Miss Hunter

Later that day, Charlotte had Gordon ride in her carriage to the Montfort ancestral home.

"Come." Charlotte lifted her skirts and stepped gracefully into the carriage.

"Ah...!" Gordon's eyes were opened. The carriage was understated on the outside, but its interior was lavish, especially the cushions. They were so soft that the instant he sat down, he shifted into a reclining position. He had found something kinder to his spine than a plank bed.

The carriage sped out through the university's west gate. Gordon looked out the window and spotted a group of students heading off for cheap pies. The aromas of onions, beef, and beer drifted in from the countless little restaurants along Knights Road, making him even hungrier.

To distract himself, he let his gaze wander aimlessly around.

[Expensive carriage. Most displeased to be at your service.]

[Seat cushion. There is a reason it is called a "seat" cushion.]

[Kerosene lamp. Cannot illuminate your future.]

"Why are you lying down?" Charlotte sat perfectly straight, her hands resting on her knees.

"I'm more concerned about you," Gordon said. "You're sitting so straight you're not even touching the cushions... either this carriage isn't fit to sit in, or you're actually worried about that old house and don't want anyone to notice."

"What if a monster jumps out and tries to bite me?"

"First, don't scream. Screaming will interfere with my judgment. Then it depends on whether the thing wants to eat people or just has bad manners."

"Hey, you're picking on me..." Charlotte leaned back without another word, and the cushion began bearing Miss Montfort's weight.

Gordon looked away and started thinking about other things.

He had yet to win the scholarship, but the hospital bill was already trailing him like a dog. He had to pay for his own supplies to work in the laboratory, and his student loan sprouted more interest every month. As of today, the three copper pennies on him were all his liquid assets.

He might as well do the math.

Three silver pounds a week. Without eating or drinking, that made twelve silver pounds a month.

Wonderful, wonderful. That was 144 silver pounds a year, and his student loan of 100 gold pounds, equivalent to 2,000 silver pounds, would take only 13.8 years to repay. Then Gordon would be free again...

Stop.

The human brain had not been designed to stare into that kind of abyss. Better to wonder whether the Montfort family would provide dinner. Surely there would be hot soup in the kitchen. After the hot soup might come roast meat, and beside the roast meat there might be potatoes...

After Gordon had spent a good while thinking about food, the carriage turned onto White Elm Road. Here, Lundenim suddenly became clean. The streets were wider, the pedestrians neatly dressed, and rows of carefully trimmed treetops rose above the stone walls.

Old houses stood on both sides, all astonishingly grand, complete with wrought-iron gates, hedges, and fountains, as though declaring: We won once, and we intend to keep winning.

The Montfort ancestral home stood at the end of the street.

The atmosphere outside its gates was oppressive.

Nervous servants stood there alongside several tall, grim-faced guards who looked particularly skilled at asking people to leave.

"We're here. This is it." Charlotte took a deep breath, lifted her skirts, and stepped down. "There are a lot of antique collectibles in the old house."

"Collectibles." Gordon looked thoughtful. "An aristocrat's collection either sells for a lot of money or causes a lot of trouble."

An old house, an aberrant threat, antique collectibles-it sounded as though they were about to combine into something even more troublesome.

Gordon felt as though his student loan was preparing to evolve into its second phase.

The ancestral home's front door stood half open.

The light inside was dim. Water on the porch steps reflected the moonlight and the cold glow of the gas streetlamps.

Gordon stepped out of the carriage. The air reeked of foul water, that classic Blackwater River smell that brought to mind rotten wood, sludge, fermented fish guts, and things of that sort.

An old man emerged from the shadows beneath the porch.

He was around sixty, dressed in a black butler's uniform, his gray-white hair immaculately combed and his back ramrod straight. A lofty coldness lay beneath his courtesy as he tried to discourage Charlotte and Gordon with his eyes.

"Miss." The old man bowed slightly. "You should not have come at a time like this."

"Evans," Charlotte said. "You shouldn't have kept this from me."

"No one has kept anything from you," Evans said. "There is nothing wrong with the ancestral home. The aging sewer pipes merely burst and flooded the basement."

"Oh? Where's the plumber, then?" Gordon asked.

"And who is this?" Evans looked at Gordon.

"Gordon Vick, a classmate of mine," Charlotte said.

"Miss, the ancestral home is currently in no condition to receive guests." Evans ignored him. "The earl has yet to return from Parliament. We should first limit the number of people who know."

"I have the right to decide whom I ask for help," Charlotte said.

"Of course, miss." Evans's expression tightened further. "But whether it's the Aberrant Affairs Bureau or reporters... once those vultures catch a scent, they'll tear through the family records from top to bottom. Tomorrow morning's papers will be full of vulgar headlines that disgrace the family!"

"Montfort ancestral home all at sea as floodwaters rise." "That day, there was nothing but a flood-and eight maids." Gordon had already composed them in his head.

"Evans, what exactly happened inside?" Charlotte asked.

"Miss, a plumbing problem."

"What kind of pipe takes from last night until today to fix?"

"The old house does, after all, have a complicated plumbing history."

"...Why didn't you notify the Aberrant Affairs Bureau?"

"Because this is not an aberrant incident."

"Then why did you have people block off the road?"

"To keep unauthorized personnel out of the plumbing repair area."

Charlotte fired four arrows in succession, and Evans caught them all with the same shield.

She looked at Gordon, a hint of urgency in her eyes. Gordon stepped in to take her place.

"I know you hired an Essence Hunter," Gordon said. "Where is she now?"

"Young man," Evans said coolly. "This is the Montfort residence, not somewhere for you youngsters to show off your cleverness in exchange for applause. Before you open your mouth, you would do well to remember who you are."

"Hmm. Definitely worth a thorough investigation."

"Did you misunderstand what I just said?" Evans leaned forward. "We have no need for university students here. Are you going to leave quietly, or would you prefer to be thrown out by a group of men?"

"No, I just confirmed something," Gordon said. "If this were only a plumbing problem, you wouldn't need to threaten me."

"I told you, this is not..." Evans's expression turned thoroughly icy. Just then, a harsh, piercing noise suddenly came from inside the old house, as though something heavy was scraping hard across the floor-and drawing closer to them.

The next instant, a foul-smelling black shape flew out through the door!

Judging by its arc, someone had hurled it out with considerable force.

The guards hurried out of the way. Their job was to stop outsiders from going in, not intercept things coming out.

Charlotte's face went abruptly pale. Instinctively, she raised her arms in front of herself, humanity's oldest and most useless response to disaster hurtling its way.

Gordon tugged on that fine thread in his mind.

Everything around him seemed to slow down.

Thinking became doing. The range, angle, and force of every movement matched his original intent exactly.

Facing the incoming thing, he stepped forward, dodged its flailing limbs, and clamped his right hand precisely around one of its protruding bone spurs. Then he tilted his body, lowered his shoulders and back, and redirected that tremendous force toward the ground.

Bam!

So heavy!

But he had caught it. He slammed the black shape down beside Charlotte, less than half a foot from the hem of her skirt.

When Charlotte saw what Gordon had caught, she recoiled two steps and bumped into a lamppost without even noticing. Good, Gordon thought. Looks like she listened to the "don't scream" part.

"Saint Joshua, what... the hell is that thing..." One of the gate guards swore.

Gordon looked down.

[Deepclaw Demon. More aptly put, a water monkey.]

The thing was only the size of a child. Fine, tightly packed scales covered its back, and its skin was wet and slippery. Its ribs protruded one by one from its chest and abdomen like cage bars someone had pried open. Most disgusting of all were its hands, webbed with translucent membranes, yet with fingers that still looked human-even down to their fingerprints.

Tap... tap... Gordon heard boots stepping through puddles along the way.

Evans turned toward the old house, his expression half anger, half fear.

The footsteps drew closer.

A woman emerged with a displeased expression. Everyone fell silent.

The moment Gordon got a clear look at her, his brows drew together slightly.

This woman... was taller and more beautiful than Gordon had imagined.

The first thing he saw was a pair of jet-black, finely made tall boots, their soles stained with blood. Then came a dark trench coat wrapped tightly around the curves of her body, its raised collar hiding the lower half of her face and leaving only a pair of pale gray eyes exposed. Those eyes held no human emotion, only an animal's vigilance and coldness.

She did not stand like an ordinary person, but settled into a half crouch, poised to pounce on and kill her next target at any moment.

"..." Noticing the aberrant corpse in Gordon's hand, she raised an eyebrow, like a hunter discovering that something meant to be a rabbit had somehow kicked its trap apart with its hind legs.