Throughout Inquisitor Vindict’s looming career, he’s had the sorry pleasure of finding himself among a diverse selection of dead. Watched them hiss and smolder on red-hot coals, puffing smoke and ash. Seen them dragged from the lake under Winter’s grace, packed in ice with skin pale white or dark blue.

Chopped up into meaty chunks, slobbering blood onto the spilling floor to pool a puddle like the setting sun. Seen unburied meat sown together with needle and twine, longer pieces and shorter parts to form a dangling freak in a vague image of man.

Yet, though he makes his living through the study and find of the dead, he has not ever found joy in finding a one. So, he grimaced along with the lugubrious corpses of man, and less than man; of animal, and less than even that, all stuffed into bitter bottles and arranged along the scattered shelves into a symphony singing every note of death.

And Doctor Willic was its great director, moving from one crumbled book to the next aged scroll with a wood-like grace; meaning a profound lack of it. The man seemed scant a thing made of flesh and bone but rather one forged from oak and stone; intrinsically crafted by a master to serve as a machine for a singular purpose.

“Hmmm, no this isn’t it either.” He mumbled in even tune, one eyelid slack and his thin lips etched into an eternal grin.

His reaching arm flicked out and plucked another document from its rack, had it cough a puff of dust to twirl in the lamp’s light. His assistant, a young man dressed in opal blue cloth, followed his master diligently, cleaning the mess as it was made. Vindict swallowed, his throat raw in the dry room.

The Doctor’s fingers flicked the pages nimbly, hollow eyes scanning the aged ink, endless lines written by long dead men and women almost forgotten in the passing of time. How many books were kept here, down below Heaven’s Pillar? How many thousand thousand scriptures, tomes, theses, encyclopedia, stacked and stuffed, bound and wrapped, cloaked and studded, uncovered or yet hidden within the black bowels of Tijd?

“This isn’t it either.” And Vindict wondered how many of those the Doctor had glanced at, read, studied, learned by heart. No doubt most if not all of them, for the Doctor was a learned man.

He turned on his heels and slid the book back with a hissing before snatching another just as ancient and worn as the rest. The doctor’s pace reminded Vindict of a skeletal puppet swaying to the whims of the most nitpicking puppeteer. Everything about him was sharp as a razor.

His legs trot sharply along the polished tiles, click, clack, stabbing the floor. His arms were sharp and they snatched one record after the other, swish, swoosh, cleaving the air to shreds. His sharp frame stood in sharp contrast against the sharp Faux-light spilling from a lamp in bright rays, glowing, brimming, cutting shadow to shard.

“Have you found anything about the defiled within the records?” Vindict asked, waving some stubborn dust away. He hated the filth. Though the room was otherwise clean, dust cursed the racks none the less.

Willic peered up from his books, eyes bright and sharp, slicing into Vindict as if to reveal all his dark secrets to the clearing light of day with nothing but a studying glance. Vindict had no doubt in him that he could do just that, for the Doctor was a deep-cunning man.

“The defiled?” He mumbled, moving his hands as he spoke; each twitch accentuating his wording. “Oh, I must’ve gotten side-tracked.” And the wrapped ledger was stacked upon a pile so now there was more book than desk. Had the assistant hurry before it tipped over and spilled on the floor – priceless pages of near-crumbling parchment. “Thrilling studies, you see.”

“No doubt.” Vindict whispered, ogling a floating tongue in distilled water as Willic set it on the table among dozens of tools and papers and whiskers and bottles. Bony fingers wrapped in white gloves popped the lid from the glass, and with tweezers he stole the meat from within, had it plop onto oiled leather.

“You see,” He started, grabbing a bidet from the side. “Just because something moves –” and he let a drop fall onto the flesh after which it started squirming. “Doesn’t mean it’s alive.” And then showed a smile as a blade’s edge, proud as if he just fooled God. Vindict didn’t think he was unable of even that, for Willic was a knowing man, looking at the Inquisitor with an empty stare that implied: ‘I have no home within my heart for the Almighty, for it already houses the terrible might of science.’

“Still.” Vindict said, stubbornly. “I’ve seen the thing writhe before my own eyes, what I’m telling you is not a story bleared by some delirious wench.” Indeed, the sole memory of it still haunted him. Saw the thing come staggering from the shadows where the Fauxlight could not reach, from the corner of his eye; just out of sight. Had him suppress a tremble.

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“The Great leveler was, though.” The doctor remarked, pocking the limp meat with a tweezer, and Vindict swallowed, almost embarrassed. He had looked into the matter, indeed, for such was his task – his duty. But as one might expect from a folk-tale, the searching had him find only faded lore. Felt like grasping mist, oozing through his reaching fingers.

“Yes, but I’ve not brought that issue to your attention. I request your guidance on the subject of the defiled, and how it could spread to others.” Which was the Superior’s main concern, obviously. One of those things was enough the rile the entire Watch. Imagine it spreading…But the doctor only waved him away without a care.

“You know what spreads?” He asked, and Vindict frowned.

“No.”

“I don’t either.” He responded, shrugging his sharp shoulders. “but my guess is the flue. Very fast, people catching it everywhere. Maybe even a new strand, though people love saying it’s ghosts and such.” And he shrugged again. “Little to be done about it, though. Such things simply pass. It’s Winter, after all.” There was a clap of thunder, the blue flash of lightning and the sky crackled with white veins. Yet the room did not tremble, it stood unmoving as Father Earth, as the people of Verkath would say.

“Ferina told me you knew about it, though.” Vindict continued his query. Digging, digging, always uncovering the truth. Or trying to, at least. “Are you not Zaphiros - the knowing, Sixth of The Ten?”

Willic turned his head and the light caught his slack eye, had the embedded crystal flash orange like molten iron.

“That I am.” Husky voice sounding like old paper rubbed together, pulling another book from another shelf among many others more, how he knew where they were all stacked was a mystery to even Vindict. “Though the position I only took as it gave me access to more material.”

Pages cracked and fluttered as he thumbed through the thing, bound in old skin with a single glyph stamped onto the spine. A very simple rune, and though its meaning was lost to Vindict, it appeared threatening none the less.

“What’s that book?” He asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

“A copy of a copy from a torn page of a sketch passed from man to brother for hundreds of years.” He said, saying much yet explaining none. Something Vindict came across often in his line of work. Something he despised.

“Then, where is it from?” But he only shrugged.

“Supposedly it comes from The Spine of The World, but I have my doubts such a book even exists. Otherwise, I, Zaphiros the Knowing-” and he gestured at the endless rows of shelfs and bookcases secluded underneath Tijd. “Would have already found it.”

“Then, what do you think it is?” Vindict asked, Willic’s prattle slowly withering his patience.

“A book containing fairytales precariously based onto crumbing pillars of truth. Storybook.”

“Then why do you, a scientist, keep such a thing, let alone draw assumptions based on it?” Vindict asked, incredulously.

“Because every tale holds some truth, no matter how small. I’m sure even the following of Solis is based on some ancient fact, though I have yet to find on what exactly.” A dangerous proclamation. One that could prove fatal. Tarnishing the church does poorly for one’s health; Vindict had seen it before.

“Here,” Willic mumbled, and pressed down his long fingers onto a page. “Taken from the inscriptions of the churches’ gospel: ‘But the defiled is no more than man who lost the guidance of light; a lamb unknown to the ways others – forever searching meaning in a life without God’s acceptance and spreading naught but terror upon the land and its righteous people by sharing their Black Blood.’ Then it talks some more about how Vail crushed them with God’s might.” And Willic shook his head, flitting some pages.

“The only other thing about them is here: ‘But the hex is envious of God’s bond with man and seeks to forge them as well by forming pacts of Blood that have them stray from The Almighty’s embrace.’ As you see, there is no direct correlation found here, other than they are both told to have lost their way.” Vindict bit at his nail, thinking.

“And why do you even consider these to hold the faintest shred of truth?” He felt himself getting angry. A week had been what it took for an audience with the Doctor, but he had yet to reap any benefit of it. But the Sixth wasn’t taken aback; his fine smile still present.

“Blood.” He said it slowly, wording each letter precisely.

“Blood?”

“Yes,” Vindict didn’t think it possible for the man’s smile to grow any wider, but it could, and it did.

“Just as power dwells in the earth, and the sky, and the sea, so does it swim in man and beast alike.” His fingers moved along his words as if they had a mind of their own.

“Blood?” And Zaphiros nodded, one eye dull and one smoldering with a dangerously eager gleam.

“I’ve read it being used in times long past and near forgotten, for many needs and purposes. Blood, my curious inquisitor, holds most Will of man. Have it spill from them and they will wither. It compels us. Drives us. Binds us. How many secrets could I uncover? Coax free with the use of Blood?”

Vindict knew the church had forbidden the use of man’s blood in magic, as they forbade many things without explanation. He didn’t think the opinions of Solis were of concern to the Doctor though.

“Then why not try it?” Willic’s head swiveled to him in a spasm, one hollow eye – wide and round, one coiling eye – half-hidden – radiant threads brimming within. Looking like he wanted nothing more.

“It is forbidden!” The assistant gasped breathlessly, gripped by a sudden fear. It had Vindict fear too. For fright comes from ignorance. What could a man who knew so much possibly fear?

“What’s forbidden?” Vindict asked quietly, afraid to wake the horrors of old, who are told to now dwell the Other Side.

The assistant’s eyes peered at the blackness shrouding the endless rows of books. The eternal spiral of knowledge. Afraid of the dark. Or perhaps not staring at shadow, but the tomes hidden within. Endless rows of heinous writing. The eternal spiral of mad knowledge. Stared as if they would come lashing out; clawing at him for revealing their secrets.

“It is forbidden to eat the flesh of man.”