DIRTY CASH (MONEY TALKS)

When In Doubt

At Ludgate’s bones, where the old Roman stones still brooded beneath the soot of centuries, the storm gathered with unnatural hunger. The city knew thunder, yet this night the thunder did not roll across the sky but seemed to beat from within the gate itself, as if stone had found a voice.

Pedestrians, hurrying with cloaks over their heads, stopped and stared. They could not say why. The rain fell upon them in torrents, yet at the center of the square there was a circle where no drop landed. In that circle stood a figure clad in armor the color of wet slate, its surface gleaming with lightning’s kiss.

He was vast, not only in height but in presence. He did not stride. He did not speak. He stood, sword point down upon the stones, both hands upon its hilt, a sentinel set against the world. The rain struck his helm and gauntlets, but each drop turned black and fell in sheets, running across the ground until it formed rivulets like ink spilled from heaven’s pen.

The onlookers felt it first in their knees. A pressure, subtle yet irresistible, bent them downward. Mothers pulled children close, merchants dropped their parcels, beggars crossed themselves with shaking hands. None knew his name, yet all understood. This was not a man standing in the square. This was judgment given armor.

Above him, the rain did more than fall. It arranged itself in lines, threads of water suspended in air, forming shapes too intricate for the human mind. Some swore they saw words, others claimed to glimpse cities or cathedrals inverted. None agreed, except that the rain itself was no longer rain. It had become scripture.

The bells tolled across the city, though no sexton pulled them. Twelve notes rang, then a thirteenth, unnatural, echoing like iron upon bone. The sound reverberated through the stones, rattling shutters and loosening mortar. Dogs whined and fled into alleys. Horses buckled their knees and would not rise.

Grathok did not move. His visor faced forward, silent. Yet the people felt his gaze pierce through them. Each heart seemed weighed, each sin remembered. It was not violence that held them, but the certainty that they had been counted.

By dawn, the square was empty. Only the gate remained, damp and blackened where the sword had touched stone. And upon the wall above it, where no mason could have climbed, the sigil had been carved so deep that water pooled within its lines.

London whispered anew. Some said Grathok had come to mark the end of his work. Others claimed he was waiting, sentinel at the gate, until one man—his appointed witness—should arrive.

And Nathaniel Harrow, rising from his bed in a sweat, heard the echo of the thirteenth bell long after the city had fallen silent.

Chapter XIII: The Gate of Black Rain

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