Hunter: Lord of Mysteries

Chapter 6: The Butcher's Ledger

The morning fog in East Borough clung low to the cobbled streets, thick and oily with soot. Archer moved through it like a blade through water—silent, precise. Every corner reeked of fish brine, coal smoke, and rusted iron. Grimsley Lane was quieter than most, tucked behind the remnants of a collapsed tram tunnel, far from polite society and even farther from Church patrol routes.

He stopped in front of a squat, two-story building. The chipped sign above the wooden door read simply: Meats. No surname. No logo. Just a word carved decades ago by rough hands. A rusted bell above the door dangled from its socket like a rotting tooth.

Inside, the scent was sharp: raw flesh, sawdust, drying blood. Slabs of meat hung on iron hooks, some unrecognizable. No assistants. No other customers.

Behind the counter stood a thickset man with a cleaver in one hand and a bandaged forearm. His beard was silver, short, and blunt like steel wool. His eyes, however, were the color of ash and just as warm.

"You're not here for pork," the man said without looking up.

Archer didn't flinch.

"Rook. Meat cutter. Hunter. Retired, I hear."

The man finally met his eyes. He didn't smile.

"Depends who's asking."

Archer reached into his coat and placed a folded paper on the counter—the fragment of the flyer from the Eye of Wisdom, stamped with the rose and serpent.

Rook's eyes narrowed.

"They still passing my name around like it's candy? Thought I burned that bridge."

"I'm not from them," Archer said. "I paid for the lead. Quietly."

Rook studied him for a long moment.

"What's your Pathway?"

"Hunter. Or trying to be."

Rook snorted. "Trying doesn't count."

He turned and disappeared into the backroom without another word. Archer waited. He didn't look around. The meat hooks above him creaked faintly.

When Rook returned, he carried a chipped clay teapot and two small iron cups. He poured without asking. The liquid was dark and thick, smelling faintly of root bark and dried herbs.

"Drink."

Archer analyzed it clearly—an alchemical solution. But his Hunter instincts didn't signal danger. In fact, there was something faintly compelling about it. He lifted the cup and sipped. Bitter. Earthy. It buzzed faintly on his tongue, not with heat but with quiet vibration—an alchemical residue.

Rook nodded once. "Good. No coughing. No shaking. That tea's laced with trace Moon-Drake blood. If your body rejected it, you wouldn't have left conscious."

Archer set the cup down. "Convenient test."

"Expensive, too. Don't waste my time."

Rook reached under the counter and pulled out a sealed wooden box. Inside, vellum sheets stacked between layers of glass. Each one detailed a component—ingredient, source, preparation method.

"This is the real thing," Rook said. "Stable version of the Hunter Sequence 9 potion. Not the half-assed forums and stitched notes wild Beyonders pass around. I bled for this."

"Price?"

"Three hundred and twenty pounds. Or something of equal value."

Archer considered. He had the gold, stashed beneath the floorboards at his safehouse. 

"Or," Rook added, "you can earn it."

Archer raised a brow. "How?"

"Bring me the eye of a Whispering Mole. Alive."

Archer didn't answer right away. He recalled the creature—blind, spirit-sensitive, attracted to breath and suppressed emotion. Rare. Dangerous. Especially in the tunnels beneath the Marsh Ruins. But it will be a good point start the acting process—become a real hunter.

"You know where to find one?"

"I know where one was seen. Week ago. Near the Old Valve Pit." Rook leaned forward. "I won't give you a map. You want the formula, you earn it with teeth."

Archer met his stare. "Deal."

Rook slid the box off the counter. "When you return with it alive, the formula is yours."

Archer turned to go, but something stirred in the backroom. A rustling, like dry reeds snapping. The hairs on his arms rose. There was a presence there. Watching.

He paused. "You keep something back there?"

"A reminder," Rook said without looking up. "What happens when you think you're stronger than the Pathway."

A cold breath rolled down the back of Archer's neck. He didn't press.

Outside, the fog hadn't lifted. But his course was set.

Back at the safehouse, Archer opened his field kit and began preparing. He packed silence tinctures, and a collapsible silver cage etched with glyphs designed to suppress psychic noise—something borrowed from Rook. The tools of a hunter. Not just a killer.

He reviewed Rook's notes—not the formula, but the tiny scribbles the man left on the corner of his journal.

"If it sings, stop breathing. If it hums, hold still."

"Pain is better than confusion."

He closed the notebook.

Tomorrow, he would descend into Backlund's underbelly.

Not to kill.

But to capture.

And to prove to Rook—and to himself—that he was not just wearing the name of a Hunter.

He was becoming one.