Since he finished looting, he proceeded to close the chest.
The finality of the click as the chest's lock re-engaged was a satisfying sound. Lutz looked down at the dark wood and polished metal box, now just a container again, its secrets plundered except for the family crest. For a moment, he considered taking the whole thing with him. It's a pretty nice fucking chest. But it was also heavy, conspicuous, and ultimately, just a box. The value was in the contents, not the container. Pragmatism, as always, won out.
He lowered it back into the hollow space beneath the floorboards, the compartment seeming to swallow it whole. He replaced the puzzle-piece floorboard, pressing it down until it sat flush with its neighbors. He laid the worn rug back over it, carefully smoothing the edges. Then, he gripped the nightstand, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunching with effortless strength, and slid it back into its precise, original position. The grooved tracks it had left in the floorboards were now hidden, the rug's flattened fibers the only testament to its recent movement. He took a step back, his eyes scanning the area. Perfect. It looked as if it had never been disturbed.
Just another ghost in a house full of them, he thought, turning away.
He moved through the dark house, a shadow retracing its steps. In the bedroom doorway, he paused, key in hand. He locked the door from the outside, the mechanism turning with a solid, final thunk. Yevgeny Andariel's private sanctum was once again closed, its master never to return.
The journey through the rest of the house was swift and silent. He didn't bother with the lights, his Marauder-acquired night vision and heightened senses guiding him around furniture, his feet making no sound on the polished floors. He reached the front entrance, checking the peephole before cracking the door open. The street was empty, cloaked in the dark twilight of late night. He slipped out, pulling the door shut behind him. The key turned in the heavy lock, another definitive click that severed his connection to the place. He was just a man leaving a house, invisible in the darkness.
The walk back to 17 Vesper Lane was a journey of hyper-awareness. Every distant clatter of a carriage, every snatch of conversation from a lit window, every footfall that wasn't his own put his nerves on edge.
He stuck to the shadows, his dark clothing making him a part of the night itself. His mind, however, was a whirlwind of calculations and cold analysis. One hundred and fifty-one Hammers. The Filip venture is no longer a life-or-death gamble. It's just… a venture. The relief was a physical sensation, a loosening of a tight band around his chest he'd grown so accustomed to he'd almost forgotten it was there.
He reached the familiar facade of 17 Vesper Lane. A quick, surreptitious glance up and down the street confirmed he was unobserved. He let himself in, the well-oiled lock turning with a whisper. The interior was dark and silent, smelling of beeswax polish and the faint, floral scent of soap. A sliver of light was absent from under the kitchen door; she had indeed gone to bed.
Good. No explanations needed.
He moved through the familiar rooms like a phantom, his own footsteps the only sound. Up the stairs, into his bedroom. He closed the door behind him, leaning against it for a moment, allowing the solid, normal reality of his own space to sink in.
He began to undress, methodically removing the uniform of his other occupation. The dark, practical tunic and trousers, smelling faintly of dust and the peculiar, ashen scent of Yevgeny's house. The tough leather gloves. Finally, he unbuckled the armament harness, the leather straps sighing as he lifted it over his head. The weight of his gear left his body, and he felt simultaneously lighter and more vulnerable.
Stripped down to his breeches, he donned his house clothes, wich had been washed by Eliza to remove the blood from the fight with Yevgeny, he gathered the dark clothes, the gloves, and the harness in one hand, and hefted the leather bag of loot in the other. It was time to put it all away.
He opened the basement door, the faint scent of damp stone, ozone, and alchemical reagents wafting up to meet him. He descended the narrow wooden stairs, the darkness absolute until he reached the bottom and lit the gas lamp. It flickered to life, casting a harsh, unforgiving light on his unfinished sanctuary.
He first went to a small table bolted to the wall. He lay down the dark clothing, it would be ready for the next time. The gloves went on a shelf. Then, he carefully laid the armament harness on the main workbench, the artifacts resting beside it. Creed's blade gleamed wickedly under the light, and Night's Melody seemed to absorb it, the Whistle-flute appearing as a slit in the world.
His focus then shifted to the centerpiece of his security: the safe. He knelt before it, the coolness of the metal seeping through his breeches. With a heavy clunk, the bolt retracted, and he swung the thick door open.
There was the large glass jar, its interior a seething, faintly glowing mass of Soul-Confusing Insect Swarm. They pulsed with a lazy, cryptic energy coming from their illusory single-eyes.
Next to it, the case containing the Dream-eating Rat's Heart, there was also the Beyonder Characteristic from Boris, and beside it, the latest addition until tonight: Yevgeny's characteristic, the small, twisted dark horn.
There were also the 7 Gold Hammers, a pitiful remnant of his former wealth, now about to be swallowed by a new hoard.
He began the process of transferring his newfound wealth, both material and mystical.
First, he lifted the adorned leather case. He didn't open it again; he didn't need to see the crystallized, weeping red eye to feel its psychic weight. He placed it carefully inside the safe, next to Yevgeny's horn. Two characteristics from the same pathway, one from a Sequence 8, one for a Sequence 7.
'Actually, i better not place them too close to each other' He then moved the new characteristic away from Yevgeny's.
The vial of 200ml of Blood-eyed Goat Blood. It was dark, thick, and seemed to cling to the sides of the glass vial as he moved it. He set it upright in a small rack within the safe. Then, the 10 locks of hair, each bound by an elastic band, and there was a string that bound all 10 together, it was disgusting. They were of varying colors and textures. He placed the bundle beside the vial.
Finally, it was time for the money. He upended the leather bag onto the workbench next to the safe. The cascade of gold and silver was a glorious, riotous noise in the quiet basement. The Hammers, the Shields, the few copper Pfennige—they formed a disordered pile of potential. He spent the next three minutes in a state of focused meditation, sorting and counting. Stacking the Gold Hammers into neat columns, grouping the silver shields, corralling the coppers. The final tally was as he'd estimated, but seeing it laid out so concretely was different.
151 Gold Hammers. 15 Silver Shields. 9 Copper Pfennige.
He carefully swept his original 7 Hammers into the new pile, integrating the old with the new. Then, he began transferring the fortune into the safe. He filled the space that had once held only a few items. The gold coin stacks took up most of the room, pressing against the jars and cases. It was a tight fit, a tangible representation of his drastically improved circumstances.
When the last coin was inside, he looked at the safe's interior. It was no longer a sparse collection of strange artifacts.
He closed the heavy safe door, the sound a deep, resonant boom that seemed to shake the very foundations of the house. The lock turned with a series of solid, satisfying clicks. He rested his forehead against the cold iron for a moment, the metal a grounding presence.
'That feels nice...'
The financial abyss had been stepped back from. He had bought himself time and resources, but in doing so, he had also stacked kindling at his feet.
For a moment, Lutz simply remained kneeling, his forehead pressed against the cool, rough iron. In the profound silence of the basement, another reality asserted itself, one he could no longer ignore.
It was a sound, a low, persistent hiss, like a nest of serpents breathing in unison. And with it came the smell. He had been consciously filtering it out, relegating it to the background noise of his mind while he dealt with the more pressing matters of gold and power. But now, with those tasks complete, the odor flooded his senses, thick and caustic. It was the stink of vinegar amplified a thousandfold, undercut by a sweet, meaty foulness that clawed at the back of his throat—the smell of accelerated, chemical rot.
He pushed himself to his feet and turned to face the corner.
The large stoneware crock sat there, a mundane, almost rustic object utterly betrayed by its contents. A faint, sickly vapor wafted from its rim. The hissing emanated from within, a sibilant promise of dissolution. This was Yevgeny Andariel's final resting place. Not a grave, not a pyre, but a vat of hungry acid.
"That's fucked up," Lutz muttered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. It was the only epitaph the man would get.
He walked to a shelf lined with chemical reagents, his movements slow. He selected a large, waxed-paper sack of sodium bicarbonate. The simple, domestic nature of the substance felt absurdly out of place. This is for baking. The thought was so ludicrous he almost laughed, but the sound would have been too ugly for the quiet basement.
He approached the crock with the reverence of a priest attending a blasphemous altar. Peering over the edge, he saw it. The acid, a mixture of sulfuric and peroxide, had done its job with brutal efficiency. Yevgeny was gone. In his place was a thick, viscous slurry, the color of over-stewed meat and rust. Bubbles of gas percolated slowly to the surface, popping with a soft, wet sound and releasing a fresh wave of that nauseating sweet-sour stench. There were no discernible features, no bone fragments, just a homogenous, churning stew.
"Nothing personal," Lutz whispered to the slurry, the phrase hollow and automatic. It was a lie, of course. It had been intensely personal. It had been his life or Yevgeny's. But staring into this chemical soup, the concept of "personal" felt meaningless. This was just… cleanup. The final, messy chore after a necessary but unpleasant job.
He tore open the sack. The white, crystalline powder looked innocuous. He began to pour it in, a slow, steady stream, his arm moving with a mechanic's precision.
The reaction was immediate and violent.
The hissing intensified into a furious, roaring fizz, like a thousand angry insects. The placid red surface erupted into a foaming, bubbling frenzy, a pinkish-white head swelling up and nearly overflowing the crock's rim. The smell shifted, the acidic bite receding, replaced by a salty, alkaline scent that fought a losing battle against the underlying stench of cooked viscera. Lutz stepped back, watching the chemical battle play out. It was a miniature war in a clay pot, the base fighting the acid, neutralizing its destructive potential, pacifying the violent medium that had consumed a human being.
He waited, his senses alert, until the furious foaming subsided. The hissing faded, dropping in pitch from a roar to a sigh, and then into silence. The pink foam collapsed back into the thick liquid, which now looked darker, more mud-like.
Cautiously, he dipped the tip of his finger into the cool, still surface of the liquid. He held it there for a count of three, then pulled it out. His skin was unmarked. No burning, no tingling. Just a faint, greasy residue. The acid was dead.
The next part was pure, brute labor. He gripped the crock on either side. It was impossibly, leadenly heavy. Grunting with the strain, his back muscles screaming in protest, he lifted. His enhanced strength was the only thing that made it possible. He shuffled towards the stairs, each step a careful, agonizing negotiation with gravity. The liquid sloshed thickly inside, a sound that would haunt his ears.
He made it up the narrow staircase, his world reduced to the weight in his hands and the next step. He navigated through the dark house, a grotesque parody of a servant carrying a midnight snack. He set the crock down with a heavy thud in front of the main door, his arms trembling with fatigue. He straightened up, panting, his shirt sticking to his back with cold sweat.
He cracked the door open, just a sliver, and peered out. The world outside was submerged in the deepest hour of the night. 3:43 AM. The street was a canyon of shadows and silence. The gas lamps cast small, lonely pools of jaundiced light on the cobblestones, but the spaces between them were pools of absolute black. There was no movement, no sound except for the distant, mournful cry of a train whistle. The city was asleep.
His target was there, just across the street and a dozen yards down: a cast-iron manhole cover, dark and nondescript. The entrance to the city's rudimentary and primitive sewers, recently implemented by the Church of Steam.
"Now or never," he breathed, the words forming a small cloud in the chill air.
This was the most vulnerable moment. He would be exposed, out in the open, carrying the evidence of his crime. He took a deep breath, held it, and then moved.
He lifted the crock again, the effort even more Herculean now that adrenaline was warring with exhaustion. He hurried across the cobblestones, his footsteps unnaturally loud in the silence. Every shadow seemed to watch him; every darkened window felt like a staring eye. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the city's quiet. It felt like it took an eternity, but it was probably only twenty seconds before he reached the manhole.
He set the crock down next to it with a grunt, the sound of clay on stone echoing far too loudly. He crouched, his fingers finding the cold, notched iron of the cover. He braced himself and heaved. It shifted with a gritty, grinding screech that made him wince, sliding aside to reveal a dark, circular opening. The smell that wafted up was immediate and overwhelming—a damp, fungal, profoundly organic stench of decay and human waste, the city's true, hidden breath.
It was a smell of perfect anonymity. Nothing that went down there would ever be found, or if it was, it would be unidentifiable, just another part of the endless, flowing filth.
He positioned the crock at the edge of the hole. Then, with a final, monumental effort, he tipped it.
The thick, red-black slurry poured out in a glugging, viscous stream. It was darker than the sewer's inherent darkness, a torrent of condensed sin and necessity disappearing into the void. He watched it fall, a sense of profound detachment settling over him. No grave, no marker. Just a anonymous flush into the city's digestive system.
He kept pouring until the crock was almost empty, leaving only a residue clinging to the bottom. He set it down, the weight now a fraction of what it was. He then grabbed the manhole cover and, with another straining heave, slid it back into place with a final, definitive clang that sounded like a jail cell slamming shut.
Silence returned. The street was empty again. He was just a man standing in the night.
He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he felt strange, a strange sensation, he felt that he was overlooking something.
He hurriedly picked up the lightened crock and hurried back across the street, back into the sanctuary of 17 Vesper Lane. He closed the door behind him, locking it, and leaned against it, his chest heaving. The cool, clean air of the house was a blessing.
On a house across the street, one with beautiful curtains, deep green eyes and a cascade of white hair could be seen through a crack in the curtains.
A faint smile appeared on the woman's face as she retired back into the house.
The job wasn't quite done. He carried the crock to the scullery, set it in the deep sink, and turned on the tap. The clear water splashed into the bottom, swirling with the last traces of red, diluting the horror into a pale pink rinse that spiraled down the drain. He scrubbed the interior with a stiff-bristled brush, the mundane act of washing a pot somehow the strangest part of the entire night. The water ran clear. He dried it and carried it back down to the basement, storing it in the corner where it had started. A tool, used and cleaned, ready for its next grim duty.
Finally, there was nothing left to do.
He took a shower and then trudged back up to his bedroom. He simply collapsed onto the bed, still in his breeches, his skin clammy, his muscles screaming, his mind a numb, blank slate.
As he sank into the welcome oblivion of sleep, the last sensation to fade was not the weight of the gold, nor the sound—the thick, glugging pour of what was left of a man, vanishing forever into the dark, but the unnerving sensation he felt while he was out on the street.