The density of the patrol made it obvious: this was the heart of the crime scene. The mangled remains of the Executive Officer's wife lay just twenty meters away, around the bend of the street corner.
The entire security detail had exhausted themselves cordoning off the area to prevent any contamination of the evidence, and yet, this stranger—who had appeared out of nowhere—was standing there smoking.
The security officer's heavy iron boots thundered against the pavement as he stomped toward Sherlock. Seeing no insignias of the Church or the peerage on the man's person, the guard naturally assumed he was merely a member of the carriage's domestic staff.
The massive, three-meter-tall mechanical chassis loomed over Sherlock. From within the iron shell, the guard's voice snarled with a metallic rasp. "You! Put that out! Immediately!"
The clunky mechanical claws were incapable of the fine motor control required to pluck a cigarette from a man's lips; however, the guard's tone suggested he wasn't interested in the cigarette. He looked ready to pluck Sherlock's head off along with it.
"Don't be so tense, brother. A little smoke won't break anything," Sherlock said, tilting his head back to look up at the iron giant. He gave a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Besides, even if it could, you lot in your steam-tin suits have been venting exhaust all over this alley for hours. Whatever could be ruined was likely destroyed long ago."
"I—" The guard's retort choked in his throat.
As if to prove Sherlock's point, the exhaust vents on the back of the armor chose that exact moment to hiss, belching a frantic jet of hot white steam into the night air.
As a security officer, the man was accustomed to "heavy lifting"—assisting in the purging of minor demons or escorting high-ranking Church officials. Preserving a delicate crime scene was a nuance he simply hadn't mastered.
He glanced back and saw Miss Catherine standing a short distance away. At this range, she would have heard every word of their exchange.
A flush of raw humiliation flooded the guard's face.
He adored Miss Catherine. In truth, most men who knew of the Inquisitor Sister were drawn to her. She was young, beautiful, pious, and brave. She possessed a pedigree and a set of virtues that seemed pulled from the scriptures, and more importantly, she was a Contractor who had reached the Second Stage.
Such a natural, insurmountable gap meant that for most, admiration could never bloom into romance; it was forced to remain a form of hero worship.
This realization only fueled the guard's fury. He managed to scrape together a shred of knightly restraint, hissing through gritted teeth, "Leave this place at once, civilian! This is no place for the likes of you!"
"He isn't leaving."
Catherine spoke for the first time since their arrival.
The guard turned back, stunned. The soft, blurred silhouette of her face under the streetlamps made him daze for a moment, unsure if he had heard correctly.
"However hard it may be to believe," Catherine continued, her voice cool and steady, "as of this moment... this man is the lead investigator for this murder."
The guard looked blankly at the beautiful woman, then looked down at the unimpressed, smoking Sherlock. He knew Miss Catherine was supposed to bring back a specialist—some person of great renown or strange talent—to solve the case. He never expected it to be a commoner who looked like he'd crawled out of a gutter.
Whatever the reason, it wasn't his place to question it. He stood frozen for a few seconds.
Yet, he could feel it. Miss Catherine harbored no affection for this commoner—not even a shred of respect. That thought offered the young officer a small, cold comfort.
"My apologies." He masked his lingering hostility as best he could. "How shall I address you?"
"Sherlock. Private Detective."
"Very well, Mr. Detective." The guard pointedly avoided using Sherlock's name. He didn't offer his own either, continuing with clinical formality. "Since you are here, you understand the gravity of the situation. Before you view the body, you must swear an oath to the Holy Light. You shall not reveal a single detail of this case to anyone, including your closest kin."
He rattled off a long, practiced liturgical oath. The essence was simple: take this to the grave.
Sherlock had expected this. To the denizens of the Upper District, a commoner's word was worth less than the soot in the air. He understood the sentiment; in the Lower District, people were far too busy surviving to afford the luxury of a reputation.
He repeated the oath with a bored, detached cadence.
Once the words were spoken, a sharp click-clack echoed from the guard's gauntlet. A thin, black card, the length of a thumb, slid out of a slot. It was a micro-phonograph disc, a physical record of the oath just sworn. All such records were delivered to the Tribunal of the Church. Should an oath be broken, an Adjudicator would be dispatched to hunt and sentence the transgressor.
Under the shadow of the Church, an oath was never a hollow gesture or a joke. It was a tangible, recorded contract with lethal consequences.
Of course, the Tribunal didn't bother with every minor oath. As they put it: The Holy Light does not concern itself with the trivial. The institution operated entirely outside the normal social hierarchy. Even a Mayor, a General, or the Imperial Emperor himself required an absolute, justifiable cause to petition the Tribunal to investigate a specific oath-record.
The guard handed the disc to a subordinate and signaled for Sherlock to follow.
They walked a few paces into the dark. Just beyond the reach of the gas lamps, a narrow, deep alleyway lay shrouded in shadow.
At the threshold of light and dark, several figures in clerical robes stood in humble prayer. Their heads were bowed, their fingers clutching brass pendants engraved with holy scripture as they chanted in a low, rhythmic drone.
Standing before them was a towering man, nearly two meters tall. He was bald, but his beard was a thick, manicured thicket. He wore deep blue robes, but a wide, jarringly crimson decree-cloth ran from his collar to the hem of his garment. As the night wind gusted, the cloth swayed, occasionally outlining the exaggerated, almost non-human contours of the muscle beneath.
This attire marked him as an Executive Officer of the Adjudication Department.
These were the Church's purest instruments of violence. Unlike the Holy Church Army stationed along the Redke Strait, these men specialized in internal purges: oath-breakers, rebels, blasphemers, and Contractors who had committed unpardonable sins. They possessed the most horrific tortures, the bloodiest methods, and a jurisdiction that sat high above Imperial law. They had everything except mercy.
In the eyes of most citizens, these men in the scarlet decree-cloths were more terrifying than the demons themselves.
"Lord Baidel." The security guard bowed his head as low as his armor would allow. Despite being taller in his steel suit, his posture radiated a palpable, cowering humility. "This is Sherlock, the Detective. Miss Catherine has brought him—"
The man called Baidel raised a hand, cutting the guard off. He turned his head. His brow was so heavy it cast his eyes into total darkness as he stared at Sherlock.
After several seconds of silence, he spoke.
"I care nothing for your status, your profession, whether you are mortal or Contractor. I do not even care if you are a citizen of this Empire. My wife is dead. I want the killer." He paused, his voice dropping into a heavy, resonant bass. "Alive."
There was no discernible grief in his voice, only a crushing weight. Sherlock noted that when the word "alive" was uttered, the armored guard beside him involuntarily shuddered.
The guard was likely picturing the horrors of the Church's Blood Prison, where "living" was a fate far worse than death.
Having made his demand, Officer Baidel stepped aside, allowing the yellow light of the streetlamps to spill into the alley.
A vision of absolute carnage greeted Sherlock's eyes.