In the night darkness inside an alley, specks of light were flickering.
It was the glow of burning cigarettes.
When Mary passed by, her hurricane lamp brightened up the alley.
As the light struck their faces, five crew-cut men all brought a hand over their eyes while hiding another hand behind their backs. A squatting fellow almost fell back from losing his balance.
Mary tightened the reins, stopping the horse, and called out toward the depths of the alley. "Anything you must do at night?"
Squinting, one of the men lowered his hand, responding, "No, nothing. We're leaving now."
They were alarmed at the sight of a long-barreled rifle holstered at the horse's flank, as well as Gilead with a second rifle slung over his back, leading his black dog. Then, they spun around and disappeared deeper into the alley.
Obvious that they wouldn't listen to her, yet that was beyond a constable's authority.
Without evidence of crime, all they could do was crack their whip twice in the air, but this wouldn't work.
St. Suliac Parish was a so-called slum, drug and crime-ridden.
Most of its residents were craftsmen and manual laborers who couldn't afford a whole apartment. It wasn't uncommon for several families to crowd into a single apartment. Such cramped, oppressive lives catalyzed criminal activity. Those involved might well lose their jobs and, in turn, couldn't afford their rented places and could only wander at night, seeking a place to stay overnight.
In a desperate struggle for their lives, people tended to commit crimes.
Criminals who operated at night were supposedly hard to identify, so they feared less and leaned further toward their shady desires.
Thus, a vicious cycle had arisen in this slum.
Poverty was the soil that spawned crimes. Experienced constables would fret over their patrol task in this area.
Though down-and-out, the locals hardly had to break a sweat to get hold of guns.
Watching Gilead leisurely strolling in front with the dog's leash in hand, Mary felt a sense of admiration.
If unaccompanied by such an old hand, she would have shied away from coming here. Of her cowardice in the face of evil, she felt ashamed.
Tonight, as usual, she had to deal with those premeditated criminals and 'patients'.
And they did encounter a patient.
In another alley, they found the patient nibbling at a dead cat. His face was bristling with narrow stems of sticks like the rachis of a feather. Setting eyes on them, he didn't conceal his desire to assault.
To avoid a commotion, they quietly executed him with a rapier and a bayonet.
The following two hours went smoothly.
Having consulted his pocket watch, Gilead started back alongside Mary, whose shift was over by now.
Some other constables would come over and handle the corpse, at which point he would also provide a helping hand.
After many years of infiltration, the clerk who arranged the patrol routes and shifts had been replaced by a member of the Council of Elders.
Most constables on night shifts were Darkins. Ordinary constables would be assigned to wealthy neighborhoods, where fewer aggressive newborns would emerge.
It hardly mattered if ordinary people discovered Darkins' existence by chance. That would only add to the city's already mountainous heap of eerie lore.
Many people would discuss those stories, but never took them too seriously.
"Gilead, has anyone discovered how the disease spreads?"
On their way back, Mary dwelt on those bizarre-looking patients. Although her defect prevented her from remembering people's faces and visualizing an image, those patients still carved a deep impression on her.
Should she have to put a certain label on them, 'wild beasts' seemed to suit them best.
"Who knows? That's none of our business as constables. The science of medicine is too distant from us." It struck Gilead that she was talking about his lies masking Darkins' existence.
He gazed down the street, suffused with fog, which merited a tad more of his vigilance.
Though only a moon hung in the sky, he sensed out of instinct the Dark Moon approaching.
Not only Darkins, but wizards would also recover their power.
The servants of darkness would have an ever greater say in this era.
But Gilead was content with what he had. He hoped that his life would stay unchanged for the remainder of his days.
Unaware that Gilead was zoning out, Mary Eata offered her opinion. "Perhaps we should suspend the development of the colonial region. Bringing plague back alongside gold is no different than committing a crime."
Gilead drew back from his thoughts and neither negated nor approved of Mary's words.
"What a crazy idea. But the Queen and her ministers wouldn't agree with you. You know how much manpower they have funneled into the wealth bonanza. The mere Lauren War has cost three hundred thousand men their lives. Such a slow-spreading illness is less grievous than a war. "
Even though the so-called plague was a lie, he did indeed believe that those in high places in Asinia City, the kingdom's capital, would make such a choice faced with a similar dilemma.
"Are you sick of killing?" Gilead already had an answer while asking this.
After all, she was just a young girl.
Mary honestly admitted, "Yes. Killing those patients has made me feel sinful. Now I'm entertaining occasional thoughts of resigning as a constable."
Gilead found himself regretful. If only he had noted her budding trauma earlier and soothed it away.
He slowed down, walking alongside Mary's horse, and tried to talk her into staying with the job."But we have also saved a lot of people, haven't we? We have sent those conscious patients to the clinic, and you have seen them after recovery. You are credited with their recovery, too."
Such a gullible, industrious colleague was hard to come by.
Not that there were no Darkins at the Constabulary, yet their professional enthusiasm was not necessarily comparable to Mary's. Constantly possessed by impulsion and arrogance, they had treated newborns brutally. As a result, many of those who could have joined the Council had died on the spot or had become hostile and left for another city.
"Well, this is one of the reasons that spurs me on." Mary said with a smile, "Don't worry. It's just a little setback. I am not that fragile."
Gilead breathed out in relief. "Yes, you're different from other girls. You're stronger and more diligent."
"But I have to enlist your services for a certain matter."
Mary deeply respected this senior, but it hardly crossed the line for her to use a trick on him.
Gilead had never spoken of it, but she had come to realize her own indispensability.
For the sake of justice, she must spare nothing.
"I have been investigating a man who is good at playing with others' emotions and corrupting justice by making use of money, even convincing a constable who had never been to the scene of his innocence. But I don't have much time to deal with him myself. Even though I have hired a detective, he has made little progress. But I believe that someone like you, a seasoned full-time constable, could definitely gather the evidence of his crime. "
Despite Gilead's advanced age, Mary had witnessed how he had expertly held down criminals every time, assured of his capabilities.
Gilead was unaware of this. He recalled carefully yet failed to come up with a suspect matching the description.
But since he had often asked favors of Mary but never reciprocated, he fretted that she would really call it quits someday, which would threaten him with a biweekly schedule with only two days off.
"Alright, I will help you. Tell me his name."
"Clayton Bello, he lives in Spearfish Street, St. Modred Parish..."
Gilead automatically omitted what she said next. Mary couldn't be better-informed about Clayton than he was, given the form Clayton had not long ago submitted to him.
Big trouble.
Just as Gilead was vacillating as to what to do, a hackney carriage sped past them at a street corner, halting them in their steps.
The coachman in the driver's seat was chatting with his passenger, "Mr. Bello, your current clothes do look fine, but compared with those in Mrs. Lez's boutique...."
The horse-drawn carriage raced past, trailing a gust of wind. Before they could hear the coachman finish his line, the vehicle had already bolted west of the crossroads.
"Bello isn't a commonplace surname, is it?"
Mary wondered aloud, her gaze transfixed on the rear of the carriage.
Gilead glanced in the direction the hackney carriage had come from. That was a dead end. As his gaze traveled further down the road, the pale-black silhouette of a poorhouse stood erect amid the night darkness.
.....
Fortunately, it had taken Clayton just two days to locate the familiar scent.
It was at a poorhouse in St. Suliac Parish.
Though it wasn't a dye workshop as expected, Clayton didn't think that he had gotten it wrong, for Joe Mani was there as well. Clayton had caught a whiff of his smell.
It couldn't be a coincidence, the werewolf reflected.
Joe seemed one step ahead of him in finding the Holy Grail Society. It was unclear what had happened or what was going on between them.
It had been at midnight when he tracked the smell to the poorhouse; the gate had been closed, so he couldn't see Joe right away, but had to come by the next day.
The priest at that chapel in St. Melon Parish was in the know about Joe's whereabouts. Clayton assumed that Joe had been able to find the Holy Grail Society thanks to the White Church's assistance; there was no other way that he could have managed that.
Around 5 p.m. the next day, he came to Saint Suliac Parish by a hackney carriage once more.
The time for taking homeless people had passed; the black iron lattice gate had been shut and bolted. A watchman was seen lying on a recliner behind the gate.
Walking up, Clayton chanted his spell before the gate swung open almost spontaneously.
"I'm here to make a donation. Please open the gate."