"The Deathcaller is here, sir," a uniformed junior piped up, sticking his head around the door and delivering a jaunty thumbs-up that grated on every last one of Inspector Jana Lowe's nerves.

Lowe didn’t bother responding, just fixed the kid with a withering glare that sent him scuttling back into the hall. He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply through his teeth.

The scene itself was enough to sour anyone’s mood—a shitshow that would linger in the back of his mind long after the formaldehyde stench faded.

But that wasn’t all.

It was the arrival of the Deathcaller, of all people, that truly set his teeth on edge. Of the many denizens of Soar Lowe would have preferred to work with, Lant sat comfortably at the very bottom of the list.

He surveyed the scene again with tired, bloodshot eyes, the knot of tension at the base of his skull tightening. The room was swarming with a gaggle of young officers, each looking greener than the last, fumbling with equipment, jotting notes, and doing their best to look competent under his glare.

They weren’t bad kids. Not really. But Lowe couldn’t shake the feeling that they were playing at being investigators, their eagerness bordering on recklessness.

Maybe it was the gulf of years between them and himself—twenty years, at least, and every one of them weighed heavier in moments like these. Or maybe it was the creeping exhaustion that came from knowing exactly what kind of circus the Deathcaller’s presence would turn this into.

Either way, Lowe’s mood was foul enough to curdle milk.

"Great," he muttered under his breath, his tone drenched in sarcasm. "Penarth Lant. Just what this nightmare needs. The cherry on top."

He knew he shouldn’t complain. The roil of emotions twisting in his gut was unbecoming of someone in his position. He should have been grateful—thanking his lucky stars, or whatever celestial body might tolerate a glance in his direction—to be back in the good graces of Soar’s Security Services.

Gainful employment in this city wasn’t exactly handed out like sweeties, and the fact that he’d managed to claw his way back in after everything? That was no small feat.

Lowe rubbed at his temple, trying to will away the headache that was building behind his eyes. Sure, he was back on the payroll, wearing the badge, going through the motions—but the hollowness in his chest told him it wasn’t the same.

Not really.

And yet, and yet, and yet . . .

"What the fuck did you expect, you moody wanker?" Commander Pernille Staffen had asked him, glaring up from a mountain of paperwork. "That we'd all drop to our knees and genuflect for the return of the great and marvellous fucking Jana Lowe? Maybe you thought we should blow you while we were down there, too? Twat."

"I don't know what I expected," Lowe had said, not for the first time finding Pernille's salty approach to conversation a touch embarrassing.

Such a mouth in the possession of someone who looked like they'd be more at home baking cookies for their phalanx of grandchildren was quite a trip.

However, following the considerable public and private fallout at Commander Cenorth's involvement in any number of crimes, it was felt someone a bit more straightforward and 'plain speaking' would be ideal to take over at Cuckoo House.

Enter Pernille Staffen: five-foot-two of uncompromising grandmotherly severity wrapped in a no-nonsense shawl of authority. She moved like an apocalypse in sensible shoes, her reputation for taking no shit preceding her like the ominous roll of thunder. If you had any doubts about what you saw being exactly what you got with this Level 46 Guardian of the Wall, her choice of patron god would clear that up fast.

Blurian the Unimpressed didn’t tolerate ambiguity. His doctrine was as straightforward as Pernille herself—unyielding, unapologetic, and deeply skeptical of anyone claiming to know better. In Pernille, Blurian had found the ideal champion, and in return, she carried his ethos of not being at home for any of your shit like a badge of honour: steadfast, focused, and utterly intolerant of shenanigans.

"Well whoop-de-fucking-do. Then you can't be disappointed, can you? Keep those expectations low, Lowe. That's the ticket! Now, what can I do for you on this fucking fine afternoon?"

Lowe had held up the file that had been unceremoniously thrown on his desk. "Apparently, I'm up for a suspicious death at Soar Museum."

Pernille raised a bushy grey eyebrow. "And you are making that my fucking problem because?"

"Wyst was all over something similar there a few weeks back. Surely he needs to at least look at it before passing it on?"

"Fucking hell. Blurian save me from whiny men and their constant dick-measuring. Close the door, Lowe."

He did so and then took the seat that the Commander pointed towards with an insistently jerking finger.

"No one likes you," she said once he had settled himself down.

"Well, that's just because they haven't got to know me yet."

"No. No, it isn't."

Lowe waited for Pernille to say more, but she just sat back in her chair and continued to glare at him. "Sorry, was there more to this or have I just been treated to another one of your legendary pep talks?"

"And it's because of things like that."

"Like what?"

"The smart-talking. The answering back. The acting like you think you are better than the rest of us."

"I'm not better than the rest of you."

"Too fucking right you are not. Some of us here are bonafide fucking legends, and I doubt even your massive sense of fucking self-regard misses that. But, for whatever reason, that doesn't stop you acting like your shit doesn't stink. And it pisses people off."

"Well, I'm sorry about that. But I'm not sure how . . . "

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"You’ve managed it twice, Jana—twice! The kind of colossal clusterfucks that most people don’t just fail to come back from; they don’t even try. First, there was all that unpleasantness last year," Pernille said, "And I can tell you right now, there are plenty who think you got off lightly losing your Class over that particular fuck-up."

Lowe opened his mouth to protest—big mistake.

Pernille’s hand slammed down on her desk with a crack. "Shut the fuck up and listen!" she barked, her glare pinning him to his seat. "Blurian gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason, so use them accordingly. I’m not saying I agree with all those panty-wetters crying foul over what happened. But if you think anyone but a vanishingly small minority has your back after the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks, you’re delusional. Do you get me?"

Lowe nodded stiffly.

"But oh no," she continued. "One life-changing disaster wasn’t enough for the great Jana Lowe, was it? No. That absolutely wasn’t enough for you.. You had to go and bring down a fucking Sentinel of Justice as your encore performance, didn’t you!"

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes boring into him. "Do you have any idea how impressive that is, Lowe? It takes a special kind of screw-up to get the literal avatar of law to eat shit in front of the entire city."

"Commander Cenorth was killed in the line of duty . . . "

"Fuck me no fucks, Lowe. We both know what happened at the top of the Celestial Temple, and I'd ask you not to insult my massive throbbing fucking brain by pretending otherwise."

Lowe wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to that.

Instead, he held up the file he’d been given and gave it a little wave, like a man drowning in paperwork trying to signal for a lifeboat. "I get all of that, but this case has to be linked to the death last month. Wyst should be—"

“Wyst?” Pernille cut him off with a bark of laughter.“Inspector Wyst was warned off the case so hard I had to send him on a month’s sabbatical. You should’ve seen him. A grown man sobbing into his coffee. ‘Wah, they’re going to kill my family, wah.’ It was pathetic.”

That gave Lowe pause. "Warned off?" he asked. “I thought he just screwed up the investigation in his signature, blundering fashion.”

"Things like that, Lowe, things like that." Pernille stood and padded around to Lowe's side of the desk. He was disconcerted to note she appeared to be wearing massive fluffy slippers as she jumped up to perch on her desk, legs swinging free.

"Don’t get me wrong. Wyst could screw up boiling water, but this was different. This wasn’t just bumbling incompetence. Someone leaned on him. Hard.”

Lowe felt a chill creep up his spine. Wyst might’ve been an idiot, but he wasn’t the type to crumble under pressure—not unless the pressure was very specific and very personal. "And you think whoever leaned on him is tied to this?"

Pernille shrugged, her expression carefully neutral. "I think the world’s full of people who don’t like messy questions being asked about very tidy secrets. And if there’s one thing this case is bound to be, it’s messy.” She gestured at the file in his hand. "So buckle up, Lowe. You’re the lucky bastard who gets to step into the shitstorm Wyst ran screaming from. Try not to fuck it up worse than he did.”

“Seriously? That’s all I get?”

“Look, I'm going to level with you. I've been told in no uncertain terms that we're not to touch what's happening at Soar Museum with a ten-foot cock. 'Above your pay grade,' is how the Mayor put it when I was summoned for a reaming out this morning. And, boy, does the Mayor give good reaming."

"I'm not being funny, but I've been used in the whole 'put our worst investigator on a case and hope it goes away' game before. I wasn't a fan."

"Oh, fucking get over yourself, you fucking sadsack. There are two dead youngsters over at that museum, and it doesn't work for me that I'm being told to look the other way. But, more importantly, Blurian is fucking unimpressed by the suggestion I can be bullied away from doing what I think is right. The Council gave me this job, and I'll be a monkey's uncle if I don't do my best for as long as I have it."

A pipe appeared in Pernille's hand, and she lit it with a click of her fingers. "So, even though the word on the street is that you are the biggest fucking pain in the arse," she continued, sucking down on it contentedly, "I need you to get on down there and get to the fucking bottom of what is going on."

Lowe stared at her. "So, knowing that, literally, the last two cases I investigated ruffled more feathers than a raptor in a chicken coop, you are purposefully pointing me at a politically sensitive situation?"

"Sounds about right."

"And you're not worried about the fallout? That there will be significant consequences?"

"Fuck no. My pension is secure."

"I meant for me!"

Pernille shrugged with her pipe. "Way I figure it, if they haven't killed you yet, you must be valuable to someone with pull. I might as well get as much use out of you as possible before that changes. And you've got that ridiculous self-heal Skill, haven't you? What you moaning for? Now, if there wasn't anything else?"

Lowe drew a deep breath, summoning every ounce of composure he had left for one last plea. "Commander, there aren’t even any witnesses to the first death! The whole damn museum wiped their memories! What exactly do you expect me to do?"

Pernille’s expression hardened, shedding any veneer of affable irritation like a discarded coat. Her gaze bored into him, and Lowe suddenly understood why so many violent offenders had seen her face as the last thing they ever did.

They didn’t call her the Iron Fist for nothing.

“I am not a stupid woman, Inspector Lowe,” she said.. "The words above your head might say Level 25, but if I were to petition to examine your stats, I’d wager I’d find a very different story."

Lowe opened his mouth to protest, but Pernille silenced him with a raised hand that could have stopped a runaway carriage.

"Shove it," she snapped. "I don’t want to hear it. You’re allowed your secrets, Inspector. Until I decide I need to know more. Do I need to know more?"

Slowly, deliberately, he shook his head.

"Excellent," Pernille suddenly beamed and jumped off the desk, "I'm glad that's settled. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the case moving forward. Now, run the fuck along and stop bothering me."

There hadn’t been much more to say after that.

The Deathcaller, sir?"

Lowe's thoughts reluctantly snapped back from the unpleasant memory of his meeting with Pernille to the gruesome reality of the scene before him. Or, more precisely, the scene beneath him.

He grimaced as his gaze fell upon the remains of what, he had been assured, was once Curator Harker.

The young man's body was no longer a body at all—just a puddle of liquefied flesh and viscous fluids spreading across an expensive carpet that, despite its craftsmanship, would surely never recover.

What bones hadn’t fully dissolved jutted out at unnatural angles, protruding like ghastly signposts.

The stench was overpowering. Not just the reek of decay—although there was plenty of that—but something else. Something vile clung to the back of Lowe’s throat like guilt. He fought the rising nausea, his hand twitching toward his pocket where a vial of anti-sickness tonic rested, just in case.

Harker’s face—or what was left of it—was still disturbingly recognisable.

That almost made it worse. The tatters of his skin hung in loose shreds, ligaments and muscle tissue blending into the sickening soup pooling beneath him. Lowe had seen his fair share of horror shows in his time, but this? This wasn’t just death. It was an obliteration of humanity itself, an insult to the natural order.

“Ah, Newly-Reinstated-Not-Quite-Disgraced-As-Of-Yet Inspector Lowe. We meet again!”

Dragging his eyes away from the smear on the floor, Lowe turned to greet the corpulent form of Penarth Lant.