The faint glow of the oil lamp gave way to the cold, clear light of morning.
But before the sun had even risen, a clamor arose from the street below.
Beneath the leaden-gray clouds, wagons rolled down Trio Street in an unending stream.
Shhh... swish...
A ghostly, pale hand slowly drew back the curtain. Anna lingered by the window, gazing down at the street, then lifted the chimney from the oil lamp and carefully snuffed out the fla.
An even colder gloom settled over the room. Anna turned her head to see a pair of dark eyes that had opened beneath a hood.
“You’re awake?” Anna asked, replacing the chimney.
“Mm-hmm.”
He straightened his legs, and the soles of his leather boots t the faded floorboards, scrubbed pale over the years.
There was a chill in the morning air. People said the past rainy seasons had never been this cold... but with the crops failing to sprout, the temperature was a secondary concern.
This was the kind of weather for sinking into a plush armchair, feeling the warmth of a fire on your face, holding a cup of hot tea, and listening to the gentle crackle of burning logs.
And that was exactly what the mysterious man was doing.
When Lu Li opened the door to his room, he found the man huddled in a wooden chair by the window, wrapped in a blanket and holding a cup of hot coffee. An old suitcase rested at his feet.
It must have held sothing important, as he carried it with him everywhere.
“You look well-rested. I figured you for a sleepless night,” the mysterious man remarked, his habits as settled as an old man’s. He raised a hand in greeting.
“Worrying is pointless, and overthinking is no way to prepare for sleep.”
Lu Li closed the door behind him. “Are the evil spirits gone? Will they return?”
“Whoa, slow down, friend,” the man said. “Let
take those one at a ti.”
The mysterious man set his cup of hot coffee on the windowsill.
“But the answer to both questions is the sa: you’re a bit mistaken. Evil spirits don’t have physical forms; in a sense, they’re omnipresent. Not like vengeful spirits, which have bodies... well, no, they don’t either... Look, I can’t get into the specifics. All I can say is... evil spirits are everywhere. You were caught in their ritual, and right now, soone thousands of miles away could be under attack by the very sa one.”
“So they appear at random, regardless of location?”
“Sothing like that,” the mysterious man said with a nod, picking up his cup again.
That explained why the man had so calmly returned to his room and gone to sleep after they’d escaped the evil spirit’s ritual.
Lu Li pressed on. “But I thought the shadow people and the Six-Ard Savages from the Tenebrae legends were real?”
The man, who was just raising the cup to his lips to blow steam from the surface, paused and gave Lu Li a strange look. “Didn’t you see them with your own eyes last night? The six-ard ones usually keep to the swamp. They rarely venture near human settlents.”
One of them was lying—the mysterious man, or the article...
Lu Li grew thoughtful. The man took a sip of his coffee and let out a satisfied sigh. “Ahh... You must be from Belfast, then? I can sll the sea on you, and that’s nearly two hundred miles away. What brings you out here?”
Lu Li looked up. “I’m an exorcist. I’ve taken a case that requires
to investigate sothing in the Shadow Swamp.”
The mysterious man froze. “You’re going into the swamp?”
“Yes.”
Before leaving his room, Lu Li had looked out the window and confird it for himself: the bloody tentacle had indeed fallen into the Shadow Swamp.
A trip into the swamp was unavoidable.
The man fell silent. Only when the coffee cup grew too hot to hold did he grimace and set it back on the windowsill. “Are you prepared?”
“I brought insect repellent.”
Of course, Lu Li hadn’t forgotten Gades’s reminder.
“Well, I suppose that counts as preparation,” the mysterious man said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. He looked at Lu Li pointedly. “What I an is... you haven’t made any other preparations?”
Lu Li frowned. “I don’t understand what you an.”
“It seems you haven’t gotten used to thinking like an exorcist yet,” the man said. “I’m talking about... preparing for an encounter with ‘those things’.”
“There are ‘those things’ in the swamp?”
‘Those things’ was a catch-all term for strange creatures, spirits, and other dangerous entities.
“Of course. Tis have changed. Most uninhabited places are extrely dangerous now. Those... things... the ones that aren’t human, they like to hide out there.”
“What’s in there?”
“Who knows?” The man shrugged. “My business is on the other side of the swamp... uh... I seem to have said too much.”
Lu Li stated calmly, “The other side of the swamp is the main continent. I have no way of knowing your destination.”
“True.”
His coffee had nearly gone cold. The man raised the cup and took a long drink.
“How are you planning to cross the swamp?” Lu Li asked.
“? By wagon. The road is safe during the day.”
The road the man spoke of had been built by the Principality of the Allen Peninsula to connect with the mainland, cutting straight through the Shadow Swamp. It ran right down the middle, splitting the swamp into northern and southern halves.
Lu Li needed to head into the southern part, which, according to the mysterious man, was a little safer than the north—relatively speaking.
“Going into the swamp without any kind of preparation is very dangerous, civilian.”
“I’m an exorcist.”
“It makes no difference. An exorcist who knows nothing of their rituals is no better than a regular person when facing an evil spirit.”
The man was probably right, but Lu Li had his reasons for going.
He saw the resolve in the dark-haired man’s perpetually calm eyes and sighed helplessly. “It seems you’re dead set on this. Well, here’s a word of advice: if you’re lucky enough to make it out alive, don’t forget to get your Mind Level tested. You don’t want to pick sothing up without even realizing it.”
Lu Li looked at him. “And where can I do that?”
“You know about the Night’s Watch, but you don’t know where to get your Mind Level checked?” The man was baffled.
Lu Li replied flatly, “I’ve been an exorcist for less than a month.”
“Fine. You can go to one of those laundromats with the weird nas to get tested. Or sign up with the Night’s Watch or the Investigators. They’ll do it for free.”
“I’ll rember that,” Lu Li said with a nod.
The man waved a hand dismissively. “Then go on. I’m about to depart myself.”
He tossed aside the blanket, revealing he was already fully and neatly dressed beneath it, ready to grab his suitcase and depart at a mont’s notice.
Lu Li held out a business card. The man took it dubiously and read the words embossed on the thick card: “The Bizarre Detective Agency—Lu Li.”
Lu Li...
The man tucked the business card away, drained the last of his coffee, and picked up a wide-brimd hat from the windowsill. “I won’t give you my na,” he said, settling the hat on his head. “So evil spirit rituals are tied to nas. That’s why we use aliases. You can call
a trainee investigator. Or Inquirer. That’s the codena I plan to use when I get promoted.”
“Oh, right. One last piece of advice: if you’re going into the Shadow Swamp, rember to stay quiet.”
The man picked up his suitcase and tapped a finger against his ear.
“The swamp hears what does not belong to it.”
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