I'll Follow You

Gordon took the threatening letter with the damp handprint and went to Wycliffe Street to find Vera.

His time was precious. He had no patience for matching wits with some mysterious stranger. Finding a professional would save him the trouble.

Wycliffe Street lay in Lundenim's old quarter, distinguished by its unusually narrow roadway. After walking a little over three hundred paces, Gordon spotted a white brass sign outside number 27, engraved with a white raven spreading its wings.

Arthur Gray's Private Demon-Hunting Agency.

The twenty gold pounds Gordon had brought would only buy him a glance from Gray, nothing more, so he did not go in.

Across from the agency, the brokerage hall was wedged between St. Bartholomew Hospital and the Parker Brothers Gunsmith. Its wooden sign bore the words "Commissions Posted and Accepted," and various notices covered the windows.

[Commission: The Monster in the Sewers. Venture deep into Lundenim's sewers and hunt down the beast lurking within, preying on innocent citizens and young girls.]

[Commission: Blood on the Ice. Solve a murder case in Lundenim targeting innocent girls.]

[Commission: The Fifth Commandment. Girls have been murdered in the same manner.]

Why did so many jobs involve the serial murder of young girls? Gordon could not make sense of it.

He looked right at Gray's handsome agency, then left at the plain brokerage hall, and made his decision.

He pushed the door open and went in.

The bell jingled like a copper penny falling into an empty tin. The hall was crowded with people nursing their own misfortunes, including several dockworkers in overalls, a plump woman, and a deliveryman. Their expressions varied. Clearly, everyone had their troubles.

Behind the counter sat a thin-necked man wearing a monocle. His complexion reminded Gordon of oatmeal.

"Who are you looking for?" the broker asked.

"Vera Cateret," Gordon said.

"Pick someone else," the broker said.

"I haven't even told you the commission," Gordon said.

"Which means I can still save you," the broker said, pulling a blue-covered memorandum book from a drawer. "She's about to be struck off our books. Do you know her?"

"Yes."

"Then you know she's not exactly a levelheaded hunter. There's always this smell about her..." The broker waved a hand as though airing something out.

"A hint of sweat, a hint of sourness, with a sweet finish?" Gordon said.

"?" The broker looked at him.

"?" Gordon looked back.

The broker kept turning pages.

"...Anyway, she took a commission just the day before yesterday. There was a Crowman Demon on the third floor of a house," the broker said. "Some hunters would evacuate everyone first, negotiate with the monster, and reassure the client. She climbed down the chimney into the third floor, pinned the thing in front of a dressing mirror, and bled the beast dry like a chicken. The lady of the house fainted from fright."

"Did the monster die?" Gordon asked.

"Very thoroughly," the broker said.

"Did the people survive?" Gordon asked.

"They're alive," the broker said.

"Sounds perfect to me."

"But it damages the image of the hunting profession," the broker protested. "If everyone thinks hunters are all like her, citizens will stop hiring them."

"What does that even mean?"

"This is Emperor Albert's era," the broker said gravely. "We have to keep up with the times. We need hunters who can move in high society, who are willing to smoke pipes, read newspapers, attend poetic dramas, and buy a few government bonds. Not those drifters, wandering knights, and demon hunters of the medieval days..."

Gordon offered no opinion.

Something else, something more worthwhile, suddenly occurred to him.

"What happened to the Crowman Demon's corpse?" Gordon asked.

"We handed it over to an Aberrant dealer for salvage. Why do you ask?"

"She should have earned something from that, at least. That kind of Aberrant corpse is worth quite a bit. The wings, the beak, the claw tendons."

"We deducted her security deposit and recovered the cost of cleaning the carpet on the homeowner's behalf," the broker explained. "That's our promise. We will never let a hunter leave your house in a mess. Rest assured."

"But a Crowman Demon kills people," Gordon said. "From what you've told me, all I remember is that Vera saved that family's lives. Why were they worrying about the carpet?"

"They demanded compensation. What could we do?" The broker closed his memorandum book. "Anyway, sir, would you tell me about your commission? There must be someone better than this probationary hunter."

Gordon felt there was something wrong here. Pay peanuts, get monkeys-but the same money might also get him someone far more formidable and ready for action. He did not take the bait.

"Where is she?"

The brokerage's back door opened onto a narrow alley.

Vera crouched by the door, holding an oilpaper parcel and carefully placing a piece of cold sausage between two chunks of hard bread.

She sniffed, instantly picking one scent out of countless traces, and stopped moving.

"Vera Cateret." Gordon walked over to her.

She glanced up at Gordon, expertly identified three weak points on his body, then lowered her head.

"I was going to look for you," Vera said. She had not cut her hair these past few days, and it was a little longer than when they last met.

"It's fine. I've found you now. There's a new commission," Gordon said.

After the Water Monkey incident, he had given Vera five gold pounds as a reward. He wondered whether she had spent it all and whether she still remembered.

"I have a commission." Vera was eating. "Under my collar. Left side."

Gordon pulled a commission notice from beneath her collar. Its edges showed signs of tugging. He had no idea whom she had snatched the job from.

"...Young men and women, on a whim, gathered their friends, went in secret, entered a cave, stirred up silt, obscured their vision, and never returned..." Gordon read. Apparently, some people with nothing better to do had gone exploring outside Lundenim and gotten lost. They needed a hunter to search for them, or at least find their bodies. "...Can you handle this? Careful you don't die in there."

"Yes. I can swim."

"In an icy underground river? Who knows whether there are Poison Eel Demons in there? And it only pays one gold pound."

"There's nothing else," Vera said.

"I'll go have a word with that long-necked broker." Gordon headed toward the brokerage's back door.

Vera suddenly reached out and caught the back of his coat.

She did not use much force. Not much by her standards.

But Gordon was pulled to a standstill.

Gordon turned and saw that Vera had gone a little... red. Around her ears, at least.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to fight him," Gordon said.

"Don't go."

"You deserve jobs with more money and less work. In two days, Arthur Gray ate one breakfast, spent a day fishing, killed a Water Monkey and an octopus that spoke, and earned forty gold pounds."

"..." Vera shook her head. "No need."

She had her own way of understanding the world.

That made Gordon even angrier.

"Fine," Gordon said. "You really are an idiot."

"Oh." Vera let go and tried to turn her attention back to her food.

Every part of her body hurt, and her mind was muddled.

Just this mouthful. Just one.

Smack!

She felt something light strike her hard on the head.

A sheet of paper drifted down before her eyes and slowly settled over her food.

A gold pound!

"How can you be like this?" Gordon said, exasperated with her failure to stand up for herself. "One gold pound. I'm buying your evening."

A second note fell.

"I'm buying your tomorrow."

A third fell.

"I'm buying you a decent meal."

A fourth.

"I'm buying you a change of clothes."

A fifth.

"I'm buying you a visit to the doctor and some medicine."

Gold-pound notes fluttered down one after another, covering her food, her knees, and the ground like a flock of golden butterflies.

Vera sat there in a daze.

"Am I going to die?" She raised her head.

Too many people were given a mouthful of liquor, a piece of meat, or a kind word before they died. So she thought that, today, her life was finally going to be taken.

"No," Gordon said. "If you don't pull yourself together, I'm the one who's going to die."

Vera began sniffing Gordon's scent, gauging the distance between him and danger.

Gordon looked around. Sometimes this city felt reassuring. Sometimes it seemed fraught with danger.

A jumble of broken words and phrases crowded through Vera's mind.

Why? Really? Do I have to pay it back? Can I eat it?

In the end, she picked two of the most practical questions at random.

"What do I do? Who do I kill?"

"Someone's threatening Old Baz. They're also asking about me-the university student who killed the Water Monkey that day. I doubt they're bringing me presents." Gordon patted the threatening letter tucked inside his coat.

"I'll protect you."

"Yes." Gordon paced back and forth twice in front of Vera. "I need you! I need that sense of smell of yours."

"Need," Vera repeated. An unfamiliar but lovely word. Being needed meant she would not be driven away.

"Right. Just like we said before, our partnership is built on fairness. But this time is different. You'll eat, drink, and stay with me. No running off on your own. There are too many supernatural powers in this city. I'm afraid someone will cast a spell on me and stuff me into a sack while I'm dreaming in the middle of the night. Then I'll wake up in some secret cult's basement with a crowd chanting spells at me."

Only then did Vera swallow all her bread and sausage. She picked up a few gold-pound notes and did not ask for more.

"I'll follow you," she said. "No one will be able to attack you."

"Let's go." Gordon left the alley. Vera guarded him at his side, taking this commission a little more seriously than anything she had done before.

As they left Wycliffe Street, Arthur Gray was sipping a drink by his agency's window. Gordon pointed at the agency and told Vera that one day she would have her own, too. Vera looked up and repeated twice, "I'll have my own agency." The thought gave her a strange and tremendous surge of encouragement.

Gray faintly heard the murmuring and opened the blinds. Seeing the university student and the young huntress passing along the street beneath his second-floor window, he could not help straightening up. For some reason, he felt that a great many things might happen in this city in the days ahead.