DIRTY CASH (MONEY TALKS)

When In Doubt

To Miss Eliza Wren,
Fleet Street, London

Dearest Eliza,

Forgive the lateness of this letter. The hours here have become my enemies, slipping past like shadows that move when no candle burns. The rain has not ceased for three days, and London has grown sodden with fear. You will have heard by now of the death of Father Ellory at St. Cuthbert’s. The papers say little, yet the streets speak more than the press dares print. The city insists that Grathok has passed among the pews. I wish I could call it rumor, but what I witnessed compels me otherwise.

I arrived the morning after. The nave smelled of wet stone and smoke though no fire had been lit. Constables kept the doors barred, yet the cats had gathered again. They prowled the aisles as if searching for a master. When the men tried to drive them off with sticks, the animals only hissed and returned. Their eyes glowed like embers caught in the gloom.

The priest lay in the vestry, tongue black as ink, hands clasped around an iron key tied with black thread. I touched it only briefly, and even through gloves I felt the cold of river water. I asked Inspector Dray what was done with the chalice. He told me it had been empty when they came upon it, though the floor about it was dry, as though the liquid had chosen to flee upward.

I spoke with the few parishioners who dared remain in the city. An old woman swore the rain itself had tapped her window the night before, spelling words in the glass that she could not bring herself to repeat. A boy who had hidden in the choir loft confessed he had seen a shadow pressed against the stained glass, its helm and sword vast enough to eclipse the saints. He has not spoken since.

Eliza, I am no stranger to crime. Men kill for coin, for pride, for vengeance. Yet these deaths are different. They are precise, deliberate, like a scribe crossing names from a ledger. Each victim so far has carried respect among the wealthy, yet beneath the surface their charity was false, their power rooted in cruelty. Colgrave the magnate twisted debts into profit, Ellory the priest sold salvation for coin. Both are now corpses. Both clutched keys.

What strikes me most is the atmosphere of the places he has touched. It is not blood or the stench of rot, but silence. The silence is so heavy it presses into bone. It lingers even when the body is carried away. I cannot help but feel I am not tracking a man but a judgment, one that has chosen me as its unwilling witness.

I walked the streets after leaving St. Cuthbert’s. Coldharbor Lane was drowned in fog so thick it seemed alive. Every window looked down on me with suspicion. I swear I saw words forming in the condensation upon the glass of an abandoned bakery, but they vanished when I drew near.

Dray, who follows me despite my orders, asked if I believed the stories. I told him truth is not found in rumor but in pattern. Yet as I write to you, I admit that I begin to doubt myself. The pattern here feels older than any man could devise.

My patron continues to fund the work. The coin appears in envelopes without seal, each smelling faintly of river reeds. Who but Grathok himself would pay a man to hunt him? Why would he wish me to follow? Unless the hunt itself is part of the judgment.

If this is so, then I have already stepped too far. Still I will not abandon it. Whatever Grathok may be, he is flesh or he is not. If he is flesh, I shall strike him down. If he is not, then may God forgive me for accepting coin against such a foe.

I write you this not to frighten but to prepare. If I should fall silent in the weeks to come, know that I kept my oath to the Guild, and to you. I will not run.

Your servant always,
Nathaniel Harrow

Chapter IV: Letter to Miss Eliza Wren

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