~4.950 words
When White Shark Hamilton opened his eyes, he let out a slight groan. The last thing he remembered was visiting Silk Alley and hiring a prostitute to warm his bed tonight. However, his memory seems to have been muddled a few thrusts later.
Now, as he opened his eyes, he immediately felt as if his hands had been tied.
White Shark Hamilton remained still for several seconds while his vision adjusted to the darkness and slowly became aware of his surroundings.
The room he was currently in was relatively small and apparently unused, with bare wooden walls and a single narrow window covered by a thick curtain. A wooden table was placed several meters away, illuminated by an oil lamp whose flame had been deliberately lowered until it barely provided enough light to see.
There was someone sitting behind it as Hamilton shook his head and stared at it, trying to make sense of the person's features.
It did not take long for Hamilton to reach a conclusion as he instantly recognized him. How could he not, after all?
The enormous man from a few hours ago was seated comfortably in a wooden chair with one leg crossed over the other, still wearing the same black clothes and long coat he had worn inside Flying Fish and Wine.
The crimson bracelet around his left wrist was mostly hidden under his sleeve while his right hand was holding a wine glass. Hyde raised it towards his lips and took another slow sip.
Hamilton narrowed his eyes and stared at the transparent liquid inside. "Is that water?"
Hyde lowered the glass and gave the liquid a swirl. "Yes."
Hamilton continued staring for several seconds before looking at the bottle sitting beside him. It was, in fact, ordinary water. "You dragged me out of a woman's bed, tied me to a chair, and brought me to some fucking abandoned room just so you could sit there drinking water out of a wine glass?"
Hyde gave the glass another slow swirl. "Don't flatter yourself. I brought you here because, for once in your little miserable little life on this miserable little island, you happen to be useful to me. You should take that as a privilege. And the water is unrelated."
Hamilton stared at him for several seconds as his expressions passed through annoyance, disbelief and a genuine attempt to decide whether the man in front of him was merely arrogant or had been born with some defect that made ordinary human conversation impossible.
"Privilege," Hamilton repeated at last, slowly testing the word as though it had an unpleasant taste. "How did you bring me here anyways?"
Hyde took another sip of water. "You should choose women who do not accept money from strangers to drug you."
Hamilton's expressions suddenly froze. The irritation disappeared almost immediately as he looked at Hyde, then towards the curtained window before lowering his eyes to his own clothing.
His shirt had been buttoned incorrectly near the stomach and one side of his collar was folded beneath itself, which suggested that whoever had dressed him afterwards had either been in a hurry or simply did not care enough to do it properly.
"That explains why she was so eager to 'hydrate ourselves' after the third round. Fuck! To think she was pretending!" He pulled once against the ropes around his wrists before grumbling under his breath. "She was acting like I had crossed the Sonia Sea without touching water."
A faint smile appeared on Hyde's face. "She was rather enthusiastic about the additional payment."
Hamilton immediately looked at him. "How much did you even pay her? I was a regular."
"More than you."
"Of course you fucking did." Hamilton leaned his head back against the chair, staring towards the wooden ceiling. "I was wondering why she suddenly became concerned about my health, since she is usually used to squeezing me completely."
A rather mischievous look appeared on Hyde's face. "You should appreciate the professionalism. She waited until you were finished."
Hamilton lowered his head again and stared at him in disbelief. "Was that supposed to make me feel better?"
"I was being considerate. You should take it as a special kind of honor."
Hamilton snorted. "Thank you, oh prince of nothing, for being considerate towards me."
Hyde looked down at him and placed his boots on the table in front of him in a way that the soles pointed towards Hamilton's face. It was a rather sophisticated way of showing disrespect, and Hamilton seemed to catch up to it, however, he did not give much of a reaction.
Hamilton eventually tested the ropes again but to no avail.
Hyde had tied him quite professionally. There was enough room that circulation had not been cut off, but nowhere near enough to slip a hand free without damaging his wrist.
"So you had a woman drug me, dragged me away while I was unconscious and tied me to a chair." His eyes moved around the room before returning to Hyde. "I'm going to assume you didn't go through all of this because you wanted company while you drank your fucking water."
"Incorrect. That is exactly the reason."
"Oh fuck me—You're joking right?"
Hyde tilted his head and smirked. "Yes."
"Good... then we're making progress. What do you want? I will tell you anything you want so just let me go once you are done."
"So you can kill Lara?"
"Yes."
"Well, she has taken a boat to Feysac. I doubt you are going to catch up to her." Hyde saw Hamilton mutter curses under his breath as he took a sip from his water. "Where is the Beyonder gathering conducted?"
"What Beyonder gathering?" Hamilton's expressions did not change.
"The one taking place in Damir. Here."
Hamilton stared at him for several seconds before letting out a laugh, though it sounded considerably more deliberate than the one from earlier.
"You're going to have to narrow that down for me. I own a tavern, you know, I sell alcohol, chicken and fish. Occasionally I'd take money to direct one idiot towards another and reap the benefits from their fight. That doesn't mean I keep a schedule of every gathering of magicians with parlor tricks and lunatics on the island."
"I didn't say you organized it."
"No, but you apparently decided I know where it is."
Hyde removed his legs from the table and leaned forward, placing his arms on his knees. "You do know where they are conducted."
Hamilton's smile did not falter as he moved his lips in slow motion. "I. Do. Not."
Hyde leaned forward. There was no immediate threat in his body movements and certainly no attempt to intimidate Hamilton any further. Instead, Hyde simply reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.
Hamilton watched the water flow into it. Due to the clear sky and the Crimson Moon hanging overhead, the clear water looked like blood. As the silence stretched for quite a long time, he spoke again. "I already told you I don't know."
Hyde shrugged. "I heard you."
"Then why are you pouring yourself another glass like we're about to be here all night?"
"Because we may be."
Hamilton's smile slowly began to fade. "That supposed to scare me?"
"No." Hyde took a sip. "I am informing you that I possess considerably more patience than you do."
Hamilton breathed out through his nose. "You're a strange bastard." He then shook his head, though the corners of his mouth moved into a frown. "Alright, Detective. Since you apparently know everything already, why don't you tell me how you came to this brilliant conclusion?"
Hyde's olive eyes narrowed as he gulped the water.
"There were thirty-two people inside Flying Fish and Wine when I entered a few hours ago."
"You counted them?" Hamilton instantly interrupted.
"I have eyes and I make use of them." Hyde continued. "Most of them were unimportant. Sailors, dockworkers, prostitutes, habitual drinkers and a few men whose only remarkable quality was their belief that carrying a revolver made them dangerous such as the drunk fool who attacked me. But amongst all of them, four were different.
One wore a sailor's coat despite having none of the calluses expected from someone who regularly worked rigging. His neck also lacked the uneven tanning common among men who spend most of their time above deck."
Hamilton's expression remained neutral, however, his heart suddenly began beating a little faster.
"The second had mud halfway up his trousers but his boots were dry. He had walked through mud recently, but not through the rain outside your establishment. Which meant that either he had arrived through some covered route or had changed footwear after reaching Damir. Considering the boots fit him poorly and were half a size too large, the latter was more likely.
The third was a woman sitting near the northern wall. She appeared drunk, though during the entire time I was there she swallowed perhaps one quarter of what she ordered. Most of it disappeared beneath the table whenever people around her became too distracted.
Lastly, the fourth one appeared to be a clerk. Ink beneath two fingernails, a permanent callus along the middle finger of his right hand, reasonably expensive boots and a coat considerably cheaper than the rest of his clothing. Either a man who spent selectively or someone whose circumstances had worsened recently."
Hamilton tilted his head. "And all four of these people are apparently secret mystical beings because they dressed and acted strangely?"
"No." Hyde's smile grew faintly. "All four looked towards the clock behind your counter when it reached eight-fifteen. The woman looked first and six seconds later, the false sailor followed. The clerk was next and the man wearing borrowed boots looked last. But none of them looked at the clock again. I can guess that they had entered separately, ordered different drinks, sat far apart and never spoke to one another. Yet all four were waiting for the same time."
"That's your evidence?" Hamilton scoffed.
"Part of it." Hyde raised his left arm slightly, exposing more of the crimson bracelet. "When the drunkard pressed his revolver against my head and I disarmed him, almost everyone nearby looked at the weapon or my hands."
Hamilton's eyes moved towards Ember before he could stop himself as Hyde smiled. "There. Exactly that."
Hamilton immediately looked back at his face. "There what?"
"You know what kind of item this is, don't you?" The comment made Hamilton's jaw to tighten up. "The four people did the same. One of them even moved his chair farther away."
"Maybe he thought it was ugly. And no, I don't know what you are talking about."
Hyde patted Ember softly. "Beauty is subjective."
Hamilton gave a quiet snort as Hyde continued. "Regardless, they recognized that it was not ordinary. More importantly, they knew enough to believe being farther away from it might matter."
"That still doesn't mean there was a meeting."
"No." Hamilton blinked at how easily he conceded the point. Hyde rested the glass on one knee. "It meant there were at least four people in your tavern with some familiarity with Beyonder objects. The meeting became likely after what happened next."
Hamilton became more attentive.
"The clerk — the fourth one — approached your counter after I left. You poured it immediately without asking which kind, meaning he had ordered the same thing from you before. One of your employees looked at him longer than necessary, however, which suggested that while you knew him, he was not a regular customer known to the rest of your staff. He then placed a five-soli coin on the counter."
Hamilton gulped and then spoke in a tone that lacked confidence. "People pay for drinks, that's normal."
"You didn't return the change. I believe you had to give him ten pence change."
"People tip, that is normal too."
Hyde did not reply to that and instead continued. "Fourteen minutes later, the man with the dry boots left and the false sailor followed twenty minutes after him."
Hamilton frowned almost imperceptibly. "No, it was only—"
His voice got caught in his throat as Hyde's olive eyes suddenly shifted towards him and he smiled wildly, flashing his teeth that had much more prominent canines.
Hamilton closed his eyes for a moment and breathed out, realizing what he had gotten himself into. "Fuck..."
"Ten minutes, right?" Hyde finished his sentence for him.
Hamilton didn't dare look up but then a laugh escaped his lips. There was no real amusement behind it at first, but by the end he appeared genuinely impressed despite how much he clearly disliked giving Hyde the satisfaction.
"You're an insufferable bastard. I'm starting to understand why somebody would give you that expression."
"What expression?"
Hamilton gestured vaguely towards his face despite his bound hands. "The type of look that makes it obvious that people want to hit you before you've actually said anything. You are irritating as hell!"
Hyde considered that for a moment. "Most of the people who experience that urge are incapable of doing anything about it."
"And there it is. Holy Lord of Storms, how I wish to bash your face in at this moment..."
"The clerk's behavior was enough to indicate some kind of organized exchange. The four individuals recognizing my Mystical Item suggested that the exchange involved Beyonders or people accustomed to dealing with them. Your role became obvious from something else."
"And what was that, oh great Omniscient detective?"
"There was a trace of dark violet sealing wax beneath your left thumbnail." Hamilton instinctively looked back at his hand, but then he couldn't, he used his other hand to get a feel of it. "It was not candle wax, no, but rather sealing wax, people often tend to not distinguish between the two. There were also several tiny fragments of the same material trapped between the boards of your counter near the place where you normally stand.
The fragments were not the only thing I found. The surface around that part of your counter had several marks inconsistent with ordinary glasses or coins. Something broader had repeatedly been placed there and pushed towards you.
That was enough and I could have stopped at that conclusion but instead, I reconstructed what happened."
Hamilton's eyes narrowed. "You what?"
Hyde's smile remained as he leaned back into the chair. "That is none of your concern."
The answer seemed to irritate Hamilton more than if he had explained it. He stared at Hyde for several seconds before looking away, his tongue pushing against the inside of his cheek as he held back every profanity in his unlimited vocabulary.
Whatever Hyde had done, the important part was that he had apparently been able to confirm enough of his suspicions without anyone inside Flying Fish and Wine noticing.
Hamilton sighed. "So all of this because four strange bastards happened to sit inside my tavern?"
"No." Hyde gave the wine glass another slow swirl. "All of this because you knew precisely when they left."
"Right." Hamilton closed his eyes and sighed again.
"And because when I mentioned a Beyonder gathering, you attempted to explain your involvement before I accused you of having any." Hyde raised the glass and took another sip. "You are not the organizer. If you were, those people would have interacted with you more directly. You are merely someone trusted enough to identify potential participants and relay information."
"Merely?"
"Yes."
Hamilton looked offended. "You know, you could occasionally say something without making whoever you're talking to sound worthless."
"I could." Hyde made no attempt to elaborate.
"...But you won't?"
"No. Why should I?"
"Of course." He breathed out and shifted against the chair. For a few seconds, his attention wandered towards the window before eventually returning to Hyde. "There's another in a few hours"
Hyde lowered his glass as Hamilton immediately frowned. "That's it? No smug fucking smile?"
"I already knew there was a meeting."
"No, no, you 'suspected' that there is going to be another meeting."
"I knew."
Hamilton shook his head. "Whatever helps you sleep."
"Give me the location."
The single word erased what remained of Hamilton's amusement. However, he was not going to argue with Hyde anymore. Doing so was a waste of time and effort anyways.
"Old rope warehouse near Gannet Street. Southern side of the harbor." He paused before continuing, evidently deciding there was little point in being difficult now. "Bellamy Ropeworks. The building facing the road is abandoned, so don't try walking through the front unless you want half the participants opening fire at you."
Hyde listened silently without a change in his expressions.
"There's an alley running along the eastern wall. Follow it until you reach the seawall and keep going until the third drainage arch. There's a door built behind it."
"Password?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Hamilton rolled his eyes. "'A drowned man doesn't fear the rain.' That's what you say when they ask why you're there."
"Time?"
"Half past ten. Don't show up too early. They don't like people wandering around the place beforehand."
Hyde repeated the details once inside his head before setting the glass on the table and Hamilton watched him rise.
"That's everything?" Hamilton asked.
"Yes."
"You drugged me while I was balls-deep in a woman, carried me God knows where, tied me to a chair and spent all this time staring at me like some fucking animal just to ask for an address?"
Hyde looked down at him.
"Yes. It's been three times that you have repeated the same dialogue. Say that one more time and I am going to blow your pathetic head off."
Hamilton's mouth twitched. "I told you where Ferrick was without any of this."
"And now you have demonstrated that positive reinforcement works."
Hamilton stared at him and then spat to the side. "You really are a cunt."
Hyde's lips curled faintly. "You may consider yourself fortunate. Most people need to possess considerably more value for me to spare their lives after saying something like this."
Hyde walked behind Hamilton. For a moment, Hamilton's expression became wary, but the pressure around his wrists suddenly disappeared as Hyde cut through the rope with a small knife.
Hamilton immediately brought both arms forward and rubbed the reddened skin around his wrists. As fish-like scales began to appear on his arms, he looked up again and saw that Hyde was already heading towards the door.
"Wait!" Hyde stopped as Hamilton flexed his fingers. "Lara really went to Feysac?"
Hyde looked back at him and a mischievous grin formed on his face. "No. Not Feysac"
"YOU FUCKING—"
Before Hamilton could finish saying anything, Hyde was already gone.
With a sudden burst of power, he rushed after him, however, as he reached for the door and looked into the long lobby, Hyde was already gone, nowhere to be found.
*****
Bellamy Ropeworks looked considerably worse from the outside than Hamilton had described.
The warehouse had probably been abandoned for several years, judging from the collapsed portion of the roof and the vegetation growing between the stones near its foundation.
Most of its windows had either shattered or been boarded shut, while the wooden sign hanging above the main entrance had rotted until only several faded letters remained.
Hyde did not approach it immediately upon arriving. He continued along the eastern wall until the road narrowed between the warehouse and the seawall, eventually arriving before the third drainage arch.
Once it was time, he knocked on the place.
For several agonizingly long seconds, nothing happened but then the sound of something heavy being shifted came from behind the stonework and a narrow section of the wall opened inward, revealing the lower half of a man's face. "What happens to a drowned man?"
"He stops fearing the rain." Hyde replied while looking down at him.
The man remained there for another moment before moving aside as Hyde entered.
The passage beyond descended several steps before opening into a surprisingly large underground storage room.
Oil lamps were hanging from hooks driven into old wooden supports, while several tables had been arranged around the center with enough distance between them that none of the participants needed to sit particularly close to one another.
There were around twenty people present and most had concealed their appearances with scarves, half-masks, hoods and wide-brimmed hats although two people had apparently decided that turning their backs toward everyone else counted as sufficient anonymity.
Hyde was wearing nothing as he arrived and just stood there, away from the rest of them, as if standing near them was a blow to his pride.
Several people looked at him when he entered, particularly after noticing his size, while two gazes remained on the crimson bracelet around his wrist for noticeably longer than the others.
A thin man near the entrance gestured towards an empty chair. "We have three rules. No fighting inside. No asking for names, although that rule is just for outsiders. Anything bought here becomes your problem the moment payment changes hands."
Hyde looked at him. "Only three?"
"The important ones, yes. The other rules are just there for show, to be honest with ya."
He walked past him and pulled the chair away from the rest of them before sitting upright on it.
The gathering itself was less organized than those Hyde could remember through Kiyotaka. Since Hyde was an extension of Kiyotaka, the two could access each other's memories up until Kiyotaka separated one of his "emotion" away from himself.
The meeting started, and it was quite boring. Nothing interesting happened as they merely talked about local foods, some low level pirates, and businesses. When the mystical part of the meeting arrived, it proved to be even more disappointing.
Until just now.
Most of the first items were irrelevant to Hyde as they involved Beyonder ingredients of pathways he had no concern with, several charms, a revolver supposedly capable of harming spiritual creatures, although the seller refused to demonstrate it, and information regarding a wreck discovered somewhere northeast of Damir.
Eventually, however, a man near the opposite wall stood. He was perhaps fifty, though the thick hood covering most of his head made an exact estimate difficult. Unlike several previous sellers, he did not immediately begin speaking.
Instead, he placed a long wooden case on the table and several people suddenly became attentive.
The man undid two metal clasps and lifted the lid, causing Hyde's eyes to narrow.
Inside the wooden box was a sword.
It was double-edged and slightly longer than most naval blades.
Its proportions were narrow enough that it seemed designed for precise thrusting and fast cuts rather than brute force. The blade itself was almost completely black, possessing none of the ordinary grey reflection expected from steel.
Under the lamplight, it resembled a strip of night pulled into a tangible form, although several patches of reddish-brown rust had formed along its surface.
The hilt was a deep crimson — the same shade as that of the Crimson Moon.
Two metallic bat wings extended outward to form the guard. The detail was quite uncanny as even the thin veins across the wings could be distinguished from each other. At the end of the pommel was the face of a bat with its mouth slightly open, revealing two tiny fangs.
It was an unnecessarily beautiful sword and Hyde felt the desire to pick it up almost immediately.
"Before I say anything else, I should tell you all," he said. "This is the Blood Sword. Some of you should already know where this is going."
One of the older participants suddenly cursed. "Fucking hell... get that thing out of here!"
Hyde looked at the old man from the corner of his eyes. Apparently, the name of this sword was known to a select few of them.
"Some of you might have heard about it, some of you may have not."
"Three owners," the older man turned to the ones who looked to be ignorant on the subject. "Three corpses. All of its previous owners have died. And somehow this cursed sword always makes its way back to this place."
"Four. The fourth died two months ago." The man who had brought the sword sighed.
Someone near Hyde laughed nervously. "And you thought bringing it here again was a good idea?"
"Well, keeping it with me, in my possession is a worse idea, you know?" The man reached into his coat and pulled out a thick piece of leather before using it to grip the Blood Sword's hilt. Even with the protection, his movements remained cautious.
"I can see a few new faces, so I will explain this to them. When this blade wounds someone, the wound does not close, like at all. Blood continues flowing and whatever vitality it takes is transferred, at least partially, to the person holding it. Additionally, the more blood it draws, the faster the wielder becomes. There is another effect as well, which is that anyone wounded by it becomes... angry."
The seller looked at Hyde, who seemed to be ready to buy it and sighed. "Now, before you make the mistake, let me tell you its downsides too. Even if it's partially unsheathed, it requires blood equivalent to that of a full adult human. If it's not given that blood, it'll drink the wielder's blood. Additionally, even if it's not used, once a month it will get hungry enough that it will drink the wielder's blood, even if he is not holding it."
He paused and then spoke again. "Honestly, it would just be better to throw it into the sea. It really is a curse. But I have a child on the way—"
Before he could finish, someone shouted. "Another one?"
"Yes, another one. Anyways, I have a child on the way, so if anyone of you is interested in suicide, please buy it from me. I am ready to sell it on a loss."
"How is it a loss if you just recovered it from the previous guy?"
The seller faced the other way, not wanting to answer the question. As all of them began laughing amongst each other, Hyde suddenly rolled his sleeves and raised his hand.
"How did the previous owners die?" he asked.
The seller placed the sword back in the wooden box. "First was stabbed through the throat during a duel after refusing to surrender. The second attacked six sailors alone and died after killing four. The third apparently tried to rob someone considerably stronger than himself."
"And the fourth?"
The seller was quiet for a moment as he spoke in a dark tone. "Bled to death. He failed to wound his opponent and since it was already unsheathed, it drank the man dry."
"I will buy it."
The seller's eyes widened. "Are you sure? I am quite desperate, but still... my conscience tells me to warn you about it."
Hyde waved his hand, as if swatting a bug. "Who are you to worry about me? Name your price."
The seller was a bit taken aback by the rudeness, however, the sheer size of him made him not want to act offended at his tone. "£1.800"
"Ok."
"You're not going to negotiate?"
"Why would I?" Hyde looked genuinely puzzled by the question.
"Because everyone negotiates."
Hyde leaned back in his chair and stared at him. His intense gaze made the seller take a step back and frantically began to lock the box as a faint laugh came from somewhere behind him. As he turned around, he wiped the beads of sweat over his forehead. "I should warn you once more—"
"No." The man's mouth stopped moving as Hyde shrugged. "I heard the warnings the first time. The previous owners died because they were inadequate. Their failures are not particularly relevant to me."
The seller eventually exhaled. "Your funeral."
He then pushed the wooden case across the table as Hyde stood up and retrieved it before throwing the wad of cash at the man. He opened the box and gripped the sword by its hilt and inspected it before returning it back into the box.
"It's in a sealed state right now. If you look inside the bat at the pommel's mouth, there's a shard of wood stuck inside it. That's what keeps it from activating. Once you buy a scabbard for it, pull the wooden shard out of it and submerge it inside holy water. Once the wood dissipates inside it, the sword will activate upon pulling it slightly from the scabbard."
Hyde acknowledged the seller's words before picking the heavy box and holding it under his arm. Without waiting for the others or the meeting to end, he made his way out of the establishment and arrived inside a new hotel.
With 90% of his budget gone, he still decided to pick this hotel, because it served a rather important purpose. And that was because this hotel was located right over the eastern pier, adjacent to the repair yards.
Once he was inside his room, he looked over from his window and saw a rather unimpressive ship.
Its hull was long and relatively narrow with several sections of mismatched timber where older damage had been patched over. Most of the original paint had peeled away, leaving dull wood broken by darker tarred seams and rusty fittings.
The mast was shorter than that of a proper merchant vessel, and the furled sail hanging from it had been repaired so many times that several different shades of cloth could be seen. Near the underside of the port side, fresh damage was visible as several planks had split inward and were now being removed one by one while workers balanced on narrow scaffolding beside the hull.
Amongst them, Hyde's eyes landed on one of them who was carrying a sword at his hip, sheathed in a rather beautiful looking brown leather sheath. He turned and opened the box, admiring the Blood Sword before turning to look at that man again and his sword.
"Its a perfect fit!" Hyde exclaimed gleefully as he took out his belt.
The ordinary looking belt suddenly glowed in holy radiance while he dipped it inside some water before plucking the wooden shard from inside the bat's mouth and plunging it inside the freshly produced holy water.
As the wooden shard dissolved in holy water, Hyde gripped the sword and looked at it, bringing it close to his face. "Let's call you Reproach, yeah, that suits you better. Whoever named you before clearly suffered from a complete lack of imagination."
*****
Author's Note: Date has been updated in the auxiliary chapter. Read it if you don't mind spoilers since it will be explained in next Hyde chapter anyways.