Stone held the cold.
The room sat below the streets, cut down into earth that never warmed. Thick walls pressed close, darkened where damp had worked its way into the stone and stayed there. The light in the room thinned quickly against the walls, leaving corners soft and uncertain.
The floor sloped gently toward a drain cut into the stone and worn smooth by years of use. Dark stains marked where blood had been pushed toward it before drying, the stone discolored in long, uneven traces that scrubbing had never fully lifted. Moisture had soaked deep enough into the floor that it never quite dried. The air carried old blood, lye, and wet stone.
The witcher was already inside.
Four bodies lay on separate stone slabs, spaced far enough apart that none of them touched. They were naked, placed without ceremony. One arm hung off the edge of a slab, fingers stiff and pale. On another, a foot rested against bare stone, toes grey and drawn tight by the cold.
Three guards were present. Two stood near the door at the top of the short stair. One leaned against the wall, arms folded. None of them spoke.
His eyes moved to the bodies.
Blood had settled and darkened where it clung to skin and stone. Some had been wiped away. Some resisted it, remaining thick in creases and pooled where the slabs dipped.
The first body showed heavy blunt damage.
The chest was crushed inward, ribs broken beneath the skin. Bruising spread wide across the torso where force had been applied and held. One shoulder sat low, the joint pulled out of place.
Feeding marks were set at the throat. Deep. Uneven.
The throat was crushed. The airway gone.
The second bore similar force damage.
Claw marks scored the arms and flanks. One forearm was broken, the bone failing under weight. Several fingers were missing, torn away.
Feeding damage clustered at the neck. Heavy. Prolonged.
Blood loss was extensive.
The third showed impact damage.
One side of the body was crushed, ribs broken, hip cracked where it had struck stone. Skin had split at the point of contact.
Feeding followed immediately.
The throat had been torn open and worked over until blood flow had slowed.
The fourth was the most recent.
There was blunt damage across the upper body—bruising at the shoulders, collarbones marked where pressure had been applied. One forearm showed defensive breaks, the wrist twisted hard enough to fail.
Feeding marks were set at the throat.
Staining beneath the slab was darker, not yet fully worked into the stone.
He stepped back and stopped.
The witcher drew a slow breath and let it out again.
Vampire.
He looked to the guards.
"Where did you find the last one," he said.
The guard at the wall didn't answer right away.
His eyes shifted from the witcher to the body on the nearest slab—the one with the darker staining beneath it.
"Outside," he said. "Near a storage building."
A pause.
"The others were found elsewhere," he added. "Different parts of the city."
Silence followed.
The witcher nodded once.
He turned toward the stairs.
—
They came up into the street.
Daylight was full and steady. Work was already underway. Carts moved through the street, wheels rattling over stone, drivers focused on where they were going.
One of the guards stepped ahead and led them on.The other two stayed behind the witcher.
They passed shops first—open fronts, voices cutting through the noise—then into a stretch where the buildings pressed closer together. Storage houses and work buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, upper floors leaning in where the street narrowed.
The guard slowed near one building and stopped.
"Here."
The witcher stepped past him.
The street stones showed a short break in their wear. Grit pressed aside where weight had struck and shifted once before lifting away.
His eyes lifted.
Marks scored the wall above head height. Shallow gouges where stone had been struck and slipped under weight. Uneven spacing. Too wide apart to be human.
His eyes followed them along the wall.
They broke near the corner, then resumed higher up on the next building where the gap between roofs narrowed. Stone chipped beneath a window ledge. Scratches where something had caught, then pushed off again.
He moved on.
The guards followed, unsure why.
Farther along, the signs repeated. Brief contact. Stone bruised where weight had landed, then nothing. Then more, higher up, where one roofline crowded close enough to the next.
A gutter edge had been chipped. The stone beneath it was darkened where pressure had been applied and released.
He kept walking.
The trail carried forward along the walls and rooflines. It crossed another junction without dropping to the street. The marks thinned, then appeared again farther on, higher than before, near the eaves where the stonework stepped inward.
The witcher tilted his head, reading the spacing.
Ahead, the damage continued along the next stretch of wall, climbing where the buildings closed in and leaving the street bare beneath it.
He followed.
The marks carried on until they no longer did.
Stone above the street was scored and chipped where weight had struck and slipped. The damage crossed from one face of stone to the next, then ended at a recess cut into the wall near ground level.
The opening was narrow and vertical. Steps had been cut into the stone inside it, shallow and uneven, worn smooth by time. The shaft dropped straight down. Darkness closed around it after the first few steps.
The stone at the lip was fractured where weight had come down hard and slid. The scoring pressed inward. Nothing marked the stone below.
Cold air moved up from the opening, damp and steady. It carried the smell of old water and stone that hadn't seen light in a long time.
The witcher stepped closer.
He set one boot into the first cut in the wall and shifted his weight onto it. The stone held. He took the next step, then another, his shoulders slipping below street level.
Behind him, one of the guards spoke.
"We're meant to go down there?" he said.
The witcher didn't answer.
He kept moving, hands and boots finding the worn cuts in the stone, his head lowering until the street above was reduced to a strip of light.
The guards glanced at one another.
No one said anything else.
After a moment, one of them stepped forward and followed him into the opening.
The others came after.