The Carrion's Craft

Chapter 13

Sweat dripped down my back in trickles as I clambered up the cobbled streets of the Inner Step. The district was located in the very heart of the hill, where it was at its steepest and burned even the strongest ankles as those who left work made the taxing trek back home. Horses snorted in protest as carriage drivers cracked their whips and directed them up the road until they were lopsided. 

Eventually we made it to our destination, Hero's Hall. It was an old apartment building made of exposed brick, chipped with time. Unalike the expansive pillars of concrete dotting about the city, this place was different. Perverse and unnatural. It's structure was crooked, standing at an angle as it aligned with the tilting ground. Each building looked the same, from the adjoining structures to the ones upon the tier above, making it look like they were built on top of each other.

"So you knew nothing about this place?" I asked the bird on my wrist. He stared at the building before us with a distant gaze. Every emotion on his feathered head resembled the exact same, and yet from his lack of fidgeting, I could tell that his mind was working overtime to make sense of it all.

"No, anytime Mishava had to head to the city, she went alone. Even when she disappeared, I was out collecting berries and mushrooms. This is all so peculiar, she had a home here all this time?" The height in the pitch of his voice betrayed his composure. How long had he been the witch's familiar? Trusting this woman, only to find out that he was kept deep inside the dark?

"Apparently so. Why don't you have gander through the windows, see if she's home?" The crow nodded and flew up, using my hand like a spring board in an explosion of feathers. I watched him as he hopped against the concrete terraces and leaned his beak against the glass.

Meanwhile, some of the civilians passed me by, a Leprechaun and a Ghoul chuckled to themselves at some unheard joke. On the adjacent side humans glanced at them, a woman jumped at the sudden cheer of a Wisp as he greeted a drinking buddy on the street corner. Paranoia was in the air, the actions of the powers that be had driven a wedge in our city. The serial killer's choice to target humans was spreading a terrible message to the survivors, and now a one-sided fear was elapsing.

The flapping of wings and the pinch on my arm brought me back to the present mission. "I didn't see anyone there, but I did find her effigies." His nasally voice whispered in my ear."

"That's good. Keep a look out for me." I said, my legs carried me towards the road and through the gaps between the roaming carriages. Iric agreed and took up his vantage at the window once more, whilst I entered through the front door. I wondered what would become of the crow if we found evidence about the witch. Maybe he and Simon would go back to Breana together? Though it seemed to me that such magical creatures like himself were as welcome there as they were here. 

I had to shrug the thought away as I entered a decrepit entryway with cracked walls and mud stained tile floors. A cockroach, red and slimy, scuttled past my foot mid-step as a tinny voice spoke through a radio sitting upon the surface of a nook inside the room. A dishevelled human, maskless within the confines of the building, leaned out of the wall and greeted, "'Ello, sir." The man's jowls jiggled under his chin. As I approached, he shrunk back into his office.

 "A gathering is taking place here, down in the Mud Realm this evening to protest..." The reporter's voice sounded like Arvik Jerson's, but it died away before I could identify it proper. When my eyes found the guard once more, his pudgy fingers were around the volume dial of the machine, tuning the news down until it spoke in a hissed whisper. "Got caught by the mob?" The man asked, nodding to the pink bruises on my face.

A question must have emerged along my features as the man's moustache bristled into an explanation. Supposedly a large crowd of humans were organising a march through the city in protest of the Hunt's lack of updates regarding the Soul Snatcher. I guess they didn't believe that the killer had been apprehended either. So why the protest? I voiced my inquiry.