The air outside the warehouse was thick with tension, a metallic taste of impending rain and institutional violence. The Church's presence was no longer a subtle pressure; it was a visible clamp. Patrols of stern-faced men in beige greatcoats were everywhere, their eyes scanning the crowds with a new, predatory focus. Lutz felt their gaze like a physical weight, even through his disguises. Today's drops were the most dangerous yet. He was handing the Church the keys to the kingdom, and if he was caught with them in his hand, the game was over.
His first stop was a reeking alley two blocks from the main thoroughfare. He'd changed into the clothes of a day-laborer, his face smudged with dirt, his posture slumped with pretended exhaustion. He spotted his target: a hulking, broken-nosed thug named Gregor, known for his willingness to do anything for coin and his profound lack of curiosity. Gregor was leaning against a wall, picking his teeth with a nail.
Lutz didn't approach directly. He circled, coming up from behind, his voice a low, gravelly threat that was not his own. "Don't turn around."
Gregor froze, his shoulders tensing.
"I have a job. One Silver Shield. Now." Lutz pressed the coin into the man's meaty, calloused hand.
"What's the job?" Gregor grunted, his head still facing forward.
"See the Church office at the end of the street? The brass-shod door. You walk there. You don't run. You put this," Lutz slipped the sealed packet of forgeries—the ones detailing the lawyers and paymasters—into Gregor's other hand, "through the slot. Then you walk away. You don't look at it. You don't talk to anyone. You tell no one."
"And if I do?"
"Then the Shield is the last coin you'll ever spend," Lutz whispered, letting the promise of violence hang in the air between them. "I'll know if you fail. And I will find you."
Gregor's grip tightened on the coin. He was a man who understood simple economies. Threat and payment. He gave a short, sharp nod. "Done."
Lutz melted back into the foot traffic, not waiting to watch. He trusted the man's cowardice and greed. He moved six blocks north, into a slightly more respectable commercial district, and changed his disguise in the back room of a sympathetic tavern, swapping the laborer's rags for the slightly shabby coat and spectacles of 'Elias Vogler.' The next drop was for a different Church functionary, one who handled customs violations.
He found his next courier arguing with a shopkeeper over the price of a bruised apple. She was a sharp-faced woman with a hungry look, a known gossip and occasional informant for anyone who paid.
Lutz intercepted her as she stalked away, frustrated. "A moment of your time, madam?" he said, his voice taking on Henrik's polite, slightly pedantic tone.
She eyed him suspiciously. "What do you want?"
"I have a matter of civic duty. And a reward for your time." He showed her a Silver Shield. Her eyes locked onto it. "The Church office on Oak Lane. There is a clerk there named Althus. I need this document delivered directly to him. It concerns… a matter of misplaced loyalty within the harbor master's office. It is vital he gets it. Discreetly."
He was layering the lie, giving her a plausible, tantalizing story to tell herself. A gossip loved nothing more than being at the center of a secret.
"Why me?" she asked, her greed warring with caution.
"Because you are unseen. And because I am paying you," Lutz said simply. "Do this, take the coin, and speak of it to no one. Or walk away, and wonder what the information was worth."
The woman snatched the coin and the second packet. "Althus. Oak Lane. Discreetly." She repeated the instructions like a mantra and hurried off.
Lutz repeated this process two more times in two other districts, using two other intermediaries—a debt-ridden gambler and a young, ambitious errand boy—each time with a different disguise, a different voice, a different cover story. He was a phantom with a dozen faces, weaving a web of deniable actions, ensuring the Church received its devastating intelligence from multiple, untraceable sources. By the time he was done, his nerves were stretched wire-tight. Every glance felt like a recognition, every shouted command from a patrol leader felt like it was aimed at him.
But the fooling of the Church was done. Now came the fooling of the Vipers.
He made his way to the very fringes of the city, to a place called the Rustwater Canals. It was a shantytown built on stilts over foetid, sluggish water, a place of last resort. The air hung heavy with the stench of rot and despair. Here, the people were too broken to ask questions. He shed his last disguise, becoming just another anonymous figure in the gloom.
He found a group of three street urchins huddled around a pathetic, smokeless fire, trying to warm their hands over the embers. Their eyes were ancient in young faces.
Lutz approached, holding up a single Gold Hammer. The coin shone in the dim light, a ludicrous fortune in this place. All three pairs of eyes locked onto it with a hunger that was physical.
"I need blood," Lutz stated, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "A vial's worth. From one of you. Whoever gives it to me, gets this."
There was a moment of confused silence. This was not a normal request.
"Why?" the boldest of them, a girl with matted hair, asked, her voice raspy.
"That is not your concern," Lutz said, his gaze unwavering. "The transaction is simple. Your blood, for this coin. Yes or no?"
The three children looked at each other. In their world, everything had a price. Bodies, dignity, blood. A Gold Hammer could buy food for a month. It could buy passage out of this hell. It was worth any amount of blood.
"I'll do it," the girl said, stepping forward.
Lutz produced a small, clean glass vial and a sharp lancet. "Your arm."
The girl extended a thin, dirty arm without hesitation. Lutz's movements were swift and clinical. He made a quick, precise cut on her forearm with Creed and held the vial beneath the welling blood. The girl didn't flinch, her eyes fixed on the gold coin in his other hand. The vial filled with dark, crimson liquid. When it was full, Lutz corked it, handed her the Hammer, and turned away without another word. The transaction was complete. He had his prop.
He returned to the warehouse, but he didn't go inside. He slipped into the narrow, foul-smelling alley behind the main building, a place used for dumping refuse and little else. Here, hidden from prying eyes, he prepared his final performance.
He took out the Creed again. His face was a mask of cold concentration. This was not about pain; it was about verisimilitude. He made a series of quick, shallow cuts. A three-inch slice along his forearm that bled impressively but wouldn't touch a tendon. A similar cut on his thigh. A few smaller nicks on his chest and his other leg. They stung, but the pain was a distant thing, a data point in his plan. He let the blood flow freely for a moment, staining his skin and clothes.
Then, he uncorked the vial of the urchin's blood. With the practiced eye of a stage manager, he began to splatter it. He flicked it across his shirt, creating arterial spray patterns. He dabbed it on his hands and smeared it across his face, mixing it with the dirt and sweat. He poured some on a rent in his trousers he'd made earlier, making it look like a deep, bleeding gash. He was creating a narrative of a desperate, brutal fight—his own blood from defensive wounds, his enemy's blood from a victorious, savage counter-attack.
When he was done, he looked down at himself. He was a mess. A walking testament to a violent struggle. He was panting slightly, not from exertion, but from the focused intensity of the act. He leaned against the cold brick wall for a moment, letting the adrenaline subside, letting the character of the battered hunter settle over him.
Then, he pushed himself upright. The pain was a dull throb, the blood sticky and cold against his skin. It was perfect.
He limped, just slightly, towards the hidden entrance in the warehouse wall. The phantom was returning to his nest, bearing the false evidence of his own hunt.
The groan of the loose board in the warehouse wall was usually masked by the din of daily life. Now, in the heavy, watchful silence, it sounded like a gunshot. Every head in the main hall turned towards the source of the sound.
Lutz half-stumbled, half-fell through the opening, catching himself on a stack of crates with a grunt that was only partially feigned. The shock that rippled through the room was a physical force. Conversations died mid-sentence. Spoons froze halfway to mouths.
He was a vision of carnage. His clothes were slashed and torn, soaked through with dark, drying blood that was not entirely his own. A long, angry cut wept crimson down his forearm, and his face was a mask of grime, sweat, and smeared gore. He favored his right leg, his breathing a ragged, painful-sounding draw. This was the man who had coolly executed a vice-captain on the deck of a ship, who moved with a predator's grace. Now, he looked like he'd been through a meat grinder.
Peter, who had been nervously polishing a knife nearby, dropped the blade with a clatter. "Holy shit," he breathed, his voice loud in the stillness, his face pale with a mixture of horror and awe.
The commotion drew Karl from the Baron's office. He emerged, his expression as unreadable as ever, but the sharp, calculating pace of his stride betrayed his interest. His eyes, those banked coals, swept over Lutz, taking in every detail: the pattern of the blood spatter, the specific angle of the limp, the shallow but genuine cuts. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second on the wounds, and a subtle, almost imperceptible flare of his nostrils confirmed what Lutz had feared and prepared for.
'He's sampling the air' Lutz thought, his mind a crystal-clear pool of focus beneath the performance of pain. 'Hunter's senses. He'd know the flat, dull scent of animal blood from a butcher's shop. He'd know the metallic tang of pig or cow. But human blood… especially from the young and malnourished… has a particular, sharp sweetness to it. The urchin's blood was the only currency he would accept. A necessary investment.'
"Report," Karl commanded, his voice flat, giving nothing away.
Lutz pushed himself off the crates, wincing as he put weight on his "injured" leg. He let the pain show in his eyes, let his voice come out strained and breathless.
"I found him," Lutz gasped, the words tumbling out as if he'd been holding them back through sheer force of will. "The leak. Or one of them. A hooded man, near the Gallowsmarket. He was slick, Karl. He handed a paper to a thug, just like before. I went after the source this time, not the messenger."
He paused, dragging a bloody sleeve across his mouth, a gesture of exhausted frustration. "I followed him fast. He led me into a dead-end street off the Rustwater Canals. A trap. The moment I was boxed in, they came out of the shadows. Five, maybe six of them. Not thugs. They moved… coordinated. Knives and short swords. No talk, no demands. Just violence."
He met Karl's gaze, letting the memory of his real, self-inflicted pain give truth to his words. "It was a butcher's shop in there. I got two of them, I think. Opened one's throat, gutted another. But they got their licks in." He gestured vaguely at his slashed clothes and bleeding arm. "Barely made it out. Had to go over the roofs, lost them in the canals. They weren't just trying to stop me, Karl. They were trying to get me."
'Let him chew on that' Lutz's internal monologue a cold counterpoint to his ragged exterior. 'The word of a professional. It implies a level of organization beyond a simple rival gang. It feeds the narrative of a sophisticated, shadowy enemy. It makes my failure seem inevitable, even heroic.'
Karl was silent for a long moment, his eyes doing the work of a forensic examiner. He was cross-referencing Lutz's story with the evidence before him. The blood was real, and it was human. The cuts were genuine, shallow enough to be survivable but placed exactly where one would expect in a frantic knife-fight against multiple opponents—defensive wounds on the arms, a lucky slash on the leg. The splatter pattern on his tunic was consistent with close-quarters arterial spray from an opponent. The story was airtight because the evidence was real.
'The blood is right' Karl's own mind whirred, a calculator of threat and survival. 'Human. Recent. The story fits the wounds. A coordinated ambush… that explains the Church's precision. They're not just getting tips; they have a tactical team on the ground, cleaning up loose ends. This isn't a snitch. It's a cell. And they just tried to take out one of my best assets.'
A grim finality settled on Karl's features. The last flicker of suspicion was extinguished, replaced by a cold, sober assessment of their predicament.
"Okay," Karl said, the single word heavy with implication. "Okay. Things are really going south." He looked past Lutz, at the terrified faces of the other Vipers. "We're not just being leaked on. We're being hunted. Go. Get those wounds cleaned and stitched. We can't afford for you to get an infection. We'll… we'll see how we can brace ourselves against this."
It was the closest Karl would ever come to admitting they were on the back foot. The admission was a victory more profound than any lie Lutz had told.
'Brace yourselves' Lutz rejoiced, limping towards the rear of the warehouse where the washroom was. 'Go on. Brace. Build your barricades. Stock your supplies. It won't matter. The enemy isn't at the gate. He's in your well, poisoning the water. He's sitting at your table, breaking bread with you. And soon, this shitty thief going to steal everything you have left.'
He left a trail of bloody footprints on the sawdust floor, a testament to a battle that had never happened, for an enemy that did not exist. The Vipers watched him go, their fear now tinged with a new, grim respect. He had faced the ghost and lived to tell the tale. They had no idea he was the ghost himself.