Ulysses dismissed the Duke of Lancaster's pleas with icy finality, splitting their party in four. Yet before departure, both the Duke and Winslow shared disturbing findings with those remaining.

"The valet delivering Earl Grey's sandwiches bears watching," Winslow murmured. "Even uninvolved, he may lead us to hidden strings."

The Duke sighed, adjusting his cravat. "What else? Ah yes—that club Grey and I frequent." His voice dropped. "We aren't hunting foxes, Miss Yvette. Our 'quarry' requires... sterner measures. Monstrosities from shadowed realms. Grey claimed he'd bagged a rare specimen recently—lost an arm to it, though surgeons blame infection." His chuckle held no mirth. "We clubmen often lose limbs. Price of chasing nightmares."

A cabal hunting magical beasts?! Yvette gaped. The Duke—an ordinary aristocrat—dared such game?

Ulysses’ friend smiled thinly. "We employ professionals or wield heirlooms." His gaze sharpened. "But Grey's injury—too convenient. That severed arm tells darker tales."

Two hours later, the Duke performed his exit—groaning about old riding injuries, "diagnosed" by Ulysses as requiring London's medical contraptions. A flawless theater witnessed by servants.

Back in the parlor, Yvette found transformed debates—wealthy cynics now sermonizing charity with glassy fervor.

"Give! Forgiving debts pleases the Divine!"

"Spend your corrupt riches saving paupers—our holy duty!"

Cold dread crept through her. These men cited scripture yet ignored practical aid. Albein lords mocking religion for generations? Now chanting like choirboys?

"The Eucharist is blasphemy!" A sandwich-stuffed lord bellowed, crumbs spraying. "We should carve our own flesh for the Savior!" Murmurs of agreement swelled. Her neighbor rasped: "Yes... Let Him feast on us..."

Yvette fled as the dressing gong clanged. Passing Ulysses’ door, she hesitated—blue paper scraps littered his threshold...

Inside, she found him adjusting a lace jabot, shirt half-unbuttoned. "Took up self-dressing to spite lazy valets," he quipped, securing the neckcloth with practiced ease. His hands, she noted, moved with surgeon's precision despite aristocratic indolence.

She described the chapel-like parlor. His brow furrowed. "Sacrificial urges..." Retrieving a sandwich fragment, he explained: "Mice ate this meat, marched unprotesting into a cat's claws. They watched kin get eaten—placidity unbroken. Just like..."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"The trapper's docile fox!" Realization struck. "The tainted meat enforces self-sacrifice! But you bit it—!"

"Trace amounts affect mortals, not seasoned hunters," Ulysses shrugged. "This corruption reeks of higher powers twisting Grey."

A rustle froze them. His hand covered her mouth, breath warm at her ear: "The service lift stirs..."

Yvette acknowledged with a nod and casually flung a decorative piece from the table, magically muffling its fall. The sandalwood ornament rolled noiselessly across the floor. "My barrier's up," she told Ulysses. "We can speak freely within three meters."

"Clever," Ulysses remarked, his ears having morphed into bat-like points that twitched faintly. "The service lift carried no supper carts earlier - just soft-soled evening shoes. Guests shouldn't prowl servant passages."

Indeed, every aristocratic home maintained strict separation between family staircases and staff corridors. Most lords died never seeing their own service lanes, let alone others'.

"Track them by scent?" Yvette guessed.

"Precisely." Ulysses' nostrils flared. "Dinner will reveal our mystery guests."

When the brass gong summoned them, Ulysses lingered by the dining hall entrance, discreetly sniffing each arrival. Yet all place settings filled without matching his quarry - until their host's son announced five guests' abrupt departure.

Though silver platters bore untainted roasts and stews, Yvette ate only after Ulysses sampled each dish. Later, amid cigar smoke and brandy, she cornered him. "Well?"

"Those five never left," he murmured through her sound-dampening field. "They're hidden here."

Yvette's mind raced. If this involved the Afflicted - those void-dwelling parasites descending the Sephirot - every moment mattered. Their kind hungered for human essence to anchor in our world. Beyond the leaded windows, stars glimmered malevolently. Since her vision of the Star-Mother seeding space with terrors, the night sky chilled her.

"Why..." she mused, "do we ascend the Tree while they descend? Are we the anomalies?" Mortality versus their soulless immortality - what sane person would choose eternal emptiness?

Ulysses cut through her thoughts. "We search tonight."

Feigning early retirements, they stole downstairs. The servant wing stood empty, staff occupied upstairs. Following his heightened senses through storage rooms, they discovered a loose trapdoor.

"Stay close," Ulysses breathed, dropping into the dripping tunnel. The air tasted of salt and rot.

Soon, an alien cadence vibrated through stone - not song nor speech, but some wet, gurgling liturgy that squirmed into the brain. Ulysses tensed. "Block your hearing at first sign of madness."

Yvette complied as the chant intensified, guiding them toward phosphorescent gloom. There knelt the missing five, joined by household staff, all swaying before an open coffin. At their center stood Earl Gray, limbs grotesquely truncated, face contorted in rapture as he led the unholy chorus.

With a sudden retch, the earl spewed black bile and organ shards into the coffin. The cultists scrambled to drink the putrid slurry.

"Now!" Ulysses hissed, producing surgeon's blades. His tongue flickered along the edges, leaving iridescent trails. "Toxin-laced. Draw blood to paralyze. Your sword."

When Yvette presented her blade, Ulysses bent low, his pale lips grazing the steel as he anointed it with venom. The sight - aristocratic vampire attending a lady's sword with such intimacy - sparked unexpected heat in her cheeks.