After a morning breakfast, Anjelica and Hound set out into Galante. Their initial investigations were always cursory and so they thought it best to leave Sera with Pierro to get some much needed rest. She was not, after all, used to the road like they were.

They had left as morning was just beginning to peak over the horizon. The gray of dawn turned to the blistering yellow of morning as they made their way past the still-waking town.

“How are we approaching this, Angel?” Hound asked through a yawn.

“There is something that has been bothering me Hound,” Anjelica begins, “Why Gavels? They certainly are not the easiest prey at the best of times. Why take the clots? So many as well. Jelessa and then the four that came after her in quick succession in the following weeks all had them removed.”

“Clots are powerful weapons? They could be stockpiling them to give to other people?” Hound theorized.

“If that were the case then why are we not seeing people with their clots appear? They must need them for something but for what? More importantly, why did they need Jelessa specifically?” Anjelica continued.

They made their way to the edge of town where there were several barns and warehouses. Anjelica made her way to one side of the road and stared down at the ground with great intent.

“Jelessa had been requested specifically by someone that much is certain. I found a notation of the request but it was not labeled or signed and where the report should have been was an empty page. Quite irregular. Maybe it was the Internal Bureau who sent her as she had certainly worked with them before on various cases. Her mind clot gave her a perfect memory and so she was a valuable person. Too valuable. Her memory is a useful tool but it would also be a smoking gun if she saw something untoward.” Anjelica led off a bit, seeing Hound’s confused expression.

“So you think the real question is: What did she see?” Hound asked. He had done this process many times before giving leading questions to Anjelica. It helped her think.

“Not only what did she see but where did she see it and who decided she was too dangerous to let leave?”

Anjelica made a few pointed steps backwards toward the far side of the lane.

“The report from the local constable stated that she was found lying on the ground with a bullet wound on her head. I think that what they left out was that she was found lying face down when she was found.”

“Why would that matter?” Hound asked.

“It means that she might have been shot from behind as she was leaving from somewhere. Our guns are not much use outside of fifteen yards so they would have had to be close. I think the mangled neck is an indication that this was a spur of the moment attack. She stormed off away from whatever had upset her…” Anjelica again led off as she took some steps back.

“The person may have been chasing her for a few steps, trying to reason with her before they pulled out their pistol and shot,” Anjelica pantomimed the motion as she continued, “With her now shot they would be scared to be seen. They did a poor job of removing the clot because it was their first time and they were in a hurry. I bet that this first one was done with a pocket knife of some kind. So, that leaves us with…”

Anjelica turned to look at the barns behind her.

“Two possibilities of where she saw whatever made her storm out. It is at least a start!” Anjelica chirped.

Anjelica strode confidently forward, examining the fronts of the rather nondescript barns. Looking for anything that could be considered out of place.

It was Hound who noticed the first oddity.

“Anjelica. I smell blood,” he said standing just outside of the first set of doors that Anjelica had already passed.

“Oh really? Well that would make sense because the butcher’s shack is right…over there,” she said with a tinge of confusion as she glanced far down the lane.

“Maybe I should take you hunting someday, Hound. I am sure you would be much better at tracking than any bloodhound I could buy. ,” Anjelica jested.

“Were we not already hunting?” Hound questioned.

“Point taken,” Anjelica said tersely.

As Anjelica strode up to the double doors she could see that there had been chains wrapped around the door handles with a large padlock holding the links together.

“Locks cannot be that expensive right?” Anjelica asked as she pulled out her pistol and slid a bullet into the chamber.

The bullet rang out and the padlock splintered. Hound walked over and pulled the heavy chain away from the door handles and sent it clattering into a pile on the ground.

As he pulled the door open, Hound immediately recoiled away from the opening. Coughing a bit, he pulled out a cloth and put it over his already cloth covered nostrils.

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Hound began to lead them into the barn passing the rows and rows of livestock stalls that made up this auctioning barn. The wood under their feet was worn smooth from the many feet which had walked it, human and otherwise. Astria was long past its calving season and the place had been left in disrepair. Layers of dust sat upon the wood trimmings and collected on the piles of fermenting hay.

That was, except for one stall. One would never notice it if they were not already looking for strangeness. In the very back of the building they found the second to the furthest back stall and it looked as if it had been cared for. There was still hay here but it was spread into large clumps like someone had tossed them. The nails in the wood were fresh, same as the hay. The planks of wood in the floor creaked and groaned as the pair walked onto them.

“If they are bending downward then that means that there is nothing beneath them. One of these floorboards must come up,” Anjelica stated with confidence.

It did not take long for the pair to find boards missing nails and with divots where a hammer or other tool had been used to pry them up previously. Hound was more than capable of ripping up the boards. As they did, they revealed a large hole that had been dug into the ground beneath the auction house. The hole dropped down to a passageway that went further underneath the structure towards the center.

Anjelica searched around and found an abandoned lantern hanging on a nail on a nearby post. Removing it, she undid the latch that folded back the glass and gave her access to the wick and oil pan. Reaching to her belt she removed a small vial filled with yellow oil.

I am glad that I prepare for these types of things. Though it has been maybe six years since I have had to use my reserve oil, Anjelica thought, Perhaps Art was right about it being silly.

Anjelica pulled a bit of flint from the pouch at her belt. Striking it against one of her daggers, she sent a spark flying down towards the wick of the lantern causing it to ignite.

Now armed with light, Anjelica and Hound regrouped near the hole.

Hound leaped down and then reached a hand up.

“What a gentleman,” Anjelica noted as she reached down and accepted his hand. With a hop she joined him down in the man made tunnel.

Looking down the way, the light immediately started reflecting off of some metal.

“One of Pierro’s chairs?” Hound asked as he walked over to the contraption. It was a simplistic and small wheeled chair and had been collapsed to fold as flat as it could be against the wall.

They raised eyebrows at each other but continued down the man made tunnel. It eventually opened up into a room where they were able to stand up again finally.

“What is all of this?” Anjelica asked with a fearful tone as she raised the lantern to illuminate the room as the smell of blood overtook her.

At the center of the hollowed out room was a metal table about waist height. The table had shackles attached to each of the legs. The table was stained with the red and orange of dried blood that had dried on the metal or dropped off the side. On a three legged wooden stool next it sat an array of medical tools. Saws, knives, metal thin nosed pliers, and bits of obsidian were spilling out of the metal tray that they were housed in. The dirt around the table had changed from a dull, dusty brown to a reddish purple color.

Two of the walls had been covered in papers with drawings of strange symbols and words in a language that neither Anjelica nor Hound recognized. Just beneath the papers, two tables were sat. They were covered in loose parchment and thick tomes in a chaotic fashion. Though the surgical tools were relegated to the tray on the stool, that did not stop traces of their work from marring the rest of the room. Amongst the cluttered papers there could be seen a drop of scarlet on a piece of parchment or a partial, bloody handprint peeking out from beneath some books.

Along the back wall was another table that had some shelves installed about it. Glass jars, vials, and beakers sat in a confused array atop it. Syringes were scattered about as well as bottles of a lilac colored liquid.

“Well I think we found where whoever it is was removing the clots,” Hound said as he walked to the back table. Popping one of the corks on the vials of lilac liquid he took a smell before turning back to Anjelica.

“Widow’s Tears. The healers use this to keep people sedated,” Hound explained.

“The murderer did not like being a killer so much after all eh?” Anjelica stated confidently, “After the first one was such a bloody mess they decided to be more careful. Drug them, bring them here, attempt the surgery, and when it inevitably kills the patient they just dump them in the river not 100 strides away.”

Anjelica made her way over to one of the tables filled with parchment and lifted the cover of one of the heavy tomes.

“These are medical and theology books from the Church archives in Lovelle. I wonder how they wound up this far south…” Anjelica trailed off as she caught sight of the edge of a leather bound volume. This had no title on the front and as Anjelica began to flip through she saw that the pages were scrawled in very orderly handwriting. Flipping to the last entry, she began to read aloud.

“‘There is no life or death, there is only God. We have forgotten that. We have forgotten his voice. I will never forget anything again.

Our connection to God has been lost and locked away inside of tomes kept in safes. If we could speak to God then would they relent our punishment? If only we could see the face of glory would the faithless begin to see the truth?

The tools which we may use to find our salvation are right here in these pages. ‘Four gifts must be taken and the fifth received’ echoes over and over again in these rituals related to prophecy and communion. Our modern sensibilities have left us blind and too weak to grasp our providence. We take for granted the gifts that God has given us and view them as simple tools to be reused or abandoned. No longer.

There is little time now. The arrival of the Raven has forced my hand. I will need to move forward with the ritual despite the difficulties that God has placed in my path. Four have been taken and the fifth shall be received. We will experience God’s glorious voice before the sun reaches its peak.

I only hope that my meager accommodations will please them. The work must be done regardless.”

Anjelica stopped reading. As the pair looked at each other, shivers ran down their spine. A thread of a half heard conversation drifting up the stairs surfaced in their mind.

Anjelica’s skin had gone even a lighter shade of pale as she looked up with fearful eyes.

“If they need clots for the ritual then they already have four,” Anjelica said shakily, “Where do you think they are going to get the fifth from Hound?”

Hound’s eyes widened.

“Sera is all alone,” he growled.

Dropping what was in their hands, the two made haste as they went back up the dirt tunnel and towards the long run back to Pierro’s.