The banquet on Monday left Clayton on tenterhooks.
Tonight, at the Pulitzer Mansion, there would be a crowd of entities unimaginable to ordinary folks.
Put it in a way that sounded somewhat tongue-twisting, "A monster who has just become a monster finds other monsters monstrous."
Over the past six months, since Clayton's change into a werewolf, most supernatural entities he had stumbled upon were grotesque. He felt this boded ill for his future. Given the reality that the heartless, inhumane Holy Grail Society kept peace with the Council, he had already lost his trust in the latter, a shelter for Darkins.
Nevertheless, even the city's public security was under the Council's governance.
Though Gilead had claimed that it was just an ordinary welcoming event, Clayton still decided to take a lightweight weapon along.
As he had loaned Joe the revolver, he had to pick among the items for sale. Eventually, he settled upon a black zebrawood sword cane. It could both accentuate his status as a gentleman and serve as a ready weapon.
....
When the clock tolled six, Clayton headed out on schedule.
A felt hat sitting atop his head, he was clad in a black greatcoat and a matching pair of trousers, leaning upon the sword cane. On the street, he hailed a hackney carriage.
Despite the approaching nightfall, the streets could not be considered crowded, and the street lamps remained unlit along the way.
The Nighttime Illumination Decree stipulated that the streetlights were to be switched on at seven.
Most citizens got off work after that, so it was fairly acceptable.
Only in a wealthy neighborhood were there more pedestrians.
The blocked transport river no longer allowed for densely clustered factories in Sasha. Adding to this, the railroads' transportation capacity had already reached its maximum, so the products might be delayed in shipping, which, in turn, might cause breach of contract compensations. One could only imagine how unprofitable Sasha City would appear in an astute entrepreneur's eyes.
The city had already hit its limit in accommodating factories.
In a poorly connected city, a twelve-hour work schedule was a suitable pattern that people settled into.
As Clayton drew near the downtown area, he could clearly feel the distinction between the city's east and west.
The buildings here rose to the sky in an orderly, dense arrangement, brightly lit from crown to toes.
All the lamplight poured from the windows onto the streets, nearly ruling out the need for the streetlights.
More pedestrians began appearing on the streets. These sharply dressed gentlemen and ladies adopted a confident pace down the lamplight-graced streets, as though strolling in a heavenly land.
A four-storey, sixty-thousand-square-feet building would consume one to two gallons of refined whale oil each night for lighting.
Even in St. Modred Parish, where he lived, people using electricity so lavishly were seldom seen. Most of them alternated between oil lamps, candles, and electric lamps, giving the majority of the night its due darkness and quietude.
But the city center was a strip of land reeking of prosperity and wealth.
Colleges, the City Hall, corporate offices... People here had a far stronger craving for electricity than anywhere else.
Be it a gloomy day or a late night, these stately buildings appeared invariably to be in broad daylight.
The Pulitzer family lived off these very demands for illumination.
Long before the Council invited him here, Clayton had heard of the Pulitzers, a business juggernaut in Sasha that ran a marine company and a lighting company.
In a way, those owning whaling ships and oil refineries could lord it over others without special powers.
They were Extraordinary in their own right.
As such, Clayton's impression of the Pulitzer family stayed unchanged.
It was a while before he located the Pulitzers', a towering building, adjacent to the city's largest church- the Cathedral of Bathing Light.
The Cathedral looked no less impressive than its counterparts in Asinia, the Kingdom's capital; its lofty spire and pristine white walls cut an ineffably sacred appearance.
It was the Cathedral and Sion University that earned Sasha renown for culture and arts.
Clayton threw an alert glance at the noticeable spire. Many people were walking in that direction to attend the night prayer.
The sight of the spire suggested his proximity to the City Hall.
The place where the Council was headquartered attested to their confidence and strength.
As he neared the Mansion, the aloofness of the estate, with an iron fence resembling an ancient array of pikes and a parade of strapping guards holding shotguns, came into focus.
Clayton started feeling skeptical of the Council's intentions.
Consider their affluence and power, did they need to take Darkins under their wing?
Perhaps those basic membership welfare benefits that Gilead had spoken of were purely a charitable act?
Nonetheless, he had been invited out to similar places by his regular clients, allowing for his easy familiarity with such an occasion. Besides, his decent outfit was not inappropriate.
Clayton called for the coachman to stop the carriage, intent on crossing the street on foot. By then, he saw a shabby, gray-haired man squatting a little way from the gate, or more precisely, by the bushes to one side of it. The man stole glances at the guards, seemingly sharing the intention of entering the Mansion.
The greyish piece of clothing barely concealing his chest and belly felt out of place on the street, justifying his sheepishness.
An idea struck Clayton. Seizing an opening shortly after the hackney carriage started off, he bolted across the busy thoroughfare with questions to ask the man.
Noticing that a well-dressed man dashed his way, the tramp subconsciously turned tail and ran.
But Clayton had already put a hand on his shoulder, taking an intentionally light hold, only to be jerked ahead a few steps by the gray-haired fellow.
Such strength was unexpected in a starving tramp.
"Has someone asked you to come here?"
Clayton clamped his shoulder, wrenching it backward.
The vagrant's filthy face obscured his age. His fearful expression was perfectly warranted by his status. About two heads shorter than Clayton, he showed no inclination to resist. But for his explosive strength a moment ago, Clayton would have taken him for an ordinary person.
"Yes, yes, I will tell you everything!" the tramp backed away with palms out.
"Who invited you here?"
"A man I don't know. He said I could get a job at the Pulitzer Mansion."
Clayton pressed further, "Then why not go in?"
Through the fence of metallic railings, the tramp glanced at the armed gatekeepers and swallowed hard, "I think I've come to the wrong place."
Clayton exhaled a puff. He had got it wrong- he had initially thought the man had been dispatched by someone on the Council's bad side, but he turned out to be another one to be recruited.
That the Council would admit a homeless man was beyond his imagination.
"Then go ahead."
With this, Clayton turned to go. But the shabby man screwed up his courage, tagging along behind him.
"Sir, so I have come to the right place? This is the Pulitzer Mansion?"
"Yes, none other." Clayton gave a reply without a turn of his head.
The two of them, one fore and another aft, passed through the Mansion's gate. The armed guards posed no questions. It seemed that they would let just anyone in.
Clayton had no idea what purpose these guards served. Perhaps their standing by the gate was just a way, among others, to assert the Pulitzers' wealth.
A driveway of roughly four hundred feet unfolded behind the gate. After sidestepping a gurgling fountain featuring a statue, Clayton finally arrived at the mansion.
Its stately appearance overshadowed even the St. Melon Parish Chief Constabulary's.
An attendant opened the door for them.
Barely through the entryway, Clayton was greeted with a dazzling view as ambient warmth enveloped him.
A maidservant in a long black-and-white dress came up, with a guestbook for them to enter their names, then offered them each a green silk handkerchief that was embroidered with a design of a steamer.
"Please keep this with you."
Clayton accepted the offer, rubbed the cane with it before pocketing it, then shed his hat and scarf and passed them over to the maidservant.
The vagrant received an identical handkerchief. He carefully wiped his hands with it, then felt like mimicking Clayton by taking off something to hand over to the maid, but to his embarrassment, found nothing on him removable.
Soon afterward, the maid left, her place at the door taken by another one.
Since not all the guests had arrived yet, a black-vested attendant showed them to the waiting room to rest.
There were already some people in there at the moment.
A sturdy worker, whose hands crawled with calluses and scars, was chain-smoking the complimentary cigarettes. The cloud of smoke screened his careworn face. Aside from his heavyset torso straining the suspender pants, there seemed to be nothing special about him.
And there was a blonde, pointed-eared woman, seemingly with a Semite--known as Elf in ancient times--heritage. Despite her faded blue dress, she retained a rich, ageless charm. The ring on her finger told of her married state. Anguish and greed alternated flashing in her reddish-brown eyes as she gnawed at her thumb finger and sucked the blood from it.
There was also a lad holding a book. He excitedly observed the other two for some time and buried his nose back into the book for the rest, seemingly doing a comparison of sorts. Despite such a cozy setting, his scarf and gloves hadn't been taken off.
The moment Clayton and the tramp set foot in, the three's eyes locked onto them.
Their attention on the tramp was short-lived, whereupon they concentrated on Clayton in unison.
He was attired formally today and sported a dignified kingly beard, his bearing and manner suiting the occasion, all of which painted him like either a regular guest or someone from the host side.
Clayton didn't care about these gazes but was drawn by the book in the youth's hands.
"Could you lend this book to me?"
He walked over and asked, pointing at the book,' The Beginner's Guide to Mystery Studies: Norms and Anomalies'.
Its name assured Clayton that reading through it would give him what it took to understand the 'Two Thousand Common Knowledge Facts for Enthusiasts of the Occult' that Cuitisi had sent him.