Chapter Four | The Wolf and the Crow
Catherine woke in the Dream, tears on her face and her body racked with shivers. She sobbed, awful noises pushed out of her throat like vomit, fingers clawing at her belly and spit dribbling from her chin.
She killed them.
Those broken faces stood out, seared into her mind. How their limbs twitched, hearts laying still in their chests and bared to the cold nights air. The woman, eyes frenzied and hand bashing against her rifle in a desperate attempt to get the monster away.
Her.
Was it just the blood that she had to blame? A high? Some furious poison rushing through her veins and setting her very soul on fire?
It sang to her, she could hear it still - not in any words that could be spoken by the clumsy mouth of man but instead in a low buzz, resonating in her bones. It was an urge, some intrinsic part of her being twisted and snapped by the power of something she couldn't bear to lay eyes on.
Something in the blood was wrong. It was powerful, so powerful it made her ill, made her want to run to the hills and never look back at the nightmare of coiled stone and raging beasts that made up Yharnam.
But they were still human. Just a touch, enough to make her flinch.
"Good hunter, you've returned."
Catherine laughed. "I have."
"Would you like to rest?" the Doll asked, gesturing towards the workshop. "I can put up a bed, if you'd like."
She shook her head. "No, no- I'll… I'm fine. I…" Catherine swallowed, tongue flicking over her lips. "Did you know the beasts down there, in the city… they're human?"
The Doll tilted her head, looking almost quizzical. "Not anymore."
"Aren't they, though? They still feel, they still fear. I… I cut them down like they were nothing. The blood, is it all like that? A drug?"
"A drug? I wouldn't compare it to such, not exactly." Humming, the Doll's jaw clenched, as if to purse her lips. "There are cocktails, drinks, of course. Somewhat of a vice amongst Yharnamites from what I have heard."
"Drinks?" Catherine whispered, horrified.
"Yes. It seems to be quite popular, particularly when mixed with Yharnam wine or an aged scotch taken from Cainhurst - though - there's not much of it to be found in the city… nor Cainhurst, I imagine."
"I'm guessing Cainhurst is another city?"
"A very magnificent one, full of Lords and Ladies, but I heard they were a fearful group of people."
"How?"
"They were quite cruel, particularly to their servants. The Church went to war with them, and no one has heard from Cainhurst since."
"Sounds like some people I know," Catherine muttered.
"Oh! From your home?"
"Yeah… we've got a lot of old families where I come from. Not really royalty, but about as close as you can come to it." She scratched her neck, hand still trembling. "They're rich, spoiled… well, they're asses, to put it simply. Not all of them, but, a few of the more renowned ones are just awful people to be around."
The Doll sat down in front of her, still looming over Catherine with the two of them on the ground. "That sounds frightful."
"It is what it is. I learned to deal with it just like everyone else has. Doesn't make it any easier that I'm a half-blood, or famous."
"Half-blood?" The Doll seemed to gasp the word, looking a touch fearful.
"My dad was born to a magical family, people where I come from would call him Pureblood. My mum? Both her parents were mundane. Muggles, we call them. So, she's a Muggleborn. Slap the two together," she punctuated her words by clapping. "And any child they have would be called a Half-blood."
"Oh, well- that's quite relieving."
"Relieving?"
"A Half-Blood here in Yharnam refers to the bastard spawn of god and man," the Doll explained in hushed tones. "A new god is what is normally born, but occasionally, something different is. Not many beasts can claim to be as frightening as those carrying the taint of Half-Blood."
"That's… terrifying. There's worse things out there than- "
Catherine choked on her words, flooded with memories of shattered skulls and too much blood.
"Good hun- Catherine." The Doll reached forward tentatively, hand resting on Catherine's knee. "You're hurting."
"Of course I am!" she shouted, smacking the hand away. "I killed those people! I killed them! That's… it's insane! Your fucking blood made me ignore it! I barely noticed as I cut them down, because I was high off- off whatever the hell is in it!"
Standing up, she glared at the Doll. "Whatever it did, you need to fix it. Get it out of me, do what you need to get rid of that blood."
"Catherine, I apologize, but nothing can be done. The Blood is a part of you now. You signed the contract, you are bound to the Dream… it cannot be changed. You must end the hunt."
She cursed, raising her hand as if to strike the Doll. "I… I was dying, not even cognizant of what was happening when I signed that damned contract. There has to be a way out of it!"
The Doll stood, shaking her head sadly. "I'm afraid nothing there is nothing that can be done. The gods speak from you as they do all hunters. Even once you conquer the beasts of Yharnam, that will remain the same."
"So I'm cursed? Forever? That's it, that's everything?"
"I… I am sorry, Catherine, but yes. You are a part of the Dream, part of Yharnam, it is irrevocable."
"Damnit!"
Catherine did her best not to shove the doll out of the way, pushing up the steps towards the Workshop. She slammed her hands onto the table nearest Gehrman, the man smiling at her.
"What? Already had enough of the beasts?"
"Those aren't beasts down there, they're people. You're having me go down there and- and murder just to get out of this nightmare?"
He let out a booming chuckle, hands clasped tightly on the wrist rests of his wheelchair. "People? Girl, Yharnam is ablaze, its citizens turned to mindless, raging creatures that would sooner rip their child's heart out of its chest and feast on it than embrace them. Don't be a fool."
"There has to be some sort of cure, something to fix it! Has anyone even tried?"
"They have, and they failed. You believe the hunt to be something new? Some sort of passing cold that sweeps through the town before burning itself out? It has been near on a hundred years, each worse than the last. By all means, go out, concoct some sort of remedy" He waved towards the door, sneering. "You act as if you may simply solve something our greatest and most powerful couldn't. Tell me, if you would, do you have any knowledge of a plague that turns man to beast with but a drop?"
"Lycanthropy," Catherine interjected. "Wolfsbane is a way, a potion."
"And do you understand how to brew such a thing? Is it a cure? A treatment? Pray tell, of this miracle potion that seems to be the answer to all our needs."
"No- I don't- dammit. There's options, Gehrman. We don't have to go around…"
"Putting down the sick? Yes, we do. For every beast you leave breathing an unafflicted Yharnamite will be torn to bits, left out in the city to rot. Quit with your idiotic moralism, it won't save any lives."
Fiddling with a set of broken pliers, she clenched her fist, rapping it against the table in frustration. "So this is the only way out. For me to get back home."
"Yes, and if you'd quit your blithering and just hunt you would return that much sooner. Go." he pointed to the door. "Enough with your tantrum. You're a grown woman, do something befitting of your age."
"A grown woman?" she laughed. "Maybe here. I'm still a child back home."
"A child?" Gehrman leaned forward on his cane. "What a curious place you come from. The... Doll spoke to me of it. You have no royalty? No lords or masters?"
"We choose our leaders. We vote. This world of yours is… medieval, three hundred years behind us at best. It's like walking into a history book."
"Really?" Nodding thoughtfully, he tilted his head. "Then surely you must have come across something like this plague in your peoples stories."
"Nothing of the sort. I don't think anyone from my world has seen anything like this before. It's… horrific."
He hummed. "My knowledge of the plague is limited. The Church, on the other hand, they would be more knowledgeable of the origin than any others. Perhaps the scholars at Byrgenwerth..."
"Byrgenwerth?"
"A college, of sorts, at the end of what once was a beautiful forest. I've visited once, the view from Byrgenwerth... overlooking the ocean, it's something to behold. There's a man, an educator, Master Willem - he heads Byrgenwerth. I would speak to him if the Church garners no answers."
"I… thank you, Gehrman." Catherine sighed, feeling a headache building up. "How do I do it? Get used to so much bloodshed?"
"You never become accustomed to it, never truly think of the act as normal," he stated, voice cold. "Those who do, the ones who revel in it - they become the monsters they hunt, and lest you wish to have Crows snapping at your heels you would do well not to love the Blood."
"Then what? I just try not to break down?"
"Yes. That is exactly what you do." Gehrman turned away from her. "Get back to it, otherwise you'll find yourself here for a while longer."
Watching as he left, Catherine's heels scraped against the floorboards.
Is there really no other way?
She walked from the Workshop with a heavy heart, ignoring the doll as she knelt before the tombstone.
The light washed over her and she returned to Yharnam.
-::-
Her cleaver sung as it cut through the air, carving ribbons of flesh from the beastman's torso.
She was walking the same path she did but a few hours before, the moon still looming over the city and casting its withering glow across stone and cracked brickwork.
Seemed that day and night worked differently in Yharnam as well.
Heart beating heavy in her chest, she crept overtop a carriage - the same one that woman had hidden behind, rifle glinting dangerously and fury in her eyes.
Peeking over the edge, she could see the same woman sleeping - or, at least resting. Her chin was tucked against her chest, rifle propped up in front of her as her shoulders slowly rose and fell with each breath.
Do it, she told herself, leaping from the top of the carriage and slamming her blade into the woman's skull.
She couldn't so much as shriek, head cloven in two and her brains spilling out across the pavement.
Retching, Catherine tore the blade away, ignoring how the blood - her blood - sung in her veins, turning her guts into a whirlpool of nausea and regret.
It's the only way.
The street seemed to clear up as she grew closer to the flames that seemed to dance off the walls surrounding her, bright and terribly eerie.
As she turned around the corner and set sights on the bonfire, she couldn't help but gasp.
A wolf so massive she thought it to be bred with a giant hung from what looked to be a cross, jaw hanging open and blood dripping from its crooked teeth. It was strung up with ropes a handwidth thick, fur wet with grease and singed at the edges. The flames danced at its feet, tough skin burning away to reveal bone and the sharp red of muscle.
She looked on, horrified as a crowd of men wandered in circles around the dead beast, hollering and jeering at its corpse as they waved their torches about.
That's what can happen to them? To turn into… that?
Taking the steps up to the right, she shrieked as a man barreled out of the darkness, slicing through her shoulder with a chipped axe.
Catherine could hear the townsfolk behind her muttering in surprise, knew they would soon be after her.
She shot the man through the gut, causing him to stumble forward, clutching at his wound in surprise. Her cleaver snapped forward and sheared through his arm, pulling up and raking its fangs over his jaw and tearing it right off.
He fell to the ground, tongue lolling against his stump neck as he moaned pitifully. Disgusted - whether because of herself or the horrible sight of a man missing half his face - Catherine carved through his throat, blood spraying from the wound.
Ducking out of the way of a pitchfork, Catherine gritted her teeth as a bullet dug its way into her side, looking off over the cleared road to see a man perched atop a carriage, rifle held steady in his hands.
Cutting the legs out from under the pitchfork wielding beast, she jumped away as a woman stumbled towards her, knife swinging wildly as she careened forward.
Catherine howled as another gunshot struck her in the thigh, the back of her head grinding against stone as she rolled backwards, ducking behind a stack of barrels as she snatched a vial off her hip and plunged it into her side.
She let out an involuntary sigh as it worked its way through her, the quiet ping of a bullet striking the ground as it was pushed out of her body by writhing muscle.
Her mind settled, the screaming voice in the back of her head quieted enough that she could focus past her horror and the blood that stained her vision on the creatures in front of her. Beasts, she told herself. The sick and dying, minds long lost and simply waiting to be put down.
A new voice spoke up inside her, one softly droning of blood. It whispered, quietly - seductively - as she tore one of the beasts throats open, crimson splashing over her face. Catherine could barely hear his friends howl, hear the man gurgle as blood poured down his chest in thick waves. All she could see was red as the ichor of the Church flooded her veins and pushed her into a frenzy.
The next bullet that came screaming her way crashed against the home behind her as she wove down, slicing one of the men in half with two quick pulls of her cleaver. She flicked the blade, splashing blood across the stone as it snapped into place, the inertia carrying it up and into the groin of the next beast. Pulling, she dragged it through his pelvis and out his waist, watching out of the corner of her eye as he toppled to the ground in pieces.
Dashing down the stairs, Catherine kicked at a dog that stampeded towards her, its head jerking to the side. The creature snarled, flecks of drool flying from its mouth as it snapped at her ankles. It shrieked, high and wild as she smashed its flank with the butt-end of her cleaver. Hissing, Catherine fired a shot into its head, jumping to the side once more as the man atop the carriage raised his rifle and fired.
Dust shot up from the impact, peppering her calves in tiny bits of stone. Catherine tucked her pistol away and leapt at the carriage, feet kicking at the moldy seats and fingers scraping along wood as she hoisted herself up, snatching blindly at the riflemans ankles.
He fell with a scream, weapon forgotten as he attempted to scratch at her hands, his own covered in fur and pointed into claws.
Catherine ignored the pain as he split her hand down the middle, fingers splayed out like the tentacles of a squid. She raised her cleaver, grip slipping on the handle as she tried to drive it into his chest.
The flat end cracked against his ribs and she could feel them snap underneath, another howl screaming out of the man's throat.
Again-
She smashed the flat end of the blade against his face, a spurt of blood shooting from his ears and dribbling across the carriage top. Pulling back, she took a great, heaving breath, giving herself a moment to look out at the carnage she had wrought.
Corpses lay strewn out across the road in varying states of dismemberment. Some were missing arms, some legs. Others were frozen in their death throes, fingers scrabbling at thick ropes of intestine and eyes wide with terror.
Spitting out a glob of blood, she snatched another vial and pressed it against her side, sighing loudly as her wounds began to knit shut.
Her hand twitched, skin pulling together like a zipper - but not quite.
Huh, Catherine wondered, looking down at her belt to see only one vial left. That's not good.
She wondered for a moment if she should leave her hand maimed as it was before thinking better of it.
Her gun was useful, incredibly so - and, she could always find more vials.
Taking the last one, Catherine nearly moaned as she let another jolt of blood flood her body, skin tingling - electric - as it filled her veins.
Footsteps sounded from her right, and she looked up to see a man dressed in what looked to be black preachers clothes, a large axe held in one hand and a pistol in the other.
She grit her teeth, blade raised. "You a beast?"
The man laughed, throwing his head back and revealing bandages that wrapped around his eyes.
Like the Minister.
"A hunter, lass. Calm yourself." He strode forward, whistling as he admired her handiwork. "Impressive, though, you seem to be new blood. Tell me, huntress, how did an outsider like you come to wield a blade of the workshop?"
Catherine patted the weapon, hand tracing over the handle. "I was given it."
Sniffing the air, the man hummed quietly. "The moon is upon you. Its scent clings to your clothes. A dreamer, eh?"
"You know of it?"
"Only tales. There is a hunter you may wish to find, a Crow named Eileen. She could tell you more of it."
"I keep hearing that word - Crow. What does it mean?"
"A hunter of hunters." The man's voice seemed to take on a dour tone, almost bitter. "They end the blood-drunk, lest they tear this whole city apart in their thirst."
Catherine found herself chuckling. "This city is already torn apart."
"Aye, and a long night this is shaping up to be."
Cryptic.
She eyed his clothing warily. Preachers garb. Was he with the Church?
"Eileen. Where can I find her?"
He pointed his axe eastward, down into the earth. "Last I heard she was looking for a hunter round the aqueduct. She may have stopped to rest in her search... a lot gets lost down there. People, most of all."
"Thank you…"
"Gascoigne," he stated, giving her a clumsy bow. "Would you like me to take you there? Seems you've already done the work I intended in this part of the city."
"I'm Catherine - Cat - for short… and, if it's not too much trouble." She scratched at her empty belt. "You wouldn't happen to know where to find more vials, would you?"
"Ah." Gascoigne strode forward, kneeling down to pick at the clothes of the dead man beneath Catherine. "But they're right here, aren't they?"
He began to strip the corpse, rifling through pockets and flipping the body when no more served to be found. Gascoigne handed the vials to her as she watched dumbly at the way in which he so casually desecrated the dead man, head smashed to bits and his blood dripping over the carriage ceiling.
"Take them."
Catherine snatched the vials from his hands, fastening them to her belt with hurried motions. "You… you loot bodies here?"
"Why wouldn't we?"
"It's- it's not right," she stuttered, removing herself from the carriage top and climbing onto the upper street.
Gascoigne seemed to glare at her through his blindfold. "Nothing is right in Yharnam, and if you wish to survive - dreamer or not - you would do well to learn our ways."
"I can't imagine this is how the entire city behaves."
"Not quite our ways," he clarified, gesturing to the shuttered windows and barred doors. "The hunters' ways."
"So it's not… immoral?"
"Immoral?" He cackled, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. "There are no laws here in Yharnam, not anymore. Especially not on a night like this. You have a lot to learn if you wish to end this hunt with your sanity intact."
"I don't think I will…" Catherine looked out upon the sea of gore, spilt by her hand. "I think I've lost it already."
Gascoigne patted her on the back, causing her to cough loudly. "If you've wondered about your sanity that means some still remains. Deep breaths, huntress. Let's find you your Crow."
Following him through the streets, Catherine looked on at the corpses that Gascoigne had left in his wake.
More dogs, beastmen, their chests torn open and skulls shattered from heavy axe swings. One of the dead men was massive, nearly eight feet tall and wide all over. His head looked as if it had been crushed, misshapen and pocked with sores. Its hand was held tight around a brick, trapped in the rictus of death.
"Do you happen to have trolls in this city?" Catherine wondered, trying to look away from the corpse.
"Trolls? No such thing in Yharnam, though, I assume you're speaking about him?"
She hummed.
"The scourge affects all in different ways. Some turn to wolves, unmistakable in their beasthood. Others? They grow larger, stronger, more wicked than even the wolves that prowl these streets."
"How could that be more wicked than a wolf?"
"Their minds, addled as they are, are still their own." He kicked an arm out of the way, leading her up the path. "They have cruel wants, taking pleasure in torture and other unseemly acts. Upon the last hunt I witnessed one of them playing with a woman's head, kicking it about as if for sport, laughing all the while."
"Oh."
All this city could do was steal, she realized. Steal life, steal livelihood, steal sanity. It was built to take, something about it so intrinsically wrong it made her want to shout at the sky, rage against the heavens and tear the curtain down to reveal the hideous nightmares it was hiding.
They cut down any stragglers as they wandered through the city. Up stairs, down stairs, ladders hidden in the most unlikely of places.
A bit of fear cemented itself in her mind as she watched Gascoigne cut down a wolf with three clean strikes of his axe, a grin on his face so terrible that for a moment she thought him to be blood-drunk, bathing himself in the crimson stain of these profaned beasts.
She helped, of course, leaping in from behind and taking the legs out from under one of the creatures, two pistol shots through the gut ending it's pitiful life.
The macabre was slowly growing on her - like a tumour - tendrils of rot snaking its way through her body and gripping so tight she could feel her chest ache. Blood seemed to soak through the thick cloth she wore, rough against her skin and much too warm.
Yharnam, she was beginning to notice, was in a much worse state than she first thought it to be.
Its streets were crumbling, close to ruin. Fires smouldered in the corners of alleys, rats the size of dogs scurrying about in the darkness and peeking out at her, bodies covered in pustules and pupils splashed across their eyes like spilled ink.
The beasts eyes were the same, like they had been struck and their eyes had burst - but not fully - somehow trapped between thin strips of gelatinous flesh.
This whole city bore scars, so deep they may never heal. She was terrified to see the rest of it.
Slowly, a stench began to fill her nose, that of fetid flesh and the stink of faeces - mingled together in some sort of wretched perfume that seemed to smother her in its intensity.
"Oh god." She coughed, holding her arm against her nose. "It's open to the air?"
"It's a sewer, of course it is," Gascoigne chided, wiping his axe off on a corpse beneath him. "It travels deep below the city, a good distance away from any well or drinking water."
"Doesn't matter much if it's open to the air. Fuck, you sure this isn't the source of the plague?" Catherine peered down into the sewer, grimacing. "I'm astonished you don't all have cholera."
"Cholera?"
"A disease. Awful way to die. It's what happens when you have open sewage all over the goddamn place - although, at least you have a sewage system. Better than throwing shit out your window."
"Ah." He chuckled, directing Catherine towards a large building leading in toward the sewers. "We've arrived. I wish you the best of luck, huntress, but I must be off." Gascoigne pointed towards the bridge, Cathedral ward looming high above. "My wife and children await me."
Oh.
"You're a father?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" He adjusted his cap, an air of smugness washing over him. "What, does a man as handsome as myself look like he would never take a bride?"
"No, I just… didn't really think about hunters having families to return to. Job doesn't seem like it has much in the way of life expectancy."
Laughing loudly, Gascoigne squeezed her shoulder, Catherine flinching at his bloodied touch. "Take care of yourself, and remember - Praise the Good Blood."
She watched as he left, axe swaying and a whistled tune pouring from his lips, striding into the depths of the city and off towards his family.
A family, huh? And praise the Good Blood, what did that mean? Gascoigne had spoken it as if a mantra, some holy scripture to be idolized.
Shit. He was definitely a member of the Church.
What was that, that Gilbert had said? Not to trust them? He seemed nice, at least, far nicer than any of the creatures she had come across so far. Although, that wasn't the best metric to work from considering nearly everything she'd come across in her short time in Yharnam had tried to kill her.
Shuddering at the memory of her own death (pain, so much pain - teeth nipping at her spine and blood pouring down her back in waves) Catherine slowly tread into the building that seemed to house an entrance to the sewer system.
The stench was horrid, so thick that she wished she had something to cover her nose with - plugs even - as uncomfortable as they would be. There was a stack of crates and barrels lined up against the far wall, but a few of them had been recently overturned, the layer of filth that coated the ground noticeably thinner, marked with round indentations whose glistening corners caught the dim light.
Deciding to hedge her bets on that - seeing as no beast would take the time to move the crates, rather than smash them to pieces - Catherine stepped over the windowsill and onto a set of thick rafters, stretching out across the building and-
"Shit," she muttered, lips peeling back into a scowl. "They've hung bodies around the goddamn place."
Corpses were strung up by their feet, hanging over the open gap leading down into the sewer. She warily eyed the coffins propped up against the walls, lids shuttered tight with locks and chains.
Wet marks… no, footsteps lead off to the right. Human footsteps, along with the sharp tinge of incense slowly wafting through another open window, a thin trail of silvery smoke lapping at the edges.
That's gotta' be it.
Catherine stepped over the rafters wearily, each footfall creaking loudly and leaving her wondering if she'd fall to her death.
Probably not the worst way to go, considering the other ways in which she had been killed.
The incense stung her nose as she circled around yet more barrels and crates, finding herself outside the building in some sort of open-air storage area. She cracked the top of one of the crates with her cleaver, opening it to find it packed full of empty vials.
Makes sense, she thought, opening another to find even more vials, a barrel topped full with rancid ale and other crates containing rotten fruit, the stench unplaceable among the festering stink of the sewer below.
Peeking around the corner, Catherine spotted a person in what looked to be an overly complicated plague doctor's uniform, mask curving into a long beak and their coat laced with strips of pointed cloth that hung silently like feathers.
"Eileen?"
The Crow turned, weapons in hand before Catherine could so much as blink. "Who wants to know?"
"Uh- that'd be me," she said, walking out from behind the stack of crates, waving awkwardly. "I was told you could answer some of my questions."
Eileen sniffed the air, head bobbing. "Oh, a hunter, are ya?" she paused, eyeing Catherine through the mask. "An outsider too. What a mess you've been caught up in. And tonight, of all nights."
"Yeah. It's… something else, alright. A man called Gascoigne said you could answer questions I had, about the Dream."
"A dreamer… haven't met one of you in a while. What would you like to know? My memory of it is nigh non-existent, something about leaving the Dream - it seems to scramble your mind, take your thoughts and lock them away."
"So, you don't remember a thing?"
"Only the Doll and Gehrman. The man's been dead for near eighty years… I guess some part of him lives on." Eileen sighed, putting her weapons away and leaning against a fence behind her. "Something greater is at work. I don't prescribe to the Churches fanaticism - Blood this, Oedon that - but you should prepare yourself for the worst. There are no humans left in this city. They're all flesh hungry beasts, now."
Scratching the back of her neck, Catherine's shoulders dropped. "Guess there's not much to know about the Dream then? Why I'm here?"
"Did you not come to Yharnam for healing? For work?"
"No. I just went to bed one night and woke up here. There's a creature, something that…" Catherine bit her lip. "I don't know what it is, but it brought me to Yharnam. It wants something from me. Paleblood is all I know, apparently I have to find it."
"Paleblood? Now, that's not a word often heard. I'm sure you've been told already, but the Church would be the ones to know."
"Well, thanks. It was good to meet you."
Laughing, Eileen shook her head. "Wasn't a problem. Now, stop lingering about. You're a dreamer, go out and find your Paleblood. A hunter must hunt."
"A hunter must hunt… did you get that from the Doll, or her from you?"
"The Doll says that? Well, you'd have to ask her. I can't remember for the life of me."
"I'll ask her the next time I… well, you know."
Eileen huffed. "Enough quivering in your boots. You've got beasts to kill, huntress. You should be off."
"Thank you, Eileen. I… maybe I'll see you around."
"You don't want me following you. That means something has gone terribly wrong."
"True. Hunter of hunters, right?"
"Aye. I keep these streets clean. Worse enough that we've got beasts running about, rather that than someone with their wits - broken as they are." Her mocking tone turned serious, eyes locked upon Catherine's from behind her mask. A steel gray, harsh and uninviting. "Fear the Old Blood, lest you find yourself at the end of my blade."
She does not lie, the woman of feathers and blood. Her words - harsh, but true - speak of the illness of hunters. A nightmare borne of their own hands, twisted cities and a crimson river. Fear it, child. Fear the blood of mine people, unless thou wish to follow in the footsteps of Byrgenwerth. A curse by my own wrath, no mercy to be found.
Catherine flinched, eyes flickering shut as she turned away the voice. She glanced back towards the window, ignoring Eileen's pointed stare.
"I'll be off… I've got a sewer to explore."
Cathedral Ward may have been the goal, but something was sitting in the back of her mind, pointing and urging her towards the sewers.
'A lot gets lost down there,' Gascoigne had said. She hoped to find something of use.
"Take care, huntress. Don't get lost."
She laughed quietly, waving goodbye to Eileen. "I'll try my best."