The air, strangely vat where the monstrous form had towered, hung heavy around Watters and Grimm. A choking miasma of burnt flesh aling dust g to them, a grim testament to the onidable mutant, now reduced to ash swirling oter wind. The roars faded, leaving a silehat pressed against their ears, heavy as the smoke, prig the skin like unseen eyes.

  "Grimm," Watters’ voice cracked sharp, his brow creasing as he leaned forward, eyes fshing with disbelief, "this… this defies all logic. Lys, purged by the Order's steel, resurrected? It's impossible!"

  "Until a warlock's craft cwed them from the earth," Grimm replied, his voice a low, gravelly terpoint to Watters' disbelief.

  Grimm turned, his measured steps carrying him towards the skeletal outliched in the ash. He paused, his gaze log with Watters' over his shoulder. "The Order's steel has failed your town, Drimm's voice, dry as the ash underfoot, echoed with a chilling finality, "not me."

  He tinued, his gaze pierg, "Logic has little purchase here, Doctor. Warlocks twist the very fabric of death with their forbidden rites. Resurre is merely… a tool in their hands. This Ly, this abomination, is not the endgame. It's a message, a grim herald of what is to e."

  Grimm k, brushing aside the gritty residue, revealing the faint glimmer of silver beh. He retrieved his khe bde catg the flickering firelight, and sheathed it with a sharp, metalliick. Rising, he moved with a purpose that belied the chaos around them, towards the deeper shadows cast by the ravaged beast.

  Watters shook his head, slow and heavy, as if shaking off a nightmare’s grip. "Warlocks? In Barrowham? That's preposterous. I've always dismissed them as nothing more than fireside tales, whispered thten the gullible. This town is hardly a breeding ground for such… heresy."

  "You've read plenty, Doctor, but reading isn't seeing," Grimm cut in, his words slig through Watters’ like a bde. "Dismiss at your own peril, Doctor. You have never seen a warlock. But I assure you, this is no fireside tale."

  "Peril?" Watters ughed, a hollow, bitter sound. "I've seeh, Grimm—don't lecture me on tales." He gestured to the surroundiation. "I've seen its handiwork."

  "Thehis," Grimm growled, his gaze fixed on the ashen remains, "and wake up." With a swift, almost disdainful flick of his wrist, Grimm swept aside a yer of ash, revealing the glint of silver. Watters' jaw tightened, doubt warring with a growing dread. The silver letter opener, now coated in soot, was retrieved. He straightened, his silhouette a stark trast against the flickering firelight, his attention already drifting back to the ravaged town.

  "Alright, alright," Watters’ shoulders sagged, his voice softening as if testing the words, a frown tugging at his lips. "Assuming, for the sake ument, that there is a warlock… how do we even begin to find him? To undo this… chaos?"

  Grimm turned, his cold eyes fixed on Watters, a chillingly direct gaze. "We," he repeated, the word a ft corre, a stark reminder of Watters' isotion.

  "Yes, well," Watters stumbled over his words, hands darting to smooth his suit, fiwitg against the fabric. "The Order has protocols for this—mystical threats. If their lines are down, they'll still e," he murmured, ging to the st vestiges of hope. His words faltered, eyes flickering away from Grimm’s unblinking gaze, a shiver trag his spine.

  "Your Order's protoean nothing here," Grimm repeated, his voice ced with s. "Protocols for order, Doctor. Not for wiess like this." He gestured towards the burning town, a wide, enpassing sweep. "The Order has faced worse," Watters tered, his voice betraying a flicker of desperation. "They'll e."

  "Worse?" Grimm sneered, his gaze cutting. "Open your eyes, Doctor. This is not a breach of protocol. This is a breach of reality itself. And your 'Order'… they are spicuously absent."

  "They have to e," Watters insisted, his voice fraying, the echo of his own doubt ringing in his ears.

  "Or, perhaps," Grimm interjected, his voiow carrying an edge of dark prophecy, "they will not."

  The air grew still, pressing against their chests, each breath a bor as the wind’s howl sharpehe bitter winter wind whipped at Watters' face, stinging his eyes, and Grimm's coat snapped and billowed around him like a storm-torn sail. Watters' breath hitched, his hands trembling as he sed the burning vilge.

  Miretched into an unnerving sileno horn bst echoed from the ridge, no Order banners appeared on the horizon. Watters’ gaze swept the ravaged town, each empty street, eamoving shadow a sileament to their absence. Protocol, the word echoed hollowly in his mind, yet the protocol remained broken. Was the Mayor cold flesh amidst this age? Had his hand, the o to send the urgent summons, been silenced forever? He swallowed, the thought a bitter pill. No. Mikkelson. He had to be breathing, a poisonous root left to fester.

  He waded into the corpse-strewn square, the air thick with the metallige of blood, the sickly sweet cloy of death. His boots squelched on the crimson-soaked stones with each step. Eyes darted from one mangled form to the , searg, desperate. Evidence. He sought a broken shard of green gss, a fsh of emerald fabriything to whisper relief. But there was only age. Limbs twisted at impossible angles, faces frozen in silent screams, guts spilled like butcher’s refuse. He k, his fine coat brushing the gore, and with a gentlehat belied the se’s brutality, he eased a heavy torso from a smaller frame beh. Familiar faces swam in his vision, then dissolved bato the anonymous dead. He searched on, each fallen body a silent question, eak stare a fresh wave of despair.

  Across the ruined square, a patch of faded blue snagged Watters’s gaze – a spsh of color in the monoe wastend. "Gordon!" he shouted, the name ripped from his throat, and broke into a run. His shoes pouhe rubble, each stride fueled by a desperate, fragile hope. Gordon would know. Gordon always knew. He pictured the Chief’s steady hand, his resolute gaze – a bea in this nightmare. Help. Answers. Mikkelson. The frigid air tore at his lungs, each breath a painful reminder of their dwindling time.

  He skidded to a halt, hope smming against the brick wall of reality. The figure was too slight, too small. Not Gordon. His hand, suddenly leaden, trembled as it reached out, fingers brushing rough fabric, grasping at the arm. He heaved, muscles straining, turning the body with agonizing slowness. A deep exhale shuddered from his chest, a sound closer to a sob. His vision blurred, stinging behind his eyes, as he whispered, "No…" Before him, Daniels y broken, a grotesque mockery of the young officer he’d known. Crimson stained his Order blue, saturating the once-proud bright fabric. Mangled limbs spyed at unnatural angles, flesh ripped and raw. Daniels’s eyes were fixed open, frozen in a silent scream, the pupils rolled upwards, disappearih the lids, leaving only the whites, stark and vat. Nightmares, cold and familiar, cwed their way back from the shadows of his mind, each mangled corpse in the square a mirror refleg his own crushing failures.

  Watters shuffled back trimm, shoulders slumped, head bowed, each step heavy as if dragging anchors. The absent horns of the Order echoed in the silence, a phantom weight pressing down on him, bending him inwards.

  Grimm watched the doctor approach, his gaze unwavering, fixed, like chips of gcial ice. "They’re not ing, are they," Watters murmured, the words barely audible, a breath of cold air esg his lips. A visible tremor ran through Watters’s frail frame, the line of his jaw hardening with grim certainty. "Then what?" Watters asked, his voice pitched too high, too tight, threatening to crack. "Just… wait? Here?" He gestured weakly at the ravaged square, a dismissive flick of his wrist. "For them… to end this?" His brow furrowed, skin creasing around his eyes in a silent, desperate appeal. His gaze tched onto Grimm’s face, ging to it as if it held the st flickering ember in the encroag night.

  "Hmph," Grimm gruhe sound a rumble in his chest, his gaze riveted to the silver edge, as if seeking ahere. "No." He lifted his head, his gaze now a burning brand locked on Watters. "No, Drimm extended his hand, the silver bde held out not as a gift, but a gauhrown down iwilight. Watters hesitated, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly before reag out, accepting the letter opener from Grimm. "We fight tonight," Grimm stated, his voice devoid of se. He studied Watters—frail, yet unbowed. "You're no soldier," he said, "but you'll do." His haended, the bde. "Are you ready, Doctor?"

  Watters gripped it, meeting his gaze, "I'm ready," Watters straightened, his voice cutting clear through the wind, a flicker of shock crossing his own faodding a single, decisive nod.

  "Very good, Drimm's voice held a thread of grim pragmatism. He whistled sharply, and hooves thundered from the alley, his horse emerging into the light. A creature of midnight and muscle, it trotted with a spectral grace to its master's side.

  "Amazing," Watters’ breath caught, eyes widening as they traced the horse’s t frame, "it dwarfs any horse I've ever…" His observation ended abruptly as a hand cmped down on his jacket, yanking him backwards. Before he could protest, Grimm had effortlessly hauled him upwards, depositing him onto the broad back of the animal with the casual strength of a man lifting a sack of grain.

  "Well, I…" Watters’ lips parted, words dissolving into a faint stammer as Grimm’s grip lingered in his mind.

  Before Watters could coherently stammer a reply, Grimm was already mounted, his movement swift and eical. "Logically, Drimm stated, his voice level, devoid of patiehe Order is no longer a factor. Had they the means or the will to intervene, Barrowham would not be burning." He paused, his gaze sweeping the horizon, assessing the hreat. "Your Mayor… he is your liaison to The Order?"

  Watters blinked hard, shoulders squaring as a spark fred in his chest, voice firming. "Yes." "Mayor Mikkelson. He possesses secure els to tact the Order. Protocol dictates immediate ta cases of…" He hesitated, the word catg in his throat, "…emergency. Why do you ask?" His throat tightened, fiwitg as he g Grimm.

  Grimm waved a dismissive hand, a gesture of pure impatience, brushing aside Watters' relian protocol. "Where is this Mayor, Doctor?" His tone brooked no further expnation, demanding dire.

  "I didn’t see his body among the dead, so he might be alive," Watters thrust his arm out, pointing towards a faint glow on the hill, a solitary isnd of light in the encroag darkness, "There, the manor on the hill. His residence."

  The manor was far, a toy sculpture swallowed by the green sea of forest surrounding the town. It stood high, led against the cold backdrop of the ced rockface grappling the unfiving mountain range.

  "But it would take hours…" Watters’ voice softened, each word dropping like a stoo silence, breath faltering. He turhe movement slow and heavy, his gaze dropping to the blood-soaked ground before drifting back to Grimm, a silent plea hanging in the air between them.

  Grimm tightened his grip on the reins, a subtle but decisive signal that spurred the warhorse into motion. "The Manor it is," Grimm decred, his voice firm, resolute, the new dire now uiohe horse turned, its hooves g on the ashen ground, and together, they plunged into the encroag shadows. The wind howled, a mournful cry eg through the burning town, a grim sereo their desperate journey.