He flipped open the journal on his lap. On a fresh page, the left half now bore a charcoal sketch. It depicted the Greeneyed Maiden with the Sword, but the lines had taken on a sinister life of their own, tracing not the maiden, but the Anchor and Thorns sigil that had been exposed beneath the rent canvas.
"Sir. Parliament Hill," the cabbie announced through a small sliding panel at the front.
Anger added a few extra coins to the fare. One had to acknowledge the minor tyranny of rousing a driver at such an ungodly hour.
Upon alighting, Anger immediately felt the change in the air.
It was a faint, clinging bitterness—the distinct, acrid tang of overboiled cinchona bark water. A scent Anger was, unfortunately, all too familiar with. Yet, this was not pure quinine. Something else was woven into that bitterness, another substance complicating the profile.
He turned up the collar of his greatcoat against it and began trudging up the muddy slope, dismissing the scent for now.
Parliament Hill had once been a weekend retreat for the welltodo, dotted with viewing platforms that offered vistas of the sprawling city below. The observation point Professor Croft had mentioned, however, was the small settlement at its foot: Crow's Nest Village. Its inhabitants, so the story went, had served as astronomical recordkeepers for generations—a notion that sounded like a quaint joke in the industrial heart of modern Londinium.
The closer he got to the village, the stronger the bitter odour became.
Anger halted at the village's edge.
The place was preternaturally quiet.
It was halfnine in the morning. There should have been cooksmoke, the sounds of movement, of life. Instead, Crow's Nest Village seemed stuffed with cotton wool, every sound dampened and smothered. Only the wind's lament through barren branches remained. And beneath that silence, standing there, Anger became aware of a low, continuous hum rising from the very earth, a vibration that tingled unpleasantly up through the soles of his boots.
Anger stepped into the village.
******
The windows and doors of the houses lining the main street were tightly shut. On the doorsteps of several homes, Anger spotted identical objects: shards of glass. He could even see stains clinging to the edges of some fragments.
Anger crouched by one such doorstep. Using the edge of his handkerchief, he nudged a piece of broken glass. Adhering to its back was a small cluster of silvery, crystalline filaments. Their texture was unnervingly hard, like a kind of petrified mold clinging to the glass. He scraped a bit off with his fingernail and wrapped it in the handkerchief.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice came from behind him. Anger turned.
An old man sat on a bench at the street corner, wrapped in tattered clothing. He was gaunt, with sharply protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes.
"I'm a detective," Anger said, not bothering to produce his badge.
"Detectives... The black coats from the Church were here just days ago," the old man rasped. "They've set up at the church and the square. They say a 'Tranquility Rite' is to be held on the night of the eclipse."
He pointed a bony, skeletal finger towards the centre of the village. "You smell that? They're brewing something in great cauldrons. Started three days ago. So bitter even the crows won't land anymore."
"What rite?" Anger took two steps closer, maintaining a safe distance. He didn't want to pressure the old man too much, and his tone suggested he meant no harm.
The old man stared at him for a long time. "You're not one of them."
"No. I'm a detective, not a black coat. I'm here investigating a case."
"Come with me." The old man seemed to deliberate, then shakily rose to his feet. His movements revealed a stickthin arm, covered in fresh scratches. Some were scabbed over, others still oozed. The edges of the wounds also bore those silvery, crystalline filaments.
"Your hand—"
"The price," the old man cut him off. "The price for seeing the truth. You want to know what they're doing? See for yourself."
He didn't even ask what case Anger was investigating, simply shuffling off into a narrow alley. He likely assumed this officiallooking stranger was sent concerning the Church's recent activities.
Anger followed.
In the cracks between the alley's stone walls grew abnormal slime molds. Some even emitted a faint phosphorescence in the shadows. The old man seemed utterly accustomed to it.
"What's your name?" Anger asked.
"John. 'Crow's Nest', but it's not a real surname. Everyone here calls me that. My family's lived here for seven generations. Recording the moon."
He stopped, looking at a patch of flaking stone on the wall. Crude star charts and blurred text were carved into it.
"Carved a hundred years ago. Back then, three or four hundred families lived here. Now it's barely a hundred. The rest left. Some were taken away."
"Taken by whom?"
"The black coats and the grey uniforms came together," John said, pushing open a low wooden door. "The Church and the Commission. They said the village had people with... special constitutions. Suitable for 'noble experiments'. The chosen got a sum of money, their families were relocated to the city."
He stepped inside. "They never came back."
The interior was a cellar converted into a crude observatory. Yellowed lunar phase charts were pinned to the walls. A table was strewn with handmade astrolabes, telescope parts, and ledgers filled with numbers and symbols.
On a larger table lay a handdrawn map of Crow's Nest Village and its surroundings. It was meticulously detailed, marked with symbols:
The church location bore a black cross, annotated: The Cauldron.
The square had a concentric circle: Assembly Point.
The four directions on the village outskirts each had a triangle: Grey Uniform Blockade.
A cave in the rear hills was marked with a red exclamation point: Contaminated Observation Point.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"You drew this?" Anger asked.
John nodded, lighting an oil lamp. "Took me five years. At first, I just wanted to record the changes. When the bitter air grew stronger. When the well water turned murky. When the sleepwalking started at night."
He walked to the map. "Then they came. Three years ago, the first black coats. Two years ago, the grey uniforms started surveying the land. A year ago, the great cauldrons arrived. Set up in the church courtyard, brewing day and night."
"Brewing what?"
"Don't know. But I peeked at what they brought in once. Wooden crates with the E.I.C. mark. Always stamped 'Special Material – Handle With Care'. When they opened one... I smelled the bitterness. And something else... a coppery, bloody scent."
So the old man genuinely believes I'm here to investigate this 'bloody scent' business, Anger thought. E.I.C...
"When is this 'Tranquility Rite' at the eclipse supposed to happen?" he asked.
"Tonight. Starts at midnight, lasts three hours. They'll ring the bell. Everyone must go to the square. It's the rule."
"And after they go?"
"Wasn't said."
"Show me the old observation point," Anger stated bluntly. Since the old man took him for a genuine investigator, the request shouldn't seem out of place.
John hesitated for a few seconds, then fetched a rusty key and handed it to Anger.
"That cave in the rear hills was my grandfather's observatory. Three years ago, the Church said it was a geological hazard, sealed the entrance. But there's a hidden fissure beside it. You should find it."
Anger pocketed the key.
"Remember, Detective," John said, his voice low. "If you really are here to investigate... when the eclipse begins, no matter what you see, don't listen to the bell. If you must go to the square, cover your ears. Close your eyes."
Over an hour had passed since Anger arrived. The occasional pedestrian or Church agent now crossed his path.
******
Anger skirted the main street, following the path marked on the map towards the rear hills. Passing a few houses along the way, he glanced inside to see the silhouettes of inhabitants seated at tables, facing the direction of the church, motionless.
The entrance to the old observation point cave was sealed shut, nailed with a parish notice: "Geological Collapse Zone Strictly No Entry. Violators Subject to Sacred Edict Sanctions." Following the old man's instructions, Anger found the hidden fissure to the side and squeezed through.
The cave was chill, dank with perennial gloom. Anger lit the bull'seye lantern he carried. Its beam illuminated the carved marks on the stone walls: a great many manually inscribed star charts, calculations written in dark ink, and copious annotations.
Deep in the cave stood a stone table, strewn with dustcovered papers. But within a crevice in the cave wall, Anger spotted a notebook secretly tucked away.
The title page read: Research on Lunar Anomalies Crow's Nest Village Observation Point. Recorder: Edwin Lyle. Followed by a sigil. Date: 1845-1847.
Edwin Lyle. The man who defected from the Bellatus family. What was he doing here?
Anger quickly skimmed the contents. It was filled with vast amounts of observational data and formulaic deductions, but the implications were horrifying.
1. Crow's Nest Village occupies a geographically unique position, situated on one of Londinium's energy flow nodes.
2. During a lunar eclipse, this node periodically amplifies fluctuations in the collective unconscious.
3. Applying specific cognitive guidance at this time can induce the entire settlement's populace into a highly malleable state of consensus.
4. In this state, emotional energies such as individual suffering, fear, and faith can be extracted and converted.
The handwriting on the final page grew frantic, hurried.
>March 15, 1847. Observation terminated. The joint Church and Commission task force arrived today, taking custody of all research materials. Mentor Lucian Bellatus instructed me to destroy the copies, but I secretly kept this one. They are collaborating with the Church, calling this project 'The Serenity Project,' claiming it's to alleviate the mental strain of city dwellers. But my calculations conclude that operating at the designed scale for one full lunar cycle could yield concentrated energy equivalent to a year's output from five hundred individuals. This isn't therapy—it's husbandry. I must leave.
— E.L.
Anger closed the notebook, attempting to piece all the fragments together.
The silver slime from the railway worksite. The quinine and dreamless opium paste from the den. The rite of the twelve nuns at Sunken Bell Priory. The cursed gold from the mine. All were highly connected to the parish. And all were likely connected to this experiment, the Serenity Project.
The Bellatus family were also participants. If the rumors about their human experiments were true, that was likely just the surface.
The parish utilized the Veil of Silence—a manifestation of the Edicts. The Bellatus family couldn't possibly be ignorant of this. The key was Lorenzo himself admitting the existence of Edict vessels. The art salons he held were one form of such vessels.
And then there were the pacts involved. This was the core of Bellatus research. Anger surmised that the socalled drafts Edwin Lyle stole might pertain to methods of pact application—perhaps the artistic forms manifested in paintings.
This was still conjecture, of course.
But tonight's eclipse was certainly no simple ritual. The Serenity Project was no mere exercise in control.
Anger exited the cave, carefully restoring the hidden fissure as he left. He did not take the Research on Lunar Anomalies with him.
Anger estimated the eclipse would herald the descent of the twin moons. He didn't want to miss this opportunity. Therefore, he found a concealed spot and waited for the eclipse night to unfold.
When the bell tolled on the night of the eclipse...
******
Anger watched as the doors of the hundredodd households opened.
People filed out—a sparse trickle of men, women, and children. They wore their Sunday best. Their faces were utterly blank. Their steps fell in unison as they moved towards the square.
No one spoke along the way. No one glanced about. Anger then blended into their ranks. This scene was identical to the effects of the Veil of Silence he had encountered before. He could say he was navigating familiar territory.
As he walked towards the square, the bitterness in the air thickened to its peak.
Passing the church's rear courtyard, he glimpsed the great cauldron: a massive reactor vat with steam valves, emblazoned with the Industrial Commission's insignia. Pipes snaked from its body down into a cellar. Several greyuniformed technicians recorded gauge readings, utterly indifferent to the villagers around them.
The square was reached.
The ground had been cleared. At its center, a vast concentric pattern was painted in pigments—complex tracery of interwoven geometric lattices.
The villagers swayed slightly, automatically forming a circle around the pattern's outer edge, all facing the center. Anger squeezed himself into an inconspicuous corner.
Upon the church steps before the square stood three figures.
Two were churchmen, a priest and an attendant. Further back were several KnightsCaptain maintaining order, all bearing sidearms.
The third wore a plain, long robe, but upon his chest was pinned an emblem distinct from the Church's.
The ScarScribes? The AshGuild of Forged Scars? Or an even more obscure cabal?
The elder raised his hand.
The bell ceased.
Silence fell.
"My dear children," the elder began, "the eclipse approaches. This is a sacred hour. You were chosen not for your sins, but for your grace."
The crowd listened. Anger saw vacant smiles bloom on several faces.
"Tonight, we shall together witness the Messenger's return," the elder continued. "And your devotion, your suffering, your faith—shall become the lamps that light the path home."
"Now, let us begin."
The moon emerged from behind the clouds. It was not the proper moon. Yet everyone in the square seemed not to care.
Anger remembered the first time he'd met Bishop Morris, who spoke of seeing three lunar reflections of the Viscountess. Morris had earnestly claimed it was merely sleep deprivation. Could that explain this? Was everyone in the square simply sleepdeprived?
The crimson moon began to be devoured by shadow. The ruddy light upon the ground slowly dissipated.
The eclipse had begun.
The square's ground began to glow.
Those dark red patterns lit up one after another, as if electrified. Light flowed along the tracery, converging at the center, then geysering upward into a pillar of bloodred light several meters in diameter, lancing directly towards the eclipsed moon.
The crowd began to chant in unison.
Though Anger had followed the old man's advice and stuffed his ears, he could still faintly make out fragments of unclear words—not lyrics from any known language.
He looked down. His palm was itching.
He opened his left hand. A silvercrystalline scar had appeared on his palm, seeping a phosphorescent glow. On his right palm, a small patch of silverywhite fungal bloom had appeared, he knew not when.
All around him, people raised their hands, palms upturned. Every palm was covered in those luminous fungal blooms. On some, the bloom had spread to the back of the hand; on others, it had reached the wrist.
Then they began to cut their palms.
They—they took out shards of glass and slashed their palms open. Blood welled forth, but it was mingled with silvery luminescence. Where the droplets fell upon the red patterns, they hissed.
The patterns brightened. The pillar of light thickened.
Anger felt an invisible pressure crush in from all sides. A clear whisper coiled in his mind: Give. Suffering is glory. The Messenger requires fuel.
This was the full face of the Serenity Project.
Anger felt nauseated, but more than that, he felt rage. He watched a girl no older than twelve also cutting her palm, a blissful smile on her face. Under the bitter influence, her mind believed she was receiving a profound blessing.
Another boy, who looked about eight, shivered with pain but continued to repeat the chant.
Anger's gaze turned towards the church's rear courtyard, to that massive reactor vat.
All the bitter steam originated there.