused and slowly turned. “What?”

  “Croaky. The backyard aphrodisiac frog. Come on, you know him. I gave him the brain destroyer once and—”

  Maeve groaned, whipped her briefcase into its umbrella form, hooked the curved handle onto the wire, and started walking towards the edge of the crater.

  “Stay here, sis, and make sure the harpoon doesn’t fall off the cliff,” he said, grinning at Cara. “And don’t follow us unless you hear a ruckus inside the mansion, in which case, come save our asses with a sandal or somethahhhhh—”

  He yelped as they plummeted for a very, very brief second, gripping her waist so tight he was sure there were going to be bruises come tomorrow morning. The night wind howled past them. His coat flapped wildly. They slid a good ten meters down the cable before they jerked to a sudden, stomach-lurching halt, and then there they were.

  Suspended.

  Thirty meters above the cemetery.

  “...This,” Maeve muttered, voice tight with barely contained resentment, “is the single most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”

  “The most ridiculous thing you’ve done so far,” he corrected, craning his neck up. The umbrella handle wasn’t sliding smoothly down the cable. It’d caught on something, grinding against the metal like a rusted pulley. “I think the wire’s cheap.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Well, just wiggle your way down.”

  “Oh, I’ll wiggle alright.”

  She started swinging the umbrella back and forth, the handle creaking as the two of them slowly scraped down the cable.

  With nothing to really do on his end, Gael looked down. The Vile and some other ghostly white mist coiled over the gravestones beneath them, pooling in the crater like a sea of fog. His stomach churned unpleasantly.

  “You know,” he said, cackling nervously, “I didn’t realize this before, but I think I might just have a minor fear of heights.”

  Maeve grumbled and heaved, sweat beading down her forehead as she continued working the umbrella down. “I don’t.”

  “Yes, yes, I know you don’t. You shot yourself into the bloody air to shoot that Myrmur down last night.” Slowly, carefully, he unwrapped one arm from her waist and reached into the back of his cloak for a bottle of alcohol. He popped the cork with his thumb and took a long, heavy swig, swallowing down the tightness in his throat while Maeve scowled and tried to kick him. “Which is why, after we rob this mansion, the first thing I’m buying is some proper railings for the stairs between the surgical chamber and the prayer hall. One of these days, I’m gonna tumble down drunk and die unceremoniously.”

  Maeve scoffed. “There are better uses for those Marks. Just stop drinking.”

  “You want me to die?”

  “I want you to… what?”

  “What better use is there for Marks apart from upgrading the clinic and bettering the quality of my life?”

  Maeve was quiet for a moment, thinking. The night wind rattled against them, and the cable groaned under their weight.

  Then, softer than usual, she murmured, “I’d like to eat two warm meals a day.”

  Gael tilted his head slightly.

  “Like in Miss Alba’s noodle shop,” she continues, voice distant, as if picturing it. “Real meals. Not just whatever we can scavenge or steal. I’d like a proper bed, too. Not a cot, not a pile of blankets, a real bed, with a mattress so thick you just sink into it.” Her grip on the umbrella tightened. “Maybe even a bath in the clinic that actually stays warm for longer than five minutes. And a chair that doesn’t creak in the surgical chamber. And…”

  She exhaled, almost embarrassed.

  “I dunno,” she mumbled. “Nice things. Comfortable things. Things better than rum and mead to drown your sorrows with.”

  Gael didn’t say anything at first.

  After a beat, he nodded.

  “Nah,” he said plainly. “Booze is better.”

  And when Maeve looked down at him as though she wanted to say something—the cable wobbled strangely.

  Gael blinked.

  Maeve blinked.

  They both tensed.

  Then he glanced back a few meters, and his stomach dropped.

  A few ravens had landed on the cable behind them, their iron beaks clicking and pecking the metal strands, the sounds sharp against the cold night air.

  “… Tch.” He turned as much as he could, yanked out his cane, and started waving it at them. “Oi, black-beaked bitches. Fuck off. Stop doing that.”

  One of the ravens lifted its head and cawed at him. “Fuck you!”

  He clicked his tongue again. “Fuck you. The hell are you messing with me for?”

  “And who the hell are you talking to?” Maeve whispered.

  “The bloody birds!” He waved his cane more aggressively. “Oi! Shoo! Go pester someone else before I turn you into stew!”

  The ravens merely shifted on the cable, talons scraping against metal before they started cawing their names one after the other.

  “Winston!” cawed the first.

  “Marlowe!” cawed the second.

  “Balthazar!” cawed the third. “Together, we are the mischievous three, and when we arrive, calamity do be!”

  He hummed, looking up to nod seriously at Maeve. “Absolute bastards, as you can tell, but ravens do make excellent conversationalists. They’re better than frogs, at least.”

  Maeve blinked again. “Are you drunk or drugged out of your mind?” she hissed. “Who are you talking to?”

  “The ravens.”

  “What?”

  “Meet Wintston, Marlowe, and Balthazar, the mischievous three—”

  “—I don’t care what their names are—”

  “No you don’t, so stop dawdling and get a move on.”

  Maeve growled and swung her umbrella harder, faster. Her arms were shaking now, exhaustion creeping in, and Gael’s grip on her waist was starting to slip as well.

  The cable groaned behind them as the raven continued pecking at the metal strands.

  “Faster, Exorcist!” he snapped.

  “Don’t rush me, Doctor!” she snapped back. “If you’re so good at this, why don’t you get up here and—”

  Another creak.

  Then, a snap.

  The cable broke behind them, and they started plummeting five meters from the mansion’s roof. For his part, he didn’t do much but scream in absolute terror, but Maeve had the sensibility to hold on tight for the both of them—and then they smashed through a second-floor window.

  Maeve landed perfectly. Gael? He let go of her waist, barreled into a cupboard, crashed onto the floor, rolled, bounced up, wobbled slightly, readjusted his top hat, and clanked his cane against the floor for dramatic effect.

  Silence.

  A musty old hallway loomed around them, dark and still. No alarms. No shouts. No sign that anyone even noticed the absolute chaos they’d just caused.

  Gael exhaled slowly, then forcefully slapped Maeve’s palm with a triumphant low-five.

  “Successful infiltration,” he declared, grinning madly. “Now onto the vault.”

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