McRae needed the young fighter standing before him.
What had happened in the stairwell had left a deep impression on him.
A university student who could take down three burly men in ten seconds was a rare natural talent in the detective business.
Evan took the business card, pinching the brown cardstock between his fingers to feel its thickness and texture.
"What's the pay?"
McRae's smile grew warmer.
"We can discuss that in detail when you have time to visit my office."
He rose and gave Evan a slight bow.
"I'll be on my way, then!"
With that, the MacRae Detective Agency's chief detective hurried out of the living room. From the stairs came the sound of him scrambling to help his companions.
Evan stood where he was, looking down at the brown business card in his hand.
Embossed gold lettering spelled out "MacRae Detective Agency" and its address. In the lower right corner was a drawing of a magnifying glass with an open eye.
He rubbed his chin.
"Detective Assistant."
He weighed the title in his mind.
He could legally ask questions, encounter cases involving every level of society, and move freely through all sorts of places without arousing suspicion.
For a Beyonder Rookie trying to find his footing amid the city's undercurrents...
"That sounds like a pretty convenient side job."
After McRae left, nothing else of note happened.
Evan spent seventeen cents on dinner at the Lucky Bee.
Roast pork liver, cabbage stewed with potatoes, and a large chunk of rye bread. The portions were hearty, though the food was so greasy it coated his throat.
He went home, checked the house for any more uninvited "guests," changed into his father's work clothes, and headed straight for the harbor.
It was piecework again.
He started at seven and finished at eleven.
Eighty cents in his pocket.
After his shift, Evan clenched the sweat-scented coins in his palm, walked up to foreman Parker, and lowered his voice.
"Uncle Parker, I saw Carey at the clinic a couple of days ago. He's testing drugs."
Parker was stuffing tobacco into his pipe. His fingers stopped.
"Ah."
He sighed, as though a stone weighed on his chest.
"Who knew he'd catch that disease? He'd only just married a beautiful wife. His life's probably ruined now."
He muttered the words, but there was a subtle pause at "beautiful wife," and something odd in his voice that Evan couldn't quite place.
"Such a beautiful woman..."
Parker said no more. He turned toward the warehouse, the red glow of his pipe brightening and dimming in the night.
Evan stood still, watching Parker's back for several seconds.
Beautiful woman. Syphilis.
A few days ago, those two things would not have made Evan think twice.
Syphilis was hardly rare on Gooding Street. A man could catch it by marrying a prostitute or sleeping with someone else's wife.
But everything he had seen lately made it impossible to view anything around him as "normal" anymore.
Better remember that. It might be useful.
He opened a separate drawer in his mind, filed away "Carey—beautiful wife—syphilis—Parker's reaction," and locked it.
By the time he reached his front door, exhaustion was washing over him.
He instinctively reached into his jacket pocket for two Phenobarbital tablets to help him sleep, only to find the bottle empty.
He sighed and took out the bottle of Mercury Pills instead.
Two remained.
He swallowed them both.
[You reversed the side effect of the Mercury Pills.] [Your mouth was strengthened. Physique permanently +0.001.]
"Hm?"
Evan frowned.
Normally, reversing the Mercury Pills' effects should have eased his digestive ulcers and nerve damage.
The ulcers were already gone, so it made sense that nothing happened there.
But his nerve damage was still at thirteen percent. Why hadn't it responded?
Have I built up drug resistance?
He thought it over but didn't dwell on it.
I wasn't planning to take any more anyway. I'll try a new drug next time.
Mercury Pills cost three cents apiece—not cheap, considering how little they improved his attributes.
Now that his rash had cleared completely, there was no reason to keep spending money on them.
He tossed the empty bottle in the trash, washed up, and climbed onto the iron bed.
A healthy body brought healthy sleep.
Less than five minutes after his head hit the pillow, he drifted off.
"Did you know? In the Beyonder world, there are no books."
Deep in the dream, Evan felt as though someone had forced new knowledge into his mind.
It came as a whisper.
He did not hear it with his ears. It sounded directly inside his skull.
"Young Demon Hunter, let me clear the road ahead for you."
The aged, weary voice sounded again.
Evan lifted his head in the void of the dream and saw a bright campfire.
Orange-red flames danced, illuminating a small space around them.
He walked over instinctively and sat on a stone beside the fire.
Scents washed over him.
The stench of Rotten Beast Hide, the rusty tang of old blood, the charred fragrance of dry grass mixed with pine resin, and an indefinable mustiness like damp leather.
He looked around.
Including himself, seven people sat around the campfire.
Five of the others sat in silence, like statues forgotten by time.
Each wore different clothes.
The person on the far left wore medieval-style chain mail, with a long-faded Family crest engraved on the breastplate.
Beside that person sat someone draped in a Nordic-style wolfskin Cloak, a string of animal teeth hanging at the waist.
Next came a figure in a beaked mask, reminiscent of a seventeenth-century Plague Doctor.
The clothing of the others stretched into the industrial age: leather jackets, Copper buttons, and flintlock holsters.
Their bodies differed just as much.
One was enormous, a seated mountain of flesh with a whole bearskin draped over broad shoulders.
Another was gaunt and silent, with long fingers whose joints jutted out half an inch farther than normal.
One was deformed and leaned on a cane topped with a carved wolf's head. Half the figure's face hid in the shadow of a hood, leaving only a patch of skin with an unsettling texture exposed.
But they all shared one thing.
A pair of golden eyes.
Their pupils were narrow vertical slits, their irises burning amber-gold.
Keen and resolute—and utterly familiar to Evan.
Hill's pupils.
The eyes of a Demon Hunter.
"What do you wish to know, young hunter?"
The old voice sounded again.
Evan turned his head.
A slightly overweight middle-aged man sat to his right.
He wore a wide-brimmed tricorne. A black cloth covered the lower half of his face, and an old-fashioned black Trench Coat hung from his shoulders.
Compared with his statue-still companions, the man seemed startlingly alive.
He sat cross-legged with a long silver sword across his knees, wiping the blade with a soft cloth in slow, repeated strokes.
Firelight flowed along the blade and warmed his Golden Slit Pupils.
Evan understood at once.
These were fragments of memory passed on as he digested the Demon Hunter's Beyonder Characteristic.
The "predecessors" around the campfire were only symbolic figures.
The one truly speaking to him was this middle-aged Demon Hunter—Hill's Master.
"You just said there are no books in the Beyonder world," Evan said.
"What did you mean?"
The Demon Hunter's hand stopped wiping the sword.
"The Beyonder is, at its heart, mystery and The Impossible."
"How could something so mysterious and impossible be written neatly in books like ordinary knowledge?"
Evan considered that.
"Then how is knowledge passed down?"
The Demon Hunter smiled. The black cloth hid his mouth, but the fine lines at the corners of his eyes curved.
He pointed the tip of his sword toward the dancing fire.
"Today, there are five Beyonder Signifiers, each with three Professions under it."
"All knowledge is passed down from generation to generation through Beyonder Characteristics."
"That is why it can remain so well hidden in the industrial age."
"There are no records, no evidence. It flows only through spoken words, inheritance, and mystery."
He paused, his voice dropping.
"That is also why a faction's line of inheritance matters so much."
"Outsiders cannot imagine the depth of knowledge accumulated by an unbroken line."
Evan fell silent for several seconds.
It was the first description of the Beyonder system he had heard that felt so counterintuitive yet so difficult to dispute.
"Then how can the Beyonder system expand? There are only so many Beyonder Characteristics to pass down."
The Demon Hunter shook his head.
"Beyonder Characteristics can be obtained by hunting Beyonder Creatures and made into Magic Potions to establish new lines of inheritance."
"That brings us to the Professions of the Beyonder world."
His voice grew slow and heavy.
"Humans are born with Spirituality, but no Characteristics."
"Every Beyonder Characteristic humans possess today came from Monsters that appeared in the human world at some unknown point."
He paused, slowly drawing a line in the ground with his sword tip.
"Because humans used Spirituality to accept the Characteristics of Monsters, Bestiality took root."
His Golden Slit Pupils fixed on Evan.
"Remember this. Never forget that you are human."
"Otherwise, you will not be far from losing control completely and becoming a beast."
A chill ran down Evan's back.
He committed the warning to memory at once.
"What Professions are there now? What are their signature abilities?"
The Demon Hunter nodded, apparently pleased by his thirst for knowledge.
"The five Beyonder Signifiers are the Sun, the Moon, the Tree of Life, the Holy Grail, and Gold."
"They represent the five most enduring, wide-ranging paths, capable of encompassing the broadest concepts."
"Under the Moon are three Professions: the Spirit Medium, skilled with souls; the Sanguine, skilled with blood; and the Nighthawk, skilled with darkness."
"The Sun also has three: the Knight, skilled with the body; the Prophet, skilled with divination; and the Demon, skilled with fire."
"The Tree of Life has three as well: the Snake Person, who studies rebirth; the Good Person, skilled at fusion; and the Dryad, skilled at perception."
"The Holy Grail has three: the Monk, who studies desire; the Fanatic, who seeks Telekinesis; and the Poet, who is obsessed with sound."
"Last is Gold, which arose with industry in the past century. It has three Professions under it."
Evan supplied the answer.
"Financier, Judge, and Factory Owner."