From his experience, the water-of-Lethe never got completely cold, but despite the chilly temperature around, this one was almost lukewarm; it could only be related to its concentration, and that it probably was more powerful than others. Lovino went carefully down the steps, letting the water first engulf his feet, then seep into his clothes the deeper he went. It wasn't just the odd warmth; it vaguely pricked at his skin as if electrified, beckoning further into its impenetrable darkness. At the bottom, the water was reaching just below his chest and he waded through it towards the center of the pool, the stone flooring smooth under his soles.

"How is it?" Francis asked, taking a few steps in turn onto the narrow edge going around the water on one side. "Hey, don't go too far, it may not be safe and we can't reach you there. Next time we'll bring a safety rope and make sure we can pull you out before you go exploring the rest of it."

"I'm fine, nothing's going to happen," the Medium replied, waving his hand in dismissal. "Go back, it might be slippery there and I told you what will happen if-..."

But then he bumped his foot against something.

On instinct, he looked down, even though he couldn't see anything into the opaque liquid, feeling an undercurrent around his legs. Slowly, he tried to move his foot forward, along the length of the foreign object, but then his left ankle was encircled by... fingers.

"Oh fuck, Francis, I think-..." he breathed out in slight panic, but when he looked up again and around, the Coordinator was gone, and so were the other two men.

The light had dimmed now at the sudden, there were fewer lamps along the walls, and the whole room looked altogether different; the steps he'd gone down on into the pool weren't there anymore, replaced by the same rough stone edge, instead he saw a device similar to a pulley with multiple chains half-suspended over the edge of the water on one side, and several heavy wooden cabinets lined up on each side of the door, their contents hard to make out in the obscurity.

Lovino tried not to get too distracted by the setting, instead trying to reason that whatever the object was, it must have pulled him under, into another time and place, to its owner. Could it have been… someone's body? Usually, only corpses had that kind of pull.

"Look at me."

The voice sounded choked, as if the person was barely drawing enough breath, the words were almost wheezed. Lovino turned back slowly, and spotted the reflection of a woman's form, right in front of him. He stared for a moment at the tips of long, light-colored hair hanging down into the water like tendrils, chest constricting with unease, but it was more a deep feeling of despair than actual dread.

Sucking in a breath, he finally shifted his gaze slowly up the close-buttoned, high-necked bodice of a black dress, all the way to the pale face of a young girl. All color seemed to have drained from her skin, hair and even her eyes, leaving behind only faded, uncertain greys, while a thick rusty chain was wrapped twice around her neck, the rest of it disappearing into her hair. Yet the apparition was hardly horrific, only held an expression of infinite suffering, beyond any soothing.

The Medium stared at the chain, and then at the pulley, it wasn't so hard to put two and two together. He still couldn't make out what was in the cabinets, but this was – had been - a torture room and the girl had died here, drowned by the looks of it. Drowned at best.

"Who did this to you?" Lovino whispered, as gently as he could, although it felt terribly awkward.

He had only done this once before – the Mediums could channel other people's experiences but could only really talk to the deceased if their spirit had been trapped for whatever reason and they had not fully passed away yet. But it was difficult because the ghosts were often distrustful, having no intention to talk and Lovino didn't have amazing people skills anyway.

The girl reached into the water with shy, translucent fingers and picked up the Medium's left hand, holding it wrist up and making him flinch at the sudden pain. Now there was a round wound there, like a hole straight into the joint, and blood had started gushing out. The wound looked horribly familiar, and so was the pain now going up his forearm, bone-deep.

"Those who did this to you," the ghost murmured, reluctant.

"You mean the Guild?" Lovino asked, and felt almost stupid for doing it. Wasn't it obvious, really? The house had been built by one of the former Elders, along with everything that was in it, including the plaque above the front door. By the look of things, the man had been hard at work to stall the twilight of the world, filled with the iniquities and evil of witches!

He grimaced, and wanted to pull his hand away, but the girl wouldn't let go. She looked up at the Medium, tears welling out of her large eyes, water upon water. "Take my bones out so I can finally rest. Please, I've been here long enough."


"Oh, no! What the hell- LOVINO!" Francis called in alarm, pointing the flashlight towards where the Medium stood.

"What?! What's going on?!" Antonio tried to look, hurrying on the edge on the other side. "What's happening to him?!"

"He's in a trance, look! Fucking hell, we need to wake him up!" the Coordinator said, frantic. "We shouldn't have done that, there must be something in the water, some object and he touched it! LOVINO! WAKE UP!"

"Stop yelling, you bloody idiot! If he gets scared and accidentally loses his footing, he could go under and drown," the Archiver chided. "Better leave him alone, he'll wake up on his own when he's done."

Antonio took a deep breath, sticking his back to the brick wall and gingerly sinking to the ground. They couldn't have such terribly bad luck from the first go, could they?!

"No, no, no, we fucked up this one, we didn't stick to the procedure!" Francis lamented. "He's not supposed to go into a trance in the water without an anchor! What if he's in distress and can't wake up?!"

Near the middle of the dark pool, Lovino was standing quiet and motionless with his eyes wide open in an empty stare, tears streaming down his cheeks and one hand clamped tightly over his left wrist, and suddenly Antonio smelled blood. His head snapped up and he stared in horror at the dark, gleaming drops trailing down the Medium's hand.

"Guys, I think-… I think he's injured! His wrist is bleeding, look!"

He met the Archiver's gaze, and saw Arthur scowling, lips tight, while Francis had paled. "Oh my God! He must wake up, he can't- Not now, he can't remember, not like this!" the Coordinator mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Come on, come on, come on, wake up! Jesus Christ!"

"How many needles did he have?" Arthur asked.

Needles.

But Francis didn't answer and the Monitor didn't get to ask in turn, because he heard a sniff and saw Lovino hunched over and rubbing at his eyes with the good hand, seemingly awake now.

"Lovino! Are you alright? You need to come out of there now, okay?" the Coordinator told him, trying to sound relatively calm.

The Medium glanced at him blinking, and then shook his head. "I... have to ... get the bones out first," he replied, drawing a long breath.

"What do you mean, what bones?! Lovino you're hurt, you need to get out of there!"

"Someone's bones are here, I fucking stepped on them, okay?! If I get out now, I may not find them again and if we don't remove them, no Medium will be able to use the pool properly. So go get a plastic sheet or something instead of bugging me!"


Out of the impromptu vision, he was cold all the sudden, the chilly air of the basement attacking his upper body and making him want to hug himself. Then there was the pain in his left arm, along with a bit of a dizzy spell, but Lovino didn't want to look, not yet. His stomach churned at the thought of having to explain this one to the others, especially the torture room thing, but he couldn't hide it, the body had to be removed from the pool as soon as possible. The girl's spirit could not pass away and she had already been stuck in this awful place for so long! It was so horribly unfair, and he didn't want to consider that the one dumping her body into the water-of-Lethe might have been aware of what was going to happen, he preferred to think it was just profane ignorance at hand.

Diving into the water and struggling to keep conscious while still in contact with the bones was less than ideal, but he did it without skipping a beat, ignoring the others' shouts and once the lukewarm darkness engulfed him, it was quiet again.

Lovino sank to his knees on the bottom, patting blindly at the pile he still had one foot on; he felt some rags under his fingers and the gruesome softness of wet bones, and pulled at them with both hands, despite the bile rising in his throat and increasing malaise. They hardly budged a little bit - the chain must have been still wrapped around the girl's throat, if there weren't more chains he hadn't even noticed – and he was already running out of oxygen.

When he resurfaced, panting, Francis and Arthur were gone, and only the Monitor stood squatting on the edge of the pool, staring at him with a dumbfounded expression bordering on fright. Lovino's first thought was that since the guy had never witnessed a Medium going into trance and the whole water-of-Lethe shit, he'd just freaked out, but then he noted that the man's pupils were oddly blown out, his irises gleaming golden in the lamplight.

"Oh, come on!" he grumbled, before he even allowed the idea to take shape in his mind. "Antonio!"

The other blinked and straightened a little, finally snapping out of whatever the fuck was wrong with him. "Uh… yeah? Are you alright? What's going on?"

Good fucking question! "I can't lift the body, there's a chain wrapped around it or more. I'm gonna need a rope and someone strong to pull at it, okay?"

"There's a… body-…? You-you're bleeding, I think you should get-"

"No! What are you?" Lovino demanded, scowling. So that was it, the guy had caught the scent of his blood. No wonder Francis had said that he was unusually strong and his work record was impressive - he wasn't human. "What the hell are you, Antonio?!"

At that, the Monitor hauled himself to his feet at top speed and took a step back, pressing against the wall, suddenly upset, looking like he'd been slapped in the face. He swallowed, averting his gaze. "I'm a werewolf," he eventually said, quietly. "They didn't tell you?"


Only, it was obvious no one had, and then the Medium asked "So, you're here to keep an eye on me and if I don't behave, you'll fucking eat me? Is that the idea?" and Antonio just wanted to disappear in a black hole right then and there.

It was unavoidable; many Guild workers simply labeled him as a monster when they found out about his lycanthropy and saying he was still quite human, or explaining that he could control himself just fine and had never and wasn't going to hurt anyone didn't do much good. They'd be wary of him and Antonio couldn't really blame them, but if only the Medium had been warned instead of having to notice (terrible bad luck, for him to be bleeding just now!), things would have been better, now it looked like they'd purposely hidden this piece of information, or worse, that he had hidden it.

"Look, I understand if you want to work with someone else-" he mumbled out of habit and hardly making eye contact, even if it didn't make any sense in the circumstances. But then Francis and the Archiver returned with a plastic sheet and thankfully a piece of rope too, and he fell quiet while the Medium just rolled his eyes.

"What's going on?" Arthur asked. "I thought you'd take it out?"

"I'm gonna need to tie a rope to pull the body out, there's a chain attached to it and it's very heavy. In my vision, there was a pulley around here," Lovino pointed towards the edge "With chains and I think the victim was hanged or, I don't even know. She just asked me to get her out so that she can finally rest. Give Antonio the rope."

The rope and one pull from the Monitor did the trick and what was left of the girl's body finally came out of the water, thankfully in one piece. Lovino didn't want to examine it any more than necessary, he'd seen enough as it was; by now, his vision was swimming slightly and he was getting short of breath, as if punched in the gut. He all but crawled up the steps of the pool, shivering in the wet clothes and barely feeling his left hand as the Coordinator and the Archiver squatted to get a better look.

"Well, judging by what's left of the clothes, I'd say this woman has been dead for more than a hundred years, that if she wasn't wearing a costume of some sort," the Archiver observer, "Also, the house was closed for nearly seventy years and there was no indication of anyone being here in the meantime, so whoever is responsible for the killing and/or dumping the body here must be also long dead. I suppose that means it's not a topic of immediate interest… Did she say anything to you?"

Lovino shook his head, making an effort to stand upright. "Just that I get her out so she can finally rest, because she'd been here for a very long time. Look, I think… we should leave this whole issue to the headquarters." He threw a quick glance at Francis. "Have a 'trustworthy' Medium examine the bones and find out what happened to her. The point is, from what I've seen briefly, I think this – the basement – was a torture chamber and I'm not sure whether the water-of-Lethe was collected from somewhere and brought down here or it was initially just a pond built for other purposes and it became like this because of all the people tortured and killed here." He inhaled, feeling the pain in his injured arm more sharply. "I'm not saying anything, but there's the plaque outside and we don't know- I mean, the former Elder… maybe this was before he joined the Guild?"

"Oh please," Arthur said flatly. "The Guild has torture chambers to this day. But it's indeed the most appropriate course of action if we defer this matter…"

Lovino didn't hear the rest; he must have blacked out, because the next thing he knew was Francis setting a pillow under the small of his back on the narrow infirmary bed, and tucking him under a thick blanket. He also vaguely recalled somewhat of a heated back-and-forth between Francis and the Archiver on the subject of the murder, and Antonio carrying him all the way here in his arms, oddly quiet.

"I'll keep you here tonight just to make sure you're okay, but I think the wound should be fully healed by morning."

Lovino took a deep breath which was still a little short of enough air and felt the tightness of bandage around his wrist, but didn't pull his hand out of the blanket to check.

"Lovi, can you tell me how you got hurt?" the Coordinator asked, again in that soft tone he suspected was loaded. "Was it just because of the trance, or-"

"She did it." It wasn't that much of a lie, technically. And he didn't want to know more anyway. "She was really desperate to get out and clawed at my arm, I don't know. There was so much pain in her... Can I have some water?"

Every word was tiring, took so much effort. Water helped a little, but his mouth still felt numb and his whole body limp as a rag. But it couldn't have been just the wound, even if it had bled a lot; the vision and the contact with the water itself must have been very powerful to wear him out like this.

And maybe he shouldn't have just blurted out all that crap about the torture chamber, he could have just pretended-… Or it would have been more suspicious? Fuck! And then there was this other matter which – all caution be damned – had to be addressed, even if the Coordinator was not going to like it.

"You should have told me that Antonio is a werewolf. Earlier, he picked up the scent of my blood... I called him out on it and he got really upset." Talk about his non-existent people skills, but seriously, it had been the last thing he'd needed. "He thought I knew, and... I can tell it's a sore spot for him."

"I'm sorry, but I didn't see the relevance," the Coordinator said, uncertain. "You can't think he'd be here if he was actually dangerous, do you?"

"He's half-wild animal, even if he can control his transformations or whatever he will still have a reaction when he smells blood. His eyes glow, that's how I noticed. You should have told us because now you made him look bad, so I think you should apologize to him."

The blond smiled, little tight-lipped. "But shouldn't you apologize, Lovi? You're the one who picked on him for nothing."

"...it's your fault," Lovino mumbled and closed his eyes, curling up under the blanket.