Rain slicked the cobblestones, sluicing last night's sins into the gutters.
But some stains never washed clean.
Above the streets, the newspapers screamed louder than the corpses they trampled.
Every headline read like a prayer, thinly veiled by accusation:
SPIRAL KILLERS STRIKE AGAIN.
NO WITNESSES.
NO MERCY.
Hargreave leaned against a crumbling alley wall, cigarette burning low between his fingers, watching the city unravel.
He didn't bother to step inside Scotland Yard today.
There was nothing left for him there.
Not rules.
Not justice.
Only the Spiral, twisting tighter with every breath.
Carmen Vale watched the same city from the flat above the undertaker's shop.
She rested her gloved hands on the cracked windowsill, poised like a queen surveying the wreckage of a battlefield she had already claimed.
Behind her, Julian lounged in the half-light, silently reading the same newspapers she had memorized at dawn.
By the hearth, Vivienne lingered, notebook forgotten in her lap, trying to vanish into the furniture.
None of them spoke.
There was nothing left to discuss.
Only inevitability to endure.
By nightfall, the Spiral had multiplied.
It bled across the city like a virus.
Chalk spirals bloomed on crumbling brick walls.
Rough warnings scrawled beneath market stalls.
Symbols smeared across the sides of police wagons.
The city wasn't simply afraid anymore.
It was obsessed.
The Spiral wasn't a threat now.
It was a religion.
They moved at midnight.
Carmen wore black from throat to boots, an arrow through the city's heart.
Julian pulled on a pair of blood-red gloves — a private joke she didn't need explained.
Vivienne drifted behind them like smoke, clinging to the shadows.
They weren't hunting tonight.
Not exactly.
They were planting seeds.
The first pawn was waiting near the docks.
A boy — no more than sixteen — swaggered beneath the broken lamplights, jacket too thin for the cold, confidence too cheap to last.
He spotted them before they spoke.
Bragged about the spirals he had painted.
Bragged about the deaths he hadn't caused but gladly claimed.
He thought he was part of something.
He thought he mattered.
Carmen smiled at him — soft, indulgent.
Julian stood silent, a pillar of red hands and darker promises.
Vivienne shifted uncomfortably, her face half-hidden beneath her hood.
They let the boy talk.
They let him wrap the rope around his own neck.
Then Carmen leaned close and whispered something that made him stumble, made the bragging catch in his throat like broken glass.
By the time they left him, he would have done anything they asked.
Painted anything.
Burned anything.
Betrayed anyone.
Back at the flat, Carmen washed her gloves with steady hands.
Vivienne watched from the hearth, silent, hugging her journal like a child clinging to a raft in deep water.
Julian tossed his red gloves into the fire, laughing as they blackened and twisted in the flames.
The city outside pulsed like a wound refusing to scab.
The Spiral wasn't finished.
It was only just beginning.
And Vivienne—sweet, fragile Vivienne—had no idea how close she stood to the edge.
No idea how fast she would fall when her use ran dry.
Carmen smiled faintly at the thought, the firelight catching the glint in her eyes.
Everything had its season.
And every season had its harvest.